2021-10-30T20:52:06-07:00

        I think of how it began for me. My first of many moments, my opening into the spiritual way. When I was a youth, I wanted to know God. Or, that God was a sham. Desperately. With all my heart. I even prayed that if God would reveal himself, herself, itself – in the next moment he, she, it could kill me. I meant it. What I got was silence. Silence. It can be a brick... Read more

2021-10-29T20:47:13-07:00

      “To live in this world you must be able to do three things to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go” Mary Oliver Here’s a little secret. The spiritual life is our inheritance from before the creation of the stars and planets. No matter what else is so, there is this mysterious way and... Read more

2021-10-29T11:10:34-07:00

    The Japanese Zen master Soyen Shaku died on this day, the 29th of October, in 1919. A prominent Rinzai master, he was invited to present a paper at the 1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. The event was captured by the great Hindu teacher Swami Vivekananda. And even among the Buddhists present, the one most remembered at the time was Sri Lankan Anagarika Dhamapala. But for some, and for the establishment of Zen in the West, the most... Read more

2021-10-28T08:40:42-07:00

      The other day my spouse Jan and I watched the PBS “American Masters” segment, “Becoming Helen Keller.” It was a real treat. And even more so for me as I saw Jan’s name scroll by in the credits among a bunch of people marked out for special “thanks.” A really good summary of Helen Keller’s life and contributions. In the program they made much of that turning point in the movie about Helen Keller, with the pump,... Read more

2021-10-27T08:30:37-07:00

      It was today, the 27th of October in 312 that the general and would be emperor Constantine, later called the Great, claimed to have a vision of a cross in the sky and heard the words “With this sign, conquer.” I’ve commented on this moment in the past. In 2011 I titled my noticing of this date “When Religions Go Bad.” In 2016 I titled it “One Could Say Today is the Day the Devil Took Over... Read more

2021-10-25T09:17:10-07:00

      It was on this day, the 26th of October in 1892 that Ida B. Wells’s Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases was published. It is extremely hard to overstate the importance of this book and of Ms Wells, herself. From when I first learned of her, I’ve tried to note this anniversary. Although searching my blog archives, I see I’ve been remiss for a couple of years. What follows is my briefest summary of her life... Read more

2021-10-25T09:00:15-07:00

      TRUE HEART RISING Jesus & Ikkyu, Scrooge & Tiny Tim Edward Sanshin Oberholtzer Joseph Priestley Zen Sangha and Empty Moon Zen I was preparing a dharma talk the other day that touched upon the Zen priest and poet Ikkyu Sojun, that antinomian character who, were he Chinese, might well have been referred to as a kind of Daoist Zannie, but who seems, frankly, too serious for that. No, his hanging out in brothels and taverns feels more... Read more

2021-10-24T08:27:08-07:00

      At least for a time, the Western church recalled the Archangel Raphael on this day, the 24th of October. In more recent years he’s been mushed together with Michael and Gabriel and together are celebrated on the 29th of September. I went back into my blog archives and see while I am interested in angels and occasionally reference them, I’ve devoted most of these reflections, a small handful to Michael. Makes some sense. He gets the most... Read more

2021-10-24T07:25:48-07:00

          I believe we need a “calendar” to mark the cycles of a Zen Buddhist life in the West, something that notes the major holidays adapted to a solar calendar, as well as celebrating notable figures from antiquity and in the establishment of our way. There have been a couple of attempts. For instance, I like this one. But it feels more a start to the project than the calendar at least I’m looking for. There are... Read more

2021-10-20T13:10:41-07:00

      And I saw heaven opened, and behold a pale horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. Dreams. John’s Apocalypse, the Book of Revelations, that hallucinatory revisioning of Nero’s Rome is a lot of things. Among them a fevered dream of vengeance against oppressors. But also, something more. It’s that “more” which particularly haunts me. Today, the 22nd of October, 1844 was when the... Read more

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