Karma works in mysterious ways.

What karma dictated that Pema Rinzin and Yumyo Miyasaka should meet? They were born thousands of kilometers apart, one a Tibetan exile in India, one in peaceful Okaya, Nagano Prefecture. Yet for the last five years they have labored side by side on a great project to provide Tibetan-style thangka Buddhist paintings for Shokoji, a large Shingon temple in Okaya. The journey to (or back to) Okaya has taken them both around the world.

To some extent the connection is clear. The Miyasaka family have followed Shingon Buddhism in Japan for more than 600 years, producing many distinguished monks and scholars. Yumyo's father Yusho is a leader of the Shingon sect and Japan's foremost authority on esoteric Buddhism (Japanese mikkyo); his elder brother Yukyo is the resident abbot of Shokoji and his younger brother is also a monk. Japanese Shingon Buddhism has long had close ties with Tibetan Buddhism, the special home of esoteric practice.