The Path Rejoined

If you quietly follow Byun Shi-Ji's line, you see that it is not uniform.

It darkens, then fades. It thickens, then thins. In some places it grows so thin it seems about to break; in others it revives and thickens. Within a single line are ups and downs.

This is the line of life. Life, too, is not uniform. There are times of strength and times of weariness. Times of clarity and times of blur. Just when it seems about to break, it joins again.

What moves the heart most is the place where it seems about to break. The place where the line has thinned almost to vanishing. There we hold our breath. Will it break?

But the line does not break. It continues, thin as it is. And then it revives.

This is the form of endurance. Endurance is not always strong. It has moments that seem about to break. Moments when one feels one can bear no more. Yet not to break, to continue even thinly. That is endurance.

Life is not only what continues in a thick line. What continues as though it might break is also life. Perhaps it is a deeper life.

Someone's line must be thinning somewhere even now. It is not breaking. It is only growing thin.

Within a single line is a whole lifetime.