Just back from another Portuguese journey, this time in Lisbon and Coimbra, five days filled with rich and enriching encounters at two conferences, several days of retreat and other meetings.

In Lisbon, there was lunch at the gracious invitation of Yves Crettaz of the Lisbon Dojo Zen, a visit and tea with Etel at Sagara Priya’s fabulous new Centro Upaya, a stop in the garden of the Gulbenkian Foundation, my evening conference at the Buddhist Union, « Into the Wild on the Zen Path, » dinner with some Wild Flowers, another conference the next morning, « A Zen Approach to the Unbearable ‘Crackness’ of Being, » with Antonio Pires at ISPA, before catching the Alpha train to Coimbra.

Our long weekend of sitting included a spectacularly memorable « crack » when, amid a torrential downpour outside, water suddenly came pouring through the ceiling of the zendo in the middle of our midday sitting. It was the best dharma talk of the weekend.

No words can ever truly tell the story, though. Not the story of then, not the story of now. As they say, « You had to be there. » And you are « there, » right now, in the middle of your very own splendid story.