The Straighter the Line, the Finer the Curve
By Michael Erlewine
Everything circles or cycles, spirals, and goes around. Anything that does not cycle does not register and does not return. It does not last long enough for us to remember. Things that last sustain themselves by continually positing themselves recursively.
And this idea, that the closer we come to resolving the true nature of the mind, the closer we come to resolving infinity. In other words, in this case, less is more. And the closer we come to total resolution, the longer it takes and the more we are extended and infinitely stretched out in the present moment.
This is easy to prove. Just try to photograph a sphere and look at the edges of the sphere in the photograph. It’s all there.
Photographers know that photographically resolving any spherical object to its extreme edge involves an infinite decreasing, and that “Infinite decreasing” usually refers to a sequence of numbers that continues indefinitely in a way that each term is smaller than the previous one.
For instance, a sequence like 10, 7, 4, 1, −2, −5. Here we show an infinite decrease by subtracting 3 from each term to get the next one. These sequences often approach negative infinity but never actually reach it, as they continue indefinitely.
All these factors contribute to the challenge of resolving the extreme edge of a spherical object photographically. It’s a bit like trying to zoom in farther and farther on a digital image — eventually, you reach a point where the details blur and become indistinct.
In a similar way, this concept appears similar when it comes to resolving the true nature of the mind. The straighter the line, the finer the curve. It gives the idea of ‘packing it in’ new meaning or the thought of ‘saving the best for last.’ That sense of ‘last’ lasts. It’s infinitely extended. It circles.
And I’m not speaking here of the dharma term ‘Recognition’, which refers to our initially recognizing for ourselves the true nature of the mind, but rather once we have that recognition, the process of extending and expanding that recognition becomes like the problem of photographing a sphere, and the devil is in the details of resolving the edges of the sphere.
The edges require an infinite resolution as with Zeno’s Paradox, where halving the distance to a goal becomes theoretically impossible and some kind of calculus has to step in. However, again I am talking not about a mathematical problem here but rather resolving our use of any non-dual practice like Insight Meditation.
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The closer we get to full resolution (resolving), the longer it takes, until, as mentioned, some kind of spiritual calculus must step in and take over and (here it comes): then we let go.
It’s the letting go part that I am talking about here. What does it take, how long, and what is the meaning? And there is no avoiding it, no leapfrogging. It’s the stretching and attenuation of a certain subtle something that can only lead to release and revelation, i.e., letting go.
And that my dharma friends is a BIG letting go. And this description amounts to a definition right here of the non-dual meditations which are non-meditations.
Or as Paul Simon put it: “You know the nearer your destination, the more you’re slip slidin’ away.”
This explains why our Being is in Becoming and has never quite Been.
Or it is a good definition of the immersion that non-dual forms of meditation require of us. We merge with the oneness, full immersion, where no subject or object exists.
Awareness is aware of itself.
[Midjourney graphic prompted by me.]
EMAIL Michael@Erlewine.net Note: If you would like to have access to other free books, articles, and videos on these topics, here is the link: SpiritGrooves.net.
As Bodhicitta is so precious,
May those without it now create it,
May those who have it not destroy it,
And may it ever grow and flourish.
