I noticed that it was today, the 9th of July, in 1969, that Gertrude Dixon, Trudy to her friends, died. With that I thought of her part in the sinking of Zen roots in North America. Who is to say when it began. Although one good starting point is 1965, when Marian Derby started recording Shunryu Suzuki’s lectures in Los Altos. She then took the tapes and started transcribing them. Consulting with the roshi (who often commented,... Read more

  Yesterday Jan and I saw “Elvis.” The theater we were in had three people in the audience, and that included Jan and me. So, if you want to see it on the big screen, I would encourage you to consider maybe taking it in this weekend. It has mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 78% positive rating, while Metacritic gives it a 64 out of a 100. It kind of looks like you love it or you hate... Read more

      I read somewhere someone say “Joan of Arc visited me in a dream last night.” She can do that. But the path to that ability was hard. I noticed it was on this day, the 7th of July, in 1456 that a retrial of Joan of Arc found her innocent of the charges of heresy. It was twenty-five years after the Maid of Orleans had been tied to a stake and burned alive. Another four hundred years... Read more

    Right now, every week I visit my friend who suffered the swarm of strokes. We are past being able to talk. Instead I read the psalms to him. A couple of weeks ago it appears he had another stroke. As he’s now in hospice there is no formal diagnosis. His involvement in my visiting and reading the Psalms to him is pretty much limited to trying to repeat the last few words of each psalm. These are hard... Read more

      Last year, a foolish monk. This year, no change. Ryokan Fifty-two years ago, today, on the 5th of July 1970, I received shukke tokudo, also called unsui tokudo, ordination as a novice Soto Zen Buddhist priest in Oakland, California, from the Soto Zen priest Houn Jiyu Kennett. Also. In twelve days I will turn seventy-four. Not one of those big marker years, but valuable for noting the accumulation of years, or from another angle an opportunity to... Read more

      Today is the Fourth of July. We mark this date as the founding of our beautiful broken Republic, whose high minded ideals have been betrayed over and over and over. And yet. And yet… There was an astonishing amount of high idealism, and along with it some serious sharp dealing. Those founders dreamed a republic that proclaimed our common humanity, while keeping slaves. From the beginning we were a mixed thing. And over the many years we... Read more

            SEARCHING FOR WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT A Zen Meditation for the Fourth of July Edward Sanshin Oberholtzer Joseph Priestley Zen Community Empty Moon Zen Each Tuesday morning at 7:30 Eastern time, I give what the Greater Boston Zen Center has, in its wisdom, designated as an encouragement talk. A boost to get you up and going on your daily rounds. Looking about me, paying perhaps more attention than I should attention to current events, I... Read more

    THE FIFTH OF JULY What’s Wrong, and What Might be Right James Ishmael Ford What a time. What a time. Truthfully, too much all at once. Nine days ago, Donald Trump’s… Actually, in this regard Trump is Mitch McConnell’s cat’s paw. So, really, McConnell’s supreme court has declared Roe null and void. With that trigger laws have been triggered. And as of today, abortion is legal in only twenty states and the District of Columbia. Along the way... Read more

      Me, I’m the first television generation. Those just a couple of years older or born somewhere other than on the coasts are not. They are firmly radio generation. And, while I did listen some to radio, we had a television much earlier than people in our financial circumstances probably should have. As a consequence I fondly recall a lot of early television. This ranged from shows made for TV like Crusader Rabbit, Captan Kangaroo, the Roy Rogers... Read more

      Herman Hesse was born on this day, the 2nd of July, 1877. I actually had the privilege of reflecting at greater length about Hesse in a post two weeks ago. But for here, a small literary appreciation. How a writer can help a questing heart. In my adolescence I stumbled upon a copy of his novel Demien. It was an earth shaking document for me. I’d read a lot of Science Fiction but not a lot more... Read more