What is the difference between seed-bearing grass and the fruit-bearing tree?
Both are repeating processes, but seed-bearing grass shows the fundamental process of life and the functioning of the body, while the fruit-bearing tree teaches us about the abilities that make the functioning of the world recognizable.
The fruit is the ability that we can acquire, but the conditional form is not accidental.
The fruit does not come automatically. We can look through a book, but if we do not even want to understand what the letters mean, we do not learn to read, no matter how regularly a book comes into our hands. The fruit-bearing tree bears fruit only if we recognize what the tree produces and also want the result that its presence offers.
Grass is a process of life, while seed-bearing grass is a process of life that repeats several times during one life cycle and becomes recognizable and understandable through repetition. This process, however, does not depend on whether we are interested in it or not. A repeating process of life is part of life; it happens in any case, and it necessarily has an effect on us. Its purpose is not teaching, but we also learn through it, because through repetitions we recognize how it functions and what laws it manifests.
We learn to speak, just as we learn to walk, because this is a fundamental property; we need these in life, but the learning is automatic, and we have no other possibility.
We do not necessarily have to learn to sing, nor to dance. If we are interested in these, we can learn to read sheet music, but if we are not interested, then no matter how much we are forced to attend singing lessons, we will not learn them simply because we are present in the process that would teach us. Without our attention and will, we do not receive the fruit that we do not desire; this tree will not bear fruit for us.
If we learn an ability that truly interests us, then we acquire it, and if we possess the ability, then we will also be capable of passing it on.
The seed is in the fruit. If we have learned the ability, then we have also come to know the process that taught us that particular ability, and therefore we can also pass it on.
Seed-bearing grass therefore represents a fundamental process of life and a property that life teaches us, because without these we would not be able to exist, while the fruit-bearing tree is not a fundamental condition of life, but knowledge that we can acquire, learn, and pass on.