An Exercise for the Far End

This chapter: about 197 words, roughly 1 pages at 280 words a page. Updated whenever the site is regenerated.

A note before this one. This is an exercise, and it’s the one in this book that points you toward the worst state instead of away from it. Nothing else in the book depends on it. Skip it if someone has hurt you badly, if you’re in a fragile place, if you’re troubled by intrusive thoughts of harming someone, or on a day when you’re already being hard on yourself. If you have a teacher, do it with them, not alone.

This is for Chapter 3’s claim that the most lost person is carrying more of the knowing, not less. Try to imagine, from the inside, being maximally turned away from a person. See how far you get. If something stops you, don’t push past it. Look at what’s doing the stopping, and at what it’s like. To me, that state had a flavor I can only describe as malevolent. It carried both full knowledge of what it was, and full hiding of that knowledge from itself. See what you find. If it frightens you or stays with you afterward, stop, and don’t go back to it alone; if it doesn’t lift, talk to someone you trust.