Dear Friends,

What’s up with the new layout?

Well, I’ve been on WP for a long time and it was not only beginning to feel stale, but it was limiting in a lot of ways. For example, if I wanted to add a special feature, like a web app, I had to link to a third party. Now, the Practice page has an integrated meditation timer. (I know the bell is a little janky, but it works!)

Before, if I wanted to make a post or a change I had to login to WP and finagle with things. Now all I have to do is make a change on my local machine and push the change up to github. The site is instantly updated! Ideally, this will enable me to post more frequently. That could turn out to be a bad thing.

Podcast Update

It seems like it took me forever to get to five episodes. I think it was over four months between E4 and E5. Not really the way I wanted that to go down, but between work, school, and normal life that was all I could do.

It’s funny, I put a lot of effort into E5. I spent a long time thinking about The Four Vows, and I spent a good amount of time editing the audio to get rid of breathing sounds and lip smacking. Then I went back and listened to the whole thing and was bored.

The idea was to present The Four Vows of the Bodhisattva and bring in some every-day-life relevance. Not sure how that landed, but I know I need to work on my storytelling.

What’s Next?

I mentioned in E5 that I would talk about the Six Perfections (Paramitas) at some point. I will probably talk about the 5 precepts as well. I’m not sure when or how that will come about. I’d prefer for it to come about naturally rather than force it into existence, but sitting around waiting for something to happen doesn’t make much sense either.

Best,

Justin Tension