I.80 — The Whole of It

Everything changes. Grasping at changing things chafes. The one who grasps is also changing.

There is friction, and it has a location, and the location is a grip. A grip fully seen loosens. Seeing can be trained.

The training is looking — attention steadied, aimed, and held on what is there. The result of looking is loosening, which is not dropping but carrying with an open hand. The open hand reaches other people, and what it does there is called tending, and tending fits on five fingers.

Carry this into mornings and queues and sickbeds and gladness, without special conditions, because the ordinary day is the only field. Begin again each day. Expect the hand to close. Expect to see it. Expect, having seen, that it will open, not all at once and not forever, but enough, and then again.

None of this is to be believed. Every sentence above has a test, and the tests are the book. If a sentence failed yours, it was not for you, and the rest may still be. If they held, you have the whole thing, and this page could have been the only one.