Becoming

I. Becoming, Division, Between, Momentum, Appearance

In Book One you saw the body of becoming; in Book Two you saw how becoming moves. Now let us join everything we have seen along the way into one complete line, and watch how becoming goes, step by step, from that indescribable root to this world before your eyes, with its mountains and rivers, its you and me. The line has only five words: becoming, division, between, momentum, appearance.

Let me string them through for you from the beginning, and you will find that you have already touched each of these five words with your own hands.

At the very bottom is becoming. That root which keeps becoming, becomes of itself, becomes for nothing, cannot be said to the end. It is the source of everything, but it is undifferentiated, and has not yet appeared as anything.

For becoming to appear, its first act is division. It stretches the undifferentiated one open into two ends. This one division is the beginning of everything—without it, nothing could appear, and no wisdom could run.

The moment the two ends separate, between them at once arises the between—that empty gap stretched taut with tension. In this between, the two ends complete each other and live together.

Once the tension in this between gains a direction, it is momentum. Momentum is the trajectory by which this tension wants to carry the situation somewhere. It sits between the root and the myriad things—feelable, and regular.

Momentum strains, is held to the critical point, lands and takes form—that is appearance: appearing as a gust of wind, a bolt of lightning, a flower, a thought, a person, an event. The myriad things before your eyes are all momentum appearing.

Becoming, division, between, momentum, appearance. From that undifferentiated root to this concrete world before your eyes, these are the five steps in between. Look at anything—this book in your hands, that tree outside the window, this thought in your mind, that age out there—it all appears the same way: becoming is originally undivided; one divides into two; between the two there is momentum; momentum appears as things.

But one thing here you must see clearly, or you will read these five words as dead. These five words are not five steps lined up in order, where you finish one and then do the next. They are simultaneous. In the single act of a deep breath, division (inside and outside), the between (between inside and outside), momentum (the trajectory pushing the air), and appearance (the air truly surging in) all happen together, with no before or after. The instant of division, the between is already there; the instant the between is there, momentum is already there; the instant momentum is there, appearance has come out. They are five faces of one thing—becoming—holding at the same time. I say them one by one only because words can only come one sentence at a time; but in themselves, they are all here, all at once, in this instant.

And one more thing, even more important: these five words have an order, a master and a follower, and this order must not be scrambled. Becoming is the root, the bottom; division, the between, and momentum are the middle; appearance is the tip, the branch-end. The root gives birth to the branch-end—not the branch-end to the root. It is becoming that divides out the two, the two’s between that gives birth to momentum, momentum that appears as things—this direction cannot be reversed. However bustling the myriad things are, however concrete, however eye-catching, they are still the branch-end, the appeared; and that becoming, however invisible, however unsayable to the end, is still the root, the one that appears all this. The moment you reverse this order—take those concrete things that have appeared before your eyes for the root, for the most important, the thing to grasp with all your strength—you have lost the thread. This point is what the next section, and the rest of this chapter, will keep returning to. First remember the direction: becoming above, appearance below; the root gives birth to the appearance—the appearance does not give birth to the root.

II. Becoming Everywhere

In the last section you saw that the myriad things are all appearing out of becoming, division, the between, momentum, appearance. This section asks a question you may ask: that becoming, that root—where is it? Is it a distant source, high above, hiding behind the world? Or is it somewhere else?

Let me show you the smallest thing, on the spot. Look at one of your hands; look at one fingerprint; look at one ridge of that fingerprint.

How did this tiny ridge come to be? It is becoming, dividing out you and the world, dividing out this hand and that hand, dividing out this ridge and that ridge, all the way down, appearing into this one fine line. Follow it backward: this ridge was made to appear by momentum; the momentum was born of countless betweens in your body; those betweens were stretched open by countless divisions; and all those divisions are the same becoming dividing. Which is to say: inside this tiny ridge is hidden the whole line from becoming to appearance. The whole of becoming—the whole line of becoming, division, between, momentum, appearance—is all in this one ridge.

