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2020-08-02T08:41:32-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Craziest Thing: The Zen Priest’s Song of Awakening

Last updated on: August 2, 2020 at 8:41 am By James Ford

As it happens, today, the 2nd of August is observed in the Russian Church as a feast for Basil, sometimes called the fool, sometimes called blessed, and on occasion the Wonderworker. I rather like that. All of it. But especially that fool thing. Recently I wrote a brief paragraph in which I summarized my understanding of Jesus as a historical person. In it I suggested he was half crazy. Some liked that characterization. Others did not. I... Read more

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2020-08-01T11:01:57-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

LEAVING NO ONE BEHIND: Zen & the Work of Justice

Last updated on: August 1, 2020 at 11:01 am By James Ford

LEAVING NO ONE BEHINND Zen & the Work of Justice Jan Seymour-Ford August 1, 2020 Empty Moon Zen Last fall I had to give a little public presentation about my beliefs and motivations. I talked about my connections in the community and how my spirituality compels it. I talked about becoming a young adult, when I began to observe and experience the world through my own eyes, instead of through the doctrinaire teachings of my upbringing. One of... Read more

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2020-07-31T07:24:36-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Bodhisattva Path: A Meditation on Soto Zen’s Three Pure Precepts

Last updated on: July 31, 2020 at 7:24 am By James Ford

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

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2020-07-29T07:55:44-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Toujours gai: Or, What to do in Hard Times

Last updated on: July 29, 2020 at 7:55 am By James Ford

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

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2020-07-27T09:40:43-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Transgender Monk: Recalling the Remarkable Lobzang Jivaka

Last updated on: July 27, 2020 at 9:40 am By James Ford

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

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2020-07-26T08:05:34-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Finding the Messy Middle: How Archetypal Psychology Helped the Zen Priest Understand Soul

Last updated on: July 26, 2020 at 8:05 am By James Ford

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

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2020-07-22T09:27:50-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Other Mary: Recalling Mary Magdalene, the First Apostle

Last updated on: July 22, 2020 at 9:27 am By James Ford

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

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2020-07-12T10:17:32-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Henry Thoreau & His Lovely Spiritual Practice

Last updated on: July 12, 2020 at 10:17 am By James Ford

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

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2020-07-05T20:44:41-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

THE FIFTH OF JULY: A Buddhist Analysis of What’s Wrong, and What Might be Right.

Last updated on: July 5, 2020 at 8:44 pm By James Ford

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

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2020-07-05T10:41:16-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

FIFTY YEARS A ZEN PRIEST

Last updated on: July 5, 2020 at 10:41 am By James Ford

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

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