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
I’ve been using Gmail for a couple of months now and really like it. One thing that bugs me a little, though, is the little ads that appear down the side. They seem to scan your correspondence for key words and then throw ads at you. For example, I’ve just been in correspondence over a … Read more