What a piece of worke is a man! how Noble in Reason? how infinite in faculty? in forme and mouing how expresse and admirable? in Action, how like an Angel? in apprehension, how like a God? It was today, the 30th of October, or rather this evening back in 1938 that Orson Welles’ famous, or perhaps infamous radio play the War of the Worlds caused panic in the streets of America. Well, some streets. It was not quite... Read more
As we’re working on our Empty Moon website we quickly saw a need for a brief overview of the Soto school. The Wikipedia article on Soto is a flawed document, but nonetheless contains much useful information. We used it as a template, cutting anything that felt extraneous to that brief overview, while interpolating critical information that was missing. The text remains a bit rough, but seemed workable enough to share here. The text at the Empty Moon website... Read more
It was on this day, the 26th of October in 1892 that Ida B. Wells’s Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases was published. In honor of the occasion and its author, I wrote a version of this biographical appreciation last year. With a few tweaks, here it is again… Ida B. Wells was born a slave in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on the 19th of July, 1862. After obtaining his freedom her father was able to further his... Read more
“The disparity between common Japanese religious practices and belief-centric views of religion was again brought into relief when a prominent psychology professor from the US, who was temporarily visiting my lab in Japan, encountered the domestic co-existence of Buddhist and Shinto altars. Most traditional family homes in Japan house both a Buddhist altar to honour deceased relatives (butsudan) and a Shinto altar, called a god-shelf (kami-dana), to bring blessings. This pluralistic practice goes largely unremarked upon by... Read more
Buddhism. Buddhism is a subject dear to my heart. And. Words matter. Although… “’When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that’s all.’” For me, right here, the word in question is Buddhism. And to what degree there... Read more
Just got my copy. Barbara O’Brien’s The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to this Modern World. (Shambhala Press, Boulder, 2020) I was fortunate enough to be able to read it in galleys. And have been recommending it to anyone who would listen. Finally it’s here. This wonderful book fills a serious gap in our current library of Zen literature. At 316 pages, including bibliography and index, it’s not too brief, not... Read more
When Marla and Charles from Two Truths invited me to come aboard as teaching staff for their trip to Bhutan I said no. I begged off being old and fat and not up for something seriously physically demanding. They persisted. I am glad they did. That I was able to add in a few days centered in Bangkok to make pilgrimages to the site where Thomas Merton died and then to where John Blofeld‘s ashes were interred, was... Read more
I was rummaging around thinking it might be good to write something to post ahead of my disappearing into extended air travel beginning tomorrow and, as it happens with the international dateline, ending tomorrow. That double tomorrow will be the 16th of October. As it happens its the anniversary of that day in 1946 when ten Nazis were executed following the main Nurenberg trial. I was looking at the list of the executed when I came on to... Read more
I write this on the 15th in Bhutan. I realize where this is going mostly to be read, it is a day earlier. I’ve been mostly enjoying the confusions of the international date line and the reminders of the mess that is time and space… That noted, according to one source in Japanese tradition the 15th of October, is marked as the day in the year 606, when Jianzhi Sengcan returned to that mystery from which all of... Read more
Here’s a little Bhutanese trivia. Okay. If you have an interest in cryptozoology, you may well already know this. But it was news to me. In the year 2001 the Royal Bhutanese government created the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary, some two hundred and fifty square mile protected habitat for the Migoli. It also protects snow leopards, tigers, and pandas, but it was created for the Migoli. According to Wikipedia, the sanctuary is designed to protect “the migoi, a yeti-like... Read more
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