A Straight Road with 99 Curves. Gregory Shepherd

residents suddenly broke the silence with, “If he’s such a ‘Zen Man,’ then how come he has all these allergies?”—as if Zen were some miraculous spring into whose healing waters you dipped your toe and then emerged liberated from all problems, including physical ones. No one said a word in response, but it seemed to me that this person had raised a valid point, since a desire for liberation from all the slings and arrows of life was what had led most of us to take up Zen practice in the first place. And any day now, I was certain, I was about to make my own all-important breakthrough into the world of enlightenment where all of my cares would evaporate like mist in the morning sun. I would be a Zen Man extraordinaire, of this I was certain.