My first novel, Aidan and the Dragon Girl Save the World, was borne of my love of history and an interest in how dragons are viewed in the east—not as fire-breathing reptiles but as shape-shifting water spirits and protectors of the Dharma.
Now I’ve written a second Aidan novel, inspired by my interest in early Buddhism and the cosmology of ancient Egypt. It’s called Aidan and the Mummy Girl Save the Universe…
Entropy is often thought of as a measure of randomness, disorder and in information theory, ignorance. It seems to be on the one hand trivially statistical and on the other hand deeply embedded in our experience…
Hazy Moon member Ralph Shikan Levinson recently published his first novel, a Chan-themed adventure story for children. In Aidan and the Dragon Girl Save the World, 11-year-old Aidan Alvarado receives the key to his grandfather’s wondrous study and a student membership in the League of Dream Detectives…
In this essay on the relationship between mathematics and Zen, Ralph Shikan Levinson draws on some of the fundamentals of geometry, particularly the quality of symmetry, as a way to interpret the identity of relative and absolute. He then applies some of his ideas to an appreciation of Zen poetry and art, particularly the work of Sengai Gibon (1750-1838).
Nyogen Roshi sent me a New York Times article that he thought I would like: “A Black Hole Mystery Wrapped in a Firewall Paradox.” Leonard Susskind, a theoretical physicist and educator whose work I enjoy, had offered comments on the article. There were also references to the iconic physicist and intellectual provocateur Stephen Hawking, and […]
Is there any reason for a Zen practitioner to read about science? When I started practice, I was certain the answer to that question was no. Obviously, one can have a Zen practice and not study science. So why bother? Don’t get me wrong: I love science, although I fell in love with it relatively […]
