Ratmachines.com

Philosophy

Positive Philosophy

—6—

We will begin by holding our breath. That means waiting, which means by beginning we have made a mistake. So we step back. Stepping back will be known as return. Maintaining the breath is the most simple form of exercise. Coming back to the simple lets us concentrate on larger problems. This concentration in turn allows the problems to first dissipate, then vanish.

We are looking for a door. This looking has however effectively eliminated any hope we might have had of direct entry. As direct we would in that sense have been invited. We stand outside without an invitation, milling this way and that. The trick would have been to simply take a few steps without thinking about it. Now we stop completely, turn, and turn again in hopes of finding a proper return.

Resignation is the unfolding of your hand to see that what was so carefully held within it was only air. The delusion lies in believing that inside yourself rests something fundamentally different than what is outside you. Resignation feels like you are losing something, and in a certain sense you are, but nothing that will ever be missed. The procedure we now must entertain is one of an involvement that ignores. We do not ignore this or that, but simply overwhelm ourselves in our ignorance.

Following is the point of return: we follow without realizing it. It happens as if by accident. Working-our-way-through becomes an act that in prior times we would have called 'an act of God'. Returning of course presents obstacles, each of which presents itself as the penultimate point of existence and truth. Or simply as what we want. Awakening ourselves by means of an endless pursuit of what we want is a narcotic, and throws us into catalepsy. The signal of this event can come in a dream – the strength of what we hold out as not us becomes measurable in the moment in which we least hold ourselves together. Floating in such a condition makes us susceptible to the slightest push. Coming back always presents us with a minefield which we have painstakingly constructed in the preceding moments. We do not recognize our responsibility and so hold ourselves as infirm and weak, when in fact it was we who created the problem for ourselves in the first place.

To speak of return is not a random pointing to some abstract place that can be held up as someplace that is not us. Sending ourselves back comes only within the confines of following, while following is a process that happens only after a sequence of indeterminate stages have been carried through. The so called Truth of the matter does not lie in a communicable state. The arena within which we allow ourselves to concern ourselves is defined only within the context of the precise moment of sending. The issue does not lie in the past or the present, but presents itself unannounced in the exact flash of not-looking-any-longer. Pushing out becomes an indication of confusion; expansion suddenly is grasped, finally, as dilution. Waiting signals avoidance, while fear tells us that we have inadvertently stumbled close. Allowing ourselves to listen becomes not an instrument among others but a solution. Without stopping here we tell ourselves that there must be more, which of course is true in a trivial sense – there must always be more once we have framed the matter in this way. This more pushes us around, entering us as we sleep, trying to empty us in order to fill itself, aided and abetted by our belief that it comes out of somewhere else, and that completion is reached by just getting it in sufficient quantities. The mechanisms operate in the same manner no matter what level we examine; the variations manifest only in spheres of perception.

The moment of vision comes about not as some extraordinary event which must be sought after if permanence is to be achieved, but rather as a simple falling away. Speech merely takes its proper place in the hierarchy, without questioning the relative justice of such a placement. In order to operate in this field we require of ourselves a perspective born in the arms of experience. What comes to you is what you invited in, knowingly or not. Prevention of the invited damages no more or less than a complete stepping out, or against, in the sense of opposing a current. The contradiction here becomes apparent when we realize that the agent involved in this apparent prevention cannot possibly exist in an arena separate from that act that is to be prevented. The problem as such functions as an agent within our perception, but our perception constructs the border within which such problems grow. Reducing the field simply makes the border that much tighter, or dense, and so is contra-indicated.

If we do not listen to ourselves in our moment of maximum clarity there is little hope for the remainder of our time. Allowing ourselves to hear ourselves means you must be willing to listen. Because you do not know the character of the voice that will speak to you in this moment, or even if there will be come a sound at all, such a willingness translates to an openness within which we encourage a receptivity that does not depend on expectation to fill itself.

The world we build when we stop to think about it is detached, and removes itself in a carnal way. The freedom we sought after has grown illusive – we keep quiet, not wanting to speak of its distance, letting the world instead speak for us, which is not at all satisfying. Listening and speaking blur together while watching gives us nothing as the sands run between our fingers.

