Gospel koan 100.6

The sacred engine

Koan 100.6

Without difference, there is nothing to relate to; without relation, no potential for transformation—no being.

Summary exposition

This koan establishes that being is the transformative relation of difference, while revealing that every difference is itself a stabilized relation of prior differences. There is no bottom layer of pure distinction—only the endless, generative conference of differences, fractal and self-similar at every scale. A clear example is the voltage in a battery—itself the result of electrochemical, atomic, and quantum differences—existence is a cascade of relational processes, each both the product and the precondition of the next. The implication is ontological recursion: reality is not built from differences, but from the unceasing conference of difference itself—the process primitive of existence.

The Gospel of Being

by John Mackay

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