Buddha, S.J.

Science vs. Spooks

2026-10-12T18:26:35.887+05:30

Skepticism, scientific research, and the Nostradamus effect
Originally posted 2nd August 2007

Corrected October 12th 2026

In this odd corner of the world called California, many “spiritual” people are interested in the changing nature of mind, the related emotions, or what we in the West call personality. In some quarters, people believe our unique contribution to the endeavor of self-investigation will be applying the scientific method. This purports to be a new chapter of the old science vs. religion debate, perhaps even a new path to understanding. I have a slightly different take on a related question concerning the bias of those who sponsor the research, or more precisely: who's buying, what is the motivation behind the research, and how this affects the methodology of the science. “Science vs. Spooks” reveals a personal judgment which I hope to substantiate.

The Institute of Noetic Sciences was born in an odd mixture of New Age personal growth techniques and a profoundly transformative personal experience. The astronaut Russell Schweickart—I have heard several versions, all second-hand—on his voyage to the Moon, had a deep, profound enlightenment experience, a kensho, in the most unique of circumstances. He was doing a spacewalk to check things out before the capsule fired off on its return to Earth. He was, and perhaps still is, a very technical kind of guy, a total professional, running down the checklist transmitted to him from NASA command. The transmission momentarily lapsed just as the capsule completed its orbit behind the dark side of the moon. With nothing to do for 30 seconds or so, but his concentration still entirely focused, Schweickart looked up as Earth rose over the Moon's horizon, and the whole universe opened up for him. POW. Yeah, I wish I'd been there.

Schweickart returns to Earth a changed man and starts off on a personal quest. I have never talked to him, nor can I read his mind, but perhaps he wanted to try to figure out what that experience was all about, and also, perhaps, ways for others to have that experience which might drastically alter the way we live on Earth.

Enter Michael Murphy and Esalen. Located in one of California's most beautiful settings, Esalen was a kind of supermarket of altered-state spiritual experiences and meditation. Some of the best minds, highly trained professionals who were also seekers, used it as their laboratory. It was an exciting time and place. I was among the second generation of seekers to sample the feast—primarily through Claudio Naranjo’s SAT.

Sometime around the mid-to-late 70s, at least this is how I see it, three things began to happen: first, there was a straightforward attempt to use standard tests, psychological and medical, to measure the effects of meditation. The work of the Institute of Noetic Sciences was a leader in this area. The second objective is closely related to the first, as standard psychological instruments were used to assess measurable changes in individuals who participated in the workshops and training. This aimed to determine whether reported beneficial results were genuine, lasting changes or merely a temporary "workshop high."

And the third thing, and here I have to be very careful because, though based on real experience, what I have to say is just my judgment, the producers of the various trainings and workshops wanted to show positive scientific results as part of their marketing. A simple look at the associates of the Institute of Noetic Sciences shows an odd assortment of scientists, practitioners, luminaries, and aspiring luminaries. Most were connected to the world of psychology, including some professionals and others who had transformative experiences and wanted to share them with a larger audience. Of course, these projects required money.

I worked on staff at two Easlen-type human potential companies, and observed scientific studies undertaken in both companies. In a small way, I participated in the creation and execution of one.

Here's the scenario: The company finds the money to finance the study, just as drug companies do when they are testing their products. Then someone, in the case I know best it was a PhD psychologist on staff, shops around university graduate psychology departments for some professors willing to design and execute a study. Of course, requirements ensure the results are impartial and not stacked; both what is to be measured and what instruments will be designed to measure and assess results are negotiated and agreed on. The sample size and timetable are set. A fee is paid. They also promise to publish the results in a professional, peer-reviewed journal.

However, there are three areas where there was participation (and revision) in the 'objective science behind the result.' I was one of several people who pre-tested the designed instrument. The researchers sought to identify the positive psychological results and assess their lasting impact. As a 'graduate' of the course, I was given a questionnaire the researchers designed to measure certain psychological outcomes. But then, through the in-house psychologist, there were 'adjustments' to the measured effects to use the results for marketing.

Then testing began. At some point, perhaps three months into the process, company staff people called participants to make sure that they completed their questionnaires. (I actually overheard some phone calls, though I was not asked to make any). However, the same staff also made 'support' calls to graduates at specific intervals. Although this may not be completely unethical under the agreed-upon conditions of impartiality, and I did not hear any coercion in the phone calls, I believe that if I received a support call immediately before filling out a questionnaire for the study, it would likely influence my response. And if I did not feel strongly enough to send my report back to the psychologists, but received a phone call from the same support staff person asking if I’d returned my questionnaire, I would of course be more likely to mail it, which would affect the statistical results and the impartiality of the science behind them.

The final area of manipulation was their publication. Although the researchers themselves wrote up their study and submitted it to professional journals, perhaps even a presentation at some conference (I left the company before it was complete), the interim report written by the in-house psychologist and given to the president had phrases such as, "After six months, a majority of participants report more confident and loving conversations with their spouses and children." The president claimed that this was just too much scientific jargon. I actually stood by his desk as he reworked every sentence, every word or phrase that seemed too guarded, and changed them, asking us as witnesses, "I think ‘Six months after the Process, participants were stronger and more confident in interactions with their spouses and family,’ says the same thing, doesn't it?" When I asked the psychologist himself about the revisions, he was non-committal: "I suppose that could be said," and turned the conversation to his new home in the foothills.

There is nothing criminal or terribly important in this manipulation of scientific inquiry—the drug companies do it all the time and we pay for it—but it shows, I think, the limitations of science in the real world. What does this have to do with our old friend Nostradamus? Did that phrase about the two giants collapsing (“In the City of God there will be a great thunder,/Two brothers torn apart by Chaos”) foretell the attack on the World Trade Center towers? Yes, I am sure that we could find some paranormal enthusiasts who would design and fund a study that ‘proves’ that a certain percentage of the American public, after hearing those sentences read to them in a scripted phone survey, will agree that Nostradamus did really predict 9/11.

This is one way to defend against the terror of the unpredictable, but I choose to remain skeptical.

____________________
Here are the pieces that I've written about Hoffman. Although I have tried to be objective, it is impossible to take a disinterested position about the Process. Hoffman sexually abused me about 6 months after I finished my first process.

The Dirty Secrets about the Beginning of the Hoffman Process, parts 1 and 2
The Ontological Odd Couple, and the Origins of the Fisher-Hoffman Psychic Therapy
#GayMeToo
The Sad Demise of Bob Hoffman
This Victim Refuses Silence
A Very Personal Question: Can I Forgive Bob Hoffman?
Forgive and Forget? Impossible. An inquiry into Victimization.
"Bob Hoffman was a criminal. Simple."
New Age Miracle or Fraud
Why Do Cults Need to Rewrite History?
Science vs. Spooks
Jonestown and our Deliverance from Cults

Les paroles de Noël

2026-10-10T07:48:21.298+05:30

25 décembre 2022
Jogiwara, Himachal Pradesh, Inde

C’est Noël aujourd’hui. Je suis seul, mais loin de me sentir triste, abandonné ou mis à l’écart.

Je vis dans un village reculé de l’Inde. Je suis très loin de ma famille proche. Je suis la seule personne, à des kilomètres à la ronde, à porter le sang de Jésus dans mes veines culturelles. Tous mes amis expatriés sont partis chercher des vents plus chauds pour gonfler leurs voiles. Il n’y a pas de tables de fête garnies de purée raffinée et de sauce aux canneberges, pas de Père Noël, pas d’anges chantant « Dans une étable, sans berceau pour sa tête ».

Je n’ai même pas installé de souvenirs symboliques de la naissance de Jésus. Je n’ai pas décoré de sapin avec ma collection d’ornements en papier mâché du Cachemire. Le frère aîné de mon propriétaire, Hari Singh, est décédé il y a cinq jours. En Inde, on ne célèbre pas les fêtes qui coïncident avec un décès récent dans la famille, et ce, pendant plusieurs années. Par respect, j’ai laissé toutes mes décorations dans leurs cartons.

Ainsi, ma célébration de la naissance du divin parmi nous s’est faite intérieurement. Elle a pris la forme de réflexions personnelles.

Le paysage de la foi, des croyances et même du doute n’a jamais été pour moi un terrain plat, dégagé et facile d’accès. Toutes les Églises et leurs prêtres, ainsi que tous les conciles et la plupart des théologiens, établissent des critères d’admission qui, selon eux, permettent de vérifier si une série de promesses s’accomplit, que ce soit dans ce monde ou dans l’au-delà. La philosophie est un peu plus nuancée, mais elle vise tout de même à fournir des explications cohérentes, rationnelles et convaincantes sur les raisons pour lesquelles les humains optent pour — ou vont jusqu’à miser leur vie sur — une certaine liste de caractéristiques, de principes et d’énoncés de croyance concernant la nature du monde, tant celui que l’on voit que celui que l’on imagine. Je me demande si l’une ou l’autre de ces visions du monde résiste à l’épreuve de l’adhésion personnelle. En temps de crise, la philosophie a peu ou pas d’impact. Il en ressort rarement une décision claire qui mène à l’action. Nous traversons une immense crise existentielle ; alors qu'autrefois nous nous serions tournés vers la philosophie, peu de gens aujourd'hui — pas même les existentialistes — sont prêts à prendre les armes, à partir pour Israël et à mener le « bon combat » (en réalité, il leur faudrait peut-être affronter plusieurs groupes fondamentalistes dissidents déjà engagés dans la lutte, mais cela ne fait qu'obscurcir le tableau).

Depuis le début du confinement lié au Covid, je vis isolé, mais j'ai décidé de mettre ce temps à profit de manière semi-productive : en utilisant la méditation pour explorer mon isolement et, oui, ma solitude. Au début, plusieurs traits culturels qui me définissent sont apparus plus nettement : oui, le cheesecake me manque ; le seul visage blanc que je vois est le mien dans le miroir ; j'aime inclure de la viande dans mon alimentation habituelle. Avec le temps, toutefois, ces particularités ont commencé à perdre de leur importance. Elles semblaient s'estomper. Ce processus s'est déroulé tout naturellement, sans aucune contrainte. L'isolement a également aiguisé l'attention que je portais à mon quotidien. Je ne comprends pas l'hindi, et pourtant c'est la seule langue que j'entends régulièrement. Je ne me suis pas dit que cela ressemblait à de la musique, mais je me suis demandé si c'était ainsi qu'un chien percevait le langage parlé. J'ai commencé à prêter attention aux inflexions et au ton, associés à certains gestes spontanés que j'ai fini par plus ou moins décrypter. Le processus est très fluide et évolue d'un instant à l'autre.

Par la suite, d'autres événements ont ouvert la voie à une nouvelle exploration. Un ancien jésuite est décédé : Gene Bianchi, un professeur brillant et chaleureux. Il était l'ami d'une femme que je connais bien, elle-même membre du département d'études religieuses de l'université Emory. J'ai commencé à lire les éloges consacrés à son œuvre. Il avait tissé des liens intéressants entre les grandes traditions spirituelles du monde. « Réfléchi », « ouvert » et « inclusif » sont quelques-uns des adjectifs qui me semblaient appropriés. Il nous a tous enrichis.

Parallèlement, j'étudiais quelques courts extraits de ce que l'on appelle « l'Évangile selon Thomas ». C’est un ouvrage qui a apparemment circulé largement au sein de l’Église primitive, jusqu’à ce que les autorités ecclésiastiques le jugent un peu trop « gnostique » — un terme qui implique bien plus qu’une simple non-conformité. Il prétendait offrir une compréhension secrète, des pistes pour accéder à une connaissance intérieure de Jésus. Je suis un catholique de l’après-Concile de Trente — et jésuite, qui plus est ; ce sont donc mes aînés, oncles et confrères, qui ont façonné les professions de foi et les rites que je considérais comme l’expression authentique de la parole de Dieu, excluant d’emblée tout dissident ou gnostique. Ma manière d’écouter a été conditionnée par ce que les historiens des religions appellent un « air de famille ». Ils diraient sans doute que je suis incapable de saisir pleinement les enjeux du débat sur la nature et la substance des trois personnes en un seul Dieu, tant cette question est traitée comme un point définitivement tranché. Toutes les nuances de l’argumentation ont été tellement retravaillées, aseptisées, voire expurgées, qu’il m’est impossible de me replacer au cœur de la discussion. Tant de « conditions de compréhension » ont fini par se fondre dans le décor — tel un papier peint — que je ne les remarque même plus.

Je suis certain qu’à une autre époque, on m’aurait qualifié d’hérétique et de dissident. J’ai grandi en aimant Jésus et, durant ma jeunesse, je me suis nourri des récits de sa vie, de son ministère et de sa mort. Au fond de moi, je sens que ces récits pointent vers une finalité et des perspectives pour l’humanité qui surpassent de loin nos nobles visions, nos idées mesquines sur notre propre nature et nos querelles intestines ; pourtant, je ne peux souscrire à la conception de Dieu que la plupart des Églises chrétiennes exigent pour admettre quelqu’un en leur sein. L’idée même d’un dieu — et plus encore celle du Dieu trinitaire présenté par le christianisme orthodoxe — constitue un défi intellectuel.

Mais, curieusement, la question elle-même a commencé à se transformer. J’ai cessé de me demander en quoi je croyais *réellement*, comme s’il s’agissait d’une question existentielle cruciale, une affaire de vie ou de mort. Vivant seul en Inde, loin du soutien culturel de l’Église chrétienne, je me suis mis à réfléchir : et si j’avais entendu Thomas prêcher au sujet de Jésus ? Serais-je devenu chrétien ? Sais-je même ce que cela aurait signifié dans les plaines de l’est de l’Inde, face au golfe du Bengale?

J’en doute. Impossible de savoir si ce message aurait suscité en moi la moindre attirance. Même si, grâce à une vision rétrospective de la transmigration de mon âme, je découvrais que j’avais été le comptable d’un maharaja tout en étant réduit en esclavage, aurais-je pu percevoir dans le message de Jésus quelque chose de capable de me libérer ? C’est une question bien étrange, ou une expérience de pensée amusante, si éloignée de mon univers. Est-ce même important ? Ce qui m’intrigue, c’est que, dans un pays étranger, en dehors des cadres culturels et de la majeure partie du bagage intellectuel du monde occidental et chrétien, cette question est l’une de celles auxquelles je ne peux échapper.

Le réquisitoire contre le christianisme

« La différence entre un miracle et un fait est exactement la même que celle entre une sirène et un phoque. » — Mark Twain

J’ai près de quatre-vingts ans. Je suis bien conscient que cela ne fait pas de moi un guide digne de confiance ; je ne propose donc ces écrits que comme le fruit de mes réflexions personnelles. J’ai toujours été en quête de conseils avisés pour mener une vie pleinement accomplie. Je suis pleinement conscient de mes propres limites. C’est dans cet esprit que j’évoque mon cheminement vis-à-vis de la religion de mes ancêtres ainsi que mes convictions personnelles.

J’espère être un bon chrétien. Je m’efforce de l’être. Les maximes léguées par Jésus — en particulier ses enseignements sur la manière dont nous devons nous traiter les uns les autres — constituent le cœur de toute discipline spirituelle. Elles sont aussi exigeantes, ce qui leur confère toute leur valeur. L’idée selon laquelle on reconnaît les disciples de Jésus à leurs actes et à leur amour, et non à leurs paroles, me semble particulièrement juste. Se mettre au service d’autrui est également essentiel. C’est ainsi que je trouve ma place dans le monde. C’est une source de paix.

Toutefois, j’estime que tout enseignement doit passer l’épreuve du bon sens élémentaire ; or, la notion même de « bon sens » est peut-être désormais si imprégnée de facteurs culturels qu’elle ne constitue plus un guide fiable.

Examinons l’idée selon laquelle une forme de supervision surnaturelle assurerait la cohésion de notre civilisation — du moins telle que nous la concevons en Occident. Bien que ce concept ne figure pas explicitement parmi les enseignements de Jésus, il sous-tend la majeure partie de la théologie chrétienne traditionnelle. (Il convient de distinguer cela du dilemme consistant à comprendre pourquoi un Dieu bienveillant permet l’existence et le triomphe apparent du mal.) À mon sens, hormis dans les cercles théologiques les plus pointus ou académiques, le scénario du « dessein divin » ne sert guère que de décorum ésotérique ou d’outil de contrôle des masses. Les conservateurs veulent nous faire croire que la cohésion sociale justifie cette croyance de manière rationnelle et importante — pour peu qu’ils en définissent eux-mêmes la portée et le contenu. Pourtant, lorsque l’ordre social s’effondre, comme c’est le cas actuellement, la faiblesse de cet argument utilitariste devient pathétique. Cela ne fonctionne pas. Le système s’écroule sous nos yeux, à une vitesse stupéfiante. Aucun discours ne saurait le soutenir. Le langage et la logique se retournent contre eux-mêmes et se dévorent mutuellement, engendrant le chaos ; ils contraignent les tenants de chaque position à exacerber leurs moindres divergences, creusant ainsi des fossés plus profonds, accentuant les divisions, favorisant l’accaparement égoïste des ressources, la mort et la souffrance. C’est une situation déplorable. À mon sens, elle met en évidence que la seule chose que l’on puisse vraiment savoir avec certitude, c’est que les événements sont chaotiques et imprévisibles. Pour les tenants des organisations religieuses, le remède consiste à administrer davantage du même médicament : le leur. L’échec est toujours imputé à nous, pauvres humains : nous n’avons pas fait preuve d’assez d’assiduité ou de fidélité. C’est là tout l’avantage des remèdes surnaturels : ils sont à l’abri de la remise en question.

Concernant les écrits relatant les enseignements de Jésus, j'ai consacré d'innombrables heures à les étudier, à tenter de déchiffrer ses paroles, ses prédications qui recèlent une vérité profonde, touchant au cœur même de notre humanité, et qui pourraient donc être considérées comme une révélation. Lorsque ma foi dans le surnaturel s'estompait, j'espérais au moins trouver un guide pour mener une vie authentique. À un moment donné, décidant d'adopter une approche plus pragmatique et raisonnable, j'ai commencé à rechercher des éclairages pertinents sur la nature humaine et le transcendant, notre place dans le monde, ce que l'on pourrait appeler le sens de la vie, une expression pourtant bien vide de sens. C'est une simple formule creuse.

