Sep 15, 2022Walking in Each-other’s TemplesConversations on Buddhism & Judaism, Cultural Humility, Universalism & Ancestry, and the Sense of Choice in Lineage and Heritage Introduction The painting at the top was painted at one of the oldest wooden temples in Nara Japan, in 2006. I was traveling across the country for six weeks to explore Zen Buddhism and to research a graphic novel I was writing and drawing, the Lantern and the Wave. After losing…Buddhism11 min readBuddhism11 min read
Sep 13, 2022Blossom Like Dust: Is ‘Covid Fog’ Revealing The Nature of Self?I experienced two kinds of fog since Covid hit. First was the fog of disorientation from the deep uncertainty, dissolution of plans, my solitary lifestyle. All around me expressions like ‘normality,’ ‘the way things were,’ ‘going back to normal’, ‘re-opening,’ stopped making sense. Second, In summer 2022, two years after…Meditation4 min readMeditation4 min read
Jul 9, 2022Brit Milah As Covenant Of MindHebrew circumcision reimagined for contemplative practice, in which the newborn is the contemplative insight into the sense of self. Turning Rites Around YHWH, the biblical god, instructs Avrahm to circumcise all males. Could it be that God’s instruction left us with a manual for beholding our mind? During one meditation retreat, I was struck how much the seven-day creation myth of Bereshit (Hebrew for Genesis,) described the experience of the rising of…Judaism12 min readJudaism12 min read
Jun 15, 2022Nazir: Temple of One, An IntroductionJewish Monasticism’s role in Jewish ancestral trauma healing, and as an expression of a universal human inclination & spectrum. For over two decades, starting with my adolescent solo time at my art studio (earlier, playing Legos?), in the silence of the Zen Buddhist Monastery I trained in, while bearing witness at sites of human tragedies & triumph around the world, and through how I live today with long stretches…Judaism9 min readJudaism9 min read
Jun 3, 2022Passover in Piareus: A Travelog, April 2016, GreeceBearing Witness with Afghan, Syrian and Yazidi RefugeesBearing Witness19 min readBearing Witness19 min read
May 10, 2022Passover in Przemyśl, a TravelogArt, Ancestral Healing & Service In Light of the 2022 Ukrainian ExodusUkraine17 min readUkraine17 min read
Jan 8, 2021Weaving the Great TapestryReflection on the One World Bearing Witness 2020 Vigil, Personal Lineages, and Planetary Ancestral Peacemaking Early December 2020, I participated in guiding a 24-hour global meditation event called One World Bearing Witness: One Humanity, Belonging to Earth. OWBW is an annual vigil organized by One World in Dialogue, Dr. Elizabeth Debold and Thomas Steininger. Each 2-hour section started with guidance, reflection, or prayer by a…Ancestral Healing6 min readAncestral Healing6 min read
Dec 25, 2020Tribute to Dr. Ahmed JaberDr. Ahmad Jaber, I sat next to you in an interfaith dialog circle for several years. “Brother Rami, you are one of us.” Whether it was at your mosque in which you taught and led the prayer, at a church, a synagogue, or your own living room in Bay Ridge…Interfaith2 min readInterfaith2 min read
May 1, 2019Soften, Brother.Last Sunday I pulled into the parking lot of Congregation Beit Israel, the local synagogue in Northampton, Massachusetts USA. I found a parking spot in the full lot and walked towards the entrance. No one was there, either in the lot or at the entrance. I was fifteen minutes late…Judaism4 min readJudaism4 min read
Jan 13, 2017We Used to Walk This Earth, Together.In November 2013, I attended my first retreat with the Zen Peacemakers in Auschwitz-Birkenau. It wasn’t the piles of hair or the green stains inside the gas chamber that buckled my knees and wretched my innards. It wasn’t the barb wire, the watch towers or the broken china cup handle…Holocaust4 min readHolocaust4 min read
