The Hill

I remained still in anticipation. And then as nothing had happened, I started to feel that it was simply a quiet monastery afternoon. Nothing dramatic was going on. Everyone was simply going about their routine. I wasn't doing anything but waiting on the floor. A sense of liberty overcame me to be free of my bonds in the real world, constant demands, and rushed schedule. I was simply lying on the floor outreached. Whatever would happen would happen in its own time. That's when I could feel it for the first time. My ribcage lifted to allow a real breath to come in. I almost let a sigh escape as the tension between my shoulders suddenly eased. They were masters at reading what a person needed. For all I knew, someone could have been silently standing over me waiting for that first breath to happen before proceeding. And there I felt a tap on the side of my left hip that indicated to me to get up.

I turned around to find my new guardian's feet on the floor. She was black. Her arches were flat. The nails were trimmed neatly. Her skin had a stringiness to it like she spent a lot of time walking barefoot through grass and over dirt. She was barefoot, indicating another visitor. I don't know but somehow her feet appeared to me like she had been a very chatty person outside the monastery, incessantly talking, and here she had to learn to be quiet, which allowed an entirely different side of her to open.

We walked down a short corridor and stepped into the sun. I could feel the warmth of the sun on the stones under my soles. Her dark brown skin turned into almost reddish luminescence in the sunlight. I could hear the millions of noises in the garden from the crackling of the wood as it expanded in the warmth to the movements of the insects and birds, and also a singing of the air in the warm early summer sun. A sense of how rich the world feels when I'm in my body instead of racing to answer e-mails returned to me. A dirt path led us to the cleared ground under a oaktree.

She tapped on the floor to indicate for me to sit down in front of three bowls. The big bowl had a mix of kidney and black beans. I saw her fingers picking a bean and putting it into one of the empty bowls. I understood that I had to sort the beans. It made sense. They would give me a simple task to keep my hands occupied while my mind would calm down.

My task started easily enough. I could spot a kidney from a black bean. I put it into the right bowl. But then my back started hurting. There was this beautiful patch of wildflowers near me with birds dancing in white fluffy flowers, big round yellow ones, and little dots of red flowers. I was picking the stupid beans. I felt nauseous. I couldn't stop thinking about how stupid it was to come to this monastery. I should have simply gotten a massage and a cosmo.

"Fuck this bullshit!" I screamed and got up. Before I could get a look at my guardian's face, I felt my knees buckling under me. They hit the ground sharply. Only in the dazed after-moment did I feel the stick in the back of my knee that had brought me down. The guardian patiently and without malice showed me by example how to separate the beans again.

I was too startled. I picked the next bean. They called them guardians for a reason. Until now, I had thought of her as a guest who was simply showing me around. Now, I realized that I was under her control. When I kept picking beans, I couldn't feel her presence at all. She never moved or shifted her weight. Her breathing was so slow and even that it emanated not a trace of sound. It let me drift deeper into my head.

Then the panic shot up in me. I was captured. I was held. I was restrained. I was not free. I shot up to my feet and started running at full speed. I would get away before she could react. And then my chest ran into something hard that stopped me in my tracks. It was pointy. I saw it was blond wood, the stick that she had been carrying. She had anticipated my escape and had placed herself directly into my path. I had run straight at her. I was going to get a look at her face this time. I looked up defiantly but before I could catch her face, my knees buckled out from under me again. My knees hit the dirt ground even sharper this time. I was back in front of the bowls. Again without any malice, she slowly and calmly demonstrated to me how to pick the beans.

Anxiety shot in me. I was being restrained by someone I couldn't see. The claustrophobic panic made me breathe erratically. I felt myself hyperventilating a bit. She had faded again out anything I could sense. She made no sound. I could not feel her body's warmth. I knew she was there but I could not sense her at all. I got to the end of picking the last bean. She poured the two small bowls back into the big bowl. Her hand mixed the bean together. I saw that she had a skinny red string bound around her wrist. I remembered that any body ornament was a bond, a bond that the wearer had to work off with service, a sign of shame, a sign for being less than everyone else. Whatever she had, it was a slight offense, but one that she had to take serious. I sensed her diligence in controlling me came from her obligation to demonstrate absolute service to earn to be released of the red wrist string. She wouldn't let me slide. Hours and days of feeling the weight of the wristband had made her very obedient. I started remembering my past visits. My two escape attempts would cost me dearly. I wouldn't know when but discipline for it was coming.