J'ai fait mon possible pour me tenir à l'écart des querelles intestines. Cela n'a pas toujours été le cas, mais je n'ai plus ni le temps ni l'énergie pour ce combat. En réalité, j'en suis venu à penser que quiconque s'y adonne ou même le juge important est un imbécile. Ce n'est pas seulement une perte de temps, c'est une illusion pernicieuse de croire que c'est le chemin du salut. Cela divise. Prendre parti sème la haine, la méfiance et la suspicion parmi les nombreux et divers habitants de cette terre. Cela me donne presque envie de croire au diable.

Alors pourquoi est-ce que je viole mes principes et que je le fais ? Je ne peux pas et ne veux pas dissuader quiconque choisit de suivre une voie évangélique conventionnelle, orthodoxe ou même moderne, mais, de la même manière, garder le silence reviendrait à cautionner, voire à consentir implicitement, à la manière pernicieuse dont l'Église évangélique de droite utilise sa version de l'enseignement de Jésus pour détourner les institutions démocratiques américaines. Ils ne sont pas seuls. Il existe également de nombreuses preuves que des mouvements autoritaires dans le monde entier utilisent une version ou une autre d'un système de croyances culturelles ou religieuses particulier pour contrôler et manipuler.

Il y aura toujours des points à critiquer dans toute religion fondée sur un livre qui prétend être la vérité révélée, et c'est particulièrement difficile lorsque la tradition, la famille et l'amitié sont en jeu. Cependant, je soutiens que nous mêlons toujours la tradition, la famille et les liens d'amitié à de nombreux principes non examinés qui régissent nos vies. Nous agissons ainsi car c'est ainsi que les êtres humains sont faits. Dans le cadre de cet argument, ce n'est ni bien ni mal, et ce point n'est pas totalement ignoré. Toutefois, il est relativement peu examiné lorsqu'on considère l'influence des croyances profondément ancrées, lorsque nous nous drapons dans le masque de l'homme moderne et libéré et que nous tentons de nous défaire des croyances, des pratiques et des tabous traditionnels.

La plupart des religions chrétiennes post-Réforme s'appuient sur des textes sacrés. Ces Écritures méritent le respect en tant que dépositaires de la tradition et de l'histoire sacrée, mais, à mon sens, cela ne les soustrait en rien à l'analyse et à la critique. L'origine humaine des récits bibliques est incertaine ; ils sont manifestement composés d'un ensemble de traditions, de dictons, de contes populaires, d'admonitions éthiques et religieuses, d'histoires de miracles, de débats sectaires, voire de diatribes politiques, auxquels certains attribuent une inspiration divine. Des chercheurs, des linguistes et même des archéologues ont mené des recherches approfondies sur ces aspects des textes, et leurs conclusions sont plus claires que jamais.

Dans une perspective œcuménique, la question de l'attribution de l'origine divine est partagée par les musulmans et les juifs, et, dans une certaine mesure, par la plupart des écoles bouddhistes. Le débat est soumis aux limites que l'on peut imaginer : la critique est permise, voire encouragée, tant qu'elle s'adresse à ceux qui contestent une interprétation communément admise, celle de son propre camp, ou si l'objectif est de démontrer l'attribution divine.

Invoquer l'œcuménisme ne m'exonère pas de critiquer l'instrumentalisation du christianisme protestant, mais je me concentre ici sur ce point car c'est un sujet que j'ai étudié et que je connais assez bien.

Au cours de notre courte histoire, nous, les humains, n'avons guère brillé par notre capacité à aider les plus démunis. Soyons honnêtes : le christianisme, sous toutes ses formes sectaires, est abject. Combien de qualités positives pouvez-vous nommer qui ne soient pas de simples renforcements d'une norme culturelle ? Quel genre de formation offre-t-elle qui ne se résume pas à « faire le bien et éviter le mal », car les conséquences vont bien au-delà de votre vie présente. Elles durent éternellement ! La pire des formations est celle qui impose un contrôle et une surveillance humains du bien et du mal, jouant sur notre culpabilité, notre peur, notre envie, notre avidité, ou sur une multitude d'autres motivations complexes, obscures, conflictuelles et alambiquées, tout en prétendant à une autorisation divine.

Les textes eux-mêmes, ou même les conseils de l'Église, contiennent-ils des recommandations claires et utiles sur la contemplation, au-delà de l'exhortation générale à la prière ? Non, pas même si l'on dépasse les messages contradictoires sur l'observance de la Loi. Cela ne signifie pas, pour autant, qu'il existe une hostilité à l'égard de la contemplation ou de l'introspection. Toutefois, l'essentiel de la discipline spirituelle qui mène le chrétien dans une quête intérieure est l'œuvre de pratiquants membres de l'une des Églises, qu'ils soient laïcs, religieux ou membres du clergé. Je ne peux nier qu'ils étaient inspirés par leur foi, ni que l'enseignement de Jésus propose des prières sans pour autant offrir d'indications précises sur les méthodes de prière, comme c'est le cas, par exemple, dans le bouddhisme. C'est peut-être une bénédiction. Cela ouvre la porte plutôt que de fermer le champ.

Certains pourraient même juger inapproprié de s'engager sur cette voie. Si la plupart de vos amis ont des aspirations spirituelles, cela pourrait même s'avérer dangereux. On pourrait me reprocher de sortir totalement du cadre, mais — pour reprendre les mots d'Alan Watts — une telle position ne fait que renforcer l'aveuglement humain le plus dangereux : le tabou qui nous empêche de savoir qui nous sommes. Pourquoi un système religieux devrait-il être exclu ou exempté de l'examen critique que nous appliquerions volontiers à un parti politique, à un régime gouvernemental, à une proposition philosophique ou morale, à un conseil d'éducation, aux mérites d'un régime alimentaire ou — poussons le raisonnement plus loin — à la démonstration selon laquelle l'accélération d'un objet dépend de deux variables : la force résultante exercée sur l'objet et sa masse ? J'ose espérer que l'époque des bûchers est révolue, mais je suis bien conscient que parler franchement reste dangereux si j'exprime mon opinion au sein de certains groupes, de sectes ou de factions politiques.

31 décembre 2022

J’avais à peine le temps de reprendre mon souffle que le pape émérite est décédé.

« Ne dis pas de mal des morts », répétait souvent ma mère. C’était peut-être une vieille mise en garde irlandaise, lancée avant que l’on ne sorte le whisky pour la veillée funèbre.

Soit, mais je ne vais pas pour autant me joindre au concert de louanges en l’honneur du pape émérite. Et ce concert a déjà commencé de plus belle. Le dossier de sa canonisation est sans doute déjà rédigé et son issue ne fait aucun doute. Il n’était probablement pas le rat conservateur et pernicieux que les néolibéraux veulent dépeindre, mais ce n’était pas un ange non plus. Il aimait ses chats — il n’était donc pas entièrement mauvais —, mais il était un peu trop « gay » au goût de la plupart des conservateurs. Une bataille pourrait bien éclater entre les amoureux des chats et les détracteurs de ces extravagants escarpins rouges.

J’ai écouté une interview du néoconservateur George Weigel, qui évoquait la grande complicité entre Jean-Paul II et Ratzinger. Selon Weigel, c’est là que réside le cœur de leurs postulats doctrinaux communs : « Le Concile était l’œuvre de l’Esprit Saint, mais sa mise en œuvre s’était révélée insatisfaisante faute d’avoir été correctement comprise (selon leur propre interprétation). On ne l’avait pas envisagé dans le cadre de la tradition établie de l’Église. » Ils ont donc entrepris de donner au Concile une interprétation faisant autorité (ce qui, je suppose, signifie une réinterprétation descendante, émanant directement du pape). Leur thèse était que le Concile ne constituait pas un changement de paradigme ; il n’a jamais été question de repartir de zéro pour l’Église catholique.

Tout cela est bien noble et théologique. J’ai, pour ma part, un point de vue différent. Lorsque les Pères qui détenaient les leviers du pouvoir ont examiné les travaux du Vatican II et réalisé que cela marquait la fin de la monarchie dont dépendaient leur position et leurs moyens de subsistance, ils ont entamé un processus de limitation des dégâts. Paul VI en fut le précurseur. Encore sous l’influence de Jean XXIII, il n’était ni un visionnaire ni un homme de poigne ; l’un ou l’autre de ces traits l’aurait disqualifié aux yeux du conclave qui l’a élu. Jean-Paul Ier a peut-être, ou peut-être pas, mis le feu aux poudres en lançant un audit des finances du Saint-Siège ; il n’a pas vécu assez longtemps pour véritablement entamer ce travail. Toutefois, la frayeur a suffi à propulser Wojtyła — un choix improbable et un conservateur pur jus — à la tête d’une réaction de près de trente ans visant à contrer les évolutions en cours. Il a poursuivi Arrupe ainsi que tous les jésuites progressistes engagés dans l’action sociale et — Dieu nous en préserve — dans la théologie de la libération (la liste est longue), tout en bénéficiant d’un soutien inconditionnel qui réclamait sa canonisation immédiate (*Santo Subito*). C’est lui qui a adoubé l’homme récemment décédé pour poursuivre l’œuvre de « réinterprétation » de Vatican II.

Il a passé le relais à Ratzinger pour endiguer ce courant ; or, ce dernier n’avait ni le charisme de Jean-Paul, ni la capacité d’inspirer les foules — il avait plutôt l’allure d’un comptable. Bien qu’il ait tenté de gouverner d’une main de fer, même face à l’explosion des scandales d’abus sexuels, il n’était manifestement pas à la hauteur de la tâche. J’ai ressenti une immense joie lorsque Ratzinger a démissionné. Il a ensuite vécu une retraite paisible, mais j’ai le sentiment qu’il est devenu une sorte de « saint réduit au silence ». Le soutien à une monarchie papale toute-puissante s’est enraciné, voire s’est renforcé. Il suffit de voir à quel point François semble épuisé et usé après dix ans de pontificat.

Quel soutien pourrait-on susciter pour un mouvement prônant un « retour à Jésus » au sein de l’Église romaine ? Eh bien, au moins Ratzinger n’est plus là pour rédiger une liste convaincante d’arguments contre une telle initiative, tout en prétendant qu’elle est déjà une réalité.

Le mot du jour est « expurger » (ou *bowdlerize* en anglais) : l’idée qu’un personnage est formidable, mais qu’il faut en gommer les aspects légèrement gênants — ou se demander pourquoi, diable, il n’a pas consulté des experts en gestion de crise. Parmi les épisodes les plus marquants de la vie de Benoît et de ses acolytes, je retiens la réhabilitation de l’évêque néonazi Richard Williamson, par la levée de son excommunication ; et, dans la foulée, le fait de ressortir ses fameux mocassins rouges tout en attribuant la tournure catastrophique du scandale des abus sexuels à une cabale de membres du clergé homosexuels. Il est d'usage de faire l'éloge funèbre d'un ancien dirigeant d'institution ; à mon sens, cela ne fait que confirmer que nous n'avons pas affaire à quelque chose que l'on pourrait, même de loin, qualifier de spirituel, mais plutôt à la survie d'une organisation politique préoccupée par les querelles politiciennes habituelles, l'argent et, surtout, le pouvoir. J'avais ressenti l'appel à rejoindre les Jésuites juste après le Concile Vatican II. Je ne trouve guère de vertu dans la vie et l'œuvre d'un homme dont toute l'activité a consisté à contenir, voire à étouffer cette inspiration.

Jésus : maître ? prophète ? saint ? Dieu ?

Après avoir lu tout le tumulte entourant les camps opposant François à Benoît au sein de la hiérarchie — sans oublier, bien sûr, la voie droite et authentique suivie par Benoît — la balance penche en faveur de Ratzinger, car Aristote a sauvé le monde ! Ce que je me demande vraiment, c'est si l'identité que nous attribuons à Jésus a la moindre importance. Or, jusqu'à près de quatre siècles après la mort de Jésus, il n'existait aucun consensus parmi les croyants ; du moins, plusieurs écoles de pensée s'affrontaient. Si j'affirme qu'Aristote a sauvé le monde, c'est parce que le concile de Nicée a défini Jésus comme étant de la même substance que son Père. La langue utilisée était le grec et la philosophie, aristotélicienne.

*Homoousios* (le Père et le Fils sont de la même substance) contre *Homoiousios* (le Père et le Fils sont d'une substance semblable).

Pour ma part, je dirais que cela ne fait pas la moindre différence. Tout est une question de pouvoir et de contrôle — deux notions qui, au fond, sont presque de la même substance.

À l'ère de Google Traduction, nous avons tendance à croire qu'il existe une équivalence simple entre les mots de langues différentes. Pourtant, dès que l'on passe une commande de pizza ou que l'on cherche un arrêt de bus, cette idée est loin d'être vraie. La traduction devient particulièrement ardue lorsqu'il s'agit de termes désignant Dieu, un dieu, des dieux, les dieux grecs, le dieu hébreu d'Abraham, Allah, etc. Tous ces mots, qui renvoient à ce qui est indéfini, inconnaissable et transcendant, sont ancrés dans une époque et un lieu précis.

Le concile de Nicée s'est tenu en 381, dans une ville située dans l'actuelle Turquie, après que l'empereur Constantin a transféré la capitale de l'Empire romain de Rome à Constantinople. Ce fut le premier concile de l'histoire de l'Église chrétienne à tenter de s'adresser à l'ensemble des croyants. Il fut convoqué par Constantin pour résoudre la controverse liée à l'arianisme, une doctrine selon laquelle le Christ n'était pas divin, mais un être créé. L'empereur y convia tous les évêques, archevêques, métropolites et presbytres, tant des branches orientales (grecques) que des branches occidentales (latines) du monde chrétien. La légende raconte que, sur les 1 800 invités, entre 250 et 318 personnes étaient présentes.

Il est donc bien question ici de la multiplicité des dieux (et, je le soupçonne, de l'intégration de la christologie des premières communautés dans un cadre monothéiste). Sur le plan du langage, il s'agit de l'« essence » de Dieu et de Jésus. Ce fut aussi le début d'une démarche (ou peut-être l'expression d'un mouvement déjà amorcé) visant à formuler la doctrine de l'Église en termes de philosophie grecque. Les Pères du concile (aucune femme n'y était représentée) cherchaient à formuler une déclaration affirmant que le Seigneur Jésus était Dieu, en soutenant qu'il était de la même essence que Dieu.

Les langues du concile étaient le grec et le latin. Le texte officiel issu du concile était en grec. Je ne connais pas le grec et, même avec un dictionnaire, je ne peux pas être précis. En latin, toutefois, l'expression « Dieu des dieux » ne renvoie pas à une multiplicité de dieux. Je pense qu'il vaut mieux la décrire comme une tautologie logique : « Dieu est de l'essence de Dieu ». *Deum verum de Deo vero ; natum, non factum ; ejusdemque substantiae qua Pater est*. En fait, si l'on examine le latin, le développement de la tautologie « lumière issue de la lumière » (la lumière étant toujours de l'essence de la lumière) semble absent ; il s'agit peut-être d'un ajout ou d'une variante textuelle.

Ce qui m'intéresse dans le concile de Nicée, c'est la manière dont sont traités les concepts d'« être » ou de « substance ». Sans ce lien, nous aurions au moins trois dieux : deux entités — un Père et un Esprit sans forme — et Jésus, existant comme une sorte de démiurge païen, membre d'une hiérarchie divine à plusieurs niveaux, contrôlant nos destins et lui-même étant un être créé. C'est ce qu'enseignait Arius, et ce en quoi croyait un très grand nombre d'églises primitives.

Nous avons là la réponse du concile aux partisans d'Arius. Jésus était le vrai Dieu issu du vrai Dieu ; il est né (en tant qu'homme tout en demeurant Dieu), mais n'a pas été « fait » (de la même manière que Dieu a façonné Adam ou, par exemple, que les dieux ont créé Isis comme une manifestation du divin pour les initiés de leur culte). Lui, le Père et le Fils (filioque) sont substantiellement identiques. La question du *filioque* allait provoquer une autre scission, mais cela devient bien trop complexe. Je penche pour l'unitarisme, simplement parce que c'est plus simple et plus beau, mais c'est un terrain sur lequel je ne souhaite pas m'aventurer ici.

Plaidoyer pour un christianisme spirituel

Alors que je cherchais une réponse à la question de savoir comment rester chrétien — ou peut-être simplement m'identifier à l'Église de nos aïeux sans pour autant accepter tous les excès doctrinaux ni l'exigence d'une adhésion totale —, je me suis dit qu'en prenant du recul par rapport à mon état d'esprit hypercritique, en me détendant et en observant simplement le paysage, un argument convaincant finirait peut-être par s'imposer. J'aime la musique et l'art de l'Église, qui constituent pour moi une véritable source de nourriture spirituelle. Peut-être pourrais-je pleinement embrasser une forme d'agnosticisme spirituel.

En 2019, alors que je suivais en direct la retransmission de l'incendie catastrophique qui a failli détruire la magnifique cathédrale Notre-Dame le 15 avril, j'avoue avoir été en larmes. Je suis francophile ; j'aime Paris ; lorsque j'étais étudiant dans le nord de la France, j'ai visité la cathédrale à maintes reprises. Voir les flammes engloutir tout le transept m'a anéanti. Cela m'a touché au plus profond de moi-même, bien au-delà du simple chagrin ou de la stupeur.

Je me suis alors souvenu d'une autre catastrophe majeure. Voir les tours jumelles brûler et s'effondrer, assister aux pertes humaines et à cette destruction gratuite et extrême, fut une expérience effroyable. J'en fus également bouleversé, mais d'une manière différente. Il s'agissait d'un attentat terroriste. Mes sentiments étaient alors mêlés d'horreur et de peur.

Les tours jumelles et Notre-Dame étaient toutes deux des repères emblématiques de la silhouette urbaine de grandes métropoles. La construction des tours jumelles avait débuté le 6 août 1966, et elles se sont effondrées à la suite d'un attentat terroriste le 11 septembre 2001. Le pape Alexandre III avait posé la première pierre de la cathédrale Notre-Dame en 1163. Sa construction s'est étalée sur des siècles ; la dernière restauration majeure a été menée par Viollet-le-Duc au milieu du XIXe siècle.

