About the book & its author
G M Greene is a British graphic designer, digital creator and writer, currently based in rural central Portugal — where a ruined casa, a field of dreams, and a deep quiet have provided the perfect conditions for this book.
In 2021, Gary left the UK with his partner to undertake a full renovation of a traditional Portuguese country house — stripping walls back to stone, laying limecrete floors, building gabion terraces from reclaimed rock, and slowly coaxing a neglected plot back to life. It is a project that has demanded patience, physical effort, and a profound recalibration of what matters.
That recalibration extended to the table. Living close to the land — watching seasons turn, tending a kitchen garden, and becoming acutely aware of the web of relationships that sustains all life — made the principles of Buddhist ethics feel not like abstract philosophy but like practical, lived wisdom.
Gary has practised and studied Buddhist thought for many years, drawn particularly to the Theravada and Zen traditions. The Compassionate Table grew from a desire to explore the natural alignment between the Buddha’s teachings on non-harm, interdependence, and conscious action, and the choice to eat a plant-based diet — not as ideology, but as a gentle, considered response to the world as it actually is.
“The kitchen and the cushion are not separate places. Every meal is a practice, and every practice shapes the meal.”
Beyond this book, Gary runs several digital projects including AtoZ Guides — long-running travel and lifestyle reference sites covering Greece and Portugal — SurSearch, a genealogy research platform, and AtoZ Voyager, a travel services platform currently in development. His renovation project is documented on Instagram.
The Compassionate Table is his first book.