While strolling with master Nanquan, the official Luxuan observed “The teacher Sengzhao once said,’ Heaven, earth, and I are of the same root. Everything and I are one.’ That’s so beautiful.” Nanquan called to Luxuan pointing a finger at a flowering plant in the garden. “People now see this flower as if in a dream.” Blue Cliff Record, case 40 (Book of Serenity, case 91) Nanquan Puyan is one of the signal masters... Read more
My friend Ken Ireland, one of my smarter friends, observed recently that there is no God. And that Mary is his mother. I said, oh my. That’s the truth of the matter. The deep intimation of the spiritual life in this world of tears. The doors and windows that opens for us. And he said, “James. It’s a quote from George Santayana.” Why has no one told me about George Santayana before? While somewhere along the line I... Read more
The Case The abbot Nanquan came upon the monastics of the eastern and western halls arguing about a cat. He took the cat and held it up with one hand while holding a knife in the other. He glared at the assembly and harshly said, “If you can give me a word, I will spare this cat. Otherwise, I will kill it.” No one spoke. So, he cut the cat into two. That... Read more
The 23rd of February has always been an important day in my personal calendar. It’s the day that has been officially designated as when the first pages were pulled for Johannes Gutenberg’s wonderful Bible in 1455. When I was a kid it was called the first printed book. A big deal. And as a bookish kid, I’m super glad. They had to change that when it became apparent the oldest extant printed book was in fact... Read more
I’ve mentioned on this blog before how I consider my first education to have come from Science Fiction. Among the authors who touched me is Richard Matheson. Richard Burton Matheson was born New Jersey in 1926. His parents divorced when he was eight. His mother took him to live in Brooklyn, where he was raised. Matheson graduated High School in time to serve in the Army during the Second World War. The GI bill allowed... Read more
About ten minutes past midnight on the 17th of February, in 1986, Jiddu Krishnamurti died in Ojai, California. He was ninety years old. Or thereabaouts. He had been several things in his life. One of them a world teacher. It’s not precisely sure when Krishnamurti was born, probably in May, but what day precisely, and in either 1895 or 1896. He was born a brahmin in Madanapalle, in Andhra Pradeshi. His father Naarayanaiah,... Read more
In the twelfth century a Chinese Zen master, Kuoan Shiyuan wrote a series of poems describing the arc of the spiritual life. He did these poems as comments on a popular series of images describing that path as a child noticing the footprints of an ox in the dirt and begins a journey. With Kuoan’s poems the whole way of Zen is described. Alone in the wilderness, lost in the jungle, the boy is searching, searching!... Read more
It was the 7th of February in 1497, that the Dominican Friar Girolamo Savonarola called the city of Florence into the orgy falò delle vanità, the “Bonfire of the Vanities.” Overcome with the fervors of faith he people gathered together what they and the good friar considered temptations into sin, piled them up, and put the torch to them. These objects included clothing, cosmetics, mirrors, musical instruments, playing cards, and paintings. Lots of art, And... Read more
A colleague of mine has just retired as a Unitarian Universalist parish minister. He had what some would call a storied career, serving our denomination at every level. Me, I personally consider him a good friend, as well as just being a wise and generous human being. What people today mostly wouldn’t know is that he had a rocky start into ministry. Toward the end of seminary, he had a rough... Read more
On the 30th of January in 1948 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was attending an interfaith prayer service, when a radical Hindu nationalist came up to him and shot three bullets into his chest. The Indian spiritual and political leader was born on the 2nd of October, in 1869 in Porbander, a town in present day Gujarat. Later the poet Rabindranath Tagore bestowed the title Mahatma on him. Mahatma means great soul, and today we... Read more
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