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.           Today, the 4th of October, is celebrated as the feast of St Francis throughout the Western Christian churches. Many years ago I ran across a book describing a visit to Japan sometime before the second world war. I don’t recall a lot about it. Except, that is, for one thing. Which I’ve never forgotten. The writer described encountering a small Buddhist society w...

A Complicated Banquet: Notes from the American Zen Teachers Association gathering in 2023 October 2, 2023 James Ford 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.                       On Wednesday morning, the 27th of September, Jan drove me to the Burbank airport where I flew north to San Jose, changed planes, then continued on to Portland. There I was picked up by my friend, colleague in UU world, and in the Zen ...

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.   Annie Besant(circa 1897)                   Annie Wood was born on this day, the 1st of October, in 1847. Under another name she would eventually gain fame as a journalist, and later a theosophist as well as a tireless worker for social justice, including working for Irish self-rule, and eventually a leader in the early Indian struggle for home rule. At 20 she married a...

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. Whirling DervishEmmaBrownPhotography.com           Jalaladin Muhammad Balkhi, the wondrous Jalaladin Rumi was born on this day, the 30th of September, in 1207. I write about him every once in a while. Here, for instance, I devoted a whole dharma talk to him. In 2007 he got a lot of press as “America’s most beloved poet.” And you know, he probably still is. Rumi was a Mus...

A year ago, my team & I started a grand experiment in our Fearless Living Academy, designed to create the best training possible for learning to face and deal with uncertainty in our lives, especially around habits and purpose work. We call it the Uncertainty Challenge. It’s a 4-week challenge that we’ve run 12 times so far, with astounding results. Seriously, I didn’t know what to expect, but people have been doing things in these challenges that’s just blowing me away. Results like: Finally stopped procrastinatingMade more progress on a p...

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. S N Goenka             Satya Narayana Goenka died on this day, the 29th of September, 2013, at his Mumabi home. He was survived by his wife Elaichi Devi Goenka, six sons, and a generation of Vipassana meditation practitioners. It is probably not possible to overstate his importance at the foundation of the modern insight meditation movement. He trained more than 1300 “as...

Sep 28, 2023 Founder’s Day celebrates the legacy of Zen Master Seung Sahn, founding teacher of the Kwan Um School Of Zen Poem by Marshall White JDPSN Wind through leavesThe tree speaks.Wind through throatWords appear:Tree, wind, voice Wind across waterAh! Waves!Wind across ear drumsAh! Voices! Wind inside, wind outside.Breathing in, breathing out.What is speaking, what listening?Where does this wind come from? Katz! A long time ago on a solo retreatA man heard footsteps and crowsFor the first time.Listen carefully: they are still speaking.  

That holy spirit, always resting wherever it wishes September 26, 2023 James Ford 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. Christ the Eternal TaoHieromonk Damascene     Jan and I were at a gigantic annual booksale in Santa Barbara. We go there every year. This time was difficult as we are in the midst of dramatically shrinking our personal library. But. Well. There we were. I was halfheartedly poking through th...

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. Tea time with friends(traditional Chinese print)           (A sermon by James Ishmael Ford, delivered at the Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church in Pasadena, on the 24th of September, 2023) *** One day while walking quietly together, out of the silence the Buddha’s attendant Ananda declared, “Teacher, to have companions and comrades on the great way is so amazing!...

Our days can be overwhelming, and because of this, many people put off their creative work — it just doesn’t feel possible. If you’re in this camp, one or more of these will sound familiar to you: I’m too busy right now, I can always do (insert creative work here) laterThings have to be just right before I can do (creative work)When things are settled, that’s when I’ll startI need to clear out my desk, my office, my life before I can start Of course, the time never comes when you’re feeling settled, when you’re not busy or stressed or overwhelm...

A Word of Advice for a Unitarian Universalist Congregation September 17, 2023 James Ford 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. HildegardCosmic EggScivias             I saw a huge form, rounded and shadowy, and shaped like an egg… Its outer layer consisted of an atmosphere of bright fire with a kind of dark membrane beneath it… From the outer atmosphere of fire, a wind blew storms. And from the dark membrane ...

Reflecting on my Gurus: Heard, Huxley, and Isherwood. A Small Appreciation. September 14, 2023 James Ford 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. Gerald Heard         The other day I came across a wonderful little essay “The Minimum Working Hypothesis,” It was Aldous Huxley’s attempt at providing a core to his belief in a perennial wisdom. It triggered a wave of thoughts for me. And in particular how much I ow...

When things are changing rapidly, and an overwhelming number of things are coming at you … it can be tough to navigate. Anyone who is up to anything big will have a lot going on. Lots of emails and messages, lots of tasks, lots of meetings and calls, lots of things changing every day. Lots of uncertainty. How do we navigate the uncertainty of all of this? The visual metaphor that works for me is surfing. I’m going to talk about how to surf uncertainty, and how to learn to surf uncertainty. What we really want is a simple, straightforward path. ...

Aldous Huxley’s Outline of Perennialism: The Minimum Working Hypothesis September 12, 2023 James Ford 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. Aldous HuxleybyJacques Emile Blanche         This essay by Aldous Huxley was first published as “The Minimum Working Hypothesis” in Vedanta for the Western World edited by Christopher Isherwood (George Allen & Unwin, London, 1948, pp 33-35. The book notes it also app...

Knowing We’re Alive and Knowing We will Die: A Meditation on a Television Show September 11, 2023 James Ford 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.               Jan & I have now seen two episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. We both have enjoyed them very much. We thought of it sort of as the original Star Trek, but done better. I’m pleased to note that at Rotten Tomatoes, the pros give it a 98% thu...

A Small Meditation on the Collapse of Religions and What Might Come Next September 10, 2023 James Ford 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. “Wild Geese Flying under the Full Moon” Utagawa Hiroshige c. 1833         The living way is like a well: You can constantly use it, and yet it never dries up.It is the eternal boundlessness;Birthing the infinite worlds. It is hidden from sight and yet always present.I h...

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.   Abba Poemen       Me, I’m endlessly fascinated by the monks and nuns we now call the Desert Fathers and Mothers. They represent a movement that began in the third century in what we think of today as Israel and Palestine, Syria, Arabia, and most of all in the Egyptian desert. They first captured my imagination through Thomas Merton’s carefully curated collection, the W...

teaching Sep 07, 2023 A monk asked the Sixth Ancestor, Hui Neng, "Who has inherited the spirit of the Fifth Ancestor?" Hui Neng answered, "One who understands Buddhism." "Have you inherited it?" "No" replied Hui Neng, " I have not." "Why have you not?" asked the monk. "Because I do not understand Buddhism." Hui Neng replied.

A lot of the people I work with feel a lot of heaviness in what they’re taking on — whether it’s work, their finances, relationships, health, etc. We often don’t even realize we have heaviness about something — but other people can feel it if we talk to them about it. Things feel really hard, overwhelming, discouraging, frustrating, pointless. If you’re feeling heaviness about something … that’s OK! You’re human, and you are allowed to have heavy emotions. Giving ourselves full permission to feel whatever we feel is a powerful way to be. That s...

Mind Bubbles Regarding the Episcopal Cheyenne Saint David Pendleton Oakerhater September 1, 2023 James Ford 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. Episcopal Deacon & Cheyenne Medicine ManDavid Pendleton Oakerhater       Noksowist, Bear Going Straight, was a Cheyenne, born in the Indian Territory, now western Oklahoma about 1847. His parents were Sleeping Wolf and Wah Nach. Spirituality seems to have been ...