If you're a Border's Reward member you got an e-mail newsletter with an excerpt from my new book in it today. If you didn't get it or you deleted it go here or click on the title of this article to go directly to the excerpt. In the e-mail newsletter the except is on a link that's way, way down the page under "Religion and Spirituality." Funny because my last Suicide Girls post was all about how Zen is neither. Ah well. Gotta love Borders for putting this in anyway. Thanks!
I've been skimming over some of the reactions to the book in the comments section here and in other places. It's kind of interesting. There are times I'm somewhat at a loss what to make of the book myself. As I said in the book, that book just sort of appeared to me in a flash and demanded to be written. I had a lot of far easier ideas in mind for my next book. Nice stuff that wouldn't have made anyone mad. Like a Zen look at the life and work of Jesus (seriously, I researched this for several months and took loads of notes) or something based on my commentary to Nishijima's translation of Nagarjuna's Fundamental Song of the Middle Way (which is due out this Fall from Monkfish Books, by the way).
Those would've been a breeze to write and probably would've saved me from some of the name-calling and suchlike I'm getting now. They'd have also been less embarrassing to read from at book signings. But there ya go.
I'm gonna stop now cuz I have a new Suicide Girls article due in a couple days. Maybe I'll riff on this topic some more over there.
