[semi-open post: It's a kindness that the mind can go where it wishes]

[greentara]

Dark is winding its way to an end but Constance has been tolerating it well enough. She is used to eating sparingly and spending long amounts of time indoors, getting lost in threads of research and exploring the corners of the mansion. Having discovered three wooden crates filled with interesting looking papers, she promptly moved them into the room she has co-opted as a meditation room, not wanting to either lose them or bring any dust or debris into her own room.

The room is small and sparse, lit with a small brazier and a handful of candles. There are tatami mats covering the floor, bordered in a light green color that complements the cream wallpaper. A small wooden table holds some meditation supplies and a Tibetan mandala hangs on the wall but otherwise there isn't much else. Some marks on one of the wooden columns indicate that knife practice has also been an occupation of this room.

The brazier is lit and Constance unwittingly has a piece of cobweb stuck in her hair at the moment as she sifts through a handful of papers.

Comments

[greentara]

"It's a three dimensional mnemonic device. An example of a mnemonic device would be Every Good Boy Does Fine, for the lines of a treble clef. E, G, B, D, and F. Each letter represents a line. However, with a memory palace, you envision a familiar home or a room you know quite well and every memory or factoid is associated with a physical item in the room."

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad considers his field of wheat, and how when he meditates it is always the same: how he gathers the stalks into bundles when he wants to clear his mind, or watches the qi-fish flow through it when he wants to think about the connectedness of things. Constance is talking about replacing that field with a room of objects. "It assists your memory of the world?"

[greentara]

"Yes. The ancient Greeks and Romans used a simple method of loci along a path when they needed to remember a list of words or names. It is purposeful meditation rather than calming meditation."

[onthewillowsthere]

Purposeful, because either one is retrieving an object set inside the room of the memory or placing it.

"Is the method of reaching it very different from Hanguang-jun's?"

[greentara]

"It can be. I believe -- Hanguang-jun is it?¹ -- and I have similar meditation practices, though mine is a Tibetan branch of Buddhism."

¹Constance is well aware that Hanguang-jun is an honorific title, but this is her first time hearing it out loud.

[onthewillowsthere]

"That is another kind of religion?"

[greentara]

"Buddhism is the overarching region, but it developed differently in the two countries, Tibet and China. Not to mention the fraught geopolitical history between the two. Suffice it to say, it's similar enough."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I understand," he says, already resolving to look up the geopolitical history of Tibet and China the next time he goes to the library. "The meditation is similar, but distinct."

[greentara]

"Precisely. I believe he will be a good student." There's a wry note to this. Constance is well aware that Lan Wangji is typically the teacher.

[onthewillowsthere]

"He is focused," Galahad agrees, taking her at face value.