My thoughts started focusing on monastery life. I started remembering the daily routine, the sequence of tasks, the obedience, the absolute dedication to every detail of the task, and the ways in which they let you for hours by yourself to come to your sense of obeying them blindly and immediately. There was peace in the absorption of the current task. I started getting very focused on picking the beans. When I had picked the last bean, I let her mix the beans again. We played our part: the worker and the guardian. And in the silent shared work, each our own role, I started to feel a bond with her. In my head, I started nicknaming her Cherry.

The name Cherry cheered me up. I relaxed a bit into joyful work. And that's when I felt the tap of the stick on my left hip. It was time to gather up the bowls and walk. I had completed my lesson. They always waited for a certain mental shift to happen.

I followed Cherry out of the garden, down a corridor, and into the kitchen. She took the bowls out of my hand. She walked me to a counter with freshly baked cornbread, cut into squares. I understood. I took a bowl, a napkin, and a spoon. Then I filled the bowl with chilly from a bubbling, giant pot and picked a piece of cornbread. I listened to the noises of knives chopping vegetables and the hollow metal sound of a pot being scrubbed. For some reason, any indication of another human created a certain solace, a hunger that arose from not talking to anyone or looking at anyone - a deep human craving for social contact.

Cherry walked me with my supper out of the kitchen again. I could tell that we were walking away from the mess hall. I wasn't going to be allowed to eat with the others. We walked up a spiral staircase. She was walking me into one of the towers. I dreaded what might happen. The dorms were big rooms. The towers had small rooms. We were up about five floors when she led me into a small room. She walked out and locked the door. I heard a clang as a deadbolt locked the door shut. I was pretty sure that I was alone. I raised my eyes. I looked around. I was in a small cell with a blanket on the floor and a bucket to relieve myself in. She had put me into solitary, a tiny room with nothing to do but go stir-crazy.

Yet there was a tiny window, not even a square foot large, but it was so high that I couldn't reach it. I flipped the bucket over to stand on it. I got on my tippy toes and reached my arms high. I got to feel the edge of the window with my fingertips. That's why I tried for a very long time to stretch a little bit more to get my fingers onto the ledge and pull myself up. Yet the attempt was in vain. They had planned this. They had my height measurement and the bucket size just right so that I could barely get there and would spend a long time trying.

But they had miscalculated. I was a rock climber. The cell was so narrow that if I laid on the ground, I could touch one wall with my hands and the other with my feet. That way I could push against opposite walls to create counterpressure. I could stem my weight in between and slowly walk my hands and feet up the wall while maintaining intense core tension. "Hah, hah," I loved quietly and dirty as I inched upward towards the window.

And then I could see. I could see the garden. I could see the beauty of the flower beds and the vegetables growing up trusses. The life of birds, squirrels, and butterflies were teeming in the well-cared-for garden. I could see solitary figures walking in meditation. I could see guardians walking guests. Then my body started shaking too much from the exertion, and I climbed down before I fell.

I ate my dinner, which was very tasty in a holistic kind of sense to have fresh food without any conservatives and additives. I was quite hungry as well. Having nothing to do and an appetite, I like the bowl clean. I even started picking up the crumbs off the floor. I searched my clothing for crumbs. And my thoughts if I had nothing to focus on kept going back to my deals. If I could only sign a major office building real estate deal, I could be done working. I needed to enlarge my network. I needed to be more charming to draw more people into my network. I needed to find the energy to go to more parties to show myself. And then I tried to remind myself that I had to let go of that hamster wheel of desperation. I wasn't making any progress by thinking the same thoughts over and over.

