I know a man who as a child, lived along the train tracks in the countryside of Japan. Next to the tracks was a cliff where many chose to jump from, and every time a train made a screeching stop, he would gather his friends and run to the scene. The police would be there soon after: ‘Oh, it’s you boys again’, and the boys would, at times, help the police identify where the body parts were. (This sounds unreal, but many things in life are.)

Thus he grew up asking the ultimate question ‘what is life and death’. He spent most of his twenties meditating in the woods, worked to earn a living, helped people in their fight against cancer, and now, as a middle aged man with an enlivened spirit of a child, helps give birth to children.

I think about this man often. People I look up to often have a childish heart, and have a polished sense of seeing the truth in things. He is definitely one of them.