Tanjin and the Deck of Cards

He was early – he’d made sure of that. He wanted to be there long before his adviser arrived at mid-afternoon, whenever that was. Tanjin dropped his small pack and squatted on the large, flat rock at the edge of the swimming hole. The midday sun filtered through the summer leaves, shafts falling around him in the cool, quiet shade. He pulled a bottle of water from his pack and drank from it as he gently settled into the scene.

He took off his straw hat and ran a hand through his close-cropped brown hair, fluffing it against the sweat that had accumulated during his hike. Dragonflies, water skeeters and other insects buzzed and darted across the water and through the shade. He could hear the tumble of water from downstream where it slipped over a natural rock shelf and ran fast along the back of Grander’s farm.

He finished sating his thirst and sat down cross-legged on the rock. He pulled out a deck of playing cards and began to shuffle. As with most practices taught to him by Adviser Kujat, this one revolved around a particular question: "How can i tell when the deck is ready?" Tanjin set the question turning in his mind like a mantra as the cards swished and swashed in a rhythmic pattern. How can I tell… How can I tell… How can I tell? A pair of birds chased each other through the trees in fits and starts, leap-frogging with chits and chatters. In their wake, the buzzing stillness bloomed like a sweet-smelling flower. His meditation deepened.

After a while, Tanjin stopped and held the deck out before him. He scanned it, imagining it was a rectangular crystal, trying to see how clear or cloudy it was. Hmm. Somewhat cloudy but still translucent… perhaps. He shifted focus to his energy field. Since the deck was in his hand, it was inside his field. He should be able to sense what state it was in, how clear or blocked it was. Hmm. Somewhat slow-going but still fairly passable… perhaps. He wondered how else he could detect readiness. Hmm. He began shuffling again.

After a few minutes he stopped and checked the deck again. Hmm. It felt different from before, much darker/thicker/more dense. He went back to shuffling. After a few minutes he stopped and checked again. This went on for a while and he began to notice that it wasn’t just the deck-as-a-whole that changed, but that different parts became clearer and muddier over time. What if he was sensing the rightness of each card? What if the ones that his energy and sight-sense could pass through were in the right place for a winning hand and the other ones weren’t? Hmm. He kept shuffling.

A timeless amount of time later, he stopped and looked at the deck. What about now? He had no idea. He couldn’t tell anymore. His sensing was getting tired. Perhaps he should just deal. He laid out a hand of demon solitaire and went to work. Before he’d even begun to work through the stock he had two aces up and a few tableau piles well on their way. The fast pace continued and the hand soon ended, making it his easiest and quickest win ever. Hmm.

He drank some more water, picked up the cards and went back to shuffling, periodically stopping to sense their state. The buzz and hum, the sun and shade, the baking stillness of early afternoon all made it easy to settle back into reverie. He watched as the clear and opaque sections shifted, expanding and contracting, splitting and merging, moving back and forth. Some time later he stopped and looked more deeply at the deck.

It felt almost, but not quite, ready. It was clear except for a couple cards near the middle of the deck. Hmm. Deal or continue shuffling? He was feeling a little tired of shuffling. Perhaps he could test his sensing by losing the hand as much as he could by winning it. He laid it out and started down the path of moving cards that turned and twisted through the deck. He found the way to be fairly simple and clear-cut. Cards kept moving, one on top of another, in fairly rapid succession… until the end when he was left with the queen of spades and the nine of hearts buried under the jack of hearts. Hmm. So close….

He put the cards down, stood up and stretched. He went to a tree a ways back from the water and began relieving himself. His thoughts meandered back to the cards. He’d been expecting the deck’s readiness to feel somehow spectacular, as if the deck were shouting "I’M READY!", but he was finding it to be more like a simple emptiness, a lack of shadow or hindrance. The deck seemed to be ready when there was simply nothing to notice. Hmm

He finished watering the tree, tucked himself back into his shorts and returned to the rock. Looking at the position of the sun, he figured Kujat would arrive sometime soonish or so. He drank some more water and laid down on his back on the cool rock. The canopy above him shimmered in shades of green in the soft breeze. He let his eyes unfocus. The canopy became a shifting melange of color and shape. He dropped into a slightly-altered state and awaited the arrival of his adviser.

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