Essays
A guided meditation on death
Death: It’s going to happen to you. At an inconvenient time. You’re probably afraid. But the more you think about it, the more difficult it is to pin down precisely what it is you’re afraid of. Contained herein is a guided meditation meant to alleviate anxiety when thinking about our impending ends, however soon or far off. The implication is that at least some of our fears are unfounded. And if the most frightening thing which ever occurs to people can be made a smidgen less frightening, that’s surely worth the while.
El rey filósofo
La religión es una actividad del hombre dirigida al exterior, muchas veces con una gran componente social. Pero cuando el hombre mira hacia dentro, hacia su propia alma para buscar a Dios, lo llamamos espiritualidad. En esta historia, Jiaoyuan Fa nos cuenta de una intepretación espiritual sobre el cielo y el infierno.
Mu…It’s Mine!
“The storyteller’s claim, I believe, is that life has meaning—that the things that happen to people happen not just by accident like leaves being blown off a tree by the wind but that there is order and purpose deep down behind them or inside them and that they are leading us not just anywhere but somewhere. The power of stories is that they are telling us that life adds up somehow, that life itself is like a story… it makes us listen to the storyteller with great intensity because in this way all his stories are about us and because it is always possible that he may give us some clue as to what the meaning of our lives is.” Frederick Buechner
Yao Xiang Shakya helps us see in the film, Never Forever a spiritual awakening in modern garb.
Hagakure (#8)
Homoerotic activity was practiced in many ancient militaristic cultures, especially the Samurai. I helped to balance the exclusive effeminate maternal upbringing a boy knew before he was sent to military school. It substituted strong, life-saving warriors for the bunnies and foxes of childhood folklore. It taught him self-reliance and teamwork, and established the man-to-man communication that was lacked in herertosexual relationships
The Journey Home
At the suggestion of the Ven. Yao Xiang, Ming Zhen watched the YouTube conversation in which an orthodox Catholic priest traces his life from drugs and motorcycles to his present ministry. His recommendations are somewhat different from the Zen prescription, which Ming Zhen responds to in her essay.