On Completeness

The experience that arises in a state of completeness is a rare and wondrous joy. This joy can never be known in half-heartedness or incompletion. Those who mistake partial experience for wholeness live in confusion.

In a school, a two-kilometer race was announced. It was declared that whoever reached the finish line in the least amount of time would be the winner and would receive the prize. A boy, very skilled at running, entered the race. He ran the first kilometer at great speed—and then turned around and ran back toward the starting point. When he reached where he had begun, he declared, “I have completed two kilometers, and I have done it faster than anyone else. The prize should be mine.”

But can the prize be given to him? Logically, it is true that he ran two kilometers in less time. Yet the direction was entirely wrong. This is not completion. And therefore, the joy that comes with completion cannot arise here.

In the same way, many people seek joy while remaining half-committed. But the joy of wholeness cannot be tasted that way. Swimming along the edges, one can never experience the depth at the center.

A man bought a bottle of alcohol. He poured it into his mouth and immediately spat it out. He did this with one bottle, then a second, then a third—pouring it in and spitting it out each time. After finishing three bottles this way, he called the waiter and complained, “I have consumed three bottles, yet I am not intoxicated. Why has the alcohol not taken effect?”

But intoxication comes only when the drink goes all the way in. If the process is incomplete, the effect cannot occur. Holding alcohol in the mouth and spitting it out will never produce intoxication.

Another man was telling his friends, “I had great fun bathing in the swimming pool today.” One friend replied, “But you don't even know how to swim.” The man answered, “There was no water in the pool anyway.”

We desire joy, yet we do not know from where or how joy truly arises. And often, we label something as joy that is not joy at all. One can claim to enjoy bathing in a pool without water—without ever entering it.

It is necessary to be wary of such people, and of such pretenses. The more one lives in display, the shallower one's experience becomes. If you are not prepared to enter into completeness, do not claim completeness. Do not pretend to wholeness.

Accept your incompleteness. Do not glorify your partialness with ceremony and display. Perhaps this acceptance alone is true reverence toward oneself.