Alistair and I had Date Night the other night. (Let me tell you, it’s not an easy thing to do with a houseful of people and the bathroom right next to ours. I found myself wishing for the privacy of our beloved Quonset Hut where we can make noise.) We usually start out with a check in, letting go of anything hanging on from the day, including any pesky resentful niggles. We try let go of anything that might come between us. What we want is intimacy with each other.
Awhile back, Alistair and I came up with only one hard and fast rule for date night, which is the Third Party Rule. We discovered that when we’re together in intimate space and we wind up talking about someone else, then the intimacy and the positive energy between us drops like a stone. After invoking the Third Party Rule, we also notice that the intimacy gets more intense and more pleasurable. The trick is to catch myself doing it, because talking about also feels pleasurable. Some call that negative pleasure; I call it dishing.
To use the 3-2-1 of Ken Wilber (3rd person, 2nd person, 1st person) -- a very handy guide -- talking about (3rd person) something or someone else rather than from myself (1st person) is an energy killer. Intimacy goes down the toilet and I’m engaged in something else. Instead of intimacy (just another word for process) opening up between me and you, it starts to close down.
I’ve noticed this seems true for the Big Mind process too. When we speak as the Voices (1st person), the power of the process increases dramatically and I’m right inside it. “I statements” are pretty much the name of the game. Just the opposite is also true. When I don’t speak as the voice, instead I’m offering an opinion, a tasty piece of scholarship, debating with another person, I’m talking about something (3rd person). If other people do this too, then the group starts to fray at the edges. We start to look more like a bunch of chickens scratching around competing for their feed. It’s fun but not terribly intimate.
Last Friday, Diane did a bit of superb facilitation. (Now I’m speaking about, so let’s see how I do.) The group started to debate, opine and pontificate on the subject of Buddhism. The group cohesion was starting to come apart. Diane (who is an extremely gifted facilitator and hangs out mostly in the emotional subtle energy realms), stopped the action. She named it and then asked to speak to the Voice of Complete Peace. Click! the group came back together. Then she asked each person to offer their perspective -- just one -- on what they know about Buddhism. What emerged was an incredibly moving sharing of each person’s intimate experience of Buddhism. Speaking from the non-dual state brought clarity and intimacy to us again. Not to mention less squabbling.
When I’m in a non-dual state, it’s hard for me to speak and put language to what I’m experiencing. This is a VERY familiar, and frustrating, feeling for me. It happens most often when I’m hanging out with the mystics at home. Diane’s skilled teaching is helping me to put language to the non-dual experience and to see it less as magical and more as ordinary. It is state that is easily accessible to me and I have definite feelings that go along with it that I can express in words. Some good words include bliss, everything’s okay, I AM, vastness, deep space, peaceful, no boundaries.
But even the non-dual has positive and negative aspects. The positive side is bliss, the cessation of all my disturbing feelings like anger, jealousy, fear, etc. It’s just IS-ness and so it seems almost silly to say anything more. The negative side is a kind of lethargy, apathy, dullness. What’s the use of doing or saying anything since in the ultimate reality of all things it doesn’t really matter?
Roshi is helping me to move beyond the non-dual, to the apex position that both integrates AND transcends the dual and the non-dual. From the apex, I have the flexibility and wisdom of acting, feeling and choosing the dual and/or the non-dual. Roshi encourages me to move past the non-dual as soon as I’ve got a taste of it because it can be highly addictive. And it’s just another way to get stuck.
Sitting in the apex position gives me the maximum flexibility, allowing for all my feelings, allowing me to act and express verbally, as well having the hawk’s eye view of Oneness. I am intimate with myself, Alistair and others.
Awhile back, Alistair and I came up with only one hard and fast rule for date night, which is the Third Party Rule. We discovered that when we’re together in intimate space and we wind up talking about someone else, then the intimacy and the positive energy between us drops like a stone. After invoking the Third Party Rule, we also notice that the intimacy gets more intense and more pleasurable. The trick is to catch myself doing it, because talking about also feels pleasurable. Some call that negative pleasure; I call it dishing.
