If I perform a hundred prostrations that time just for accompanying my brother out to the house of a lonely thief, how many must I do now as we rob an innocent family of their livelihood?

  What Mun would say: nobody is innocent.

  When she is finished, the girl closes the pen, then walks up the ramp into the back of the truck. Silently I follow her up the plank. She is my shepherd and I am her sheep. In Sanskrit, karma simply means “action.” In its truest sense, it is the law of cause and effect, but is anything that simple? Tomorrow in Ulaanbaatar, I and the others charged by His Holiness the Dalai Lama must start the search for the rebirth of one of the oldest lights in the Tibetan Buddhist world, a being destined to help carry on the ancient truths in a world that seeks to destroy the ancient truths. If the path to finding the one born to bring wisdom to millions requires that I be present at this act of thieving, am I wrong to do so?

  The girl looks at me and smiles. The half-finished letter hidden next to my heart feels as if it is burning. Somehow this is the way to Ulaanbaatar. At Yatuu Gol, the Chinese philosophy known as Daoism is not something we study, but even I know the opening line of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. I find myself thinking of it as we float through the night. The Way that can be readily named is not the Way.

  You’re Just Stuck Is All

  Within minutes the sheep somehow wedges the shaggy triangle of its head in between two wooden slats. From where I am sitting I can see that by simply tilting its head sideways it could extricate itself. In the darkness I hear the sound of urine hitting the floor, a small cloud of steam rising between the creature’s back legs. It is a long time since I deal with animals, the moony fear that pervades their eyes. I look to the girl and nod toward where the sheep is stuck. She shrugs. Maybe it feels safer that way, she says, and stays where she is. I look at the animal and have to agree. Something in its body seems more relaxed, as if the animal is resigned to whatever may lie before it.

  Through the darkness the truck bumps and jolts over the grasslands. I imagine it is like riding in a boat, the waves a series of green hills, though I do not know how to swim and have yet to encounter a large body of water.

  The girl lifts the canvas and pokes her head into the cab to speak with the driver. Inside I can see a red ember glowing, what in English Mun calls the cherry, the sound of the cigarette burning like meat frying. The girl leans back out. Listen, at the fourth house we need you to keep watch, she says. Okay?

  The child looks directly at me. There is something in her eyes, an unnatural orange, a fire I am familiar with. Yes, I think, she walks this earth many times before. She is one of the lost. Hers is an ancient energy working its way up out of some previous darkness. Perhaps even now some wrathful deity is yoked to her journey, some ferocious god attempting to steer her toward the light. Don’t worry, she says, as she rides upright over the grasslands like a little prince. We won’t make you do it if you don’t want to.

  Why is that, I say.

  The girl spits on the floor. Maybe you play pool like someone from the city, she says, but I know you’re a real monk. She points to the sheep with its head trapped among the slats. You’re just stuck is all, she says.

  Something catches in my chest. I get down on my knees and do ten half prostrations right there in the back of the truck. With each one I can feel the wet floorboards though I am unsure if it is water or something else. When I finish, I remain on my knees.

  I have to get to Ulaanbaatar by sundown tomorrow, I say.

  Either you get to Ulaanbaatar or you don’t, she says, her tone of voice as if this is the most obvious truth in existence. Sometimes you don’t sound like a holy man, she adds.

  What do I sound like, I say, but she doesn’t respond. Instead, she walks off to the far corner of the truck where the sheep stands trapped among the wooden slats. Gently the girl angles the creature’s neck and frees it, but within minutes, the animal’s head is trapped again.

  The Answer Presents Itself to Me

  Mischievously the moon floats in and out of the clouds. I wonder how often this band of thieves goes raiding, why they don’t wait for the new moon and total dark. Just then the clouds part, flooding the world with light, and the answer presents itself to me. In the total dark, people are more vigilant. They hold tighter to what is dearest to them. When the moon’s light is present, their grip is not as tight.

