One of my favorite not exactly religious holidays is upon us! Today, Tuesday, is the day before my liturgically minded Christian friends observe Ash Wednesday, and launch into their long “fast.” (Scare quotes because, hey, its not really a fast, is it?) Fat Tuesday, I gather, in French is Mardi Gras. In the liturgical calendar it is called Shrove Tuesday. It’s meant to be a moment of self-reflection. But, for humans, it can go in several... Read more

      The Anglican tradition marks today as a feast for the poet and Anglican priest George Herbert. He was born on the 3rd of April, 1593 to a prominent family in Montgomery, Wales. His mother was a friend of and patron to John Donne, as well as other writers, poets, and artists. He graduated Cambridge with a master’s degree and was elected to the faculty of the university. While he started off focused on a political life, at... Read more

    Maurine Stuart died on this day, the 26th of February, 1990. One of our founding mother’s of an emerging Western Zen. Very much worth remembering. I wrote of her in my book Zen Master Who: Maurine Stuart, one of the first female Zen masters in America, was also one of the first to give Zen a Western face. Maurine was born in Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1922. In 1949 she received a music scholarship to study in Paris with... Read more

      Elena Cassandra Tarabotti was born in Castello, Venice, on this day, the 24th of February in 1604. At eleven Elena entered the Benedictine cloister at Sant’Anna in Venice, taking the religious name Arcangela. This was involuntary, she was placed in the convent by her father because he believed she was unmarriagable. Apparently this was a common practice at that time and place. Despite her conditions, or in part because of access the cloister provided, she was able... Read more

      It was on this day, the 23rd of February, in 1455 Johannes Gutenberg published his wonderful Bible. Or, at least its the best date we’ve come up with to mark the occasion… Of course pretty much everyone knows that it wasn’t the first time a book was printed, or printed with movable type. Personally, I’m pleased as punch that the oldest extant printed book with a certain date is in fact an edition of the Diamond Sutra.... Read more

    Malcolm X was assassinated on this day, the 21st of February in 1965. I consider him one of the signal figures in the spiritual history of the United States. I’ve written here about him before. Although it’s been. while. Malcolm Little was born in Omaha, Nebraska on May 19th, 1925. He was the fourth of seven children. His father was a Baptist preacher and an outspoken advocate of Black self-reliance. From Omaha the family moved first to Milwaukee... Read more

    THUNDER AND LIGHTNING Frederick Douglass’ Liberation Theology James Ishmael Ford A sermon delivered at the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles February 20th, 2022 “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral... Read more

Emptiness is Suchness Masao Abe First published in the Eastern Buddhist & later reprinted in the anthology of Kyoto School reflections, the Buddha Eye, as well as elsewhere. There are reasons for its popularity. What makes this essay so important to me is how it expresses the fullness of the evolution of Buddhist thinking about emptiness, here traveling through the first uses attributed to the Buddha in the Nikayas, to the Prajanaparamitia literature, to the disruptive assertions of Nagarjuna, to the Madhyamika and... Read more

      Yesterday my friend Stephen Slottow sent me a social media posting by Tony Head. I loved it. And I wrote to Tony asking for permission to repost it on my blog. He said yes, but also pointed out all he did was put the three pieces together, and he was sure others had done so before. The prefatory remark is Tony’s. A famous Zen koan about a Zen master killing a cat inspired Gary Snyder to write... Read more

    In my view there are two great American original religions. One is the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints, perhaps better known as the Mormons. The other is New Thought. While people who write about New Thought give it a hundred mothers and fathers, I think we can actually start with Phineas Quimby. While there are others that came before, the way he put it together seems to earn him the title as a critical founding parent.... Read more