ISAT ON THE PORCH of my kuti, struggling for the calm of that dangerous and elusive samadhi. But meditation was thwarted by my constant violation of the first precept. I murdered mosquitoes. The Ajahn said don’t kill them. Just brush them away. They whined around my ears searching for new sites to drill, as persistent and distracting as my thoughts. I gave my head a good clout, and flailed as if I was swatting bats. I contemplated the meaning of that vicious swipe. It felt like self defence. But if a mosquito has already begun to bite, the poison is already under the skin. Killing won’t reduce the itch that follows. In fact, since the bug slurps up much of the juice it has injected, it’s actually less painful to let her finish once she has begun. And the sting often hurts less than the self-inflicted slap. It makes far more sense to let her bite and be done.
A mosquito landed on my thumb. Instinctively my hand raised for the kill, but I checked the blow and watched the hungry insect probe my skin, searching for a soft place to penetrate. Poor bug, I thought. Perhaps you are driven by blind forces and accumulated kamma from past lives to search for blood. I give you permission to take a drop from me. I felt the familiar sting, and fought my reflex to squash. Panic arose as I watched her fill her belly. Everybody knows mosquitoes are cunning, malicious darts of the devil, devised for human torture. Let one bite you and it will breed a million more. Ecology and theology cry out against giving permission for one to bite you. Yet permitting destroyed my perception of evil in its intent. It defused my anger. I had not realized I was angry—at an insect. I had always believed mosquitoes bite in order to irritate. That is why they always land on hard-to-reach spots between the shoulder blades or cunningly bite feet and fingers in the dark. They know when a human has both hands full and is unable to retaliate. I believed all this. My upraised arm against the pests was an instrument of just vengeance upon them. The one on my thumb finished feeding, pulled out its proboscis and, heavy with red blood in its belly, flew away. It left a little white swelling on my skin. Ruk said if you love mosquitoes, they won’t bite you. You can learn from them.
Mid-morning, the most difficult time of day to meditate, I would return to my kuti after the daily meal and sit on my porch. A light breeze soon brought the mosquitoes. Gradually I learned to tolerate being bitten one at a time. But the greedy insects preferred to descend in droves, driving me indoors and under the shelter of my mosquito net. The net protected us from each other. Then the sun heated up the tin roof like an oven. Sitting made my head broil. The only bearable posture was lying down. The heaviness of sticky rice and mangos would overcome me and I would doze until the afternoon bell rang for coffee break. The only solution was walking meditation. Although my runway was exposed to the searing sun, which often forced me to cover my bald head, at least the air outside was cooler. Mosquitoes swarmed around me, but if I kept my pace brisk, few of them could land. Often my legs would falter as my stomach struggled to digest the heavy meal. I would slow and stumble. Only the mosquitoes spurred me forward. My mind wandered once it grew accustomed to the pacing routine. It began to rebel against meditation. It led me into a world of fantasies about my future. I dwelt on my desires to teach and to write, and designed whole courses of Buddhist philosophy in my head as I dragged myself back and forth beside my hut in the jungle. Preoccupation slowed my stride. The only thing which drew me back to the present were the sudden stings on my feet or neck. My hand would jerk in response, seldom able to stop itself for the sake of my vows. I had no gratitude.
Once, while staggering through my morning walking, a mosquito landed on my forehead and I was able to hold my arms to my sides while she ate. I gave her permission. Another suddenly bored into my ankle. It irritated me that she couldn’t at least wait until her sister had finished. Two at a time was hard to tolerate. Then I noticed that while concentrating on the ankle biter, the sensation of the head biter’s sting disappeared. The moment I thought of this, I could feel the itching on my scalp, but the ankle bite faded. I could only be aware of one sensation at a time.
It seems awareness functions like a radio. There are millions of stations we can tune in to, but only one channel can be played at a time. The Buddha taught that the dial of this radio is in the grip of the monkey mind, which cranks it around and around, twiddling from frequency to frequency. The radio plays a jumble of disconnected noises, part of a word, then static, a note of a song. This is the normal state of human awareness. The listening consciousness screens out most of this jumble, selecting fragments here and there across the band. From these it fashions human thought, like an archaeologist reconstructing an ancient civilization from a few fragments of bone and pottery. This is how we build our reality. All that we perceive is real, but we never stay tuned to a single frequency long enough to listen to it. With a few blips and random notes we create songs in our mind, filling in gaps on the basis of our memories of previous tunes. Our past experience constructs our present. It imposes overwhelming interpretations on the random signals we receive through our awareness. Like the nuclear model of the atom, our reality is composed almost entirely out of empty space.
