As I understand it, one of the requirements of a site for a monastery is that there be a stream, or some sort of source of clear water, of sound and cooling on that site. At every monastery I’ve been to, whether in Japan or America, there’s always the sound of water, of a stream rolling down the mountain…

I peered down at the gravel at my feet on the narrow road above the monastery. A gigantic blue worm was writhing there, it’s dimensions more like a snake than a worm. The creature was just going about its business in the rain-soaked forest near the shitake farm. I was just going about mine, I thought, when its strangeness stopped me in my tracks.

After years of debilitating ascetic practice Gautama sat down under a fig tree and got serious. He sipped at a bowl of rice offered from the heart of a random stranger, endured the ridicule and rejections of his closest friends, fluffed up a pile of dry grass upon which he sat down. He vowed not to move from that spot until he attained enlightenment or died.