On the (easily misunderstood) Zen doctrine of not looking for fulfillment through outside phenomena.
This year did leave its mark on me. I only now see this.
I never wanted to be a "Zen SF&F author". If I did receive that label, I think I'd be very unhappy about it.
Why I don't mention Zen much in "mixed company".
Spiritual advice don't mean a thing if it don't come from within.
Zen's influence on my work.
The new needs friends, not evangelists or apologists.
ON SF exhaustion, and the point of believing in tomorrow.
A mindset to be identified and resisted.
On a childhood possession and the nature of grasping.
I write fiction because I do not want to die feeling I have had no control over my life.
If you don't work on yourself, it makes the job of others defining you against your will easier for them.
On Zen as the "do-nothing" philosophy (which it isn't).
Zen as nonintellectual, rather than anti-intellectual. But also non-passive.
I sometimes feel like books about writing should be prefaced with, "You won't find any 'literature' here."
"If you understand Zen as a kind of practice to be a best horse you will have a problem."
"moral action is also, inevitably, practical action, and immoral action is inevitably impractical..."
There's this line about Zen practice that comes up a lot, that it doesn't "give" you anything.
It doesn't mean the present moment is the only thing that exists, or that plans are foolish things.
"Beginner's mind" is not something we can impose on others.
The desire for something quick is not itself wrong.
"No man demands what he desires; each man demands what he fancies he can get."
Zen matters when it's practiced; it's getting people to practice that's the hard part.
On how Zen and Buddhism are not anti-intellectual, but non-intellectual. Big diff there.
On what we do with the discovery that we're not things, but processes.