  Now in the flickering darkness the driver is careful to keep the wheels in the deep tire tracks worn in the grass by countless vehicles over time, which in Mongolia are the equivalent of highways. Out here we are hundreds of kilometers from paved roads. If we deviate from the ruts, anyone could follow our tracks.

  Then the truck shifts into a lower gear. Slowly we climb a small hill. When we crest, the next ger presents itself in the middle of a vast emptiness. In the moonlight I can see twenty or more kilometers in every direction. As I stand in the truck bed looking out over the cab, it is as if the whole world belongs only to me. The distances are staggering. It could take you an hour to drive to a spot on the edge of the horizon, yet that spot feels like it’s just within reach. This is what it means to live on the steppe. There are no walls between you and nature. You are nature.

  Fifteen minutes later we coast up to a pen where at night the animals are kept away from the jaws of wolves. The tailgate comes down easier this time. Things go smoothly. Soundlessly the little girl jumps out. I follow. Soon there are two adolescents, one male, one female, making their way shyly up the ramp like newlyweds. Quickly the animals move to the corner where the other is still trapped among the boards. Already they are a family.

  At the third house I don’t get out of the truck. Within minutes an older female drifts up the gangway. The old ewe makes straight for me and lets out a small bleat. I hold my hand out. The skin of my palm grows moist from the muggy breath steaming out her nostrils. I try to imagine what she’s thinking. She keeps nibbling my fingers even after she realizes my hand is empty.

  Our Auras Hovering in the Air as We Move

  Now we are in the deepest part of the night, the sky dark as an old well. I remember the sound of my heart thundering in my ears the night Mun and I ride home after stealing the radio from the widower. All the way home the muscle storming in my chest. This time, my heart lies still, but I am not fooled by its silence.

  It takes an hour to get to the fourth ger. Once again the driver cuts the engine. We roll noiselessly for another few hundred meters before coming to a stop. The girl takes a deep breath in through her mouth and pushes it out through her nose. I wonder if she does this to quiet her mind, or if it’s just a habit.

  After her, I slip out of the truck and wrap my robe around my shoulders. Even in the limited moonlight the breath visibly issues out of our bodies, our auras hovering in the air as we move. The three men pull the masks over their faces. We are still fifty meters from the homestead. It is a large operation consisting of a series of ger, the smallest one larger than the one my opponent and the little girl call home. The ger are positioned to form a U. In the center are multiple pens, though there are so many they stretch beyond the safety of the half circle.

  My opponent taps the little girl on the shoulder and makes a signal with his hand. The child then turns to me. Remember, she whispers, if you see anything, whistle. I neither agree nor shake my head, but she doesn’t seem to notice. The four of us fan out behind her.

  The first pen is farthest from the ger. There must be a hundred animals behind the wire. What is it about the child that keeps them from panicking? Easily she cuts through the flock, culling three before closing the gate. When they’re out, she hands them off to my opponent, who runs them back up to the truck. The rest of us move on.

  At the next pen just as the girl is unhooking the gate my wrist beeps the hour two times, to my ears the sound like a shotgun. We freeze in our tracks. I stop breathing. A lifetime passes. I remind myself there is no liberation apart from the Triple Gem; to access it we must move beyond fear. Fortunately, we are far enough from the nearest ger and the wind is blowing away from us, away from where the family lies sleeping. From the way he balls his hands, I know the second man in our group wants to hit me, but he is too far away. After another minute of standing still, the girl opens the pen and makes her selections. This time it is the driver who disappears into the night with the animals.

  The Light We Carry Inside Us Can Never Be Extinguished

  The final pen lies just a meter or two from a small ger where flour is probably stored along with dried milk, maybe a motorbike or two. I am the one closest to it, the one farthest from the truck. Something about where I am standing, how close I am to the door, makes me wonder about my purpose here tonight. I can hear the sound of my brother giggling as we ride over the grasslands, the radio cinched in his deel. He doesn’t need me. The widower is gone as expected. My role that night is to witness, to add yet another black mark on the growing list of Mun’s misdeeds, to show the world that despite our being brothers, I am the grass and he is the horse, opposites in every way.

