Up ahead Uncle disappears around a bend. We are near the top. It is bare of all vegetation and smooth as a knee from the action of the wind through the eons. I blot my face with the edge of my robe, the sweat pearling down my back. I too reach the bend and walk out onto the crest. It is like walking into a small city.

  A few rise tall as a man though most only reach mid-calf or to the waist, generally no more than six rocks or so balanced one on top of another. Everywhere the piles of stones like a series of stalagmites, their upright forms eerily human. I am panting slightly, but Uncle begins to move among the rocks, blessing everything with a touch of his hand. I stop to pull a stone from the heel of my sandal. Then I also begin to bless the ovoo.

  Ovoo are a type of cairn and exist all over Mongolia at the top of hills and mountains, any spot deemed sufficiently high. In its simplest form an ovoo is a pile of stones that grows over time as travelers come and place a rock in the hopes of securing safe passage. Near the ancient capital of Karakorum people say there is an ovoo as tall as a five-story building. On Yatuu Gol itself there is an ovoo in the middle of the sleeping caldera. And in ovoo everywhere you can see where travelers leave personal offerings, items peeking out from underneath the stones as the ovoo grows around them—small bottles of vodka and paper currency, candy, and photographs, and always the flapping of khadag, the blue prayer cloth wedged under rocks or tied to sticks stuck upright in between cracks. Though we are both followers of the Gelug sect of Buddhism, in Tibet they call their prayer scarves kata, which are white like the snows of their mountains, but in Mongolia ours are blue, the color of the Eternal Blue Sky god, Tengri, our first deity. In many ways ovoo are a relic from Mongolia’s shamanistic past. They are always built on an area’s highest point, as such a place is the closest spot to Tengri. If you are traveling in a car or truck and do not have time to park and ascend and place a stone, you can honk your horn three times for luck as you drive by.

  I cannot believe so many travelers find their way to this spot remote as the moon. Because there is no other evidence of them, no wrecks or boneyards littering the steppe, I can only assume they make it to wherever they intend safely. The thought makes me hopeful.

  The Wind Horse That Powers My Life

  When we finish bestowing our blessings, Uncle and I walk around the largest ovoo three times in the same direction the sun takes through the heavens. The thing is the size of a car and sprinkled with blue khadag, some now just rags due to the elements. Then Uncle does a series of full prostrations. A cloud of dust rises in the air. He moves so lightly, like a man half his age, his forehead kissing the earth, arms outstretched on the ground. When he’s done, he adjusts his robe and takes a seat. Within minutes he is in a deep place. Slowly I settle myself, clearing a spot of any sharp rocks. As we are a hundred meters above the plain, the sound of the wind sings in my ears, its voice mournful. I do not ask the question out loud, not wanting to reveal the existence of a shadow that is slowly entering my heart. Instead I think it to myself. How long do we wait?

  Uncle sits with the half-lidded eyes of enlightenment. Already he is in the deepest river, a place the oldest ones can reach in a matter of minutes. The light as if bending around him.

  I remember the half-finished letter tucked in my robe, the one addressed to the Rinpoche back at Yatuu Gol.

  Most Honorable Rinpoche,

  As it states in the Shantideva’s Bodhisattva Vow:

  May a rain of food and drink descend

  To clear away the pain of thirst and hunger

  And during the eon of famine

  May I myself turn into food and drink.

  May I become an inexhaustible treasure

  For those who are poor and destitute;

  May I turn into all things they could need

  And may these be placed close beside them.

  Esteemed Rinpoche, please know I have done everything in my power to serve you in a manner most befitting of one who wears the robe. But like a pond that is overgrown with moss, I find my heart growing turbid with doubt.