A hushed moan distracted me. So barely audible, so subtle, so fleeting, yet full of the eminence of sex. I was nosy, so nosy! Burning to find out. I quickly laid myself flat on the ground so that my hands and feet could reach the opposite walls. I stemmed my way up. Darkness had fallen outside. It was quite. There was no movement. I suspected that something was going on in the big bush. I heard a guttural sigh. I was sure that it came from the bush. My muscles started shaking a bit from holding the position. A rustle happened in the bushes - a quick careless movement that suggested that whoever was in there was getting really preoccupied. I could hear two bodies moving against each other. They seemed to reach the point of arousal where they started losing care for anything but completion. I had heard of romances and abuses between the guests and the monks. Suggestions of what happened in secrecy had swirled around. While the sounds were barely audible, the sudden absence was almost deafening. I held my breath to avoid it obscuring anything I could hear. My muscles were shaking hard, but I was too eager to find out. Then I saw two shadows sneaking along a wall in a crouch. They were gone too quickly to make out much. I quickly lowered myself down. I was so close to slipping down the wall because the lactic acid had built up in my body.

Somewhere I must have fallen asleep. I woke up when a stick poked my chest multiple times. My hair was a mess from tossing and turning on the floor. I had wild dreams. I was unsure where I was for a moment. I pulled myself together to stand up and gaze at the floor, searching for a pair of feet to follow. After all the alone time, I had been eager for any task, no matter how menial. I simply needed to get something that took me away from marinating in my own thoughts.

The person walking in front of me had white feet that were almost translucent, a kind of Swedish quality. She seemed young, perhaps college-age. Her feet were flighty and fast like someone unsure in life and quick to run away. Her bone structure seemed light and skinny. I nicknamed her the Hunteress. She seemed like she would be good at swiftly chasing something (or someone down), but she wouldn't be strong like she had to have a bow to catch her prey.

As we entered the garden, we walked to the building in the center of it, what I had thought of was a chapel-like structure - like a little chapel in the mountains for a wanderer to spend a few pensive moments in. When we stepped in, I realized that it was a lavish bungalow. It was a bedroom with not a lot of furniture for normal circumstances, but a large bed with a mattress and blanket was a surprisingly lavish sight in the monastery. I sensed that the head of the monastery slept here. He was revered as a deity, which seemed to put him above the austerity rules for everyone else. The huntress tapped the ground. I realized that I was to get on the ground. However, it took a few corrections with the stick until I kneeled how she wanted it facing the door. I waited patiently as a servant.

I heard the rustling of sheets in the bed behind me. The same slowness and unfitness that I had witnessed during my induction sounded from the bed. Again the steps that were unbearably slow, leaving me impatient walked up to me from behind. The movement stopped. The huntress tapped the floor in front of me. By sheer chance, I figured out that she wanted me to kiss the floor.

She tapped two feet ahead of the last spot on the ground. I reached my hands forward so that I could guide my lips to the spot that she had marked. She didn't like my movement. Her stick pokes made sure that when I kissed, my butt was high and my chest down, like a puppy play invitation. It made the kiss feel even more like a submission.

And so she would tap points on the floor that I had to kiss. My lips tasted the stone from the ground - very clean but full of the staleness and musk of rock. I started like an infant discovering my environment with my mouth. I felt the roughness of the stone on the walkway outside in contrast to the smooth stone inside. I tasted a patch of lichen that had grown over a stone. I felt the warmth of a sunny patch of stone against my lips. I embraced the ground like a lover. The head of the monastery slowly followed me behind. I realized that he was too precious to walk on unkissed ground. A kind of deeming thing to be made to, but I got lost in the bliss of feeling the stone, the ground, and exploring the outside in a tactile way.

After getting indoors again, we quickly reached a bathroom. I was a bit horrified to kiss the bathroom floor, but I ensured myself that everything was so well-cleaned. The stick taps made me kiss all around the toilet seat in a circle. Then I was sent to walk down the hallway. The Hunteress remained with the head of the monastery in the bathroom behind. I sensed that she had other royal duties to attend to. I felt panic walking around on my own in the monastery. What if I missed the person? What if I went to the wrong place?

