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<v Speaker 1>Us was to be ours the singing bowl.

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<v Speaker 2>In the hour before the mountains began to lighten, when

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<v Speaker 2>the valley still held its breath, and the stars faded

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<v Speaker 2>one by one like embers cooling in a vast dark

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<v Speaker 2>hearth run woke. He woke the way he had woken

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<v Speaker 2>for thirty years, without an alarm, without effort, his eyes

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<v Speaker 2>opening to the pale, gray ceiling of the small room

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<v Speaker 2>above the meditation hall, as though some deep and patient

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<v Speaker 2>clock inside him had simply arrived at its appointed hour.

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<v Speaker 2>For a moment he lay still listening. There was the

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<v Speaker 2>wind moving through the pines, a long, soft exhalation that

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<v Speaker 2>rose and fell like the breathing of the mountain itself.

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<v Speaker 2>There was the faint tick of the wood stove below,

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<v Speaker 2>still holding a small coal of warmth from the night before.

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<v Speaker 2>And there was the silence, which was not truly silence

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<v Speaker 2>at all, but a kind of fullness, the way a

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<v Speaker 2>cup appears empty when it is in fact full of air,

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<v Speaker 2>full of possibility, full of the morning to come. He

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<v Speaker 2>rose slowly. His body, at sixty three years old, required

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<v Speaker 2>a certain gentleness in its first movements, a rolling of

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<v Speaker 2>the shoulders, a slow turning of the neck, feet, finding

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<v Speaker 2>the wooden floor with care. The floorboards were cool beneath

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<v Speaker 2>his bare souls, smooth from decades of feet crossing them,

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<v Speaker 2>and he knew each one by heart. This board creaked,

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<v Speaker 2>this one did not. This one held the warmth of

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<v Speaker 2>the chimney that rose up through the wall behind his bed,

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<v Speaker 2>and he often stood there for a moment in the

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<v Speaker 2>cold months, letting the stone stored heat travel up through

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<v Speaker 2>his feet and into his bones. He pulled on a

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<v Speaker 2>thick wool sweater, gray as the morning sky, and woolen

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<v Speaker 2>socks that his sister had knitted for him two winters past.

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<v Speaker 2>He wrapped a soft shawl around his shoulders. Then he

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<v Speaker 2>moved through the small room, a bed, a table, a chair,

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<v Speaker 2>a shelf of books worn soft at their spines, a

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<v Speaker 2>window facing east, and opened the door to the narrow

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<v Speaker 2>staircase that descended into the hall below. The stairs were steep,

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<v Speaker 2>and he took them one at a time, his hand

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<v Speaker 2>trailing along the wall where the wood had been polished

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<v Speaker 2>to a satin sheen by his own hand and by

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<v Speaker 2>the hand of the carpenter who had built the staircase

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<v Speaker 2>long before Arun came, and perhaps by hands before that

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<v Speaker 2>he liked to think of that sometimes, the long chain

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<v Speaker 2>of hands, all of them warm, all of them gone

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<v Speaker 2>about their days, each leaving something imperceptible behind, until the

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<v Speaker 2>wit itself seemed to remember them. The bottom of the stairs,

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<v Speaker 2>he entered the meditation hall, and, as he did every morning,

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<v Speaker 2>he paused. The hall had once been a barn, built

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<v Speaker 2>by a farming family more than a century ago, when

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<v Speaker 2>this valley was all pasture and hay fields, and the

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<v Speaker 2>nearest town was a full day's walk away. The beams

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<v Speaker 2>overhead were old growth, timber, dark and massive, joined without

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<v Speaker 2>nails in the old way, and they gave off in

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<v Speaker 2>every season the faintest sweet smell of aged wood. The

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<v Speaker 2>walls had been lined long ago now with cedar planks,

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<v Speaker 2>and the cedar had never lost its fragrance. It was

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<v Speaker 2>strongest in the mornings before the day warmed. It a clean,

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<v Speaker 2>resinous scent that a Rouin had come to think of

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<v Speaker 2>as the smell of stillness itself. Visitors often noticed it

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<v Speaker 2>the moment they stepped inside. They would pause in the doorway,

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<v Speaker 2>and their breathing would change slower, deeper, as though the

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<v Speaker 2>room were teaching them something. Before, a Rouin had said

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<v Speaker 2>a word. Paper lanterns hung at intervals along the beams, unlit, now,

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<v Speaker 2>their rice paper globes glowing faintly with the first gray

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<v Speaker 2>light that came through the windows. Along the walls sat

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<v Speaker 2>low shelves holding folded blankets, and in the center of

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<v Speaker 2>the polished wooden floor, arranged in a loose and welcoming circle,

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<v Speaker 2>where the cushions round suffus in deep reds and archers

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<v Speaker 2>and soft browns, each one bearing the faint impressions of

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<v Speaker 2>the many people who had sat upon them over the years.

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<v Speaker 2>At the far end of the hall, where the morning

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<v Speaker 2>light would eventually arrive, stood a low wooden table, and

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<v Speaker 2>on the table, resting on a small round cushion of

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<v Speaker 2>red silk, sat the singing bowl. Arun stood a moment longer,

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<v Speaker 2>taking in the quiet room, and then he turned to

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<v Speaker 2>the small alcove beside the door, where the wood stove waited,

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<v Speaker 2>and he began his morning the way he always began

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<v Speaker 2>it with fire. He knelt before the stove and opened

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<v Speaker 2>its iron door, which swung on well oiled hinges with

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<v Speaker 2>a soft, low sound. Inside, among the gray feathers of

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<v Speaker 2>last night's ash, a single coal still glowed small and

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<v Speaker 2>orange and patient. He smiled at it as he always

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<v Speaker 2>smiled at it, thirty years of mornings, and still it

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<v Speaker 2>pleased him, this small survivor, this ember, that had kept

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<v Speaker 2>its warmth through the whole long night. He laid down

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<v Speaker 2>twists of birch bark, then slender splits of kindling, arranging

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<v Speaker 2>them loosely so the air could move among them, and

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<v Speaker 2>he leaned close and breathed gently on to the coal.

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<v Speaker 2>Once twice the bark caught with a whisper, and then

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<v Speaker 2>the kindling, and soon small flames stood up among the wood,

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<v Speaker 2>like yellow flowers. Opening, he added two larger pieces of

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<v Speaker 2>split pine, closed the door and listened to the fire

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<v Speaker 2>find its rhythm, a soft crackling, a settling, a low

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<v Speaker 2>contented murmur. While the stove warmed, He filled the kettle

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<v Speaker 2>at the small sink in the alcove and set it

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<v Speaker 2>on top, and he stood with his hands folded, watching

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<v Speaker 2>the windows slowly brighten. Beyond the glass, the pines stood

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<v Speaker 2>in ranks up the mountain side, dark green, going to

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<v Speaker 2>black in the half light, their tops lost and missed.

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<v Speaker 2>The mist came down off the high slopes in the

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<v Speaker 2>night and settled into the valley like something poured, and

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<v Speaker 2>in the early morning it moved slowly between the trees,

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<v Speaker 2>thick in one place, thin in another, always drifting, always changing,

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<v Speaker 2>never in a hurry. Arun had watched this mist for

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<v Speaker 2>thirty years and had never once seen it behave the

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<v Speaker 2>same way twice. Sometimes it lay flat as water across

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<v Speaker 2>the meadow. Sometimes it rose in columns. Sometimes it wrapped

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<v Speaker 2>a single pine so completely that the tree seemed to

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<v Speaker 2>float rootless in a white sea. This morning it moved

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<v Speaker 2>in long, low ribbons between the trunks, and as the

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<v Speaker 2>light grew, the ribbons turned from gray to silver to

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<v Speaker 2>the palest gold. The kettle began to murmur, and then

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<v Speaker 2>to h and then to sing its rising note, and

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<v Speaker 2>Arun lifted it off the stove just before it reached

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<v Speaker 2>its full voice. He warned the small clay teapot, swirled

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<v Speaker 2>the water, poured it out, and added the tea, a

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<v Speaker 2>simple green tea that came to him in paper packages

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<v Speaker 2>from a shop in the town below, run by an

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<v Speaker 2>old friend who knew his tastes. He poured the water

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<v Speaker 2>over the leaves and watched them turn and open and sink,

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<v Speaker 2>and he covered the pot with a knitted cozy and

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<v Speaker 2>he waited. Waiting, his teacher had once told him, is

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<v Speaker 2>not empty time. Waiting is where the tea is made.

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<v Speaker 2>He poured the first cup into a small handleless bowl

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<v Speaker 2>of pale glazed ceramic, cupped it in both hands, and

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<v Speaker 2>carried it to the window. The warmth of it came

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<v Speaker 2>through the clay and into his palms, and he held

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<v Speaker 2>it there a moment before drinking, breathing in the steam, grassy,

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<v Speaker 2>faintly sweet, with something in it like the smell of

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<v Speaker 2>new leaves after rain. He drank slowly. The tea was

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<v Speaker 2>hot enough that he had to sip it, and this

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<v Speaker 2>was part of its gift. It could not be rushed.

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<v Speaker 2>From the window, he could see the whole length of

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<v Speaker 2>the meadow that lay between the meditation hall and the

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<v Speaker 2>forest's edge, and beyond the meadow, rising behind the pines,

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<v Speaker 2>the long shoulders of the mountain, still wearing their last

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<v Speaker 2>snow in the high creases, even now in the middle

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<v Speaker 2>of a warm season. The town, such as it was,

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<v Speaker 2>a single street of shops, a post office, a small

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<v Speaker 2>church with a white steeple, a bakery that opened before

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<v Speaker 2>dawn and filled the morning air with the smell of bread.

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<v Speaker 2>Lay out of sight around the bend of the valley,

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<v Speaker 2>and from this window there was no sign of it,

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<v Speaker 2>only meadow and forest and mountain and sky. This was

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<v Speaker 2>why he had stayed. He had come for a week

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<v Speaker 2>end retreat when he was a young man of twenty four,

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<v Speaker 2>restless and searching, and not even sure what he was

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<v Speaker 2>searching for. And he had stood at this very window

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<v Speaker 2>on his first morning, and he had watched the mist

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<v Speaker 2>move through the pines, and something in him had quietly

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<v Speaker 2>completely stopped running. He finished the tea, rinsed the bowl,

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<v Speaker 2>and set it on the shelf to dry. Then he

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<v Speaker 2>walked the length of the hall to the low table

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<v Speaker 2>at the far end, and he sat down on the

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<v Speaker 2>cushion before it, and he looked at the singing bull.

