Ewen's Newsletter - August 28, 2024
Ewen's Newsletter - August 28, 2024
Hi All
Here’s this week’s newsletter.
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Film: Albatross (2017)
Synopsis: ALBATROSS is a powerful visual journey into the heart of an astonishingly symbolic environmental tragedy. On one of the remotest islands on our planet, tens of thousands of baby albatrosses lie dead on the ground, their bodies filled with plastic. Returning to the island over several years, our team witnessed the cycles of life and death of these birds as a multi-layered metaphor for our times. This story is framed in the vividly gorgeous language of state-of-the-art high-definition digital cinematography, surrounded by millions of live birds in one of the world's most beautiful natural sanctuaries. The viewer will experience stunning juxtapositions of beauty and horror, destruction and renewal, grief and joy, birth and death, coming out the other side with their heart broken open and their worldview shifted. Stepping outside the stylistic templates of traditional environmental or documentary films, ALBATROSS takes viewers on a guided tour into the depths of their own spirits, delivering a profound message of reverence and love that is already reaching an audience of millions of people around the world.
Book: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice
About: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”
So begins this most beloved of all American Zen books. Seldom has such a small handful of words provided a teaching as rich as has this famous opening line. In a single stroke, the simple sentence cuts through the pervasive tendency students have of getting so close to Zen as to completely miss what it’s all about. An instant teaching on the first page. And that’s just the beginning.
In the forty years since its original publication, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind has become one of the great modern Zen classics, much beloved, much reread, and much recommended as the best first book to read on Zen. Suzuki Roshi presents the basics—from the details of posture and breathing in zazen to the perception of nonduality—in a way that is not only remarkably clear, but that also resonates with the joy of insight from the first to the last page. It’s a book to come back to time and time again as an inspiration to practice, and it is now available to a new generation of seekers in this fortieth anniversary edition, with a new afterword by Shunryu Suzuki’s biographer, David Chadwick.
Music: The Midnight
Artist: Dj Vianu
Reflections
"Can miles truly separate you from friends... If you want to be with someone you love, aren't you already there?" - Richard Bach
"Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's." - Billy Wilder
"I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don't just want to possess it, it will find you." - Maya Angelou
"Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Do not waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Project Update
Going on from last week’s update, I have some exciting news to share. Over the last couple of weekends, we’ve been shooting a new feature film. We have now finished the shoot and will move straight into post-production. There will be more updates on this project in the weeks to come.
Also, Śūnyatā is now available as a digital download. You can purchase it here.
Grateful For
This week, I’m most grateful for: Ivana, Liv, Jess, Fletcher, the cast and crew on our latest film, and Katrina and Steve, who allowed us to film at their place.
What are you grateful for this week? (You’re welcome to share with me. But I encourage you to share your gratitude with those close to you)
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The Philosophy of Focus
When I was younger, I used to have a very set way of looking at the world. Like most growing up, I used to have an unwavering set of beliefs that were almost stuck on me. But as I’ve gotten older, all those beliefs have gradually fallen away to the point where I can’t even remember most of what I used to believe in. And now I don’t hold any beliefs. None whatsoever. And I am aware that this is quite antithetical to what most tell us. People say “You have to believe in something”, “You have to believe in yourself”, etc., etc. But I don’t believe in anything anymore.
What has brought this on has been my widened perspective. As I’ve come to new realisations of life, I’ve realised more ways in which I could disprove my beliefs. And quite naturally, my beliefs have eased. It’s not that I don’t have thoughts anymore. It’s just that I don’t believe any of my thoughts are true. They’re just words that float through my mind.
But what does all this have to do with focus?
Film
Purchase the digital download for my film Śūnyatā by clicking the banner:
Books
If you haven’t already, grab both my books The Flow of All Things and The Shadow Stalker for free by clicking the covers:
Thanks for checking out this week’s newsletter. If you have any feedback or would just like to say “Hi”, you can simply reply to this newsletter. I do my best to respond to every email.
Have a great rest of your week.
Cheers,
Ewen
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