J'ai suivi de près les travaux de reconstruction et de rénovation, tant pour les tours jumelles que pour Notre-Dame. À New York, le processus de conception de la reconstruction a suscité, comme on pouvait s'y attendre, de vives controverses. Des experts et des promoteurs immobiliers ont été sollicités. Des débats ont eu lieu concernant le projet architectural, la reconfiguration du site, l'intégration d'espaces commerciaux, les liaisons de transport et la manière de rendre hommage aux victimes. Bien qu'il s'agisse toujours du World Trade Center, le résultat serait différent. Le processus était très américain et, du moins en apparence, se voulait démocratique. En France, le débat portait sur l'opportunité d'autoriser des modifications lors de la rénovation. Au départ, certains ont suggéré une nouvelle conception de la flèche — une innovation moderne lors de sa reconstruction au milieu du XIXe siècle. Très vite, le Sénat français a adopté un projet de loi exigeant que la reconstruction soit fidèle à son « dernier état visuel connu ». La flèche devait être reconstruite à l'identique, au millimètre près, en utilisant les matériaux et les techniques de construction préconisés par Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc ; les seules adaptations autorisées portaient sur l'intégration des technologies modernes, de l'électricité et des normes de sécurité, ainsi que sur un nouvel aménagement du parvis de la cathédrale, la création d'un parking souterrain et la reconfiguration de l'espace libre et des bâtiments adjacents sur l'île de la Cité.

Les tours jumelles, comme Notre-Dame, ont pris feu et se sont effondrées — l'une totalement, l'autre en grande partie — en l'espace de quelques heures. C'est là, en réalité, la seule similitude. À New York, un grand nombre de personnes sont mortes. À Paris, il n'y a eu aucune victime. L'un des drames a été causé par un attentat terroriste, l'autre par un accident ou par une négligence. L'un était un complexe commercial, l'autre un lieu sacré. J'ai été profondément bouleversé par ces deux tragédies. J'ai suivi le déroulement de chacune d'elles en direct à la télévision. Bien que j'hésite à voir dans mes réactions émotionnelles face à une catastrophe le cheminement vers une conviction religieuse, l'analyse de mes propres réactions s'est révélée révélatrice.

Pour filer ma métaphore théologique, la reconstruction du World Trade Center s'apparente au concile de Trente, réponse au bouleversement culturel, politique et intellectuel majeur de la Réforme, tandis que la rénovation de Notre-Dame s'apparente à une méditation attentive, une prière sur la source de notre foi.

J'ai suivi la rénovation de Notre-Dame, guettant sur Internet chaque rapport, chaque argument et chaque découverte au fil de l'avancement de ce « chantier du siècle ». Lorsque le projet de réaménagement de l'espace intérieur pour l'adapter aux pratiques liturgiques actuelles a été dévoilé, l'historien de l'art Alexandre Gady a déclaré : « Curieusement, ce matin, ce n'est pas le clergé qui a parlé du sacré, mais des historiens comme moi, défenseurs des monuments historiques. Notre-Dame est sacrée, non seulement au sens catholique, mais aussi parce qu'elle nous unit, qu'elle nous parle et qu'elle raconte notre histoire. »

D'autres critiques ont affirmé que le clergé parisien, faisant preuve d'un zèle excessif, était déterminé à transformer cette attraction touristique en une sorte de « Disneyland spirituel ».

Si tous ceux qui aiment Notre-Dame — qu'ils soient catholiques fervents ou non, qu'ils appartiennent à une autre religion ou à aucune, qu'ils aient contribué par leur argent, leur temps ou leur talent à préserver ce précieux témoin de notre patrimoine spirituel, ou qu'ils aient simplement témoigné leur affection — devaient voir le résultat se transformer en un remake « façon Disney » et lisse du *Notre-Dame de Paris* de Victor Hugo, alors je saurais que nous vivons véritablement le crépuscule de la civilisation occidentale.

Qu’est-ce que j’en sais ?

La veille de Noël, j’ai commencé à regarder un programme plutôt léger sur YouTube intitulé « Inside the Vatican, épisode 1 ». Soudain, un homme très séduisant, doté d’une voix magnifique, est apparu en train de chanter pour le monde entier. Mark Spyropoulos est un baryton britannique d’origine grecque qui a intégré le plus ancien chœur d’église au monde : le chœur personnel du pape, la *Cappella Musicale Pontificia*.

Mark a évoqué le moment où il a chanté en solo le Credo de Nicée lors d’une messe télévisée suivie par des millions et des millions de personnes. Un jour, il a pris conscience du nombre de gens qui l’avaient entendu faire cette profession de foi. Il l’avait chantée à chaque messe papale pendant trois ans.

Il a cité le texte latin : *Credo in Unum Deum*. « Je crois en un seul Dieu. Il a poursuivi : « Je ne chantais pas "Nous croyons en un seul Dieu". » C’était lui, Mark, qui exprimait une profession de foi très personnelle. Il s’est alors demandé : croyait-il vraiment en ce Dieu unique ? Et qu’est-ce que cela signifiait au juste ? « Je ne le sais même pas. Parfois, j’ai l’impression d’être un imposteur. Je viens de proclamer le début du Credo de Nicée devant le pape et le monde entier ; je devrais sûrement être sûr de ce que je dis. Parfois, je sais ce que je chante, et parfois non. »

« Si vous me demandez si je crois en Dieu, je réponds que je ne comprends pas la question. Qu’entendez-vous par Dieu ? (J’entendais l’intervieweur le relancer : « Dieu tel que défini par l’Église catholique. ») Ce sont des questions immenses. »

« Je suis baryton. Qu’est-ce que j’en sais ? »

C’est alors devenu une sorte de crise de foi personnelle. Au-delà de la plaisanterie d’initié propre au monde de la musique, il ne savait vraiment pas. Il a ensuite raconté une révélation personnelle assez belle ; je crois que c’était alors qu’il chantait une œuvre de Bach — la version de 1747, par opposition à celle, antérieure, de 1745, que François préférait. Apparemment, François aime mettre la main à la pâte lorsqu’il s’agit de certains détails. « Eh bien, que sais-je ? Je vais vous dire ce que je sais. Je peux vous dire que lorsque je suis immergé dans cette musique, je me sens en communion avec quelque chose. »

En chantant, il prit conscience qu'il croyait véritablement en une puissance supérieure à lui-même. Il se montrait, en fait, bien plus éloquent que mon argumentation de jésuite.

Medici Archive Project, programme musical. Vox Medicea (sous la direction de Mark Spyropoulos).

The "Wagon Wheel" Koan

2026-10-04T22:02:25.155+05:30

“I chortled at your insinuation that a luxury retirement home is perhaps not the most fulsome personal response to 'vast and empty, no merit.’

“But it did get me thinking about my own response. I think of sitting with my father as he took his walk through the Eastern gate and catching Matthew as he entered through the West. What's the meaning of those journeys? At the moment, I'm eating a Wagon Wheel as I sit up in the night - Matthew's insulin pump site failed, and I have to wait an hour to place a new one - long story.

“Whether there's no merit to this or great merit, what's the difference? It just needs to be done. I'd demonstrate it by getting up and walking out the door I came in through.”

Today, I received an inspiring response to a koan most of us have worked with again and again. I’ve known Ken MacDonald for more than 30 years now. We met at the Palolo Valley Zen Center during a 7-day sesshin with Bob Aitken, and because we were strictly observant back then, we didn’t introduce ourselves for a whole week, which included making breakfast for 18 or so other meditators—grunts, smiles, and pointing—lots of smiles. We liked one another.

Over the years, we sat together a lot; we visited one another. At his house on Virgil Street, I heard the ice on the Red River crack in the middle of the night when the temperature dropped well below 125 F, and the water rushing through Winnipeg froze instantly. I heard him with several members of the orchestra play music in a hospice for a young woman friend who was dying way too young. I’ve been delighted to hear his tales of making music for small horses and whales. I’ve met his spouse and children, other Zen and music friends, all people I wish I could spend more time with, but time seems the limited quantity, not admiration, wonder, and love.

To my friendly outside eye, Ken seems to live life effortlessly. I’m sure that there’s pain and struggle; we all share the turbulence of inevitable events; it's called living. But in general, as he writes, from sitting with his father as “he took his walk through the Eastern gate and catching [his son] Matthew as he entered through the West,” he wonders. You know—perhaps Big Questions, but he moves through it all seamlessly and with grace and love. Like a masterful orchestral performance, subtle, not missing a note that I can see, though I am sure his awareness is more finely tuned.

He talks in a breezy way that sometimes makes me wonder if he’s missing something. But then I listen, and I wonder what it is that I’m missing in my life. What richness am I blind to? I wonder. And as the great sage says, it seems vast and empty with no meaning.

So, as an experiment, I tried to notice what small things I might have missed in his story. While waiting for his son’s insulin pump to begin working properly, he bit into a Wagon Wheel. I’ve spent time in Australia and Canada, and I now spend most of my time in another Commonwealth country. Before that I had no idea what a Wagon Wheel was. Now I know this extraordinary treat: two Marie biscuits wrapped around a marshmallow and covered in chocolate. In Australia, apparently to demonstrate their criminal past, they add a dab of jam to the marshmallow before squeezing it all together. Simple, straightforward, ordinary ingredients, and so tasty it brings out life’s own flavor. What a lovely way to trick our attention into experiencing parts of life that might otherwise disappear before they can even reveal themselves.

Wake Up, America!

2026-09-14T12:11:37.578+05:30

09/13/2026

I just hung up on a woman who was probably nice enough, doing important research on how I felt about this and that, leading up to one of the most important elections in the Republic's history. Of course I will participate. Of course I will vote straight Blue. But something in me snapped.

We’ve lost our democracy, and you, terribly polite Nancy or Susan, are assisting some highly trained political consultants making enough to send their kids off to college debt-free twenty times over, participating in one of the ugliest chapters of the history of democracy. You’re helping criminals create a smokescreen they’ve designed to shield themselves. America was a democracy based on law, not fickle public opinion.

I refuse to watch TV, but I hear the news; some weird guy in a poorly fitting suit with an annoying high-pitched voice is yelling, “he’s underwater.” I’m outraged. Why isn’t he in jail? “He’s tanking by 53 percent,” as if we’re talking about the popularity of shitty orange bubble gum as opposed to sugar-free Dentine? Let me correct your memory, idiot. We're talking about a criminal who, on the morning of February 28, ordered a military strike that killed 156 people, mostly young girls and their teachers, at the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Iran. Why isn't he on trial in The Hague? The "American flag blue" paint peeling off the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool wasn’t a contractor’s mistake or a sign of dementia. He’s insane. Where are the real doctors who’ve given him a clean bill of health? He tells us the lie that kids in grade school are subject to sex reassignment surgery (there are zero) and that Mitch McConnell is doing pool yoga in rehab, but you, “legacy media,” refuse to ask how Brain-Dead Mitch engineered the Republican takeover of the Supreme Court. He got away with it, and, hard as it is to believe at this point, he’s still in elected office. You are complicit.

We’ve become idiots. It’s not important whether or not I support his trailer trash interior decorating, or that only 28% of the voting population still support him. I don’t care if gas costs more than 5 dollars a gallon. The cost of gas in France, converted from liters and Euros is $9.60. He’s already escaped impeachment twice. He's also destroyed NATO and ruined one of the most resilient economies the world has ever seen because he paid a smart kid to take his exams at Fordham and Wharton. It doesn’t matter if 99.9 % of the world thinks it’s an open question. No one checked the facts. He paid Stormy Daniels and molested E. Jean Carroll, but apparently that’s OK for a rich guy compensating for what the Lord didn’t give him. Quoting his hooker wife, we don’t care about locker room talk with Jeffrey Epstein, whose number is not in her phone, as long as Alan Dershowitz swears on a stack of Bibles that he did get a massage but kept his underwear on. Oh, yes, it’s an open secret that Melania got paid for sex work, but like other people of that income bracket, she no longer actually does the dirty work herself, but still wears the heels. Come on! She may have the title First Lady, but the receipts still exist.

Poor Susan or Nancy thought I’d tell them where I stood on these important matters and become a statistic so that the guy jumping around CNN had more up-to-the-minute numbers proving that Trump’s tanked.

There’s plenty of blame to go around. I’m not excusing anyone, myself included. But if I’m going to go down with the ship, I’m not singing the Star-Spangled Banner. I’ll still be screaming that he never was a stable genius. Wake up, America.

Feed the hungry ghosts! Stop feeding greed!

2026-09-09T22:24:17.312+05:30

I was part of more Zen ceremonies to appease hungry ghosts than seems reasonable for one struggling human. For five years, food offerings, incense, and chanting were part of every funeral during the AIDS pandemic at Maitri Hospice and Hartford Street Zen Center, and we did more than our share. Our procession included plates of fruit, sweets, and tea, as well as the ashes of the poor soul, appropriate gongs, bells, drums, rattles, and weird noise makers. The incense burner was chock full of the sweetest incense over thick glowing charcoal,

Haloween

October 29th, 2011

Tonight the Castro will be crawling with lots of hot guys all dressed up. Included will be ghouls and ghosts of Halloweens past, present, and future! To mark the event, I am republishing a post I wrote for "spiritually incorrect" several years ago.

Years ago, our PZI meditation group worked with the koan, Save the Ghost. I began my own investigation by examining, with the true dharma eye, some of the more domesticated members of the ghost family—the ones hidden in my closet—spiritual versions of the Adams family, though with more insidious, annoying, painful bugs and tricks, plus a big dose of Freud.

This morning, as I was settling into my comfortable routine, checking email and editing yesterday’s writing, a far more vicious and pervasive monster trumped onto the stage, a Godzilla on steroids breathing fire hot enough to destroy little ol' me and my fantasy world with one big blow. It made its entrance with the announcement that the United States Senate could not find the votes, being too distracted by other important matters, making it "impossible" to pass any legislation to curb the continuing environmental degradation of the planet we all share. Hell no!

Actions speak louder than words! I’m issuing an immediate attention action alert to all Buddhists: Feed the hungry ghosts! Stop feeding greed! Remember that greed is not outside you or me. Own it or die.

Firstly, the oil spill, then the hand-wringing, then the brouhaha, then today the news that Congress will not pass an environmental bill (you’re kidding, right?), then the conflagration of billions of dollars of wealth (well, they say it’s just on paper—until you have to pay the grocer) in milliseconds because we have learned to grab so fast!

My mind- no, my gut drags me into dark thoughts about the greed that seems embedded in our culture, in the artifacts of modern life. We have created these monsters that feed on our greedy dark side. Starve them to death, or at least put them on Jenny Craig, which might be worse.

The Buddhist world has traditional remedies for dealing with powerful ghosts. Christian mythology has fallen angels to contend with. In Buddhism, these nasty, powerful beast-gods, through the power of blessed bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment, convert to the Way and become our guardians. The well-known Mahakala is this black protector with four arms and dripping skulls cinched round its belly.

My attention has recently been so focused on meditation and the images we use, hold, carry, and create that I searched for images of hungry ghosts. Almost immediately, I began to imagine that maybe I could concoct my own magical Tibetan-style visualization to help start the letting go, stamping out the destructive little mind.

I don't have much more to say. I’m just throwing my thought-concerns into the fire of the koan, along with some images that grabbed me. Am I done?

I found images of our phantoms and then tried to match them with what other Buddhist cultures have created by way of appeasements.

No, there is more! And yes, when I said, “other.” I came to the sudden realization that we spend far too much time whining and groaning, complaining and attacking the "other," trying to get some Asian recipe right as if that would save our skin. Goddamn, shut up, eat your hamburgers, eat your tofu burgers, then sit-stand-shout, “Thanks, ancestors, now here’s what we’re going to do.” We have to fill in the blanks ourselves.

America stands at the center of this man-made crisis. Are we going to be responsible? Or are we going to duck for cover under lovely Buddhist robes? The choice is ours, not some god's.

I could get behind creating new American Buddhist rituals to appease our hungry ghosts, though that is just a place to start. Don't let religion fool you. Actions have to equal words, even solemnly chanted ones.

When I speak of rituals for exorcising hungry ghosts, I’m not talking about Halloween in the Castro, though that might be a good place to start. Yeah, wait a minute. It certainly packs some powerful antidotes. We can't let tight-assed practice squeeze all the fun out of ritual. There's already way too much suffering.

I have even more to say. Another time.

The verse is from: “In the Cave of Sister Mary Kevin, Ursuline”

Alok asked me about priest-craft—
appeasing hungry ghosts with big bellies,
tight mouths, and one might presume assholes,
not to mention pussies. Forgive me, Sister.

The antidote contains no eyes, no ears, no tongue,
no body, no mind, no assholes
no thought, no perception, no old age, no ending of old age and death
—and no sex. You know that practice, Sister.

I knew, or at least said, more than I ought.
Phil told me that the rite was no more than sleight of hand:
chocolate, cardamom tea, ripe kiwis,
none of it really satisfying or nourishing.

Hungry ghosts think it’s dinner.
Anything looks like dinner when you’re starving.
Big bellies and big ears arise simultaneously –
evidence, your pictures of starving children in the Sudan.
Trick them. Stuff them with dharma.

No bellies. I know about greed firsthand.

_________________________

HAUNTING THE BUDDHA: INDIAN POPULAR RELIGIONS AND THE FORMATION OF BUDDHISM.

By Robert DeCaroli. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. 230.

ISBN 0-19-516838-0.

