The most important moment of our life is when we see ultimate reality for the first time at the third path, the Path of Seeing. It changes us forever, and brings us to the very verge of our goal.

This path cannot occur unless first we are staying in the state of meditation with a totally clear and focused mind: balanced, free of the two extremes of dullness and hyperactivity.

During this first brief period in ultimate reality we cannot perceive anything less than the ultimate. And so we are for a while like water poured into water, unaware of ourselves or even that we are seeing, for these are not the ultimate things that we are looking upon with our minds.

Ultimate reality is like a crystal; specifically, like a diamond, and we will know it is so. Nothing can be ultimate—highest or hottest— because we can always add another inch or degree. But the diamond comes close, for nothing else in the universe can scratch it.

Ultimate reality lies all around us now, but beyond our sight, clear as diamond. In fact everything there is, everywhere, possesses its own ultimate reality—just as every splinter of diamond is simple, perfect purity.