At the edge of a lakeside meadow, a single dark brown bench sits facing the water. On the left, a tree that has shed all its leaves stretches its branches out over the bench, and on a distant mountainside fog hangs, half erasing a transmission tower. It is a morning with the sun low in the sky. The surface of the water takes in the pale blue of the sky, and five yellow buoys float scattered across it.
If you rest your eyes at about the height of the backrest planks, your gaze settles on its own along the long line of the far shore. Through the soles of your feet, the coolness of grass that soaked up dew all night rises through the soles of your shoes, and the two hands on your knees let go of a little of the grip they had been holding. Your shoulders come down a hand's width from your ears.
When you see an empty bench, it feels as if someone will come along soon and you find yourself wanting to step aside for no reason, and it is the mind that believes even resting requires someone's permission that pulls the body one step back like that. The bench knows nothing of such matters.
Three minutes is enough. Sit down around the middle of the seat, choose just one buoy, the yellow one closest to you among the five, and try seeing off with your eyes the small ripples that brush past it. The ripples reach the buoy, part for a moment, and then join again behind it.
If your eyes lose one as they follow it, another ripple soon rolls in. It is fine to miss it.
In the evening, when you put water on for ramyeon and watch the first air bubbles break away from the bottom of the pot and rise, you can use the same eyes. The flame of the gas stove is blue, and the bubbles rise one or two at first, then soon grow too many to count. Meanwhile, just notice how far below your navel the breath you take in goes, only that depth.
When the sun climbs a little higher, the shadows of the thin branches of the tree on the left cross over the empty seat one strand at a time.
