Boehm was a college student with a philosophical bent during the years when Eastern religions were a rising fad on American campuses. There was no love lost, though, between her and the humorless "Zen freaks" she encountered at school. She went to Japan's ancient capital to study the language and, as she jokingly announced, "to get away from Zen".But this was not so easy: the apartment she found was next door to a monastery. Over several months of studying and taking meals at the temple, she gained the trust of her neighbor monks with her wry sense of humor and unswerving generosity. She gradually earned the friendship of all, losing her heart in the process to Zen and several of its practitioners.

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