Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I practice Zen meditation and I enjoy writing about meditation and helping other folks get started.
I wrote a book on various relates themes to Zen in 2007.
A lot of what I write about are perspectives gained via meditation because that serves as a helpful guide to tell Zen path in general.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
“Heavy Thinking Cannot Fly” covers several ideas relates to the Zen path. Many of these ideas are easily grasped without any direct experience in meditation per se.
Whether or not a reader pursues a daily practice I believe there are multiple applications in real life, and in thinking, that are beneficial and can be easily gained.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Because these are short, often introductory approaches to a number of ideas, there is not a long unbroken narrative that needs to be maintained. In fact, “Heavy Thinking Cannot Fly” can be opened to nearly any page at random and ideas can be quickly read. My writing therefore is also like this. I build up a list of short pieces and then see how they fit together.
I am working on a new book that has the same writing approach.
Zen, and meditation, at their core are quite simple. I keep my writing and writing habits that way as well.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Shunryu Suzuki, mentioned in my book, was a Zen teacher who brought the practice to the west coast from Japan mid- 20th century. His book, taken from lectures, “Zen Mind, Beginners Mind”, is a classic that contiues to inspire me with simplicity and a sense of true freedom.
What are you working on now?
I am continuing to collect ideas for a new book about the same topic. While all of my work contains actual meditation instruction at the end, this one will also take readers on a diverse course through Zen related perspectives.
Patience is often the result of Zen practice and the new work is no exception. I am in no rush – I am just diligently observing and taking notes.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I am new at most of the modern marketing so that’s hard to say. I think you need to be in as many places as you can. The advantages to self-publishing, when it works, are that sense of autonomy from anyone getting between the writer and the reader.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
A piece of uncommon advice – remember to breathe deep as you go. What else would you expect me to say?
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Keep doing something relentlessly, a little bit at a time.
What are you reading now?
I don’t read much about Zen although I will when something new shows up.
Quite unrelated, my second language is Swedish and I enjoy reading older books in that language – on almost any topic – I always learn new words that way.
What’s next for you as a writer?
My current project, not unlike the last, done in its own time.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I would, at that point, be too absorbed with sitting on the beach reading and maybe, escaping rescue, to read a lot.
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