by Dennis Ray There probably isn’t another medium in the arts that has gone through such a drastic change for the better over the past 20 years than audiobooks. Back in the 80s and 90s finding well-read audiobooks was a difficult task. Finding well-read and unabridged was practically impossible.Continue Reading
WHAT IS THIS? By Bill Walz “What is this?” – the Sixth Patriarch, Huineng (638–713 C.E.) The practice is very simple. Whether you are walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, you ask repeatedly, What is this? What is this? You have to be careful not to slip into intellectual inquiry, forContinue Reading
An old silent pond… A frog jumps into the pond. Splash! Silence again. – Basho (17th c.) Like every artistic device of Zen, poetry is a finger pointing to here-and-now. It serves to reclaim our wandering minds centered on our egoistic importance and challenges, to startle us intoContinue Reading
By Bill Walz “The arts of Zen are not intended for utilitarian purposes or for purely aesthetic enjoyment, but are meant to train the mind, indeed, to bring it in contact with ultimate reality.” – D. T. Suzuki Zen and the art of (fill in the blank)”Continue Reading
Frank Browning takes us into human gender geographies around the world, from gender-neutral kindergartens in Chicago and Oslo to femminielli weather casters in Naples, from conservative Catholics in Paris fearful of God and Nature to transsexual Mormon parents in Utah. As he shares specific and engaging human stories, he also elucidatesContinue Reading
by Bill Walz – “Belief, as I use the word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would “lief” or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, onContinue Reading
When Words Sing by Carol Pearce Bjorlie, Rapid River Magazine Poetry Editor/Columnist – When words sing, poetry happens. When words sing, lyricism happens: Lyric poetry (and prose) happens. Friedrich Nietzsche declared that the lyric poet “always says ‘I’ and sings us through the full chromatic scale of passions andContinue Reading
by Bill Walz – “In each of us, the seed of Buddha, the capacity to wake up and understand, is called Buddha nature. It is the seed of mindfulness, the awareness of what is happening in the present moment… There is no one who does not have the capacity toContinue Reading
by James Cassara – I kick off this month’s reviews with a pair of gents named Shawn, a debut EP, a welcome release by a long standing and underappreciated band, a tribute recording, and a just in time for the holidays boxed set that would gladden the heart of anyContinue Reading