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<v Speaker 2>It was not a large bull. It sat easily in

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<v Speaker 2>two cupped hands, perhaps eight inches across its sides, rising

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<v Speaker 2>in a gentle curve to a rim that had been

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<v Speaker 2>worn smooth by decades of year. Its metal was the

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<v Speaker 2>color of old honey, a deep, warm bronze, with darker

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<v Speaker 2>patches where time and touch had left their marks, and

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<v Speaker 2>lighter patches along the rim where the wood of the

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<v Speaker 2>striker had polished it bright If you looked closely, you

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<v Speaker 2>could see the faint hammer marks that covered its surface,

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<v Speaker 2>Hundreds upon hundreds of small, overlapping dimples, each one a

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<v Speaker 2>single blow of the craftsman's hammer, each one struck by

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<v Speaker 2>a human hand. The man who made it had lived

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<v Speaker 2>in a village in the hills of Nepal, or perhaps

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<v Speaker 2>to bet. The story had traveled so far by the

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<v Speaker 2>time it reached a roon that the details had softened

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<v Speaker 2>at the edges, the way a stone is softened by

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<v Speaker 2>a river. What remained was this. The craftsmen had been old,

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<v Speaker 2>older than anyone in his village could clearly remember, and

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<v Speaker 2>he made singing goals all his life, as his father

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<v Speaker 2>had and his father's father. He worked in the traditional way,

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<v Speaker 2>blending copper and tin and small measures of other metals,

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<v Speaker 2>melting them over a charcoal fire, pouring the molten alloy

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<v Speaker 2>into a rough disk, and then, while the metal was

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<v Speaker 2>still hot and willing, hammering it slowly, patiently, over hours

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<v Speaker 2>and days, turning it, singing to it, some said, as

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<v Speaker 2>he worked, until the disk became a bowl, and the

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<v Speaker 2>ball became an instrument, and the instrument became something more

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<v Speaker 2>than either a thing with a voice Arun's teacher had

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<v Speaker 2>carried the bowl out of those hills in the nineteen sixties,

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<v Speaker 2>wrapped in cloth in a canvas bag, over mountain passes

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<v Speaker 2>and down long valleys, and finally across an ocean. She

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<v Speaker 2>had been young then, and the bull had been her

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<v Speaker 2>most precious possession. And when Arun had completed his years

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<v Speaker 2>of study with her and prepared to leave the city

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<v Speaker 2>where she taught, to go north to the mountains, to

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<v Speaker 2>the small converted barn that a friend had offered him,

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<v Speaker 2>she had pressed it into his hands. It is not

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<v Speaker 2>a gift, she had told him. It is alone. You

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<v Speaker 2>will hold it for a while, and then one day

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<v Speaker 2>you will give it to some one else. That is

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<v Speaker 2>how it works. That is how it has always worked.

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<v Speaker 2>He had asked her how he would know when the

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<v Speaker 2>time came and to whom he should give it, and

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<v Speaker 2>she had laughed. She had a laugh like water over stones,

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<v Speaker 2>and said, the bull will tell you. Bulls are better

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<v Speaker 2>at these things than we are. That had been thirty

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<v Speaker 2>years ago. The bull still sat on its red silk cushion.

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<v Speaker 2>Arun did not hurry it. He had learned, among other things,

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<v Speaker 2>not to hurry. He reached out now and lifted the

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<v Speaker 2>bowl from its cushion and held it in his open palm,

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<v Speaker 2>the way one holds something living, and he felt its

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<v Speaker 2>weight heavier than it looked dense and cool, and he

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<v Speaker 2>ran his thumb once along its rim. Then he set

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<v Speaker 2>it back gently and took up the striker, a slender

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00:15:33.519 --> 00:15:37.720
<v Speaker 2>wand of hardwood, turned on a lathe, its striking end

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00:15:37.840 --> 00:15:40.919
<v Speaker 2>wrapped in a band of soft leather. He set the

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<v Speaker 2>striker beside the bull, aligned with the cushion's edge, the

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00:15:45.279 --> 00:15:48.639
<v Speaker 2>way he had set it ten thousand times before, and

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<v Speaker 2>he bowed his head to it, a small bow, barely

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<v Speaker 2>more than a nod, the way one greets an old

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00:15:55.600 --> 00:15:59.159
<v Speaker 2>friend across a quiet room. And then he rose and

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<v Speaker 2>went to prepare the hall. He moved through the space slowly,

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<v Speaker 2>without hurry, and the work itself was a kind of meditation.

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00:16:10.399 --> 00:16:15.000
<v Speaker 2>He straightened the cushions in their circle, nudging one here,

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00:16:16.039 --> 00:16:21.480
<v Speaker 2>turning one there, so that each faced inward toward the center,

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00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:25.679
<v Speaker 2>and each had its small share of the room. He

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00:16:25.840 --> 00:16:29.879
<v Speaker 2>folded three woolen blankets and set them along the bench

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00:16:29.960 --> 00:16:33.759
<v Speaker 2>by the door for students who felt the morning chill.

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<v Speaker 2>He filled a small copper pitcher with water and set

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<v Speaker 2>it on the side table with a stack of cups.

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00:16:41.919 --> 00:16:45.120
<v Speaker 2>And beside the cups he placed a small plate of

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<v Speaker 2>dried apricots and another of walnuts, because his teacher had

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00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:55.120
<v Speaker 2>taught him that the body two comes to meditation, and

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<v Speaker 2>the body appreciates small kindnesses. Then he went to the window.

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<v Speaker 2>There were six of them along the eastern wall, tall

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00:17:04.759 --> 00:17:08.119
<v Speaker 2>and many paned, and he opened them one by one,

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00:17:08.599 --> 00:17:12.920
<v Speaker 2>lifting the lower sashes on their old rope and pulley balances.

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<v Speaker 2>And with each window the mountain air came in. It

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00:17:17.079 --> 00:17:21.079
<v Speaker 2>was cool air, washed by the night, carrying the smell

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00:17:21.160 --> 00:17:24.839
<v Speaker 2>of pine resin and wet earth, and the faint green

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00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:29.160
<v Speaker 2>sweetness of the meadow grass, heavy now with dew. It

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00:17:29.279 --> 00:17:33.000
<v Speaker 2>moved into the hall without hurry, pooling first near the

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00:17:33.039 --> 00:17:37.240
<v Speaker 2>windows and then spreading, and Arruns stood and felt it

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00:17:37.319 --> 00:17:40.319
<v Speaker 2>touch his face and lift the edge of his shawl,

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00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:43.920
<v Speaker 2>and he breathed. It in the hall changed when the

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00:17:43.960 --> 00:17:47.920
<v Speaker 2>windows opened. It became part of the outside, or the

241
00:17:48.039 --> 00:17:51.839
<v Speaker 2>outside became part of it. The bird's song came in

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00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:56.359
<v Speaker 2>on the air, the chatter of chickadees in the lower branches,

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00:17:56.680 --> 00:18:00.599
<v Speaker 2>the fluting call of a thrush somewhere deep in the

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00:18:00.640 --> 00:18:04.759
<v Speaker 2>trees and beneath the bird song, the faintest sound of

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00:18:04.799 --> 00:18:08.240
<v Speaker 2>the creek that ran along the far side of the meadow,

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00:18:08.599 --> 00:18:13.480
<v Speaker 2>never loud, never entirely absent, a thread of water music

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00:18:13.759 --> 00:18:17.519
<v Speaker 2>woven under everything. By the time he had lit two

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00:18:17.640 --> 00:18:21.640
<v Speaker 2>sticks of cedar incense and placed them in the holder

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00:18:21.799 --> 00:18:24.839
<v Speaker 2>by the door, the first light of the sun, the

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00:18:24.960 --> 00:18:29.240
<v Speaker 2>true sun cresting the ridge, at last, came through the

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00:18:29.319 --> 00:18:33.160
<v Speaker 2>eastern windows, and they lay across the wooden floor in

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00:18:33.319 --> 00:18:38.119
<v Speaker 2>long golden bars, and the dust moats rose and turned

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00:18:38.200 --> 00:18:43.119
<v Speaker 2>within them like tiny, slow galaxies, and the hall was

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00:18:43.200 --> 00:18:47.240
<v Speaker 2>ready up. Aaron went back to the alcove, poured himself

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00:18:47.279 --> 00:18:50.480
<v Speaker 2>a second small cup of tea, and sat down on

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00:18:50.519 --> 00:18:52.880
<v Speaker 2>the bench by the door to wait for his students,

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00:18:53.640 --> 00:18:59.039
<v Speaker 2>holding the warm cup in both hands, watching the light move, entirely,

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00:18:59.119 --> 00:19:02.400
<v Speaker 2>content to be excited exactly where he was. They began

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00:19:02.480 --> 00:19:05.960
<v Speaker 2>to arrive a little before seven. He heard them before

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00:19:05.960 --> 00:19:09.279
<v Speaker 2>he saw them, the soft crunch of gravel on the

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00:19:09.319 --> 00:19:11.799
<v Speaker 2>path that came up from the road through the pines.

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00:19:12.519 --> 00:19:17.240
<v Speaker 2>Footsteps paced unhurriedly, the way footsteps sound when the person

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00:19:17.319 --> 00:19:20.480
<v Speaker 2>walking is in no rush to arrive. He did not

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00:19:20.599 --> 00:19:23.079
<v Speaker 2>get up to greet them at the door. He had

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00:19:23.160 --> 00:19:26.319
<v Speaker 2>learned long ago that the threshold of the hall belonged

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00:19:26.359 --> 00:19:29.839
<v Speaker 2>to the students. Each person should cross it in their

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00:19:29.880 --> 00:19:35.119
<v Speaker 2>own way, in their own time. Unhurried by ceremony, he

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00:19:35.240 --> 00:19:39.759
<v Speaker 2>simply sat and smiled and let them come. The first

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00:19:39.920 --> 00:19:42.279
<v Speaker 2>was a young woman he had known for about a year.

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00:19:43.680 --> 00:19:47.160
<v Speaker 2>Her name was Claire, and she came every morning. The

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00:19:47.200 --> 00:19:53.559
<v Speaker 2>center was open, always first, always alone. She was perhaps

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00:19:53.599 --> 00:19:56.440
<v Speaker 2>twenty eight, and she worked at the hospital in the

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00:19:56.559 --> 00:19:59.960
<v Speaker 2>larger town over the ridge, night shifts. He under stod

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00:20:00.039 --> 00:20:03.839
<v Speaker 2>stood something to do with the laboratory, And when she

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00:20:03.960 --> 00:20:07.400
<v Speaker 2>arrived in the mornings, there were always shadows under her eyes,

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00:20:08.200 --> 00:20:12.599
<v Speaker 2>soft and purple as dusk, and her shoulders carried a careful,

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00:20:12.799 --> 00:20:16.559
<v Speaker 2>braced quality, as though she were holding something up that

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00:20:16.640 --> 00:20:21.119
<v Speaker 2>she could not set down. But she came every morning.

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00:20:21.200 --> 00:20:25.039
<v Speaker 2>She came in her soft gray sweater and her loose pants,

280
00:20:25.759 --> 00:20:28.279
<v Speaker 2>and she took off her shoes at the door and

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00:20:28.359 --> 00:20:32.200
<v Speaker 2>placed them neatly, side by side. And she chose the

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00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:36.559
<v Speaker 2>same cushion each time, the one nearest the window where

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00:20:36.599 --> 00:20:40.119
<v Speaker 2>the light fell, and she sat down on it and

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00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:43.960
<v Speaker 2>folded her legs and closed her eyes, and something in

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00:20:44.039 --> 00:20:47.519
<v Speaker 2>her face, in the small muscles around her mouth and

286
00:20:47.640 --> 00:20:53.680
<v Speaker 2>eyes would begin very slowly to unclench. She did this now,

287
00:20:54.799 --> 00:20:58.839
<v Speaker 2>Aroon watched her settle, watched her shoulders lower by a

288
00:20:58.880 --> 00:21:02.440
<v Speaker 2>fraction of an inch, watched her take her first long

289
00:21:02.559 --> 00:21:06.839
<v Speaker 2>breath of the cedar scented air, and he felt, as

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00:21:06.880 --> 00:21:11.799
<v Speaker 2>he always felt, a quiet gladness. The hall was doing

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00:21:11.839 --> 00:21:15.279
<v Speaker 2>its work before he had done a thing. Next came Walter,

292
00:21:15.839 --> 00:21:19.920
<v Speaker 2>who was eighty one, and walked with a cane, slowly

293
00:21:20.359 --> 00:21:25.480
<v Speaker 2>and deliberately, placing the cane first and then his feet,

294
00:21:26.480 --> 00:21:31.359
<v Speaker 2>unashamed of his pace. He had been coming for eleven years,

295
00:21:32.039 --> 00:21:35.519
<v Speaker 2>ever since his wife died, and he had once told

296
00:21:35.720 --> 00:21:39.400
<v Speaker 2>Arn in his dry and gentle way, that he had

297
00:21:39.440 --> 00:21:43.119
<v Speaker 2>spent his whole life in a hurry, hurry to build

298
00:21:43.160 --> 00:21:48.160
<v Speaker 2>the business, hurry to raise the children, hurry to get somewhere,

299
00:21:49.160 --> 00:21:51.799
<v Speaker 2>and that it had taken him seventy years to learn

300
00:21:51.839 --> 00:21:55.920
<v Speaker 2>that there was nowhere to get to. Now, I walk slow,

301
00:21:56.559 --> 00:22:01.000
<v Speaker 2>he had said, and everything catches up with me. He

302
00:22:01.079 --> 00:22:04.799
<v Speaker 2>wore a cardigan in all seasons, and a soft cap

303
00:22:04.839 --> 00:22:08.880
<v Speaker 2>that he removed the door, revealing a crown of white hair,

304
00:22:09.799 --> 00:22:13.359
<v Speaker 2>and he always paused inside the doorway to take in

305
00:22:13.400 --> 00:22:15.680
<v Speaker 2>the room as though he had never seen it before,

306
00:22:16.680 --> 00:22:21.920
<v Speaker 2>his face opening into a smile of uncomplicated pleasure. He

307
00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:25.359
<v Speaker 2>lowered himself on to his cushion with care and a

308
00:22:25.359 --> 00:22:31.039
<v Speaker 2>few quiet sounds of effort, arranging his stiff legs, And

309
00:22:31.119 --> 00:22:35.359
<v Speaker 2>then he too became still, and his stillness had a

310
00:22:35.440 --> 00:22:39.880
<v Speaker 2>depth to it that Aran had always admired, the stillness

311
00:22:39.880 --> 00:22:42.279
<v Speaker 2>of a man who had made his peace with time.