  Late one night I write this on a scrap of paper after a wave of skepticism washes over me at the thought of all I am soon renouncing: what would it be like each night to unbraid a woman’s hair, the smell of wildflowers suddenly filling the room? Three days after I begin writing this letter, the Rinpoche calls me into his chambers and tasks me with helping to find this reincarnation. Now I cannot help but wonder if it is the universe that arranges this series of strange events and slaps the rump of the wind horse that powers my life.

  Here on this outcrop overlooking the endless grasslands, my watch beeps the hour.

  Who sees the inexorable causality of things,

  Of both cyclic life and liberation

  And destroys any objective conviction

  Thus finds the path…

  I make myself as small as possible, then smaller still.

  The Beautiful Arrives in Its Own Time

  Days. Weeks. Years. Minutes. My backside tingling from sitting on the hard earth. I slow my breath and separate myself from the pain. What my grandfather would say at times like these: do not hasten toward doing what is beautiful; the beautiful arrives in its own time. I can hear the prayer flags woven among the ovoo snapping in the wind. The earth at its most elemental. Wind. Pain. Time. More pain. Then wisdom.

  Each morning at Yatuu Gol I wake to practice bodhicitta, the wish to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient creatures. I practice bodhicitta in a setting of like-minded beings, our brotherhood protected from the hungers of the everyday. Now there is no brotherhood to keep me centered, no smell of camphor, no call of the conch to help me focus. Instead, all morning Uncle and I sit among the landscape, our bodies like rocks. Overhead the sun moves through the sky like a hand making a sweeping gesture.

  As a child, I learn about Buddhism from my grandfather. Where he learns it, he never says. When Mun and I are born, the only monastery in the country is Gandan Tegchenling in Ulaanbaatar, a place where even in the darkest of times the communist government allows a handful of monks to maintain some of the traditions. Unlike my twin, I naturally take to Övöö’s lessons on emptiness and enlightenment. I enjoy pressing my body into the earth, prostrating myself in the name of compassion. It is with my grandfather that I first learn to consider a corpse, to stare long and hard at the desiccated body of a sheep or horse, to take comfort in the fact that my own body is made of the same materials, and that one day in the future my body also enters this state. It is my grandfather who tells me that to become a Buddhist, one need only say the Triple Gem three times. I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the sangha. Even now I still say it to myself several times a day.

  But now the quest for this reincarnation unleashes an uncertainty in me. I am like one who walks on shifting earth. Unbidden, my mind fills with such thoughts as are we destined to find the child, and, more important, is it the right child? This feeling of unease coupled with my own doubts regarding my upcoming ordination, and I find myself marveling at my brother’s freedom. Though I do not approve of the way he sails through the floating world, a part of me wonders what it would be like to be my own master, to think of no one but myself. The longer Uncle and I sit without moving, the more I begin to feel my doubts infect me. In the coming days, should I finish penning the letter tucked in my robe? Am I to follow in my twin’s footsteps and return to Yatuu Gol, renounce my vows? What would it mean to disrobe? And if I do, who am I then?

  At the top of the butte there is no wind. A stone tumbles off an ovoo. Slowly I feel the action of time at work. The earth’s plates coming together and moving apart. The seas rising and receding. Either my destiny is to pledge myself to the Dharma forever or I won’t. Either I achieve some small measure of the diamond mind or I stay lost.

  The Sun Shines on Both the Deserving and the Undeserving

  And so it happens as it so often does in this life—when you come to fully accept where you are, a door opens. I remember the one thing I am sure of: suffering and the end of suffering. Everything else is bait. The way some creatures are born to die within hours, thousands of generations of life coming into being in the raindrop of a single day. If someone asks me how much time passes up here on the crest of the butte under the eternal blue sky, I would not be able to formulate a response. Days. Weeks. Years. Minutes. And yet it is as if only an instant passes, a dragonfly momentarily alighting on one’s shoulder.

  Uncle opens his eyes. May all beings have happiness and the tools of happiness, he says. He takes off his sunglasses and wipes them on his robe, the lenses flashing in the sun, a beacon to whatever is coming over the horizon. He puts them back on and stands up. The sky at the end of the sky trembles.

