Short story on a zen temple

I had lost everything to my life of partying, drinking, car racing and flirting with anything that moved. I was living in a beautiful city called Bogotá, in Colombia. I had been accepted in a prestigious college, in literature, but I had no job, no money, and no friends. My girlfriend left me for my hedonistic way of life just as we were moving together. I was desperate for a change.
One day I walked down a bad neighborhood and saw a billboard for a shoe store. It was called ‘Zensual’, which at first I just found funny, but then it gave me an idea. I hurried to one of those internet cafés and checked if there were any Zen groups in Bogotá. There was one, actually. They studied under a French monk whom, after his Japanese master’s death, moved to Colombia, built a temple in the mountains and secluded himself. I phoned that temple and told them I wanted to go meditate. They warned me that they got up at 3:00 am to meditate, worked hard all day without breaks, and ate vegetarian food. Do you still want to come? They asked. Absolutely, I said.
It is a six hour trip to get from the city to the temple. You have to walk some of it to get deeper into the mountain. But you wouldn’t want to miss the great flowers along the road, some huge violet flowers, some red ones (supposedly poisonous), and a yellow one called ojo de poeta, poet’s eye in Spanish. It’s like a small sun flower growing along vine trees. The landscape is great, you can see other mountains in the distance, and the snow in their peaks. As you walk you realize you are getting closer because you’ll notice bamboo trees planted on the roadside.
When you get there, you see a temple gate like the ones in Japanese movies. The monks there are healthy, the female monks are beautiful, even the old ones, and if you’re not careful they will trick you into falling for silly jokes, because apart from their monastic duties, they hardly take anything seriously. They will probably tell you to vow to the master and to kiss his hand, and if you do the master will get angry and yell to his students ‘stop telling people to kiss me!’ Everyone will try to contain their laughter, but it won’t work for long.
I’ve been meditating since then for two years now. I neither drink nor party much anymore. I travel around a bit and teach meditation now. Many things have changed in my life, mostly because of the Zen temple, their healthy, fun way of life. It’s unbelievable how a shoe store billboard can change everything.