Chuck The Monk - Empty fun: Catlike daily wisdom and the quest for the feline Self

Ever since he can remember, brain scientist and Zen monk Carlos Valencia found himself constantly fascinated by many phenomena: Little insects with complex behaviors, religions, seed + water = plant??!!!, lightning and thunder, cultures, a vortex in the toilet, and the calm way cats eat. The world is weird. Curious by nature and using the cultural tools at hand, he constantly tried to intellectually understand the world outside and inside himself. That's why he did so well in school. He would try to understand everything! And since concepts where the way the world was revealed to him for a long time in this life, Carlos started a long path in the pursuit of objective knowledge. He started with psychology school where he was interested in experimental behavior analysis, and later on in neuroscience. With international grants, he did a Master in neuroscience in Mexico and his neurobiology Ph.D. studies in Germany. Later on, he ended up working as a Post-doc researcher in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where he officially lives. In his diving trip through levels of observation, he went from philosophy to anthropology, psychology, neurobiology, molecular biology, electrophysiology, and finally, consciousness. Yes, the holy grail of objective knowledge. It was here, closing the intellectual circle and returning to more philosophical bases, where he found a couple of lines about Buddhism. These lines were emphatically rejected as a corruption of the free-thinking individual, and also because they poked the fear of ever getting close to a religion again. However, these lines would reappear again and again, until suddenly some of them caught his attention. Many books and articles later, what he read about Buddhism managed to align many different perspectives and theories he had been chewing in his brain for years. But these readings were also spiced with the constant affirmation that truth and ultimate nature of reality is not something that can be intellectually grasped. They claimed there was a unique component needed: A practice. Close to Amsterdam University, where he was working, he walked along a Zen center. Without knowing much about Buddhist lineages, he convinced his now wife, Patricia, to come along for an introductory session. He didn't like it, he found it difficult and too charged with rituals, but kept going in the hope of engaging in philosophical discussions with other practitioners. To his disappointment, there was no discussion going around. The main thing was to shut up and sit down, still, in silence: Zazen. But every now and then there would be a glimpse into something weird while sitting in Zazen. A fatal slap in the face for the thinking mind. So he kept going. After several years of practice, he received the monk ordination from his teacher. He took a break from science to do some subjective research and has been traveling around the world with his wife since 2013. This space provided a fertile ground for a slow and sustainable, flexible and mobile lifestyle where creativity and childhood projects started to grow. Chuck the monk is a series of comic strips co-created with his friend Diego Otero since 2014. The first strip was published online in October 2015. Chuck is a hyperbolic version of Carlos, his spiritual teacher, his wife, friends, and family. The strips portrait life in and outside temples, the perks of the practice in western cultures and a feline quest of the Self. The book doesn't pretend to teach the Dharma, especially not in an intellectual way, however since its content is strongly influenced by a solid spiritual practice, so the reader can find insightful and inspirational thoughts and emotions related to our daily life. You can see the strips at www.chuckthemonk.com or follow them on Facebook (@chuckthemonk), Twitter (@chuck_the_ monk) or Instagram (@chuck.the.monk). You can also contact Carlos at carlitos@chuckthemonk.com

Diego Otero was born and raised in Colombia. When not in school, as a child, he watched more T.V. shows than he should and then would sit in front of a notebook trying to re-create the stories that captivated his attention. Later in Middle-school he discovered the series of books "The Adventures of Tin Tin" by Belgian author Herge and found the magic in stories told through comics. Diego spent all his recess time in the school library devouring these books. This led to writing and drawing many stories of his own, that sparkled in his mind and were drawn in comic book form, mostly for his friends in school. Even as study aids Diego would use drawings with dialogues to be able to remember the topics he'd seen in class, whether it be social studies, geography or history. He would come every Monday with a page or two and hope to entertain his friends. Argentinian comic strip "Boogie el aceitoso" with its dark humor and exaggerated violence was an important influence later in his teen years. As he grew up, when faced with the question of which career to follow to later-on make a living, he chose architecture, based on his parents "advice" because in Colombia in the early 90s it was not very realistic to think you could make a living by drawing comic books. Diego graduated from the school of architecture in 1998. After some years of architectural design practice, Diego had the opportunity to move with his wife Carolina to New York City, where he continued working as an architectural designer but he also continued drawing stories. The abundant art schools in the city lured him into taking art classes and the very active artistic activity in the city started to show him that making a living as an artist was a real possibility, so he took classes with world-renowned independent animator Bill Plympton at his Chelsea studio and also a summer program at Le Gobelin school of animation in Paris. He moved into the field of Architectural Illustrations and began to work on a portfolio of story illustrations while searching for an art program to continue his studies. In the Spring of 2013, Diego moved to Portland, OR and was accepted into the Master's program of Illustration at the University of Hartford where he continued to be inspired by talents such as C.F. Payne, Robert Hunt, Betsy Lewin and Gary Kelley. While attending art school, during vacation time in his home country Colombia, he met with his friend Carlos from elementary school. Carlos was visiting from Amsterdam, they discussed the possibility of working together on a strip about a cat who was a Buddhist monk. Diego always loved cats and loved the possibilities of humor, sarcasm, and wit that could result from working on this project, so without hesitation, he accepted his friend's proposition. Although not a Buddhist practitioner, Diego felt connected with some elements from Buddhism as he himself was in search of a spirituality that could ground his now frequent adult questionings. Since 2014, Diego and Carlos have been collaborating in creating the strip that is published online every Sunday at www.chuckthemonk.com and also in magazines in the U.S., Australia, and The Netherlands. Besides Chuck The Monk, his cartoons were featured in a billboard in Times Square, told stories for U.N. comics and scientific organizations such as CIAT, children's books and personal projects in the form of comic books and films. Diego now lives in Colombia with his wife and 2 boys and spends his days drawing cartoons, comics, and some other story pictures, including, of course, Chuck. You can see more of his work at www.diegoferotero.com