  Before turning and heading back down the path, Uncle hands me a rock. The thing is dusty and fits comfortably in my palm. It is nondescript in every way. I wonder why he chooses this one. I know it is pointless to wonder. The Buddha says that in the moment of His enlightenment, He sees the very source from which life originates, but He does not address it in His teachings, as mankind often gets sidetracked by such fruitless questions as where we come from and why we exist. Not everything needs an answer. We must accept that some things just are. The sun shines on both the deserving and the undeserving equally.

  I look at the options around me, the ovoo like a field of people. One of them catches my eye. The way it seems to stand in the shadow of another that is just off to its right, together the two ovoo like twin stars only one of them is taller and with more prayer flags woven among its stones, the other less robust. I place my rock on the smaller ovoo. Grow strong, little brother, I think. Your day is coming.

  The walk down the butte is easier.

  I Renounce My Vows, I Renounce My Vows

  Mun is still lying in the wedge of shade the Machine casts on the ground. From the look of things it would seem he has yet to move. The bruise adorns his forehead like a small egg. It is lathered with a poultice Saran whips up from an old potato. By evening, the swelling should be gone, though the bruise itself remains for several days, his skin the pale blue color of a vein. When Uncle and I come back, he sits up quickly but winces. See anything, he asks.

  Yes, says Uncle, one is always seeing if one simply opens the eyes. He winks at me. I am beginning to think that part of Uncle’s journey, in addition to finding the One for Whom the Sky Never Darkens, is also to reopen my brother’s heart, to bring him back to who he is, a Precious One. But then again I think this about every unexpected twist life brings our way ever since Mun says the words I renounce my vows, I renounce my vows, I renounce my vows, and in doing so, formally disrobes.

  Little Bat is sitting in the lotus position off by himself on the scrubby earth. Not yet, my friend, says Uncle. Little Bat is too far off to hear, too deep in stillness, his form unmoving yet filled with light. Let us first give the universe a little more time to help, Uncle says.

  Two years ago in early spring a herder on the edge of the Gobi discovers a young family of four in a remote area of the grasslands. Nobody knows exactly when they set out or where they are headed. In Mongolia people sometimes make long journeys by motorbike, bringing everything they need with them—extra inner-tube linings, a small compressor, a soldering iron, various tools and gadgets to fix anything that might go wrong, food and animal furs, photographs and keepsakes, a set of anklebones for the endless twilight evenings. Of this family, all that is left is their rusted motorbike, the winter snows turning the metal to lace, the shriveled bodies of the young children huddling between the parents.

  I arrange my robe around me and settle down on the ground, searching for the peace that exists even in uncertainty. I try to imagine the worst-case scenario, the five of us out here for weeks, the days growing shorter, the clouds graying with snow, our bodies moving less and less until all function ceases, the soft tissues of the face decaying first, maggots devouring the skin of our lips and nostrils so that our teeth appear elongated.

  Noon approaches from the east, the sun at a standstill. The only shadows are those cast by clouds racing over the landscape. It is three hours since we hit the sinkhole. At one o’clock, Saran hands us each a bowl of milk tea and a block of aaruul. By two o’clock I notice a glittering when I close my eyes. Flecks of light dance in my vision even when my eyes are open. Three o’clock arrives. We have six more hours of summer light.

  Little Bat rises and stands before Uncle, who remains seated but does not acknowledge the presence of his heart’s disciple. After several minutes Little Bat prostrates himself before his teacher. He remains like that, face pressed to the dark earth. Time passes, the two men locked in silent strife. The sun lashing the world with its rays. Outwardly I also appear as one stilled, but inside me there is a great thundering. I envision a child’s corpse hidden in the endless green. I imagine my own bones appearing through my skin.

