You can know a master by both his age and his youth–wise on one hand, jovial on the other, the weight of knowledge balanced by the complete childlike freedom it gives. Again I thought about my dusty monk, leaning on the crutch of his practice, made rigid in the forgetfulness of his goal.

Some old crafty Buddhist monk must have realised this when he began the tradition of searching for the Bodhisattva, incarnated as a child. What better remedy for lugubrious ascetics than to throw an innocent child in their midst and call him enlightened. Something smart in that I thought.