Someone says that to choose is to discard everything else.

But is that really so?

The options spread out before us are not yet in our hands.
They are nothing more than "possibilities"; they do not actually exist.

So isn't it strange to say that we "discarded" them?

How can you discard something you never had in the first place?

Discarding Before the Choice

There certainly are things that should be discarded. They are the things we hold before we choose.

In other words, they are not possibilities but reality.

Reality here means the stability we already have in hand, and the attachment that clings to it.

At times, we know that unless we discard something, no new door will appear.

The purity of a choice depends on the will to discard.

What is required is to let go actively.

Vanishing After the Choice

On the other hand, there are things that vanish after we choose.
They are "the possibilities that were not chosen."

But we did not discard them ourselves; they simply disappear on their own.

They were never ours to begin with, so we cannot call it "discarding."

People are under the illusion that "because I chose, I lost the rest." But that is a great misunderstanding, a mere phantom.

Nothing was lost; it simply melted away like mist.

The possibilities that were not chosen — that is, the futures that never became reality — vanish at the moment of choice.

The Structure of Discarding and Vanishing

Choice has two stages.

• The stage of active discarding: discarding reality before the choice.
• The stage of natural vanishing: possibilities vanishing after the choice.

Will is at work in the former; will plays no part in the latter.

So what we should fear is not "losing other possibilities."
After all, it is impossible to lose what we never had.

What we should truly fear is failing to fully discard the reality that ought to be discarded before choosing.

That clouds the purity of the choice and leaves life overcast indefinitely.

Discard, Then Choose

Choice consists of two steps: "the will to discard reality" and "the natural vanishing of possibilities."

You discard only once. Do not mistake what vanishes afterward for something you "discarded."

Then the choice becomes clear, and the future branches decisively. A new timeline begins.

Discard, and choose.

That is the art of shasen (捨選): first discard, then choose.