The Great Failure
My Unexpected Path to Truth
Chapter One
With orange leaves still clinging to branches in that unusually mild stretch of late fall, on a sweet street in quiet St. Paul, I was about to slip my key into the front door of the apartment building. I was returning from Zen Center, where I came to study for two months. It was Monday at nine in the evening; no
one was on the street. Suddenly I jerked my head to the right. One step below me in the entryway stood a beautiful man, shining face, almost clear eyes, in his late teens, aiming the barrel of a shotgun right at my neck. Feeling the small opening circle on my skin, I jerked my head.
"How dare you!" I was about to be outraged when he hissed, "Don't make a move. Give me your purse."
On my left shoulder dangled a small black backpack with three hundred dollars in twenty-dollar bills. Just that day I had been to the bank. To my chest I clutched my spiral notebook, the hefty 463-page Book of Serenity
containing one hundred Zen dialogues, and a thinner black paperback, Transmission of Light.
On my ... read full excerpt from Great Failure, The ebook
