He begins before the light is strong, with the beads in a shallow wooden dish and a length of cord laid straight across the bench.
One bead, then the next. He doesn't hurry the cord through. Each bead is turned once between finger and thumb before it goes on, as if he were introducing himself. A chip, a flaw in the drilling, a color that sits wrong beside its neighbors, and it goes back to the dish to wait for another strand.
He counts in tens, pressing his thumbnail lightly against each tenth bead. At one hundred and eight he stops. Then he counts again, from the other end. Only then does he reach for the guru bead.
In Tibetan tradition, the 108 beads are for counting recitations, one bead for each. The guru bead sits apart and is not counted. When your fingers reach it, you don't cross over; you turn the mala around and begin again in the other direction.
Below the guru bead comes the knot. He pulls it snug, lets it rest, checks it, and pulls once more, so the strand hangs evenly and nothing shifts when it is worn. It is a small motion that takes longer than it looks.
This is why no two strands come out quite the same. The beads differ, and so does the morning. A hand at nine o'clock is not the hand at noon. What stays the same is the attention: one bead at a time, nothing skipped.
On our bracelet and mala pages there is a short film of hands like his at work. Each piece is prepared for you in 3–4 business days, strung, knotted or finished by hand, then wrapped and sent on its way.
He trims the cord, lays the finished strand on a square of cloth, and pulls the dish a little closer.