I’m pleased to announce that my lat­est book, Half Asleep in the Bud­dha Hall, is now available!

Here are some details, as well as a link to our store.

Just the other day I was talk­ing with a client who told me that, basi­cally, her life was over. Bad mar­riage, unful­filled social life, noth­ing excited her anymore.

Here’s the weird part—she’s only 30!

And not, sadly, unusual. I get it. I’ve learned another way, and taught it to my clients.

If you are con­fused, lost, sick and tired of the rat race, and want to find depth, inti­macy, and clar­ity, read on!

My newest book, Half Asleep in the Bud­dha Hall, will

• help you find the peace, cen­tered­ness, and con­tent­ment you have been seeking.
• explain how to develop and deepen your self-knowing, “cut your­self some slack,” and dis­cover how to be with your life as it unfolds.
• give you tools for devel­op­ing peace and contentment.

Curi­ous? Let’s explore my new book!

Here are a few key concepts:

• First, exter­nal sys­tems that seem to have sup­ported peo­ple in the past (things like fam­ily, church, com­mu­nity, etc.) have been on life-support for at least the last two generations.
• Sec­ond, we are bom­barded with what I call the “be more, have more, hap­pi­ness” model—this model sug­gests that what we have and how we are seen by oth­ers leads to more satisfaction.
• Third, we have dis­cov­ered that exter­nals—(val­i­da­tion, piles of stuff, etc.) lead nowhere. All we end up with is stress and the desire for more.

For cen­turies, cer­tain peo­ple have grasped
the only authen­tic way to
step out of the game,
and to fully live in the present moment.

In Half Asleep in the Bud­dha Hall, I bring you into direct con­tact with the wis­dom of the East, and espe­cially the light of Zen. I help you to find wis­dom and depth there. The Zen sto­ries, for exam­ple, help sup­port you on your walk.

I lib­er­ally sprin­kle these teach­ing sto­ries with exam­ples and lessons from my almost 30 years of Coun­selling expe­ri­ence, meld­ing the old with the new.

You are able to see and do—you dis­cover a way of being in the world that is both pow­er­ful and gentle.

Let me tell you more. You have already begun the only adven­ture worth your time and effort—the adven­ture of being wholly and fully yourself!

Take a moment to read a few of the many reviews of Half Asleep in the Bud­dha Hall.

This book is a ver­i­ta­ble smörgås­bord of exer­cises, tips and tales. Like its author, this book is novel, light­hearted, earnest, quirky, and very help­ful.

~ Ben­net Wong & Jock McK­een
Co-founders, The Haven Insti­tute

We tend to view life accord­ing to the beliefs of our tribe. That is, our way of look­ing at the world is largely influ­enced by our upbring­ing and cul­ture. We view the world from within our small cir­cle and think we know the world, but step out­side of the cir­cle and we can see from a very dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive. Not only does the rest of the world look dif­fer­ent, but from this new van­tage point we also gain new per­spec­tives into our own life.

In Half Asleep in the Bud­dha Hall, through tra­di­tional and new Zen sto­ries, Wayne C. Allen opens up con­cepts largely unfa­mil­iar to most West­ern trained minds. This book, both pro­found and yet easy to under­stand, will gen­tly open your mind to a greater per­spec­tive, an expanded aware­ness if you will, that will bring you to a deeper under­stand­ing of your­self and the world around you.

As an avid pro­po­nent of life-long learn­ing and self-development, I offer my high­est rec­om­men­da­tion for Half Asleep in the Bud­dha Hall to all who are inter­ested in their per­sonal evo­lu­tion. A greater per­spec­tive awaits you!

~ Den­nis “Boo­gie Jack” Gaskill

Wayne Allen entices us to look at how we exam­ine who and what we are as we go through our day to day lives. But more than that, he com­pels us to go well beyond exam­in­ing our­selves, and actively DO the things that will bring us con­tent­ed­ness. Replete with anec­dotes, sto­ries, exam­ples and, pro­found intro­duc­tory pieces, this book engages us to look deep within our­selves, while remain­ing sim­ple. Gen­tle humor and gen­uine hon­esty are used to keep the reader think­ing, feel­ing, doing and being.
Read it.…live it.

~ Debashis Dutta, Coör­di­na­tor,
Human Ser­vices Foun­da­tion, Con­estoga Col­lege, Kitch­ener, Ontario

HALF ASLEEP IN THE BUDDHA HALL is all about help­ing you to dis­cover what it means to live life with depth, com­pas­sion, and assurance.

So, I hear you ask­ing, what’s in the book, and why is it so spe­cial?

Half Asleep in the Bud­dha Hall is designed to help you to see the wis­dom that is con­tained in sim­plic­ity, in “not know­ing,” and in fully liv­ing your life. For­ever, Zen has pointed the essence of life—to clar­ity, pres­ence, and hav­ing a sense of humour:

As you read, you will discover:

• ways to step back and see the oper­a­tion of your distinction-making mind.
• three keys to stop being lost in your head — live in the here and now.
• the dif­fer­ence between a desire and real­ity
  how to wake up, grow up, and get over yourself.
• the impor­tance of real­iz­ing you have no self.
• why your his­tory is just that — a story.
• the les­son of the laundromat.
• the dan­gers of thought loops.
• what real bag­gage tells us about emo­tional baggage.
• how Air­Miles can lead to wak­ing up.
• when beliefs are obstacles.
• a load of intel­li­gence is a dan­ger­ous thing.
• how one word sets you free from fear (hint.. it begins with a “p”)
• why inten­tions and dreams rarely sat­isfy
  the 4 Truths that save your life.
• 5 ways to live in the present, persistently.
• how to escape from Indra’s net
• 6 Meth­ods to make bet­ter choices
  break­ing the ego­tism habit through self-responsibility
• why Yogi Berra is a Zen master
• 10 exer­cises in Zen being
• 10 ways to relate with depth and compassion

Half Asleep in the Bud­dha Hall is designed to help you to wake up.