312
00:22:42.720 --> 00:22:47.200
<v Speaker 2>Then came a mother and her daughter. The mother, whose

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00:22:47.319 --> 00:22:50.759
<v Speaker 2>name was Priya, had been coming for a few months.

314
00:22:51.599 --> 00:22:56.240
<v Speaker 2>The daughter, whose name was Mira, was perhaps seven years old,

315
00:22:56.640 --> 00:23:01.079
<v Speaker 2>and had only recently begun to come along her own request,

316
00:23:01.599 --> 00:23:06.599
<v Speaker 2>which had surprised everyone, most of all her mother. Mira

317
00:23:06.839 --> 00:23:10.759
<v Speaker 2>was a small, serious child with two dark braids, and

318
00:23:10.839 --> 00:23:13.400
<v Speaker 2>she sat on her cushion with a dignity that was

319
00:23:13.440 --> 00:23:18.599
<v Speaker 2>somehow both solemn and completely natural, her hands folded in

320
00:23:18.640 --> 00:23:24.400
<v Speaker 2>her lap, her eyes wide open rather than closed, watching everything,

321
00:23:25.240 --> 00:23:31.279
<v Speaker 2>the lanterns, the light, the dust, moats, the bowl. Children

322
00:23:31.680 --> 00:23:36.599
<v Speaker 2>Roon had found often meditated better than adults, because no

323
00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:40.960
<v Speaker 2>one had yet told them it was difficult. Priya settled

324
00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:44.519
<v Speaker 2>beside her daughter, one hand resting lightly on the little

325
00:23:44.559 --> 00:23:48.720
<v Speaker 2>girl's back, and the child's breathing slowed to match her mother's,

326
00:23:49.559 --> 00:23:52.079
<v Speaker 2>the way a small boat comes to rest beside a

327
00:23:52.200 --> 00:23:57.599
<v Speaker 2>larger one in still water. Three more students arrived, a

328
00:23:57.680 --> 00:24:02.119
<v Speaker 2>retired school teacher named Helen, a quiet man named David,

329
00:24:02.240 --> 00:24:05.720
<v Speaker 2>who worked at the bakery and always smelt faintly of flower,

330
00:24:06.440 --> 00:24:09.680
<v Speaker 2>and a woman named Rosa, who was visiting her sister

331
00:24:09.759 --> 00:24:12.680
<v Speaker 2>in town for the summer and had been brought along

332
00:24:12.720 --> 00:24:15.640
<v Speaker 2>on a whim two weeks ago and had returned every

333
00:24:15.720 --> 00:24:20.680
<v Speaker 2>day since they entered. They removed their shoes, they found

334
00:24:20.680 --> 00:24:25.240
<v Speaker 2>their places, Greetings passed among them in murmurs and nods

335
00:24:25.279 --> 00:24:30.319
<v Speaker 2>and small smiles, and then, without any signal, the murmurs faded,

336
00:24:30.839 --> 00:24:34.480
<v Speaker 2>and the rooms settled into a warm and expectant quiet.

337
00:24:35.200 --> 00:24:38.960
<v Speaker 2>Aaron rose from the bench, walked the length of the

338
00:24:39.039 --> 00:24:42.680
<v Speaker 2>hall through the bars of morning light, and sat down

339
00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:46.640
<v Speaker 2>on his cushion before the low table, facing the circle

340
00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:51.720
<v Speaker 2>of his students. For a moment, he simply sat with them, breathing,

341
00:24:52.680 --> 00:24:56.960
<v Speaker 2>letting the quiet deepen. He never spoke much. At the beginning,

342
00:24:57.880 --> 00:25:01.960
<v Speaker 2>words his teacher had told him. Our stones dropped into

343
00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:08.799
<v Speaker 2>a pond, sometimes necessary, sometimes beautiful, but always a disturbance.

344
00:25:10.039 --> 00:25:15.559
<v Speaker 2>Use them like salt, she had said. A little goes far. Welcome,

345
00:25:15.960 --> 00:25:20.400
<v Speaker 2>he said at last, his voice low and warm, carrying

346
00:25:20.440 --> 00:25:24.160
<v Speaker 2>easily in the still room. There is nothing to achieve

347
00:25:24.240 --> 00:25:28.400
<v Speaker 2>this morning, There is nothing to get right. We are

348
00:25:28.400 --> 00:25:33.680
<v Speaker 2>simply going to sit and breathe and be here. The

349
00:25:33.720 --> 00:25:37.640
<v Speaker 2>bowl will begin us. The silence will do the rest.

350
00:25:38.559 --> 00:25:43.119
<v Speaker 2>He reached for the striker. This moment he had experienced

351
00:25:43.119 --> 00:25:46.960
<v Speaker 2>it perhaps ten thousand times, and it had never once

352
00:25:47.119 --> 00:25:52.119
<v Speaker 2>become ordinary. The moment before the sound, the moment when

353
00:25:52.119 --> 00:25:55.960
<v Speaker 2>the room held its breath. He lifted the bowl from

354
00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:58.759
<v Speaker 2>its red cushion and held it in the open palm

355
00:25:58.839 --> 00:26:02.480
<v Speaker 2>of his left hand, his fingers spread flat, so that

356
00:26:02.599 --> 00:26:06.160
<v Speaker 2>nothing touched the metal but the base, so that nothing

357
00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:09.200
<v Speaker 2>would dampen the voice that was about to rise from it.

358
00:26:10.240 --> 00:26:13.759
<v Speaker 2>He raised the striker in his right hand. He took

359
00:26:13.839 --> 00:26:18.480
<v Speaker 2>one slow breath and let it out, And at the

360
00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:21.920
<v Speaker 2>bottom of the breath, when the lungs were empty and

361
00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:25.680
<v Speaker 2>the body was still, he brought the leather wrapped end

362
00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:29.480
<v Speaker 2>of the striker to the rim of the bowl and struck.

363
00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:39.079
<v Speaker 2>The sound bloomed. It began as a single, deep, note, low, round, full,

364
00:26:41.319 --> 00:26:46.279
<v Speaker 2>like the voice of something very large and very calm.

365
00:26:47.079 --> 00:26:47.799
<v Speaker 1>And it did not.

366
00:26:47.960 --> 00:26:52.720
<v Speaker 2>Stay where it was struck. It rose, and it spread,

367
00:26:53.759 --> 00:26:57.640
<v Speaker 2>and it filled the hall the way warm water fills

368
00:26:57.640 --> 00:27:04.440
<v Speaker 2>a bath, rising evenly on every side, touching every wall,

369
00:27:05.279 --> 00:27:11.039
<v Speaker 2>every beam, every person. It was not loud, but it

370
00:27:11.119 --> 00:27:17.160
<v Speaker 2>was immense. It seemed to come not from the bowl alone,

371
00:27:17.319 --> 00:27:22.279
<v Speaker 2>but from the room itself, from the cedar walls and

372
00:27:22.359 --> 00:27:26.440
<v Speaker 2>the old beams and the mountain air, as though the

373
00:27:26.480 --> 00:27:30.559
<v Speaker 2>hall had been waiting all night to speak and had

374
00:27:30.599 --> 00:27:37.160
<v Speaker 2>at last been given its voice. Beneath the deep, fundamental tone,

375
00:27:37.319 --> 00:27:44.240
<v Speaker 2>there were other tones, higher ones, shimmering ones that rose

376
00:27:44.559 --> 00:27:49.319
<v Speaker 2>and fell and braided together, like light moving on water.

377
00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:56.000
<v Speaker 2>If you listened closely, the sound was not one sound

378
00:27:56.240 --> 00:28:02.759
<v Speaker 2>at all, but a chord, a small all choir of harmonics,

379
00:28:02.839 --> 00:28:07.680
<v Speaker 2>each singing its own note, all of them in perfect

380
00:28:07.880 --> 00:28:15.039
<v Speaker 2>and mysterious agreement. This was the craftsman's secret, the thing

381
00:28:15.319 --> 00:28:19.000
<v Speaker 2>his hammer had built into the metal over all those

382
00:28:19.160 --> 00:28:25.200
<v Speaker 2>hours and days, a voice with many voices inside it,

383
00:28:26.039 --> 00:28:30.880
<v Speaker 2>a single tone that was also a whole song. The

384
00:28:30.920 --> 00:28:34.119
<v Speaker 2>sound moved through the room and through the people sitting

385
00:28:34.160 --> 00:28:37.640
<v Speaker 2>in it. Uruin had felt it ten thousand times, and

386
00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:41.519
<v Speaker 2>felt it still, the way the vibration entered through the ears,

387
00:28:41.640 --> 00:28:44.839
<v Speaker 2>but did not stop there. How it seemed to travel

388
00:28:44.920 --> 00:28:49.279
<v Speaker 2>down through the chest, through the belly, into the very bones.

389
00:28:50.119 --> 00:28:54.240
<v Speaker 2>How the body, which was after all mostly water, took

390
00:28:54.319 --> 00:28:57.279
<v Speaker 2>up the resonance the way a still pond takes up

391
00:28:57.319 --> 00:29:01.119
<v Speaker 2>the touch of rain. Claire, on a cushion by the window,

392
00:29:01.680 --> 00:29:04.759
<v Speaker 2>felt it move through the tension in her shoulders, and

393
00:29:04.799 --> 00:29:09.559
<v Speaker 2>the tension begin, almost shyly to loosen. Walter felt it

394
00:29:09.599 --> 00:29:11.440
<v Speaker 2>in his old bones, like warmth.

395
00:29:12.440 --> 00:29:12.759
<v Speaker 1>Mirah.

396
00:29:12.960 --> 00:29:15.880
<v Speaker 2>The child sat with her eyes wide and her mouth

397
00:29:15.960 --> 00:29:19.440
<v Speaker 2>slightly open, and the sound went through her, and she

398
00:29:19.519 --> 00:29:24.240
<v Speaker 2>sat perfectly still inside it, astonished and entirely at home.

