In his new book, Pico Iyer travels deep into inner stillness and joy during his stays at a monastery

Two men in white robes stand at the end of the road, high above the empty highway. “That fire last October,” says one, young and slim, his eyes burning under his shaven head, “it came within three miles of us. At one point our road got blocked and there was no way out. It was radiant.”

His older monastic brother says nothing.

“For three days and nights,” Cyprian goes on, “the sky was black. Like sooty fog all the time. I went down to the last bench and the whole ocean was blood-red. Plumes of smoke were rising from the hills; I heard trees exploding. It was incandescent.”

I don’t know what to say. Fire has already left its mark on me.

“You pay for your blessings,” I venture at last.

“We do,” says the other, burly, with gentle eyes. “A lot of people don’t understand that. They see only the beauty.”

The beauty, of course, is hard to miss. In the distance, headlands that stretch toward the cities to the south, surf scribbling white around their edges. To our right, a wide expanse of ocean with not a thing to interrupt the blue. A deep valley to our left, and dry golden hills from which mountain...

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