On my father’s side, my family was Samurai. They lived in the city of Sendai in northeast ... And there, on April 30, 2013, I was tonsured a monk by His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion, with the ...

Scholars believe that a samurai-turned-Zen-monk named Yamamoto Tsunetomo dictated its contents to a disciple, who later compiled his teacher's sayings into 11 volumes. Here, savor words of wisdom ...