bodhi tree swaying

Daily OM recently reviewed my audio book, “The Wisdom of the Breath.”

Here’s an extract.

Bodhipaksa’s mission here is to guide us towards a clear perception of our interconnected reality, giving us the strength to transcend the illusion of our own separateness and permanence. With his mellow guidance we “explore the interconnected reality of the universe in which we live.” When we are focused in our breathing we are able to feel that interconnectedness, the joy of union with the divine counters the feeling of loss that may accompany the undoing of our egoic desires. The ego itself is revealed as a mere knot in the chain that’s come to think of itself as separate from the chain, but once untangled, sees it’s much more powerful with all the other links to hold and be held by. With The Wisdom of the Breath, Bodhipaksa, helps us undo the knots and feel,

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Last year I announced that the second edition of Wildmind: A Step-by-Step Guide to Meditation would have a new cover. And I was very excited about it.

Since then, however, the publication date got moved back because they publisher was moving and had some staffing problems. And the staffing problem included the designer departing and not leaving a copy of the cover art. Sigh. So the cover above is the new proposed design.

In retrospect, although I was excited about the old design, I think this one has lasting appeal. It’s a bit conventional, but it more than does the job.

The other day I was sent a draft of the blurb for “Living as a River,” to be published by Sounds True on October 1, 2010.

This will give you an idea of what the book’s about.

I must say that I’m enormously impressed by the degree of skill shown by all the staff at Sounds True, the blurb-writers included. Incidentally, I was told “Joe, our Copy Chief who wrote this copy said to tell you that he (like many of us) has a great feeling about this book!” How very encouraging!

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I received this email from my publisher today:

I saw the content from the book that you sent to Jaime, and it really looks like it’s coming along. I think it’s going to be a truly brilliant book.

We had a meeting today to discuss the title and subtitle, and to brainstorm a bit around it. The goal was to create a title that really represents what’s in the book, but also conveys the benefit the reader might receive. This is a tough balance to strike! But we hammered something out that Tami and I both think is great. You’ll see we stole from the title of the podcast here, which we both liked a great deal. With some subtitle iterations, and in the order of our preference, our proposals are:LIVING AS A RIVER: Finding Fearlessness in the Face of ChangeLIVING AS A RIVER:

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You can buy my book. Vegetarianism: A Buddhist View at any of the following places:

• Amazon.com in the US
• Consortium Books in the US
• Amazon.ca in Canada
• Windhorse Publications in the UK
• Amazon.co.uk in the UK

Amazon.com and Consortium’s sites are saying that the book’s not yet available, but I’m told it should actually be in stock. In any event, I’d really love it if you bought the book. If you buy the book today on Amazon it will create a nice little blip in sales which will help to get it a bit more attention. Maybe we could make it into Amazon’s list of best-selling Buddhist books?

Friday, November 13. An easy date to remember!

It’s the day that the new and updated edition of my book on Buddhism and Vegetarianism, Vegetarianism: A Buddhist View, will become available.

I’m celebrating the day by dedicating my whole time to being on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/bodhipaksa), (Facebook), and my blog (that’s where you are right now), talking about Buddhism and vegetarianism. And just generally hanging out as well, so that things don’t get too serious.

As well as playing the suave host and urging people to mingle, mingle, mingle, I’ll be posting articles, quotes, and video to feed into a discussion about this important topic. I’ll also be happy to take questions.

I’ll be online all day, from 9 until 9 (Eastern), but you can drop by on any of those three platforms (again, that’s Twitter, Facebook, my blog). Just remember to say “hi”! …

I was talking to my publisher this morning about the forthcoming second edition of Wildmind: A Step-by-Step Guide to Meditation, and she showed me no fewer than eight drafts of the cover. A couple of them were particularly stunning, including this one. I love the wildness and boldness of the brush strokes. The hills are a bit too dark, but the artist will be working on that.

The book’s going to be in a new and more conventional format this time. The first edition was in a landscape format and it was also rather large, which meant it was hard for bookstores to shelve it properly. Despite this it’s still one of the publisher’s best-selling titles.

I’ll keep you posted on the release, and perhaps I’ll have some kind of launch party. In fact the other thing we talked about was an online launch …

So last night I went to Londonderry (New Hampshire) to watch movies that had been submitted as part of the New Hampshire 48 Hour Film Project — including the following short, film, in which I did the narration:

The 48 Hour Film Project is a worldwide enterprise where on Friday evening teams of filmmakers (usually amateur and often first-time) are given a genre (in our case fantasy — others included musical, suspense, cop, and buddy movie), a character (either Marie or Max Otterbein), the character’s profession (waitress/waiter), a prop (sunglasses), and a line of dialogue (“Don’t just stand there. Move it!”). Teams also had t include a New Hampshire landmark in the movie. By Sunday evening the film must be handed in.

John Herman was the force behind our effort. He’d asked me to do the narration, …

This is a generally incisive and hard-hitting review of what sounds to be a very good book on a subject dear to my heart…

America’s Prisons: Is There Hope?
By Helen Epstein
Dreams from the Monster Factory: A Tale of Prison, Redemption and One Woman’s Fight to Restore Justice to All
by Sunny Schwartz, with David Boodell

Scribner, 204 pp., $24.00

America’s prison system is in a dire state. Some 2.3 million people in this country are now behind bars, five times more than in 1978. Our incarceration rate is now higher than that of any other country in the world. Many, if not most, inmates probably should not be there. Sixteen percent of the adult prison population suffers from mental illness and should be in treatment; a similar fraction is made up of children under eighteen. Although there is little evidence that blacks are more likely to use drugs than whites, they are six times

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I posted a review on Wildmind yesterday of Susan Blackmore’s Ten Zen Questions. I wrote the review while I had bronchitis (which I still have) and it took a long time to write. Adding to the difficulty of writing this piece is the fact that the book covers so much material in a short space of time and it can be rather dense in places. I wondered, as I often do, if I was being too critical. There is certainly a lot to admire in the book and I tried to express that.

