“Now what’s all this nonsense about giving up desire?” Buddha demanded. He spoke an elegant Indian dialect that Seven, Lydia, and Will all understood at once.

“It’s a part of your teaching, Master,” Will whispered. “I’ve read it in all of your sacred books.”

“Let those who will, give up desire,” Buddha said. “It sounds like a lot of nonsense to me, and if anyone said that I made such pronouncements, then I’ve been grossly misquoted. Shall the bee give up its honey? The cat, its tail? The apple, its core? The fly, its wings? The scalp, its hair? The cow, its moo? The—”

“Uh, we get your point,” Seven said.

But the Buddha went on. “The horse must neigh. It cannot meow. But men, when they quote me, put the cat’s meow in the horse’s mouth.” He turned his blessed eyes in the general direction of his navel and sighed, but Seven noticed that his eyes were quite merry, twinkling like gelatin.

“All of this is a bit disconcerting,” Seven said, because by now it was apparent that Buddha’s form was sometimes softly gelatinous and visible, and sometimes only indicated, except for the navel which remained, like a grape. For a moment the form stabilized again and Buddha’s voice rang out, this time more sweetly than before, so that the sounds themselves seemed to glitter through the image’s multitudinous jellyfish folds.

He said, “Desire not to desire—an impossible situation! For that matter, all realities and situations are basically impossible; that is, they would be if they happened, for the reasons mortals suppose they do. Lydia, for example—”

Without thinking, Lydia knelt down, genuflecting. She crossed herself and said, “Yes, Father,” in response to an early Catholic conditioning that she thought she’d forgotten. Recovering, she jumped to her feet, glared at Oversoul Seven as if her mistake was his fault, and tried to hide her embarrassment. “I’m sorry, but I don’t mean to kneel before anyone anymore,” she said. “And, well, a real god wouldn’t need adoration.”

Buddha’s image chuckled, quaked; and the sweet voice went on. “Lydia, a part of you—your desire—is building up someplace else, which is why you feel so discontented now. You haven’t followed your desire to be born again. You keep hampering it and setting conditions. You set yourself apart from your desire, examine it, and demand that the gods take responsibility for your lack of decision.”

“Why, I do not,” Lydia sputtered. “And what do you expect me to do?”

“Just go where your desire dictates,” Buddha began.

Will shouted furiously, “You can’t say that! The Buddhists believe in rising above desire. Even I know that.”