I missed it as it passed, but, yesterday, the 5th of May was a signal moment in the history of liberal religion in the United States. And, I want to take a moment to pause and reflect on it. To this moment I have a vivid memory. I was working at Wahrenbrock’s Book House in San Diego. The exact date is lost for me, something in the neighborhood of thirty-five years ago. Wahrenbrocks was one of those great... Read more

        Today is Cinco de Mayo. I usually offer a reflection on this day about why I think it is in fact a holiday we in the United States should be observing. With, I quickly add, some serious caveats. I acknowledge a pretty good measure of discomfort at how the holiday has become the Mexican St Patrick’s Day. And I mean with all the ills that follow that sad degeneration of someone’s largely religious holiday into shamrocks... Read more

        King James (the sixth of Scotland and first of England) not long crowned planned a conference for November, 1603, to discuss sundry matters involving the church of which he was now head. Due to an outbreak of plague the Hampton Court Conference in fact met in February, 1604. The king and his counselors dealt with some complaints from the Puritan element of the church, matters of who should officiate at baptisms (clergy only, thank you), ecclesiastical... Read more

  There are so many things that could be noted about May 1st. But, me, as usual, I’m going whole hog for Beltane! It’s a holiday in the calendar of my ancestors, or, some of them, anyway. In ancient Celtic cultures it’s the beginning of summer. And so its the time cattle were taken to their summer pastures. There was also a tradition of visiting holy wells. And various doings with flowers. Of course, there’s that May pole. Also, a time... Read more

      The Buddhist Temple of Toledo & the Future of Zen in North America James Ishmael Ford This past weekend I flew out to the Midwest to attend two events in Toledo. One was to join as a witness to the denbo ceremony (full dharma transmission) of Karen Do’on Weik. The other was the dedication ceremony for the new temple building for the Buddhist Temple of Toledo on Saturday, the 23rd of April, 2022. It was a wonderful event.... Read more

      While Zen has been in North America for quite a while now, it started reaching into the larger population through books and missionaries in a significant way starting in the 1950s. Since then representatives of most Zen schools from, I’m pretty sure, all countries with historic Zen lineages have at least visited. Many have settled. Some North Americans and Europeans have traveled East and have returned with various titles and authorizations. With that communities of practice have... Read more

        I was on the interwebs and my social media feed offered a meme featuring a quote attributed to Marcus Aurelius “Meditate often on the interconnectedness and mutual interdependence of all things in the universe.” I thought, oh my. And I asked my friend Doug Bates, who knows a lot about such things, if this was real and if so the source? Doug responded “It’s very modernized, but reasonable looking.” He added it’s in the Meditations, 6:38. And... Read more

      Today is Orthodox Easter. Blessings on all those who observe the holy day. And I am in Toledo with the Great Heartland Zen Buddhist temple which just celebrated the dedication of its new temple building. A very interesting marker in our Western Zen communities, where if a building is owned it is mostly repurposed from some other use. I recall, for instance, the rise of the “barn-do,” Do meaning hall. I’ll be sharing a larger reflection on... Read more

    It’s Holy Saturday. Not very long ago a friend sent me a copy of the Deptford Trilogy. Jan and I actually went through a Robertson Davie’s orgy of reading many years ago, and I’d read all his fiction. But, it had been, well, possibly as many as twenty years ago, and I realized I really didn’t remember much of the details on his books. So, I picked it up and tumbled once again into Davies’ world. Near the... Read more