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March 2023

March 30, 2023

Death, Dogs, and Cherry Blossoms

As if to fit that mood, there was trash dumped in my old playground, and...

October 2021

October 27, 2021

The Serenity of Shikata Ga Nai

You can't solve the halting problem, you can't make someone love you, and you can't...

August 2021

August 01, 2021

Yoda, Hui Neng, and the Sacred Texts

Star Wars is heavily influenced by the mythology of the samurai; and the philosophy of...

February 2021

February 20, 2021

When Bad People Die

Rush Limbaugh's angry, nationalistic faux populism paved the way for Trumpism, and I will not...

October 2020

October 15, 2020

Karma Is Not Justice

But there are reasons that the spiritual traditions that have achieved power in the world...

August 2020

August 02, 2020

Blackberries and Bitterness at Lammastide

The past few days have been among the worst in my life. I find that...

April 2020

April 05, 2020

A Tarot Reading For The (April) Fool

If we accept the Way of the Fool, we can keep perfect hope even at...

January 2020

January 28, 2020

Broken and Golden (52 Make-Up, Week 3)

There is no avoiding the breaking, the cracking, the flaws. But it is up to...

January 07, 2020

Who Am I?

Fifty is a big landmark. And now that I've almost gotten there, in some ways...

December 2019

December 16, 2019

Violence as a Koan

At first glance the 1980s action movie Roadhouse seems a world away from the eight-century-old...

October 2019

October 30, 2019

Working with Jizo Bodhisattva at Samhain

Death is the great mystery, the undiscovered country, the unavoidable confrontation with the boundaries of...

October 23, 2019

A Zen Pagan Ghost Story For Samhain

But as the creepier side of the season reminds us, sometimes unwelcome presences can push...

July 2019

July 17, 2019

Buddha Touched The Earth: A Zen Pagan Ritual Cycle

My inspiration for this year was that the story of the Four Sights could make...

January 2019

January 26, 2019

Patton Oswalt’s Twitter Act Of Kindness

There is a Buddhist practice of viewing each person as having been your mother or...

October 2018

October 29, 2018

The Veil And The Void

What if we thought of the veil between the worlds not as a separation between...

July 2018

July 04, 2018

Zen Paganism In The Art of Archery

And wood for a bow is a lot easier to come by than bronze, iron,...

May 2018

May 08, 2018

“Cobra Kai” And Toxic Masculinity

So I'm pretty much in the bullseye of the target demographic for YouTube Red's new...

April 2018

April 14, 2018

The Wounded Healer

But we must be wary of thinking that more suffering enables more healing, that in...

January 2018

January 13, 2018

Everything Is Broken (So Let’s Fix It)

Even the tools to fix the broken things were broken. But if you write about...

January 01, 2018

In 2018 I Resolve To Believe In You

Fractal Cat is a Baltimore band that I've been fortunate enough to watch come together...

November 2017

November 16, 2017

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

One of the Three Treasures of Buddhism is the sangha, the community of seekers. Budo...

September 2017

September 25, 2017

A Eulogy For My Father, Mark Swiss

We have hopes about an afterlife. I guess some of us have fears -- Dad...

August 2017

August 27, 2017

Love Starts With Boundaries

But we have to operate in both the realms of absolute and relative truth. It...

August 14, 2017

Knowledge, Victory, and Empathy

You have to get into your opponent's head. So to be a good fighter, you...

May 2017

May 13, 2017

Kyoto Bonus: Daruma-dera Visit

The figurines symbolize a proverb: if you fall down seven times, get up eight times....

May 07, 2017

Even In Japan, Things Change

Everything needs a little renovation now and again, even the human heart.

April 2017

April 29, 2017

A Call To Inaction

It is easy to say, "Something must be done!" It is easy to do something,...

March 2017

March 27, 2017

Zen And The Art Of…Obeying The Rules?

To some extent, “stability” means “resistance to change". To change an unjust system you may...

March 09, 2017

Putting It Down, Butt-Kicking Girls, and The Return of Samurai Jack

Speaking of martial arts, one of the great fictional martial arts heroes is about to...

February 2017

February 09, 2017

Confused Fathers, Messed Up Lives, And Taking Credit

But we all have messed-up stuff going on in our lives, even the great spiritual...