Of Doubt and Faith and Energy a dharma talk by James Ishmael Ford Empty Moon Zen   “The opposite of faith is not doubt; it is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do.” Anne Lamont I’ve always liked Thomas the Doubter and his insisting on seeing the wounds and touching them before believing. I’ve always considered... Read more

    Noticing that today was April first, I looked back at my past postings to see if there was anything worth sharing. Probably the best thing was the classic 1957 BBC hoax “reporting” on the Spaghetti harvest in Ticino. (A more innocent time, at least in some ways…) What was more surprising was that the following also popped up. It was framed as a spiritual practice one might want to try. Why it was included in a search for... Read more

    I am quite fond of John Donne, and I look for excuses to point this out. Today is one of them… John Donne was born in London on the 22nd of January, 1573 and died on this day, the 31st of March, in 1631. His family were recusant Roman Catholics. He studied at Cambridge but was not awarded a degree as he could not take the oath of supremacy, which included acknowledging the sovereign as head of the... Read more

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