This intriguing book proposes that one reason Buddhism gained popularity in India after the royal patronage that propelled it into prominence in the centuries following Ashoka collapsed was the connection it forged with the local populace by building a reputation for subduing and converting bothersome spirit-deities to Buddhism. DeCaroli’s source material consists of texts and, equally prominently, Buddhist sculpture. This volume continues a trend in Buddhist studies, highlighted by the work of G. Schopen, to look beyond the moral and philosophical systematics that dominated Buddhist studies for a century and a half toward the material culture of Buddhism, a project that provides a much-needed and more accurate depiction of Buddhism as a multidimensional religion. Beyond the immediate confines of DeCaroli’s project, this volume sheds light on the deep historical precedents for converting negative spirits into positive ones in both Buddhism and Hinduism, an activity that remains fairly widespread today in the popular religious cultures of India, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia. While DeCaroli’s skills as an art historian clearly surpass his philological skills, this is nevertheless a well-balanced account of a unique development in the history of Buddhism. This welcome and accessible volume should ﬁnd a place in an array of courses on Buddhism.

Frederick M. Smith, University of Iowa

"Mindfulness is Not a Part-Time Job."

2026-09-08T10:54:49.739+05:30

A Dharma talk given by Issan Dorsey Roshi

Originally posted on 1/13/2012

This transcript appeared in the newsletter of the Gay Buddhist Fellowship in January of 1995, four years and five months after his death.

From Allen Ginsberg's collection

The other day, somebody asked me: “Are you always working on something?” Yes, we're all always working on something, but hopefully not up here in our heads, where lots of words obscure it.

I was talking with a friend about how useful it is to me to work with the phrase “coming to reside in your breath-mind.” I’d been thinking a lot about it. It was so interesting that I thought I’d never really heard it before and was just beginning to use it, but then I realized that it has been with me since I first started practicing; I'd just actually heard it deeply.

It’s a whole way of working with your mind in your Zazen.

I hope you won’t have to wait 20 years to start hearing how to work with this thing we call the mind. People who come to practice today immediately sit much more easily than we did years ago when I first began to sit at Sokoji Temple. I remember everyone sitting with their legs bent up for five minutes, then we’d lie down and moan. Now people come, and it’s like we already did that part for them. It’s almost like we have a shared body that has already gone through that preliminary stuff; people can already experience some aspect of Zazen practice and how we do it together. But we still have to be willing to explore and experiment.

First, we need a sense of humor and a willingness to explore and experiment with our lives and our discomfort. Sometimes we can sit for a few minutes, or even a few days, but at some point it gets pretty uncomfortable. It’s also uncomfortable for us not to invite our thoughts to tea and reside in our breath-mind.

“Don’t invite your thoughts to tea” is Suzuki-roshi’s expression, which I’ve always found useful. They are just words, and we have to remember that every human concept is just delusion. Still, we use words and need them to talk about our experience at least provisionally.

Lately I have been exploring this way of thinking with a friend who has AIDS dementia; the virus is living in his brain. I’m thinking about it, working on it, and talking with him because the virus that is attacking so many of us now ends up in the brain. Is there some way for us to experience that? I don’t know yet. My question is: how to be with people who have dementia, and how to experience dementia? We all have it anyway. It’s called delusion. Mind is always creating confusion, joy and pain, "like" and "don’t like," depression. But there is also a “background mind.” That is what my friend and I have been discussing.

Sometimes when I’m talking about this uncomfortableness, I talk about the five fears. One of them is the fear of unusual states of mind. How can we come to appreciate and respect this fear, rather than resist it? Can we enter our fear and allow new areas of uncomfortableness? When we can enter each of these new spaces, we can begin to look at truthfulness.

Why do we have to sit? Really, there’s no reason to sit. If we’re completely sincere, then there’s no reason to sit. But I’m not completely sincere, so I have to keep sitting to check. Even if we’re involved with unskillful actions, the one quality we should strive for is truthfulness. Truthfulness takes a total commitment to see all aspects of ourselves and our unskillfulness. If we can embrace the totality of ourselves, we can embrace the totality of others and of the world. We tend to think about things before we do them. When we see a beautiful flower, we say, “Oh, what a beautiful flower,” but “beautiful flower” is extra. Just look at the flower “with no trace.”

Suzuki-roshi wrote, “When we practice Zazen, our mind is calm and quite simple. But usually our mind is very busy and complicated, and it is difficult to concentrate on what we are doing.” This is because when we act, we think, and this thinking leaves some trace. Our activity is shadowed by some preconceived idea. The traces and notions make our mind very complicated. When we do something with a simple, clear mind, we have no shadows, and our activity is strong and straightforward.

Even with Zazen practice, it gets so complicated. We’re dissecting every aspect of what’s going on, reviewing and comparing. How do we keep it simple and straightforward? How do we come to know this basic truth of practice and Buddhism? The teaching and the rules can and should change according to the situation and the people we’re practicing with, but the secret of practice cannot be changed. It’s always true.

We teach ourselves and encourage ourselves by creating this space, this meditation hall, so we can begin looking at our minds. “Don’t invite your thoughts to tea.” “Where is your breath-mind?” I used to say, allow this kind of mind to arise. But now I’m saying, create "background-mind."

This practice is simple: watch your breaths and don’t invite your thoughts to tea. But not inviting your thoughts to tea doesn’t mean getting rid of thinking. That is discrimination. There’s no reason to get rid of thoughts; rather, have some blank, non-interfering relationship with them. Don’t make your mind go blank; rather, have a blank relationship with your thoughts. Begin to see the space behind and around the thoughts, and shift the seat of your identity out of your thoughts and come to reside in your breath-mind. We develop our intention to reside in our breath-mind by first bringing our intention to “breath as mind,” and then by shifting the seat of our identity from our thoughts to our breath.

This all ties in with how we use this space, this laboratory. We should be willing to explore with our lives, and this is our laboratory right here—how we use the meditation hall and how we use what happens outside of it. Mindfulness is not a part-time job.

If you want to see more about the life and teaching of this remarkable man, please visit: "The Record of Issan."

Half a Life Ago

2026-09-06T22:26:34.652+05:30

It was almost exactly 38 years ago to the day that Issan welcomed me into the Zendo on Hartford Street. In about an hour and 10 minutes, he taught me everything I needed to practice Zazen, as indicated by Dogen Zenji, Suzuki Roshi, & Richard Baker Roshi.

I was in the midst of a personal crisis. By Labor Day, it was clear that my 19-year relationship was coming to a painful end. Though my partner and I still slept in the same bed, it seemed like months since I'd been able to sleep through the night. By 5 AM, I was awake, restless, and agitated.

I’d heard that there was a meditation hall of some kind in the Castro. I either asked around or looked it up in the phone book (we still had them in 1988). A few minutes before 6 AM on a grey morning, I went down a few concrete steps on the right side of a small garden at 57 Hartford Street, opened a creaky door, and found myself alone in a small meditation hall. I took off my shoes and sat on a black cushion nearest the door in case I needed to escape quickly and quietly. I’d sat before, even done a few day-long retreats with a Theravadin teacher, but that had been at least a decade earlier.

At 6 sharp, I heard a few clacks, sounding like a wooden hammer, and another creaky door opening at the top of some narrow stairs that lead up to the first floor. A small man with a bald head slowly came down carrying a stick of incense. He seemed a bit frail, but he moved with grace and purpose. When he got to my seat, he bent down, smiled, and said quietly, “We sit facing the wall in this zendo.” I dutifully turned around. Then I heard bells and shuffling. A while later, I heard him get up, and within a few minutes I felt his index finger run gently down my spine. Immediately, something shifted in the way I was holding my lower back. Then, after some more time, there was another bell. I stood up, and Issan motioned for me to stand to his left. He handed me a card covered in plastic with a whole series of syllables.

He bowed nine times, and I followed. Then he did the whole service himself, lightly moving from drum to bell to altar, lighting incense and chanting those weird syllables. I had no idea what he was doing, but he moved with such grace and ease that I felt entirely comfortable. Then we bowed three more times. He bent down and folded up a strange cloth he’d placed on the floor; he looked at me and smiled. Then he said, “Don’t worry. If you keep coming back, it gets easier.

He disappeared upstairs, and I let myself out. I did keep coming back. There were a few more people most times. My sitting became steadier, more grounded. I learned when to bow and a few other things. A few of the chants also became easier to follow. When I joined the 6 PM sitting, I learned the Heart Sutra in English.

But looking back, there was absolutely nothing missing from Issan’s Zazen introduction: Do what you’re told, even if initially it seems to make no sense. Sit as straight as possible. Pay attention to your spine. Relax. Don't wiggle. Bow whenever you hear a bell and see others bowing. Watch the more experienced people during the service. Be respectful. Smile. Keep coming back. It did get easier.

Issan didn’t hug me and kiss my cheek that morning. He probably didn’t want to scare me off.

Oh, Issan, you were wonderful. Thank you.

Sex, Gossip, Religion? Can We Talk?

2026-09-06T07:13:44.008+05:30

Originally published Thursday, November 18, 2021

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.–Carl Jung

I feel like I just stepped onto the set of "The View" and have been put on the spot for talking about priests, gurus, illicit sex, and sexual molestation. These words, coupled with the name of God, fling open the doors to intrigue, power, domination, manipulation, and forbidden pleasures. Has calling forth these dark forces stymied any ethical guidance?

Recently, a trusted friend stung me with criticism. She felt that some of my writing about the sexual behavior of teachers and students whom we both knew and had had some relationship with–Buddhists, Enneagram enthusiasts, meditators–verged on ‘gossip '–her words. Further, it gave fodder for some within our loose-knit community to lob attacks and discredit opposing positions. She felt that just talking about it might discourage people from undertaking the hard work of introspection, self-analysis, and meditation, which we’d like to encourage. And I also suspect that my friend feels the criticism is unfair on some level. This is the way of the world.

For me, with my Jesuit streak, this raises some thorny ethical questions. I know I have to discuss these issues openly, including my personal experience, but I want to avoid gossip and honor the confidence of friends and others I’ve known and worked with. I reject any underlying assumption that this situation is “the way of the world” and that we should be mute because some larger, more important matters are at stake.

In this essay, I will look at some of the implications of accusations of sexual misconduct, gossip, and spiritual practice. But first, I have to look at the conversations themselves and try to distinguish between gossip and real situations open to analysis and criticism.

Gossip is the “casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.”

In our current culture, it’s very politically, morally, and even spiritually “correct” to talk about the consequences of sexual conduct, especially if it’s misconduct. These conversations have their own cachet and rules. But this is nothing new, is it? Every religion on the face of the earth spends a considerable part of its capital trying to corral the impulses of the lower centers, legislate sexual behavior, and devise punishments for those who stray.

One of the main reasons for the #metoo movement, including digging into the egregious behavior of many in the formal institutions of religion, is that for generations, negotiating these tricky moral areas was secret; it was never talked about in polite conversations. No matter the consequences, even challenging the wisdom of saints, there is widespread public support for this type of investigation. When the Sainted John-Paul turned a blind eye to the sins of some men in his workforce, the lid blew off.

John-Paul allowed priests who molested boys and young men to remain in positions where they could continue to abuse. The church admits no error when it comes to declaring saints, but other consequences follow when this kind of conversation breaks loose and creates its own weather system. Humans love a good stoning when the clouds begin to threaten our comfortable sunny afternoon–especially if the miscreants appear to be having their cake [bought for them] and eating it, too. We’re talking about a tabloid version of the Salem witch trials with an emphasis on sleaze.

These are factual cases of unethical behavior and, as in the case of my own abuse, criminal behavior. There’s a lot of blame, from the butcher, the baker, to the candlestick maker. Michel Foucault argues that surveillance and punishment are part of a technology that poisons institutions from the top down. I will leave that analysis for a later discussion. For now, it is enough to note that the sins of pedophile priests are at least partially shifted to the institutional mechanisms that allow them to function and, more importantly, continue in positions of authority after they’ve been discovered.

Any slowing of monetary support forces hard questions about how a religious institution spends its political capital. If donations erode, is any revision or qualification possible? There’s a tendency for an institution, an organization, or a church to sweep this kind of behavior under the rug, particularly when exposure endangers a stream of income.

I have encountered this criticism: you were raped, but it happened 40 years ago. Get over it. The pain caused by the trauma is as much a result of my inability to move on and deal with my issues as it was Bob Hoffman’s fault for abusing one of his clients in Psychic Therapy. When a senior teacher of the Hoffman Process told me that I should move on, that it was only the result of my “patterns,” he was gaslighting me. The definition of gaslighting is to “manipulate (someone) by psychological means into doubting their sanity.” He wanted me to shut up, which is the response of a cult follower with zero integrity.

There are several other characteristics of this conversation about sexual abuse in spiritual groups that I’d like to highlight.

This conversation about clergy sexual abuse is, for the most part, taking place in rich, privileged parts of the world. But it is also privileged in other ways. Privileged describes a person as having special or unique advantages and opportunities. When used to describe a position in a conversation, analysis, or controversy, it points to an unfair advantage: insisting on a position because of the speaker's status rather than the merit of their cause.

It is a conversation of privilege in that the main actors are men and, in terms of “privileging” the conversation, the conversation deals with men in power. In a study, “Female Sexual Assault Perpetrators,” we see that only recently has any attention been paid to female offenders. They exist, of course, but the conversations we are dealing with only involve male perpetrators.

Whether by rank, authority of position, or what I will call “privileged knowledge,” a dominant voice shapes the conversation. People apply different moral indicators when dealing with clergy members, gurus, or spiritual teachers. Time-honored demarcations of power and authority that accompany sexual restrictions and practices are normally unquestioned. This complicates the discussion.

The issue of misogyny: the conversations in the Catholic Church have been focused on male clergy because the actors are male and clergy. The conversation is skewed by a strong undercurrent of misogyny also present. Some indicators would be the differences in the level of condemnation between men and women listeners; the conversation is also prejudiced by their high level of homophobia.

Let's look at some other characteristics of these conversations.

The conversation can quickly be shut down as gossip because it involves private behavior. For example, what happens in secret, in the bedroom, automatically becomes hearsay. When some secretly recorded tapes were circulated of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, "Uncle Teddy,” seducing seminarians at his private beach house, I posted them to a group of primarily heterosexual former Jesuits. The response was “just crickets.” Actually, they were so explicit and damning that most of the group just didn’t believe that they could be true. After a two-year Vatican investigation, McCarrick was defrocked. The crickets had been speaking loudly, but for my listeners, they spoke a coded language.
[Members of this group, some at great personal risk, tried to get this information to the Papal Nuncio as far back as 2011. If it made it to his desk, he forwarded it to Vatican bureaucrats who buried it for at least another decade, waiting for McCarrick's million-dollar checks to clear the Banco Ambrosiano.]Another indicator that the private nature of most behaviors prejudices the conversation is the evidence of widespread victim blaming. When a few victims of molestation by priests began to come forward, one of the most complex obstacles to highlighting the severity of the problem was the reluctance of other victims to speak openly, given that the abuse was sexual and, for the most part, homosexual.

There are divergent views of what is acceptable sexual behavior. The social norms in the gay community, and what is expected of a parish priest, a monk, or the leader of a New Age Spiritual Community, are quite different. Gender, marital status, age, race, level of education, income level, and sexual orientation all play a role in how severely or leniently we judge sexual misconduct.

There are even cases where sexual conduct outside the norm is excused because it is outside the norm. In an interview with Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove, Claudio Naranjo gave Swami Muktananda a free pass for breaking his religious vows: “My own interpretation of him is that he was playing the role of a saint according to Western ideals, or to cultural ideals in general. I think he was a saint in the real sense, which has nothing to do with that. For instance, it's the popular idea that a saint has no sexual life, and he was playing the role of a Brahmacharya, which I think was part of a cultural mission he was on: to be an educator on a large scale. It was fitting that he did that role, and my own evaluation of him is that he was clean because he was not a lecher. He had a healthy sexual life. . . . “ In this regard, Claudio was far too optimistic. Although Muktananda retained some following, both in India and internationally, his sex life did not help his “cultural mission to be an educator on a large scale.” He proved unworthy of the kind of trust that is required for a spiritual teacher to function. But given Claudio’s logic, again it is the fault of those of us who are uneducated rather than "the one who knows," who is enlightened or has some special knowledge.

In my view, Naranjo also had a wildly exaggerated evaluation of the role of the trickster in a spiritual teacher–the devious nature of our egos can only be highlighted when we are tricked, or forced, into seeing our personality types, our behaviors, attitudes, and mindsets, and their consequences by unorthodox methods. This led him to place undue confidence in psychics like Bob Hoffman, Ann Armstrong, or Helen Palmer, and fourth-way teachers such as E.J. Gold and Henry Korman, who were bullies. This prejudice also tended to blur or excuse any sexual misconduct on the part of the male psychics or teachers.

People also tend to compartmentalize and separate the offense from other qualities, events, and teachings that they value. This includes both those who are not directly affected by the abuse as well as the victims. A Zen priest told me that he felt Katagiri Roshi “got a bad rap” because Katagiri had been an important positive influence during a particularly difficult period of the priest’s training. Katagiri, a married man and Zen teacher, had sex with students, but in the subjective evaluation of my friend, the Roshi had other qualities that outweighed sexual misconduct. In my own case, I refused to acknowledge the damage that Hoffman caused because he was part of a radical change in my life.

False equivalences ignore and/or exaggerate both similarities and differences. The distortion is particularly confusing and pernicious when it suggests that there is a moral equivalence between two or more things that are being equated–in the Katagiri case, individual sexual misconduct and teaching meditation, or in the case of Hoffman Process, the pervasive influence of parental conditioning and my personal transference to Hoffman, who was my therapist and counselor.

In summary, these conversations about sexual abuse are not gossip. They are not casual or unconstrained, nor are they easy to categorize. However, no matter the particular case, Catholic, New Age, or Buddhist, they all seem to contain several of these characteristics:

They take place in rich, privileged parts of the world, but they are also privileged because the main actors are men.
These are factual cases. For generations, they were kept secret, but now open discussion has widespread public support.
They have developed their own cachet and particular rules.
They erode public support for institutions; they undermine the authority of teachers.
The conversations themselves are privileged because the speaker's status is used to support a position or the perpetrator.
Some conversations are hard to understand because they use coded language.
They are prejudiced by misogyny as well as a high level of homophobia.
There is also evidence of widespread victim-blaming.
There are many divergent views of what is acceptable sexual behavior. People apply different moral indicators when dealing with clergy members, gurus, and spiritual teachers.
People compartmentalize. The arguments contain many false equivalences that ignore and/or exaggerate similarities and differences when discussing cases.

