Like for so many families we are in the midst of a breast cancer episode. My auntie who has lived within our immediate family for nearly twenty years found that lump on Saturday. Yesterday the radiologist said first, it’s two lumps, not one and second he was all but certain it was cancer. He also said our original scheduled biopsy for two weeks out wasn’t acceptable. I will be spending some part of today pursuing next steps… Those words we... Read more

The traditional calculations of the Buddha’s birth follow a lunar calendar which floats around this season. However among the various modernizations of Japan’s meji era was the establishment of a solar calendar and therefore a fixed date for observing various things. Among them is the Buddha’s birth. which is today. Now in Buddhism that word “buddha,” which literally translates as “awake,” means several different things. Here we’re talking about the buddha of history, the former prince Gautama Siddhartha who left... Read more

God Bless Vermont! Not only do they have the highest percentage of convert Buddhists in the country, having just overridden the governor’s veto, Vermont is now the first state in the Union to legalize marriage equality by legislative action. Read more

A dear friend forwarded a link to me for Paul Levy’s Running a Hospital. It’s actually a blog I visit now and again as Paul is a serious thinker on this issues of health care. But the link was for one particular entry calling for a blog rally in support of the continued survival of the Boston Globe, one of the great regional newspapers. Here’s the text: We have all read recently about the threat of possible closure faced by... Read more

Well, this is a day of annoyances, some nasty, some merely, well, annoying… The one I’m gunna rant about is my meeting with Weight Watchers, which actually wasn’t today, but close enough… First: They’ve done me good. I’ve lost more than forty pounds with them. Bless ’em. While their claim to be a life style rather than a diet stretches my credulity (I hope not to spend my life eating no more than a half square inch cube of cheese... Read more

Raphael Sanzio was born on this day in 1483 (by some accounts) & died on this day in 1520… The man sure could paint! Read more

This morning at worship our Youth Group led the service. They did a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. I wept… And thought it’s been a while, so here’s KD Lang’s cover… Old wisdom frm the mouths of youth… Read more

My friend Claudia sent me the link to this video, which is, apparently a commercial for some product. At the comments section at youtube there is some debate whether such a thing is in fact possible. I think they’re missing a bigger point. Okay, maybe the video is a bit sentimental. But again, staying there is missing, something important. In this season where various faiths celebrate Hanamatsuri or Passover or Easter or any of the nearly endless variations on Spring,... Read more

I just cut the following from a sermon I’ll be delivering in a couple of weeks. I realized while I’ve told this story before, this was a fairly succinct version and perhaps worth putting here. This all took place in the mid 1980s… After quite a detour I’d returned to Zen practice, and had built up a pretty steady discipline. What I lacked, however, was a spiritual director. And as an old Zen hand I could tell I was drifting,... Read more

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