It is in the days before he is saddled with his title that I first feel the new intensity of the fire in my brother. As herders we roam over the grasslands, our thoughts moving freely between us until sometimes I cannot distinguish which thoughts are Mun’s and which are mine. Perhaps this is only logical. On the grasslands we share a life. There is little difference in our experiences. Now all that is changed. I can only experience secondhand what it is to have old men pull me onto their lap and talk about the snows in Lhasa, or to suddenly be expected to be the paragon of goodness and compassion every day when one is anything but. Most tulku are discovered at a much younger age, often before they are five years old and sometimes as young as toddlers, when the personality is still malleable. Perhaps as we are eight, almost nine, it is too much to expect my brother to conform to his new life.

  Instinctively, I think the Rinpoche knows this. After discovering Mun, he flies to Dharamshala to consult with the Dalai Lama’s council. He is warned that in a culture long deprived of a tradition of tulku, it might be difficult to get the seed to take in one so old. The Rinpoche listens respectfully, but the wheel of Dharma is already set in motion. April arrives, and my twin and I both receive our new names.

  There Is to Be Chanting and Incense and Candles

  The night before the ceremony I feel my brother calling me to his quarters. Unlike the rest of us, who sleep eight to a room, Mun occupies a series of rooms by himself that include a separate chamber for his private meditation as well as a side room with an altar that stretches from floor to ceiling. Even the Rinpoche sleeps in a small nook cluttered with books, his room more of a storage space for the things he reclaims along his journey toward reopening the monastery. Despite all the work the Rinpoche does to rekindle the flame of Buddhism in this area, at eight years old, Mun is the senior monk at Yatuu Gol. While they are both Precious Ones, Mun’s lineage is older.

  I leave my bed and walk along the empty halls. A few of the old masters who travel from abroad are sitting in the main hall. They meditate all night and into the morning, the butter lamps burning, making the air smell sweet, the altar piled high with offerings of store-bought biscuits, cookies, liters of soft drinks and fruit juices, tögrög crammed in the offering bowls.

  I enter my brother’s chambers and find him sitting in his altar room among his booty. I’m not allowed to keep it, he says. All week gifts pour in. Stuffed animals, sports equipment, electronics, candy. It is all to be whisked away tomorrow and donated to the local school, places where children are allowed to be children.

  And so my brother and I spend the night playing with objects we don’t even know exist until now. One is a remote-control truck that has a siren on top that flashes red and blue lights, washing the walls with color. Tomorrow my brother is to don the gold brocade lama hat like a horse’s mane. He is to be carried on an open-air litter through the crowds, the sangha of the whole country and beyond gathered so that the community here at Yatuu Gol looks robust and plentiful, the monks rocking back and forth, lifting the great horns to their lips, beating the drums, sending a wall of sound up into the eternal blue.

  I am to sit off to the side on a platform in a place of honor with my father and his new wife and her three children, two girls and a little boy who wriggles in the woman’s arms like a fat slug. It is October since I last see my father. He looks both thinner and more worried. I wonder if, besides my shaved head, I look different to him. The people come and bow down to Aav and lay items at his feet, my father a simple herder. I can tell that the people think this woman at his side is our mother. Each time they bow to her it makes me want to scream.

  There is to be chanting and incense and candles. Walking around the altar in the same direction the sun moves through the heavens, a stick of incense clasped between the palms. Heads bowed, food eaten. Old women crying at the return of the faith of their childhoods.

  Tomorrow our father may bow to us, his sons, and touch his forehead to ours. As always, we do not hug. But tonight we are two little boys playing among a pile of treasure the world mysteriously brings into our lives.

  My brother and I are different people. This is evident to me during our life on the steppe. The way I sit on my horse, body square and balanced, and the way he rides as if about to fall off. Still, I understand why he is about to do what he is planning. Perhaps if our roles ever reverse, I might do the same.

