A few years ago, I was standing in the shower thinking about this and that. My mind wandered to an image of Tibetan monks sitting on a Himalayan mountain ledge. I must’ve seen a documentary about it before.

The monks sat with their chests bare, snow drifting onto their shoulders. The temperature was arctic, yet they were calm, not shivering, not cold. And then a guy came and placed wet sheets on their bodies. Steam rose. The monks were actually drying the sheets with the warmth from their bodi...