399
00:29:25.039 --> 00:29:27.920
<v Speaker 2>Ourn lowered the striker and set the bowl back on

400
00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:31.279
<v Speaker 2>its cushion, and the sound went on. This was the

401
00:29:31.359 --> 00:29:35.720
<v Speaker 2>bull's great gift and its gentle mystery. It did not

402
00:29:35.920 --> 00:29:39.960
<v Speaker 2>stop when the striking stopped. The tone hung in the air,

403
00:29:40.759 --> 00:29:46.680
<v Speaker 2>full and round, and slowly, slowly diminishing, fading by degrees,

404
00:29:46.920 --> 00:29:50.640
<v Speaker 2>so gradual that you could never catch the moment of

405
00:29:50.680 --> 00:29:54.200
<v Speaker 2>its going. It thinned from a river to a stream,

406
00:29:54.759 --> 00:29:58.039
<v Speaker 2>from a stream to a thread, from a thread to

407
00:29:58.119 --> 00:30:02.680
<v Speaker 2>something finer than a thread, a filament, of sound than

408
00:30:02.720 --> 00:30:06.240
<v Speaker 2>the memory of a filament. And still it was there,

409
00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:10.839
<v Speaker 2>still present, still holding the room, until at last it

410
00:30:10.920 --> 00:30:14.519
<v Speaker 2>was gone. And the silence that remained was not the

411
00:30:14.599 --> 00:30:18.960
<v Speaker 2>silence that had been there before. It was a deeper silence,

412
00:30:19.519 --> 00:30:23.279
<v Speaker 2>a ringing silence, a silence with the shape of the

413
00:30:23.279 --> 00:30:26.279
<v Speaker 2>sound still in it, the way a cup holds the

414
00:30:26.359 --> 00:30:29.640
<v Speaker 2>shape of the water that has been poured out into

415
00:30:29.680 --> 00:30:35.000
<v Speaker 2>that silence. Renon said, softly, follow your breath, and they sat.

416
00:30:35.640 --> 00:30:39.519
<v Speaker 2>The morning session was always an hour, and the hour

417
00:30:39.720 --> 00:30:43.799
<v Speaker 2>passed the way such hours pass, at once very long

418
00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:49.559
<v Speaker 2>and strangely brief. Arun sat with his students, breathing with them,

419
00:30:49.839 --> 00:30:52.880
<v Speaker 2>and his attention moved through the room the way the

420
00:30:52.960 --> 00:30:57.279
<v Speaker 2>light moved, touching each person in turn. He watched Claire's

421
00:30:57.279 --> 00:31:01.039
<v Speaker 2>breathing slow and deepen, until her her shoulders had come

422
00:31:01.160 --> 00:31:04.079
<v Speaker 2>all the way down from her ears, and her face

423
00:31:04.240 --> 00:31:08.400
<v Speaker 2>had softened into something younger and unguarded. He watched Walter

424
00:31:08.720 --> 00:31:14.519
<v Speaker 2>sit like a mountain, perfectly upright, perfectly easy, his hands

425
00:31:14.559 --> 00:31:17.920
<v Speaker 2>resting on his knees, a half smile on his face,

426
00:31:18.400 --> 00:31:21.559
<v Speaker 2>the smile of a man keeping company with his own heart.

427
00:31:21.920 --> 00:31:26.599
<v Speaker 2>He watched Mirah, who lasted nearly twenty minutes in perfect stillness,

428
00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:31.079
<v Speaker 2>remarkable for a child of seven. Before her attention wandered

429
00:31:31.119 --> 00:31:34.519
<v Speaker 2>outward to the dust moats and the bird's song. And

430
00:31:34.680 --> 00:31:38.359
<v Speaker 2>even then she did not fidget. She simply watched the

431
00:31:38.440 --> 00:31:44.119
<v Speaker 2>light quietly. And that, too, arun thought, was meditation, perhaps

432
00:31:44.160 --> 00:31:48.279
<v Speaker 2>the purest kind. He guided them only occasionally, in a

433
00:31:48.279 --> 00:31:52.680
<v Speaker 2>few soft words, dropped into the long silence, like pebbles

434
00:31:52.799 --> 00:31:56.759
<v Speaker 2>into deep water. Notice the breath where it enters. Let

435
00:31:56.759 --> 00:32:00.880
<v Speaker 2>the shoulders be heavy when the mind wanders, Thank it,

436
00:32:01.400 --> 00:32:04.960
<v Speaker 2>and come home. The breath is always here. It has

437
00:32:05.039 --> 00:32:07.960
<v Speaker 2>been with you since before you were born. It will

438
00:32:07.960 --> 00:32:13.720
<v Speaker 2>carry you home every time outside the morning moved, the

439
00:32:13.799 --> 00:32:18.880
<v Speaker 2>mist lifted from the meadow in slow spirals, and was gone.

440
00:32:19.319 --> 00:32:23.119
<v Speaker 2>The light through the eastern windows crept across the floor,

441
00:32:23.799 --> 00:32:29.000
<v Speaker 2>climbing the western wall. A breeze came and went, stirring

442
00:32:29.039 --> 00:32:34.920
<v Speaker 2>the paper lanterns so that they turned gently on their strings. Twice.

443
00:32:35.359 --> 00:32:39.799
<v Speaker 2>A chickadee landed on the outer window sill, regarded the

444
00:32:39.880 --> 00:32:44.799
<v Speaker 2>room full of still humans with bright interest, and flew

445
00:32:44.839 --> 00:32:49.799
<v Speaker 2>on the creek, sang its thread of song beneath everything.

446
00:32:50.799 --> 00:32:54.319
<v Speaker 2>When the hour had nearly passed, a Roon lifted the

447
00:32:54.359 --> 00:32:59.359
<v Speaker 2>bowl once more. He struck it softly, a gentler touch

448
00:32:59.480 --> 00:33:03.880
<v Speaker 2>than the open, a calling back rather than a calling together.

449
00:33:04.799 --> 00:33:09.400
<v Speaker 2>And the note rose again, warm and round, and the

450
00:33:09.440 --> 00:33:15.000
<v Speaker 2>students surfaced from their stillness, slowly, the way swimmers rise

451
00:33:15.079 --> 00:33:20.359
<v Speaker 2>from a deep place, unhurried, reluctant, and glad. At once,

452
00:33:21.200 --> 00:33:26.559
<v Speaker 2>the tone faded, the silence held, and then one by

453
00:33:26.640 --> 00:33:31.160
<v Speaker 2>one they opened their eyes. There was always a moment

454
00:33:31.559 --> 00:33:35.279
<v Speaker 2>after the closing bell when no one moved or spoke,

455
00:33:36.039 --> 00:33:39.799
<v Speaker 2>a moment of collective lingering, as though the room were

456
00:33:39.880 --> 00:33:46.000
<v Speaker 2>reluctant to release them or they it. Then Walter chuckled softly,

457
00:33:46.680 --> 00:33:50.160
<v Speaker 2>the way he always did, and said, as he said

458
00:33:50.200 --> 00:33:55.319
<v Speaker 2>most mornings, Well there it is again. And the spell

459
00:33:55.640 --> 00:34:00.480
<v Speaker 2>relaxed into smiles and slow movements, into the stretching of

460
00:34:00.599 --> 00:34:04.920
<v Speaker 2>legs and the soft sounds of people returning. They drank

461
00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:08.280
<v Speaker 2>water from the copper pitcher. They ate a few apricots

462
00:34:08.280 --> 00:34:11.519
<v Speaker 2>and walnuts. Claire came to a roun and pressed her

463
00:34:11.559 --> 00:34:15.320
<v Speaker 2>palms together and bowed, and he bowed back, and she

464
00:34:15.400 --> 00:34:18.519
<v Speaker 2>said quietly, I slept four hours last night, and I

465
00:34:18.559 --> 00:34:21.559
<v Speaker 2>feel more rested now than when I woke. She said,

466
00:34:21.599 --> 00:34:24.000
<v Speaker 2>it not as a complaint, but as a small wonder,

467
00:34:24.360 --> 00:34:27.400
<v Speaker 2>and a room nodded. The rest you take in stillness

468
00:34:27.480 --> 00:34:31.000
<v Speaker 2>is a different kind of rest, he said. The body

469
00:34:31.079 --> 00:34:33.880
<v Speaker 2>knows it. Priya thanked him, while Mira stood at the

470
00:34:33.880 --> 00:34:37.760
<v Speaker 2>low table, gazing at the singing bowl from a respectful distance,

471
00:34:38.280 --> 00:34:41.320
<v Speaker 2>her hands clasped behind her back, as though she were

472
00:34:41.320 --> 00:34:44.920
<v Speaker 2>in a museum. May I touch it, she asked. Aaron,

473
00:34:45.800 --> 00:34:48.840
<v Speaker 2>You may, he said, and she reached out one small

474
00:34:48.880 --> 00:34:52.519
<v Speaker 2>finger and touched the rim very lightly, and then looked

475
00:34:52.599 --> 00:34:56.559
<v Speaker 2>up at him with an expression of solemn surprise. It's warm,

476
00:34:56.760 --> 00:35:00.599
<v Speaker 2>she said. It likes the mornings, a Roon said, gravely,

477
00:35:01.199 --> 00:35:05.280
<v Speaker 2>and she considered this with complete seriousness, and nodded, as

478
00:35:05.320 --> 00:35:08.920
<v Speaker 2>though it confirmed something she had already suspected. When they

479
00:35:08.960 --> 00:35:14.079
<v Speaker 2>had all gone, footsteps receding down the gravel path, the

480
00:35:14.159 --> 00:35:18.159
<v Speaker 2>door standing open to the day, Aroon moved through the

481
00:35:18.199 --> 00:35:24.360
<v Speaker 2>hall in the pleasant aftermath, straightening cushions, refolding blankets, washing

482
00:35:24.400 --> 00:35:29.199
<v Speaker 2>the cups. This too was part of the practice, and

483
00:35:29.280 --> 00:35:33.000
<v Speaker 2>he did it with the same unhurried attention he gave

484
00:35:33.119 --> 00:35:37.920
<v Speaker 2>to everything. The hall after accession had a quality he loved.

485
00:35:38.400 --> 00:35:42.920
<v Speaker 2>He fell wider, somehow, more open, as though the walls

486
00:35:42.920 --> 00:35:46.519
<v Speaker 2>had expanded to make room for what had happened inside them.

487
00:35:47.639 --> 00:35:51.280
<v Speaker 2>The incense had burned down to its ash, the light

488
00:35:51.400 --> 00:35:55.679
<v Speaker 2>had moved, the bowl sat on its red cushion, to

489
00:35:55.800 --> 00:36:01.400
<v Speaker 2>all appearances, perfectly ordinary, keeping its counsel. Mid morning, he

490
00:36:01.519 --> 00:36:05.880
<v Speaker 2>carried his tea, the third steeping of the same leaves,

491
00:36:06.599 --> 00:36:10.280
<v Speaker 2>softer and sweeter now out through the back door of

492
00:36:10.320 --> 00:36:13.360
<v Speaker 2>the hall to the small porch that faced the meadow,

493
00:36:14.079 --> 00:36:17.360
<v Speaker 2>and he sat in the wooden chair there and watched

494
00:36:17.400 --> 00:36:20.559
<v Speaker 2>the birds at the feeder. He had hung the feeder

495
00:36:20.719 --> 00:36:23.679
<v Speaker 2>years ago from the branch of the old pine that

496
00:36:23.800 --> 00:36:28.559
<v Speaker 2>stood apart from the forest halfway across the meadow, and

497
00:36:28.639 --> 00:36:33.719
<v Speaker 2>it was never still for long. Chickadees came and went

498
00:36:34.239 --> 00:36:38.960
<v Speaker 2>on their quick business like flights, each taking a single

499
00:36:39.039 --> 00:36:42.920
<v Speaker 2>seed and carrying it off to crack it open elsewhere.