The voice that would speak finds its way in between everything that surrounds us; quiet, it too grows without really knowing a thing – the first indication that something has slipped. The echo and return are not something we look for, and every time we think we have found it we are just spinning our wheels. The tools we need are at our hands – everything that comes as extra just burdens us needlessly, offering a solution to a non-existent problem inside of its shimmering exterior. This mirage floats above and below, inviting us to pay attention. Without really trying our knowing reaches inside of whatever it is we are attempting to avoid. Because everything seems untrue we will not wait any longer — if, after all, it is not true, then surely it doesn't matter? Maybe all our work has gone for nothing – the moon spins around and around, everything we do not see, everything we do not know, everything that is out there somehow doesn't mean a thing. Because we hold ourselves so forcefully we want there to be a center and an outside, a way, that is, to recommend, but there is nothing at all. This drives us crazy – we sit, then pace back and forth, working in thoughts that should say something they can't. The model that we chase does not exist, outside and in turn in an orbit that grows more and more tight. That is how we come to fall – finally everything just kind of collapses, then there is nothing at all, only a pale haze, a reminder of sorts that is easy to ignore, easy to drift off into, but impossible to pierce.

These are all apparently good reasons to stand back a little – maybe there is a place to put a careful hand, a world where never has no home, a universe in which there are no dreams, only shadows, and a life that has never stepped out of its bounds. This is a lot to hope for – too much, actually, and so leaves a space that simply invites – 'we know it's there' we repeat over and over again, until we convince ourselves that it's true, all the while leaving nothing proved.

To gather in becomes a message we whisper when no one is listening. Throwing away is a kernel that we follow on its downward path. Listening is an occupation in which we struggle to hear what is said but do nothing. To free ourselves moves on an effort that does not stop. The hinge is a shift of sorts; a click that just happens and then steps back, almost to see what you do with it – this is in the character of giving and receiving. This is the arena in which the game is played out. Playing this particular game is by invitation only – there are no winners and losers – playing itself is the point. The voice you just can't ignore is the source of all the confusion. This is because we are always listening. By pushing we test the limits – this is how we find the way that involves no resistance. We are faced always with two – the oppositions come in sets, heaven and hell stroll by, bound by necessity hand in hand. Letting all the voices stop then is not a trick but a precondition. To take on the mind of a fool is an act of self defense in which you can for once let yourself go. What we do is assemble just enough so that in those rare moments in which we can see we have a voice to speak. Without a voice the moment comes and goes. Collecting these into a bundle is the responsibility with which we face ourselves, without excuses.

We fall away – somehow the movement is easy – why, we don't know, we have no way of knowing. Only the signs guide us, and even here we can never know how much weight to put on each event. It is like driving – when a space appears we insert ourselves, but we had to be looking in the first place. Insertion is an action which is indicated by a lack of resistance. Thinking as such poses obstacles. Allowing ourselves to say yes or no without anxiety of consequence is not an act of faith. It is more of a suspension, a believing that feelings actually are motivations in the sense of being the source of movement. When we say yes or no we are following. Questions thus revolve around following what you at first hold to be yourself. This ignorance causes no real damage since it doesn't matter how you hold the source of movement. What counts is that you allow the flexibility room to develop. Flexibility is the raising and lowering, or leveling. Leveling is not a turn to the average but rather pulls us away from extremes. Leveling occurs over time, which indicates movement. The point of this movement is the location of the plane of non-extremity. As a point located on a plane defined only in regards to a location in time there is a submersion in a host of abstractions. Knowing is union, the falling away of saying this is that. Knowing and self merge; within this merger the point vanishes. The character of such a focus does not know itself, although somehow, and paradoxically, the matter that asks to know itself must travel down this road once it has set off.

