Time for a quick break from the story and my map of the territory so that I could introduce you to the people above. Jacob, over on the right, is a friend of mine from the Zen Center, and invited me to meet a friend of his, Gojun, on the left, a young Tendai priest visiting from Kyushu (his family's temple is 1,300 years old). Gojun is with the Tendai Overseas Charitable Foundation (Jigyodan) and is currently assisting at the Tendai Buddhist Institute in the Catskill Mountains of New York, near Albany. He was passing through Atlanta on his way to New York to visit our mutual friend, who was kind enough to invite me to lunch with them today. The young ladies are also from Japan and are visiting the States for the first time.

Lunch was at the Vortex, a colorful restaurant in colorful Little Five Points. The girls took pictures of their meals when it was brought to them, and the waiter overheard us talking about Bodhidharma and was excited to let us know that he knew who Bodhidharma was, too.

We walked around Little Five Points after the meal, the girls shopping and the guys talking and watching the passers-by. A pleasant enough day. Jacob took the entourage to Stone Mountain for the afternoon, but I passed (it's on the other side of town, and I had other things that needed to be done).

So we'll pick up the story of the Buddha tomorrow, and the more clever of the readers will have already realized that this entry of today, although not part of the story, is just as much a part of the map of the territory as the posts of yesterday and tomorrow.