QUOTE : They say that if you feel you don’t have fifteen minutes to meditate each day, then you need to do an hour. I’m sure it would do me no harm at all, but I’ve never been much of a man for sitting cross-legged, focusing on my breath. Instead, I prefer to whittle. Whittling is a form of practical meditation, which pre-dates the Buddhist and Hindu civilisations. It’s as simple as it gets. To make a tablespoon you take a branch – I prefer green birch, but holly, beech, maple and cherry can work well. Avoid softwoods. Saw it to length, axe it in half, draw out the shape of the spoon you’re aiming for, and start whittling it away with a small carving knife. Your knife, along with your sense of awareness, needs to be sharp. Drift away in your thoughts, worries or daydreams for one moment and, if you’re lucky, you’ll shave off a sliver of wood that may take you twenty minutes to correct; in the final stages you may not be able to correct it at all. If you’re unlucky, you may shave off a sliver of flesh from your finger that may take a week or two to correct itself. Nothing focuses the mind better than blood, or the thought of showing the woman you love an ugly, impractical spoon.