Using a cup as metaphor, consciousness is like the inside and outside of the cup: the inside is “I” and the outside is IT. The cup is One that is Two. The inside and outside our separate but they cannot be separated. When mind can’t cycle between inside and outside and gets stuck on on half of the cup, great tension rises that can’t be tolerated because it is a split or wound in our mind.

The Great Illusion is that reality is split between outside (the world) and inside (me or sense of self) . This split between me and the world is the cause of our suffering. The cup is whole, but we use (the Tao) but we use the inside but we can only see the outside. Take away the outside and the inside can’t be seen. The outside is the condition for the inside, yet we use the inside. Reality is One, but we use it (make stuff) as two. Function ends when we get stuck and can’t use both the. outside and the inside in cyclical exchange.

In relationship we experience the functional cycling of Me speaking and You listening; first me then you as a Me. We cycle the inside and the outside. Me is outside of the cup while you are listening (the inside of the cup); then you are outside (yang) and I am inside (yin). The relationship functions when we cycle inside and outside.

But in argument, the two insides (or Me’s) can’t cycle. So you have Two ME’s facing each other, neither willing to yield and become empty or listening. Tension mounts until the cup is destroyed. The wound, the guilt and the shame, comes from the truth that if I destroy the other, I also destroy myself, so the broken cup gets kicked down the road in time.