The McLeod Ganj Psalter RSV, Week 2 Ken Ireland (Ken was Ivy League and Jesuit trained, and for some years a member of the Society of Jesus. He currently lives in Dharamshala. Ken’s a long time Zen practitioner and a friend. He’s taken an interest in my current deep dive into the Psalms project, and it inspired a poem cycle. This is the second of the cycle, first published at Ken’s Buddha SJ blog and shared here by permission.) Songs... Read more

    Edgar Rice Burroughs was born on this day, the 1st of September, in 1875. He died in 1950. I was two years old. A decade later, or close to it, a friend and I were rummaging through some boxes of magazines and books looking for old copies of my father’s stash of Playboys. I’ve recounted before how instead I found a cache of Ace paperback editions of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels. I repeat it because the story is... Read more

      CHAN: ITS MEANING FOR MODERN CIVILIZATION Shin’ichi Hisamatsu Chan means Emancipation and Construction As to the question, “What is Chan?” if one is to be brief, it may perhaps suffice to utter just one word or, indeed, to utter no word at all. If, however, one is to elaborate, it may be said that no amount of elaboration can ever prove to be exhaustive. The intention here, however, is to be as simple and as plain as... Read more

    The 30th of August the ever delightful Episcopal Church celebrates a feast in honor of the life and ministry of Charles Chapman Grafton. I wrote about him a couple of years ago. And it feels time to revisit… Born a Boston brahman in 1830, Grafton was educated at Philips Academy and Harvard College. Originally he had prepared for the law, but theological interests overcame, and he read theology with William Whittingham, Tractarian and Episcopal bishop of Maryland. Beginning... Read more

    On the evening of the 26th of August, 2022, in Long Beach, California, I was honored to give Mo Myokan Weinhardt and Tom Daimon Wardle denkai transmission within my Zen lineages. This is the first step of transmission within our Zen sangha. The new Dharma Holders are authorized to gather and lead communities of practice, function as spiritual directors, and give Zen’s sixteen precepts. The only reservation to their authorizations is that they may not authorize teachers, themselves.... Read more

    Blood, that wears treason in his face, Villain complete in parson’s gown, How much he is at court in grace For stealing Ormond and the crown! Since loyalty does no man good, Let’s steal the King, and outdo Blood! John Wilmot, History of Insipids Thomas Blood died on this day, the 24th of August, 1680. He’d been in a coma for two days. He was born in 1618 in County Clare, in the Kingdom of Ireland. His father... Read more

    “Make of yourself a light” said the Buddha, before he died. I think of this every morning as the east begins to tear off its many clouds of darkness, to send up the first signal-a white fan streaked with pink and violet, even green. An old man, he lay down between two sala trees, and he might have said anything, knowing it was his final hour. The light burns upward, it thickens and settles over the fields. Around... Read more

    The Dark Soil of God A Zen Meditation on the Psalms James Ishmael Ford The earth belongs to the Divine and everything on it. For the Divine wove it out of the emptiness of space and breathed life into every corner, bringing forth all life, and all of it precious.   Who is fit to care for this and worthy to act as God’s representative?   Those passionate for truth, who are horrified by injustice, who stand with the... Read more

      Fortune favors the bold. Great line, that. Comes from the Latin, where it was a sturdy proverb. Possibly distilled from a line from the Pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus. It has a couple of variations, but with the same meaning. The line appears in Virgil’s Aeneid and Terence’s Phormio. Ovid gives it a twist in Ars Amatoria, “Venus, like Fortune, favors the bold.” One can see why it would appeal. But, there is a caution. Pliny the Elder in... Read more

      Thomas Edward Lawrence was born today, the 16th of August, in 1888, in Wales. The family situation was, well, complicated. He read, as they say, history at Jesus College, Oxford. Taking his degree he received a scholarship to travel to the Middle East. Lawrence quickly learned Arabic and worked as an archeologist under the direction of the renowned Leonard Woolley and others. In 1914 Woolley and Lawrence began working secretly for the British military. In October of... Read more