High whirling kicks, explosive punches powerful enough to smash boards, terrifying shouts: that’s the typical image of the martial arts, the one we see in the movies. Depending on our prejudices, it either thrills us or turns us off.

In the eye of the storm, stripped of the certainty he had always deemed necessary for survival, denied the support of his teacher, divested even of his name, Richard found the deliverance he had not known he was searching for.

I was overjoyed. “My prayers have been answered,” I thought to myself as I got to my feet. “This . . . this . . . slob is drunk and mean and violent. He’s a threat to the public order, and he’ll hurt somebody if I don’t take him out. The need is real. My ethical light is green.”

As a Westerner turning Buddhist in 1982, I was concerned about abandoning my “Christian heritage” for a foreign culture. I had never felt completely at home with that heritage: church seemed like a sterile routine, and any form of dogma affected me like one more arrogant know-it-all telling me how I should live.

When I wanted a simple cure, I got complicated dreams instead. When I wanted reassurance, I got shards of enlightenment — and what am I supposed to do with that?

When I returned from Denver to Manhattan last fall I needed a job. My first idea was to be one of those guys who sit on boxes outside discount stores on Dyckman Street watching that no one steals plastic coat hangers — but all those positions were filled. My next plan was to be Santa Claus.