So, I’m in the vegetable department at Whole Foods trying to decide on whether to get a green pepper and a red pepper, or a green pepper, red pepper and a yellow pepper, when Three Dog Night starts singing to me… Okay, maybe they were singing to everyone. But, I have to admit beyond the small dash of nostalgia, I was glad for this little flash of joyous noise. Thought you might like it, too… Read more

Sadly, there is no common Buddhist calendar in the West. And here we have an example of the confusion that follows this lack of conformity. Today together with the 15th of this month is observed in parts of East Asia as Nirvana Day, a time to recall Gautama Siddhartha, the Buddha of history’s death. The records of his life together with his teachings were all written down in languages he did not speak hundreds of years after he died. So... Read more

It is my understanding the California native and Arizona resident, now Protestant missionary, Robert Park, has been released from imprisonment by North Korea authorities. He looks so young in the video clip. If you weren’t following his adventures, this past Christmas Mr Park crossed the border into North Korea carrying a letter calling upon the dictator Kim Jong Il to stop suppressing (Christian) religion, to shut down the gulags and then to retire from office. The twenty-eight year old Park... Read more

Yesterday afternoon the Vice president of the United States administered the oath of office to Scott Brown as the junior senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Not my happiest moment. Last night I was talking with an old friend who after many years of Zen practice had let go of a regular sitting discipline in the complex mix of separating himself from his former community. A good man. With, as we say in Zen, some eye. I’m very fond of... Read more

And here’s a fine example… Happy birthday, Gertie! Read more

The Innkeeper’s Diary,The Wayside Inn, Sudbury, Massachusetts [1930 – 1950](1) The Inn Diaries© were transcribed from a copy of the original diaries held in Longfellow’s Wayside Inn Archives, [January 1996]. During these years, the staff recorded their observations and the activities at the Inn each day. These pages are of the days when the Fraters met. This diary is copyrighted by Longfellow’s Wayside Inn Archives. The material presented here contains the full text of “Fraters” material currently found (1-23-1996). Some... Read more

As long as we’re thinking about Groundhog Day, how about one of the lovely movies about the spiritual path… Yes, it is silly. And yes people don’t actually literally live lives over and over again in the reanimation sense. But we do play out our patterns over and over again. And, there is some hard quest for love that seems to drive us, usually into all the wrong places. Until and unless we are blessed with a little peek into... Read more

Today is the feast of the blessed Brigid, goddess of old Ireland, Christianized by the Roman church, and rather nicely, I think. Brigid was the goddess of poetry. And last year Quaker Pagan honored the occasion by posting something by Walt Whitman. How can I pass up the Irish and Unitarian poetic mishmash? And, so I won’t… Love the earth and sun and the animals,despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,stand up for the stupid and crazy,devote your income... Read more

GREAT TRANSFORMATIONSOf Axial Ages and the Transformative Possibility of the Human Imagination A Sermon 31 January 2010 James Ishmael Ford First Unitarian ChurchProvidence, Rhode Island Text The living way is like a well:You can constantly use it, and yet it never dries up.It is the eternal boundlessness;Birthing the infinite worlds. It is hidden from sight and yet always present.I have no idea who gave it birth.It is older than God. Tao Te Ching, Chapter 4(version adapted by the author from... Read more

Yesterday there was an all day sit at Mugendoji, the Boundless Way temple in Worcester, MA. Because of sermon writing obligations, Jan and I only arrived in time for a couple of hours of sitting (nonetheless, a great relief after spending so many hours in front of the computer composing that sermon…) before the ceremony itself. There were about fifty people for the sit. The picture has the teachers and senior Dharma teachers sitting in front and the new initiates... Read more