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

      As I age I sometimes find myself caught by the terrible beauty of our lives. How sweet it is to be alive. And how awful life can be The Japanese have a phrase, mysterious karma, for how things come to be. Karma has a mechanistic quality in our common English usage, you get what you pay for sort of thing. But, actually its a mysterious thing, and rarely can be counted in a one to one sort... Read more

    I awoke this morning thinking that line: You are not it, but in truth it is you. My dream mind captured a line within the Jewel Mirror Samadhi (Chinese: 寶鏡三昧歌; pinyin: Bǎojìng sānmèi gē; Wade-Giles: Pao-ching San-mei-ke; Japanese: Hōkyō Zammai) The poem is commonly attributed to Dongshan Liangjie, a 9th century Chan master and founder of the Caodong (Soto in Japanese) school. Dongshan is also credited with the poetic map of awakening’s faces, the Five Ranks. The Jewel Mirror is commonly chanted in contemporary Japanese Soto temples and... Read more

      The Anglican liturgical calendar marks out today, the 11th of February as a feast for the seventh century poet Caedmon. Poets are, after all the bards of the spirit. And many deserve to be celebrated as saints. And, here we get one… Caedmon is the earliest English poet that we can name. He was a monk in the monastery of the even more remarkable abbess Hilda of Whitby. The story has it that he was a lay... Read more

          Whenever Jan and I find the time to wander up the coast, one of our favorite spots to pause is Guadalupe. It’s a tiny town on California 1 at the very northern edge of Santa Barbara county. It bills itself as the “gateway to the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes.” A poor town. Used and abused. And yet. Somehow. Survives. Walking down the principal street, Guadalupe, one never knows what will capture the eye. Actually when I posted... Read more

      “Everywhere I went I inquired as to the local whereabouts of a spiritual director or a devout spiritual guide. Eventually I was told that in a certain village there was a landowner who had lived there for a long time and who spent all his time working out his salvation. He had a chapel in his own house and never went out, but continually prayed to God and read spiritual literature. When I heard this I gave... Read more

        The list of things I do not believe in is quite long. Among the things I do believe is our Lady of Guadalupe. Okay, believe isn’t quite the right word. Rather Mary appears in my life in all sorts of intersections. She does have different names at these intersections. And her face looks different. But only if I don’t look deep, But when I do, there she is. Sometimes not so obviously. Sometimes without any possible... Read more