Agatha Christie, through her gossip detective Miss Marple, makes a strong case for collecting useful information by paying attention to the whispers and tell-tale signs of bad behavior. Marple entered the exclusively male realm of English detective fiction as a female outsider whose methodology veered from the careful Aristotelian observation of, for example, Sherlock Holmes. I might argue along with Christie that what is commonly called rumor or innuendo is sometimes the only reliable source for gathering key information about bad behavior and holding people to account. Some would even argue that dominant male actors created the blanket prohibition against gossip and gossiping to protect themselves.

What next? Is there a way to step out of a black-and-white set of responses and look at the situation differently? Maybe we already have. We’ve been forced to–a fact not yet recognized, accepted, or fully understood.

I'm a Yellow Dog Democrat. Let’s get rid of those Blue Dog Democrat Do-Nothings.

2026-09-03T07:34:15.593+05:30

For the record, originally posted on Facebook, 9/1/2026

Concerning your pissy little etymologically correct argument about being called the “Democrat Party” by the Orange Asshole, shove it where the Sun don’t shine. In 1994, more than 30 years ago, you argued for a less boisterous, more economically elegant party leadership. More in tune with the ideals of liberal democracy, which traces its pedigree back to John Locke. Four presidential administrations later, two Republican and two “Democratic,” you managed to hobble both Clinton and Obama, whose combined IQ was higher than today’s entire GOP caucus. And they certainly had more spine. You can’t even defeat Mitch McConnell, who apparently can still fight his way out of a body bag, much less the paper bag. Wet cardboard is your sparring partner.

I lived, worked, studied, and was active in Massachusetts politics when I was a young man. They just voted to continue supporting the nursing home residents' consulting council. I worked in California Democratic politics for many years. We’re no better. Poor Diane died in office, barely able to sit upright or speak coherently. Nancy retired her Rolodex of big donors, and is apparently ready to hand it off to a new generation. But did anyone think about who they might train instead of their legacy? Not from the look of our choices. 

Am I being ageist? I am 82. Not only do I think that no one my age should make decisions for the world. I know it. 

But, but you say the other guys are doing it. OK, set a mandatory retirement age of 65-66 for every officeholder in the Republic. That's what the actuarial tables for Social Security recommend, except the oligarchs who keep raking it in for as long as they can sit upright and shake their heads from right to left. Maybe I hit on something. That’s the operative table: how much can a person my age rake in? It certainly seems to be the M.O. of the current Idiot-in-Charge.

Reading the Parables of Jesus as Koans.

2026-09-01T20:13:32.821+05:30

My Scriptural justification for reading certain passages from Holy Writ as koans!

Matthew 13:11-12

“Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 13 This is why I speak to them in parables: Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”

Matthew 13:52

“He said to them, ‘Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.’”

In less than a decade, by most reckoning, we will mark two thousand years since the death of Jesus. I mention that not because I am counting the years for any particular purpose, but more to emphasize that over these many millennia the emphasis that Christians place on various aspects of his teaching has changed. It is quite clear that most early Christians in the first hundred years expected the Second Coming, and when that didn’t happen as quickly as expected, they began to refocus, and some would argue, radically alter the Teaching of the early communities.

An Indian Buddhist friend has just transferred to a University in America’s Bible Belt. Of course, some of his new friends and classmates there have encouraged him to start reading the Bible. Manik is finding some of the language and imagery jarring. I am a Christian by birth and have spent many years as a Jesuit. When I read passages from the Gospels now, the canonical ones as well as the Gnostic sources, but also the Hebrew Bible, with the possible exception of some of the prophetic writings, I find it jarring too.

But when I read one of the parables of Jesus that Manik mentioned, the Parable of the Tares, as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13, I thought, oh, why don’t I read this as if it were a koan? If I am going to demand that Christians give up some of the unyielding ideology of their belief systems, why not try to delve into the parts of the tradition that still speak to me, or where I suspect that there might be some treasure?

The early followers of Jesus were very clear about one teaching: the Kingdom of God is at hand. When it didn’t appear in a way they might have recognized in the early sayings of Jesus, they transformed their hope, looked for the Kingdom with fresh eyes, and took action. They realized that this process itself was as endless and as boundless as the love they saw in Christ Jesus. They began to see the Kingdom wherever and whenever it appeared, and they made it appear when only they could envision it. That place is always right here. That moment is always right now.

The Great American Delusion

2026-09-01T09:34:09.590+05:30

Americans have been subjected to religious indoctrination almost from the very beginning of our great experiment by Divines with shoddy religious training, and we’ve paid big bucks for it. We suffered two Great Awakenings that produced some of the most outrageous and hypocritical religious movements seen since the Roman Senate decreed that Julius Caesar deserved a cult statue, and a temple shared with the goddess Clementia. Mark Antony was appointed as his priest, and Caesar was to be invoked under the name Jupiter Julius. What are we going to call Rex Donald? His Divine “whatever-I-can-lick-grope-steal-and-get-away-with " Holiness?

The Evangelical Bible-thumping of our beloved forebears is the root of the religious sham afoot today. And the New Age is not exempt! “Teachers” of MacMinfulness, hucksters with a full hundred hours of meditation training under their various colored robes, earn a certificate, and charge big bucks for some humbo jumbo gibberish, laced with tongue-twisting cliches designed to anesthetize those of us subjected to the demands of a dehumanizing corporate culture that has made profit the Golden Calf.

Read Elmer Gantry, the 1927 American satirical novel by Sinclair Lewis, which satirizes religious activity in evangelistic circles and public attitudes toward it during the 1920s. It was banned in Boston. The novel centers on Elmer Gantry, an ambitious, corrupt minister who rises to prominence in the Methodist Church despite his hypocrisy, sexual misconduct, and opportunism.

Lewis researched the novel in 1926 with the assistance of the Unitarian minister Leon Milton Birkhead, a former Methodist whose knowledge of American religious life helped shape the work. May I suggest that this might be the next worthwhile spiritual foray for James Ismael Ford?

The head of Donald Trump’s religious office is televangelist and pastor Paula White-Cain. I’ve written about her elsewhere: Call it by its correct name: Lying. “Don’t believe a word coming out of the mouth of Rev. Paula White-Cain or Bishop Robert Emmet Patrick Barron!”

The forked-tongue Bishop Baron ought to shut his filthy mouth and study the career of soon-to-be-canonized Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. Sheen knew five languages: Greek, German, Italian, Latin, and French. He spoke French, Italian, and Latin fluently. He studied at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, where his coursework was entirely in French and Latin, and he even practiced television scripts in French and Italian. Biographers noted that he was so comfortable with Latin that he naturally "thought in Latin".He had a reading/working knowledge of Greek and German, which he used heavily in his academic and philosophical studies.

After 6 years of seminary training required for ordination, he pursued an additional five years of rigorous higher education to prepare for his intellectual mission in the Church: He earned a Doctor of Canon Law degree in 1920 in one year from The Catholic University of America; after three years at the Catholic University of Leuven he earned a PhD in Philosophy by 1923; he studied in Rome for another year, earning a Doctor of Sacred Theology in 1924 from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. He authored over 70 books.

Bishop Baron can’t get his tongue out of The Divine Pussy-Grabbing Holiness’s asshole long enough to quote our Dear Lord’s sayings correctly or learn the values Fulton Sheen espoused in his modern rendition of the Teaching: “Life is Worth Living.”

Wildflowers

2026-08-26T11:19:32.710+05:30

Song by Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt ‧ 1987

The hills were alive with wildflowers and I

Was as wild, even wilder than they

For at least I could run

They just died in the sun

And I refused to just wither in place

Just a wild mountain rose

Needing freedom to grow

So I ran fearing not where I'd go

When a flower grows wild

It can always survive

Wildflowers don't care where they grow

And the flowers I knew

In the fields where I grew

Were content to be lost in the crowd

They were common and close

I had no room for growth

And I wanted so much to branch out

So I uprooted myself from my home ground and left

Took my dreams and I took to the road

When a flower grows wild

It can always survive

Wildflowers don't care where they grow

I grew up fast and wild

And I never felt right

In a garden so different from me

I just never belonged

I just longed to be gone

So the garden one day set me free

I hitched a ride with the wind

And since he was my friend

I just let him decide where we'd go

When a flower grows wild

It can always survive

Wildflowers don't care where they grow

Just a wild rambling rose seeking mysteries untold

No regret for the path that I chose

When a flower grows wild

It can always survive

Wildflowers don't care where they grow

https://youtu.be/rlbDaY7UFD4?si=ENlloj6POzL_f4Ye

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Dolly Parton

Wildflowers lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Jesuit Zen Roshis, a Roster

2026-08-26T01:41:43.059+05:30

Several questions about Jesuits authorized to teach Zen meditation led me to put together this roster:

Zen and the Birds of Appetite was my first exposure to Zen when I was in the Jesuits. Even though it seemed very esoteric to my very doctrinaire way of thinking, it made a powerful impression. When Pedro Arrupe became the General of the Society, I wondered why he did his meditation on a zafu, and that led me to discover the role of Father Enomiya-Lassalle, who, in 1979, was the first of several Jesuits to have his realization authenticated by his teacher, Yamada Kōun (though because of the time and place, it was not initially made public).

Almost two decades ago, while Tom Marshall was alive, I examined the letters Francis Xavier sent to Ignatius of Loyola between 1546-1548 describing his encounter with a Zen Master, whom he calls Nixnit. It is the first recorded meeting between a Christian priest and a Zen monk. Here is a link to my rather lengthy paper, Buddha S.J.:

At the time, I said that this encounter almost made it inevitable that a few Jesuits in the future would find their way into a zendo.

I began my list of Jesuit Zen masters with Father Lassalle, who is the first in this lineage. Four have been publicly authorized to teach. Other Catholic religious have finished their koan training, most notably Father Pat Hawk C.Ss.R., Bob Aitken’s heir, and the Benedictine monk Willigis Jäger, who was also Yamada’s student. Father Kennedy, in Maezumi Roshi’s lineage, has also given transmission to Kevin Hunt Sensei, a Trappist monk from St. Joseph's Abbey at Spencer, Mass., a sister monastery of Merton’s Gethsemani.

Yamada Kōun also gave transmission to Sister Elaine MacInnes, a member of the Canadian order of Our Lady’s Missionaries. I associate her with the Jesuit Zen Masters because of her friendship with Father Lassalle, and because she began sitting with Lassalle in his zendo at Shinmeikutsu when she first went to Japan.

I cannot even guess where their Zen practice will lead; I hope their work will open and enrich the spiritual lives of many people.

Jesuit Roshis, senseis, scholars and other meditation teachers:

Father Hugo Makibi Enomiya-Lassalle, S.J., Roshi (1898–1990). In 1956, Enomiya-Lassalle began studying Zen with Harada Daiun Sogaku. Following Harada's death in 1961, Enomiya-Lassalle became an apprentice of one of Harada's students, Yamada Kōun. Yamada authorized Father LaSalle to teach independently in 1969.

Father Heinrich Dumoulin, S.J. (1905 – 1995). Father Dumoulin was never authorized to teach the formal practice of Zen, but his scholarly work has influenced the progress of Zen in the West probably more than any other historian of religion.

Father William Thomas G. Hand, S.J. (1920 - 2005). Yamada formally accepted Father Hand as his student and worked with him for seven or eight years. However, when Hand decided not to complete his formal koan training and instead return to the United States to establish the East-West Center at the Mercy Center in Burlingame, California, Yamada gave him his “blessing.”

Father Niklaus Brantschen, S.J., Roshi. In 1988, Yamada Roshi gave him “teaching competence.” In 1999, he received "inka shōmei" from Tetsugen Bernard Glassman Roshi.

Rubén L. F. Hábito (born c. 1947) is a Filipino Zen Rōshi of the Sanbō Kyōdan lineage. Yamada Kōun gave him dharma transmission in 1989 while he was still a Jesuit. After he left the Jesuits in 1989, he founded the Maria Kannon Zen Center in 1991, a lay organization in Dallas, Texas.

Father William Johnson, S.J. (30 July 1925 — 12 October 2010) was an Irish Jesuit influenced by Shigeto Oshida and later practiced Zen under the guidance of Yamada Kōun. Johnson insisted on continuing to recite the Jesus Prayer despite Yamada's contrary instructions, which ended their master-disciple relationship. He later met Bernard Lonergan, and further study of Lonergan influenced him. (I am almost certain that I was also at that summer session at Boston College that Lonergan taught in 1968). He had many Jesuit disciples practicing his hybrid Zen-Christian mystical prayer.

Father Gregory Meyers, C.Ss.R., Roshi, was authorized by Yamada’s son, Yamada Ryôun Roshi. I mention him because he took over the Zendo at Mercy Center in Burlingame from Father William Thomas Hand, S.J.

Father Kakichi Kadowaki, S.J., Roshi (1926 - 2017). Father Kadowaki practiced Zen under both Yamada Roshi and Omori Sogen. He achieved authorization as a Zen master (Roshi) from the Rinzai Master Sogen. He wrote “Zen and the Bible.”

Father Robert Edward Jinsen Kennedy, S.J., Roshi (born June 20, 1933), is in Maezumi Roshi’s White Plum Asanga. He was a student of both Yamada and Maezumi. Tetsugen Bernard Glassman Roshi gave him formal inka in 1997.

Brother Tom Marshall, S.J. (1922 - 2010). Tom was ordained a Soto priest by Les Kaye, Roshi, at Kannon Do in Los Altos and completed koan training with Gempo Roshi in Utah. Tom never formally taught; though, in many ways, like Issan Dorsey Roshi, he taught me all I needed to know to practice Zen wholeheartedly.

Father Ama Samy, S.J., Gen'un-ken, Roshi, received authorization to teach from Yamada Roshi in 1989.

Father Mathew Cyril Antony, S.J., Jnana Bodhi Ken, Roshi, is a dharma heir of Father Samy. Father Anthony runs Bodhi “Little Flower” Zendo, which Father Samy established in Tamil Nadu, India.

_______________

Additions (after I posted my roster, I stumbled across a post on Patheos by James Ismael Ford and uncovered two more former Jesuits who have been authorized to teach Zen):

Stefan Bauberger (1969), School of the Heart's Ground, Nordwald Zendo; former Jesuit; left the Jesuits in 2025; Father Samy’s dharma heir.

Johannes Fischer, Bodhi Ken (1957), former Jesuit, Zen Circle Sinntal; Father Samy’s dharma heir.

Mother Teresa in hotpants

2026-08-24T10:08:16.123+05:30

Mata-Ji's Tomb

When I was at Maitri Hospice, I struggled several times with the Gift of Love, Mother Teresa’s San Francisco home for the dying. I was not alone. More than once, I got a call from a distressed mother, sister, or friend of a radical fairy who got stuck in the “Gift of Love,” where a well-intentioned Indian nun was beating the Devil out of him with a bunch of peacock feathers. There was nothing we could do to stop it because the Mother’s missions were entirely self-funded and exempt from any anti-discrimination regulation, and she was a saint. Unless we were family (which did not include boyfriends), we weren’t even allowed in to witness the loud calls to say the rosary together at 4 PM.

It fit the rumors of her Indian house for dying destitutes where baptism came before any medical treatment. I found myself siding with Christopher Hitchens. As a liberal Catholic, at least in my history, I resented that this woman enforced heavy-handed religious demands by her saintly persona and rumors of being a living saint. A few younger, mostly Latino gay kids who really did feel that AIDS was punishment for being gay found some consolation in the care of the sisters. Most San Francisco gay men did not. I found it abhorrent. But we all kept our mouths shut. A hundred men were dying every week, and so many were homeless we needed every act of kindness that was offered.

Many years later, around 2015-16, when she was canonized, I visited Mata-Ji's tomb in Kolkata. My opinion shifted in a way I did not expect. I didn’t find myself less critical of the “loving” behavior of Mata-Ji’s sisters in the Gift of Love, but my experience of her presence at the Mother House did shake some of my preconceived ideas.

My partner and I hired a car and followed the Ganges from Rishikesh towards the delta east of Kolkata where its holy waters empty into the Bay of Bengal. I’ll try to write about our trip along the Ganges another time. In almost every way, it was a very disturbing experience. For all the planning, money, and repeated efforts to care for holy Ganga Mata, every government and every Lok Sabha has proven helpless to clean its waters, making more hollow promises and postponing the drastic work required.

A few days later, when we drove through the long delta and reached the shore of the Bay, we could only spend a few hours before we had to leave; the sludge was thick and black; we couldn’t escape its foul smell; it coated everything; the volume of untreated sewage, chemical run-off from the factories along the river, discharge from the tanneries, mixed with human remains, was overwhelming. I said out loud that it was a cesspool and my partner told me to shut up. Slandering the holy ground could get us in big trouble.

We quickly decided to double back to Kolkata and spend the rest of our time there. The seat of the British East India Company since the 17th century, the central city and some of the suburbs are very beautiful, filled with lovely colonial buildings; even the typical Indian middle-class neighborhoods are incredibly clean for India.

On the last day before the flight back to Delhi, we decided to visit Mother Teresa's tomb. We either didn’t read the guidebook carefully enough or just didn’t plan well, but we arrived at the very unassuming Mother House just after 1 PM. A simple sign over the gate clearly said it was closed from 1-3. Our plane was either 4:30 or 5. We’d missed our chance. We rang the bell at the gate anyway. A lovely young nun answered and explained that the sisters needed time for prayer and rest. Their chapel was closed. But then, in the next breath, she said she could open the door for us and let us visit the shrine room for a few minutes. Of course we said yes.

A very simple, unadorned wooden door stood just to our right. Inside, almost nothing indicated a sacred place: it was a fairly large room with a low ceiling, the ubiquitous cheap floor tile that was in every Indian house, simply painted cement walls, the rough timber beams with single harsh fluorescent bulbs, a few wooden benches, and stacks of the cheap plastic chairs that were in every house, on every balcony, every restaurant. There was a nondescript altar for Mass against one wall, and in the middle of the room, her tomb. Just that, a very plain white marble box, about the size of a large dining table, with an inscription and a painted statue of the Virgin Mary, which was very nice, but something that looked mass-produced for the shops that sold icons and statues of every saint and god of India. Totally, absolutely ordinary. One sister in prayer on a kneeler in a back corner; our rule-breaking sister standing in the doorway. The only thing that set the room apart was that it was immaculately clean and absolutely unlike any other religious holy place that I’d ever visited in India.

