A visit to a Zen monastery in Japan, meeting with a monk, more similarities than meet the eye. Hotel Mets, Ofuna, Japan. On the outskirts of Tokyo, a city that begins and then never seems to end. I am here on a whirlwind, week long visit...
I can't speak highly enough of meditation. It has truly, irrecoverably changed my life. If someone told you that you could do something for only fifteen minutes a day that would make you happier, less stressed, have more energy and be more creative, you would do...
Out of the corner of my eye someone is waving to me. Out of corner of hearing, headphones on and music playing, someone is speaking to me. “Excuse me...
Juvenile most of the time, reviled some of the time, but never banal, the Urban Dictionary provides an alternative take on the everyday, and the night-time in-between. It is dressed downwards of mature sometimes, maybe most of the time, but that is why it is the...
“Go to the French cafe by the departure gate. It's got really good coffee, and sandwiches too.” Dressed like a character from a Jack Kerouac novel, a connoisseur of places subterranean, my friend knows his coffee, and the city he lives in does too. Forget paired...
My stories often have their origin in something that actually happened - an incident, a memory, something heard. (In this case it was the leap out of a plane at 12000 feet - one of the scariest things I've ever done). It's then a case...
The following story has sentimental value for me far beyond whatever worth it may possess of its own right and writing. Not only was it written in Japan, penned during the final hours of first visit to a land that has always had a mysterious, wasabi-strong...