500
00:36:43.599 --> 00:36:49.519
<v Speaker 2>Polite and efficient. A pair of goldfinches, bright as pieces

501
00:36:49.599 --> 00:36:53.880
<v Speaker 2>of the sun, clung to the feeder together and ate

502
00:36:53.960 --> 00:36:59.960
<v Speaker 2>at their leisure, unbothered. A nuthatch worked its way down

503
00:36:59.880 --> 00:37:04.280
<v Speaker 2>the pine's trunk, head first in the way of nuthatches,

504
00:37:05.039 --> 00:37:11.559
<v Speaker 2>defying gravity without comment, and once a stellar's jay, deep

505
00:37:11.639 --> 00:37:18.000
<v Speaker 2>blue crested magnificent and loud, swept down from the high

506
00:37:18.039 --> 00:37:23.679
<v Speaker 2>branches and scattered the smaller birds, and then, having asserted

507
00:37:23.719 --> 00:37:28.800
<v Speaker 2>its importance, took one seed and departed, and the small

508
00:37:28.840 --> 00:37:34.039
<v Speaker 2>birds returned, and the whole brief drama closed Like a fan.

509
00:37:35.400 --> 00:37:39.000
<v Speaker 2>Arun watched it all with his tea cooling slowly in

510
00:37:39.079 --> 00:37:43.599
<v Speaker 2>his hands, and thought of nothing in particular, And it

511
00:37:43.679 --> 00:37:48.360
<v Speaker 2>was good. Later, when the sun stood high, he went

512
00:37:48.440 --> 00:37:52.039
<v Speaker 2>to his garden. It was a small garden, no more

513
00:37:52.079 --> 00:37:55.079
<v Speaker 2>than a few raised beds behind the hall, where the

514
00:37:55.119 --> 00:37:58.199
<v Speaker 2>ground caught the southern light, and he tended it the

515
00:37:58.239 --> 00:38:04.880
<v Speaker 2>way he did everything, modestly, attentively, without ambition. There were herbs,

516
00:38:05.320 --> 00:38:08.679
<v Speaker 2>time and sage and rosemary in one bed, mint in

517
00:38:08.719 --> 00:38:11.440
<v Speaker 2>a pot of its own, where its wandering roots could

518
00:38:11.440 --> 00:38:15.159
<v Speaker 2>do no harm, a great unruly bush of lemon balm

519
00:38:15.440 --> 00:38:18.760
<v Speaker 2>that the bees adored. There was a bed of greens,

520
00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:22.440
<v Speaker 2>and another of carrots and beets, and along the fence

521
00:38:22.480 --> 00:38:24.960
<v Speaker 2>a tangle of sweet peas that he grew not to

522
00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:27.920
<v Speaker 2>eat but for the smell of them, which, on warm

523
00:38:27.960 --> 00:38:32.079
<v Speaker 2>afternoons drifted across the whole yard, honeyed and faintly pink.

524
00:38:32.320 --> 00:38:34.280
<v Speaker 2>If a smell can be said to have a color.

525
00:38:34.960 --> 00:38:37.440
<v Speaker 2>He knelt among the beds and worked the soil with

526
00:38:37.519 --> 00:38:40.719
<v Speaker 2>his fingers, pulling the small weeds that had come up

527
00:38:40.760 --> 00:38:45.119
<v Speaker 2>since yesterday. Feeling the earth cool and crumbly and alive

528
00:38:45.280 --> 00:38:49.079
<v Speaker 2>beneath his hands, he pinched back the basil. He picked

529
00:38:49.119 --> 00:38:51.519
<v Speaker 2>a handful of mint and a sprig of time, and

530
00:38:51.599 --> 00:38:54.639
<v Speaker 2>laid them in the basket he carried for his midday

531
00:38:54.719 --> 00:38:58.159
<v Speaker 2>meal and his evening tea. The bees moved through the

532
00:38:58.280 --> 00:39:01.960
<v Speaker 2>lemon balm in their contented, drunken whay, and the sun

533
00:39:02.079 --> 00:39:05.320
<v Speaker 2>warmed his back through his shirt, and from somewhere up

534
00:39:05.360 --> 00:39:08.480
<v Speaker 2>the mountain came the far off knocking of a woodpecker,

535
00:39:08.960 --> 00:39:13.119
<v Speaker 2>slow and deliberate, like someone hammering a small nail into

536
00:39:13.159 --> 00:39:17.559
<v Speaker 2>the sky. His teacher long ago had asked him what

537
00:39:17.760 --> 00:39:22.199
<v Speaker 2>is the difference between meditation and weeding a garden? And

538
00:39:22.280 --> 00:39:25.079
<v Speaker 2>when a room young and earnest had searched for a

539
00:39:25.119 --> 00:39:28.880
<v Speaker 2>wise answer, she had laughed her water over Stone's laugh,

540
00:39:28.960 --> 00:39:33.159
<v Speaker 2>and said, there is no difference. That is the whole secret,

541
00:39:33.760 --> 00:39:37.039
<v Speaker 2>There is no difference at all. He made himself a

542
00:39:37.079 --> 00:39:42.519
<v Speaker 2>simple lunch, rice greens from the garden, a little tofu tea,

543
00:39:43.159 --> 00:39:46.519
<v Speaker 2>and ate it on the porch, and afterward he sat

544
00:39:46.559 --> 00:39:50.400
<v Speaker 2>for a while with his eyes closed, not meditating exactly,

545
00:39:51.239 --> 00:39:54.639
<v Speaker 2>just resting, just being an old man in the sun,

546
00:39:55.559 --> 00:40:00.000
<v Speaker 2>and the afternoon gathered itself gently around him. The afternoon

547
00:40:00.159 --> 00:40:03.639
<v Speaker 2>session began at two, and it drew a different crowd.

548
00:40:04.400 --> 00:40:08.360
<v Speaker 2>The morning sitters were the regulars, the devoted, the ones

549
00:40:08.400 --> 00:40:11.559
<v Speaker 2>who had built the practice into the architecture of their days.

550
00:40:12.199 --> 00:40:16.320
<v Speaker 2>The afternoon brought the others, the curious, the passing through,

551
00:40:16.880 --> 00:40:19.480
<v Speaker 2>the ones who came at odd seasons of their lives.

552
00:40:20.239 --> 00:40:24.679
<v Speaker 2>Aroon loved the afternoon sessions for their unpredictability. You never

553
00:40:24.760 --> 00:40:27.679
<v Speaker 2>knew who would come up the path to day. There

554
00:40:27.679 --> 00:40:32.079
<v Speaker 2>were three. The first was a man named Tomas, a

555
00:40:32.159 --> 00:40:37.719
<v Speaker 2>carpenter from the town, perhaps fifty years old, broad shouldered

556
00:40:37.760 --> 00:40:41.679
<v Speaker 2>and weathered, with forearms like rope and hands that told

557
00:40:41.719 --> 00:40:45.519
<v Speaker 2>the whole story of his working life. Scarred and thickened,

558
00:40:46.320 --> 00:40:50.519
<v Speaker 2>the knuckles swollen, the fingers slightly crooked from decades of

559
00:40:50.559 --> 00:40:54.079
<v Speaker 2>gripping tools. He had been coming on and off for

560
00:40:54.119 --> 00:40:57.400
<v Speaker 2>a year ever since his hands had begun to ache

561
00:40:57.400 --> 00:41:01.440
<v Speaker 2>badly enough to worry air. Since a doctor had used

562
00:41:01.480 --> 00:41:05.519
<v Speaker 2>the word arthritis and the word rest in the same sentence,

563
00:41:06.440 --> 00:41:10.800
<v Speaker 2>which de Tomas had sounded like a small surrender. He

564
00:41:10.920 --> 00:41:15.519
<v Speaker 2>came Aroun understood not for enlightenment, but for his hands,

565
00:41:16.320 --> 00:41:19.199
<v Speaker 2>to sit with them, to be with a body that

566
00:41:19.360 --> 00:41:22.880
<v Speaker 2>was changing, to make friends with the future he had

567
00:41:22.880 --> 00:41:26.960
<v Speaker 2>not chosen. He sat heavily on his cushion and laid

568
00:41:26.960 --> 00:41:29.880
<v Speaker 2>his hands palm up on his thighs, as he always did,

569
00:41:30.679 --> 00:41:34.760
<v Speaker 2>and they rested there like two tired animals, and gradually,

570
00:41:34.800 --> 00:41:38.599
<v Speaker 2>as the session went on, the fingers would soften and open,

571
00:41:39.639 --> 00:41:42.480
<v Speaker 2>and the lines of discomfort around his eyes would ease.

572
00:41:43.360 --> 00:41:47.000
<v Speaker 2>The second was a woman named Grace, a high school

573
00:41:47.039 --> 00:41:51.000
<v Speaker 2>teacher in her forties on summer break, tanned and unhurried

574
00:41:51.039 --> 00:41:53.840
<v Speaker 2>in a way she clearly was not during the school year.

575
00:41:54.559 --> 00:41:58.800
<v Speaker 2>She had arrived two weeks into her holiday, looking by

576
00:41:58.840 --> 00:42:02.480
<v Speaker 2>her own cheerful lifes admission like a person who had

577
00:42:02.519 --> 00:42:06.320
<v Speaker 2>forgotten how to stop. I stood in my kitchen for

578
00:42:06.360 --> 00:42:10.360
<v Speaker 2>twenty minutes the first morning of break, she had told Aroon,

579
00:42:11.440 --> 00:42:14.239
<v Speaker 2>because I couldn't remember what people do when they aren't

580
00:42:14.280 --> 00:42:19.440
<v Speaker 2>doing anything. She was a natural sitter once she stopped,

581
00:42:20.039 --> 00:42:23.559
<v Speaker 2>and she came now most afternoons, and a Roon had

582
00:42:23.599 --> 00:42:27.400
<v Speaker 2>watched her slow down day by day, like a wheel

583
00:42:27.519 --> 00:42:32.320
<v Speaker 2>spinning down each session, a little quieter, a little more

584
00:42:32.360 --> 00:42:37.519
<v Speaker 2>at ease, her face, reclaiming some softness that September always

585
00:42:37.599 --> 00:42:41.519
<v Speaker 2>took away. The third was a girl of perhaps sixteen,

586
00:42:42.119 --> 00:42:45.480
<v Speaker 2>who came in looking like a person executing a difficult favor.

587
00:42:46.199 --> 00:42:49.159
<v Speaker 2>She wore a black sweatshirt despite the warmth of the day,

588
00:42:49.679 --> 00:42:53.079
<v Speaker 2>and had the guarded, watchful expression of someone prepared to

589
00:42:53.159 --> 00:42:57.159
<v Speaker 2>find the whole thing ridiculous. She introduced herself in a

590
00:42:57.239 --> 00:43:00.719
<v Speaker 2>mumble as Sam, and added with the air of someone

591
00:43:00.800 --> 00:43:04.719
<v Speaker 2>making a full and honest disclosure. My grandmother made me come.

592
00:43:05.039 --> 00:43:07.239
<v Speaker 2>She said it helped her when she was my age.

593
00:43:07.599 --> 00:43:10.559
<v Speaker 2>I said I'd try it once. She said this last

594
00:43:10.559 --> 00:43:14.800
<v Speaker 2>part with emphasis once, and Arun smiled and said that

595
00:43:14.920 --> 00:43:19.280
<v Speaker 2>once was an excellent number, a traditional number, in fact,

596
00:43:19.360 --> 00:43:22.480
<v Speaker 2>the only number anyone ever started with. This got the

597
00:43:22.480 --> 00:43:26.239
<v Speaker 2>faintest flicker of a smile, quickly suppressed. She took a

598
00:43:26.280 --> 00:43:29.119
<v Speaker 2>cushion at the edge of the circle where she could

599
00:43:29.119 --> 00:43:33.639
<v Speaker 2>see the door, which ourone noted and respected. Everyone deserves

600
00:43:33.639 --> 00:43:36.639
<v Speaker 2>an exit. Half of trust is knowing you can leave.

