During the Liang dynasty, Daruma Taishi sought to teach Chan Buddhism to the Shaolin monks in the Henan province of China. Owing to the sedentary nature of the scholastic life, the monks were unable to withstand the rigors of the ascetic practices which Taishi used to help focus the body, spirit, and mind along with
I lacked the time this weekend to make significant headway on the story. I did get a few notes in here or there, and was able to rework some dialogue that wasn’t sitting well with me (the feel evolved into something incongruent with knowledge already in the possession of the characters). As usual, the new
I deeply adore the written word (the topic of my last handful of entries here), and have been devouring it since it first began resolving to more than unintelligible patterns of ink on otherwise useful paper. My self-guided literary tour has wandered through landscapes both familiar and foreign, instructing me in the authors’ visions of
2024 Paul L. Tomlinson