The Buddha called the mental structures we make from our past sankharas, the formations of kamma which we take with us from life to life. They are the objects of our thoughts, our conceptual building blocks, our words. They range from physical things like chairs and tables to abstract things like mathematics and our desires. Conscious activity is the arrangement of these building blocks into various patterns. They are the flow of words in our heads. But kammic formations arise within us as a product of the past, not of the present. When we are aware of our thoughts we are aware of something which is different from the reality of the present. Meditation directs awareness away from kammic formations towards more subtle frequencies. It stills the monkey’s hand to focus on what was previously only a blip on the turning dial. When this happens, thoughts disappear. One can only be aware of one thing at a time. Focusing awareness on the sensation of breathing excludes thought. Deeper into meditation, even awareness of breathing disappears; the sensation becomes too subtle to be defined as an event. One sits in empty silence as awareness holds steady on that single frequency. Then, so the Buddhist sages say, without thoughts arising, the awareness vibrates with a music unlike anything created by our kamma. It is fresh with the present. If meditation has a goal, it is to gain this direct contact with reality.
After the drink, the Ajahn tells us today is sweeping day. Monks, novices, pakhaos, laymen and guests, all of us take bamboo brooms with stiff straw bundles tied to the ends and sweep the sandy compound area. We sweep down the trail behind the sala to the robe-dyeing shed and through the winding paths in the jungle that lead to each solitary hut. Even the Ajahn sweeps alongside us—sweeping leaves, big broad jungle leaves, little red and black berries fallen from the trees, small twigs and lengths of creepers brought down by yesterday’s storm. Fifteen men, sweeping leaves, sweeping leaves in silence, sweeping leaves with mindfulness, the task a tool for meditation, as we sweep to clear our mind of thoughts, as we sweep to clear the path of leaves. Sweeping leaves, sweeping leaves. “What are you sweeping?” said the silent voice.
“Leaves.”
“What are leaves?”
“Leaves, I know them now,” I answered. “They are the product of my kammic formations, moulded from a few grasped snatches of the past while my monkey mind twitches the dial. Born into thought, their true nature is unknown to me. That which they are is covered by the shape of the leaves.”
“And where are all the leaves you have swept?”
“In the forest.”
“No. They arose as your kammic formations, they dwell in your mind as kammic formations. For this reason when you put your broom away, you will still be sweeping leaves. Tonight when you sleep you will dream these leaves again. The song you have written will play on. These are your memories which you sweep. You have called them to life, so they will return again. You have called them up from a fragment of awareness, a brief fluxion perceived in an instant, covered now by a carpet of that which you label leaves. A pure and vibrating fluxion lies beneath the illusion you have created. Some instant passed when you grasped that fluxion, when it fluttered in your awareness. . . .”
“And if I can learn to attend fully to that flutter, to that which sparked the first thought ‘leaf’?”
“Then no kammic formations will arise. Then there will be no memory.”
“Then, how will I remember it? What will I learn? How can there be learning without memory?”
“Perhaps there is not.”
“What will there be?”
“Only the un-sweeping of unleaves called leaves.”
“And when I finish un-sweeping sweeping, will the unleaves called leaves return to haunt my dreams?”
“No. They will stay in the forest.”
People come, people go. Our community in Wat Pah Nanachat is in constant flux. Only the robes remain the same. Mr. Chicago left for Bangkok. Pakhao Michael will soon travel to Malaysia for a visa renewal and a holiday. The British novice Edgar disappeared some time ago. The other laymen have all left to continue their travels except little Herbie, who looks glum because Michael is going. But new laymen have arrived and Pakhao Mark has become ordained as a novice. He dyed his white robes ochre. All our monks went over to Wat Pah Pong for the ordination ceremony. It required twenty monks and a bot—special ordination temple—for the ritual. Pah Nanachat didn’t have enough bhikkhus, and our new bot was still under construction. Those of us further down the hierarchy were not invited to attend. We simply watched Mark leave in his white robes. He returned later in the evening wearing dusty yellow. He was wrapped so tightly it looked as if he was wearing a shroud with only his skinny, skeletal head poking out of the top.
