Being

In your moment of fierce interpersonal friction, when life-energy is worn away in vain

Scripture

Two wheels grind together; dry filing without oil.

Splinters fly, fire hisses; being is filing, is eroding.

Neither attack nor defense; idle spinning, burning.

Being is wearing, is corroding; being is shaving, is wearing through.

Worn until the paper turns transparent—only then the true grain is seen.

Ground out into dust, the hot ash gestates an embryo.

Wenzi · On Being

You and someone are like two dry, oil-less gears, forcibly mounted on one axle, turning in opposite directions. Every meshing of teeth is not propulsion but dry friction and scraping (two wheels grind together; dry filing without oil). You can see the splinters of emotion flying (splinters fly), hear the hiss of the heart under friction (fire hisses). You are “filing” and “eroding” each other (being is filing, is eroding), consuming each other’s most precious energy.

“Neither attack nor defense; idle spinning, burning.” This is not an attack-and-defense with a purpose (neither attack nor defense). It is meaningless “idle spinning,” and self-immolation within the idle spinning (idle spinning, burning). You feel life being “worn and corroded,” being “shaved thin,” as if about to “wear through” to the back of the soul (being is wearing, is corroding; being is shaving, is wearing through).

Stop. Stop taking part in this two-way consumption.

Not to leave—to step out of the role of “gear.”

Step far enough back, and watch these two gears.

Bring your heart close to both gears at once: feel the hardness and weariness of the left gear, the restlessness and powerlessness of the right gear. They are both stuck in one predicament, manufacturing pain for each other and bearing pain.

Watch how they are fated to hurt each other through poor design or rust. “Worn until the paper turns transparent—only then the true grain is seen.” At the moment you withdraw and observe with compassion, the scripture confirms a deep transformation: when this consumption continues to its extreme, until the soul is worn like a sheet of paper to near-transparency (worn until the paper turns transparent), only then will you see through this thinness the true “grain” hidden inside the paper (only then the true grain is seen). It may be your core fear, or a longing you have never noticed.

“Ground out into dust, the hot ash gestates an embryo.” At last, when the two gears are thoroughly “ground into dust” in endless friction, in the high-temperature “ash” of that friction, a wholly new “embryo” may be gestating (the hot ash gestates an embryo). The end of consumption is not nothingness—it is the thorough conversion and recombination of energy.

The imagined gears have stopped turning.

The splinters slowly settle; the high heat gradually cools.

You no longer feel consumed; you feel a clarity after weariness.

That violent friction was like a precise wildfire, burning away every disguise, so that the coarse soil and hard seeds of life’s essence, in the blazing ash, were both laid bare and given equal respect.

Being-Attrition: you are not a sacrifice—you are that blazing wasteland-fire which must happen, so that the truth may be revealed and the new may be born.