We had no income and very little money. I'd already been in Hong Kong nearly 2 years but Jerry had only arrived a couple of months before and didn't have any contacts there. I'd helped him out a number of times - mainly just because I knew people there. I think he felt some kind of obligation. By the time our money ran out, he landed a job and after getting piad he lent me some money and I decided to leave, about a month later.

As for being a pivotal time - while I was there I had a growing sense that my life was moving along the wrong path. I'd learned basic meditation a few years before and grew interested in it, but it didn't feel quite right somehow. I read a lot of books on the subject, mainly to get an idea of what other meditation traditions there were. I had friends who went to teach English in Taiwan, so in true bhrgunatha style I decided I would go and join them, teach English and save enough money to spend a year in a Japanese Zen monastery.

That plan didn't materialise fully, but it set me on a completely different path which changed my life (and me!) for the better. I don't know what would have become of me if I hadn't made that decision.