The Bodhisattva Path: A Meditation on Soto Zen’s Three Pure Precepts   James Myoun Ford The three pure precepts of Japanese Soto Zen are also known as the three root precepts, because they sink into the deep soil of the tradition. They offer a succinct summation of the Bodhisattva way. I believe the three pure precepts both describe what the awakened heart looks like and offer a simple, if not always easy path to that awakening of... Read more

      Donald Robert Perry Marquis was born on this day, the 29th of July, in 1878. In his long career he was at one time or another a newspaper columnist, a playwright, novelist, and a poet. Today he is mostly remembered as the creator of Archy and Mehitabel. According to Wikipedia, Archy was a “cockroach (developed as a character during 1916) who had been a free-verse poet in a previous life, and who supposedly left poems on Marquis’s typewriter... Read more

      I was reading an article, the “Wild Irish girl and the ‘Dalai Lama of little Thibet:’ the long encounter between Ireland and Asian Buddhism” by the Irish scholar Laurence Cox, when I found myself introduced to Michael Dillon, Lobzang Jivaka. Michael was born on the 1st of May, 1915 as Laura Maud Dillon. He attended Cambridge and while there began a process that would lead to become the first surgically female to male transexual person. Digging around... Read more

      I see that Carl Jung was born on this day, the 26th of July, in 1875. Noting that has triggered a cascade of thoughts. For some time I’ve been puttering around with a memoir. It hasn’t gone particularly well. Memoirs are tricky things, and at this point the great pile of words I’ve compiled over the past few years are more of the “I did this and then I did that” than the lively narrative that would... Read more

      In pretty much all sacramental Christian churches today, the 22nd of July, is marked out as a feast for Mary Magdalene. Over the years I’ve paused here at my blog to reflect on this most remarkable and in some ways mysterious woman. Me, I find her pretty much endlessly fascinating. She was arguably the closest of Jesus’ various disciples. According to some sources, admittedly mostly at the fringes of the canonical texts, she is considered his true... Read more

    Today is Henry David Thoreau’s birthday. Noting that reminds me of his life and gifts. One was his discovery of a spiritual practice I think is really, really worthy. He describes it in an essay, Walking…   I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks — who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived “from... Read more

  THE FIFTH OF JULY A Buddhist Analysis of What’s Wrong, and What Might be Right. James Ishmael Ford “The life of a nation. Is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.” Frederick Douglass To be totally honest, I’ve had a lot of trouble focusing on today’s reflection. There are all sorts of memes on social media about the shape of this year. One shows two images. The first is labeled, “My plans.” It shows a kid... Read more

    FIFTY YEARS A ZEN PRIEST James Myoun Ford This world of dew Is a world of dew, And yet, and yet Issa Fifty years ago, today, on the 5th of July 1970, I received shukke tokudo, also called unsui tokudo, ordination as a novice Soto Zen Buddhist priest in Oakland, California, from the Soto Zen priest Houn Jiyu Kennett. Peggy Teresa Nancy Kennett was born in Sussex, England, in 1924. She studied medieval music at Durham University and... Read more

        THE LANGUAGE OF WONDER A Zen priest reflects on religious naturalism James Ishmael Ford   Let’s talk about natural religion. First that word religion. It is a slippery term, no doubt. In the Nineteenth century when various European scholars began the project of religious studies, they saw religion as that part of a culture devoted to God or gods, and the attendant ritual life. By the middle of the Twentieth century it became obvious that term... Read more

  A MEDITATION ON FATHERS & FATHERING IN HARD TIMES Featuring a little Carl Jung, some James Hillman, and a dash of Zen James Ishmael Ford “When one has not had a good father, one must create one.” “When one has not had a good father, one must create one.” Friedrich Nietzsche Last year in a meditation on Father’s Day, I noted those jokes about children so often giving neckties on this day and how that implies something about the... Read more