  Finally Uncle touches Little Bat’s head with his palm. The way he touches him it is obviously a blessing. The big monk rises. He bows before Uncle. Then the giant with the baby face sets out to do what needs to be done. He displays the patience of one who knows that the yoke of this life brings what it brings.

  Closing My Eyes Changes Nothing

  Little Bat approaches the 66. In preparation, he ties a length of rope from one of our supply boxes to the roof rack at the back of the Machine. Methodically he trusses himself up like something about to be slaughtered. Now I understand Uncle’s concern. The way Little Bat is tied I am worried his body could be squeezed to pieces, his insides compressed and bloody. The possibility is not that he is instantly killed. Instead what could come to pass are the kinds of injuries that occur in the dark. The body filling with its own fluids in all the wrong places, the death a slow and painful one, perhaps not even coming on for several weeks, the form internally leaking, a flood that cannot be stopped. I can tell my brother is thinking the same thing, but Uncle makes no move to stop his heart’s disciple.

  The distance between heaven and earth is no greater than one’s intention. Little Bat lifts his face to the sky. I want to look away, but this is the world as it is. Closing my eyes changes nothing.

  Impressive are horses and elephants which are well trained, but more impressive are individuals who tame themselves. It is not a miracle. Tomorrow as we bathe in an icy spring with the first candidate, the cost of this superhuman act of strength is evident. Little Bat’s single-handedly pulling the Machine up out of the earth the way the yak pulls a plow, the rope merciless and digging into his flesh, the Machine slowly rising back up onto solid ground, a creature being raised from the underworld. As surely as our shadow never leaves us, so well-being follows when we act with a pure state of mind. Little Bat’s entire body crisscrossed with welts and bruises, markings that are with him unto the end.

  It’s Not the Quality of Your Machine but the Quality of Your Mechanic

  We drive another four hours. There is still time left before the sun sets that we can spend part of the day making for Khövsgöl Nuur. Thanks to Little Bat we are once again on the path toward the child. When all four wheels of the Machine are back up on firm land and Little Bat unties himself from the crushing rope, Uncle touches his forehead to Little Bat’s. I expect him to say something, some words of blessing, but the touching of skin seems to be enough. I search Little Bat’s form for signs of injuries, but it is too soon to tell. Should the worst come to pass, it could take time for the body to swell, for his insides to liquefy, his interior silently remapping itself.

  After a few hours we come to a small outpost with a handful of buildings and an elderly couple manning the operation. We fill up with groceries, the gas jugs patched and back up on the roof. The woman gives us directions, detailing what to expect of the landscape. Despite his age the man crawls under the Machine and searches for any damage from our encounter with the sinkhole. He finds none. In Mongolia, we have a saying: it’s not the quality of your Machine but the quality of your mechanic. Most cars in Mongolia are decades old cast-offs from the days of the Soviet Union. Most are completely rebuilt, the outer shell the only part that is original.

  Mun hands me back my bag of tögrög. Carefully I wrap it up in my robe. We have yet to even meet the first candidate and already the bag is half depleted. Relax, Mun says, but he drives more gingerly than before. We do not travel as quickly. Now when he turns the car, he keeps both hands on the wheel. There is a small knot of concentration deep within him, his focus aimed completely on the landscape and the subtle markers that signify where we are. From time to time he fingers the bruise in the middle of his forehead, as if reminding himself of his responsibilities.

  Far From It

  Though we are told to expect it, what from a distance looks like a rip in the earth, the gorge still comes up unexpectedly. Beyond it we can see where the earth turns green again, the landscape shifting from the barrenness of Mars back to lushness. It’s a dramatic moment. Let’s take a look, says Uncle.

  Carefully Mun inches the Machine up to the canyon’s edge. The way the earth suddenly opens up in front of us, this the work of hundreds of millions of millennia, the world’s smallest shovel patiently digging its way through stone. While the canyon is not wide, perhaps less than four hundred meters across, it is deeper than anything I ever encounter.