I’ve just started reading Susan Blackmore’s “Ten Zen Questions” so that I can review it on Wildmind.

I’ve only read the (long) introduction and the first chapter so far, but it’s a great read. If you’ve ever seen or heard Susan (I’ve heard her on Podcasts and seen her on TED videos) you’ll know she’s an unconventional character. She’s a psychologist who researches consciousness and she also practices Zen, although she stresses she’s not a Buddhist.

Her writing style is both perky and very, very thought-provoking. Or rather she’s “non-thought” provoking, in that she reminds you over and over again to pay attention to your present moment experience (in the first chapter at least) by asking the question “Am I conscious now?” (although I’d express the question as “Am I conscious of being conscious now?”).

The constant reiteration of the question …

It seems to be “pop culture week” here on Bodhi Tree Swaying.

A new friend I’ve made through Twitter, Chris Clark, who runs a website called Geek Force Five, invited me to share my obsession with the TV show Battlestar Galactica. I initially hesitated, knowing that I didn’t have the time, but then thought, “what the frak” (the allusion is explained in the article) and stayed up until midnight working on it.

The piece isn’t my usual style, but then I’m probably not my usual self when I’m watching Battlestar Galactica. I was quite pleased with the piece, despite its stylistic oddities.

You can read the article, which has the title “The Five Frakkin’ Geekiest Things About Battlestar Galactica,” right here.

Over on Wildmind I’ve written a longish post with some reflections on Joss Whedon’s new show, Dollhouse, starring Eliza Dushku, who played Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

It’s the kind of thing that ordinarily I would post here, but I think that in future I’m going to be putting a bit more of my energy into Wildmind. That doesn’t mean I’ll be writing less or differently. I’ll keep using this blog as a way of letting people know what I’m up to, including passing on news of articles I’ve posted. I’ll probably also continue to post shorter pieces here.

Anyway, here’s the start of the article, with a link to the rest. The Buddhist stuff starts just after the jump to Wildmind…

So far there’s only been one episode of Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse, so perhaps it’s a bit early to be talking about overarching themes, leitmotifs,

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I just discovered Joss Whedon’s brilliant, short, three-part tragicomic musical, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

It’s the story of a confused your man who’s upset with the hypocrisy in the world and who thinks that the way to respond is to become an evil mastermind and to join the Evil League of Evil. He’s in love with a sweet girl called Penny, who has unfortunately started dating Horrible’s nemesis, the narcissistic superhero, Captain Hammer.

In his everyday persona, Dr. Horrible, whose real name we never learn, is talking to Penny in the laundromat about her date with Captain Hammer. Horrible is doing a pretty good job of masking his pain and jealousy until:

Penny: He’s a really good-looking guy, and I thought he was kind of cheesy at first…

Dr. Horrible: (Sotto voce) Trust your instincts.

Penny: …but he turned out to be totally sweet. Sometimes people are layered like

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The wonderful people at Sounds True are bringing out a double-CD set of my teachings on the Mindfulness of Breathing practice tomorrow (Jan 1, 2009). It’s called “Still the Mind” and it’s a step-by-step guide to the four stages of the practice, illuminating the principles underlying each stage and explaining the various ways that our awareness of the breath can be used to cultivate calmness, energy, mental integration, and one-pointed concentration.

Here’s a bit of the blurb.

The average person has 12,000 thoughts per day—most of them a recurring handful of unwelcome distractions. On Still the Mind, master meditation teacher Bodhipaksa offers an essential program for anyone looking to move beyond the chatter of a too-busy mind, while laying the foundation for a daily meditation practice. Two CDs of instruction and guided sitting sessions will help you discover the breath as an untapped

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The NYT has a report on studies claiming that the amount of time spent watching television is a good indicator of how happy a person is: the less time spent in front of the idiot-box, the happier a person tends to be.

The researchers caution that they can’t yet explain the correlation — whether happy people watch less TV or whether watching TV makes you unhappy.

I have no special insight into these studies, but I doubt the statement of the researcher who said, “I don’t know that turning off the TV will make you more happy.” In itself, no. But I think that socializing, exercising, meditating, and reading are inherently more enriching than watching television. But I suspect the relationship works both ways — watching TV diminishes our lives and when we’re unhappy we’re more likely to turn to a passive form of entertainment. …

I’m a big Doctor Who fan, and in fact I remember watching some of the very early William Hartnell episodes from the early 1960′s. I was only born in 1961 so this is pretty good going, and in fact when I recently watched the very first season (which was shown in 1963) I remembered a couple of scenes very clearly — in particular the corridors of the Dalek’s city and the scene where a Dalek’s movements are impaired with a cloak spread on a floor. I can remember a lot of things from when I was two, so this doesn’t surprise me too much.

But I digress. I merely wanted to mention that there’s an interesting article on the BBC news website about some of the decision-making that went into the creation of the show, and some surprising insights into the …

Google has made available two million pictures — photographs and engravings — from Life’s image collection. Eventually they’ll be making all 10 million pictures freely available. The first thing I did was to head to the 1960s collection to look at the Apollo moon program, but then I dived back into the civil-war era shots. What an amazing find!