No matter how foolish, I am trying to rush my master's teaching, I seek to out-think his lesson of the loaves, to try to discern the answer before I am fertile enough for the lesson to take root.

All people remember the time when we were all connected, undifferentiated from the divine. This memory, often little more than a vague feeling, drives us to seek union with the divine again in a myriad of ways - through the religions of the Silk Road, through the worship of wealth and power, through the creation of art, poetry and music. It keeps us moving - out of Africa, into Europe, India, Asia, the Americas. It drives us both to noble and foul deeds. The memory lies deep within. The memory itself is where we draw closer to each other, where our dreams and experiences overlap, where the boundaries between objects, time, space, stars, people and all that is seen and unseen begin to blur and overlap. We were all at the beginning, because we are all indistinct from the divine.

Perhaps my master placed the loaves to illuminate our common origins. Bread, despite differences in seasonings, shape, leavenings and other surface qualities is essentially the same. It is the union of the mind and labor of the baker and the ingredients. I don't know if it is a moment of transparency on my part, or some other private thought, but I see him smile his half smile. No, of course, any answer that simple and doctrinaire is only right if it is not borrowed knowledge.