...but you can't go back.

The morning I was leaving the Zendo at Haiku in 1978, a senior student advised me to say goodbye to our roshi.

I surprised him in his quarters, while he was putting on his robes and he did a magnificent kind of bullfighter’s twist to swirl the robe around him and tie the sash, dismissing my embarrassment at catching him in his underwear.

“I hear you are leaving today,” he said, “what are your plans?”

I was completely broke and had nothing other than my backpack, my guitar and a return ticket to Honolulu but I didn’t reveal my predicament.

“I guess I am going to continue playing my guitar,” I replied. I had been in this kind of a position more than a few times; I was young and full of energy and avoided my uncertain future by not trying to look into it.

His parting words to me were: “Remember…you can surf to the left, and you can surf to the right…180 degrees…but you can’t go back.”