by now my lifelong interest in zen is obvious. when i was 17, i cut my teeth wandering among the beatniks. san francisco. north beach. the co-existence bagel shop. mike's place. i listened to the likes of gary snyder and gregory corso read poetry. loitered in city lights bookstore. absorbing the time and place, though nobody noticed me.
being a lookout may have come out of this, though i visited my first lookout, cone peak in pinnacles national monument, at age 11 and discovered years later i could see this lookout from my cradle in solidad, california. perhaps i once stood on the towers of sparta, waiting for the fiery message from the troops at troy. who knows? stranger things have happened.
anyway, zen. finally made it to japan (twice) and when i came back in 2000, i got the bug to draw pictures and write fake japanese captions. here they are: www.pbase.com/wwp/koans a koan, you remember, is a meditation puzzle: 'what is the sound of one-hand clapping?' that stumps the mind until it gives up and lives in the present.
hope you enjoy them. please let me know if i unconsciously, accidently wrote something meaningful in japanese!