601
00:43:37.480 --> 00:43:41.039
<v Speaker 2>He struck the bowl. The sound rose in the warm

602
00:43:41.199 --> 00:43:45.199
<v Speaker 2>afternoon air, deeper somehow in the heat of the day,

603
00:43:46.280 --> 00:43:51.960
<v Speaker 2>round her unhurried, and Roon watched it do its quiet work.

604
00:43:52.519 --> 00:43:56.880
<v Speaker 2>He watched Thomas's hands pall up on his thighs and

605
00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:01.559
<v Speaker 2>saw the fingers soften. He watched Grace settle like sediment

606
00:44:01.719 --> 00:44:06.039
<v Speaker 2>in still water, layer by layer, And he watched Sam

607
00:44:06.639 --> 00:44:09.760
<v Speaker 2>watched her brace against the sound for the first few breaths,

608
00:44:10.320 --> 00:44:14.199
<v Speaker 2>watched her jaw work as some stubbornness in her refused

609
00:44:14.199 --> 00:44:18.559
<v Speaker 2>to be impressed, And then watched with enormous gentleness and

610
00:44:18.679 --> 00:44:22.400
<v Speaker 2>no surprise at all, as the resonance moved through her anyway,

611
00:44:23.079 --> 00:44:27.320
<v Speaker 2>beneath her defenses, under the whole scaffolding of sixteen year

612
00:44:27.360 --> 00:44:31.719
<v Speaker 2>old armor, and her shoulders came down, and her breathing deepened,

613
00:44:32.199 --> 00:44:35.719
<v Speaker 2>and her face, when he glanced again some minutes later,

614
00:44:36.159 --> 00:44:39.119
<v Speaker 2>had become the face of a child asleep in back

615
00:44:39.159 --> 00:44:43.360
<v Speaker 2>seat of a car, open and undefended and at peace.

616
00:44:43.920 --> 00:44:48.360
<v Speaker 2>He said almost nothing that session. The afternoon light did

617
00:44:48.440 --> 00:44:51.880
<v Speaker 2>most of the teaching. It came through the western windows,

618
00:44:51.920 --> 00:44:55.920
<v Speaker 2>now long and amber, and filled the hall with a

619
00:44:56.000 --> 00:44:59.199
<v Speaker 2>gold so thick it seemed you could rest your hand

620
00:44:59.280 --> 00:45:03.880
<v Speaker 2>on it. The dust motes drifted the bull's closing tone

621
00:45:04.119 --> 00:45:08.280
<v Speaker 2>faded into a silence so complete that the sound of

622
00:45:08.320 --> 00:45:12.519
<v Speaker 2>a single bee blundering against a window pane seemed enormous,

623
00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:16.599
<v Speaker 2>and everyone smiled at it, and the session ended in

624
00:45:16.719 --> 00:45:20.159
<v Speaker 2>quiet laughter, which was also a good way to end.

625
00:45:20.679 --> 00:45:25.280
<v Speaker 2>Sam left without saying much, but at the door she

626
00:45:25.519 --> 00:45:29.239
<v Speaker 2>paused and looked back at the bowl on its red

627
00:45:29.320 --> 00:45:33.679
<v Speaker 2>cushion and said, with the air of some one conceding

628
00:45:33.719 --> 00:45:38.719
<v Speaker 2>a point in an argument, it was ok. And then

629
00:45:39.039 --> 00:45:43.840
<v Speaker 2>at the bottom of the steps, barely audible to no one,

630
00:45:44.119 --> 00:45:48.960
<v Speaker 2>I might come back. A roon watering the herbs by

631
00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:53.880
<v Speaker 2>the porch heard it and smiled into the time. His

632
00:45:54.039 --> 00:45:58.320
<v Speaker 2>teacher's voice came back to him across the decades, as

633
00:45:58.360 --> 00:46:04.880
<v Speaker 2>it often did. People think we teach meditation. The bowl teaches,

634
00:46:05.880 --> 00:46:11.079
<v Speaker 2>we just set out the cushions. Tomas stayed a moment longer.

635
00:46:11.760 --> 00:46:17.000
<v Speaker 2>He stood before the low table, flexing his big hands slowly,

636
00:46:17.840 --> 00:46:21.119
<v Speaker 2>looking at them the way one looks at old friends

637
00:46:21.440 --> 00:46:25.960
<v Speaker 2>one has been worried about. They don't hurt right now,

638
00:46:26.400 --> 00:46:30.719
<v Speaker 2>he said, with the cautious wonder of a man afraid

639
00:46:31.000 --> 00:46:36.800
<v Speaker 2>to say it too loudly. First time in weeks, first

640
00:46:36.880 --> 00:46:42.519
<v Speaker 2>time in months. Maybe he shook his head slowly. I

641
00:46:42.599 --> 00:46:48.559
<v Speaker 2>don't understand it. You don't have to, Aroon said. Understanding

642
00:46:48.880 --> 00:46:54.880
<v Speaker 2>is one kind of knowing. There are others. Tomas considered this,

643
00:46:55.760 --> 00:46:59.400
<v Speaker 2>turned it over like a piece of wood, checking the grain.

644
00:47:00.599 --> 00:47:04.920
<v Speaker 2>Then he nodded, put on his hat and went down

645
00:47:04.960 --> 00:47:10.599
<v Speaker 2>the path through the pines, walking a room, noticed a

646
00:47:10.639 --> 00:47:15.360
<v Speaker 2>little more slowly than he had come. The hours between

647
00:47:15.519 --> 00:47:21.239
<v Speaker 2>afternoon and evening were the hall's own private time and

648
00:47:21.360 --> 00:47:26.280
<v Speaker 2>a roon. He swept the wooden floor with a soft broom, slowly,

649
00:47:27.280 --> 00:47:31.920
<v Speaker 2>enjoying the small ritual of it, the whisper of the bristles,

650
00:47:32.679 --> 00:47:36.360
<v Speaker 2>the gathering of the day's dust into a single, small pile,

651
00:47:37.320 --> 00:47:41.199
<v Speaker 2>the way the floor emerged from the sweeping somehow brighter,

652
00:47:41.840 --> 00:47:45.440
<v Speaker 2>as though it had been paid a kindness. He closed

653
00:47:45.480 --> 00:47:49.079
<v Speaker 2>the eastern windows against the cooling air and opened the

654
00:47:49.079 --> 00:47:53.199
<v Speaker 2>western ones to the long light. He refilled the bird feeder,

655
00:47:53.679 --> 00:47:56.800
<v Speaker 2>scattering a few seeds on the ground beneath it for

656
00:47:56.880 --> 00:48:00.719
<v Speaker 2>the toehees, who preferred to eat at floor level, being

657
00:48:01.000 --> 00:48:05.599
<v Speaker 2>in their way humble birds. He brought in an armful

658
00:48:05.639 --> 00:48:09.320
<v Speaker 2>of split wood and stacked it by the stove. Though

659
00:48:09.360 --> 00:48:12.800
<v Speaker 2>the evening would be mild, the habit of readiness, was

660
00:48:12.880 --> 00:48:17.599
<v Speaker 2>old and pleasant. He made tea, a different tea, now,

661
00:48:18.159 --> 00:48:21.639
<v Speaker 2>a roasted barley tea his friend in town had given him,

662
00:48:22.480 --> 00:48:26.800
<v Speaker 2>dark and toasty and faintly sweet, the taste of late

663
00:48:26.920 --> 00:48:30.360
<v Speaker 2>summer afternoons. And he sat for a while on the

664
00:48:30.400 --> 00:48:34.320
<v Speaker 2>porch with the bowl. He did this sometimes in the

665
00:48:34.360 --> 00:48:38.079
<v Speaker 2>quiet hours, carried the bowl outside in its cloth wrapping,

666
00:48:38.280 --> 00:48:40.760
<v Speaker 2>and unwrapped it and simply sat with it in his

667
00:48:40.880 --> 00:48:45.360
<v Speaker 2>lap like a cat. He did not strike it. He

668
00:48:45.480 --> 00:48:49.039
<v Speaker 2>ran his thumb along the rim, sometimes feeling the faint

669
00:48:49.119 --> 00:48:52.440
<v Speaker 2>hammer marks. And he thought about the old craftsman in

670
00:48:52.480 --> 00:48:55.880
<v Speaker 2>his mountain village, dead now for a century or more,

671
00:48:56.480 --> 00:48:59.840
<v Speaker 2>whose hands had made this thing, and whose name was lost,

672
00:49:00.079 --> 00:49:03.639
<v Speaker 2>and whose work was still at this very moment, changing

673
00:49:03.679 --> 00:49:07.119
<v Speaker 2>the lives of carpenters and teenagers and tired young nurses

674
00:49:07.159 --> 00:49:09.719
<v Speaker 2>in a valley and ocean away from where he had lived.

675
00:49:10.519 --> 00:49:14.400
<v Speaker 2>The craftsman would never know he had hammered his hundreds

676
00:49:14.400 --> 00:49:18.000
<v Speaker 2>of blows, sung his songs over the cooling metal, if

677
00:49:18.000 --> 00:49:21.239
<v Speaker 2>the story was true, and sent the bull out into

678
00:49:21.239 --> 00:49:25.000
<v Speaker 2>the world like a letter with no address, trusting it

679
00:49:25.079 --> 00:49:28.239
<v Speaker 2>to arrive where it was needed. It had been traveling

680
00:49:28.280 --> 00:49:32.719
<v Speaker 2>ever since it was traveling still. Some day he knew

681
00:49:32.840 --> 00:49:36.719
<v Speaker 2>it would travel on from him too. His teacher's words

682
00:49:36.760 --> 00:49:39.639
<v Speaker 2>came back to him, it is alone, you will give

683
00:49:39.679 --> 00:49:42.480
<v Speaker 2>it to some one else, And he wondered, as he

684
00:49:42.559 --> 00:49:46.559
<v Speaker 2>sometimes wondered, who it would be. He watched the afternoon

685
00:49:46.639 --> 00:49:49.840
<v Speaker 2>light move across the meadow and felt no anxiety about

686
00:49:49.880 --> 00:49:54.039
<v Speaker 2>it at all. The bull would tell him. Bulls were

687
00:49:54.079 --> 00:49:56.880
<v Speaker 2>better at these things than people were. He thought of

688
00:49:56.920 --> 00:49:59.559
<v Speaker 2>his teacher, who had been dead now for nine years.

689
00:50:00.679 --> 00:50:02.639
<v Speaker 2>He thought of her the way he always thought of her,

690
00:50:03.400 --> 00:50:06.639
<v Speaker 2>not with grief, exactly, but with a kind of warm

691
00:50:06.679 --> 00:50:09.920
<v Speaker 2>and spacious gratitude, the way you think of some one

692
00:50:09.960 --> 00:50:13.400
<v Speaker 2>who is, in some real sense still in the room.

693
00:50:13.920 --> 00:50:16.199
<v Speaker 2>She had given him the bull and the hall had

694
00:50:16.199 --> 00:50:18.960
<v Speaker 2>given him a life, and the life had given him

695
00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:21.880
<v Speaker 2>ten thousand mornings like this one. And he could not

696
00:50:22.039 --> 00:50:27.079
<v Speaker 2>locate anywhere in himself a single thing he would trade.

