Tenzo had been taught that the cobra coiled through the roots of the Whisperroot tree was a test, and for six years of meditation beneath its shadow, he had treated it as exactly that — something to be endured, outlasted, proven unafraid of.
It was only in his seventh year, seated on the single lotus that bloomed at the tree’s base regardless of season, that he understood he had been asking the wrong question the entire time.
The cobra unwound from the branches above him slowly, the way it always did at the deepest hour of his sitting, its great golden hood spreading to block what little moonlight reached the grove. He felt the old fear rise — familiar now, almost comfortable — and, for the first time, simply let it pass through him without reaching for calm on the other side of it.
“You’ve stopped fighting to be still,” the serpent said. Its voice was softer than he expected, almost amused. “Six years, and you finally noticed I was never testing your courage.”
“Then what were you testing?”
“Whether you would ever stop performing peace long enough to actually find it.” The great hood lowered, level with his face for the first time in all those years. “Most who sit here leave before they learn the difference. You very nearly did too.”
Tenzo said nothing. There was nothing that needed saying. He simply sat, the fear and the stillness both present at once and no longer wrestling each other for space, while the cobra settled back into the roots of a tree that had apparently been waiting seven years for exactly this silence.