Understanding is a nonlinear and multidimensional process. Describing such a process requires several points of view – several projections or orthogonal models of this process. This makes it possible to package the depth (volume) of understanding by using the instrumental possibilities of language.
In the "Report," a sequential practical experience is presented – this is a vertical model (projection) of the process of understanding. The "Continuation" allows one to see the process of understanding from a different angle – it is a horizontal model of the same process, a view from above. The "Continuation" aims to rid the "Report" of distortion and one-sidedness.
It should be borne in mind that both texts – the "Report" and the "Continuation" – are akin to Asian chopsticks: they complement each other and are needed solely to transfer a portion of "rice" into a "mouth". This exhausts their function. So, both texts are temporary constructions and have a functionally limited service life. Nevertheless, in this pair, the "Report" (due to the practical experience presented in it) is the leading one, and the "Continuation" is the subordinate one.
In the "Continuation," attention is given to the mode of thinking, which in the "Report" is called "parallel".
Having advanced significantly in the practice, the practitioner discovers that it is akin to a fractal, where the small fully repeats the large. Such nesting of properties allows one to know the large by knowing the small. Thus, the practitioner sees and comprehends the absence of size and scale, the absence of important and unimportant, the absence of center and periphery, the absence of any hierarchy.
Having completed a full cycle of the practice (a complete fractal pattern), the practitioner sees that there is no definiteness: neither the practitioner himself, nor any of his constituents have independent existence and are but a single relative process. This unified process cannot be given any clear-cut definition, for it manifests itself in a multitude of other interdependent processes – such are the properties of the fractal nesting of the large in the small. Thus, this process has almost no definiteness – no form, no coordinates, no dimensions. However, like any relative process, it has a vector (direction) and some property, albeit the simplest one.
This formless (not fully definite) process can be conventionally called "direct and unconditional knowledge of itself" or "consciousness."
The process of "consciousness" begins in a certain immeasurable and indefinable "place," which can likewise be conventionally called "reality." However, despite its direct connection with reality, the process of "consciousness" is real only relatively, and in itself (apart from reality) has no independent existence. Consciousness is like a wave, consisting only of itself, emanating from reality.
The cycle of the process of "consciousness" begins in reality and ends there as well.
The beginning of the cycle is the acquisition of a certain definiteness. The process of "consciousness" is almost entirely formless, and its acquired definiteness (its property) consists only in the fact that this process knows itself. This definiteness makes the process of "consciousness" relative.
The acquisition of definiteness occurs upon exiting reality. Reality is the "place" where the not-happened acquires the label "the happened." The happened is that which has acquired a certain definiteness (features and properties). Such acquired properties are interdependent – they support each other and do not exist separately. From these properties, features, and their combinations, everything that constitutes the practitioner himself and the vast world where he appeared is born.
The end of the cycle is the loss of definiteness, the loss of all features and properties. With the loss of everything relative, the process of "consciousness" returns to reality.
A complete cycle forms a self-similar fractal pattern of being. Such a pattern is finite (has a limit of self-similarity), because it is relative. The "unfolding" and "folding" of the pattern are the acquisition and subsequent loss of features, properties, and their combinations in the universal process of eliminating random asymmetry. The universal process is the striving toward equilibrium, aimed at returning to a state of zero asymmetry (to reality).
Following the universal striving toward equilibrium is the practice, for the execution of which the practitioner appeared in this world. The practice is the small within the large: a small fractal pattern that has occurred in the form of the practitioner, precisely repeats the entire large fractal.
Depending on the stage and phase, the practice can look very different. Each phase has its own quite definite sets of features and properties. Advancement in the practice simplifies these sets, gradually depriving the practitioner of features and properties. Passing through the full pattern (path) of the practice frees the practitioner from the sets of features and properties, returning him to reality.
However, a return to reality is possible only with the physical death of the practitioner. The practitioner's body is a stable formation, and as long as it functions – the practice continues.
In the process of practice, the practitioner discovers that the loss of features and properties does not make his life carefree and easy. However, the practice gives the practitioner the ability to overcome the obstacles and difficulties that arise. In a sense, the process of practice is akin to the process of maturation – it is not the practitioner's body that matures now, but his understanding.
Having advanced in the practice to the extent possible in life, the practitioner sees the world differently: as a complex, interdependent, and multi-turn nesting of one within the other, where the immeasurably small is completely similar to the immeasurably large. The practitioner's "gaze" encompasses the multitude of processes and connections between them and allows one to see what was previously invisible.
This "gaze" is a different mode of thinking, which in the "Report" is called "parallel." Such a mode can be called "fractal" or "natural" thinking.
Being human, the practitioner understands that further practice consists in helping living beings (including humans) overcome the difficulties of practice. However, he also understands that such help is an ambiguous and complex matter; it will yield no immediate (within the confines of a lifetime) results and can be interpreted in any way. The maturation of understanding is a difficult, draining process of transformation. It promises nothing but uncertainty and deprivation: the sweet carrot of certainty, happiness, peace, and bliss is absent. Any certainty is an illusion. Practice strips the practitioner of all illusions, transforming them into understanding.
The practitioner no longer understands the words "help" and "compassion" in their usual sense. He has no ability to feel compassion, for such a mechanism the practitioner has lost. However, the practitioner sees the pattern of being and understands that despite the ambiguity and potential pointlessness of the task, the necessity for help is present. The absence of compassionate mechanisms in the practitioner changes the nature of the help – it becomes impersonal. Thus, the practitioner acts out of the necessity to provide effective, but non-addressed help to all living beings in overcoming the difficulties of the practice.
This necessity for help stems from the inevitability of the maturation of understanding, from the inevitability of following the universal striving toward equilibrium (the vector of force), directed to the reality. This necessity is already embedded in the structure of the pattern of being that the practitioner sees: the entire pattern consists of this inevitable necessity, separation absent.
The practitioner does not compete, does not prove, admits no benefit of any kind, and neither expects nor avoids anything — all this is redundancy, an empty expenditure of limited resources in the field of relative phenomena. The practitioner is the vector of the least necessary action, generated in the universal striving toward the reality.
Thus, the only effective thing the practitioner can do is to continue the practice. The practitioner's remaining predispositions and skills (abilities), which have been preserved in the process of practice, assist in this matter, lending it individual features. These characteristics and their combinations give rise to the variety of ways and forms in which non-addressed help is accomplished. The practice becomes a living and natural process of being.
The main rule of practice: begin and keep doing.
And now to the "rice," or the essence of everything written: instead of the faceless "practitioner," anyone who has read both texts can try to substitute themselves (their self-perception or self-definition).
Keep doing.