“So do you feel any closer to nibbana?” I asked him.
“Don’t feel any different at all,” Mark said.
“Then why did you do it?”
“Just the right time for it, I guess. What I really get out of this place is the feeling of community. I’ve always been a lone wolf. I’ve never lived at close quarters with other people if I could avoid it. It’s good for me here. There’s respect for each other in this community, not like back home in New Zealand. I suppose I was ordained because I wanted to participate in it more fully.” Mark sat in Edgar’s old place at mealtime.
A new Englishman arrived, a middle-aged man named Percy who seemed as eccentric as the novice who had vanished. Percy had close-set eyes and hair which was greying without distinction. He combed it forward, less to hide the thinning on top than to create a bit of the “mod” look which went out of fashion fifteen years ago. He wore new blue jeans low on his hips so that his belly was not constricted. There was a slightly self-conscious limp in his walk which he habitually tried to turn into a saunter without ever achieving the desired effect. Percy spoke with the kind of British accent that makes me feel the speaker is pulling a tremendously funny joke, seeing how far he can carry it. It was the kind of earnest voice which describes the battle of harvesting last season’s radish crop in minute detail. I always waited for the punch line. It never came. Percy told me he was perfectly keen on Buddhism. I could not believe that he was not in a London suburb, raking fertilizer into a shabby lawn which would never grow anything but weeds. He seemed a born fusser, a putterer always at odds with the garden shears, someone for whom the world would never co-operate. I wanted to ask him what he was doing here, so far away from his dying begonias. The question came out a little more civilly.
“Why did you decide to come to Pah Nanachat, Percy?”
“I thought it would be a good place to learn Buddhism. I’m frightfully keen on doing meditation, you see.”
“Have you practised vipassana before?”
“Vipassana? Is that how you say it? It’s the one with the breathing, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“I haven’t actually done it yet, not vipassana.”
“Have you done other kinds of meditation?”
“Not much. Not really. No. Perhaps you can tell me a bit about it, then?”
“I just got here a week ago myself. You should talk with the Ajahn if you want instruction.”
“But you’ve done it before, haven’t you? Meditated?”
“I was in a Tibetan monastery for three months last summer, in Ladakh.”
“Ah yes, Ladakh, Ladakh. And where is Ladakh?”
“India. Near the mountains in the north.”
“That would be the Himalayas then, wouldn’t it?”
I nodded.
“It sounds frightfully interesting. Did you go to Bombay too?”
“Bombay?”
“It’s a city in India.”
“I know.”
“Then you’ve been there?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Have you been there, Percy?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“But I’ve met people who have. They are all frightfully keen on it.”
Do not speak unless you can improve on silence, said a Buddhist sage.
I watched Percy sit during group meditation next morning. His legs were bad. I could tell he was in pain. They stuck out in front of him, barely crossed in a posture a Thai would think definitely rude. His kneeling was even worse. He couldn’t seem to bend his knees past ninety degrees. Instead of resting his weight back on his feet, he teetered crookedly upward from the waist, hunching over a little to the side, looking like a broken jack-in-the-box. It must have been excruciating. His bow was little more than a flop on his face. I looked graceful by comparison.
When meditation was finished and the monks had left for their morning alms round, I went to the back of the kitchen to find a sturdy broom. After the first sweeping day, the Ajahn had made it known that it was the responsibility of guests and laymen to sweep the compound area every morning. He said it keeps us out of trouble while the monks are away on bindabat and helps keep the place looking orderly. I resented this at first. Early morning was my favourite time for walking meditation. To thoroughly sweep the compound often took longer than alms round. Every activity should be a meditation, they said. Renunciation is the road to liberation, they said. Scorpions lived under the leaves, they said. I started sweeping.
I watched Percy grapple with his broom. He had chosen the scrawniest, spindliest one for the job. His sweeping was little more than ineffectual scratching in the sand. He made pathetic little jabs at the leaves, as if trying to nudge each one individually off the path. The ground he swept remained strewn with leaves, twigs and berries. I watched as he swept right over the top of them.
“I suppose that should do for today,” he said as I approached him. He put his broom up and mopped his barely wet brow.
