← Dying to Self
Most certainly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.
The grain of wheat
This is the law of the whole thing in one image. What stays intact stays alone. What breaks open multiplies. The seed's death is a threshold. It is the end of the seed's smallness, not the end of the seed.
Every real practice includes a kind of dying. The meditator dies to the thought stream. The faster dies to appetite. The forgiver dies to being right. It always feels like loss going in. It never turns out to be, coming out. The fruit is not for you alone; that is what makes it fruit.
Practice
Identify something you are protecting: an image, a habit, a position. Imagine letting it fall into the ground. Sit with the fear of that for five minutes. Then ask what might grow.
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