Life and death one thing. no doubt. sometimes silence is all we can do… and no doubt it is enough… and sometimes only songs will do… and it can be enough… Read more

Well versed in the Buddha way,I go the nonWayWithout abandoning myordinary person’s affairs. The conditioned and nameandform,all are flowers in the sky. Nameless and formeless,I leave birthanddeath. Layman Pang The following was posted today at Robert Aitken Roshi’s blog, presumably by his son Tom. “Aitken Roshi passed away today, Thursday, August 5, 2010, at around 5:30 pm at Straub hospital in Honolulu. He was 93.” Aitken Roshi was one of the pioneers of Zen come west. My principal Zen teacher’s Zen... Read more

I’ve heard that President Truman claimed he never lost a night’s sleep over his decision to drop those atomic bombs on Japan. I make to pretense of knowing what the right decision would have been, whether to drop the bombs or to mount an invasion of the home islands, a horrific choice, a horrific choice, no doubt. That said, that thought, that felt, I just cannot understand his statement… And I pray I never will… Read more

Balkan Beat Box Read more

By some calculations today in the year 70, the Romans sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the temple and banished the Jewish people from their homeland… Read more

I see that Mitch Miller died yesterday. He was ninety nine years old, and apparently active pretty much to the end. A fixture of my childhood, I recall him fondly… Read more

I gather that while the American Declaration of Independence was voted on the 4th of July, many, maybe most scholars don’t think it was fully signed until today, the 2nd of August in 1776. Such a remarkable document, I feel great pausing and reflecting upon it, again… But, I also find myself thinking of a much later document, a Buddhist declaration first formulated in 2004 and then revised in 2006. Maia Duerr at her Jizo Chronicles says of this Buddhist... Read more

While I have little taste for its magical aspects, I do like the neo pagan movement for many things. One of which is how it reclaims the rhythms of life for those of us more or less uncomfortable with the calendars of “mainstream” religions, drawing instead upon older sources, usually from pre-Christian Europe. However we choose to mark them, it does seem important to note the shifts and with that the rhythms of life on our planet. I see how... Read more

As those who read this blog know I live out my life within the rhythms of two spiritual communities, a church and a sangha. Taken together they inform everything I say or do, either as an expression of what they’ve taught me, or as examples of how I’ve fallen short of my ideals. Sadly, more often for the later reason… So, nine days ago. Just as sesshin was beginning I learned of the death of a member of the congregation.... Read more

Just back home from sesshin. Seven days of facing the heart mind. Forty-one companions, most pictured here as we gather in front of Mugendoji, our Boundless Way temple in Worcester, MA, before heading back to what we were up to before the great madness descended upon us. Time to take a nap… Read more