James Bruce Lyttle
After retiring from a career in academia, I completed a Master of Education and started wondering how wisdom might be disseminated. A background in professional music, Zen practice, and the study of humor turned out to be good preparation for that. Comedians, monks, and musicians seem quite familiar with the wisdom that too often escapes the rest of us.
ENTERTAINER
Born in North Bay, Ontario, I put off college to "play in a band." That meant a decade crisscrossing Canada in a van, studying arranging by correspondence through the Berklee College of Music, and writing charts for my and other bands. Later, I designed lighting for more than three dozen Toronto theatre productions. I still dabble in the performing arts, making music in my basement with REAPER as both a hobby and a meditation.
ACADEMIC
In 1980, I left full-time performing for the three-year Telidon project - an early taste of what we now call the Internet. From there, I returned to school for a B.A. in Philosophy & Economics, followed by a case-method MBA. What really excited me, though, was teaching adults at the DeVry Institute of Technology. This sent me back for a Ph.D. and prompted a move to New York City, arriving just in time for the September 11 attacks. I spent the remainder of my working years teaching graduate and undergraduate courses and conducting humor research at American universities.
WISDOM ADVOCATE
Thanks to practice and precepts under Korean Zen master Samu Sunim in the 1990s, I hold the Dharma name Single Breath and once again meditate regularly. I have tried to put theory into practice through civic and community work with Minnesota Mensa, Lake Superior Freethinkers, the Duluth Charter Commission, and the Clan Little Society, while occasionally teaching night classes through the Duluth Public Schools (ISD 709). But my long-term plan is just to leave some money for my dependents and become fertilizer for the local ecosystem.