In a Japanese garden, every item is placed to reflect nature’s quiet harmony. Look closely enough at life and you will also find not one atom out of place — there are no gaps. And you are the gardener, the composer of the symphony. Are you Mozart or Schoenberg?

 That weekend, See Do continued to review lessons and work-out my mind with how reality is actually constructed. He can see that I’m having difficulty with the complexity of the truth. Each attempt I make to simplify sends me back to the beginning as he tries to get me to see it all, and all at once.

           I continually try and see the larger concept or create an analogy or metaphor to help me understand, but See Do stops me. And we begin again. “Time does not exist. But Time is all there is.” Then he patiently goes over everything again, from the beginning.

           He explained that we are hindered by our reflexive need to turn complex systems into tidy and simple concepts. He says this forces us to miss so much that is important. So much that actually is the point.

           He said to try and imagine that we had never heard of the concept of “orchestra.” And that we had only experienced solo players. Then imagine if we were taken into a concert hall and sat down and an entire symphony began to play in front of us. We would be amazed, intrigued and captivated by the intimate and subtle interplay between all the different instruments.

           For a moment, we would hear it all, in all its complex entangled life and movement, before our minds sought to simplify it into a single cohesive sound. It is those first, virgin moments that we need to appreciate and hold onto, as that is where true understanding will begin.

           If we want to see the true nature of reality, this is how we need to perceive what is happening around us. We need to learn to see the complexity in order to grasp how reality really works.

           It is all there, and all infinitely entangled and interacting. And we are making it all happen. He will answer my questions, but I must open my mind to the vast possibilities of the one thing.

           — continued  (Next Chapter: Participatory Spirituality)