The latest ZEN on thanks giving is too suppliant and directs your orientation from univeret it ality to Christianity. Although prayer is there in all religions are they really worthwhile.

In India one christian wants to propagate his creed by crying in prayer to God.Such emotions may move people who don’t think.

Let not your site pass ito a drab tautology. My feed back is please follow the good from Schopenhauer,the German Philosopher who considers God as a Force-Principle. the kind of vitues sucha s prayer etc appeal to base emotions and congreagate the weak minded sothat the Priests and churchmen collect donations to propagate their views.

Zen habits should declare that own efforts are stronger and pity prayer love kindness etc increase weakness of the soul. Hbituation into weakness and aggregation of weakness should not come out of the practices you preach.

Please move away from religious preaching and the mass democratic values which donot give permanent solutions

venkat

Thanks!

First, the numbered list telegraphs a tacit promise of the “finite”, that there is an end in sight. It says, “Once you’ve completed these 3 steps, mastered these 7 principles, assimilated these 11 laws…well, quite simply, ah…so like you’re done! It’s supremely goal directed, destination obsessed. very much A-B in the shortest distance, maybe even downright lazy. In short, it says we can soon be done, finished the work, kaput, over. Then, when done, we can drink in the applause of our own ego! If this isn’t “anti-Zen”, well, maybe it’s “counter-Zen”.

Second, the numbered list offers distinct (if false) clarity, in discretely separated steps, phases, modes, whatever. The prescriptions are “cleaved” or “chunked”, the idea being we can swallow a pot roast, one-chunk-at-a-time, to make life easier. Easy-to-chew bits. Again, anti or counter Zen, to build a stream of bricks instead of flowing water.

In short, the rhetoric says, “mastery is quite manageable really” because there’s a defined end in sight and also you’ll advance toward it one, clear, easy step at a time.

The rhetoric is brilliant, but like all great metaphors, very delicate, and vulnerable to wear. For example, “Kick-starting…x” is/was a great metaphor, but it’s mass-adoption relegated it to the coral reef of dead metaphors. The numbered list, I fear, is going that way too, becoming threadbare, so much so, I believe that it’s rhetoric may actually invoke an antithesis of suspicion at worst, a patient yawn at best.

It’s not your fault, not nobody’s fault, not no how. It’s just the erosion of good rhetorical scheme through highly repetitive use, across many linguistic registers…self-help, journalism, science, business writing, even spiritual literature.

I’m a regular reader, quite enamoured with your florid imagination. I like the content too. You could certainly keep the numbered list, where and when it really, no, REALLY, fits neatly. Barring that, I’d tap the farther reaches of your vivid mind for alternative containers and shapes for your lists.

Keep up the great work.

Bob

Re: weekend posts — maybe have links to other sites with good articles? It’s always appreciated :)

You’ve built up a great back catalogue of tips, what might be great is to go to an old list post and do a case study on 2-3 of the tips from it.

I think I’m like most other bloggers when I say that I’m really impressed with your take/drive on blogging, which is why I read NxE as well. I think at this point you could really write posts that are more story/personal and deal with how you apply tips to your life.

I always find the application more interesting than the theory.

I see that you use flickr- what about a zen habits group that we can submit to that you can pull photos from to use in the posts?

I will try not to do any super-long lists anymore, for starters … I thought it would be a great resource to come back to often, as opposed to something you might read all at once … but I can see how it would be overwhelming. It took me a long time to compile!

I’m loving this thread … you guys are providing great feedback, and while I can’t promise to implement every suggestion, please know that I am listening and I am grateful.

As for a mobile version of this site, I had help in reformatting the CSS so that the content loads first in a mobile device (as opposed to the sidebar). Let me know if there are any problems, as I don’t have a mobile device to view the site with.

Thanks again, everybody!