"There is a mountain in Borneo," Hans began, "We should climb it." He had my attention. Though he was calling over his morning coffee from Tokyo, my phone in Nashville had rung late at night. "It's known as Kinabalu. It means 'the revered place of the spirits'."...
In the elevator lobby of Tokyo's Daizen Tuna Company is a framed black-and-white poster, dated 1920. In the foreground is a procession of men celebrating the Uogashi Water God Festival. Directly behind them is an enormous tuna fish, closing in like some colossal party...
In the dark predawn, Phra Acharn sat in the lotus position, deep in prayer. A wrist-thick candle lit the faces of the venerable abbot and the temple's massive, golden Buddha equally, like flickering reflections of the same face - apt symbolism for an aging abbot....