The Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad

Twelve verses — the shortest of the principal Upaniṣads — mapping the syllable OM onto four states: A for waking, U for dreaming, M for deep dreamless sleep, and then the fourth, turīya, which corresponds to no letter and is the silence after the sound stops.

The wing's second model, and its best single idea. The syllable is pronounced, and when the pronouncing ends there is time left on the clock — and that remainder is not an absence but the point. Tehiru already draws a silence exactly like it: the eighth line of the 42-letter Name. Two traditions, both counting, both ending in an unpronounced place.