Rick Zelinsky

I am constantly trying to learn: "If you are coasting, you are going downhill!"

Just a few quick thoughts on some things I think about beyond music:

All living beings' happiness matters. I grew up hunting and fishing and I love the outdoors but I figured out that we can still love the outdoors while seeking to minimize harming other thinking, feeling sentient beings. Almost all of us have no good reason to be killing our fellow earthlings. Here's a few good links that made a difference for me:
Dr. Melanie Joy
Dairy is Scary
Best Speech Ever
The Game Changers--must watch on Netflix!
Seaspiracy--Must watch on Netflix
Forks Over Knives--Great movie on health with doctors from the Cleveland Clinic 
Cowspiracy--Very important movie on the environment.  

Meditation is vital to achieving our potential. I volunteer and teach a meditation group on Sunday mornings at Namaste North Yoga 10:15 (September-May). www.MeditateInAlaska.org It is in a Mahayana Buddhist tradition and simply it is learning to train ourselves to be of more benefit to others. The word "Buddhism"--it simply means training to focus your mind on virtue/positive objects. Cherishing others is virtue--about the best thing we can all have on the forefront of our minds. That's important to me--if everyone cherished all living beings we would have world peace. One book to read? "Eight Steps to Happiness" by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. It's about a wonderful monk who simply practiced cherishing all living beings. Catholic monks are big into meditation, too. It can be our secret weapon of improvement!

​I've written a book called, "Wisdom of the Jedi" and it's not published yet. Maybe I'll get around to fine tuning it and get it out there.