“We should do the road too, Percy, at least some of it. There’s a lot of leaves,” I said, not breaking my own sweeping rhythm. For some reason Percy felt I was in charge. Nobody else paid much attention to him. I remembered my own isolation when I had arrived so few days ago. To Percy, I must have appeared to be a permanent part of the community. I knew the rules.
“Yes, I see. So it’s the road then, is it? Mustn’t forget the road, I suppose. Yes, all right. Well, I’ll go over there and start, since it must be done.” He headed down the gravel pathway gloomily.
“Remember, Percy, the Ajahn wants the leaves swept up into piles in the centre, then carried to the side and dumped. Don’t sweep from the middle out.”
“Of course not. Piles in the centre, then carry to the side. Can you tell me, why is that?”
“Otherwise, all the gravel will end up in the jungle.” I quoted the Ajahn.
“Well, we certainly wouldn’t want that, would we?”
I looked at him sharply, searching for just a hint of sarcasm in his expression. But I found only grim determination as he nibbled at his stiff upper lip. His gaze was riveted to the leaf-strewn path ahead.
“How much of the road must we do? Perhaps we should save some of it for tomorrow.”
“That’s a good idea. We’ll just work at it until we’ve had enough.”
He inverted his broom with a deep sigh and began scratching his way down the centre of the road. I found myself beginning to like his good-natured courage in the face of helplessness. He would be easy to abuse, even despise, I thought. A little praise, however, seemed to go a long way. Any encouragement produced renewed determination to combat untidiness. His language, so carefully propped up with clichés, was a shield behind which he seemed engaged in genuine struggle.
After breakfast, Jim and I rushed back to our kuties to change into our new white robes. It was time for our ordination ceremony. I felt giddy wearing the robes through the jungle for the first time, feeling my legs swishing without the restriction of cotton pants. The linen of my best robe, the one Ruk had made, was stiff. It felt like a wedding gown.
“You look dazzling,” said Jim, who was waiting for me at the fork to his kuti.
“Thanks, bhikkhu. You’re stunning yourself.”
“You look like the Man from Glad in drag,” he chuckled as I straightened my front roller. “Better cover that other nipple.”
“And you look as if you’re wearing a main sail. I think you’d look better in ochre. You sure you don’t want to be a monk?”
Jim laughed, and led us at a quick march through the jungle to the temple. Tan Casipo waited for us there.
“Where’s the Ajahn?” Jim asked.
“Waiting for you in his kuti. You need to take an offering to him. I’ll help you get it ready,” said the New Zealander.
Beside the altar, just behind the glittering little side tables, there was a stack of incense sticks and candles. Tan Casipo placed six candles and a handful of the scented sticks on a round tin serving tray. From one of the flower vases he removed two fresh lotus blossoms, completing the offering. The tray had on it a picture of a familiar gentleman in a top hat striding briskly across the centre. Across the top it read “Johnnie Walker Black Label.”
“You want us to take the Ajahn an offering on a whiskey tray?”
“It’s the thought that counts,” said the monk.
“I like the thought,” said Jim. “It’s too bad we didn’t bring a little chewing tobacco to offer as well.”
“Sawadi krup,” Jim called up to the top floor of the Ajahn’s kuti. The teacher answered the greeting in Thai. He came stiffly down the stairs and motioned wordlessly for the two of us to take our places on the marble patio beneath his rooms. He seemed pale and detached as he settled himself into the elevated ceremonial seat. He gazed at us with his sombre, pale blue eyes. We bowed to him three times.
“Which one of you will go first? You, Tim, since you were the first to arrive. Just for the sake of convenience, you will also be considered the senior pakhao. Jim, you will be the junior. Although there is no difference at all between people, this designation will prevent confusion in the order of seating at meals and such things. Now, Tim, you can begin by offering me the offering.”
I crawled up close to him on my knees as Tan Casipo had instructed and carefully presented the teacher with our ceremonial goodies on the whiskey platter. I shuffled backwards to my place beside Jim and knelt in my best Thai posture, resting my buttocks on my heels, hands raised to my nose in a polite wai. I had been practising the ritual for five days now. I felt more than ready.
