I am so pleased to announce that I have offered denkai transmission to senior dharma teachers, the Reverend Janine Seitetsu Larsen, Tom Daimon Wardle, and Mo Myokan Weinhardt. And, that they have accepted. As Zen has taken shape in the West most communities have found a two-step transmission healthful. The first step is authorization to teach, to give talks, to guide students in meditation disciplines, and to lead communities. However, one also continues as a student, whose... Read more

      It was on this day, the 9th of April in 1945. The allies were closing in and it was just two weeks before the collapse of the Nazi regime. It was one day after a trial before an SS judge. At dawn, the Reverend Dietrich Bonhoeffer was stripped naked, marched to the place of execution, and hung. It is unclear whether he had been tortured before, but historians are increasingly of the opinion that he was. Possibly... Read more

      First wrote a version of this this a couple of years ago. It’s a small celebration of one of the founders of the American Unitarian movement. Today, on the two hundred and forty-second anniversary of his birth, it seems worth reprinting, slightly polished from that earlier version.   William Ellery Channing was born on this day, the 7th of April, 1780 in Newport, Rhode Island. He is one of the more important people in my own spiritual... Read more

    Richard Alpert was born in Newton, Massachusetts, today, the 6th of April, 1931. He entered Tufts University in 1948 (which I note is the year I was born), graduating with a degree in psychology, then taking a master’s at Wesleyan, and finally earning his doctorate at Stanford. After a year teaching at Stanford he began teaching at Harvard. In 1961 Alpert joined with another Harvard professor, Timothy Leary, in a study of the potential therapeutic possibilities in psychedelics.... Read more

      James Luther Adams is arguably the single most important theologian produced by Unitarian Universalism in the twentieth century. Through his years at Harvard and elsewhere his teaching spread the benefits of a liberal spiritual perspective as a leaven among those who would become the clergy of many denominations. He was a wise and good teacher. In his essay “The Indispensable Discipline of Social Responsibility,” he tells a story about himself that haunts me. “In 1927 in the... Read more

      VAINGLORY The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Pride James Ishmael Ford First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. It is better to be of a lowly spirit among the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud. Proverbs 16:18-19 When I saw this was going to be the Sunday closest to April 1st, I found myself thinking of foolish things. Quickly, it became thinking... Read more

    Of Doubt and Faith and Energy a dharma talk by James Ishmael Ford Empty Moon Zen   “The opposite of faith is not doubt; it is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do.” Anne Lamont I’ve always liked Thomas the Doubter and his insisting on seeing the wounds and touching them before believing. I’ve always considered... Read more

    Noticing that today was April first, I looked back at my past postings to see if there was anything worth sharing. Probably the best thing was the classic 1957 BBC hoax “reporting” on the Spaghetti harvest in Ticino. (A more innocent time, at least in some ways…) What was more surprising was that the following also popped up. It was framed as a spiritual practice one might want to try. Why it was included in a search for... Read more

    I am quite fond of John Donne, and I look for excuses to point this out. Today is one of them… John Donne was born in London on the 22nd of January, 1573 and died on this day, the 31st of March, in 1631. His family were recusant Roman Catholics. He studied at Cambridge but was not awarded a degree as he could not take the oath of supremacy, which included acknowledging the sovereign as head of the... Read more