It is precisely because the whole is present in the details that the details are able to keep their distance from one another and harmonize in the form of an aggregate consisting of details alone. If the details are merely parts of the whole, they will need to be mediated by an infrastructure, but they are able to coexist on their own as details when organized in parallel. Parallelism (hei) refers to a flat structure without layers, but, in the case of such an organization, the individual details will never get sacrificed to the whole.
In distinction to structures possessing normative values, such as God for instance, the structure of Japanese values is such that norms are created by factors such as consideration and shame that come into play between individual people. This is the mechanism whereby parallel relationships are maintained, and this is how one thing is able to harmonize with another while keeping an appropriate distance.
One might compare the structure of Western cities with their infrastructures as being like a tree, in contrast to which a Japanese village is laid out in the manner of a parallel network. The human brain is similarly organized as a parallel network of neurons, and the world created by the Internet is likewise a parallel network of individuals. Parallel relationships are what democracy is all about.

	Japanese spaces are such that each and every one of the details is considered to be of equal importance, and they possess a structure in which perspectives obtained from a variety of individual details are able to coexist in parallel.
	The cells, or neurons, in the human brain are independent, scattered units existing in parallel. They establish connections by means of stimuli on each occasion as required.
	The Kanazawa 21st Century Museum of Art designed by Kazuyo Sejima is made up of a parallel assembly of rectangular exhibition rooms set inside a circular outer wall made of glass. The inside of the museum is arranged exactly like a village, consisting as it does of exhibition rooms which maintain their distance one from the other. Exhibitions can be held by freely linking the individual rooms.