You are always in some combination of medieval Japan or modern Los Angeles. At every turn there is someone leading you either to the highest transcendent state or into inexcusable vice, or some combination of both. In the final analysis, ancient Kyoto and current Santa Monica are one reality. Inebriation and iron-willed discipline are of one substance. Story after story carries you forward into questions that haven't changed for millennia and answers that change every moment. Nothingness and emptiness are far warmer than you could imagine. Samsara and Nirvana are one and the same state seen from different lights. To get the story told, there will have to be some violence, some illicit romance and excessive indulgence in every sinful self-defense. Every story will seem vaguely familiar and reassuring, but turn strange and unsettling at a whim. Come ride with discredited priests, monks and holy men and women as they enshrine the ordinary as sacred and blaspheme the sacred as substandard.