A lot of people seem to be interested in productivity systems and routines. I’ve been through a shedload of them in my working and music careers. What I do now is a gentler version of the system I worked out for myself when I was working from home as a freelance elearning designer. I’m not … Read more
Had an enjoyable Friday night in Glasgow at a talk by Brad Warner. Brad’s the only Zen Buddhist teacher I know who’s also a punk bassist, worked on monster movies and writes occasional articles on Buddhism for a porn site. He’s funny and self-deprecating but has a straight down the line serious attitude to Zen … Read more
Yesterday I was in Weston-Super-Mare for the Buddhist funeral of John Crook. John was a Chan (Zen) master and teacher of the Western Chan Fellowship. His style of retreat and teaching was a unique mix of the orthodox Chan from his own Chinese teacher, Japanese Zen from his first teachers, a wild and shamanistic Tibetan … Read more
This little statement is in the sleevenotes of So Beautiful or So What and, as I get engaged with writing again, it rings as true as any description I’ve ever heard of the creative process: How do the fingers of this thing entwine? Which foot falls first upon the trail? Is it the word? Is … Read more
With this being the 400th anniversary of the King James version of the bible, I’m hearing it a lot on Radio 4 and coming across it in the papers, and am constantly reminded how much I love it, and how much it’s the foundation of our everyday language and literature. You can barely get through … Read more
My top 8 spiritual rock stars Crass, eh? This is just a personal choice, by no means comprehensive, entirely serious or even fair. But it’s a thread that’s run through my music fandom since I was a teenager. I was somehow attracted to those who had been through the sex/drugs/hedonism of the rock world and … Read more