The limit reaches up, around, takes us in its hands, turns us around. The word rises, falls, sends us away, calls us back. The place we call home is no-place – to see it for only a minute is a message that is never repeated. Holding out for a better offer is in the end looking out over a sea of nothings and worshipping the sheer number of possibilities. Keeping things down is the only escape left to us; the word that wants us to invite itself is a word to the wise – no one asks us where we have come from once we are here again. Because there is so much to say we do not feel compelled to open our mouths. In a strict sense the censorship we are engaged in covers up what we must come to at least once in our lives if there was to have been any point at all to our efforts. It is by dint of hard work and an ongoing perseverance that what we call home comes to rest with us. Blanketing the world with a fog is the normal road to happiness; riches we find on all sides but there is only a pause about which rumors fly. Freedom comes and goes while we reach out blindly; holding up our hands we supplicate for what it is we do not know although this is criticized as foolhardy in most circles. Because we are so prone to follow we forget that we are always already here. The precise lack of formula is the fundamental guide. Pointing ourselves against this is confusion; a lack of grasping that is our life is the only indication that we might turn back – something we like to think of as return if we could only be given the time. Emptied then filled, withdrawn then pulled in, moving then stopped are all formulas themselves and stop just before we get to where we ought to be. The only remedy is found when the world you have loved grows distant, the books you cherished only speak at rare intervals, the words you have held in suddenly explode out over the landscape and, most importantly, you have completely stopped looking. The work of course goes on – an outstretched hand, a palm turned up, a word against hope, and a warning against dreams. The message we pull away from has nothing to do with angels or demons and does not offer a bright shining light to its followers. The only halo is the strain of unrelenting focus which bores down into and chips away at such a steady rate that the first sign we have that anything at all has happened is when we are already long past our first steps and have moved so far down our road that we no longer know that there can be any other. Freeing ourselves now is nothing but stepping away, and that is something we will never know how to do. Motion is the integral element, the essence of which is not subject to debate simply because it is everything that is assumed from the first. How we know dissolves around us into irrelevance – the question is dispersed simply because is doesn't matter. Beginning is merely a matter of grabbing hold and forgetting everything that is of no use at the moment. The point is one of practicality.

Pushing into the work is not an actual effort. Because we are not focusing on what is right here, nor on what is over there, we of course are confused. As a step confusion might be taken as either leading or misleading. Neither is the case. The condition is present then absent. The revolution from one state to the other is the impulse we are turning towards. Because there is no condition per se the actual moment is so remote that we can honestly claim that it is nowhere, or at least that we now cannot see. Beside the stand we feel compelled to take all else seems trivial – and here is the major obstruction. Such a seeming is pulling at us, asking us to take ourselves away and give ourselves up so thoroughly that only purity remains. By so demanding we feel that we are then somehow more disciplined than our condition in general, which of course is absurd. By agreeing to build we give up all claims as to what is or is not proper. Because there is no structure ahead of our hands there is no congratulation until well after it is left behind. The work itself takes such a strong precedence that we magically find the time to carry out everything that immediately takes on a simple ancillary role. If we have anything other than a pouring out we are lost. Being lost is the normal condition – the exertion of force is a carrying away, a draining that does not know itself. The great why in both cases is not only irrelevant but is precisely the avenue our feet carry us away on. Question in general leads to indecision whereas certainty comes at what ultimately reveals itself as not only absence of price but absolute value itself. Value here is taken as the element we can follow. Allowing ourselves to step away from the notion that what gives value is a generic proposition put forward by a mass leads us into a realm where what we are fades into what we are worth. Inserting such qualifiers seems relatively innocent until we begin to engage in the procedures necessary to carry forth the return that happens either now or never. The notion of value as that which is to be achieved directly, and not a distant goal, means that it is in our ability to reach value. Value of course is how we define the reaching; it is the motion that neither resists nor leads. Because it has this unique character it is held as somehow rare, like a jewel. This holding comes not out of the reaches but instead is the conclusion of those who would do this if only for a myriad of reasons.

To escape this holding we need to reinvigorate what is drained. Having reached this juncture we hold out our hands, to examine the surface we tell ourselves, believing we know why we do anything. Wound in our beliefs, our practices carry us forward, away from ourselves, until the call to know yourself is taken as a scientific proposition, one among many – a claim to non-unique generality, the reduction of x to y. By allowing the proposition to become fluid we flatter ourselves that we have grown closer, although the more convincing such a formula becomes the more deceptive is its practice, until one day the possibility has vanished and we are left with empty hands turned out against a barren sky.

The absurdity of such a methodology must at some point become transparent to even the most thick headed observer – although of course the very notion of observer in this process is itself so far out from the arena that that must be left to stand alone. We are not observing , but are entered in upon. Entering in upon grants a certain set of rights, as well as a certain collection of obligations, many of which seem somewhat disconnected. This apparent lack of cohesiveness indicates away from a shotgun approach, however, by relieving us from the faith which held us unified as one, as an entity among others. The amount of resources required to sustain such a conception has grown so staggeringly large that it has been evicted from the field of questions: things now are as they are and that is that. Of course, that is not that, and there is precisely where the matter does not stand.