  Already the girl is rummaging among the animals, deciding who might be taken without notice. I focus on the darkness around me and put the thought of what I am doing here from my mind.

  The girl is yet to choose one when I hear the sound of a bullet sliding into a chamber. The only person to ever point a weapon at me is my brother, and in turn he is the only person I ever train a weapon on.

  The boy is standing in the shadows, his face painted a shade of black that matches his deel. Most likely he is standing there all night, a sentinel to whom time is meaningless. I can only see the whites around his pupils; when he blinks he momentarily disappears off the earth.

  In the limited light I feel the boy searching for my weakest spot. With a pull of the trigger, I could be blasted out of this world. A soft wind blows at my back as if ushering me forward. And just like that, all is lost. My heart now thundering in my chest, a warhorse marauding across the steppes. All the years of training, of learning to live a dispassionate life, gone at the sound of a gun. Am I not one who believes that the light we carry inside us can never be extinguished? Then why, in this moment of thresholds, do I find myself clinging to existence, my whole being desirous that the insignificant person that is me be allowed to continue?

  I feel the wind’s hand marshaling me on. No test of faith could be more crystalline. I am taught to believe that when we renounce the physical world, we gain everlasting peace. A rich man spends his life chained to securing his treasure, but when he finally loses it to robbers, he is suddenly free to live. Now when total renunciation is offered to me, everything looks different. I wait for the state of what is called clear light mind to arise, the highest state of consciousness that precedes death. It is our belief that earthly existence clouds the mind’s naturally radiant state of light and pure bliss, causing humanity to live with the illusion that all phenomena are permanent. And so we suffer.

  I feel the boy’s gun trained on my chest. I think of the indestructible drop that resides in the center of my heart chakra, this drop composed of the red drop from my father and the white drop of my mother. How at the moment of death, this drop splits apart, releasing my very subtle consciousness, the spark at the center of every sentient being, back into the universe.

  Then the moon comes out from behind a cloud and saves my life. Somewhere in the everlasting tree that is the universe there is another me living this same life. In that universe the moon does not arrive in time.

  When One Hunts the Wolf

  His mother refuses to tie my hands, but the boy insists. She stands shining a flashlight in the doorway, a pair of rubber boots on her feet, as the boy leads me into the room. The woman is tired, a fatigue that goes beyond the hour of the night, her fingers clutching the latticed qana as if the ger walls are holding her up. Conversely the boy is filled with energy, a hunter galvanized by blood. Once we are inside, I hold my wrists out to him, a small offering, but he shakes his head and wrenches my arms behind me. For a child of about twelve, there is such strength in his grip as he binds my hands with an extension cord. The boy makes a double knot. I realize my mistake. What I think is energy is anger.

  In the center of the room the grandmother is blowing into the stove as she tries to get the flame to catch. The ger is large, its one room big enough to accommodate several families, but from the look of things only adults sleep here. Two teenaged girls run in, one in western-style pajamas, the other in a yellow deel. When I see the girl in the yellow deel, her long black hair coiled around her head in a traditional style, my face burns hotter. I lock my eyes on the floor, which is layered with fine rugs, the top rug patterned with small blue flowers.

  See, says the boy. He walks over to a small radio set lying on a table. He turns a dial on the radio while still holding his gun. It isn’t a wolf, he says.

  Is this necessary, says the grandmother.

  He’s a thief, the boy says.

  The girl in the yellow deel looks at me. I imagine my face is the same color as my robe, the top of my shaved head crimson with shame. I recognize him, the girl says. My hands are beginning to numb. I wish for a hole where I might crawl in and be swallowed up straight to the underworld, that I might be instantly reincarnated as the fly that lives in the wet dung of the yak. He’s from Yatuu Gol, she says. He likes to eat western candy bars.

