“Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me:There lie they, and here lie weUnder the spreading chestnut tree.”

“Under the spreading chestnut treeI sold you and you sold me--”

“The Buddha achieved enlightenment as he sat under the spreading limbs of the Bodhi tree, breathing in and out in silence, as does a tree.”

“Chestnuts in stuffing tastes like someone chewed up a tree branch and then French-kissed it into your mouth.”

“Suddenly the day was gone, night came out from under each tree and spread.”

“It is a sunny fall afternoon and I’m engaged in one of my favorite pastimes—picking chestnuts. I’m playing alone under the spreading, leafy, protective tree. My mother is sitting on a bench nearby, rocking the buggy in which my sister is asleep. The city, beyond the lacy wall of trees, is humming with gentle noises. The sun has just passed its highest point and is warming me with intense, oblique rays. I pick up a reddish brown chestnut, and suddenly, through its warm skin, I feel the beat as if of a heart. But the beat is also in everything around me, and everything pulsates and shimmers as if it were coursing with the blood of life. Stooping under the tree, I’m holding life in my hand, and I am in the center of a harmonious, vibrating transparency. For that moment, I know everything there is to know. I have stumbled into the very center of plenitude, and I hold myself still with fulfillment, before the knowledge of my knowledge escapes me.”