To use the 3-2-1 of Ken Wilber (3rd person, 2nd person, 1st person) -- a very handy guide -- talking about (3rd person) something or someone else rather than from myself (1st person) is an energy killer. Intimacy goes down the toilet and I’m engaged in something else. Instead of intimacy (just another word for process) opening up between me and you, it starts to close down.
I’ve noticed this seems true for the Big Mind process too. When we speak as the Voices (1st person), the power of the process increases dramatically and I’m right inside it. “I statements” are pretty much the name of the game. Just the opposite is also true. When I don’t speak as the voice, instead I’m offering an opinion, a tasty piece of scholarship, debating with another person, I’m talking about something (3rd person). If other people do this too, then the group starts to fray at the edges. We start to look more like a bunch of chickens scratching around competing for their feed. It’s fun but not terribly intimate.
Last Friday, Diane did a bit of superb facilitation. (Now I’m speaking about, so let’s see how I do.) The group started to debate, opine and pontificate on the subject of Buddhism. The group cohesion was starting to come apart. Diane (who is an extremely gifted facilitator and hangs out mostly in the emotional subtle energy realms), stopped the action. She named it and then asked to speak to the Voice of Complete Peace. Click! the group came back together. Then she asked each person to offer their perspective -- just one -- on what they know about Buddhism. What emerged was an incredibly moving sharing of each person’s intimate experience of Buddhism. Speaking from the non-dual state brought clarity and intimacy to us again. Not to mention less squabbling.
When I’m in a non-dual state, it’s hard for me to speak and put language to what I’m experiencing. This is a VERY familiar, and frustrating, feeling for me. It happens most often when I’m hanging out with the mystics at home. Diane’s skilled teaching is helping me to put language to the non-dual experience and to see it less as magical and more as ordinary. It is state that is easily accessible to me and I have definite feelings that go along with it that I can express in words. Some good words include bliss, everything’s okay, I AM, vastness, deep space, peaceful, no boundaries.
But even the non-dual has positive and negative aspects. The positive side is bliss, the cessation of all my disturbing feelings like anger, jealousy, fear, etc. It’s just IS-ness and so it seems almost silly to say anything more. The negative side is a kind of lethargy, apathy, dullness. What’s the use of doing or saying anything since in the ultimate reality of all things it doesn’t really matter?
Roshi is helping me to move beyond the non-dual, to the apex position that both integrates AND transcends the dual and the non-dual. From the apex, I have the flexibility and wisdom of acting, feeling and choosing the dual and/or the non-dual. Roshi encourages me to move past the non-dual as soon as I’ve got a taste of it because it can be highly addictive. And it’s just another way to get stuck.
Sitting in the apex position gives me the maximum flexibility, allowing for all my feelings, allowing me to act and express verbally, as well having the hawk’s eye view of Oneness. I am intimate with myself, Alistair and others.
3 comments:
finally catching up on your blog, =). Posted a few comments on older posts, though nothing too deep...
...I'm in a deep-thinking week this week, so it's hard to pull out of it and explain it to another.
These posts you've been making though have confirmed for me that I am on a good path, and getting a lot of work done. My therapist is blown away with how much I am growing between appointments, and I am starting to understand that his awe/surprise is justified.
This post helped further show was being present and owning your feelings *means*...
Are you going to come back to Shalom and do "Big Mind" retreats?
*big hugs for you two*
Dale
hey Pat, I like the 3rd party rule. That is new. I realized I don't have any words for Isness either and still don't but it seems I have a closer awareness of Isness somehow noticing this if that is possible. I don't know. Thank you for the invitation to enter experience anew with your learning in hand to see what emerges. I remarked at reading your blog that not a single time did I feel at all imposed upon by knowledge. This was a wonderful realization and experience. Linda
Good for people to know.
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