A few days ago I sent out a mass email message to people in my address book telling them about our new Paris blog, and within a few hours I got a surprising reply: “Whaddaya know, I’m in Paris now too.” It turns out that an old friend of mine, a Buddhist monk from Berkeley named Rev. Heng Sure, is in Paris this week as part of a world tour (Australia, Germany, Poland, France, Italy, and Finland, if I’ve remembered all the stops). He invited us to have lunch with him on Thursday and we were delighted to do so.
I’ve run into Heng Sure in some surprising places before, but this takes the cake. Of course, he’s also an anomaly in so many other ways—he’s got a CD of American Buddhist folk music coming out next month, and he’s more technologically sophisticated than many of the Mac geeks I work with on a daily basis. Easily one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met, so it’s only appropriate that I should see him here as part of my mission to live in the most interesting place I can find!