Night Boat. Alan Spence

but gradually getting louder, more confident.

      Mu.

      Not from the throat, the priest shouted. From the belly!

      I started to join in, my own voice strange to me, getting stronger with every chant.

      Mu.

      It filled my head with light, radiated from my heart, growled and rumbled at the navel.

      Mu.

      It swelled in the room till there was nothing but the sound. Nothing but. The sound. Nothing. But the sound.

      Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

      Mu.

      The bell clanged and the chanting stopped, and the silence that filled the room was profound.

      The sesshin lasted six days. The same regime, long periods of sitting interspersed with walking, chanting and koan, physical labour – helping in the kitchen or sweeping the floors or digging the garden, all done in concentrated silence, and twice a day the sparse rations, the rice and vegetables served with devotion and eaten with gratitude.

      Once the priest looked up as the meagre portions were dished out.

      No work, no food, he said. Eat what you have earned.

      On the last day he stopped walking the length of the room. He put aside the keisaku stick and bowed to us. The gesture was eloquent. It said he could do no more for us. Our realisation was our own responsibility.

      We sat on as the day darkened towards evening. The priest began intoning the Heart of Wisdom Sutra. Hannya Haramita Shingyo. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.

      The bell clanged one final time and the sesshin was over. The monks who had served the food went round the room, pouring tea into each bowl. I blew on my tea to cool it, then sipped it, savouring its green tang, sharp and bitter and good.

      For a time nobody made a move to leave. Then one by one the older monks stood up and moved towards the open door, and the rest of us followed, out into the night.

      Some made towards the bathhouse, joined the queue to soak in a hot tub. To ease the ache in tired legs, clenched shoulders – that too would be good. But I kept walking.

      One old monk stood absolutely still in the centre of the courtyard, looking up at the night sky through the branches of an ancient pine tree. Another sat in the graveyard, back straight, eyes closed.

      I walked round the courtyard, breathed the cool night air. I stopped by the gate, stood gazing at the patterns weathered into the old, dark wood with its knots and sworls, its landscapes. The big, heavy wooden bolt had been slid shut. I slid it open and stepped outside, looked up. The sky was clear, the bright stars high and far. Worlds. Worlds away. Away in that infinite vastness, but also here, in this heart of mine. Vastness and brightness. Here.

      After the intensity of the sesshin a great emptiness overwhelmed me. I no longer recognised myself, but the head priest assured me this was no bad thing.

      What is this self you want to recognise? he said. And who are you that wants to recognise it?

      When Yotsugi-san sent another message, inviting me to visit him at his home once more, I was numbed. I did not know what to do.

      The priest read Yotsugi-san’s letter.

      This merchant, he said, is a benefactor of the temple. He has made a substantial donation.

      He turned the letter between forefinger and thumb, examined it as if it might have a secret to reveal.

      However, he said, and he paused. There is the daughter.

      The silence he left extended endlessly, a silence to be endured as my face burned and sweat trickled down my back.

      Is the merchant simply extending his patronage? Or is he looking for a son-in-law?

      Perhaps, he continued at last, you should meditate further on the koan I used during sesshin. The old woman burns down the monk’s hut.

      Embrace him, the old woman had said, then ask him, What now?

      What now?

      So it really had been directed at me. And once you became a monk, everything, everything, was a koan.

      I walked the same road to the Yotsugi residence. I even saw the same dog. But everything was different. Now I knew this was my koan.

      Yotsugi-san welcomed me warmly, asked politely how the sesshin had gone. I stared at him, found words.

      It has been a time of great . . . intensity.

      Intensity is good in a young man, he said. So too is . . . lightness.

      I truly did not know what to say. My tongue was useless, a heavy clapper in the great dull bell of my skull, unable to make a sound.

      Just as before, the shoji screen opened a fraction and the two young women stepped into the room, set down the teapot and bowls, the utensils of chanoyu, then the heavier tray with the stove, the iron kettle. Just as before, the two women backed out, bowing, like players in kabuki or noh.

      The screen slid closed and I sat staring at it. I knew what came next but still I was not prepared. It opened again with a swish, and she was there, in the room, bowing and kneeling on the tatami and just as before I felt as if I had been punched in the chest and I gulped in air.

      She was there in front of me, just as before, but this time the kimono was deep red silk shot through with purple.

      Hana.

      The smell of her, her own scent overlaid with jasmine. Sheen of glossy black hair, swept up.

      She was actually there, utterly herself. Just as before.

      Ekaku-san, she said, bowing again, hands folded. Welcome back to our home.

      My own hands felt clumsy as I brought them together in gassho. My face burned, as red as her kimono.

      Thank you, I heard myself say. It is a great honour to be here.

      So.

      Just as before.

      The faintest smile lingered at the corners of her red, red mouth as she looked down and busied herself with the tea powder and the bamboo spoon, the boiling water, the whisk.

      I had no small talk whatsoever. Language had left me.

      Her father intervened.

      This incense is called Spring Snow, he said. I think it is particularly fine.

      Particularly, I said, and could say not one word more.

      The boiling water poured on the powdered leaves. The tea whisked to bright froth. The deftness of movement. I was mesmerised.

      Ekaku-san was telling me, said her father, about his experience of sesshin. He spoke of its great . . . intensity.

      Yes, I said, rallying. It was most . . . intense.

      Perhaps you could tell us more, he said.

      Much of it, I said, is beyond words.

      As are a great many things, said Hana, handing me the bowl.

      This time I made a point of taking it carefully, mindful of my great clumsy hands. But this time, it was quite deliberate, she let her fingers touch mine, held them there a moment, just long enough.

      I ventured the opinion, said her father, voice droning, that intensity was admirable, but perhaps it had to be