The Monk and the Riddle: The Art of Creating a Life While Making a Living Read Free

dark.
    Half an hour later, the monk signals me, with a tap on the shoulder, to pull over in front of a ramshackle, windowless shed. We enter a crowded room filled with farmers and loiterers, members of a full-fledged profession in Burma. The locals are excited to see an American where none usually tread. The monk sits down at a small bench and offers me lunch. I shake my head. Now it's my turn to wait, sipping green tea, cautiously, not understanding a word that is spoken. He sponges up the last bit of thick, brown sauce with a wad of rice, and we take off again.
    Riding for hours, another 100 kilometers or so, we end up at Mount Popa, an ancient Buddhist temple built on a mountain of rock that erupts from an otherwise flat landscape. It's an old, shabby temple, popular with the monkeys. Nats , humans who have suffered tragic deaths and have been transformed into animist deities, are worshipped side-by-side with Buddha here and are feted with offerings of fruit, cigarettes, and chewing gum. At night, trance dancers take on the spirits of the Nats in their gyrations.
    An older monk in sun-faded robes emerges from the temple's entrance, and the two greet each other with bows. My monk disappears quietly up the hill, without so much as a peep in my direction.
    “I'm Mr. Wizdom, the abbot of Mount Popa Monastery,” says the older monk. An angular man with day-old stubble on his pate, he wears crooked wire-rimmed glasses that look like they've been mangled and bent back to form many times.
    I'm relieved to hear English. I have no idea where the hell I am, my bicycling buddies are long gone, and now I'm almost out of gas.
    With the noble hospitality of one who has nothing, Mr. Wizdom motions for me to sit down.
    “You know, I picked him up 150 kilometers ago, and I have no idea where I'm taking him?” I say, gesturing toward the one who disappeared. “Is this where he wants to go?”
    “Oh, yes, this is where you take him,” Mr. Wizdom replies elliptically. We talk briefly, travelers' chitchat, before I ask for and receive directions to Bagan. He hands me a dog-eared card, all unintelligible Burmese except for the odd English phonetic spelling of his name, “Wizdom.” Seeing that I'm not rushing to copy down the particulars, he snatches back what must be his one and only calling card. I accept a drink of water and shake Mr. Wizdom's hand. My work is done.
    I head back to my motorcycle to find the young monk waiting for me. Confused, I look plaintively toward Mr. Wizdom who is gazing at us from the temple steps.
    “He wants to go back to where you picked him up,” Mr. Wizdom offers with a shrug.
    “But you said this is where I take him,” I call out.
    “Yes, but he wants to go back. Now. Can you take him?” Mr. Wizdom comes forward, a monkey squealing behind him. For his part, the young monk reaches for my backpack, readying himself for another journey.
    “But he just got here. I drove him all afternoon. It's nearly sunset. Now he wants to go back? What's the point?”
    Bemused, Mr. Wizdom shrugs his shoulders again and turns back toward the temple. “I cannot easily answer that question. But let me give you a riddle to solve.” Pausing, he exchanges a smile with the young monk, and turns back to me. I'm wondering how I ended up in a script with a monk named Mr. Wizdom and a magic riddle. “Don't try to answer it now. You must sit with the riddle a while, and the answer will simply come to you.”
    The truth is I don't much like such games, but the monk doesn't give me a choice in the matter.
    “Imagine I have an egg” —Mr. Wizdom cups an imaginary egg in his hand—“and I want to drop this egg three feet without breaking it. How do I do that?”
    The monk seems pleased with himself, having mustered enough English to perplex a simple American traveler. My mind flips fast through the forgotten pages of elementary science texts. I am tempted to blurt out answers, for if I solve Mr. Wizdom's riddle, perhaps he