In preparation for Thanksgiving, along with getting ready for the family gathering, where my spouse Jan & I are the cooks (we appear to be the only people in the family who aspire to taking care of the vegans and the folk who need blood at every meal), I reviewed some of my meditations about this complicated holiday over the years. I saw a small anecdote that I recorded a couple of years ago, and it caught... Read more

        Keiji Nishitani died on this day, the 24th of November, in 1990. If you’re unfamiliar with him, and you are interested in Zen, I suggest you may want to learn more. He was one of the principal figures in the establishment of the Kyoto School, which the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, tells us was “a group of 20th century Japanese thinkers who developed original philosophies by creatively drawing on the intellectual and spiritual traditions of East... Read more

        Fifty-eight years ago today, on the 22nd of November, 1963, in Dallas, the president of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated. It was a lifetime ago. Actually two lifetimes. The parents of adults today were not yet born. Fifty-eight years is a long time. It made me wonder and I googled to see if there was anything on the actual number of people who have a first hand memory of the event. As it... Read more

        GIVING THANKS A Meditation for an Antifa Sunday James Ishmael Ford First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles 21 November 2021   I began an earlier draft for today’s message with a litany listing the many wrongs with this world on display just this past week. It began with Kyle Rittenhouse and ran for about three hundred words. There was a second draft with an even longer list. It’s easy to compile these things pretty much any... Read more

      Leo Tolstoy died on this day, the 20th of November, in 1910. He is one of those complicated figures, difficult, and yet shining with might be called the harsh light of the divine.  In his Confession and Other Religious Writings, he offers something I’ve found an absolute delight. It’s sort of a mashup of Christian and Buddhist wisdom. At least as I read it… “There is an old Eastern fable about a traveler who is taken unawares... Read more

        In the Record of Zhaozhou there’s a lovely conversation. Once when still studying with his master Zhaozhou asked Nanquan, “Mind is not Buddha; knowing is not the way. Is this correct or not? Naquan replied, “It is not correct.” Zhaozhou continued, “Then what is my error? I’m desperate to understand.” Nanquan replied, “Mind is not Buddha; knowing is not the way.” A classic Zen response. And it easy is to see it as one more opaque... Read more

      An old friend asked why I consider the Four Bodhsattva Vows so important, and why I feel it a good thing to recite them daily. To me the four vows are important because they remind me that the intimate way involves all of us. I love the inside joke that we cannot actually achieve liberation without everyone coming along, and at the same time that victory was won before the creation of the stars and planets. For... Read more

        Today, the 17th of November  is marked out as a feast in honor of Hilda, in some records Hild, of Whitby. She counts among my favorite Christian saints. Her feast is observed in the Roman, the Orthodox, and Anglican communions. The precise date of her birth is unknown, but she lived and flourished in the seventh century. Hilda was the abbess of several monastic communities, most notably Whitby. She was a singular figure, leading a mixed community... Read more

        It was on this day, the 16th of November, in 1973, that Alan Watts, self-described “spiritual entertainer,” who might have been characterized as a “stand up philosopher,” raconteur, teacher, and notorious libertine, died. He was fifty-eight years old. Rushing on half a century later, the ripples of influence from his life have nowhere near stilled. Watts is an important figure in my life. And, more important I think he stands as a significant figure in the meeting... Read more

      Some days its not possible to hate the world. For instance, the other day one of my favorite people whom I do not know but thanks to Facebook feel I do, Seraphim Sigrist, offered a small reflection on a Krazy Kat cartoon. This tickled me for many reasons, but four principally. First, I love Krazy Kat. If you’re not familiar with the strip George Herriman developed the character Krazy Kat in 1910 for the strip the Dingbat... Read more