I held my eyes down to the ground. There were a lot of feet walking near me. We all held a careful distance because we tried to avoid stepping onto each other. Everyone was barefoot. We were all guests, not a single monk was among us. I kept walking. The hallway started becoming noisy from all the guests who hadn't learned to walk absolutely silently yet. I realized that I was in the general population including guests who were here for the first time. And then the corridor opened into the big meditation room from yesterday. I realized that it was time for the meditation practice.

The room had rows of little personal-sized carpets laid out. Everyone understood that they were supposed to find a free spot and kneel down while maintaining a downward gaze. I could feel the energy of visitors in the first week in the room. They were shifting around, sitting every which way, and emanated curiosity. There were probably many glances stolen to see what was going on. I had been through two prior stays before. I had learned to keep my body still and my gaze focused down. The trick was to focus on the breathing. The meditation practice had basically already begun, only the newbies didn't know.

We were tasked to pay utter attention to our breath to notice how the inhaled air touched the hairs in our nostrils. We were to fill our ribs lift, belly extend, sides push out. We were to feel for the resting moment at the top of the exhale before the impulse comes to relax and let the air rush out. And lest we not forget to notice how the exhaled air brushes over the skin between our nose and our lips.

One of the monks started explaining the meditation. The room quieted. Then the sighs of discomfort from legs falling asleep disturbed the quiet. Sobbing erupted somewhere as buried emotions came up. More sobbing from another direction came. Sympathetic sobbing and crying happened once people felt another person cry and release their emotions. Then the whaling sound of someone completely overcome by pain and sadness. We were supposed to let those sounds and feelings all come in and leave. Hold onto nothing, embrace everything.

I kept staring at the bare soles of the person in front of me. She seemed Asian. The shape of her foot was telltale, and the skin was so smooth. She had a studded ankle leather band around both ankles. The rule of thumb was that each millimeter of the band took a week of service and atonement. If the rule held, she would be held committed for at least ten weeks. I started getting doubts if my release in a week was so certain. I had entered with the utter belief that almost everyone got released after a week and that the whole thing was more or less a rehab for stressed-out professionals. I started realizing that there was a possibility that things could turn out very differently. Bonds on the ankles suggested that they required more physical punishment to be earned off. My memories of the previous two stays had all been like a bucolic yoga camp, but I had heard of people going deeper into their subconscious and meeting deep darkness. What traumas did I have in my past that might come up here?

I nicknamed her Aichiyo, which means eternal love because her stay with that thick bonds seemed like it would be eternal - or feel like it.

My meditation was rather blissful. My breathing became better. I enjoyed the feeling of the sun increasingly lighting up the room with warm yellow. I remembered how challenging meditation sessions sometimes were but also how good I felt after them. I remembered how my senses always got more richly attuned to enjoy even subtle things like washing my hands to feel the warm caresses of the water. The head of the monastery was in front. He was roaring like a mix of a dying coyote and a goat. This was supposed to give us strength for the meditation.

I could tell that we were almost at the end. The monks started slowly walking through the lines. They were inspecting. There were a few whispered words to the people who cried really hard to break the silence to help them get acclimated. A pair of feet stopped in front of me. I felt a staff tap on my shoulder. I knew that I had to get up and follow the monk. He walked me to the front of the room with five other visitors. I didn't raise my eyes, but I took in enough.

We were going to be tested. We had to face the head of the monastery in a kneeling position with our chests on our knees and our forehead on the ground. I could sense that the head of the monastery pointed at the person to my furthest left. There is this strange hunch that one gets about silence after a while. I heard a yelp. Then I heard the person get up and be guided away. He had failed the test. They wanted to see that we were so focused on meditation that sensations wouldn't distract us. We had to let the sensations rise in us, observe them, and watch them disappear on their own without reacting.