“Always,” he said,”I’ve got to do this or that.” “Always,” he said, “what is next and what is next.”  “Always,” he said, “when I finish this or that, then I say to myself that I’ll be fulfilled.” “But,” he said,” I am not fulfilled and there is no peace.”

Yes, because peace cannot be had this way. Peace does not come from achieving this or that. It can only come when departing from the seemingly unceasing structure of resistance and amelioration, of desire and satisfaction, of action and transient completion. Departing, therefore, from the ego.

What is eternally before, after, and beneath the question of what is next? What ever-sees the one who feels that there is, and can be, no peace? What, who peacefully abides amid the tumult of this particular human life? What, who peacefully extrudes itself into forms while also, and at the same time, being beyond form?

What, who am I?

The one who acts must ask himself what comes before all action. The one who thinks must ask himself whence thought arises. The one who has taken himself as the center must ask what is the Source of all thought, feeling, sensation, and perception. The who has taken himself as the source must find what is the Source of all apparent sources. The mystery comes before everything, including the questioner. Therein, that is, herein is peace, the peace that surpasses all human endeavor, all human thought, and all human understanding. Fall back and rest here.

This is contemplation.