It also felt absolutely appropriate.

I walked directly to Mata Ji’s tomb and knelt on the hard, wide step that surrounded it. I know that I touched it. I might have even lowered my forehead until it touched the top, but I’m quite sure that I didn’t kiss it. Regardless, I began to feel very different, not like I’d walked into a room with a famous person, maybe a movie star, and was in awe, but I sensed a presence. It was a very powerful sensation. It felt personal, like meeting someone. I might have been so blown away by the incredible mix of humility, love, and devotion in the way the room was set up, but the feeling went very deep, and I started to cry, softly, but the tears were there just as they are now while I’m writing about the memory. Regardless of whatever opinions I had, I knew that I was in the presence of a Great Being, to borrow a Buddhist term. After a few more minutes, our very kind nun signaled that she had to close the door and do whatever was next in her day. At the gate, she gave us some small miraculous metals, like the ones that the nuns gave us for a correct answer in catechism class, and we left a few hundred rupees in the alms box. We said goodbye and left. My memory may be tricking me, but she had a lovely smile.

During the last Companions Zoom, someone mentioned that it would be entirely inappropriate to put Mother Teresa in hotpants. Then I came across this picture of HH Dalai Lama on his first international trip after escaping from Lhasa. This is the picture taken when he landed in Tokyo. It had to be sometime in the early 60’s. The Japanese stewardesses certainly didn’t dress like nuns, but it doesn’t seem to have bothered HH a whole lot.

Christopher Hitchens vs. the Blessed Venerable Unassailable Saint Mātā-ji, aka Mother Teresa

2026-08-24T09:51:37.776+05:30

15th December 2011

Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual ought to be is someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them."

This morning, I got further confirmation that Mother Teresa is not what the world would like us to believe she was. As I was reading that the Missionaries of Charity worldwide are praying for the soul of Christopher Hitchens, the touching sentiment arrived within seconds of news from India that her followers rejected my then partner’s offer to teach English in one of their schools because—his words, a loose translation from the Hindi—“we don’t want fags.” Ah! Homophobes. I was not surprised, but what a loss for the kids who might have really learned something from a very smart, educated guy, fluent in Hindi and English.

I’ve had history with the Missionaries here in San Francisco, though my personal contact has been no more than smiling at some of them on the bus.

Back in 1991, when I was running Maitri Hospice, I got a panicked call from the sister of a man who wound up in the Gift of Love, the Missionaries AIDS Hospice. The woman was completely outraged: her brother felt that he had been taken captive by religious fanatics who cut off his TV, made him say the rosary, and beat the devil out of him with bunches of peacock feathers attached to the beds of recalcitrant patients.

I was never able to verify these practices because the Missionaries did not accept public funding and escaped the normal oversight required for hospice. So it’s only hearsay. I spoke with the guy who felt trapped there and moved him to the top of our waiting list. He moved to Peter Claver House and died before we had a bed.

After leaving Maitri and dealing with my own PTSD, I went to work as the Assistant Director of The Spiritual Center for AIDS Services in Oakland, soon to become just “The Center” as the street folks, sex workers, called us. A few of the men missionaries started The Center, especially one American guy with a deep sense of compassion and commitment to the poor. But he was also gay, came out, and left.

When Mātā-ji learned that a good portion of the infected sex industry workers still worked and that the majority of the injection drug users did not embrace total abstinence, she pulled her support. The Center was taken over by a ragtag group of outsider nuns, priests, gays, blacks, catholic lay people and Jews—Jacinta from the Sisters of the Holy Family was the main stay of the program, really our priest, who did the memorial services, hospital visits, and many hours of counseling; Anne who was a Franciscan ran a day care for kids with HIV and the children of women with HIV; an older Dominican woman, perhaps in her late 80’s, who sat at the door and greeted everyone warmly; a gay priest who did the reports to the CDC; a full cadre of catholic lay people from the suburbs who prepared meals everyday for about a hundred or so. The staff was rounded out with a few other gay men, a Latino Jew who was the social worker and case manager, a black lesbian who did drug and alcohol counseling, a huge, handsome, grounded brother who drove the van, getting folks to medical appointments.

So what’s my point other than my walk into the past to feel deep gratitude and love for a whole bunch of people who really did step up and give of themselves during a terrible epidemic? When I wrote to foundations for money, the board chair, a good friend, told me to milk the Mother Teresa thing as much as possible. Which I did—until we heard through the grapevine that Mātā-ji wouldn't be happy if she discovered her name was associated with the project—that we’d bowed to the idols of case-management, drug counseling, and infectious disease control.

After all, her nuns had ripped out the carpet of the abandoned convent that they’d occupied on Church St. So, of course, they had the blessing of the Most-High on her hijacking social services to covertly turn the world to Jesus.

I throw my total support to Hitchens in the controversy, and will add some Buddhist prayer that his soul winds up Nowhere, and not in a constricted heaven presided over by fanatics. It seems to me that there is more than enough evidence that “Mother Teresa makes no real effort at medical or social relief, and that her mission is religious and propagandistic and includes surreptitious baptism of unbelievers.”

And finally, from an interview with Christopher, who makes my point very concisely.
Free Inquiry: According to polls, Mother Teresa is the most respected woman in the world. Her name is a byword for selfless dedication in the service of humanity. So why are you picking on this sainted old woman?

Christopher Hitchens: Partly because that impression is so widespread. But also because the sheer fact that this is considered unquestionable is a sign of what we are up against, namely the problem of credulity. One of the most salient examples of people's willingness to believe anything if it is garbed in the appearance of holiness is the uncritical acceptance of the idea of Mother Teresa as a saint by people who would normally be thinking—however lazily—in a secular or rational manner. In other words, in every sense it is an unexamined claim.

Saint Francis Xavier and the Goan Inquisition

2026-08-17T09:03:52.211+05:30

“O Tempora, O Mores” -- Not so Fast!

The Miracles of Saint Francis Xavier, Peter Paul Rubens, 1617/1618

I have been fascinated by the relatively short career of Francis Xavier since Jesuit Prep School. When I started practicing Zen and learned that he was the first Christian with any religious training to contact a Japanese Zen monk, my admiration grew. Then, reading his letters to Ignatius under the direction of Jesuit Brother Tom Marshall, I was struck both by what seemed to be genuine curiosity, an ability to form friendships, and then, in the blink of an eye, to jump into an extremely myopic, dogmatic mindset, hurling condemnations equal to the most ferocious defender of the faith, espousing positions I find barbaric.

When I first went to India, perhaps the second or third trip, we went to Mass in the Basilica of Bom Jesu, where the mummified body of Xavier is venerated. I wrote about it in my blog: Goa, Saint Francis and Me. My first impression was that this was another take on the Indian custom of veneration of saints. But then I discovered an indigenous movement to send Francis’s body back to Lisbon or Rome. The Konkani Christian Victims of Francis Xavier’s Atrocities group began their campaign in 1961 when the Republic of India seized control of Goa and its territories. Based in Mangalore, the Konkani victims claim to be descendants of the people whose lives were destroyed by the Portuguese Inquisition. Xavier asked the King of Portugal to send Inquisitors to Goa. They arrived eight years after Xavier’s death, but that does not absolve him of the murder of 57 Hindus, Muslims and new Indian Christians burned at the stake, nor the property confiscated by those whose baptism secured their status in the upper class or their Portuguese overlords.

In 1994, the Indian Cardinal Simon Pimenta was asked about the controversy surrounding the veneration of the body of Francis Xavier in Goa. He said: “The beliefs and actions of people of earlier ages cannot be judged by the principles of a later age.” The Cardinal was perhaps a bit confused by his own good deeds and his personal, compassionate response to the Teaching of our Lord. Or, like many otherwise good men improperly trained by Jesuits in the classics, when at a loss for words, he grabbed a line from Cicero and tried to construct a plausible excuse. Or perhaps he had fallen under the spell of hagiographers who inflated the number of Xavier’s already impressive 30,000 converts to 700,000 people across Asia between his arrival in Goa, India in May of 1542 and his death on Shangchuan Island off the coast of China in December of 1552. Whatever the case, one thing is clear: a man of the church he loved was embarrassed by the clear and deeply inhuman acts of one of the most important founding fathers, and he fumbled.

But I will condemn him. Our lovely Cardinal friend fumbled. He had no other choice. Hagiography is a straitjacket. The formula dictates stories of saints carefully crafted to “edify,” even if it requires erasing or editing, exaggeration, or stuffing inconvenient facts into an unnoticed corner where they won’t attract attention. Miracles, of course, are required before the Church recommends a particular person’s holy life as worth imitating. They usually also embody some praiseworthy trait beyond avoiding sin, believing dogma, and submitting to the will of God, as if it were contained in the holy rule of a sanctioned religious institute. That’s all lumped together as heroic virtue. I am concerned here with what was left out.

Hagiography leaves enormous room to fuddle. In the recent case of Josemaría Escrivá, both Pope Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict wanted to elevate Opus Dei because it produced the conservative priests they both favored, but they rushed the job and got sucked in by Opus’s self-aggrandizement and propaganda. This left the infallible Church defending the indefensible: human trafficking, the exploitation of women and teenagers, financial irregularities, and other cult-like behaviors. But dear God, don’t touch the halo over Josemaria’s head.

In the case of Francis Xavier, the Jesuits waited until the footnotes to mention that he asked the Portuguese to send the Inquisition to Goa. The only other prominent Jesuit tainted by the Inquisition was Robert Bellarmine, another saint who actually signed the warrant for Giordano Bruno’s execution, and was an Inquisitor at the trial of Fulgenzio Manfredi, who was also burned at the stake. Bellarmine did convince Galileo to renounce the Copernican theory that the Earth revolved around the sun, based on the evidence of scripture, which was scientifically wrong but does not concern me as I’m examining his misguided use of the death penalty.

Xavier’s conversion strategy and subsequent enforcement of Christian discipline among his fledgling churches used the deadly force of a conquering army. I was present at a conference where Father X DeSousa, a Goan Jesuit, described his ancestors' conversion by drawing his index finger across his neck. The choice between baptism or execution leaves little room for free will.

Xavier died when he was only 46. He built a massive and inflated record as a missionary while still a relatively young man. I always felt that under the heroism was a full-blown fanatic, a religious soldier of fortune with a magical worldview. He jumped aboard a Portuguese carrack, becoming its chaplain, as it sailed to India in the service of a greedy colonial power. He was no doubt brilliant, initiating a conversation about the numinous world, but then too quickly expropriating every means at hand to gain dominance and force submission.

I am not insinuating, nor do I believe that Pimenta condones or justifies any of the methods or goals of the Inquisition, yet here we are: it is indisputable that Xavier requested that Portuguese inquisitors enforce the straight-and-narrow in doctrine and politics, supporting an imperial, colonializing, slave-trading complex to plunder Goa. His presence gave God’s blessing to their colonial designs.

Adhering to Archbishop Pimenta’s warning about extracting facts from their particular tempora et mores, we’ll have to wait another century for the Age of Enlightenment. It’’s not particularly fair to burden a religious figure of the sixteenth century with attitudes from our own post-colonial experience, but I refuse to condone participating in the fiery executions of the Inquisition as worthy of any saint, not even a swashbuckling Jesuit.

_________________

Notes:

During the Goa Inquisition, which lasted from 1560 to 1812, about 16,000 people were brought to trial. Out of these cases, records show that 57 people were put to death by burning, and 64 were burned in effigy (using a statue because they had already died or fled). Thousands more faced other punishments, such as prison, exile, or the loss of their property. The Portuguese colonial government destroyed most of the records in 1812, so these figures are likely low, conservative estimates.

The First Provincial Council (1567): In Goa, church authorities played a major role in refining legal definitions of slavery. The Council condemned "unjust" slavery (such as capturing people during peacetime) but validated slavery resulting from a "just war" or self-sale during extreme famines.

Xavier personal attitude contributed to (not just condoned) the continuation of enslavement by the Portuguese. Though far fewer Indians were enslaved than West Africans, Indians were captured and sold as chattel. According to Teotonio de Souza, the former head of the Xavier Center of Historical Research, “[Xavier’s] appreciation of Indians, whom he called Negroes, was negative, and he became enthusiastic in his mission to Asia only after discovering the ‘white people’ of Japan and China.”

Are Books Next?

2026-08-14T00:14:51.527+05:30

Originally posted Monday, January 26, 2009. I stand by my prediction.

Liberal education as we know it will soon become a thing of the past. I wonder if anyone really cares or realizes the cost?

Here is a comment from a reader, Andrew Davis, of The New Republic:

“In other news, American Airlines announces they will no longer fly airplanes.

“After careful analysis, we discovered that we make most of our profit selling tickets, not flying planes, so we are canceling all flights henceforth. Tickets, however, are still available online, over the phone, or from an agent. Our customers will also be glad to know that we are also reducing our fuel surcharge by fifty percent."

clipped from blogs.tnr.com

Why Book Reviews Matter

Rumors surfaced last Friday that Book World, the Washington Post's highly-respected weekly stand-alone on all things literary, might be closing. Politico's Michael Calderone quickly confirmed that, while no decision has been made, it's under high-level discussion as a cost-cutting measure. This would leave the New York Times' Book Review as the last stand-alone book section in American dailies.

In recent years, in-house book reviewing has been eliminated, abridged, or downgraded by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Cleveland's Plain Dealer, and The San Diego Union-Tribune — the list goes on.

*For more of my collages, go to Application of the Senses
:

A saint for the East or the Portuguese expansion into the East?

2026-07-22T02:21:57.452+05:30

Originally posted May 21st, 2010

After many years of Jesuit training, I took as a matter of faith that Francis Xavier was the first multi-cultural saint, having spent 11 of his 46 short years in the East. Nothing could be farther from the truth. His mission was closely tied to the Portuguese colonization of India, begun in 1498 by Vasco da Gama. Xavier arrived in Goa on May 6th 1542, along with Portuguese explorers, seamen, soldiers, and merchants—the first or second wave of occupiers. As a Jesuit, he vowed to spread the gospel of Jesus, but he was so fully aligned with European/Portuguese plans to dominate the East that it creates a very messy picture. Pope John Paul the Second, of Blessed Memory, was not around to hound Jesuits who delved into politics, though the army of God five hundred years ago was firmly in the pocket of the colonial, military-industrial, slave-trading complex. The exact opposite of Bob Drinan or Fernando Cardenal Martínez.

The history of any revolution or period of innovation is hard to read. I am skeptical of any authorized version, particularly a story of the human and divine interacting. Though the Roman church and the Jesuits insist that Jesus came to save all humankind regardless of race, or language, or tradition, when I look at the cultural artifacts of Xavier's mission, the architecture and iconography, I see a different story.

Portuguese governance of the territories they occupied in India lasted from 1505 through 1947. After Gandhi, these scattered coastal enclaves, known as Portuguese India, or Goa in popular parlance, began to be taken over by India. The pace accelerated in 1954, when peaceful Satyagrahis' attempts at forcing the Portuguese to leave were brutally suppressed.

This postcard commemorates the Saint issued by Portuguese India in 1946, a year before Indian independence.

The following images are presented as evidence that Xavier was, and is still, a very European saint. The photographs are of Bom Jesu (1695 C.E.) and the Se Cathedral in Old Goa. (Photography by Garry Demarest.)

Xavier’s casket in the Basilica of Bom Jesu.

The nave of the Basilica of Bom Jesu

Close-up of the main altar in Bom Jesu

Another altar in Bom Jesu

Se Cathedral, Old Goa.

The nave of Se Cathedral.

Xavier is still part of the life of many Indian Christians, many generations removed from his appearance in Goa more than 450 years ago.

This is an older church in Old Goa that predates the current Basilica of 1695.

Roman Catholicism didn't completely conquer the hearts and minds of the local peoples. It is still India. Christianity can never be more than a competing cult.

The Creation of a European Saint in Baroque Art

Nicolas Poussin (1595-1664)

The Miracle of Saint Francis Xavier

Saint Francis Xavier by Andrea Pozo (1642-1709), lay brother of the Society of Jesus, 1701, Oil on canvas, Kiscelli Museum, Budapest.

Peter Paul Rubens 1617/1618  

This monumental painting was displayed alternately with The Miracles of St. Ignatius of Loyola on the high altar of Antwerp's Jesuit Church.  

St. Francis Xavier stands preaching to a crowd of people. Some of the miracles he performed as part of his missionary activity in Asia are vividly depicted, both as a testimony to the Counter-Reformation and as preparation for the beatification of St. Francis Xavier in 1619. A man is summoned back from the dead, the blind and lame are healed, and in the temple an idol is falling, broken, to the ground.

Depiction of one of the miracles of Francis Xavier.

André Reinoso, The Miracle of Saint Francis Xavier (1619) at the Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Lisboa / Museu de São Roque, Lisbon, Portugal

Images from Japanese Art

Traditional screens. Images of the great Portuguese trading ships. Jesuits, or priests, are among the passengers.

And finally some of the sweeter images of Xavier. Although my analysis has portrayed Xavier as a very European figure, that is not to say that his influence was entirely negative. (The tonsure on Xavier might indicate that he has been incorrectly identified with one of the Franciscans who followed the Jesuits in Japan).

the active, realistic loving of this one moment in all time.

2026-07-21T10:06:25.818+05:30

NO MORE SECONDHAND GOD

"call me trimtab"

Sunday afternoon in San Francisco, May 20, 2007

Just a few weeks ago, in response to a straightforward question from my Zen teacher, I circuitously stumbled across the work and thought of Bucky Fuller. 25 or more years ago, I spent a weekend in a hotel ballroom with him and 200 others. I can still recall the light of his presence. A few years ago, at the Project Artaud Theater, I was again stunned by his originality and the depth of his insight on one of multiple visits to a one-man show, “R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe” by D.W. Jacobs.

Though I might have put Bucky aside, I was more than happy to revisit and rediscover his Universe.