  Don’t go, I say out loud. I can tell what my twin is thinking. That at first light he is planning to wrap himself in a simple robe and head out to the stables where he finds a good strong horse and rides it to the ends of the earth and beyond, out into the larger world he dreams of seeing. Don’t, I repeat, but the toy truck with the colorful siren drowns me out.

  Some months ago when we are still living with my father out on the grasslands, the Rinpoche visits to finalize plans for our entering the monastery. After everything is decided and the adults go to bed, I intuit Mun’s childish thoughts. How he is planning to make the incision in Bazar’s chest and slip his arm inside to pinch the artery that gives life, as if killing a grown man is as easy as killing a sheep. Perhaps the fire first burns uncontrollably inside my twin that night when I go out after him with Övöö’s old hunting rifle. Maybe Mun foresees the life that awaits us here in Yatuu Gol—him burdened with the happiness of all living beings, and me burdened by him. Maybe I should allow him to slip into the ger. Maybe I should trust that this is only for show, a way for my twin to express his feelings of powerlessness. Somewhere deep inside I know that my brother is not capable of such darkness. All the same, I raise the rifle. Mun glares at me, the knife glinting in his hand. Go away, he commands. I close my eyes. The sound of the blast scares the clouds off the face of the moon. When the smoke clears, my twin is still standing. Our father and Bazar come running.

  There’s a wolf about, I lie. The two men eye us suspiciously.

  This is what I am capable of. Of rising in the night and taking a gun, of aiming it at my twin. Of ruining his deepest plans. Of betraying him.

  Since arriving at Yatuu Gol my brother trains with a Precious One from India. He is receiving advanced tantric instruction I do not have access to. Tantric practice is an important part of Tibetan Buddhism. There are endless levels of tantric study. One must spend thousands of hours with a teacher in order to ascend to the highest levels of practice in which one learns to manipulate energy itself by entering the state of what we call foundational clear light mind that most beings can only access at death. Through mastering such states, one can, when needed, learn to generate within oneself the energy of wrathful deities, enlightened beings who incarnate in ferocious forms in order to lead others to enlightenment. In tantric practice, one’s teacher often decides on a wrathful deity that is already in alignment with one’s personality, and that deity becomes one’s protector. Mun’s wrathful deity is Hayagrīva, the Horse-Necked One. Sometimes Hayagrīva is depicted with three faces, each of his mouths filled with fangs, his sword raised to cut through the fog of delusion and ego. Though still a novice, when Mun tries to summon the energy of Hayagrīva, his eyes burn.

  Each day my twin is learning to focus, to shut out the world entirely. I am of the world. Tomorrow after his ordination, a spot gradually opens inside my brother, a hole like the vastness of outer space but filled with fire. If I try to enter it with my mind, instantly a searing pain rages between my eyes as if looking directly at the sun.

  Tomorrow everything is to be different. But tonight in his chambers piled with gifts he has yet to perfect this inner burning.

  Don’t go, I say a third time. Don’t, but it is the beginning of something new between us. If he is ever to escape this life, he must keep secrets, even from me. As the toy truck rampages around the room, siren wailing, I can feel my brother testing the limits of his ability to shut me out.

  When Mun gets up at dawn to put his plan into action, he finds the stables locked, one of the old monks sleeping in front of the doors as the Rinpoche orders. I have no defense, no hidden spaces inside me. The icy white sheet is not enough. My brother knows the actions I take. How after leaving him with his toys to return to my room, I stop in the Rinpoche’s quarters. All the while my eyes locked on the ground as I speak with the Rinpoche of my twin’s plans.

  As the sun rises on the day of my twin’s ordination, I wake to a sudden pang, a conflagration in the front of my skull, a feeling as if the whole world is burning. I sit up in bed. I am not able to catch my breath until late into the morning. By the time I do, it is done. We both have new names.

