The 24th of October! I try to notice this day as it rolls around in our calendar. At least for a time, the Western church recalled the Archangel Raphael on this day, the 24th of October. In more recent years he’s been mushed together with Michael and Gabriel and the three together are celebrated on the 29th of September. There are references, depending on your source to four or perhaps seven archangels. But these three are the... Read more

      INTERSPIRITUAL PRACTICE, ZEN, AND NONDUAL CHRISTIANITY: A Review James Ishmael Ford Embracing the Inconceivable: Interspiritual Practice of Zen and Christianity Ellen Birx Orbis Books, Maryknoll, 2020 I’ve now read Embracing the Inconceivable three times. The first read was fast, the old graduate school read out of a request from the publisher for an endorsement. That read led me to write how “Embracing the Inconceivable opens doors to the mysteries of our hearts and invites us in. Ellen... Read more

        It was today, the 21st of October, 1969, that Jean Louis Kerouac, or maybe it was Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac, in any case, the person we know as Jack Kerouac died in St Petersburg, Florida. The day before Jack was drinking whiskey and malt liquor while working on a book. He felt a wave of nausea and then began to vomit blood. He was experiencing an esophageal hemorrage, and despite several transfusions, his liver was damaged... Read more

        When I was planning my stopover in Bangkok on a trip to Bhutan I wanted to visit the Mahayana Buddhist monastery where the English Buddhist John Blofeld’s ashes were interred. My friend the Buddhist scholar Justin Whitaker connected me to Will Yaryan. Will was a mostly retired professor of religious studies keeping his hand in at the Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University in Bangkok. Justin said Will knew a lot of people. My, he was right. I’ll forever be... Read more

      I first heard of John the Dwarf when reading Thomas Merton’s Wisdom of the Desert Fathers. This book was enormously important to me, and remains so. Merton’s selection and his translation of the texts emphasize the echoes of a spirituality akin to the early Chan masters of China. Later I would read texts that show the similarities were perhaps not quite as similar as Merton suggested. But, maybe that’s even better. If we do drink from a... Read more

        I was a High School dropout. When I worked at Wahrenbrock’s Bookstore in San Diego, I spent several years taking classes at San Diego’s Evening College. While I was really only following my nose and taking what seemed interesting, somehow it mapped pretty nicely the lower division courses for an English major. That bit of information just sets a stage. Later when I began to earn my undergraduate degree, shifted now to Psychology, with a plan... Read more

      As I understand it within the Japanese tradition today, the 15th of October, is marked as the day in the year 606, when Jianzhi Sengcan returned to that mystery from which all of us come and, as with that ancient venerable, to which all of us return. In our Zen traditions Sengcan (Seng-ts’an in the older Pinyin transliteration and Sosan in Japanese) is the third Chinese ancestor, inheriting the dharma from Huike who inherited it from Bodhidharma.... Read more

        Today, on the 14th of October, in 1956, Dr B. R. Ambedkar shook India when he converted to Buddhism. I try to note this occasion as it rolls by in the calendar. Partially because he deserves to be celebrated. But, also to let people who might not otherwise be aware of him, to know a bit about this remarkable figure of Twentieth century Buddhism. I believe Dr Ambedkar well may provide a signifiant part of the... Read more

        Edith Louisa Cavell was a British nurse. When the First World War began she already had an illustrious career and a nurse and educator, principally working in Belgium. At the time the war started she was matron of a hospital in Saint-Gilles. She served all without regard to their nationality or status. But Cavell also helped wounded British and French soldiers, as well as young men of military age to flee occupied Belgium. She may also... Read more