As
I write in the Intro­duc­tion —

I want to encour­age you to step back from West­ern cul­ture and belief sys­tems, for no par­tic­u­lar rea­son other than to give you a chance to air out your mind. This is meant to be like walk­ing around a statue. The front and the back may seem dif­fer­ent, but it is the same statue, seen from a dif­fer­ent perspective.

Ulti­mately, my wish is that you expand your reper­toire regard­ing how you choose to view, under­stand, and live your life. This book will sug­gest a moment-by-moment path to deeper, com­mit­ted, and pur­pose­ful living.

You will learn the prac­ti­cal­i­ties of liv­ing a
full and rich life:

Another way of putting “All that we are is the result of what we have thought” is “You are what you cling to.” We cling to stuff—beliefs, peo­ple, objects—for fear of what will hap­pen, or who we will be, if we let them go.

Yet, all that our des­per­ate cling­ing gets us is dis­il­lu­sion­ment and des­per­a­tion.
Non-clinging hap­pens as we dis­en­tan­gle the mind from its obses­sion with our thoughts and beliefs. To drop cling­ing, we need to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between moment-by-moment sit­u­a­tions, and our judge­ments and sto­ries about them.

The [moment of awak­en­ing] like all of life, hap­pened in the ‘Now.’ In a sense, our enlight­en­ment comes when we real­ize that the only way to enjoy life is to enjoy the end­less ‘Now.’ Just as there is no fixed ‘goal,’ there is no thing called enlightenment—no fixed state you arrive at. There is just one moment after another of enlight­ened act­ing. Or, put another way, I have no life, no fixed thing called ‘my life.’ I have a string of ‘Now,’ which is a moment-by-moment unfold­ing. I can sim­plify the process of com­ing into the Now by sim­ply inter­act­ing with the moment.

I do this by choos­ing to step out of my head, my imag­i­na­tion, my pre­tend­ing that I have a life, a past, a future. I step into this moment, and real­ize that all there is, is this moment. I then choose how I relate to it.

Com­mit to walk­ing a path that leads nowhere, walked by no one. One step and one step, this path is always walked in the now-here, (because there can be no des­ti­na­tion, only the walk, until, para­dox­i­cally, you reach the end for all of us—death.)
This wis­dom path is lived with atten­tion to every detail, every interpretation—yet with the recog­ni­tion that ‘no one’ is walk­ing, ‘no one’ is inter­pret­ing. Think­ing that there is a ‘you’ in all of this is your ‘stuck tail’—your ego iden­ti­fy­ing with the role of inter­preter, walker.

I know. What the heck is he talk­ing about?

My intent is to sug­gest let­ting go of your present way of see­ing and being, so that you might self-less-ly walk the ‘wis­dom path.’ Yet, noth­ing changes in the ‘real’ world. You still have to make a liv­ing and have a life.

So what does change? Your focus, atti­tude, and your com­mit­ment. Instead of mind­less­ness, or grip­ing, or com­plain­ing, you do what you do— you attend to right now—here, and here alone. You chop wood, carry water, with total, mind­ful attention.

And then, as your ego pops up, smile and think, ‘caught tail.’ Let go, give your­self a shake, and go back to playing—being.

Or, you can choose to keep pre­tend­ing that any­one cares, and that res­cue is at hand. 95% of the pop­u­la­tion buys into that delu­sion. Drop me a line if this delu­sion works out for you, eh?

I sus­pect that ‘no-one’ will reply…

In Zen, we speak of dis­ci­pline. The key dis­ci­pline is ‘non-following,’ or non-attachment. You let each non-helpful thought go by not cling­ing to it. Now, of course, as with Beth, such thoughts will arise until you die.

Fol­low­ing such thoughts leads to paral­y­sis by analy­sis. This paral­y­sis seems inevitable, until I notice that repeat­ing dys­func­tional thought pat­terns causes the paral­y­sis. I am ‘lost in thought,’ and the cure is to stop myself—not by more think­ing, but by act­ing. Less thought, more action.
Remem­ber: you cause your­self prob­lems by over-thinking and under-doing. Pick a way to be, and then just be it. Swing for the fences, let­ting the crit­i­cal thoughts fade into back­ground noise.

And here is the point!

By now, I trust that you ‘get’ what this book is about—that you cre­ate your real­ity, and pop­u­late your real­ity by telling your­self sto­ries. The sto­ries are about you, oth­ers, and the world. You under­stand that your sto­ries are just stories—are about as ‘real’ as nurs­ery rhymes—and real­ize that you are on the path­less path.

My goal is to sup­port you on your walk, to help you find peace
and sat­is­fac­tion -
and most impor­tantly,
to help you to have the kind of ful­fill­ing,
rich,
and mean­ing­ful life you want.

This 200 page book will change your life.
We guar­an­tee it!

Half Asleep in the Bud­dha Hall is avail­able at our Com­pany Store.
You can price
and pay for the book in your local currency.

This End­less Moment is avail­able as
◊ a paper­back book ($20.00),
◊ as a pdf down­load­able e-book ($16.00.)
You can choose your for­mat at the Com­pany Store.

Pref­ace and Introduction

Table of Contents

Sam­ple Chapter