I acquired my first Bose music machine, the Wave, almost exactly twenty years ago. I remember unpacking it in my apartment on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts, together with my No. 1 son, Marko. He was twelve at the time. The first tape we listened to was recorded at Gyütö Tantric College in Dalhousie, Himachal Pradesh, India, by a group of Tibetan Buddhist monks. The quality of the music machine was such that the sounds of the monks’ deep, throaty voices startled us at first. It was as though they were right there with us. Now I am listening to the same recording, but on a compact disk. For some reason, I have put it out of my mind for a while. And I am listening to it on the Wave once again, but I acquired this music machine just before I moved from Reading, Berkshire, to Motovun, Istria. As soon as I heard the chanting, I was transported back to my Cambridge apartment. Twenty years. An instant.

Addendum (December 20, 2015)

Listening to the same recording so many years later, I am transported to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Reading, Berkshire, at the same time. But I am also squarely here, on top of the Motovun hill. As I am listening to the chanting of Tibetan Buddhist monks, I am looking at my paintings all around me. While I am looking at my rendering of the first and last word, Aum, I am humming along with the monks. My livingroom is my temple and my tomb, all in one place. The pink glow of the setting sun completes the serene scene. Time? Space? Time-space? Space-time? Pace Einstein, but these words only make me smile.