Watching me achieve my dreams.

I hadn't been expecting to see so many hippies doing the clear-cutting and irrigation work. I asked the foreman about it.

"First of all," he said, "I'm a guru, not a foreman. And second of all, they are meditating. As the Zen koan goes: Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."

"I think that's talking about enlightenment as an active process with no visible outward signs of completion, and also as a way to show the power of humble effort. I don't think it means that literally the only path to enlightenment is to take a job as a lumberjack."

"Oh no," the foreman -- sorry, I mean guru -- said, "We don't pay them. They pay us for tutelage."

"Do you teach them anything else besides chopping and carrying?"

"That's all they need to know."

"Hey, is this just a cynical way to hijack sincere desire for self-improvement and turn it into free manual labor?"

"That is a good question and you should totally meditate upon it," the guru said, pointing at a pile of tools.