Rusty Ring

"Zoos are full, prisons are overflowing... how the world still dearly loves a cage."    Maude. – From lifelong fa...

Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil. Exodus 23:2 (Photo of Fudo Myō-ō statue courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a g...

Samuel Hoffenstein was my parents' poet-laureate, which explains why several of his anthologies dwelt upon a shelf in our house, al...

"It's the hole that makes the doughnut." The I Ching. (Probably.) (Pre-certified doughnut courtesy of Wikimedia...

I brought rather austere food when I sat 100 Days on the Mountain . Lunch and dinner were an identical bowl of rice and beans, spiced up...

An intoxicant is any external source that draws you deeper into yourself, your beliefs, your egocentrism, and away from direct expe...

incola ego sum apud te in terra et peregrinus sicut omnes patres mei. Psalterium Sancti Hieronymi, 38:13 (English translation...

I first encountered the oft-cited invocation below in a newspaper column by United Congregational minister Dale Turner. At the time I ass...

My very best wishes to all Rusty Ring readers, regular and irregular, on this Christmas Day. May it be filled with warmth and l...

Like a lot of old people, I've come to find myself adrift at Christmas. Family mostly gone. Friends busy with their own. I nev...

"I am a continuation, like the rain is a continuation of the cloud." Thich Nhat Hanh (Photo courtesy of Anderson Man...

This unlikely 1967 Arlo Guthrie classic has become a Thanksgiving ritual for American radio stations, many of which spin it on that day....

One lonely commandment: If you don't like it, don't be it. (Photo courtesy of Danh Đãnh and Unsplash.com .)

Courtesy of a Zen droogie on social media.

Matsuo Bashō (芭蕉) was a wandering Zen hermit of the Edo period, as well as an accomplished poet. Popularly considered the father of mo...

(Here's another bullfrog [Rana (Lithobates) catesbeiana], rather better lit and differentiated from her background. She's a w...

"Strictly speaking, every unenlightened practitioner is mixing their own convictions and belief systems with Buddhism. There is...

Let us walk alone together, comrade sojourner. We will be like pebbles in a bag, polishing each other bright. (Ship's dogs...

"Dying is easy. Practice is hard." (My monastic riff on a hallowed show biz pun .) (Photo of Chàn ancestor Hanshan De...

The theory is really simple. The only problem is that theory alone will not help us to be content with our practice. Although...