697
00:50:27.360 --> 00:50:30.159
<v Speaker 2>The sun lowered toward the ridge. The light through the

698
00:50:30.199 --> 00:50:33.800
<v Speaker 2>pines went from gold to amber to something deeper, a

699
00:50:33.880 --> 00:50:36.719
<v Speaker 2>glowing rose gold that set the tips of the trees alight,

700
00:50:37.400 --> 00:50:39.639
<v Speaker 2>and the shadows of the trunk stretched all the way

701
00:50:39.679 --> 00:50:43.039
<v Speaker 2>across the meadow, and the first coolness of evening came

702
00:50:43.079 --> 00:50:46.880
<v Speaker 2>down off the high slopes like slow water. Iron carried

703
00:50:46.920 --> 00:50:49.960
<v Speaker 2>the bowl back inside, set it on its red cushion,

704
00:50:50.679 --> 00:50:53.800
<v Speaker 2>lit the paper lanterns one by one, and the hall

705
00:50:53.840 --> 00:50:57.119
<v Speaker 2>glowed like a lantern itself. Wore at the heart of

706
00:50:57.159 --> 00:51:00.840
<v Speaker 2>the darkening valley. The evening session and was always the

707
00:51:00.880 --> 00:51:06.320
<v Speaker 2>smallest and the deepest. Only four came to night. Walter,

708
00:51:06.639 --> 00:51:10.840
<v Speaker 2>who often returned for the evening sit the day's bookends.

709
00:51:11.639 --> 00:51:16.000
<v Speaker 2>He called the two sessions. Rosa, the summer visitor, who

710
00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:20.440
<v Speaker 2>had taken to the practice the way dry ground takes rain, Helen,

711
00:51:20.760 --> 00:51:24.400
<v Speaker 2>the retired school teacher, who said the evening sits helped

712
00:51:24.400 --> 00:51:28.000
<v Speaker 2>her sleep better than anything in sixty years. And Claire,

713
00:51:28.519 --> 00:51:31.719
<v Speaker 2>which surprised him. She had never come to an evening

714
00:51:31.760 --> 00:51:36.360
<v Speaker 2>session before. She came in quietly, still in her soft

715
00:51:36.400 --> 00:51:39.840
<v Speaker 2>gray sweater, and he saw that the tiredness in her

716
00:51:39.880 --> 00:51:44.320
<v Speaker 2>eyes had a different quality to night, softer, less defended.

717
00:51:45.199 --> 00:51:48.199
<v Speaker 2>She took her cushion by the window and folded her hands,

718
00:51:48.760 --> 00:51:51.119
<v Speaker 2>and when she caught Aroone's eye, she gave him a

719
00:51:51.119 --> 00:51:55.000
<v Speaker 2>small smile that said, without words, I needed one more.

720
00:51:55.760 --> 00:52:00.599
<v Speaker 2>He nodded. No explanation was ever required here. The cushions

721
00:52:00.639 --> 00:52:04.400
<v Speaker 2>did not ask questions. The evening session was held mostly

722
00:52:04.480 --> 00:52:08.719
<v Speaker 2>in silence and in candlelight. A roon lit three beeswax

723
00:52:08.800 --> 00:52:11.199
<v Speaker 2>candles and set them in the center of the circle

724
00:52:11.480 --> 00:52:14.440
<v Speaker 2>and turned down the lanterns, and the hall became a

725
00:52:14.480 --> 00:52:19.400
<v Speaker 2>cave of warm, flickering dimness, the beams overhead lost in dimness,

726
00:52:19.679 --> 00:52:26.000
<v Speaker 2>the windows gone black and reflective, holding small, doubled flames outside.

727
00:52:26.239 --> 00:52:29.119
<v Speaker 2>The last light died on the ridge, and the pines

728
00:52:29.199 --> 00:52:32.400
<v Speaker 2>faded into the dark, and the first stars came out,

729
00:52:33.119 --> 00:52:37.000
<v Speaker 2>fate at first, and then gathering, the way an audience

730
00:52:37.039 --> 00:52:41.079
<v Speaker 2>gathers as a performance begins. A roon struck the bull

731
00:52:41.559 --> 00:52:46.800
<v Speaker 2>in the daylight hall. The sound was warm water, filling

732
00:52:46.840 --> 00:52:53.280
<v Speaker 2>the room evenly at night. It was something else, something

733
00:52:53.360 --> 00:52:59.280
<v Speaker 2>older and stranger and more intimate. It rose out of

734
00:52:59.320 --> 00:53:03.880
<v Speaker 2>the candle light dimness, like the voice of the valley itself,

735
00:53:04.719 --> 00:53:08.960
<v Speaker 2>deep and round and slow, and it seemed to carry

736
00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:13.119
<v Speaker 2>the whole day inside it, the mist and the bird song,

737
00:53:13.880 --> 00:53:18.599
<v Speaker 2>the bees and the lemon balm, the carpenter's hands, the

738
00:53:18.639 --> 00:53:24.519
<v Speaker 2>teenager's surrender, the long gold of the afternoon. The harmonics

739
00:53:24.599 --> 00:53:28.039
<v Speaker 2>shimmered in the dim air like the heat shimmer above

740
00:53:28.039 --> 00:53:32.840
<v Speaker 2>a road, and when the tone began its long, slow fade,

741
00:53:32.960 --> 00:53:35.960
<v Speaker 2>it did not fade into silence, but into the night,

742
00:53:36.760 --> 00:53:39.239
<v Speaker 2>into the sound of the creek and the wind, and

743
00:53:39.280 --> 00:53:43.079
<v Speaker 2>the pines, and the small ticking of the cooling stove,

744
00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:47.599
<v Speaker 2>as though the bull's voice were dissolving into the voices

745
00:53:47.639 --> 00:53:52.079
<v Speaker 2>of the world, which had been singing all along, underneath

746
00:53:52.159 --> 00:53:56.599
<v Speaker 2>everything too quiet to hear. Until now they sat for

747
00:53:56.679 --> 00:54:02.159
<v Speaker 2>a long time. No one spoke, not even Roon. The

748
00:54:02.199 --> 00:54:06.880
<v Speaker 2>candles burned lower. Once an owl called from the forest,

749
00:54:07.960 --> 00:54:13.280
<v Speaker 2>three soft notes, a pause, three more, and the sound

750
00:54:13.360 --> 00:54:17.519
<v Speaker 2>came through the open western windows and laid itself across

751
00:54:17.559 --> 00:54:22.159
<v Speaker 2>the silence like a shawl. Walter's breathing deepened into something

752
00:54:22.239 --> 00:54:25.679
<v Speaker 2>near sleep, and a Roon led it. He had long

753
00:54:25.719 --> 00:54:30.320
<v Speaker 2>ago stopped distinguishing between meditation and the honest rest of

754
00:54:30.360 --> 00:54:33.559
<v Speaker 2>an old man. At the end of a day. Rosa

755
00:54:33.639 --> 00:54:38.280
<v Speaker 2>sat utterly still, with tears sliding unhurriedly down her face,

756
00:54:39.320 --> 00:54:43.320
<v Speaker 2>not sad tears. A Roon knew the difference, had seen

757
00:54:43.400 --> 00:54:47.119
<v Speaker 2>both kinds over thirty years, and she did not wipe

758
00:54:47.159 --> 00:54:51.360
<v Speaker 2>them away, and no one commented, and they dried on

759
00:54:51.400 --> 00:54:55.119
<v Speaker 2>their own the way rain dries off stone. When the

760
00:54:55.199 --> 00:54:59.559
<v Speaker 2>time came, Roon lifted the bowl a final time. He

761
00:54:59.559 --> 00:55:02.960
<v Speaker 2>held it in his open palm in the candlelight, and

762
00:55:03.079 --> 00:55:08.079
<v Speaker 2>looked at it, the honeyed bronze, the hammer marks, the

763
00:55:08.159 --> 00:55:11.440
<v Speaker 2>rim worn bright by thirty years of his own mournings

764
00:55:11.880 --> 00:55:16.000
<v Speaker 2>and by mornings before his. And he felt, as he

765
00:55:16.079 --> 00:55:18.559
<v Speaker 2>sometimes felt at the end of the last session of

766
00:55:18.599 --> 00:55:22.639
<v Speaker 2>the day, a great wave of quiet affection for the thing,

767
00:55:23.480 --> 00:55:28.480
<v Speaker 2>and through it, for the long chain of hands, the craftsman,

768
00:55:29.320 --> 00:55:33.840
<v Speaker 2>the teacher, the students, the hands that had built the barn,

769
00:55:34.639 --> 00:55:38.280
<v Speaker 2>the hands that had plained the floorboards, the hands that

770
00:55:38.320 --> 00:55:41.840
<v Speaker 2>had stitched the cushions and knitted his socks and hammered

771
00:55:41.840 --> 00:55:45.280
<v Speaker 2>the bowl in a mountain village a hundred years ago,

772
00:55:45.360 --> 00:55:48.920
<v Speaker 2>all of them present, all of them, in some small way,

773
00:55:49.519 --> 00:55:52.639
<v Speaker 2>in the sound that was about to rise. He struck

774
00:55:52.719 --> 00:55:56.599
<v Speaker 2>it gently and let the tone bloom one last time.

775
00:55:57.400 --> 00:56:00.320
<v Speaker 2>It filled the hall, and the candle light dark, and

776
00:56:00.400 --> 00:56:06.119
<v Speaker 2>the circle of quiet people, and it faded slowly, slowly,

777
00:56:06.880 --> 00:56:10.000
<v Speaker 2>the way the light had faded from the ridge, the

778
00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:12.960
<v Speaker 2>way the day fades from the body at the approach

779
00:56:13.000 --> 00:56:18.039
<v Speaker 2>of sleep, by degrees, without loss, without any moment you

780
00:56:18.079 --> 00:56:21.800
<v Speaker 2>could point to and say there. That is when it ended.

781
00:56:22.679 --> 00:56:26.199
<v Speaker 2>It thinned to a thread, and finer than a thread,

782
00:56:26.840 --> 00:56:30.320
<v Speaker 2>and it was gone, and the silence it left behind

783
00:56:30.639 --> 00:56:35.679
<v Speaker 2>was vast and warm and complete, a silence you could

784
00:56:35.719 --> 00:56:40.599
<v Speaker 2>wrap around yourself. One by one without a word. The

785
00:56:40.639 --> 00:56:45.239
<v Speaker 2>students rose, They bowed to a ruin, and he bowed back,

786
00:56:45.880 --> 00:56:48.480
<v Speaker 2>and they moved to the door in the soft dark,

787
00:56:48.960 --> 00:56:54.400
<v Speaker 2>putting on their shoes, murmuring their good nights. Walter paused

788
00:56:54.440 --> 00:56:56.719
<v Speaker 2>and laid his hand flat on the door frame for

789
00:56:56.800 --> 00:56:59.800
<v Speaker 2>a moment, the way one pats the shoulder of a friend,

790
00:57:00.480 --> 00:57:04.039
<v Speaker 2>and then went out into the starlight. Claire was the

791
00:57:04.119 --> 00:57:08.960
<v Speaker 2>last to leave. At the threshold, she turned and said quietly,

792
00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:13.960
<v Speaker 2>I think to night, I'll actually sleep. And Aroon said

793
00:57:14.920 --> 00:57:18.440
<v Speaker 2>sleep well, Claire, and she went down the path with

794
00:57:18.480 --> 00:57:23.239
<v Speaker 2>a small flashlight bobbing, and the light disappeared among the pines,

795
00:57:24.039 --> 00:57:27.320
<v Speaker 2>and he was alone. He did not leave the hall.

