The more you lose, the more you stand to gain.

Loss is a funny thing, most would regard it as something undesirable, but the wise of Tal'dun saw it differentlly.

The Pygmy Priests of The Alamont Mountains would squat under the shadows of their holy mountain and turn their attention to every thought and sensation that touched their senses and their mind. When each touch arose, they’d ask themselves“Was this mine? Did I ask this to come? Can I force it to go?” and the answer would always be a silent “no”. So, they’d release their attention from it with a gentle reminder “this is not mine, this I am not, this is not my Self.” 

Day after day, moon after moon, turn after turn, the flood of sensations and thought would continually barge into their awareness. Although their skin turned to leather, and then to crust, they would not move, and instead dedicated their whole being to releasing each and every disturbance. Most of them turned into ash under the merciless gaze of S'ruthrul, but rumor had it that for an extreme few, there'd come a day when disturbances no longer could touch them, and they were left with an internal void. 

When that happened, they were back in the primordial void, face to face with the progenitor nothingness from whence everything came,  S’ruthrul, the Stream, and all the creatures, large and small who called Tal'dun with its manifold Fathoms their home.

The Pygmy Priests were not alone in this. Far from gain, honor, and renown, it was nothingness that’s regarded as the highest attainment by the most senior of sages among the various divine orders of Tal'dun. Nothingness was the mother of all things, and the refuge of all beings. All people were born pure from the divine void, but this void became polluted by influxes from the impure world after birth. The sages made it their daily labor to seek to remove the impurities, by throwing away what they had, and keeping away anything they might gain. 

It was this conscious, willful, and directed loss that they'd hoped would lead them back to purity, to emptiness. 

In emptiness, there is no lust or hatred, no quarrels and disputes, no taking up of swords, rods, and weapons, no lying, cheating, slandering and recrimination. There is no accomplishments, for there is no need. And most of all, there is nobody, no body. No birth, no aging, no decay, and no death.  

Few indeed were the sages who realized this with their own body, so few that at one point it was thought that the way to true nothingess was lost to the ravages of time. The Sanguine Sages were said to be the last order on Tal'dun who knew the path, but no one has seen or heard from them in centuries by Vyn's time.  

Perhaps this is all a bit unreasonable sounding, especially if you're like Vyn, who's already lost everything, even their own memories and sense of self.  What's so good about nothing? Why should one throw away what they have in order to get it? 

For the full elaboration, we must wait until the next unraveling of the Red Seas Scroll, but here is a hint: If wisdom and perfection were not achieved by the efforts of the Shallowlings of the world to endlessly accumulate, and gather, and cling, then what might be the most likely way to achieve them? More fervent accumulations? More desperate clinging?

Until next time.

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