The results we are looking for here do not come about as a mere 'mental' process where we read, think, ponder. The grasp that frees is change and change is a completion in the sense that we bring together these elements into a unified whole which in turn takes us back to a point of illumination. Illumination is the bringing to bear of light. Returning to this particular point removes a group of hindrances about which we have clustered a growing body of beliefs and practices. We make the obstruction against which we butt our heads as a collective agent, and so we must without any overt or excessive deliberation unmake them, or, perhaps more accurately, allow them to resume their actual form. We do not hold on and so the form falls. Falling with it, as we must, becomes a practice that is carried out precisely because it offers no reward.

Returning within ourselves is not a turning within, leaving the outside behind. This must be made clear. We turn where we are, we stand here and turn, and turn again. Freedom comes as a result of work – work in this sense is an expenditure that does not seek rationale or reward, and is a very special element of the species we are confronted with in that we take ourselves out of ourselves. Because there is no purpose per se there is nothing left. Emptiness is the condition that is maintained as a constant emptying that is both non-directed and non-directing. We are not so profoundly and continuously warned against desire, or excess thereof, because there is some inherent evil in this word, or some hell that we will be cast down into, but because of the self defeating pointlessness of trying to fill what is intrinsically empty – although as we will see these terms are most definitely not without reference. Referring, we recall, brings us back. Meaning in this sense is that which brings us back. Being brought back, as return, is the motion we are examining. The lack of positive or negative indications should not be taken as affirmation or negation. The technique we employ is constructed as need demands. Desire becomes a problem when it establishes that which must be followed as a constructive purposeful act. We act then, and we have our reasons for acting. Acting becomes a system of ratio, in which what we desire is compared as more valuable than the remainder of the field. We run around the arena chasing this now to the exclusion of all else. An excess evolves in which life is considered precisely this condition of endless pursuit. In order to attain we press forwards our control – the arena must now be established and, most importantly, fixed. The fuel becomes the end as we flame over the landscape, not in any way or sense having any idea whatsoever of what we are doing, or why. Religion can in a preliminary sense be taken as the attempt to control this inferno. We name this inferno hell.

Religion itself is a tying down, however. As the word as the truth, as conventional wisdom will have it, it binds us to itself in order to free ourselves from ourselves. But this leaves nothing behind, not even an empty space. The character of this nothing has washed over us, we are in its wake – it was announced, it arrived, and now draws away. How to approach what cannot be said is no longer an issue. Rigid formalisms do not need to be combated anymore than a rock needs to be dynamited out of hillside. A sidestep then an advance is all that is really required. By inserting ourselves precisely here we find the perfect time. Crossing over the river is simply a return; creating a bridge is nothing more than giving this outward – a giving which itself is nothing at all more than a pulling out, complete and open – what is taken out was always there, what is built is possible only because of our ignorance of this fact. Drawing out is the activity which never pulls away without pulling in as well. Calling becomes a favor we grant while where we stand is only a beckoning without words. Teaching is not the activity we take it to be but is instead an instance that is given. Given means not sought – the place we are aiming at is not a destination. There will be no completion because we will never be sufficiently large, nor should we consider this anything worthwhile in the first place.

Having the capacity indicates a willingness to follow what is not, in the sense that we draw up and away from a source that can never leave our sides. The usefulness is proven by demonstration, as is the principle that divides us from the source. The balance between these two is defined on an ongoing basis and is not an allowed entity. Motion as removal and addition becomes an algebra of utility without outlying purpose. An explosion is drawn into itself as if such an expenditure simply does not have a right to carry out its processes. Denying such rights slows down the outflow just enough to allow us to put it within the boundaries which constantly erect and decay. Because we are here we tend to forget certain basic conditions of that contract. Sending out is not something to do but is pulling back and in. Pushing out defines and drawing back leaves the gap surrounded by just enough presence to allow a certain announcing. The taste proves deadly; we return to the words circumscribed around us and look for meaning. Meaning of course pulls us away so we have to stop while the day has time to re-adjust itself. Running proves to be an ineffective strategy and so we pause for breath. Engaged in the same exact motion the space surrounds us and fills with what remains of the process. The fragments are left and we move out against the tides that are rushing in. Fluidity calls us not so much as a mirror reflection but as the home that eludes all of our other efforts. Knowing that we can stop becomes a comfort which allows us time again, without buildup or collection into any more fixed organization. We do not wait, for that would be to waste time, whereas the time we have exists only if properly used – without this use we detach from the finite and float off into the outlying areas, which must always defy definition.

