Heaven's Net Is Wide Lian Hearn (leveled readers .TXT) 📖

was lighter. He could make out the shape of the hut, the trees beyond Matsuda’s figure sitting above him. He could not help thinking of the morning meal: his mouth filled suddenly with water. In Hagi, at this moment, the kitchens would be coming to life, the fires stoked, the soup boiling, the cooks slicing vegetables, the maids preparing tea: the whole army of servants that maintained the life he led would be awake, working deftly, silently. All his life he had been able to command them: even in times of famine, after natural disasters such as typhoons, droughts, or earthquakes when many in the Middle Country had starved, he had not gone hungry. Now he had given all that away: he had become like one of them, dependent entirely on the will of another. He trusted Matsuda: he believed the old man could teach him many things he needed to know. He submitted his reluctant will to the master’s, let the thoughts of food float into his mind and float out again, breathed in, breathed out. His mind stilled, like a green horse that finally accepts that all its bucking and rearing will not unseat the rider. He saw how all desires, all longings, can be either indulged or allowed to dissipate. He grasped what the master meant about choice. In the stillness came a sense of his spirit, a wave on the surface of the ocean; calm flooded over him, together with compassion for all beings, compassion for himself, reverence and love for Matsuda.

A sudden warmth struck him as the sun cleared the high peaks around them. Shigeru opened his eyes involuntarily and saw that Matsuda was looking at him.

“Fine,” the old man said. “Now we will eat.”

Shigeru stood, ignoring his cramped legs, and went into the hut. He took the pot to the spring and filled it with water, fetched wood and built up the fire; when the smoke had dissipated-like desire, he thought-and the flame glowed strong and clear, he set the water above it to boil. He took the bedding and spread it in the sun to air, trying to copy Matsuda’s way of doing such things, his deftness and economy of movement. Something of the hours of meditation colored his actions, giving him single-mindedness and concentration.

Matsuda stepped into his sandals and beckoned to Shigeru. “We’ll see what the forest has for us this morning!”

He took a small basket and a digging tool, a sharp blade set into a curved wooden handle, and they walked up the path toward the west, the sun warm on their backs. The track curved between huge rocks for a while, and the climb was steep, but eventually the ground leveled again, and a clearing opened up in front of them. Here grew cedars, cypress, and spruce, but on the edges of the clearing, ferns were starting to push through the forest floor, their heads curved in snaillike spirals. Matsuda showed Shigeru how to cut the tenderest ones; then they walked through the forest until they came to a small upland pool. It was full of birds, heron, duck, and teal that took off at their approach with harsh cries. Round the edge grew wild lotus and burdock. Matsuda pulled the lotus from the water for its succulent roots and dug the burdock from the soft ground. Its roots were long and thin, the flesh white beneath the dark, fibrous skin.

It was too early in the year for mushrooms or yams, but on their way back they found fresh sorrel leaves and the new green foliage of hawthorn bushes. Matsuda ate this as they walked, and Shigeru copied him; the taste vividly recalled his childhood.

The burdock they peeled and left to soak, but the rest of the harvest formed the morning meal, boiled in soup. Matsuda poured dry rice grains into the remains of the soup and put it aside to swell. Then he told Shigeru to practice the warm-up exercises he had been studying at the temple. “With an empty mind,” he added.

The food and the sun’s warmth had brought the sleep-demon closer. Shigeru strove to drive it away as he went through the routine, thinking of the other boys at the temple, wondering if they were doing the same exercises at that moment with minds far emptier than his. But there was something about the exercises, he realized, that worked with the meditation, that enhanced it. In the same way that exercising the muscles of his mind had shown him how to control his thoughts, so using the body’s muscles brought control of mind and body together. Tiredness disappeared; in its place came anticipation and an alert calmness.

He had been moving at the measured pace he had been taught at the temple, each exercise recalled almost unconsciously as one movement followed another. He found that here in the lonely forest the impatience he had felt at the temple disappeared. He thought he had practiced diligently before, but he could see now how far he had fallen short, how divided and weak his attention had been, how his own self-pride had slowed and blinded him. He watched his breath flow in and out as each exercise was executed, and felt how the sun, the air, the ground beneath his feet seemed to follow the breath and flow through him. The world around him was ready to share its power with him-its energy, lightness, steadiness. He simply had to accept the gifts and draw on them.

“Good,” Matsuda said. “The teachers at the temple were worried that you lacked concentration-your father’s greatest weakness, I’m afraid-but I think we will prove them wrong. Tie up your robe-we are going to move a little faster now.”

“Shall I bring the poles,” Shigeru started to ask, but Matsuda held up one hand.

“When you’re ready for the poles, I’ll tell you to bring them.”

His own robe hitched up, the old man stood in front of Shigeru, his feet planted firmly on the sandy ground.

“Watch carefully.”

The movement