It was on the 9th of July, in 1969, that Gertrude Dixon, Trudy to her friends, died. While not widely known outside her San Francisco Zen center community, she is in fact one of the truly important figures in helping to shape the beginnings of Zen Buddhism’s interest among the larger North American English speaking community. And Trudy deserves to be known more broadly. She’s part of a group of people who did something kind of wonderful. It... Read more
On the 7th of July, in 1456, a retrial of Joan of Arc found her innocent of the charges of heresy. It was twenty-five years after the Maid of Orleans had been tied to a stake and burned alive. Give it another four hundred years and she would be declared a saint. And. Who she really was and what she believed and what she experienced have been burned to ash with the bonfire. However. I read somewhere someone say “Joan... Read more
In the liturgical calendars of the Eastern churches, as well as among the Anglicans and Lutherans, the 1st of July is celebrated as feast for Abba Moses the Ethiopian, perhaps more commonly known as Abba Moses the Black. The Latin calendar observes this feast on the 28th of August. I try to notice when his feast rolls around in the calendar and to share a few words about him. I’ve mentioned on occasion how important Thomas Merton’s Wisdom of the... Read more
Why is it that a person of the intimate way cannot cut off the the vermillion thread, that thread of tears? from Songyuan’s Three Turning Words collected in the Harada Yasutani Miscellaneous Koans A few of us in my broader Zen family have been discussing this little koan from our traditional curriculum. The kick off for that conversation was an observation about that vermillion thread. Sometimes the red-purple thread. Sometimes the red thread. Within our received tradition the thread is... Read more
Big things going on in Unitarian Universalist world. And I find it time for some reflection. The UUA I belonged to as a working minister between when received my first call to a parish in 1991 and 2016 when I officially retired, was framed by a document called the “Principles and Purposes.” We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote The inherent worth and dignity of every person; Justice, equity and compassion in human... Read more
Robert Baker Aitken was born on June the 19th, 1917 in Philadelphia. At five his family moved to Honolulu, where, with some times away, he would make his home for the rest of his life. He would grow up to become one of the most notable Western Zen teachers of the Twentieth century. While Aitken Roshi was the teacher of my koan teacher, John Tarrant, for various reasons, not the least of which was geographic, I had little direct contact with him.... Read more
In digging through my files I notice every few years I share an ongoing thread of thoughts about Father’s Day. Some points I repeat. Others get dropped. While still others call for deeper consideration. I think of this project as a sort of spiritual discipline. As far as the history of it goes, the idea of honoring fathers is pretty old and exists around the world one way or another. The Christian world has honored fathers at least nominally for... Read more
Dizang asked Fayan, “Where are you going?” Fayan answered, “Around on pilgrimage.” Dizang then asked, “What is the purpose of pilgrimage?” Fayan replied, “I don’t know.” Dizang said, “Not knowing is most intimate.” Book of Serenity, Case 20 (What follows is a passage from Henry David Thoreau’s lecture, Walking. He drew partially from his journals and in total seemed to have worked on it for several years. The complete essay ws first delivered as a talk at the Concord Lyceum... Read more
Harriet Martineau, British novelist, lecturer, abolitionist and theological thinker was born on the 12th of June, in 1802. She was also a Unitarian, a naturalist, and, eventually an atheist. Her influences within the Unitarian world would be immeasurable. She’s always been a favorite of mine. And I try to notice when this day rolls around… The family were active English Unitarians of Huguenot descent, her father a deacon at the famed Octagon Chapel in Norwich. The family was comfortably middle... Read more
I’m deeply interested in religious syncretisms. Possibly my favorite is the Luminous Religion, a Nestorian mission to China which flourished between the seventh and tenth centuries. Next to nothing was known about this mission beyond the so-called Nestorian Stele, which spoke of a missionary bishop named Aluoben and his mission’s welcome. That is until the Taoist monk Wang Yuanlu’s famous discovery of the cave library at Dunhuang in 1900. Among the astonishing cache were a handful of texts. What they... Read more
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