Following our family holiday down to Washington D.C. for the fireworks and then a brief visit to the great Gotham, we’re now back to Providence. We have family plans over the weekend which involve exploring Rhode Island and a quest for the perfect Clam shack. Otherwise I won’t be too far away until the American Zen Teacher’s Association gathering the following weekend.
Before taking off Melissa and I were able to send off the ms for the Book of Mu: Essential Writings on Zen’s Most Important Koan (publication date should be announced soon, but probably next Spring), which will be the third volume in a series Wisdom Publications is doing, the first two edited by the late Daido Loori, one on shikantaza and the other essays and talks on koan introspection practice.
And I have also discovered how in the process of trying to avoid working on that project I’ve come a long way toward completing what I hope will be my next book, the working title of which is The Boundless Way: Field Notes from a Zen Life. I’m very much aware I have no contract for it and its been a while since I’ve worked on a book without one. Also, I can’t tell if its any good. But it is putting my thinking in order, which has to be a good thing no matter what if anything comes of it in the publishing world.
And now I’m sitting at my favorite Providence coffee shop, sipping an iced latte and keeping a fierce eye on the two tables that have electrical outlets next to them, hoping to get over there before my battery runs out,
now avoiding working on the book in front of me.
Such, I notice, is my experience of the writing life…
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