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Let
us surrender into Infinity with all our friends and
hold on to no thing or condition that ever appears.
Let us forget all things in present Happiness, and so
forgive the universe for all its playful changes. Let
us always love one another, and so forgive one another
for appearing, for changing, and for passing out of
present sight. So be it.

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We
live like knowers, striving toward absolute information, but
death is a perfect insult that frustrates all knowing. The death
of an other convicts us of our own death, and makes us ponder.
But no ultimate knowledge comes from this pondering. Death is
the frustration of knowledge. The knowledge that an
other has died is itself the frustration of all knowledge. We
are not knowing in our pondering over death. We are contemplating
Mystery, the answerless Paradox of our living existence. The
death of an other and the death of "I" confound the whole spectacle
and consolation of knowledge. Death is not the attainment of
any state we can know. Death is sacrifice. The only way to come
to terms with death is to come into a harmony with its Process,
its Way. And death is sacrifice, not knowledge or a Way of ultimate
knowledge. Death is the sacrifice of knowledge, of independence,
of experience, and of self.
The
observation of the death of an other and the conviction of one's
own necessary death are not a means to knowledge but a means
to sacrifice. Sacrifice is the Law. Knowledge or secure independence
is that which is sacrificed. If we truly observe and feel the
death of an other, we are moved to live by Wisdom rather than
knowledge. Wisdom is the presumption of alignment with the Way
or Process of existence, which is Sacrifice. But knowledge is
only a reflection of or about the way things work. The knower
is independent, not a participant in the process that is observed.
But Wisdom is always already confounded, relieved of independence,
so that there is no option but to submit to the Process of existence
itself.
"I"
is the whole body. But "I" does not know what a single thing
is. "I" cannot inspect the existence of any thing and know what
it is. "I" is, therefore, not a point of view toward or other
than the existence of any
thing or condition that arises. At the level of very existence
and very consciousness, "I" is identical to every thing or condition
that arises. The "whole body," then, simultaneously includes
all that arises (past, present, future, or eternal), since,
at the level of very existence and very consciousness, "I" is
unable to differentiate itself from any arising in order to
know what it is.
At
the level of the experiential body-mind, "I" can know about
things arising. The manifest body-mind or "me" appears and functions
relative to all other arising conditions. Therefore, manifest
or born existence is the play of knowing about,
but it simultaneously exists as the consciousness than which
there is no other, for "I" do not know what a single thing is,
and, therefore, "I" is every thing. "I" includes the existence
of all that arises. The Condition of "I" is that of which all
arising is only a modification or variation—but which is not
itself ever in any sense changed.
Such
is the Paradox that is "I" in the case of every one. All arising,
all beings are described by this Paradox. And the ultimate destiny
of "I" is likewise necessarily contained in this same Paradox.
It is Mystery. "I" is eternal Sacrifice, without ultimate knowledge.
Realization of the Paradox of our existence is not knowledge
(a position independent of the Paradox) but it is Wisdom, or
the tacit presumption of the Way of the Paradox itself. If "I"
presume the Way of Ignorance, the Law is fulfilled, and "I"
am free to live and exist prior to fear, even though "I" constantly
move in Mystery and am given no ultimate knowledge. If "I" do
not presume the Way of Ignorance, the Way of the Process of
existence, but seek knowledge instead, then fear is the motive
of my life, and existence itself always appears to be at stake.
The
recent death of an other and the death of "I," which is yet
to come, are a perfect insult to all knowledge. If we rest in
this insult, then we are moved to the life of Wisdom, wherein
no answer and no experience can ever possess or define us. Wisdom
presumes the Paradox and the Mystery of existence. Wisdom is
moved to the Way of sacrifice, to love, to present happiness,
and not to the Way of ultimate knowledge. Knowledge is never
more than "knowledge about" — and "knowledge
about" is confounded by death. There is no knowledge about
things that is senior to death. Death is the transformation
of the knower. It is fundamentally a process of the knower rather
than a process of his or her knowledge. Death is a process in
which the knower is transformed, and all previous or conditional
knowing is scrambled or confounded in the process of death.
Therefore, to consider death is fruitless, since the knower
is what is changed by death.
To
confront death in Truth we must be humbled and confounded. The
death of an other reminds us that in every moment we are principally
confronted not by defined objects that are independent of us
but by an indefinable Process that includes us. The death of
an other reminds us that sacrifice is the Way of Life. When
we confront the death of an other we are confronted by Mystery
or Paradox, and we are confronted by the demand for participation
or sacrifice founded in the acceptance of the necessary Paradox
or Mystery of existence. Wisdom is such acceptance, and the
participatory sacrifice is love or present happiness. It is
unobstructed feeling-attention in all relations. It is to dwell
in the profundity that confounds all knowing. It is to resort
to the presumption of absolute Ignorance as the Truth of our
unknowable existence.
Hold
on to no thing and no one, not even your self. Be certain of
no knowledge. Be the sacrifice of all conditions in every moment,
and thus abide in Communion with the eternal Truth, wherein
the root of our independence is eternally hidden and our common
Identity is always already Revealed.
In
this Way we will affirm and participate in the necessarily eternal
Existence in which we all appear: Let us surrender into Infinity
with all our friends and hold on to no thing or condition that
ever appears. Let us forget all things in present Happiness,
and so forgive the universe for all its playful changes. Let
us always love one another, and so forgive one another for appearing,
for changing, and for passing out of present sight. So be it.