  In My Hands, It Is Both Heavier and Lighter Than I Expect

  A week after Mun’s ordination I am allowed into the small closet where the instruments are kept. Right from the start Mun is taught to ring a large brass bell in his left hand while wielding the dorje, a small scepter, in his right. The left hand represents wisdom, the realization that all is nothing, while things held in the right represent compassion, or skillful practice. The bell and dorje are often used together during ceremonies. The dorje is the physical representation of the thunderbolt of enlightenment. On his golden cushion, my now-fully-ordained brother sits at the head of our assembly and marries these two elements together in his eight-year-old body. Now it is my turn to choose an instrument, to decide how I want to be heard.

  I am well versed in the appeal of each. Most of the younger novices play the tsingsha, two small cymbals attached by a leather cord, the sweetness of the tsingsha’s one note calling hungry ghosts to the altar to accept the offerings. Other younger novices gently shake their wrists as they play the two-sided drum called the damaru, causing a pair of wooden clappers to bounce off the drum’s opposing heads. Some of the senior monks play the double-reeded gyaling, a wind instrument resonant like the western oboe, though the gyaling is usually decorated with silver and coral. In order to play the gyaling, one must master breathing in a circular fashion, inhaling through the nose while exhaling the air held in the mouth. Finally the dungchen can always be heard during puja, this long horn often up to six meters in length, the end of the horn placed on a cushion, though if need be, the instrument can be dismantled into three sections for ease of transport. While I am told some say the sound of the dungchen is like the singing of elephants, to my ears, it sounds like cold water on a moonless night, the peace that arises from stillness. There are a handful of various other drums and cymbals, flutes including one the Rinpoche plays made from a human femur, the instrument gilded in silver and with a sound like the winter wind.

  Well, says the Disciplinarian as I look over the possibilities. What is your choice?

  I gave him a shy look as my eye lands on the instrument I long to master. I hear an especially beautiful one can cost upward of millions of tögrög, but the expense aside, something in the shape of the instrument, the smoothness of its folds, calls me to it. I run a finger along its perfect spiral.

  The Disciplinarian nods and takes it off the shelf. In my hands, it is both heavier and lighter than I expect. This one is fitted with a silver mouthpiece on one end, though some monks learn to play it without. Try it, says the Disciplinarian not unkindly. I lift it to my lips and imagine every sentient being to ever exist.

  Than this, what could be more wondrous?

  Than this, what miracle could possess more awe?

  I blow.

  The conch makes the most beautiful sound ever. The sound of all four elements—earth, sky, water, fire, death as well as life. When I lower it from my lips, the sound seems to hang in the air.

  The Rinpoche pokes his head in the room. He looks at me, then the two men look at each other.

  His first note, says the Disciplinarian. Auspicious.

  For once I truly feel I am the Servant to the Redeemer Who Sounds the Conch in the Darkness. I lift the mighty shell again, its surface intricately carved with small swastikas, one of our many symbols for peace and auspiciousness, the word swastika from the Sanskrit, meaning “conducive to well-being.” The swastika is almost three thousand years old. Here in the East, this holy symbol still retains its original meaning despite its vile corruption in the west. Its true meaning continues to shine in the hearts of those who walk in love. May all sentient beings find a path over the water!

  In the Auspicious Month

  May arrives. The puja begins at five in the morning. The youngest novices prepare the temple, lighting the butter lamps and filling the silver offering bowls with water, in some cases with soda. Flowers adorn the statues of the Buddha and the deities, fruits meant to remind us of impermanence. All week we make small figures sculpted from tsampa, a dough made from flour and water and then left to harden in the sun before being painted with bright colors. Later today a rich man is driving out from the capital with his wife and daughter, who plans to attend business school in London. As we are in the auspicious month, the month when the Buddha achieves enlightenment, it is the most propitious time to schedule a puja. Monasteries all over the Buddhist world make the majority of their money in the month of May.