Today, in a world once again torn by war, I read what he wrote 67 years ago and was very moved. For me, if I am honest with myself, Baghdad is really an abstraction, not the horror it is to the families of killed soldiers, innocent men and women caught in the crossfire, or Jihadists with a cause to die for. I have been in a”froth-spitting squall on Long Island Sound,” but I have never been to the kind of War as the Second Great War, nor Viet Nam, not even an ill-advised invasion. Still “in the face of what is involved,” I am struggling for an adequate response.

I reproduce some of Bucky’s words here, not only the famous “God is a verb” passage, but a portion of the rest to create some context and because I like it. There is much more if you care to read. His books are available from the Institute that bears his name.

from NO MORE SECONDHAND GOD

by R. Buckminster Fuller

Late tonight

(April 9, 1940)

I am just sitting here

for one of the many reasons

people find themselves passionately isolated.

(The cause is rarely noble.)

In the midst of my overly

self-emphatic thought

I say, suddenly,

(as most of us do):

imagine, realize, the preposterousness of your chagrin

in the face of what is involved

in the newspaper headline

on the chair over there.

OSLO KEY BASES TAKEN BIG SEA AIR BATTLES ON

World Telegram 7th Sports.

. . . . .

It’s no longer a phony war

but I don’t think about that

nor do I think much about Oslo.

I think of such of aviators and sailormen as

are in command of their faculties

on both sides at this moment.

Though you have been out in

a froth-spitting squall

on Long Island Sound or

in an ocean liner on a burgeoning sea

you have but a childlike hint of

what a nineteen-year-old’s reaction is

to the pitch black shrieking dark out there

in the very cold northern elements

of unloosening spring

off Norway’s coast

tonight

15,000 feet up

or fifty under or

worse, on the smashing face of it and

here I see God.

. . . . .

A sufficient light within

a seemingly opaque back object

may suddenly convert that object

into a brilliant vari-colored lantern.

. . . . .

Here is God’s purpose-

for God, to me, it seems,

is a verb

not a noun,

proper or improper;

is the articulation

not the art, objective or subjective;

is loving,

not the abstraction “love” commanded or entreated;

is knowledge dynamic,

not legislative code

not proclamation law,

not academic dogma, nor ecclesiastic canon.

Yes, God is a verb,

the most active,

connoting the vast harmonic

reordering of the universe

from unleashed chaos of energy.

And there is born unheralded

a great natural peace,

not out of exclusive

pseudo-static security

but out of including, refining, dynamic balancing.

Naught is lost.

Only the false and nonexistent are dispelled.

. . . . .

And I’ve thought through to tomorrow

which is also today.

The telephone rings

and you say to me

Hello Buckling this is Christopher; or

Daddy, it’s Allegra; or

Mr. Fuller this is the Telephone Company Business Office;

and I say you are inaccurate.

Because I knew you were going to call

and furthermore I recognize

that it is God who is “speaking.”

. . . . .

And you say

aren’t you being fantastic?

And knowing you I say no.

. . . . .

That is the active, realistic loving

of this one moment in all time.

Cultivating Resistance

2026-07-21T04:22:26.879+05:30

Originally posted January 1st, 2017

This is the path forward that I choose for the nightmare that we are about to head into!

Clarion Alley, San Francisco

I do not intend this as a snide “I told you so.” It is a simple statement that today’s situation, 9 years later, is as terrible as what many of us expected, and the Battle is far from over.

This is the path forward that I choose for the nightmare that we are about to head into!

Nanquan Cuts the Cat (Parts 1-3, complete)

2026-07-09T04:34:08.912+05:30

Book of Serenity, Case 9; Gateless Barrier, Case 14; Blue Cliff Record, Cases 63 & 64

May 13th, 2026.

At least nine Jesuits have been authorized to teach the koan curriculum, which is by far the largest representation of any specific religious order among Zen teachers, but there haven’t been any Jesuit commentaries on the koans. Today, the opening of Parliament in the UK began with a ceremonial search of the Palace of Westminster's basement, a nod to the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, which is also known as the Jesuit Treason. I will take the occasion to write a thoroughly Jesuitical* commentary.

The Koan:

The priest Nanquan found monks of the eastern and western halls arguing about a cat. He held up the cat and said, “Everyone! If you can say something, I will spare this cat. If you can’t say anything, I will cut off its head.” No one could say a word, so Nanquan cut the cat in two.

That evening, Zhaozhou returned from outside and Nanquan told him what happened.

Zhaozhou removed a sandal from his foot, put it on his head, and walked out. Nanquan said, “If you had been there, the cat would have been spared.”

___________

A Jesuit Commentary:

1. Equivocation

In my view, this is one of the most consequential koans in the curriculum. Outside the “No,” Mu koan, I’ve spent more time wrestling with this case than any other I’ve tackled.

How did this koan earn a place in three of the collections?

It’s no plate of milk. Many Zen students are repulsed. It even seems to condone violating the first grave precept. The title is “Nanchuan Cuts the Cat,” not “Nanchuan Plays with the Idea of Killing a Cat.” And it doesn’t even settle the moral question of cat killing; that’s not the point. But it doesn’t evade murder and death either: Nanchuan actually kills a helpless, innocent cat who has no say in the matter. We don’t know if it was a cute little house kitty or a nasty old street cat, but for sure, there was splattered blood and two halves of a dead cat.

Most introspection begins with an inner battle. I am no opponent of grandmother Zen. I normally give myself plenty of room for fluid inquiry. However, I will begin this commentary by focusing on another aspect of the story: its language. The request for a response becomes a demand: “If you can say something, I will spare this cat. If you can’t say anything, I will cut off its head.” I have a say in the matter, a word, or maybe even several. All we know with certainty is that some monks, probably with too much time on their hands, got into an argument about a cat—a few words, a question, perhaps an insult, perhaps a confused answer or no answer, anger, then silence searching for an appropriate response, and finally a dire consequence. It’s easier to leave the koan’s argument without form and content, but (at least in my experience), koans don’t work like that. We fill them with our shadows.

In 2009, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival produced a play by one of my Jesuit classmates. Father Bill Cain’s “Equivocation” was very well received, as I would expect. Bill is a talented, inventive writer and committed Christian. However, I’m not going to borrow much other than the title and the predicament: the setting is England during the reign of James the First; the situation is the plight of the Jesuits who were sent to minister to Roman Catholics in a militantly Protestant country, and the martyrdom of 34 saints and 149 blesseds, even one bearing my surname, Blessed William Ireland, S.J. They were part of a larger movement of “recusant” English Catholics, waiting, hiding and organizing the reestablishment of religion under the Pope. They were divided over tactics; they were hunted down; many were arrested; many would die, and ultimately, they would fail.

The title “Equivocation*” refers to a contemporaneous manual that outlined a highly controversial defense strategy for Roman Catholics to survive the "bloody questions." The Jesuit missionaries were coached, and in turn coached others to use ambiguous language or a "mental reservation," misleading answers that would not reveal the identities of their fellow Catholics. As scrupulous religious people, they had to sort out the moral consequences of lying. Priests had the additional burden of guarding the seal of confession. If anyone refused to sign the Oath of Supremacy, recognizing Elizabeth I, and subsequently James I, as the head of the church, they became “recusants,” and faced severe penalties—fines, property confiscation, and imprisonment. It could include high treason, the punishment for which was horrific: execution by being hanged, drawn, and quartered*.

We do not know the author of “Equivocation,*” though there is a definite Jesuit turn to the argument. In fact, this is the origin of the less-than-flattering definition of “Jesuitical” as someone who uses crafty, deceitful, intricate arguments designed to mislead, dissemble, or dodge direct answers. We know that a copy of the treatise was found among Father Henry Garnet’s books, the Jesuit superior in England, when he was arrested after the failed Gunpowder Plot, also known as the Jesuit Treason of 1605. It was used against him in his trial.

Garnet was a very refined, highly educated priest, a trained musician, and an unlikely leader of a terrorist plot to kill the King, a large number of nobles, and MP’s. Guy Fawkes Night is celebrated to this day with fireworks and the burning of effigies of the man caught guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder in the basement of the House of Parliament. Fawkes and Garnet knew one another. Garnet had been seen meeting with Fawkes. Garnet claimed that he’d been trying to persuade Fawkes to find a nonviolent tactic for finding accommodation for Roman Catholics.

We don’t know for certain whether or not any Jesuit actually plotted the terrorist attack, though I think it’s highly likely. Shakespeare knew about it and had an opinion. In Act 2, Scene 3 of Macbeth, the drunken porter, acting as hell’s gatekeeper, welcomes a parade of condemned souls into the castle, including an “equivocator that could swear in both scales against either scale,” . . . the "open and broad lying and forswearing."

When Garnet defended himself, his words seemed to match the circumstances, but canceled out other words. The Privy Council used the handbook that outlined this type of argument, “Equivication,” as evidence to condemn Garnet. The resulting action was swift. He was executed on 3 May 1606, three days after the verdict. Toothless grannies pushed to the front row at his public execution with clean napkins to mop up the martyr’s blood as a talisman.

These events happened more than 400 years ago. How could they enter my life in a real way if I didn’t share something with the martyrs? I have no enthusiasm for converting the Church of England. In fact, I’m quite sympathetic towards the beauty of the language and form of its liturgy. There is a high probability that I am related to Blessed William Ireland, but it still feels worlds away.

When my teacher gave me the koan, the cat’s dark shadow began to appear very slowly in my own life—the fight between the monks became the execution of Jesuits who had been trained at the English College in Rome or Douai. Yet it became personal. We sang the same Te Deum that the 16th-century Jesuits sang when they learned of a Jesuit’s execution in London. We celebrated their feast days. We’d heard stories of their torture and death, which were presented as heroic qualities we should emulate.

___________

Notes:

*Although many Jesuits of other eras might have entertained the idea that a consistent spiritual and moral tone might be identified as “Jesuitical,” I am afraid that I only use the term to refer to my 11 years in the Society of Jesus. I’ve worked with the koan under a teacher’s guidance on at least 4 occasions without any access to anyone’s commentary. This last time was quite different; connections with my Jesuit training kept me company. At times, it became very difficult. What follows are field notes from that exploration.

Equivocation is a critically acclaimed 2009 play written by American Jesuit priest and playwright Bill Cain. The play premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The definition of equivocation is “the use of ambiguous language to conceal the truth or to avoid committing oneself; prevarication.”

*Michel Foucault uses a brutal public execution involving drawing and quartering in the opening pages of Chapter 1, "The Body of the Condemned," in his seminal 1975 book, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. While the traditional English sentence was precisely "hanged, drawn, and quartered," Foucault specifically details the French variation of the punishment inflicted upon the regicide Robert-François Damiens in 1757. Damiens was condemned for attempting to assassinate King Louis XV.

___________

2. Obfuscation and Silence

When I entered the Jesuits in 1966, the Second Vatican Council had just ended. The Catholic world was experiencing the exuberance of John the 23rd’s throwing the windows open. A General Congregation of the Jesuits had just elected a Basque priest, Father Pedro Arrupe, as our new Father General. He was charismatic. We younger Jesuits felt he could lead the largest and most educated religious order in the post-Council era. He’d been less than 10 kilometers from the epicenter of the Atomic blast in Hiroshima, a horrific event that weighed heavily on my generation of Americans, including most of the men who entered the Jesuits with me

Arrupe’s predecessor, Father Jean-Baptiste Janssens, had been elected two years after the defeat of the Nazis. We’d heard his reputation as a strict disciplinarian. We also knew that he’d worked with the clandestine Benedyk Grynpas network during the occupation of Belgium, but for some reason, that was rarely acknowledged. He forged baptismal certificates for Jewish children, but never required that they be baptized. He taught them to say the Hail Mary, but only so they could pass a Nazi interrogation if caught. He hid a large group of Jewish children in his own residence. He quietly encouraged other Jesuit houses, monasteries, and convents across Belgium to hide Jews. He undoubtedly knew the 43 Jesuits who died in the camps and the more than 100 other priests who were murdered resisting the Nazi regime. He’d been their superior. He knew that if he were caught by the Gestapo, he would be executed, but he did the right thing. He was honored with the title of Righteous Among the Nations by the Knesset of the new State of Israel in 1954.

I didn’t have to go back to 16th-century England to find examples of heroic men of conscience. Most of my superiors, teachers, mentors, and spiritual guides had been trained by this very courageous man. Many had worked with him directly, but he never wore his resistance like a badge. If he ever spoke about it, we never heard it. The job of piecing together the Jesuit order after the war, coupled with managing the largest influx of “vocations” in the order's 500-year history, was enormous, equal to responding to the plight of Jews during the Holocaust. It was another task of matching actions with words and sacred promises, but without the real threat of execution

The stain of antisemitism in the Catholic church is extremely troubling; the record of the institutional Church during the Third Reich has become the topic of a heated debate. There is one group that claims that Pope Pius XII did his duty and maintained absolute neutrality, but to others, he appears cowardly, even sympathetic to the aims of National Socialism. The role of Father Włodzimierz Ledóchowski, the head of the Jesuits during the war, is equally mixed. He certainly saw reports about the extent of the mass murders. Claims that the Nazis were skillful at hiding their atrocity feel like an excuse. Both Pacelli (Pius XII) and Ledóchowski have been described as “benignly” antisemitic. Many old noble European families were. It was part of an ancient class stratification that Americans don’t understand. How could priests, bishops, and popes keep silent unless they were hedging their bets, or even being sympathetic to the Nazis?

After months of wrestling with a vague, undefined flight between Nanquan’s monks of the eastern and western halls, it was no longer speculative. A question whose answer determined life or death was right in my face; it was a question that cut so deeply there was only silence, or an answer whose horrific consequences were impossible to escape.

In my mind, I convened a Board of Examiners—three professed senior priests—to interview the monks of the western and eastern halls—a typical Jesuit tactic. I asked if the English Reformation had been a power grab among 16th-century monarchies, was the Jesuit mission doomed from its conception? Was the sacrifice of the English martyrs even justified? When I extended that hypothesis into the ambiguity of the Catholic response to Hitler, I was told that I was being revisionist in my reading of history. It reeked of the same equivocation that Father Garnet was accused ot. I couldn’t recind the sainthood of the English Jesuit martyrs, though opposing the cause of Eugenio Pacelli might be justified, depending on a more careful review of the historical record. The hard fact that both the Jesuits and the College of Cardinals, right after the War, elected men, Janssens and Roncalli, who were named Righteous Among the Nations, tells me that they wanted to land on the right side of history.

However, my questions missed the point of the koan. I wasn’t being asked to speculate: if a group of Jewish kids showed up at my door, and I knew that helping them would put me in the same grave danger they faced, would I rise to the moment? Right now is not five centuries ago.

The tone is correct. It didn’t have the urgency and the immediacy required, but at least I had managed to put breath and blood into the argument between the eastern and western halls, one that carried the weight of life and death. The koan ends with Zhaozhou taking off his shoes and putting them on his head. We are told, in a scholarly tone, that this was an expression of grief in ancient China.

Could I go through a painful experience of dealing with questions about my entire religious life and end with a funeral joke? I’d caught a few laughing Zen students take off their shoes and prance around, with no sense of how profoundly their world has been turned upside down. But there it was, a note about an ancient Chinese funeral ritual in the marginalia, handed down through at least a dozen roshis, and brought into the dokusan room where we dealt with the question.

I’ve never seen convincing evidence supporting the theory of ancient Chinese funeral rites. I searched Google. Did this practice, display, or joke exist in China during any dynasty? I did find some customs that stretch Western norms. In Taiwan, the bereaved family hires strippers and pole dancers if the obsequies go beyond three days. The motivation is not otherworldly. If the attendees are entertained, they don’t go home, and the priests maintain their minyan, or quorum, for the ceremonies. But we were being asked to believe that it was normal for Chinese mourners to dance with their shoes on their heads. This is at least suspect.

There is a more straightforward answer: Up is down. Down is up.

___________

References:

Rebellion of the Righteous: Jesuit Partisanship for Jews. In: Journal of Jesuit Studies, James Bernauer S.J.

Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, John Cornwell

The Jesuits and the Third Reich, Vincent A. Lapomarda.

The American Jesuits, Schroth, Raymond A. Published by NYU Press

The American Jesuits: A History. NYU Press, 2007. Project MUSE.

___________

3. A Funeral

July 30th, 2026

"Where is your word when you give your word?" —Werner Erhard

After working on this koan for more than one month, the case was still far too removed from my experience to pass a Zen Master’s criteria. A koan will not ask for an opinion about the moral order or the horrific punishment for recusant Catholics during the first decades of the English Reformation, nor can it coax a life-saving response to the Gestapo during the Second World War. The imagination is not reliable for creating anything other than imaginary heroes.

I felt stuck in a very theoretical dilemma. I went to bed night after night, stupidly hoping that my dreams might save me. Then one day, I woke up with memories of three men at Maitri Hospice who had taken their own lives. That started a flood of memories.

I remember WW* quite clearly. I liked him, though I cannot say we were friends. He told me that there were only a few men whom he considered good friends. He was insistent, but he seemed to fit in that category of men I’d call loners. In gay neighborhoods, there are more than a few men who are always alone, keeping their own company by choice, habit, or temperament. They don’t avoid gathering spots, but when I see them sitting alone in the dark back corner of a bar, I wonder if they are nursing grudges. In WW’s defense, I never heard him say cruel or angry words about others, and he did smile, yet he seemed somehow joyless.

I did know that WW had at least one loyal friend, a friend of Issan, who arranged for him to live at Hartford Street. In the two buildings, there were four small attic rooms. I had one, a Zen priest had another, and the others were usually kept open for Zen students. During the pandemic, there were very few Zen students, especially gays, who wanted to live so close to death. WW had HIV; he’d just been diagnosed with AIDS, though his prognosis was more than 6 months, which put him outside the criteria for hospice. He had nowhere to go. He moved in. He tried to fit in, though I could see that it was difficult. I am sure that he was grateful.

