“You shall see,” said Gaspar. “Four, a monk who claims to have reached superhuman states, or claims to have attained the wisdom of the saints, having not done so, will be expelled. Do you understand these four rules?”

“Yes,” I said. Joshua nodded.

“Understand that there are no mitigating circumstances. If you commit any of these offenses as judged by the other monks, you must leave the monastery.”

Again I said yes and then Gaspar went into the thirteen rules for which a monk could be suspended from the monastery for a fortnight (the first of these was the heartbreaker, “no emission of semen except in a dream”) and then the ninety offenses for which one would receive an unfavorable rebirth if the sins were not repented (these ranged from destroying any kind of vegetation or deliberately depriving an animal of life to sitting in the open with a woman or claiming to a layman to have superhuman powers, even if you had them). Overall, there was an extraordinary number of rules, over a hundred on decorum, dozens for settling disputes, but remember, we were Jews, raised under the influence of the Pharisees, who judged virtually every event of day-to-day life against the Law of Moses. And with Balthasar we had studied Confucius, whose philosophy was little more than an extensive system of etiquette. I had no doubt Joshua could do this, and there was a chance I could handle it too, if Gaspar didn’t use that bamboo rod too liberally and if I could conjure enough wet dreams. (Hey, I was eighteen years old and had just lived five years in a fortress full of available concubines, I had a habit, okay?)

“Monk Number Twenty-two,” Gaspar said to Joshua, “you shall begin by learning how to sit.”

“I can sit,” I said.

“And you, Number Twenty-one, will shave the yak.”

“That’s just an expression, right?”

It wasn’t.

A yak is an extremely large, extremely hairy, buffalolike animal with dangerous-looking black horns. If you’ve ever seen a water buffalo, imagine it wearing a full-body wig that drags the ground. Now sprinkle it with musk, manure, and sour milk: you’ve got yourself a yak. In a cavelike stable, the monks kept one female yak, which they let out during the day to wander the mountain paths to graze. On what, I don’t know. There didn’t seem to be enough living plant life to support an animal of that size (the yak’s shoulder was higher than my head), but there didn’t seem to be enough plant life in all of Judea for a herd of goats, either, and herding was one of the main occupations. What did I know?

The yak provided just enough milk and cheese to remind the monks that they didn’t get enough milk and cheese from one yak for twenty-two monks. The animal also provided a long, coarse wool which needed to be harvested twice a year. This venerated duty, along with combing the crap and grass and burrs out of the wool, fell to me. There’s not much to know about yaks beyond that, except for one important fact that Gaspar felt I needed to learn through practice: yaks hate to be shaved.

It fell to Monks Eight and Seven to bandage me, set my broken legs and arm, and clean off the yak dung that had been so thoroughly stomped into my body. I would tell you the distinction of those two solemn students if I could think of any, but I can’t. The goal of all of the monks was to let go of the ego, the self, and but for a few more lines on the faces of the older men, they looked alike, dressed alike, and behaved alike. I, on the other hand, was quite distinct from the others, despite my shaved head and saffron robe, as I had bandages over half of my body and three out of four limbs splinted with bamboo.

After the yak disaster, Joshua waited until the middle of the night to crawl down the hall to my cell. The soft snores of monks filled the halls, and the soft turbulence of the bats that entered their cave through the monastery echoed off the stone walls like the death panting of epileptic shadows.

“Does it hurt?” Joshua said.

Sweat streamed from my face despite the chilly temperature. “I can hardly breathe.” Seven and Eight had wrapped my broken ribs, but every breath was a knife in the side.

Joshua put his hand on my forehead.

“I’ll be all right, Josh, you don’t have to do that.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” he said. “Keep your voice down.”

In seconds my pain was gone and I could breathe again. Then I fell asleep or passed out from gratitude, I don’t know which. When I awoke with the dawn Joshua was still kneeling beside me, his hand still pressed against my forehead. He had fallen asleep there.

I carried the combed yak wool to Gaspar, who was chanting in the great cavern temple. It amounted to a fairly large bundle and I set it on the floor behind the monk and backed away.

“Wait,” Gaspar said, holding a single finger in the air. He finished his chant, then turned to me. “Tea,” he said. He led and I followed to the room where he had received Joshua and me when we had first arrived. “Sit,” he said. “Sit, don’t wait.”

I sat and watched him make a charcoal fire in a small stone brazier, using a bow and fire drill to start the flames first in some dried moss, then blowing it onto the charcoal.

“I invented a stick that makes fire instantly,” I said. “I could teach—”

Gaspar glared at me and held up the finger again to poke my words out of the air. “Sit,” he said. “Don’t talk. Don’t wait.”

He heated water in a copper pot until it boiled, then poured it over some tea leaves in an earthenware bowl. He set two small cups on the table, then proceeded to pour tea from the bowl.

“Hey, doofus!” I yelled. “You’re spilling the fucking tea!”

Gaspar smiled and set the bowl down on the table.

“How can I give you tea if your cup is already full?”

“Huh?” I said eloquently. Parables were never my strong suit. If you want to say something, say it. So, of course, Joshua and Buddhists were the perfect people to hang out with, straight talkers that they were.

Gaspar poured himself some tea, then took a deep breath and closed his eyes. After perhaps a whole minute passed, he opened them again. “If you already know everything, then how will I be able to teach you? You must empty your cup before I can give you tea.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” I grabbed my cup, tossed the tea out the same window I’d tossed Gaspar’s stick, then plopped the cup back on the table. “I’m ready,” I said.

“Go to the temple and sit,” Gaspar said.

No tea? He was obviously still not happy about my almost-threat on his life. I backed out of the door bowing (a courtesy Joy had taught me).

“One more thing,” Gaspar said. I stopped and waited. “Number Seven said that you would not live through the night. Number Eight agreed. How is it that you are not only alive, but unhurt?”

I thought about it for a second before I answered, something I seldom do, then I said, “Perhaps those monks value their own opinions too highly. I can only hope that they have not corrupted anyone else’s thinking.”

“Go sit,” Gaspar said.

Sitting was what we did. To learn to sit, to be still and hear the music of the universe, was why we had come halfway around the world, evidently. To let go of ego, not individuality, but that which distinguishes us from all other beings. “When you sit, sit. When you breathe, breathe. When you eat, eat,” Gaspar would say, meaning that every bit of our being was to be in the moment, completely aware of the now, no past, no future, nothing dividing us from everything that is.

It’s hard for me, a Jew, to stay in the moment. Without the past, where is the guilt? And without the future, where is the dread? And without guilt and dread, who am I?

“See your skin as what connects you to the universe, not what separates you from it,” Gaspar told me, trying to teach me the essence of what enlightenment meant, while admitting that it was not something that could be taught. Method he could teach. Gaspar could sit.