Years had passed in the high cave above the treeline. Devadatta — who had once climbed there as a restless boy, chasing his thoughts like a puppy chasing leaves — was a boy no longer. He had sat in that cave at the same hour through countless dawns. Rain had drummed on the rock; snow had hushed the world white; spring had returned again and again to the valley below. And every day, without fail, he had simply sat.

In the early years his practice had felt like work — hauling his wandering mind back, over and over, like a fisherman drawing in a heavy net. But little by little the net grew lighter. The mind that had once bolted at every sound now came to rest the moment he settled. Where there had been effort, there was now only ease.

On this particular dawn, Devadatta sat as he always did, body straight, breath soft. And something that had been ripening for years quietly came to fruit. His thoughts, fully gathered and stilled, grew calmer and calmer — and then, like a lamp flame that does not blow out but simply sinks into a deep and peaceful glow, his small, separate sense of self melted away.

There was no more "Devadatta sitting in a cave." There was only a vast, shining stillness, without edges, without fear, without any wanting left over. It was not emptiness; it was fullness — the boundless Self he had been seeking all along, the same Self that lit every creature in the valley below. He had not gone anywhere. He had simply come home to what was always there.

This was the peace the old teachers called *nirvana* — not a blank, but a freedom so complete that nothing could ever disturb it again. The morning sun rose over the ridge and filled the cave with gold, and the figure within sat in it like a still pool holding the whole sky.

When at last he opened his eyes, Devadatta was smiling. The long climb, he understood now, had carried him not up the mountain, but all the way into the heart of peace itself.