What's the story behind your latest book?
Jae is troubled by philosophical questions. She mulls them over in private and spends many hours discussing them with her grandmother, but finds no answers. When her grandmother dies she leaves Jae a perplexing note: "seek and ye shall find." This sparks an incredible journey into a strange land where she meets unusual people, undergoes personal challenges, and discovers alternative theories about the purpose of existence. On her journey through the ten stages of enlightenment, Jae sings in a concert, wrestles an ox, vanquishes egotistical desires, and comes to terms with the silent sacred space at the centre of her being, over which there is no authority at all, not even her self. She finally finds peace in the garden of Eden, but even this she must eventually abandon... to live truly in the here and now.
‘Ox-herding’ is a term used to describe the search for meaning, purpose and spirituality that does not result in the finding of God, or of any other form of external authority. The ox represents the elemental beast within us all: ego. ‘Herding’ our ego is the struggle to recognise, battle with, control, subdue, and finally, transcend the ego.
Based on the successive phases of understanding as presented in the Chinese philosophical classic, ‘The Ten Ox Herding Pictures,’ this story has ten chapters through which Jae journeys, discovering the meaning and secret to an enlightened modern life; a place where all her doubts and questions are dissolved, a place without suffering or fear, yet firmly located in the present.
When you're not writing, how do you spend your time?
Housework - I find it very calming!
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