Throughout his time in Crete, the narrator is consumed with writing his play, Buddha, and his meditations on the Buddha. The narrator can’t leave this play behind when he sets off for Crete, despite his desire to lead an earthier and less intellectual existence. While in Crete, the narrator often considers how the Buddha represents distance and self-sufficiency. Reading The Dialogues of Buddha and the Shepherd, where the Buddha claims contentment despite having no material belongings, gives tranquility to the narrator, who seeks to transcend his existential concerns and physical desires.

The narrator finds solace in the concept of the Buddha and the idea of negation. In the face of Zorba’s challenge to the narrator’s idealism regarding the peasants, the narrator seeks to use that figure to have attachment for his fellow men without seeing himself as part of them. When the narrator is unable to explain to Zorba how he can offer the peasants a worldview better than their regressive one, he feels agitated and ends up writing feverishly, trying to recuperate his sense of purpose.

The narrator adopts a similar strategy in the face of the temptation that the widow represents, writing his Buddha play by channeling his impulse to go to her into self-denial.