Nine and Sixty Ways
As a monk, I was taught to meditate daily, cultivating discipline and guiding my thoughts away from desire; desire is value for earthly things, and as such only leads to suffering. I was also taught that meditation is enhanced through the contemplation of sutras, particularly those which focus on Buddha: we can perfect ourselves through his inspiration.
My favorite sutra is the kama sutra.
It describes nine ways of lying down together, four kinds of embraces, the eight places for kissing if you're conservative. There are eleven if you're not. I'm not.
Meditation rarely leads my thoughts from desire, Sango.
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AN: This short was the inspiration for the Sango-Miroku scene in Chapter 11 of "To Catch a Falling Star." The kama sutra made it to Japan before 1000 AD, if I recall correctly (I did some research to make sure that Miroku's knowledge of this would be plausible, but offhand I can't remember the exact year of the sutra's arrival; this is a guess from what I do recollect, and may well be wrong). By the way, the title of this ficlet is not simply a crude sexual allusion! It has literary import of vast significance. Just kidding--well, almost. I took the title from a poem by Rudyard Kipling called "In the Neolithic Age." It ends with the admonishment that "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, / And every single one of them is right!" The title not only seemed germane for the processes of writing fiction, but very appropriate for Miroku as well, who, I am sure, would most certainly agree with the statement when applied to sex. If you like (and it's quite amusing, so well worth the time), you can read the poem online at