“What is wrong, Teacher? Have I made an error?”
Otake-san examined Nicholai’s face closely. “No, Nikko. There was no particular brilliance in your last two plays, but also no fault. But… how can you play while you daydream?”
“Daydream? I was not daydreaming, Teacher.”
“Were you not? Your eyes were defocused and your expression empty. In fact, you did not even look at the board while making your plays. You placed the stones while gazing out into the garden.”
Nicholai smiled and nodded. Now he understood. “Oh, I see. In fact, I just returned from resting. So, of course, I didn’t have to look at the board.”
“Explain to me, please, why you did not have to look at the board, Nikko.”
“I… ah… well, I was resting.” Nicholai could see that Otake-san did not understand, and this confused him, assuming as he did that mystic experience was common.
Otake-san sat back and took another of the mint drops that he habitually sucked to relieve pains in his stomach resulting from years of tight control under the pressures of professional play. “Now tell me what you mean when you say that you were resting.”
“I suppose ‘resting’ isn’t the correct word for it, Teacher. I don’t know what the word is. I have never heard anyone give a name to it. But you must know the sensation I mean. The departing without leaving. The… you know… the flowing into all things, and… ah… understanding all things.” Nicholai was embarrassed. The experience was too simple and basic to explain. It was as though the Teacher had asked him to explain breathing, or the scent of flowers. Nicholai was sure that Otake-san knew exactly what he meant; after all, he had only to recall his own rest times. Why did he ask these questions?
Otake-san reached out and touched Nicholai’s arm. “I know, Nikko, that this is difficult for you to explain. And I believe I understand a little of what you experience—not because I also have experienced it, but because I have read of it, for it has always attracted my curiosity. It is called mysticism.”
Nicholai laughed. “Mysticism! But surely, Teacher—”
“Have you ever talked to anyone about this… how did you phrase it?… ‘departing without leaving’?”
“Well… no. Why would anyone talk about it?”
“Not even our good friend Kishikawa-san?”
“No, Teacher. It never came up. I don’t understand why you are asking me these questions. I am confused. And I am beginning to feel shame.”
Otake-san pressed his arm. “No, no. Don’t feel shame. Don’t be frightened. You see, Nikko, what you experience… what you call ‘resting’… is not very common. Few people experience these things, except in a light and partial way when they are very young. This experience is what saintly men strive to achieve through discipline and meditation, and foolish men seek through drugs. Throughout all ages and in all cultures, a certain fortunate few have been able to gain this state of calm and oneness with nature (I use these words to describe it because they are the words I have read) without years of rigid discipline. Evidently, it comes to them quite naturally, quite simply. Such people are called mystics. It is an unfortunate label because it carries connotations of religion and magic about it. In fact, all the words used to describe this experience are rather theatrical. What you call ‘a rest,’ others call ecstasy.”
Nicholai grinned uncomfortably at this word. How could the most real thing in the world be called mysticism? How could the quietest emotion imaginable be called ecstasy?
“You smile at the word, Nikko. But surely the experience is pleasurable, is it not?”
“Pleasurable? I never thought of it that way. It is… necessary.”
“Necessary?”
“Well, how would one live day in and day out without times of rest?”
Otake-san smiled. “Some of us are required to struggle along without such rest.”
“Excuse me, Teacher. But I can’t imagine a life like that. What would be the point of living a life like that?”
Otake-san nodded. He had found in his reading that mystics regularly reported an inability to understand people who lack the mystic gift. He felt a bit uneasy when he recalled that when mystics lose their gift—and most of them do at some time or other—they experience panic and deep depression. Some retreat into religion to rediscover the experience through the mechanics of meditation. Some even commit suicide, so pointless does life without mystic transport seem.
“Nikko? I have always been intensely curious about mysticism, so please permit me to ask you questions about this ‘rest’ of yours. In my readings, mystics who report their transports always use such gossamer terms, so many seeming contradictions, so many poetic paradoxes. It is as though they were attempting to describe something too complicated to be expressed in words.”
“Or too simple, sir.”
“Yes. Perhaps that is it. Too simple.” Otake-san pressed his fist against his chest to relieve the pressure and took another mint drop. “Tell me. How long have you had these experiences?”
“Always.”
“Since you were a baby?”
“Always.”
“I see. And how long do these experiences last?”
“It doesn’t matter, Teacher. There is not time there.”
“It is timeless?”
“No. There is neither time nor timelessness.”
Otake-san smiled and shook his head. “Am I to have the gossamer terms and the poetic paradoxes from you as well?”
Nicholai realized that these bracketing oxymorons made that which was infinitely simple seem chaotic, but he didn’t know how to express himself with the clumsy tools of words.
Otake-san came to his aid. “So you are saying that you have no sense of time during these experiences. You do not know how long they last?”
“I know exactly how long they last, sir. When I depart, I don’t leave. I am where my body is, as well as everywhere else. I am not daydreaming. Sometimes the rest lasts a minute or two. Sometimes it lasts hours. It lasts for as long as it is needed.”
“And do they come often, these… rests?”
“This varies. Twice or three times a day at most. But sometimes I go a month without a rest. When this happens, I miss them very much. I become frightened that they may never come back.”
“Can you bring one of these rest periods on at will?”
“No. But I can block them. And I must be careful not to block them away, if I need one.”
“How can you block them away?”
“By being angry. Or by hating.”
“You can’t have this experience if you hate?”
“How could I? The rest is the very opposite of hate.”
“Is it love, then?”
“Love is what it might be, if it concerned people. But it doesn’t concern people.”
“What does it concern?”
“Everything. Me. Those two are the same. When I am resting, everything and I are… I don’t know how to explain.”
“You become one with everything?”
“Yes. No, not exactly. I don’t become one with everything. I return to being one with everything. Do you know what I mean?”
“I am trying to. Please take this ‘rest’ you experienced a short time ago, while we were playing. Describe to me what happened.”
Nicholai lifted his palms helplessly. “How can I do that?”
“Try. Begin with: we were playing, and you had just placed stone fifty-six… and… Go on.”
“It was stone fifty-eight, Teacher.”
“Well, fifty-eight then. And what happened?”
“Well… the flow of the play was just right, and it began to bring me to the meadow. It always begins with some kind of flowing motion… a stream or river, maybe the wind making waves in a field of ripe rice, the glitter of leaves moving in a breeze, clouds flowing by. And for me, if the structure of the Gô stones is flowing classically, that too can bring me to the meadow.”
“The meadow?”
“Yes. That’s the place I expand into. It’s how I recognize that I am resting.”