In love with many inappropriate men? And weren't the beautiful young "spiritual" ones the most alluring of all?

The monk did not type out a response to Carla--or at least not that afternoon. He read the letter a few more times, as carefully as though he were studying a religious text. Then he sat for a long while in silence, hands resting lightly on his lap, eyes closed as though in meditation. Finally the boy took action: He printed out the e-mail. He read Carla's words once more, this time on paper. He folded the note with tenderness, as though he were folding an origami crane, and tucked it away somewhere inside his orange robes. Then this beautiful almost-child of a young man disconnected from the Internet and walked out of the cafe into the searing heat of the ancient river town.

I stood up after a moment and followed him outside, unnoticed. I watched as he walked up the street, moving slowly in the direction of the central temple on the hill, looking neither to the left nor the right. Soon enough a group of young monks came walking by, gradually overtaking him, and Carla's monk quietly joined their ranks, disappearing into the crowd of slim young novices like an orange fish vanishing into a school of its duplicate brothers. I immediately lost track of him there in this throng of boys who all looked exactly the same. But clearly these boys were not all exactly the same. Only one of those young Laotian monks, for instance, had a love letter from a woman named Carla folded and hidden somewhere within his robes. And as crazy as it seemed, and as dangerous a game as he was playing here, I could not help but feel a little excited for the kid.

Whatever the outcome, something was happening to him.

The Buddha taught that all human suffering is rooted in desire. Don't we all know this to be true? Any of us who have ever desired something and then didn't get it (or, worse, got it and subsequently lost it) know full well the suffering of which the Buddha spoke.

Desiring another person is perhaps the most risky endeavor of all. As soon as you want somebody--really want him--it is as though you have taken a surgical needle and sutured your happiness to the skin of that person, so that any separation will now cause you a lacerating injury. All you know is that you must obtain the object of your desire by any means necessary, and then never be parted. All you can think about is your beloved. Lost in such primal urgency, you no longer completely own yourself. You have become an indentured servant to your own yearnings.

So you can see why the Buddha, who taught serene detachment as a path to wisdom, might not have approved of this young monk furtively carrying around love letters from somebody named Carla. You can see how Lord Buddha might have regarded this tryst as a bit of distraction. Certainly no relationship rooted in secrecy and lust would have impressed him. But then the Buddha was not a big fan of sexual or romantic intimacy anyhow. Remember, before he became the Perfected One, he had abandoned a wife and child of his own in order to set forth unencumbered on a spiritual journey. Much like the early Christian fathers, the Buddha taught that only the celibate and the solitary can find enlightenment. Therefore, traditional Buddhism has always been somewhat suspicious of marriage. The Buddhist path is a journey of nonattachment, and marriage is an estate that brings an intrinsic sense of attachment to spouse, children, and home. The journey to enlightenment begins by walking away from all that.

There does exist a role for married people in traditional Buddhist culture, but it's more of a supporting role than anything else. The Buddha referred to married people as

"householders." He even gave clear instructions as to how one should be a good householder: Be nice to your spouse, be honest, be faithful, give alms to the poor, buy some insurance against fire and flood . . .