BLOOD-STAINED EDEN A Meditation on Despair and Hope and Our Human Condition James Ishmael Ford A Sermon 17 October 2021 First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles We’re running up to a terrible anniversary. Next week will mark one hundred and fifty years since the horrific massacre of Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles in 1871. At the time LA counted fewer than seven thousand people, total. And the Chinese immigrant population was equally tiny, only about one hundred... Read more

    On Sunday evening on the 16th of October, 1859, John Brown, American visionary and terrorist, led a small band of men in an assault on Harper’s Ferry. “John Brown was John the Baptist for the Christ we are to see” sang those who saw his Quixotic raid on Harper’s Ferry as the beginning of the end for slavery. This event is generally considered the beginning of the count down to the Civil War. I think of those who... Read more

      Teresa Sanchez de Cepeda y Ahumada died in a moment when time ceased to be. It was in 1582 exactly as the Julian calendar was replaced by the Gregorian. And with it ten days vanished, the 5th through the 15th. In this negative time, so did Teresa. We know her as Teresa of Avila. The Churches of the West celebrate today, the 15th of October, as a feast in her honor. She is one of only four... Read more

      Sixty-five years ago, today, the 14th of October, 1965, Dr B. R. Ambedkar shook India when he converted to Buddhism. I try to note the major events of his life. Partially because he deserves to be celebrated. But, also to let people who might not otherwise be aware of him, to know a bit about this remarkable figure of Twentieth century Buddhism. He well may provide a signifiant part of the puzzle as to what Buddhism will... Read more

        On the 13th of October, in 1282 the Japanese Buddhist priest, controversialist, and founder, Nichiren died. In 1253 by our common reckoning Nichiren had his realization that the Lotus Sutra was the epitome of all Buddhist teachings. This was a commonly held view. But, he took it one step further, saying that simply calling upon the title of the Sutra can bring about liberation. He went one step beyond that as well, saying this was the... Read more

      Aleister Crowley was born on this day, October 12th, in 1875. He is one of those figures I visit in this blog from time to time. The last time looks to be five years ago. What follows is an updated version of that last entry. I believe the first time I became aware of Aleister Crowley was when I was living in a Zen monastery in Oakland, California. The writer Alan Watts handed on a copy of... Read more

    SECOND THURSDAYS WITH JAMES at the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles   October through June, 2021, we will be exploring the religions and other related topics that have particularly caught our consulting minister Rev. James Ishmael Ford’s imagination over the years. These conversations are not meant to be comprehensive, but lightly touching some of the world’s great traditions. James will be following two principles in these conversations. He says that all religions are false. But, at the... Read more

      景教 Nestorian Christianity A Survey of materials and scholarship concerning Nestorianism / East-Syriac Christianity in China From the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (shared here with permission of the author) Jeffrey Kotyk (I have a long fascination with the Nestorian mission to China. And the hybridization of that tradition with indigenous Chinese culture and religion. My imagination was fired particularly by the work of Martin Palmer‘s The Jesus Sutras: Rediscovering the Lost Scrolls of Taoist Christianity. (Sadly, it... Read more

    DO YOU REMEMBER? A Buddhist Reflection Robert Aitken Ordinary memory is affected by the meditation practiced in Zen Buddhism, and perhaps in other Buddhist traditions as well. As you sit on your meditation cushions, you forget everything that ordinarily presses on your consciousness, and focus exclusively on counting your breaths, facing your koan, or on the practice of sitting in pure vacancy. After it is imprinted, the theme of your practice in the meditation hall comes up naturally... Read more

    Today, the 9th of October is celebrated in the liturgical churches of the West as the feast of Dionysius the Areopagite. He is venerated in the Eastern churches on the 3rd of the same month. In the Acts of the Apostles, the second half of the text that we know as the Gospel According to Luke, there is someone named Dionysius who is converted by Paul’s sermon at the Areopagus, a famous rock outcropping at the Acropolis in Athens.... Read more