796
00:57:28.320 --> 00:57:31.519
<v Speaker 2>He snuffed two of the candles and let the third

797
00:57:31.599 --> 00:57:35.480
<v Speaker 2>burn low. He sat back down on his cushion before

798
00:57:35.519 --> 00:57:39.280
<v Speaker 2>the low table in the near dark, and he did

799
00:57:39.360 --> 00:57:43.800
<v Speaker 2>something he had done nearly every night for thirty years,

800
00:57:43.840 --> 00:57:47.719
<v Speaker 2>something no one had ever seen him do. He listened

801
00:57:47.719 --> 00:57:53.000
<v Speaker 2>to the bowl, not to its sound. The sound was gone.

802
00:57:53.280 --> 00:57:55.559
<v Speaker 2>He listened to the place where the sound had been.

803
00:57:56.920 --> 00:58:00.679
<v Speaker 2>He had discovered long ago, in the first year he

804
00:58:00.760 --> 00:58:04.719
<v Speaker 2>had the bowl, that if you sat quietly enough in

805
00:58:04.800 --> 00:58:08.920
<v Speaker 2>a quiet enough room, the resonance seemed to linger far

806
00:58:09.039 --> 00:58:12.920
<v Speaker 2>past the point where the ear could follow it. Perhaps

807
00:58:13.000 --> 00:58:17.840
<v Speaker 2>it was imagination, Perhaps it was memory, the body remembering

808
00:58:17.880 --> 00:58:21.639
<v Speaker 2>what the ear had heard. Or perhaps, as he had

809
00:58:21.679 --> 00:58:26.280
<v Speaker 2>come to believe, sound never truly ended at all. It

810
00:58:26.320 --> 00:58:32.400
<v Speaker 2>only grew finer and finer, spreading outward, thinning into the walls,

811
00:58:33.000 --> 00:58:39.239
<v Speaker 2>the floorboards, the beams, the pines, the mountain, until it

812
00:58:39.280 --> 00:58:43.920
<v Speaker 2>was everywhere and therefore inaudible, the way the whole sky

813
00:58:44.119 --> 00:58:47.360
<v Speaker 2>is invisible at noon because there is too much light

814
00:58:47.440 --> 00:58:51.559
<v Speaker 2>to see. He sat and listened to that, to the

815
00:58:51.599 --> 00:58:55.119
<v Speaker 2>echo of the echo, to the ringing of the silence,

816
00:58:55.960 --> 00:59:00.320
<v Speaker 2>to the day dissolving into stillness, until the listening and

817
00:59:00.400 --> 00:59:03.639
<v Speaker 2>the stillness were the same thing, and there was no

818
00:59:03.719 --> 00:59:06.920
<v Speaker 2>longer any difference between the bowl and the room, and

819
00:59:07.000 --> 00:59:11.639
<v Speaker 2>the night and himself. The candle burned down to its

820
00:59:11.679 --> 00:59:15.480
<v Speaker 2>pool and went out on its own, with a tiny

821
00:59:15.559 --> 00:59:19.400
<v Speaker 2>curl of smoke that he smelled more than saw bees,

822
00:59:19.480 --> 00:59:25.440
<v Speaker 2>wax and wick, a homely smell, a bedtime smell. The

823
00:59:25.519 --> 00:59:28.480
<v Speaker 2>hall was dark now except for the starlight through the

824
00:59:28.519 --> 00:59:33.360
<v Speaker 2>western windows, which laid faint, pale bars across the floor,

825
00:59:34.360 --> 00:59:38.800
<v Speaker 2>mirror images of the golden bars of morning, the full

826
00:59:38.880 --> 00:59:42.360
<v Speaker 2>circle of the day, he thought, sitting in the dark.

827
00:59:43.480 --> 00:59:47.639
<v Speaker 2>It began in light and ended in light, just a

828
00:59:47.679 --> 00:59:52.199
<v Speaker 2>different light. At last, he rose, his knees, protested mildly,

829
00:59:52.639 --> 00:59:54.800
<v Speaker 2>and he thanked them for their long service, as he

830
00:59:54.800 --> 00:59:58.239
<v Speaker 2>did most nights, Half in jest and entirely in earnest.

831
00:59:59.119 --> 01:00:02.199
<v Speaker 2>He closed and matched the windows, one by one, and

832
01:00:02.280 --> 01:00:05.599
<v Speaker 2>with each one the night sounds grew fainter, until only

833
01:00:05.639 --> 01:00:08.440
<v Speaker 2>the faintest thread of the creek remained, and then not

834
01:00:08.559 --> 01:00:12.599
<v Speaker 2>even that. He checked the stove. The fire burned low,

835
01:00:13.159 --> 01:00:16.199
<v Speaker 2>banked for the night, its coals settling into the deep

836
01:00:16.280 --> 01:00:18.960
<v Speaker 2>slow glow that would keep one ember alive until morning.

837
01:00:19.719 --> 01:00:22.880
<v Speaker 2>One ember was all he needed. One ember was all

838
01:00:22.920 --> 01:00:26.239
<v Speaker 2>he had ever needed. He took one last look around

839
01:00:26.280 --> 01:00:30.079
<v Speaker 2>the dark hall, the cushions in their circle, the blankets

840
01:00:30.119 --> 01:00:33.760
<v Speaker 2>folded on the bench, the lanterns hanging like pale moons,

841
01:00:34.400 --> 01:00:36.679
<v Speaker 2>the bowl on its red cushion at the far end,

842
01:00:37.320 --> 01:00:41.440
<v Speaker 2>invisible now, but present, more present somehow for being unseen.

843
01:00:42.239 --> 01:00:46.119
<v Speaker 2>And he bowed to the room a small bough, barely

844
01:00:46.199 --> 01:00:48.559
<v Speaker 2>more than a nod, the way one says good night

845
01:00:48.599 --> 01:00:51.440
<v Speaker 2>to an old friend across a quiet room. Then he

846
01:00:51.480 --> 01:00:55.400
<v Speaker 2>climbed the stairs. He climbed them slowly, one at a time,

847
01:00:56.039 --> 01:00:58.679
<v Speaker 2>his hand trailing along the wall, polished by all the

848
01:00:58.719 --> 01:01:01.760
<v Speaker 2>hands before his. And at the top he entered his

849
01:01:01.840 --> 01:01:05.199
<v Speaker 2>small room and closed the door. The room was cool,

850
01:01:05.800 --> 01:01:09.079
<v Speaker 2>the window open a few inches, and through the opening

851
01:01:09.159 --> 01:01:12.079
<v Speaker 2>came the night air of the mountain, washed and cold

852
01:01:12.119 --> 01:01:15.199
<v Speaker 2>and sweet with pine, and the very faint sound of

853
01:01:15.239 --> 01:01:18.920
<v Speaker 2>the wind high in the trees, that long, soft breathing

854
01:01:18.920 --> 01:01:23.039
<v Speaker 2>of the mountain, rising and falling. He folded his clothes

855
01:01:23.119 --> 01:01:28.199
<v Speaker 2>over the chair, he pulled back the wool blankets, and

856
01:01:28.280 --> 01:01:31.360
<v Speaker 2>before he got into bed, he stood for a moment

857
01:01:31.519 --> 01:01:34.880
<v Speaker 2>at the window, as he ended every day the way

858
01:01:34.880 --> 01:01:39.679
<v Speaker 2>he began it, looking out The sky over the ridge

859
01:01:40.000 --> 01:01:45.719
<v Speaker 2>was full of stars, not scattered, but poured, dense and drifty.

860
01:01:46.440 --> 01:01:49.760
<v Speaker 2>The whole pale river of the galaxy laid across the

861
01:01:49.880 --> 01:01:53.840
<v Speaker 2>night sky, from one ridge to the other, so many

862
01:01:53.880 --> 01:01:59.039
<v Speaker 2>stars that the blackness between them seemed the exception. The

863
01:01:59.079 --> 01:02:05.440
<v Speaker 2>mountain stood black beneath them, solid and sleeping somewhere far off.

864
01:02:05.960 --> 01:02:11.039
<v Speaker 2>The owl called once more, three soft notes, and was

865
01:02:11.119 --> 01:02:16.920
<v Speaker 2>answered fainter from farther up the valley. And Iran stood

866
01:02:17.559 --> 01:02:20.559
<v Speaker 2>and listened to the small exchange until it was finished,

867
01:02:21.559 --> 01:02:25.920
<v Speaker 2>and the night settled back into its enormous quiet. He

868
01:02:26.039 --> 01:02:29.840
<v Speaker 2>thought of the day behind him, the ember and the stove,

869
01:02:30.800 --> 01:02:36.239
<v Speaker 2>the mist and the pines, Claire's shoulders coming down, Walter's

870
01:02:36.280 --> 01:02:40.960
<v Speaker 2>slow smile, mirror's small finger on the warm rim of

871
01:02:41.000 --> 01:02:47.039
<v Speaker 2>the bowl, the carpenter's painless hands, the teenager's quiet I

872
01:02:47.119 --> 01:02:52.360
<v Speaker 2>might come back, the candles, the owl, the mong last

873
01:02:52.480 --> 01:02:58.239
<v Speaker 2>fading of the tone into silence. An ordinary day, thirty

874
01:02:58.320 --> 01:03:02.239
<v Speaker 2>years of ordinary days, and not one of them wasted,

875
01:03:03.000 --> 01:03:05.960
<v Speaker 2>and not one of them the same. He got into

876
01:03:05.960 --> 01:03:09.559
<v Speaker 2>bed and drew the blankets up, and the mattress received

877
01:03:09.639 --> 01:03:14.920
<v Speaker 2>him the way the earth receives rain, without comment, without resistance.

878
01:03:16.039 --> 01:03:19.199
<v Speaker 2>The room was dark and cool, and smelled faintly of

879
01:03:19.280 --> 01:03:23.239
<v Speaker 2>cedar rising up through the floorboards from the hall below,

880
01:03:24.079 --> 01:03:28.440
<v Speaker 2>where the bowl sat in the stillness on its red cushion, silent,

881
01:03:28.559 --> 01:03:32.000
<v Speaker 2>now holding its voice. The way the mountain holds the

882
01:03:32.039 --> 01:03:36.840
<v Speaker 2>morning mist, keeping it patiently for whenever it was needed. Next,

883
01:03:38.000 --> 01:03:40.920
<v Speaker 2>a Roon lay on his back and let his breathing slow.

884
01:03:41.920 --> 01:03:45.320
<v Speaker 2>He felt the days warmth still in his muscles, the

885
01:03:45.360 --> 01:03:48.400
<v Speaker 2>sun on his back from the garden, the weight of

886
01:03:48.440 --> 01:03:51.159
<v Speaker 2>the bowl, and his palm as though he had only

887
01:03:51.239 --> 01:03:54.360
<v Speaker 2>just set it down. He listened to the wind and

888
01:03:54.400 --> 01:03:56.800
<v Speaker 2>the pines until he could no longer tell it apart

889
01:03:56.800 --> 01:03:59.760
<v Speaker 2>from his own breathing, And he listened to his own

890
01:03:59.760 --> 01:04:02.719
<v Speaker 2>bath until he could no longer tell it apart from

891
01:04:02.719 --> 01:04:06.639
<v Speaker 2>the silence, and the silence up been beneath him like

892
01:04:06.760 --> 01:04:12.199
<v Speaker 2>deep warm water, and he let himself sink. Somewhere below

893
01:04:12.440 --> 01:04:15.960
<v Speaker 2>in the dark hall, The last faint resonance of the

894
01:04:16.000 --> 01:04:19.880
<v Speaker 2>evening bell faded into the wooden beams, and the beams

895
01:04:19.920 --> 01:04:22.840
<v Speaker 2>passed it to the walls, and the walls to the

896
01:04:22.880 --> 01:04:26.440
<v Speaker 2>earth beneath, and the earth to the mountain, and the

897
01:04:26.480 --> 01:04:29.800
<v Speaker 2>mountain to the night, and the night to the stars,

898
01:04:30.719 --> 01:04:32.239
<v Speaker 2>and Aaron slept