Such zones call us into themselves precisely because they are so indefinitely alluring. They promise us always more while delivering nothing in return except increasingly vacant forms into which to empty ourselves. Without-content, we delight in thinking, is the actual mode around which the flurry of existence must flutter like a moth around a flame. Because we are making an offering of what is only the most painstaking metamorphosis available to us where we find ourselves we consider that that was and continues to be an act of value. But what really holds us is the space which allows us to fill it absolutely, with no remains. This is not an outpouring into a boundless arena but operates under strict guidelines – the remnant that is the vessel we would pour ourselves out into is not even an externalized actuality but is an inward spiraling escape from obscurity and the light. The poles themselves, by dint of their very definition of the ends that can be attained, deny absolutely the greater push outwards. The nature of illusion is simply a mocking – the gods themselves laugh when we fall into such futility – the ground is under our feet, angels do not dance in the heavens but are born by the love we put into them. Surrendering ourselves is a voyage-over which frees us from the absurd games played by a substanceless infinity. Placing our feet on this terrain must fill us with compassion no matter how greatly we fight against this aspect of our obligations. Responsibility frees us from the mundane attachment to contentless infinities but all the more tightly pushes us away from the various impulses that seek their ongoing annihilation. Death as such is not an end which brings to completion a disjointed manifold but rather severs completely – the 'living dead' refers us in a sideways manner to this. In dying we fall away completely, and in falling away we step completely away from any crossing or bridge, opting for that which is sustained by an infinite world, a vastness in which we are so small that any notions of largeness begins to seem more and more reasonable. Facing this eventuality right here becomes the most pressing obligation not because of any superior truth type of functioning but simply because it is such a fundamental obstruction. Seeing every moment filled with death and dying does not fill us as we would have it with awe for what comes after but separates us completely from our situation. Where we are placed becomes a cipher which we must interpret if we are to live, and life becomes a journey that has as its end dissolution and finality. Death creates life as an appendage that will be left behind. Seeing this becomes not a futural direction but is rather how we live: with death at our door we will never have time to live. Such is an error so subtle that we cannot help but parade ourselves in front of this story with an almost sadistic frenzy. Since there is no denying death we take it as that which cannot be denied. The premise pours out and we are left with a vacuous ending which will always deny us our last word.

Looking directly into this possibility takes us not into any loss of an endless sequence of selves but rather points us straight into the laughing face of god. Comprehension allows us the luxury of just for a moment (all that is required, in fact) taking a hold of ourselves in a dis-illusioned frenzy in which we, and our endless anxieties, simply lose our final call – we forget, in a word, and in so forgetting are allowed to return to the place out of which all giving flows. The river we are facing flows under our feet and the words that were dead take on new life as what was left behind or lay hidden jumps up and takes us by the hand. Death itself is the moment we are waiting for, the moment in which the infinite ceases and lies become untenable. Stopping thus is a return to the problems at hand, each of which is so fully contained in our breathing that we simply cannot know what this means. Escaping the bounds as held out before us is never an escape but a re-definition. Allowing matters to become increasingly definite gives us the room and material without which death would have to creep back over us. The outward surge draws back sharply; with a sense now of finality we open the door that is always there hiding the offerings we can make today. Sending-off-into-yesterday is never as defined as this, and so always pales then fades into in-definity. Simply allowing the absent to vanish as a real becomes the greatest favor we can do ourselves.

In a sense then we ask ourselves permission to live; the response comes not as a word but as the actual function of our activity: we point ourselves towards life or death, and within the pointing that indicates life there likewise diverges a sub-group that sends us back or forwards. Forwards in this case is not a-head of ourselves, but flows out of ourselves. This is the water that we drink, and which must be crossed without wetting our feet. The water provides its own rules; we listen but do not hear, look and do not see. This is perhaps the first rule. What tells us to do it, and how, is always a story of the crossing at some other moment by some other entity. While the story may sound convincing it is never more than a story. Listening becomes a not hearing what the story tells in order to allow us to listen to what is being said. We step away from the frozen in time and force open what had been shut. Disguised as a wall, the space is removed, leaving a gap within which we find we fit perfectly: it is as if our flesh met the surface at a molecular level. Because there is no difference there is likewise no separation – what moves is joined in an un-knowing union. As prayer we would send out for this state but this must always fall short simply because as a lack we see it as that which is to be filled, which leads us away. Release becomes a signal that has no presence but is suspected after the fact only.

