On this day in 1930, Mohandas Gandhi began his march to Dandi, beginning what has come to be called the Salt Satyagraha. This event could be seen as the moral turning point in the world court of public opinion for Gandhi’s nonviolent campaign to win independence for the Indian people. It was also a concrete example of the great circle where Henry Thoreau’s nonviolent resistance, at least in part inspired Mohandas Gandhi, who in turn would inspired Martin Luther King,... Read more

I stumbled upon this the other day and thought it worth putting into my daybook. It echoes both the Obama presidential campaign, with its lovely defiance of the status quo, bubbling with hope for the human condition together with that pesky koan “Stop the distant temple bell,” an invitation to explore boundaries, truth, and, very much who I am, and what I can be… Variation on a Theme by Rilke (The Book of Hours, Book 1, Poem 1, Stanza 1)... Read more

On this day. Read more

I notice how today is the feast of Gregory Nyssa. Brother to the bishop Basil and either brother of, or rather more likely husband of the deacon Theosebia. (Her story is worth following all by itself…) A Christian bishop, Gregory was a central figure in the evolution of the idea of God as a trinity, and so might be thought as an unlikely candidate for me to reflect on.  But, following Origin, he was also an early advocate of Apocatastasis.... Read more

For my four hundreth posting, putting up another version of my favorite spiritual text seemed somehow particularly appropriate… Read more

Here are some parallel sayings from the Tao Te Ching and the Christian Gospels. They were compiled by Holmes Welch, using translations for the Tao Te Ching by Lin Yutang, except for two, as marked, from Arthur Waley, and the Bible in the King James version, for his study the Parting of the Way: Lao Tzu and the Taoist Movement (pages 5-6). While it is easy to complain there are long stretches here and whatever else might be true the... Read more

I was looking at Google’s history for today and saw that right near the beginning of the list how on this day in 1079, Omar Khayyam and other astronomers are traditionally said to have presented what has come to be called the Iranian or Persian calendar to the Sultan Jalaaldin Malik Shah I. For me just seeing his name fired a cascade of memories, particularly of my long gone youth, while working in Holmes Book Company in Oakland, California. Sitting... Read more

LIVING AUTHENTICALLY A Sermon byJames Ishmael Ford Delivered on the3rd of December 2000 at the First Unitarian Society in Newton, MA (I was reviewing some past sermons when I stumbled upon this, written eight years ago. Generally I hate what I’ve written in the past, always hoping my next effort will finally be worth hearing. This seemed a bit better than most, although it would no doubt profit by being cut by about a quarter. That said, I thought it... Read more

Some years ago Jan, auntie & I were in Washington DC, doing some serious national tourism. Among the many interesting, sometimes moving, sometimes, well not, are the collection of one hundred statues from the states, two each. We wandered around until we found the one we most wanted to see, Thomas Starr King. A Universalist minister who ended up serving the First Unitarian church in San Francisco, King was a person of enormous importance in tilting California to the abolitionist... Read more

Correct Meditation Zen Master Seung Sahn(As regular readers of Monkey Mind probably know the streams of Zen within which I practice derive through Japan. What people who do not practice Zen may not understand is how different the styles of Zen can be based a great deal upon what nations within which they took their shape. Nonetheless Japanese Zen is Zen, Korean Zen is Zen, Chinese Zen is Zen. This is one reason, among many, why I am fascinated with... Read more