Kanreki 2009 New Year Greetings

2009 is the Asian zodiac year of the earth ox, my sixty first calendar year, and my sixtieth birthday this year on 9/9/9, and thereby my celebration of Kanreki. 60 years. Made it! Traditionally in Japan according to an online astrologer from Mercurynews, when a person reaches their sixty-first year, they have lived through the […]

Questions and Answers for An-shu

Two young men in Texas – Patrick Tow and Rayford Outland – decided to do a History Fair high school project about ninjutsu training and my work. They did a good job gathering information from my books, DVDs, and the internet. Their teacher asked for more detail and urged them to write to me personally with some more questions. […]

Ho Ho Hotei

Years ago my daughters were somewhat confused by school friends carefully questioning how my daughters could feel motivated to “pray to that laughing fat guy.” My young daughters were perplexed by their friends’ question for two reasons. One, the Buddha was a teacher, not a deity, so those who follow the Buddhist path to enlightened […]

Failure is an Option

Rumiko and I have chuckled over recent advertising received for services as widely varied as financial planning to computer systems and internet web building. Must be just one guy out there doing all the advertising writing, because several different pitches all came with the same heavy super serious line – When Failure is Not an […]