The Assumption of Mary is a Christian festival universally celebrated in the liturgical churches. It is marked in the Eastern Christian churches on the 15th of August as the Dormition of the Theotokos. In the Roman calendar today is called the feast of the Assumption of Mary. In the Anglican calendar this day is traditionally marked as the “falling asleep of the blessed virgin Mary,” although there are more than a few Anglicans who hold to some view of physical... Read more
(My friend and colleague, the Reverend Silvio Nardoni recently shared an article he’d written with me. I was quite taken with it, and not just because he quotes me. It’s good. And I asked if I could reprint it at my Monkey Mind blog. He graciously agreed…) Soul: It’s one of those little four-letter words that covers a lot of territory. Giants in the field of religion and psychology (Thomas Aquinas, Carl Jung, James Hillman, and others) have written with... Read more
Nothing truly real is forgotten eternally, because everything real comes from eternity and goes to eternity. Paul Tillich, the Eternal Now August the 11th is a very interesting date. In the famous Mayan long count calendar, the beginning of it all is, in our Gregorian translation, the 11th of August in 3114 before our common era. Mostly when I think of calendars I find myself considering beginnings. January 1st in our culture, now a meta cultural thing noticed pretty much... Read more
(Senior dharma teacher with Empty Moon Zen, Dr Chris Hoff offered a meditation on the fine art of boredom at our Saturday Zazenkai on the 3rd of August, 2024. I asked if I could share this at my Monkey Mind blog, and he graciously consented. A worth while read for anyone who cares in any way about the spiritual life…) All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. – Blaise Pascal... Read more
My book the Intimate Way of Zen: Effort, Surrender, and Awakening on the Spiritual Journey was officially released by Shambhala Publications on the 23rd of July! It’s my sixth book. And the first not published by a non-profit house. Which has had small but discernible consequences. Mainly in that there is actually staff trying to get publicity for the book and arranging for me to speak here and there. There have also been nice reviews at Publisher’s Weekly and Spirituality... Read more
I find myself thinking of Daniel Defoe. I’m one of those who like to celebrate co-religionists. For me that means a couple of things. Buddhists and Zen Buddhists, of course. But also Unitarians and especially Universalists. So, yes, Defoe was a Presbyterian. But this was in a time when the Unitarians had not yet institutionally differentiated from that body in England. In North America it was a bit different. There Unitarianism the institutional movement derived principally out of Congregationalism. While... Read more
On July 24th in 1901 that William Sydney Porter was released from prison. He tried his hand at a number of jobs. He was at one time or another a pharmacist, a bank teller, and even a journalist. But it was Porter’s work as a bank teller that led to his indictment for embezzlement and the sequence of events leading to this day. He fled to Honduras, returning to America only when he learned his wife whom he had planned... Read more
The 22nd of July is marked out as a feast for Mary Magdalene. As a person of the Zen way, but also marked profoundly by my natal Christianity, I am deeply interested in several threads of the Christian tradition. And very high on that list is Mary Magdalene. Over the years I’ve paused to reflect on this most remarkable and in some ways mysterious woman, especially on or around her feast day. Each time I do I find a need... Read more
Book burning is a thing. Many of us still are angry about the fires at Alexandria. And I personally find it hard to conceive of the destruction of the university at Nalanda at the tail end of the twelfth century. The burning of the great Hindu and Buddhist repository is said to have taken months. And, the 21st of July has a place in the annals of book burning. It was on July 21st, 1683, that its last officially sanctioned... Read more
It was on the 16th of July in 1228 that the Roman Catholic Church formally acknowledged their child Francis of Assisi as a saint. I’ve always been fascinated by Francis, and over the years when this day, or more often, when his feast, the 4th of October rolls around, I find I have something to share. I’ve been building it for, well, years now. And, honestly, as I seem always to have a new thought, or a small wrinkle, I... Read more
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