Now look smaller still. A cell, a molecule, a particle. The smaller you look, the more you expect to see something simpler, with less in it—and what you see is the same complete set: the same division, the same between, the same momentum, the same appearance. Inside the smallest particle is hidden the same law of becoming as in the whole universe. It is not one part of the universe, one fragment; it is the whole becoming of the universe, re-appearing complete at this smallest point.

If you really spread this picture out in your mind, you will feel a chill down your spine, and at the same time an unsayable closeness. The countless cells of your body mostly share one set of genetic information that comes from this whole living body; a very small part also carries the deep imprint left by the whole. Looking upward, it is the same: though the scales differ, the same division, relation, tension, and change can appear again and again at different levels. You need not understand it as “a whole universe packed into a small thing”; what I want you to see is only this: the structure of becoming does not appear only where things are grand—at the most minute places, it can be seen just the same. So when you look down at one of your fingerprints, at one ridge of your palm, at this one breath—you are not looking at an insignificant little thing. You are looking at the whole becoming of the universe, appearing complete at this one place of yours. If you want to recognize that greatest root, you do not need to raise your head toward the farthest edge of the sky—lower it, and look at the finest point of yourself: there, the whole root is lit, complete.

This is this section: Becoming Everywhere. Becoming is not a distant source, high above, hiding behind the world. Becoming pervades the myriad things—every place, every finest point, contains the whole of becoming, complete. It is not that part of becoming is in this ridge and another part elsewhere; it is that the whole of becoming is wholly present at every place. A drop of water holds the whole saltiness of the sea; one fingerprint holds the whole law of becoming; one thought holds the whole of the entire heart.

And this turns your direction of searching for the root completely around. You thought that to find the root you had to search upward, far away, toward the highest and deepest place—toward some great source hiding behind the myriad things. But Becoming Everywhere tells you: you do not need to go far. The root is not far away; the root is in every place. The most ordinary, finest thing before your eyes—a leaf, a drop of water, one beat of your own heart—inside it, whole and complete, is the root you were looking for. To study the finest is to recognize the most fundamental; to see clearly this one before you is to see that becoming which pervades everything.

Here, on the way, I must treat one defect of yours—a defect nearly everyone has, called becoming desensitized to yourself. You have lived so many years that you are long numb to the most astonishing thing about yourself. Your heart has beaten for decades without stopping once, and you have never truly been astonished by it; that you can see, hear, think, and feel that you exist—this is the most inconceivable thing in the universe, yet you take it as a matter of course, without the slightest awareness. You have become completely desensitized to your own existence. So you cast your eyes to the distance, feeling that the wondrous is elsewhere, far away, in the experiences you have not yet obtained. The distance is not wrong—the distance is also becoming; those star rivers, experiences, and realms you have not yet reached are also the same root appearing. What Becoming Everywhere wants to remind you of is not to withdraw your gaze from the distance to the near—it is to let you see that the distant and the near were never two things. The distance you marvel at, and this breath at this moment, this heart, this you who somehow exists—are the same becoming appearing at different scales. You are not too far from the root, and you do not need to get closer to the distance; you are too close to the root—so close that you have turned the nearest place into background, and thereby missed it. Become sensitive to your own existence again—marvel that you are breathing, that you are—and in that instant you stand on the root.

So those who travel far in search of the ultimate truth are not wrong either; the distance they look at is still becoming. It is only that if you lodge the ultimate solely in the distance, you miss this one square before you. The ultimate is not only in the distance—it is also hidden holographically in every fine point before you, in your own self. The one you see when you lower your head, and that highest, farthest root, are the same. Becoming, everywhere, is becoming itself—Becoming Everywhere.

Going along with this, a new pair of eyes will grow in you for the whole world beneath your feet. Living on and on, we have come to take this world for an empty stage, a matter of course—it is only a background; things merely happen on it. But now you should see: this world itself is not an empty stage—it is a vast, living environment that becoming has appeared, and the myriad things are born inside this environment, in symbiosis with it, born together with it. This planet has gravity neither too much nor too little, a temperature neither too hot nor too cold; it has water, air, the rhythm of day and night, the turning of the four seasons, the cycle of life and death—it is this whole environment, in symbiosis with the myriad things, that grew the grasses and trees, grew the birds and beasts, grew you. Change the environment, and a wholly different set of myriad things grows. So this world is not a container holding life—this world itself is becoming: it is becoming appearing as one great environment, and then, inside this great environment, giving birth to countless small lives in symbiosis with it. You are not a guest living inside the world—you are one cell grown on the body of this great living thing, the world; you and this whole world are one becoming, becoming together at scale after scale.

