Relax. Sit down on this apparently delicate yet solidly constructed bamboo bench. Slip off your shoes and run your toes across the warm green grass. Feel the gentle sun slide down your body, browning your skin and caressing you like only a mother can.
Take this cup of white tea. It has significant medicinal properties. More importantly, as you feel this elixir of calm slide down your throat, you will relax beyond all reasonable measures.
Now slowly lift your head from the carpet of green below you. Cast your eyes over the impeccably-manicured Zen Garden that stretches from a spot just beyond the reach of your toes off toward the overgrown gazebo beside the restful pond at the edge of the inviting forest. Watch as the monks go about their quiet, endless routine, forming rocks from nature into sublime patterns created in the inimitable genius of the human mind.
Look upwards as the call of geese echoes across the afternoon sky. Perhaps humanity is not alone in creating beautiful forms after all, you will think as their perfect V traces a strangely languid path southward. The timeless march of the natural world enchants you.
Close your eyes as three Mongolian masseuses approach on silent, sandalled feet, and grip your tired shoulders. Your worldly cares melt away as the magic of ancient Asian healing pierces and deflates the artificial modern world reflected in your outrageously tight muscles.
Now that you’re relaxed, could I interest you in a spirited round of fencing? Here, take this lovingly hand-crafted French-made foil. That’s right, grip it firmly, but loosely enough so that you can feel the play of its motion. Put your shoes on. Get up. I don’t care if you don’t fence! What do you think this is?
Defend yourself, damn you! You’d better put this mask on. Things could get ugly if you’re as poor a fighter as it appears.
Touche! That’s one for me — now come after me! There you go, that’s the spirit! Ah ha, almost had me that time!
Wait, where are you going? Come back and fight, coward! NO, DON’T RUN THROUGH THE ZEN GARDEN! LOOK OUT FOR THE MONKS!!!
