The King James Bible and the Power of a Dreaming God James Ishmael Ford A bit of history. King James (the sixth of Scotland and first of England) not long crowned, planned a conference for November, 1603, to discuss sundry matters involving the relatively new church of which he was now head. While the ball started rolling when Henry VIII wanted a divorce, it really only took its broad shape under his younger daughter’s reign. James’... Read more
Walpurgisnacht & the Rites of Spring Today, the 30th of April, and therefore the eve of May 1st is Walpurgisnacht. It’s a holiday, sometimes holy day, observed principally in Northern Europe, Germany and across Scandinavia. For Christians its the feast of St Walburga, an eighth century English born German abbess. Originally a Benedictine nun she became the abbess of a double monastery in Heidenheim. It would seem that pretty much from her death, her story was bound up with Waldborg,... Read more
The Dawn of Nichiren Buddhism Namu Myoho Renge Kyo James Ishmael Ford On the 28th day of the fourth lunar month, that would be today, the 28th of April by our reckoning, in the year 1253, the Japanese Tendai Buddhist monk Nichiren Shonin, proclaimed that the Lotus Sutra was the epitome of all Buddhist teachings. And with that, simply calling upon the title of the Sutra can bring about liberation. 南無妙法蓮華経 Namu Myoho Renge Kyo Which can... Read more
George Herriman, Creator of Krazy Kat: A Mind Bubble George Herriman died on this day, the 25th of April, in 1944. I’ve read that his creation Krazy Kat was likely more influential than popular. And that’s probably so. But he certainly had a fan base beyond other cartoonists. Me, for instance. I adored the strip. And in the years since Herriman’s death his... Read more
THE MOTHER OF MY HEART Remarks shared on the occasion of being named a “Distinguished Alumnx” at the Pacific School of Religion James Ishmael Ford Yesterday Jan & I spent the day at the Pacific School of Religion, where I earned an MDiv (1991) as well as an MA (1992). There were many stressors at the time, not the least how we could afford the whole thing. And. I was in hog heaven. While the school was very much center... Read more
Zen, God, and Doubt: Encountering the Mystery James Ishmael Ford There’s a lovely meme that floats around on social media. The words are by Rachel Held Evans. It goes: “This is what God’s kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there’s always room for more.” Evans was a very interesting person. A journalist, columnist,... Read more
A Robot’s Dream: The Zen Teacher Goes Ego Surfing The latest in ego surfing is asking Chat AI for a bio sketch. A colleague just did it. Found out he was an Anglican priest, although he was pretty sure he’d spent the past thirty years as an English Unitarian minister. And it had him as the author of a book he’d never heard of. Otherwise it was mostly right. So, I did it, too. Used ChatGPT, which you can sign... Read more
Sri Nisargadatta’s Zen Hinduism James Ishmael Ford Sri Nisargadatta is arguably the Zen community’s favorite Hindu. At the veryt least we sure like to quote Nisargadatta. As an example, I was reading a book on the practice of Jhanas, pretty inside Buddhist baseball. And there it was. A book on Buddhism quoting the Hindu teacher. Reality is not the result of a process; it is an explosion. It is definitely beyond the mind, but... Read more
Some Zen Words for End Times James Ishmael Ford Today, the 21st day of the first month of the third season, in the 23rd year of Thutmose III’s reign, or as we may prefer to put it, the 16th of April, in the year 1457 before our common era (okay unless it was 1482 or 1479 BCE), marks the anniversary of the oldest battle recorded with anything resembling reliable detail. It was a fight between Egyptians led by the... Read more
The Sikh Tradition A Small Celebration James Ishmael Ford There is one god, named truth, the creator, without fear, without hate, timeless in form, beyond birth, self-existent, (known by) the grace of the Guru. It was today, the 13th of April, in 1699 that the Guru Gobind Singh created a formal initiation into the community of Sikh believers, the Khalsa. The tradition’s founder was the Guru Nanak. Nanak was born in 1469 into a Hindu family... Read more
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