  No, yawns her sister. The monk you’re talking about lives in the capital now after ruining that girl. The way she says it, the flatness of her intonation, as if she is merely describing an episode on the television. I do not contest her version of events though what she says is not entirely accurate. Unfortunately there is more truth in what she says than not. Even when robed, my brother is not shy about knowing women. I can only imagine what adventures he is up to in Ulaanbaatar.

  Mun is my twin, I say in a soft voice. And yes, he now lives in the city.

  And where are you headed, asks the grandmother. She remains squatting by the stove, her steel-gray hair falling past her waist.

  I am among the lost, I say. I wonder what the Rinpoche would think to see me kneeling here on the floor of a rich man, the Rinpoche’s watch still faithfully keeping time on my wrist.

  The boy manages to raise someone on the radio. He rests his gun across his shoulders. In the firelight I can see it is a Russian rifle from the days when the Soviet Union is our nation’s friend. Earlier outside when I hear the sound of the hammer cocking, I look over and see him standing in the shadows, his face lined like a man’s. Stealing livestock in Mongolia is among the oldest of crimes. Though it is extremely rare, people sometimes kill when defending their animals. But the moon comes out from behind a cloud and the boy sees my robe. In the moonlight, confusion clouds his face. In the new Mongolia, the killing of a monk is among the worst crimes. I can see the boy working out the equation in his head as the little girl with the blackened face slips away into the night. This is how I am meant to serve. When one hunts the wolf, one needs the blood of the sheep to light the way to the pit. Yes. I do what I am brought along to do. I get caught so that others might go free. The little girl is right. I am like that sheep with its head stuck in the truck’s slats. Either you get to Ulaanbaatar or you don’t, she says. Even now in my darkest hour I must keep believing in the truth of her statement. Either I arrive at Ulaanbaatar’s Gandan Tegchenling Monastery by sundown tomorrow or I don’t. I must maintain thinking like a holy man or I am only one more being among the desperate.

  It Is a Fair Exchange

  Why are you stealing animals, says the mother. Is it because you know we are without a man?

  I look around the room. The boy puts the radio down. Painfully the skin above his eyes furrows as he looks at his mother. On the altar there is a handkerchief covering a portrait. My heart skips. These people are observing the first forty-nine days of mourning.

  There is a darkness in my blood, I say.

  Just like your brother, says the girl in the yellow deel. I look at the floor. I remember this girl from one afternoon of gurem, her black hair flashing in the sunlight.

  I and my fellow monks at Yatuu Gol belong to Sharyn Shashin, the Religion of the Yellow. Most likely the local people do not know the difference between the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism and the many forms of Buddhism in the world. This girl probably doesn’t know that, unlike the monks of the Theravada tradition, who live mostly in Southeast Asia, their robes a brilliant saffron orange, the monks of all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism do not go begging for alms. In the Theravadic world, early mornings a river of monks streams out at first light, wooden bowls around their necks, the local people coming forward with offerings. Conversely, in the remote regions where Tibetan Buddhists live, the practice of begging for food is impractical given the emptiness of the landscape.

  Among this family, most likely only the grandmother knows the full story of how, beginning in 1924, Buddhism is all but wiped out during Mongolia’s communist epoch, though even this elderly woman is probably not alive during the first purges. Just before the millennium when the Rinpoche reestablishes Yatuu Gol after the fall of the Soviet Union, he quickly reinstitutes the practice of gurem. Thanks to gurem, we monks travel to people’s homes where we pray that the family may be free from hunger, thirst, and illness, and in return, the people make us offerings of food and money. Because Yatuu Gol is so isolated, Mongolia a country twice the size of the American state of Texas but with only three million inhabitants, we cannot practice gurem often. Mostly we go out to visit the lay community during the Mongolian summer, when the flocks are at their fattest. We cannot deny the people a chance to improve their karma by giving to the disciples of Buddha. It is a fair exchange. Bringing us into their homes reminds the people to be virtuous. Seeing the laity prostrating themselves before us reminds us that we have much to live up to.