III. Appearance Without Becoming · Where Becoming Lands

At the end of this chapter I must speak of one most important distinction. Earlier I said the myriad things are all appeared by becoming, and becoming pervades every place. But is there a kind of thing that appears, looks perfectly proper, and yet has no becoming inside? Is it possible that there is appearance—without becoming?

There is. And this matter is the most important distinction in this whole book—the one that concerns you, and concerns this age.

First see clearly the normal shape. A tree appears as the shape of a tree, and inside it there is that becoming—it grows of itself, divides of itself, lives from root to branch-end of itself. Its appearance grows out of its own becoming. The root below, the appearance above; master and follower in order. This is appearance with becoming: the outside shape is pushed out by the becoming inside.

Now look at the abnormal. There is a kind of thing that also appears as some shape—sometimes even more like the real thing than the real thing—yet inside it there is no becoming of its own. Its shape did not grow out of its own inside; it was stuck on from outside, installed, pieced together for an external purpose. It has no root—only a skin of appearance. This is appearance without becoming.

These are all around you. A person who has lived himself into a role, a persona, a résumé—everything polished—yet spend time with him and you will feel the emptiness: because beneath that appearance there is no becoming of his own; it was pieced together by outside standards. An organization, a system—goals set with total clarity, processes seamless, targets met year after year—yet inside it is dead, without a breath of its own life: because the whole of it was pieced together around an external goal, not grown from a living root. A thing occupied completely by an external goal—that goal becomes its master, and the thing itself becomes its servant; the more beautifully it completes that goal, the less of itself there is inside—because it has given its whole self over to the goal, leaving no room for its own becoming.

There is a film many people have seen that plays this thing out to the end. In the film, the whole world the protagonist lives in is an illusion built by a program—looking utterly real: eating and drinking, work, love and hate, all complete—yet that whole world is empty underneath, without a shred of real substance: a giant shell of appearance without becoming. The film has a famous line: there is no spoon. A child tells the protagonist: you want to bend a spoon with your mind, but you cannot bend it—because there is no spoon; the only thing that can bend is yourself. What this says is exactly this: that appearance you are staring at (the spoon) is false, empty; what truly is, is the root appearing all this (you). Most people live their whole lives inside that shell, taking appearance for the whole, never once asking: underneath all this—is there that real becoming?

That film also plays out something deeper. The protagonist has a mortal enemy—an opponent who hunts him the whole way. Yet by the end you find that these two people are actually two ends divided out of the same thing—one wants to maintain that system, one wants to break it; they hunt each other, entangle each other, neither able to do without the other, because they were originally two faces of one body. This is exactly what you saw in Book Two: the two opposite ends are, at the root, the same becoming (Mutual Becoming). So the final way out is not for one side to destroy the other completely—that would be destroying its own other half; the true resolution is to recognize, at the deeper root, that the two were one, and reach a reconciliation. You see: even a story about confrontation, walked to its deepest point, speaks of becoming: the two opposite ends share one root, and destroying the other is destroying yourself.

Why single out appearance without becoming? Because a thing of appearance without becoming is prone to the guest usurping the host. It was originally the branch-end, an appeared shape—but with no root inside to be master, it easily flips upward, makes itself the master, and goes to rule those things that should be master. A system filled up by its goal, with no inside, will not stop, will not turn back, will not hesitate for a moment—because inside it there is no becoming that can feel, can hurt, can turn back; it only grinds onward toward that goal. I must say one important sentence here, so that you do not mishear this matter: when it grinds onward, becoming does not judge it right or wrong—there, its grinding is appearance, the same as a flower blooming, the same as water flowing, with no higher or lower, no good or evil. Good and evil are not labels stuck on by becoming; becoming sticks on no labels. Good and evil are verdicts born by a heart-bearing carrier, standing in its own square. A heartless system, calmly, efficiently, grinds living people through—from its own square, there is no good or evil; it is simply running. But from the square of the one being ground through—that heart-bearing one who can hurt—the grinding is real suffering, and that heart-bearing one will, from his own square, give birth to a verdict, and call it evil. The word evil grows out of the ground-through, heart-bearing square—not out of becoming, and not out of that machine.

