Watching the young monk's idyllic life high up in the mountains, beautiful, stress free and quiet, I wondered why he needed to liberate himself further. The explanation, I suppose, was -- guilt. He had abandoned his mother to the care of a younger sibling and went off to please himself. The thought that his happiness had been purchased at the cost of an act of desertion gnawed at him, ruining his pleasure.
In the bliss of my own mountain hermitage, I do not have such feelings. I am liberated. I am calm. I am at peace.
My sister had once explained to me how in high school, when one thought her boyfriend was about to dump one, one dumped him first. My strategy, I suppose, has been the opposite: when you want to be rid of someone behave in a manner which makes it inevitable for them to dump you.
Really, in the words of a famous general invited to fire first at his enemies: "We gentlemen of France never fire first. Do you, sirs, give fire!"
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