Gee, all you have to do is go out of town for a couple of days… While I was gone Blogisattva announced its nominees for various writing awards. They were first given by Tom Armstrong and these days are taken care of by a team of Buddhist bloggers. I like their work for many reasons, not least of which is that they bring attention to some worthy folk. Not that they always get it right. For instance I’m on the... Read more

Just in the house from our 2010 Rohatsu sesshin. Five days with good friends looking hard into the great matter. It was something of a commuter sesshin with people coming for what they could About twenty-three for the whole thing and another twenty for parts, often quite long… Desparately need a nap. But, first, a picture… Read more

A bit later today Jan & I will be leaving Auntie in charge of things (ably assisted, no doubt by the cats. The fish, I’m not so sure about) and off to our Boundless Way Rohatsu Sesshin… First, amidst all that is going on at church, which feels and I believe in a more or less objective way is important, it is no doubt good to recall that I am not the essential person, however much I might think so…... Read more

A friend sent me a link to the Chicago Complaint Choir, a musical group of which I was until that moment unware. Then, I saw there were more! For instance in Jerusalem… And Tokyo… Turns out there are zillions of complaint choirs! It’s so nice to see there are things that bring us all together… Read more

ON WRITING A LETTER TO A DICTATOR A Meditation on a Letter Writing Campaign as a Spiritual Practice A Sermon by James Ishmael Ford 5 December 2010 First Unitarian Church Providence, Rhode Island Text Silent friend of many distances, feel how your breath enlarges all of space. Let your presence ring out like a bell into the night. What feeds upon your face grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered. Move through transformation, out and in. What is the deepest... Read more

Two days ago I drove up to Watertown, picked Jan up at Perkins and we swung by the opticians we’ve used for the past six, seven, eight years. After nearly three years the film on my glasses that darkens them when I’m out in the sun has begun to fray. Also, these are rimless glasses, and as I’m particularly hard on such things, no doubt not my best purchase over the years. Sadly my last eye exam showed no significant... Read more

Sure been there, sure done that… (And a tip of the Hatlo hat to Rod for this pointer, and so many others…) Read more

A couple of things have come together causing me to brood… One was a link to an article called “The Problem With Zen Boyfriends” that a Facebook friend posted. It described a common enough type in my Zen experience, the person for whom the teachings and practice are all about disassociation. Another was a reflection at a blog I like on the word love in Buddhism and Zen and how relatively rarely it is used, and how it need not... Read more

Mark Twain was born on this day in 1835. His just published uncensored autobiography is currently on various best seller lists. Pretty good for someone a hundred and seventy-five years old! Read more

I’ve noticed the rhetoric being thrown around in right wing circles for a while now. And it has sent small chills down my back.American Exceptionalism is a particularly unsavory bit of jingoism used to silence critics. I think I first noticed it in debates about health care. The World Health Organization ranks the U.S. at thirty-seventh place, after, well, thirty six other countries. That, of course, is a somewhat vague metric. Although the attacks I’ve heard are that the WHO... Read more