Charles Gore was born on the 22nd of January, 1853, in London, to an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family. His great-grandfather was an earl, his grandfather a general. Following the path of privilege he was educated at Harrow and then Oxford, taking a first class in Classics in 1875. In the same year Gore was elected a fellow at Trinity College in Oxford and the next year ordained a deacon in the Church of England. In 1878 he was... Read more

      Recently my thoughts have turned to the place of hell in Christian thought. Back in 2021 the Pew Research Center conducted a survey of American belief in heaven and hell. It found across denominations from Catholic to Pentecostal to Fundamentalist in the aggregate, ninety-two percent of those who identify as Christian believe in heaven. I’m intrigued by the eight percent, but for here I’m setting that aside. A somewhat smaller number believe in hell, again across denomination... Read more

    Convocation 2023 UU Buddhist Fellowship Convocation is a biennial opportunity for UU Buddhists to sit together, compare notes on our sangha experiences, study and play together. We have been holding convocations since 2005. For each convocation we invite a guest teacher to offer dharma talks and teaching. In addition, there will be times of meditation, workshops, and informal meals and breaks where you can get to know other attendees. The 2023 Convocation will begin on Thursday, April 27,... Read more

              Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Lewis Carrol to the world, died on this day, the 14th of January, 1898, at his sister’s home in Guildford, a small town in Surrey, England. He was two weeks shy of sixty-six. He was born at the All Saints’ vicarage in Cheshire, England, today, the 27th of January, in 1832. His family produced military men and clerics. His great grandfather a bishop in the Church of England, his father... Read more

      A fun factoid. All three of the earliest dateable examples of printing, a piece of paper, a printed book, and a printed book using moveable type are Mahayana Buddhist texts. The oldest existing printed text that is dateable is the Mugujeonggwang, the Great Dharani Sutra, and was printed in Korea somewhere between 704 & 751. The oldest printed book is a copy of the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, the Diamond Sutra found in the Dunhuang library in China, and is dated,... Read more

        I notice that today, the 8th of January, marks the beginning of the American Democratic party in 1828. While the mythic origins of the party are with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison’s Democratic-Republican Party, the actual history is much later. The party was gathered largely through the work of Martin Van Buren focused on Andrew Jackson’s election to the presidency; advancing the interests of slave states, supporting a strong executive, and most of all expansionism. The... Read more

    MIND AND NO MIND A Zen Talk for a New Year Edward Sanshin Oberholtzer Delivered at Empty Moon Zen New Year’s Zazenkai 31 December 2022 The case Damei (Daibai) asked Mazu (Baso), “What is Buddha?” Mazu said, “This very mind is Buddha.” Gateless Gate, Case 30 Sit with that for a moment while I cast my mind back to a January well over a decade ago when I was shuso during what we then called the winter ango... Read more