It's been a rushed and harried couple of weeks for me, and yesterday I ended an email to a friend by saying I hoped to.... It's been a rushed and harried couple of weeks for me, and yesterday I ended an email to a friend by saying I hoped to spend the last ten years of my life in a Zen monastery.

This morning I remembered something I saw in Tokyo last year that illuminated the narrowness of that remark: one fine Sunday in Ginza, walking down a crowded sidewalk in the midst of more people than I had ever seen in a place at once in my life before, I suddenly came upon, in fact, a Buddhist monk, sitting by the curb with his begging bowl beside him, meditating. He sat erect, his eyes closed, his face calm, neither content nor discontent visible in his features…as it should be.

Tokyo is full of tranquil parks large and small, as well as quiet residential alleys that embody elegance and calm, but this good soul could meditate on the busiest street in the busiest city in the world. And not one out of the endless passing throng of Tokyo denizens found it the least bit remarkable.

As it should be.