Notebooks of a Wandering Monk by Matthieu Ricard,  (Translated by Jesse Browner. 2023. 702pp. Hardback £28.00) This is a giant, magnificent book in weight and its import, depth, and unique and extraordinary viewpoint. Matthieu Ricard gives us an intimate insider’s perception of the world of Tibetan Buddhism over its last half-century journey and beyond. This […]

Why and how do we read about Zen, Buddhism and Buddhist practice? Indeed, is reading a good thing, or will this detract from the focus on an experience-based practice? Francis Dojun Cook in How to Raise an Ox makes the point that reading and talking about texts is not necessarily a different activity from washing […]

‘Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you – they may have different tastes.’ : George Bernard Shaw Wonderbox: Curious Histories of How to Live – by Roman Krznaric My choice of book is not concerned with Zen although a Buddhist priest is the focus of one of the chapters.  […]

Two events happened in my twenties which affected my life then and to some extent even now. The first was that my father died suddenly. He hadn’t been well for some time but we had just shared a relaxing family holiday in Scotland and we had even talked about climbing Ben Nevis when he was […]

In my youth, a long long time ago, I must have been searching for the ‘meaning of life’ or at least an arrow pointing in the right direction. I knew one thing: that the belief in a creator god was primitive and superstitious. This I had learned from my readings of Voltaire and other luminaries […]