Munky MindJ. Parrish Lewis was born and raised in Maryland. In his youth there, he and his brother had many adventures in the dogwood forests near his home. His nostalgia for these adventures has strongly influenced his characters, their relationships, and their perspective on the world they inhabit. He moved to California’s coast to earn his degree in communications and now lives with his family in the San Joaquin Valley. Lewis is profoundly deaf and uses American Sign Language to communicate. He enjoys hazelnut coffee, captioned movies, and walking his dog.
Thinking about identity, how we get wrapped up in our ideas about who we are, so much that we don’t always actually see who we really are. As a Zen Buddhist, the concept of self is always very interesting to me. We study the Buddha way to study the self. In studying the self, we…
I’ve found myself thinking a lot about how I continue to get in the way of my own goals, and most of the time it’s just due to my own insecurities. My self-doubt’s a constant companion. The other day I was on the highway heading toward Fresno when I started feeling a sense of general…
I went to sit. After a little over 3 years of Zen practice being a major part of my life, I was invited by my teacher, Rev. Ōshin Jennings, founder and guiding teacher of No Barriers Zen, to attend part or all of the Rohatsu Sesshin at Jikoji Zen Center in the Santa Cruz Mountains…
This morning I was reading one of the stack of books that I’m reading at the same time (I can’t seem to keep my attention on just one book at a time these days), a book called Going To Pieces Without Falling Apart by Mark Epstein. I came across a sentence that hit me as…
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Recently, I’ve started publishing my chapters of The Goblin Road on Medium.com. I invite you to come read them for free, online. I’ll be reprinting paperbacks soon, for those of you who prefer the feel of a real book. My Medium.com page is: https://medium.com/@jparrishlewis Here’s a quick link to get started: CHAPTER ONE Ruarc and…
I wish I could say that when I sat down to write, that I was inspired to write. But technically I’m not really inspired. It seems like a contradiction to say that, while also feeling the “need” to write about not feeling inspired. Is a lack of inspiration itself an inspiration when you go ahead…
A writer cannot be a writer without reading. Since COVID-19 stumbled madly into our civilization, a deranged monkey throwing bananas (yes, I know they don’t actually go nuts about ‘nanas, but they’re cuter to imagine throwing fruit than leaves and bugs, yes?) everywhere they went, I haven’t written very much. As a result, I haven’t…
I was sitting in meditation the other more and my monkey mind was jumping all around the place. That’s alright. Acceptance. I’m at peace with my monkey mind. In the middle of random thoughts that were popping up and promptly acknowledged and shown the exit, the sun caught my attention. It was just beyond the…