Someone told me that WW had been a member of a strict Catholic monastic community for a few years, perhaps as a postulant. He left; I am not sure who made that decision, and I did not ask. With a few bucks in his pocket, he took a bus to the nearest big city. He ended up in a gay sex club and contracted the virus. That story pulled together a lot of what I’d observed. I’d known several Jesuit lay brothers who had similar effects. I could imagine feeling that life had been unjust, converting sero positive, coming from a cloister where safe sex and HIV were not talked about, where any talking was discouraged, perhaps even forbidden.

WW asked me if he could use the living room to meet with his sister and another woman, perhaps a niece, who were coming to San Francisco. Of course, I said yes. I met his sister and another woman, and drew the pocket doors closed. A few hours later, their reunion ended abruptly. It had not gone well. The women left without saying goodbye. WW went upstairs to his room in a very angry mood. As he passed me, he said they’d used a childhood name he despised. He said firmly that he wanted to be left alone. He did not come to dinner. The next morning, he did not come down for breakfast. Then he skipped lunch.

I went up to his room. The door was closed. I knocked, and WW repeated that he wanted to be left alone; that he was “fine.” When he didn’t come down for dinner, I took a tray upstairs and knocked on his door. He thanked me and told me to leave the food outside the door. The next morning, when he didn’t appear for breakfast, I went up to his room and found the dinner untouched. I knocked and asked if he needed anything. He said that he just wanted to be left alone. Two days became four. The same pattern repeated.

The hospice nurse told me privately that she had to report WW. I reminded her that he was not a hospice patient. I asked Steve for advice; we invited the hospice social worker to join us. One of Issan’s founding principles for Maitri was that each person would have as much control over their lives as possible, as long as we weren’t breaking the law or otherwise acting unethically. If WW had just decided that he’d had enough and wanted to end his life, he had the right to refuse food and drink. In the early 90’s, the questions about the compassionate end of life were unsettled, but even the Catholic church accepted voluntary starvation as a morally acceptable choice.

Part of the background conversation for me was the reality of the possibilities for care. If WW were forced into a psychiatric ward, which seemed the only possible path if our hospice nurse reported him, he would be medicated, and then, after a short time, released. At that point, he would most likely stop the anti-psychotic medication, and, with housing uncertain, live in drug-infested single-occupancy hotels, park benches, alleys, or doorways until he died. There were far too many men in that situation to rule it out. I am sure that was also part of WW’s inner calculation,

And yet, objectively, WW’s situation was ambiguous. He had not made a clear request to refuse food. I had no guarantee that he was of a sound mind. He began to refuse food after an argument. If I were going to defend WW’s right to shut his door, not see anyone, and stave himself, I had to check myself to be sure I was not making assumptions, which was hard when talking through a closed door. I asked Steve to go up and try to talk to him. He did and told me that from what he could tell, yes, WW was competent and able to make decisions. Even if we were uncomfortable with unresolved anger mixed into his motivation, it was not our place to try to arbitrate, nor could we resolve it for WW.

We were a small household of 14 people. More than half were also HIV-positive and faced the same certain death as WW. It was impossible to keep his decision secret. I decided to tell the truth, but keep the conversations brief. I could not add dealing with the anxiety of the hospice patients on top of trying to listen carefully to WW. The hospice social worker, Steve, and his wife, Angelique, took up that responsibility; yet an uncomfortable silence still seemed to descend over our entire house.

I had to call WW’s sister and tell her. I asked if there was anything that she wanted to do, to come back to SF and try to have a conversation, or if she wanted me to ask WW if he would talk to her on the phone. She told me she had to talk to her parish priest before she made any decision and would get back to me. She called later that day and told me she had resolved to let her brother take whatever action he had decided on, and yes, she would talk to him if he wanted to. She was also OK with him not wanting to talk. She asked me to ask WW if he wanted to see a priest. I did, and WW said that he did. I called the priest at Most Holy Redeemer and explained the situation. He came right over, and I showed him up the stairs. I do not remember the length of the meeting, and, of course, I asked no questions. When he came down, he said goodbye and left quickly. For some reason, I remember that goodbye as uncomfortably brief, not what I expected.

I continued to bring up a tray with food, knock on WW’s door, and ask if he needed anything. He repeated that he was OK. Then, it was either Monday or Tuesday morning, I heard nothing. I forced the door open and found WW’s body. I called the medical examiner and answered the usual questions. I called his sister. By mid-afternoon, two men, dressed in black, arrived from a funeral director in his family’s hometown. We accompanied WW’s body respectfully down the stairs and out to the waiting hearse. The traditional rites of passing began.

My whole world had been turned upside down. I don’t remember everything I was feeling. Is this too complex? Sometimes even the predictable is complex. Now, decades later, I wonder if this ambiguity leaves the whole situation and my conduct in the same grey area? Although I might have tried to clarify a few things, I know that I managed to do what WW wanted.

I was exhausted and certainly in no mood to imitate an ancient Chinese funeral custom. My world seemed unrecognizable. For a whole week, every action I took, every decision I made, had not followed any familiar pattern. I had touched something very profound.

Zenshin was there. He liked WW immensely, and WW returned those feelings. I will ask him to sing the verse:

“Walking Beside the Kamogawa. Remembering Nansen and Fudo and Gary’s Poem”

By Philip Whalen

Here are two half-grown black cats perched on a

lump of old teakettle brick plastic garbage

ten feet from the west bank of the River.

I won’t save them. Right here Gary sat with dying Nansen,

The broken cat, warped and sick every day of its life,

Puke & drool on the tatami for Gary to wipe and scold,

“If you get any worse I’m going to have to put you away!”

The vet injected an overdose of nemby and for half an Hour

Nansen was comfortable.

How can we do this, how can we live and die?

How does anybody choose for somebody else.

How dare we appear in the Hell-mouth weeping tears,

Busting our heads in ten fragments making vows &

promises?

Suzuki Roshi said, “If I die, it’s all right. If I should

live, it’s all right. Sun-face Buddha, Moon-face Buddha.”

Why do I always fall for that old line?

We don’t treat each other any better. When will I

Stop writing it down.

Postscript: Always remember the 20th commandment of the Brahmajala

Sutra. Always practice liberation of living beings.

Let's begin WW's Funeral with the traditional Catholic Entrance Hymn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W86XH05Nk6g&list=RDW86XH05Nk6g&start_radio=1

Antonio Salieri De Profundis

___________

*WW: Even though he’s been dead more than 30 years, I have disguised his identity. I left facts and conversations where necessary to fill out the picture and clarify the situation, or, in several places, to point out that his situation was not entirely clear.

Nanquan Cuts the Cat, Part 3

2026-07-08T22:16:38.782+05:30

3. A Funeral

Gateless Barrier, Case 14; Blue Cliff Record, Cases 63 & 64

July 30th, 2026

"Where is your word when you give your word?" —Werner Erhard

I did know that WW had at least one loyal friend, a friend of Issan, who arranged for him to live at Hartford Street. In the two buildings, there were four small attic rooms. I had one, a Zen priest had another, and the others were usually kept open for Zen students. During the pandemic, there were very few Zen students, especially gays, who wanted to live so close to death. WW had HIV; he’d just been diagnosed with AIDS, though his prognosis was more than 6 months, which put him outside the criteria for hospice. He had nowhere to go. He moved in. He tried to fit in though I could see that it was difficult. I am sure that he was grateful.

Zenshin was there. He liked WW immensely, and WW returned those feelings. I will ask him to sing the verse:

“Walking Beside the Kamogawa. Remembering Nansen and Fudo and Gary’s Poem”

By Philip Whalen

Here are two half-grown black cats perched on a

lump of old teakettle brick plastic garbage

ten feet from the west bank of the River.

I won’t save them. Right here Gary sat with dying Nansen,

The broken cat, warped and sick every day of its life,

Puke & drool on the tatami for Gary to wipe and scold,

“If you get any worse I’m going to have to put you away!”

The vet injected an overdose of nemby and for half an Hour

Nansen was comfortable.

How can we do this, how can we live and die?

How does anybody choose for somebody else.

How dare we appear in the Hell-mouth weeping tears,

Busting our heads in ten fragments making vows &

promises?

Suzuki Roshi said, “If I die, it’s all right. If I should

live, it’s all right. Sun-face Buddha, Moon-face Buddha.”

Why do I always fall for that old line?

We don’t treat each other any better. When will I

Stop writing it down.

Postscript: Always remember the 20th commandment of the Brahmajala

Sutra. Always practice liberation of living beings.

Let's begin WW's Funeral with the traditional Catholic Entrance Hymn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W86XH05Nk6g&list=RDW86XH05Nk6g&start_radio=1

Antonio Salieri De Profundis

___________

Nanquan Cuts the Cat, Part 2

2026-07-07T22:10:06.033+05:30

Book of Serenity, Case 9; Gateless Barrier, Case 14; Blue Cliff Record, Cases 63 & 64

May 13th, 2026.

2. Obfuscation and Silence

Arrupe’s predecessor, Father Jean-Baptiste Janssens, had been elected two years after the defeat of the Nazis. We’d heard his reputation as a strict disciplinarian. We also knew that he’d worked with the clandestine Benedyk Grynpas network during the occupation of Belgium, but for some reason, that was rarely acknowledged. He forged baptismal certificates for Jewish children, but never required that they be baptized. He taught them to say the Hail Mary but only so they could pass a Nazi interrogation if caught. He hid a large group of Jewish children in his own residence. He quietly encouraged other Jesuit houses, monasteries, and convents across Belgium to hide Jews. He undoubtedly knew the 43 Jesuits who died in the camps and the more than 100 other priests who were murdered resisting the Nazi regime. He’d been their superior. He knew that if he were caught by the Gestapo, he would be executed, but he did the right thing. He was honored with the title of Righteous Among the Nations by the Knesset of the new State of Israel in 1954.

I didn’t have to go back to 15th-century England to find examples of heroic men of conscience. Most of my superiors, teachers, mentors, and spiritual guides had been trained by this very courageous man. Many had worked with him directly, but he never wore his resistance like a badge. If he ever spoke about it, we never heard it. The job of piecing together the Jesuit order after the war, coupled with managing the largest influx of “vocations” in the order's 500-year history, was enormous, equal to responding to the plight of Jews during the Holocaust. It was another task of matching actions with words and sacred promises, but without the real threat of execution

The stain of antisemitism in the Catholic church is extremely troubling; the record of the institutional Church during the Third Reich has become the topic of a heated debate. There is one group that claims that Pope Pius XII did his duty and maintained absolute neutrality, but to others, he appears cowardly, even sympathetic towards the aims of national socialism. The role of Father Włodzimierz Ledóchowski, the head of the Jesuits during the war, is equally mixed. He certainly saw reports about the extent of the mass murders. Claims that the Nazis were skillful at hiding their atrocity feel like an excuse. Both Pacelli (Pius XII) and Ledóchowski have been described as “benignly” antisemitic. Many old noble European families were. It was part of an ancient class stratification that Americans don’t understand. How could priests, bishops, and popes keep silent unless they were hedging their bets, or even being sympathetic to the Nazis?

After months of wrestling with a vague, undefined flight between Nanquan’s monks of the eastern and western halls, it was no longer speculative. A question whose answer determined life or death was right in my face; it was a question that cut so deeply there was only silence, or an answer whose horrific consequences were impossible to escape.

In my mind, I convened a Board of Examiners—three professed senior priests—to interview the monks of the western and eastern halls—a typical Jesuit tactic. I asked if the English Reformation had been a power grab among 16th-century monarchies, was the Jesuit mission doomed from its conception. Was the sacrifice of the English martyrs even justified? When I extended that hypothesis into the ambiguity of the Catholic response to Hitler, I was told that I was being revisionist in my reading of history. It reeked of the same equivocation that Father Garnet was accused ot. I couldn’t recall the sainthood of the English Jesuit martyrs, though opposing the cause of Eugenio Pacelli might be justified depending on a more careful review of the history. The hard fact that both the Jesuits and the College of Cardinals, right after the War, elected men, Janssens and Roncalli, who were named Righteous Among the Nations, tells me that they wanted to land on the right side of history.

I’ve never seen convincing evidence to support the ancient Chinese funeral rite story. I searched Google. Did this practice, display, or joke exist in China during any dynasty? I did find some customs that stretch Western norms. In Taiwan, the bereaved family hires strippers and pole dancers if the obsequies go beyond three days. The motivation is not otherworldly. If the attendees are entertained, they don’t go home, and the priests maintain their minyan, or quorum, for the ceremonies. But we were being asked to believe that it was normal for Chinese mourners to dance with their shoes on their heads. This is at least suspect.

There is a more straightforward answer: Up is down. Down is up.

___________

References:

Rebellion of the Righteous: Jesuit Partisanship for Jews. In: Journal of Jesuit Studies, James Bernauer S.J.

Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, John Cornwell

The Jesuits and the Third Reich, Vincent A. Lapomarda.

The American Jesuits, Schroth, Raymond A. Published by NYU Press

The American Jesuits: A History. NYU Press, 2007. Project MUSE.

I’ve written three sections that will appear separately. Here’s the first. https://jesuskoan.blogspot.com/2026/07/nanquan-cuts-cat.html

Syncretism, Syncretic Occultism, Carlos Castaneda and the Monetization of the Occult

2026-07-07T12:38:02.288+05:30

Dated June 21, 2023, in my notebook

Claudio Naranjo, Carlos Castaneda, and a raccoon share a moment.

When asked by an interviewer if Don Juan Matus existed (as well as straightening out some inconsistencies in his biography), Carlos Castaneda replied, "To ask me to verify my life by giving you my statistics ... is like using science to validate sorcery. It robs the world of its magic and makes milestones out of us all."

What I take this to mean is that the Yaqui sorcerer don Juan was a convenient fiction made up by an anthropology student with a vivid imagination and a few too many peyote buttons. But Castaneda was a compelling storyteller, and we all believed it — and bought his books. It is not surprising that he and Naranjo became friends. He visited the early SAT groups, and perhaps used Naranjo’s SAT group process to create his own Tensegrity, “the modernized version of some movements called magical passes developed by Indigenous shamans who lived in Mexico in times prior to the Spanish conquest."

One deep root of modern Western Enneagram teaching lies in the small world of Latin American esotericism and its deep, though convoluted, connection to native shamanism. Claudio Naranjo’s own story is tied up with that of Oscar Ichazo, who was never very clear about his sources — usually some version of the story of stopping for lunch at an ordinary wayside ristorante in Argentina and the waiter handing him a note from a group of ordinary-looking men inviting him to their table where, while sipping afternoon aperitifs, they exchanged the latest in their research of the inner workings of the human psyche.

Another partially verified story is Naranjo’s journey to Arica Chile where, after some vague initiation into a mystery cult, and receiving instructions from Ichazo in his role as an esotericist who, by the way, was guided by his Kabbalist spiritual guide, the highest Archangel Metatron, Naranjo went out into the Atacama Desert for 40 days, the driest place on the face of the earth (drier than the place where Jesus stood down the devil in his 40-day retreat). There, he told us that he had undergone a rebirth experience and that, having been trained as a medical doctor, he could recognize all the stages of an embryo's formation, the organs beginning to function, etc. I remember wondering how high he was when he told that tale, probably as high as he was when being reborn, something about his intonation and phrasing.

But I did believe that Don Juan was real until the raccoon encounter.

Claudio told us this story by way of introducing Castaneda.

Naranjo’s house was down on the Berkeley flatlands. I can see the house clearly in my memory and almost remember the exact address — 14 hundred-something Alston Way. It was not all gentrified in those days, but a modest, even run-down neighborhood of California bungalows. There was a small creek that ran at the back of the property, and Claudio had thrown up a shack, his study house, on its edge. Carlos and Claudio were doing some kind of drug, and a raccoon came and sat by the screen door, watching them in what they perceived to be a rather intense way, or so they said. Castaneda was sure that the raccoon had been taken over by a spirit being to deliver a message. The contents of that message were also apparently an occult secret.

Guys, you were high and tripping out on a raccoon looking for a yummy garbage dinner. I'm not using science to invalidate your sorcery. I am suspicious of the drugs.

Nanquan Cuts the Cat ({Part 1)

2026-07-06T23:11:13.352+05:30

Book of Serenity, Case 9; Gateless Barrier, Case 14; Blue Cliff Record, Cases 63 & 64

May 13th, 2026.

The Koan:

That evening, Zhaozhou returned from outside and Nanquan told him what happened.

Zhaozhou removed a sandal from his foot, put it on his head, and walked out. Nanquan said, “If you had been there, the cat would have been spared.”

A Jesuit Commentary:

Equivocation

In my view, this is one of the most consequential koans in the curriculum. Outside of the No koan, I’ve spent more time wrestling with this case than any other that I’ve tackled.

How did this koan earn a place in three of the collections?

It’s no plate of milk. Many Zen students are repulsed. It even seems to condone violating the first grave precept. The title is “Nanchuan Cuts the Cat,” not “Nanchuan Plays with the Idea of Killing a Cat.” It doesn’t settle the moral question of cat killing; that’s not the point. But it doesn’t evade murder and death either: Nanchuan actually kills a helpless, innocent cat who has no say in the matter. We don’t know if it was a cute little house kitty or a nasty old street cat, but for sure, there was splattered blood and two halves of a dead cat.

We do not know the author of “Equivocation,*” though there is a definite Jesuit turn to the argument. In fact, this is the origin of the less-than-flattering definition of “Jesuitical” to mean someone who practices crafty, deceitful, intricate arguments designed to mislead, dissemble, or dodge direct answers. We know that a copy of the treatise was found among Father Henry Garnet’s books, the Jesuit superior in England, when he was arrested after the failed Gunpowder Plot, also known as the Jesuit Treason of 1605. It was used against him in his trial.

When my teacher gave me the koan, the cat’s dark shadow began to appear very slowly in my own life — the fight between the monks became the execution of Jesuits who had been trained at the English College in Rome or Douai. Yet it became personal. We sang the same Te Deum that the 16th-century Jesuits sang when they learned of a Jesuit’s execution in London. We celebrated their feast days. We’d heard stories of their torture and death, which were presented as heroic qualities we should emulate.

___________

Notes:

"Part 2. Obfuscation and Silence" is now available here: https://jesuskoan.blogspot.com/2026/07/nanquan-cuts-cat-part-2.html