The actual date when the person Gautama Siddhartha who became the Buddha was born is not known. In the major schools of Buddhism, using lunar calendars although by somewhat different calculations, come up each year with dates that float mostly in the area of April or May. The Japanese, however, have adopted the Gregorian calendar and have set an annual celebration on the 8th of April. And that’s the one I count. And which I try to mark here every... 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 church.... Read more
A Meditation on Prayer Evelyn Underhill (I’m enormously fond of Evelyn Underhill. Her magisterial study, Mysticism, was an essential guidepost for me as I was forming my spiritual life. And even as my path has wandered she has continued to be a sound resource. So, I was pleased as punch to stumble upon this excerpt from her teachings floating around the interwebs. It’s originally from Underhill’s The Essentials of Mysticism. Prayer, like meditation, is a term that begs more precise definition.... Read more
Eihei Dogen was born on the 19th of January in 1200. He is recalled as the founder of the Japanese Soto school (Caodong in Chinese) and as one of the great spiritual writers of all time. It is believed he was the illegitimate child of an imperial councillor. His mother is believed to have died when he was seven and he was raised within his father’s family. At thirteen Dogen entered the Tendai order at Mt Hiei. His first teacher... Read more
Gertrude of Nivelles Patron Saint of Cats Ah, the 17th of March. A day when most of the citizens of the good old US of A discover they’re Irish. Not a terrible thing. Not at all. But there’s an under appreciated saint due to having to share the date with super saint, Patrick. Someone to know. I first became aware of her because of, well, cats. And I try to recall this and share it every year. Looking at my... Read more
A friend just pointed me to this article I wrote for Huffington Post in 2013. I thought it might be worth sharing again… I’ve had a brief exchange of notes with someone concerned about the large number of scandals related to Zen teachers. He suggested the ratio is almost one to one. A bit of an exaggeration, but a real question. He also puffed me up a bit suggesting that Barry Magid and I were among the few sane teachers... Read more
(At our Empty Moon Zen half day intensive meditation retreat, Roshi Edward Sanshin Oberholtzer gave the talk. He’s the resident priest and guiding teacher at the Joseph Priestley Zen Sangha in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, as well as guiding teacher at Empty Moon Zen. He reflected on the fourth of Dongshan’s Five Ranks. Frankly, it took my breath away. I asked if I could reprint it here at my blog and he graciously consented…) Our old friend, Dongshan, will not be repressed.... Read more
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? Not for most folk, anyway…) 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... Read more
An old friend just told me about one of the interesting wrinkles in the flood of artificial intelligence offerings. Google’s Notebook LM offers a program where one can turn a manuscript into a conversation between two robots. One has a male voice, the other a female. So, I did it… Read more
(At our Empty Moon Zen Rohatsu retreat at the end of the year there were several outstanding talks on our intimate way. I’ve asked the speakers if I could reprint them at my blog, and each graciously agreed. Here I offer the last of these, this from Thomas Wardle, a Dharma Holder within our Zen lineage.) The Case: The priest Xiangyan (Kyogen) said, “It is as though you were up in a tree, hanging from a branch with your teeth.... Read more
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