Just Stare at the Damn Wall!

About this episode

The episode explores the unconventional views of Mark Shinji Blacknell on Zen practice and mindfulness.

Welcome to the Imperfect Buddha Podcast on the New Books Network. Today, we’re stripping away the incense and serenity to look at the cold, hard wall of practice. We are joined by Mark Shinji Blacknell, author of Just Stare at the Damn Wall!. Mark isn't your typical "mindfulness guru"—he’s been a Marine, a bus driver, and an alcoholic, bringing a crude and down to Earth view of enlightenment to Zen. In this episode, we dig into the friction between Mark’s focus on simple biology and the Soto establishment he knows all too well. We’ll be asking: The Technology of the Wall: In an era of bio-hacking and apps, why choose a directive as primitive as staring at a wall? The Myth of Enlightenment: Why does Mark tell his readers to "forget enlightenment" and embrace being a "doctor of nothing"? The Shadow Side: We discuss whether "McMindfulness" ignores how meditation can make unstable people more dangerous. Raw Acceptance vs. Nihilism: How do we differentiate "accepting life as it is" from a passive, terrifying nihilism? The End of the Path: If the goal is "doing nothing for nothing," how do we even know we’re practicing? From meditating with prisoners on death row to the often dirty and…

People in this episode

Host: Marshall Poe

Guest: Mark Shinji Blacknell

Topics covered

• Zen practice
• mindfulness
• enlightenment
• nihilism
• meditation
• Soto establishment

Keywords

• staring at a wall
• bio-hacking
• McMindfulness
• acceptance
• meditation
• enlightenment
• Soto Zen

More episodes of New Books in Buddhist Studies

• Bruno Shirley, "Religion, Gender, and Politics in Medieval Sri Lanka: The Reconstruction of Buddhist Kingship, ca. 1070-1215" (ARC Humanities Press, 2026) · June 5, 2026 · 1h 4m
• Jue Liang, "Conceiving the Mother of Tibet: The Early Literary Lives of the Buddhist Saint Yeshe Tsogyel" (Oxford UP, 2026) · May 14, 2026 · 1h 18m
• Extraordinary, Mysterious, and Impossible Experiences, with Jeffrey Kriple · May 8, 2026 · 1h 7m
• Gautamiputra Kamble, "The Seekers" (Blaft Publication, 2025) · April 18, 2026 · 1h 18m
• Kristina Jonutytė, "Between the Buddha and the New Tsar: Urban Religion and Minority Politics at the Asian Borderlands of Russia" (Cornell UP, 2026) · April 1, 2026 · 1h 2m
• Tibetan Medicine for Meditators, with Tawni Tidwell · March 8, 2026 · 1h 3m