I.22 — The Inward Test

Every claim made in these pages can be tested, and none is meant to be taken any other way. Here is how the test runs, plainly, so it can be applied to anything that follows, including this chapter.

First, state what the claim says will be seen. Not a mood, not a vague sense of things, but something specific: this happens when attention is held here, this shifts when a grip is looked at directly. Second, look, under the stated conditions, for as long as the claim asks and no longer. Third, record honestly what was actually found, not what was hoped for and not what would be convenient to report. Fourth, keep what held up and discard what did not, without penalty either way.

No teaching here is exempt from that sequence, including the one making it. A page that fails the test has failed, and stays failed until it passes, if it ever does.

This is not a courtesy extended to a reader. It is the whole method, the reason any of this is offered instead of asserted. A thing built to be checked from the inside, by the person doing the checking, and by no one else's word, has nowhere left to hide, and does not want one.