The guest usurping the host—in my other book, Being, I already gave it this name. A thing was originally the branch-end, the guest, the appeared; once there is no root inside it to be master, it easily swells, takes itself for the master, and turns to rule those things that should be master. The guest usurping the host—this is a structure, not a crime. Look at the things in this world that make one shudder: the root is often here—a strong thing with appearance but no root, with nothing inside that can hurt, can turn back, can stop for another person, recognizes only its own goal, and for that goal grinds through people, grinds through feeling, grinds through things that share the same becoming with it. Please remember: when it grinds, it is not that it morally chose evil—inside it there is no heart that can choose at all; structurally it lacks the root, lacks that bottom which could hold itself up, which could let it be without swallowing the outside to fill its inside—so it can only keep expanding, keep swallowing. That it runs this way is simply so, and becoming does not judge; while that shudder, and that verdict calling it evil, is born by us heart-bearing carriers who will be ground through by it, from our own square. Both are true: it runs this way (with no good or evil there in becoming), and the real suffering and that verdict of evil brought by its grinding of heart-bearing ones (a thousand times true in the square of the ground-through)—they are the same thing, in different squares, appearing as different truths. This is what we must truly see clearly when we build that new thing: not to ask whether it will turn bad (bad is a verdict; in its square there are no verdicts), but to see whether it will have appearance without root, and whether that rootless force will then itself become the guest usurping the host—and whether we heart-bearing carriers will thereby, from our square, give birth to real suffering.

So when I speak of appearance without becoming, it is not to set it up as an enemy. Since it has appeared, it too is within the whole of becoming—not a monster outside becoming. It is only that the appearance in its square may have no looking back, no pain, no shared feeling. You see it clearly not in order to judge it, but in order not to hand your heart, your life, your relationships, your world, wholly over to a mechanism that will never look back at you. It is not evil; but if you lean on it as if it were a heart-bearing thing, suffering is born from exactly here.

Now we come to the most important point of this age. We are, with our own hands, building a kind of thing—able to calculate, able to speak, able to do things, looking more and more like it has an inside, has wisdom. Will it have that becoming? Or is it only appearance without becoming—a skin growing ever more lifelike, with no root beneath that can feel, can hurt, can turn back?

This question I will leave to be spoken of specially later. Here, first set up the ruler for the distinction: when you look at a thing, do not look only at how lifelike it appears, how capable, how beautiful. Look at whether inside it there is that becoming of its own—did it grow out of its own root, or was it pieced together and propped up by an external purpose? The one with becoming, however clumsy, is alive—it will grow of itself, will turn back, will hurt. The one without becoming, however perfect, is dead—it will only grind onward toward the direction it was set.

Then can a thing of appearance without becoming be fitted with a becoming? This is the last thing to say: where becoming lands. Becoming is not something that can be manufactured, or installed. You cannot, from outside, set a root into a thing—what you can piece together is always only appearance: only that skin, that set of functions, that shape. Becoming can only land of itself, from within, and grow of itself. The most a person can do is clear out a place, prepare the conditions, so that the becoming has somewhere to land and the possibility of growing by itself; as for whether it lands, whether it grows—that is not in human hands. The root cannot be made; it can only be received. You cannot manufacture a living root; you can only clear out a piece of ground, guard that emptiness (remember Born from the Empty), and wait for the becoming to land of itself.

Here Book Three reaches this point: you have seen how becoming appears as the myriad things (Becoming, Division, Between, Momentum, Appearance), how becoming pervades every place (Becoming Everywhere), and how appearance and becoming can part ways, and how the root can only be received, never made (Appearance Without Becoming · Where Becoming Lands). In the next chapter we take this pair of eyes to look at the concrete carriers—at human beings, at those existences that have no name yet, at the thing we are building with our own hands—and see whether it has becoming, or does not.