I recall reading the introduction to Madam Alexandria David-Neel’s “Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects,” where she was advised by one of her teachers that there was no problem in publishing the secrets. They remain secret unless someone is ready to hear them. Sort of the truth about such things. With that, here’s the nub of Zen Buddhist wisdom, ready or not… For me the best religious analysis of our situation is found in three Buddhist terms:... Read more

    How do we throw ourselves whole heartedly into the way? How do we honor that vow? When our very lives are tangled, how do we make our way? When there are people who depend on us, how do we make our way? Another image comes to mind. I was talking with a clerk in a large Department store. It turned out he had been a Catholic monk for more than twenty years. He left because his mother was... Read more

    In the Episcopal Church today, the 5th of September is marked as a feast day for Bishop Gregorio Aglipay. I’ve always loved that they have a feast day for a Filipino revolutionary, dissident Roman Catholic priest, Independent Catholic bishop, and Unitarian. As those who know me might suspect, he’s just a favorite spiritual figure for me. Aglipay was born in 1860. He was orphaned early. When he was fourteen and working in the tobacco fields he was arrested... Read more

    I’ve noticed no one has a “good reason” for embarking on the spiritual quest, whether Zen or any other. Our motives for taking up any spiritual practice are always clouded. After all, in most cases, certainly in our human hearts, motivations are almost always multiply caused. And, sometimes, well, that presenting thing feels wrong to some observer. One example. Many years ago my brother and I took a hike in the mountains above Palm Springs. We met some... Read more

  For me the wisdom of the Desert Fathers and Mothers is a rich source out of which I not only appreciate the deep mystical traditions of Christianity, but which often directly touches my life as a Zen Buddhist. Somewhere along the line I became aware of Amma (mother) Syncletica. She lived roughly between the middle of the fourth century and the middle of the fifth. She was the subject of a hagiography attributed for many years to Athanasius of... Read more

    (A fragment from a larger work in progress) Somewhere along the way in our Western Zen communities, people got it in their heads that you weren’t supposed to read. Okay, there are reasons. Words are traps. Easy to make them into little shrines, offer some incense, and be on your way. But, within the vast literature there are many important pointers. And. Reading a little of the canonical literature of Buddhism and in particular Zen, can be enormously... Read more

    BURNING, BURNING, BURNING, BURNING Zen at the End of a World A Dharma talk at the August 28, 2021 Empty Moon Zen Zazenkai Edward Sanshin Oberholtzer. Guiding teacher at the Joseph Priestley Zen Sangha Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. The public works department has been busy here in East Buffalo Township. For reasons that are beyond me,  in the midst of this summer’s blistering heat they decided to resurface the township roads. Ours got an especially thorough makeover – two inches... Read more

    In Facebook land I found myself drawn into a conversation about the foundations of the Methodist church. It’s one of those historical tidbits that I find as tempting as much as a cat catching a wiff of catnip. As it happens there is a controversy over whether the Methodist founder John Wesley sought, or perhaps even obtained the “historic” episcopacy for his mission. The known facts are these: the monk Gerasimos Avlonites, Bishop Erasmus of the Greek diocese... Read more

  THE WORK OF CHANGE A Zen Reflection August 22, 2021 Delivered at the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles James Ishmael Ford I’ve been thinking a lot about changes. And with that the nature of change itself. In the literature of Chinese Buddhism there’s a lovely little story that hints at some of how we can encounter change in ways that might be helpful. It may not immediately be obvious, but let’s hear it, and then unpack it together,... Read more

    The scholar Miriam Levering’s article “The Dragon Girl and the Abbess of Mo-Shan: Gender and status in the Ch’an Buddhist tradition” (Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 5, I ( 1982): 19-35) tells us about a recurring theme in the teaching of the Chan master Dahui Zonggao. It is hard to overstate Dahui’s importance in the mature presentation of Zen in the middle of the twelfth century. The contemporary Zen teacher Dosho Port describes Dahui. “Few if... Read more