Literature

From Antarctica to the North Pole, from burning deserts and alpine ridges to the exposed highways of Tennessee, ultrarunning taught me that reaching the finish line was never the real point.

For all but a few elites, these races offer little tangible reward for what they demand. Yet in that apparent pointlessness lies their gift: they strip life back until the deeper reward appears - noticing the life unfolding along the way.

The Still Point begins with a body I did not trust. Illness followed me from childhood into adulthood, until one hesitant two-kilometre run opened a life I had never imagined. Half marathons became marathons, then journeys lasting several days and nights across mountains, deserts, ice and roads.

Across more than 150 completed events, including six 200-milers and two 300-milers, I discovered that distance does more than test endurance. Pain, fatigue, hallucinations, failure, family and the kindness of strangers became teachers. Running first helped me build a self I could believe in. Then it taught me how lightly that self could be held.

Reflective, candid and gently irreverent, The Still Point brings Samatha and Vipassanā onto roads and trails without turning either running or meditation into doctrine. It invites readers to reconsider their relationship with discomfort, achievement and identity, and to discover how attention can make even the hardest moments more fully lived.

The journey culminates on a lonely road through Tennessee, where more than 500 kilometres reduce life to its simplest elements: one step, one breath, this moment. What the journey ultimately reveals is not a method for conquering life, but a way of meeting it - awake, honest and fully present.

Kỷ niệm 20 năm nhạc sĩ Trịnh Công Sơn qua đời, một thiền sinh nối mạch Thiền với ca từ họ Trịnh qua 20 khúc tản văn. Ký ức Hà Nội những năm bảy mươi, tám mươi. Những mẩu chuyện về tình mẫu tử, anh em. Trải nghiệm thiền định tại Lumbini, quê hương Đức Phật Thích Ca. Một sợi chỉ mảnh nối tư tưởng Voltaire, Sagan, Hemingway, Dylan, Trầm Tử Thiêng với Trịnh, tạo cảm hứng cho những trăn trở và khúc hoan ca qua bao cung bậc thăng trầm của cuộc sống, Hương Bưởi và Xác Pháo là một lời nhắc nhở về bản chất thánh thiện của con người.