  In May, many Buddhists give up eating meat and refrain from intimate knowledge of the body during daylight hours. They visit as many temples as they can and make offerings to the Buddha. They try to argue less with their loved ones, to be more compassionate to strangers. If they die in this month, it is said they can achieve much merit for their next incarnation.

  This is Mun’s first puja on behalf of a patron since becoming the Redeemer Who Sounds the Conch in the Darkness. It is his job to lead us in our chants, which begin at sun-up and last until late afternoon. There are occasional breaks, for milk tea, for juice, for lunch, for studies and napping, the monks coming and going all day as needed though only Mun and the Rinpoche are expected to be seated each time we are in session.

  The Disciplinarian wanders up and down the rows. As he originally hails from China, he is filled with tales of Confucius, stories of the power of surrendering to the Way. Throughout the temple we sit on scarlet cushions placed on low wooden benches. The higher one sits, the higher one’s station. When people come in from the countryside to chant with us, they sit directly on the floor. A few western tourists wander in and sit in chairs. So much time spent sitting with crossed legs is difficult for them.

  Because we are reestablishing an abandoned monastery, in Yatuu Gol there are fewer than fifteen of us from Mongolia. The Rinpoche supplements our numbers by bringing in novices and ordained monks from other countries. Many are from Tibet via India. My favorites are from the tiny mountain kingdom of Bhutan, which some say is the happiest place in the world. The Bhutanese do indeed seem to be filled with an inner bliss. They often walk around with betel leaves stuffed in their cheeks, which eventually turn their teeth black.

  Most monasteries are teaching monasteries like Yatuu Gol. Our youngest novice is only six, the oldest twenty-seven. In the days before the Soviets, families send their sons to the monasteries for an education. Back then it is one of the few places where a child can learn to read.

  Eight months in and I love everything there is about monastic life. I love the learning, the sitting for hours among my brothers and developing a strong sense of calm. I like helping out where I’m needed. I like the nights when we are allowed to watch movies on the monastery’s only TV with an attached VCR. I like thinking about my consciousness and how it is connected to the consciousness of every other sentient being on the planet.

  Conversely my twin is growing pale. This time of year we would normally be outside for most of the day. There would be games played on horseback, nights filled with singing. My brother is living proof man’s happiness lies out on the vacant steppe. Here, the only singing we do is chanting, though one monk likes to wander the monastery grounds in his free time with headphones on, belting out the song from Titanic.

  The rich man and his family arrive an hour before lunch. I can tell it is them because, when they enter, the wife is holding two shopping bags filled with tögrög. It is mostly in small denominations so that it can be easily distributed among us. This is how the sangha makes our spending money. We are each paid to participate in this puja meant to increase the good fortune for this girl who is to study abroad. Already we are eager for day’s end when we are to receive ₮2,000 each. Over time, we can save up and buy things. Because we are only a few hours from Ulaanbaatar, we can get our hands on almost anything.

  Mun watches as the man and his family enter the temple. They are dressed in traditional clothing, but the fabrics have a sheen to them, a richness, brocade like the kind Mun wears at his ordination. The man’s boots are also of the best quality. The girl herself wears a pair of western cowboy boots with her deel. She is quite beautiful. Some of the older novices openly stare.

  We get up and march around the altar once more, each of us holding a joss stick in our hands. Then it is time for lunch.

  My brother is required to eat lunch with these people who are paying the monastery a huge sum of money. I also sit with him and the Rinpoche and eat a simple meal of khuushuur, dumplings fried in mutton fat. My brother quizzes the girl about her upcoming trip. He doesn’t hide his interest in her travels. He wants to know how much it costs, how one obtains a passport, the necessary visas issued, her budget. Silently I remind my twin of what Övöö would say in this situation: the rich can eat carrots or candles, it’s not our concern. Finally the Rinpoche intervenes and moves the conversation along. But my brother sits back, content. I feel the fire within him building like a bomb that’s about to go off and destroy everything.