Hiya,
Hope all’s well with you. I’m still getting used to life after walking. The Isle of Wight to Cape Wrath route, right up the centre of Britain, wearing my monk’s robes and living out of my alms bowl, turned out to be a bit tougher than I expected. The week or so after the walk I felt absolutely feted by the people of Durness, the tiny village closest to my finish point. As I rested up and filled out again on full Scottish breakfasts, I was joined by Trysh, the Canadian writer who is making a book out of the whole event. We spent a week or so together, mapping out a plan for the book. There are various titles knocking about, my current favourite is “Seven Million Steps”. The writing is due to take ten months and a publisher called John Wiley is interested in it. So hopefully before long it’ll be on a bookshelf near you.

As we planned the book, I was very keen that it was your story. What I mean is that my experience of the journey confirmed for me the fact that kindness and generosity and goodwill are alive and well in Britain. Every step of the way was supported by that kindness in the most concrete way possible. So for me the walk was an ongoing good news story and it’s really that story that I want to highlight. In fact I don’t want to wait ten months to thank you for your support on so many levels. The whole experience coninues to be incredibly inspiring.

And now I’m mostly in and around London. I’m looking for a base. I want to make available these wonderful things that I’ve been priviliged to learn over the past sixteen years. I believe that not only can they transform individual lives, but that society as a whole will inevitably benefit from this transformation. If you know of anywhere that might serve as a base – even a little appartment or a room, I’d love to hear from you. I’ll keep you posted on developments.

Wishing you an ongoing experience of that underlying kindness and generosity every single day.

More later, cheers Daizan

Hiya, how are you? So the walk’s done. I made it to Cape Wrath (old Norse for “the turning point”) a couple of days ago. Imagine vast empty spaces – moorland and mountain reached across a rivermouth by motorboat. There’s a tiny road winding eleven miles through the wind and rain and, at the tip, huge cliffs climbing a thousand feet out of the sea capped by a white lighthouse. As I crossed the water, the boatman said “With the tide and the wind, I’ll be stopping in a couple of hours.” Looked like I wasn’t going to make it back. I didn’t have a sleeping bag or tent, or anything much to eat. “Just find somewhere to sleep,” I thought.

So after eleven miles through wind and horizontal rain, and a pretty thorough soaking, I made it to the lighthouse. Finding a garage containing a rusted Toyota truck with the door ripped-off (by the wind, I later discovered), I climbed in out of the wind and settled down for a nap. A few minutes later I was greeted by the barking of six springer spaniels and a Scottish voice telling them to shut up and that was my introduction to John the hermit, the solitary occupant of the lighthouse buildings, and the only human for hundreds of square miles. John graciously took in a soaked monk and we talked over macaroni cheese and toast by the light of a peat fire for a good bit of the night.

As the sun went down, the rain stopped and I was able to go out to the very tip of the cape and chant the ancient scriptures of Zen. I took out a little stone that I’d carried from St. Catherine’s – the start-point of the walk on the Isle of Wight, and threw it far out into the sea.

When I sat in meditation so many faces of the kind and generous and profound and extraordinary people I’d met over the previous sixty four days appeared. Although I’d done the actual walking. All their support made it possible and just thinking of them I was moved almost to tears. I’m so glad that a book is being written of the walk so they can be known more widely. The truth is, there are so many amazing people around and the way the news system works, they can be almost invisible. It looks like the book will be called “Seven Million Steps” and will be published by John Wiley. I’ll keep you posted.

Then, in the wind at the end of the world, I danced.

Attached to this should be a picture or two.

See you very soon.

Cheers xx

Hiya, hope the summer’s going well and, if you’re in the UK, avoiding this summer’s rain. Right now I’m in Aviemore in the Scottish Highlands and over the last few days the terrain has moved from mountains and trees – alpine style to huge open empty heather-covered open mountainous vistas. Often there’s not a house, not a fence in sight. Although people are pretty thin on the ground (did you know that there are more people in London than in the whole of Scotland?) it’s fantastic to be able to say that Scottish people are if anything even more generous and kind than English. When I get out my alms bowl, after a little bit, the food arrives. Yesterday a very simple girl put a sandwich in my bowl, looked at me and said, “Are you living in faith?”

“Yes,” I said, “I am.” And we smiled together.

More later,

Cheers Daizan