“Before my ordination as a monk,” the teacher began, “I felt extremely confident. But when I said my first word, Ajahn Chah raised his hand to stop me. Then he stood up and walked out of the bot. I didn’t know what I had done that could possibly be so bad to cause him to walk out. I was shattered. He came back a minute later with a tape recorder. He sat down in his seat, raised his hand high, then pressed the record button. He looked at me and gestured me to start again. He had a way of keeping any of us from getting too sure of ourselves. Now are you ready to begin?”
I nodded.
“Just remember, hold your wai steady. I noticed in our rehearsal you tended to bob your hands like a metronome.”
Hands rigid, serenity shattered, I began to chant.
“AHAM BHANTE, TI SARANENA SAHA ATTA SILANI YAJAMI.” Venerable monk, give to me the eight precepts.
The ritual went smoothly. The deep nasal monotone required had by now become familiar, almost comforting to repeat. Even the dreaded seventh precept did not trip me up, though it had remained a tongue twister until the final day.
“NAGAGITA VADITA VISUKADASANA MALA-GANDHA VILEPANA DHARANA MANDANA VIBUSANATHANA VERAMANI SIKHAPADAM SAMADHIYAMI.”
With those words I formally surrendered singing, dancing, music, shows, perfumes, jewellery, garlands and beautifying cosmetics for the period of my ordination. Jim followed my performance without flaw, using his Thai tonal pronunciations for the Pali. We took our refuge in Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. A strange pair of refugees, the Christian and the atheist before the Australian abbot. The Triple Gem still had not become for us a shelter from suffering. It was more like a new cave we had been challenged to explore.
When Jim had finished, our teacher told us to sit at ease. We could now properly call him our teacher, for in taking the eight precepts from him we had entered into a formal religious arrangement. He was our guru; we were his disciples, bound by our vows to obey him in all things.
“Now that you have been ordained, you should be instructed about the behaviour and duties that will be expected of you as pakhaos. While you were laymen all that was expected of you was that you follow the five precepts and conform to the daily routine. As pakhaos you have taken on a position and a role within the hierarchy which involves new responsibilities both to those above you and below you. To the guests and laymen you must be examples of proper behaviour and respect. They will be watching you when they are unsure what to do themselves. You should look to them and help them to learn the rules. Visiting Thai people will also watch you just as they watch the monks. You must be careful not to offend them by behaviour they would consider sloppy or rude for an ordained person. Tim, I notice in the sala you still sometimes sit with your feet pointing straight out in front of you or clasping your knees in your hands. Please correct this. It could offend people. Be careful, especially now that you are wearing robes. You must always be mindful of them, or else you may heedlessly expose your testicles. This is embarrassing, not only for you but for the whole community, especially the Ajahn who is responsible for you. You also have new duties to those above you in the hierarchy. You must learn how to serve the monks. You must learn their vows. At times you will be required to perform tasks forbidden to them, such as handling money and certain kinds of work. The rules forbid a monk from digging earth or cutting plants. You should be willing to do this work should the need arise. A monk can’t even ask you directly to do such work. Learn to listen for hints and do what you think needs to be done.
“There are many complex rules you should learn about food as well, not only for your own eating. Monks have a special relationship with their alms food. A monk can only eat food which has been offered to him. If another person touches a monk’s bowl or a piece of offered food, then the bhikkhu can’t touch it unless it is offered to him again. Be willing to offer a monk’s bowl to him properly, bending low so you don’t tower over him. Then come in close so he does not have to reach. A monk should never reach for anything. He must live without desiring. Only what is placed directly into his hands is fit for him to receive. Pakhaos at this wat are also permitted to go on alms round every morning with the monks. Bindabat has many rules. Remember you represent the wat. The villagers will be watching you closely. Don’t swing your arms. Don’t talk. Don’t look directly at the people who give you food. Just do exactly what the monks in front of you do. As pakhaos you can further help the senior monks by offering to carry their bowls back to the monastery. Since you have brought your own bowls with you, I will show you how to care for them.”
The Ajahn spoke to us about our bowls and the regulations surrounding this important possession for half an hour. Tan Casipo had given us our bowls that morning. He instructed us to take them with us to the ceremony. They were about the size of large bowling balls, made of metal and coated with black enamel. Each came with an orange woollen cover with a strap attached so it might be carried around the neck while walking through the villages. The rules governing the use and care of the bowls were extensive and sometimes strange. Still, one could easily imagine the human foibles which led to the creation of these rules.
