The Holy Life, Farts & All Mo Myokan Weinhardt Senior Dharma Teacher Empty Moon Zen I’ll begin with a story: One day, the venerable Ananda, the Buddha’s first cousin and beloved attendant, sat by the Buddha’s side beholding all that was before them. Ananda said to the Blessed One, “This is half of the holy life, lord: admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie.”The Buddha replied, “Don’t say that, Ananda. Don’t say that. Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually... Read more

A Zen teaching friend shared this Wendell Berry poem today. Now you know the worst we humans have to know about ourselves, and I am sorry, for I know that you will be afraid. To those of our bodies given without pity to be burned, I know there is no answer but loving one another, even our enemies, and this is hard. Then another friend offered the whole poem. To my granddaughters who visited the Holocaust Museum on the day... Read more

      It was on this day, the 25th of March, in 1811 that Percy Bysshe Shelley was expelled from Oxford for publishing, and at the same time sending copies to the heads of all the colleges, a brief tract, The Necessity of Atheism. In 1813 he published a somewhat revised and expanded version of his tract. For your entertainment as well as edification, the following is the original, briefer version. THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM Percy Bysshe Shelley A... Read more

        In some corners of the Christian church today is marked as a feast in celebration of the life of Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdamez. He is usually more simply known as Oscar Romero. He was archbishop of the Roman Catholic church in El Salvador. And he outraged many for speaking out on behalf of the poor, against poverty created by greed, as well as torture, and assassination as a political tool. It was on this day in... Read more

      On the 23rd of March, 1889, forty admirers of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, took hands and pledge themselves as his followers as the promised messiah and Mahdi. This moment is considered the inauguration of the Ahmadiyya Muslim movement. Ghulam Ahmad was born into an affluent Mughal family on the 13th of February, 1835, in Qadian, Punjab. His father was a physician. While he worked for his family he devoted all the time he could to the study... Read more

    Thomas Cranmer, theologian, controversialist, one time Archbishop of Canterbury, was tied to a stake and burned to death on this day, the 21st of March, in 1556. Cranmer, one time toady to a king, a priest and prelate, brilliant writer and complicated thinker, the principal architect of a reformed Catholicism in England. With the death of that king, under the new monarch he had been imprisoned for two years, tried and convicted of heresy. He equivocated at the... Read more

    Eugen Herrigel was born on the 20th of March, in 1884. In 1953, his book Zen in der Kunst des Bogenschießens was published as Zen in the Art of Archery. It was one of the first English language books in general distribution that touched on Zen. And it was wildly successful. “Zen and the art of” would become the title of numerous serious and facetious studies of one thing or another including motorcycle maintenance, poker, knitting, and writing.... Read more

    Christian Zen is something wonderful. Although what it is precisely is a bit slippery. Mostly it turns on Christians having found Zen meditation useful in their spiritual lives. But sometimes it gets weirder and much more interesting. There are now a rather large handful of Christians of a professional sort, clergy and monastics, who have been acknowledged as Zen masters. Plus a few householders. Overwhelmingly from within koan schools, the larger majority within the Harada-Yasutani lineage. This makes... Read more

    I was talking with a friend and she mentioned a teacher I’ve heard of once or twice. An American who kicked around the spiritual scene, had some sort of awakening, and is now on what some call the “guru circuit.” Second hand what she teachers doesn’t sound off to me. My friend was talking about a practice she invites. It’s based in a fairly common practice called body scanning. The tiny twist she offers is to invite the... Read more

I have long been interested in the development of Enso Village. If you’re not familiar with it, the San Francisco Zen Center in partnership with Kendal Corp (a Quaker-based nonprofit senior living community developer) has been deeply involved in creating what can be called a new paradigm for aging – a Zen-Inspired Senior Living Community. That’s Enso Village. It will be opening in summer of 2023 in Healdsburg, CA. It has met with considerable success, and is in fact now... Read more