The end comes with a bang – there is no announcement, no orchestrated maneuver that will put us at the exactly correct point of departure and juncture. We hold both as a moment that cannot possibly freeze or even hesitate. What gives is always there and is never the same, which raises giving to an act that moves beyond value. As beyond it is always moving, while as wanting to be fixed we are always holding back and so allowing it to pull away. We brake ourselves because we are afraid – this fear is a luxury that cannot arise without the permission of the senses travelling beyond their proper reach. The limit transgressed is a dictating that takes on an unauthorized tone of command but which we are accustomed to respond to. This custom grows until it fills the world as a legitimate ruler who we struggle to placate with an upwardly spiraling sequence of offerings. Sending and giving transforms into a filling up without any awareness of the trick that has been played out on us. Buried in a veil of illusion we no longer give what is most valuable but prefer to buy our gifts. As a sacrifice we would like to make the world freeze into an immovable whole composed of an endless myriad of parts which magnify themselves in order to increase their dominion by sheer weight of number alone.

The permission we seek then is simply allowing ourselves to give what is not a value. Sacrifice does not give up or surrender anything but things and is actually always a return. The secret as such is contained in the idea that it is better to give than receive, and best of all is giving the gift which contains every particle and movement of what you are. This ability is what is contained in the term compassion, although how we think this word leads us away from what can be understood. Compassion is not so much a blind feeling within as the placing of ourselves into the movement which moves us. We enter into the fundamental motive force and, having entered, stand in then on the surface of that force. Compassion is an entering into the fire. We allow ourselves to be moved by what is most fundamental and so give precisely this. Because we cannot possibly invent or create this force we are never able to hold ourselves separate, nor to believe that what we are as shapers is anything more than a favor we have been granted as a gift which if we do not turn again and give onward will turn in on us and destroy so completely that what remains is the natural face of death. Receiving and giving form a reciprocal body of which knowledge forms no part.

This is the path of return. Straying from this path is very easy – we can almost say that it is in our nature. Following passions is following outside elements: constructions, that is, held as other than us. Passions are held as suffering. Suffering comes out of severance. Only that which attempts to contain itself can suffer. Release comes out of containment – containment is the necessary pre-condition for both release and suffering. Poles are born out of such conditions. No method can trace this back – passions arise but not out of necessity. It is not that we give them any explicit or intrinsic permission but that ignorance and indolence generate the conditions for the rising. This is why religion holds these as sins. Watching allows us to see that there is a process going on – the fact that objects appear, and our chasing of them, is not as fixed as first appears. The working out of this is a step by step procedure that requires a constant clearing away of presumption and prejudice. As an activity it can be said to be the only activity that arises out of ourselves, in which we neither follow nor lead but simply enter into a state of going along with. Heeding signs turns back to irrelevance once we fit ourselves into this moment. The moment of course moves, is movement, in the sense of stepping away from having an essential nature. We step into movement away from the fixing. Such a step away is a complete loss as well – the nature of which we held ourselves loses its ability to define so completely that we take this last loss as a real loss, actually existing in a sense as a real thing, something that would be there if we were not. All pushing in and out ceases, and we are given back what was taken away by every nothing and no-one we had removed from the picture. The place of removal is stripped bare until we begin to forget that there was a place there in the first place. Out of the bareness floats a void – what is no longer offers this as a shell to hold its place – a bookmark of sorts to those who follow these tendencies to their ends.

Setting ourselves out to follow pulls a stopper: everything we have reached vanishes on the point of a knife we hold to ourselves. Because of the inherent foolishness we insist on manifesting the gods must laugh at us. The echo of this is reflected in our own laughter, which places the clowns and jesters into a slightly better light. As the bearers of the amusement of the heavens there comes a certain tragedy as well, in that something is held to be missing. This of course is nonsense, since if one part is held all parts are at once as well. Thus the how or what is not of any particular importance. Compassion as cherishing or love is no blind fool groping out to feel what he cannot see but is as a unit absolutely complete and originary, lacking in nothing at all – and such is the case with every path of return. By putting all of ourselves into the path we leave nothing behind. Since there is nothing left behind there are no elements out of which to construct anything. Without a construction there is only an onward motion in which life finally frees itself and attains its end. Perfect motion then is motion that is unrestrained but aware of its boundaries. Revolving within this apparent contradiction is the gem that will grow into a full force – an agent which can engage fully in life, moment by fleeting moment.