A monk must not look inside another monk’s bowl.
A monk must not cover up the curry in his bowl with rice to make it appear he hasn’t been given any curry.
A monk must not scrape the inside of his bowl with his fingernails.
A monk should not leave his bowl near a ledge or on the edge of a table.
A monk should not leave his bowl where it may be kicked.
A monk should not hold his bowl by the bottom, but grip it securely by the rim.
A monk should not stand while cleaning his bowl, but set it on the ground, and dry it in his lap.
The majority of these rules reflected a time when bowls were made of clay, not metal. A single moment of carelessness could produce unpleasant changes in such transitory and unstable objects. The Ajahn explained, however, that although the modern bowls could not be broken, the rules have been maintained so monks can develop mindfulness.
“There are still many rules for you to learn,” our teacher concluded. “Don’t worry if you can’t remember them all at first. Follow the monk’s example and you will catch on. If you do as well with the rules as you did with the ordination ceremony, you will make out well here.”
Jim and I bowed to the seated ochre figure, tall and sticklike in his immobile posture.
“And Jim,” he said, reaching for the whiskey tray with our offering still on it, “you can take these back to the sala.”
“So how does it feel to be legal in the robes, Jim? Any closer to nibbana?”
“Holy pakhao, Tim, I feel more like I have just joined the army rather than a monastery.”
“But now we have our sitting papers. We’re licensed to meditate.”
“Do you realize that we talked with the man who is supposed to be our teacher for over an hour, took refuge from him, took the precepts, listened to all the rules all over again and a whole bunch of new ones, and the one subject that never came up was meditation?”
“He did say to be mindful about cleaning our bowls.”
“Did I have to come all the way to the border of Laos to learn how to wash my dishes?”
“I know what you mean. Everybody talks about the Vinaya, not about vipassana. All we got was that one little book of Ajahn Chah’s to read when we arrived. Did you read the notice at the back of the sala saying reading should be kept to a minimum? How are we supposed to learn anything here? You and I, at least we’ve had enough contact with Buddhism not to be totally lost. But people like Percy, for example, who know nothing about meditation, what good does it do them just to follow the rules? Maybe they can teach Percy how to bow properly. But does he need to bow before he can practise?”
Jim wiped the beads of sweat off his skull. “Do you sometime feel that though we bow to Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, it’s only Sangha, Sangha, Sangha that we ever hear?”
Percy raised his hand at the back, then cleared his throat. “Will there be a teaching or something sometime soon?” he asked, over the sweltering hush of afternoon coffee break.
“We don’t teach meditation here,” said the Ajahn in a flat, emotionless voice. “All we do is lay down the precepts and the rules of practice. Follow this and your meditation will bear fruit naturally.”
Percy bit his lip. The Ajahn looked around at the crowd of laymen and guests in white. The faces had all shone with sudden interest. Even the two new pakhaos were staring at him. The Ajahn seemed compelled to say more.
“There’s not much I can say about meditation. Look to yourself. Where do you resist? Where are you heedless? The rules will reveal your defilements to you. Perhaps you don’t like bowing to the monks or even to the Ajahn. Remember it is not the person you are bowing to, it is the robe. Bowing is a great tool to break the pride of ego. Perhaps you don’t like coffee served with so much sugar, or maybe you would like it with more. Living in a monastic community you have the opportunity to surrender your personal preferences. These are only delusion and ignorance giving rise to desire. If resentment arises, recognize it as aversion. The defilements reveal themselves to you when you begin to follow the rules. Persevere with the discipline and the defilements will gradually drop away, leaving your mind clear and peaceful. Establish the rules in your heart, follow them with mindfulness and you will stop your craving and thirsting, even for meditation. Here we teach renunciation. Here you can learn to give up cherished ideas of self. Once they are given up to the Vinaya, you will see they were only burdens after all.”
The teacher gazed around at us intently. “However, I have noticed a certain slackness and lack of enthusiasm in recent days. I was surprised when I first came back here not long ago that evening chanting had been discontinued. I think that is a bad sign. As of tonight we will again assemble at seven p.m. I’ve been thinking about this for some time. Now is as good a day as any.” Many of the monks shifted uncomfortably as the Ajahn looked from face to face. “This afternoon will be a work day,” he concluded.