https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=eldatUWfyfo
And one of the things you may notice about noticing, and this goes to what Guy was saying, is we are spending time enacting, reducing and enhancing phylaea. And we’re starting to bring into, you can see how we’re starting to resonate with each other. The phylaea is we want to take time to cultivate it. Welcome everyone to episode 10 of After Socrates. This is a very special episode in which I’m going to fulfill my promise to take you through the whole ecology of practices that you’ve been preparing for and the lectures have been pointing towards. I’m joined by three very important people who have all been working with me on this project. I’d like them to take the time right now to carefully and completely introduce themselves. I’ll start with my good friend Guy Sandstock. Thank you, John. I am, first of all, I am so glad to be here with you. And I, the predominant feeling is just joy and gratitude and that my life has led to being able to be with you guys doing what we’re doing is just an ecstatic, extraordinary experience, which is leads into what my life has been about, right, which is like philosophy, phylaea, the love of friendship and intimacy, Sophia, wisdom. Those two things are deeply coupled and the work that I do is something called circling. And I found I co-founded with and discovered it really with a friend of mine back in 1998. And circling emerged as a, you could say a kind of a yoga or a practice, a meditative practice of basically the we space or the fundamental basic unit of relationship. And so if you could imagine circling is essentially if you took all of the deep conversations that you’ve ever had, like the deep moments of intimacy you ever had, and then you found the through line through all of those and you took that through line and you broke them down into asanas, let’s say like postures. And then circling is getting together, you know, asanas of listening, communication, right, ways of being, is you get together and you go just go deep into those asanas. And apparently when circling started, it hit something profoundly needed in the culture because it really spread all over the world quite quickly and beyond even our intentions. And I would say even beyond the particular personalities involved, me included, it still ended up spreading, which I think has I think is has a lot to do with and links into dialogos and everything that’s that’s been talked about in the series. And links up very, very well with that, because, you know, one of the biggest struggles I’ve had in my life, I was born in Chicago. Both my parents, both my parents are like extraordinary people who also suffered from addictions. So I came out of that with, of course, with all my insecurities and a fundamental disconnection from people. And through the process of coming deeper and deeper into relationship with people through circling and many other things, I started to actually started to talk with people and started to come out. And in that coming out, saw that it is in and through relation that we come to be. And the way that relationship goes, if it doesn’t go, if it goes poorly, if it goes well, that connection that that kind of relating that that transforms ones that affords one to become who they are. Ended up being what circling really tunes into and what I got deeply fascinated by and through the work of like the synchronistic work of discovering Martin Heidegger and philosophy right when circling started was was a was so important for me to dive deep into this And unbeknownst to me at the time, because I didn’t really understand why I was racking my brains reading Heidegger with all of my learning disabilities and reading disorders and stuff. But I got something. It spoke. It spoke to me. And I realized that that language, this philosophical language, brought my the act of reading it was like a practice that brought my attention to what is most concealed in its nearness and that way of reading and that way of looking and then circling and then reading and then circling and reading and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circling and then circ circling and circling a couple years after that whole process I started to realize started to notice some of the language that was was forming in circling and it was had hits of Heidegger and I was like, oh, very interesting, I didn’t even realize that was going on. So, as you can see, it’s like, so for me, a lot of, a lot of what, where I come from and what brings me here and what I’m interested in is really this process of emerging, right? Of what’s emerging these deep, these, these, the way that life just does that. And so being here, meeting John and Chris, and when we started these dialogues, there was, again, there was a, there was a natural synergy and these, these dialogues had this mixture on YouTube that we were, that we were having. They had this, this mixture between this deep intimacy and this profound philosophical insight. And I think all of us went, that keeps happening. What is this? Right. And we noticed it, we brought our attention to it and it just on its own, again, just like with circling, dialogos just emerged in and through our relationship with each other. So this is a, this is, this, this, I have a feeling I’m, I’m at the start of my second movement now, the first being circling. I barely survived the first one. So so glad to be here. Thank you. Chris. Well, as am I, first off, it’s funny, you know, in one sense, this has been going on for me for a very long time. And in another way, I also feel like it’s just begun and I found myself in the midst of something that is, that has only begun to reveal itself and I find myself already implicated. There’s a wonderful combination of voluntary and involuntary to all of this, which is quite humbling because to a certain degree, you choose it and it chooses you and you find yourself in a relationship without knowing how you got in it. I was a student of John’s years ago and like many other students, I was magnetized to the work, particularly the announcement that there was such a thing as a crisis of meaning. And that that crisis was so multifarious. It had so many different aspects and dimensions. It crept its way into so many different things that sometimes it was all but invisible. And it showed up in the guise of so many other things. It’s funny, when I started to work on it with John, I don’t know that I fully understood what it was that we were working on. And when I think back on it now, I realize that that’s actually the nature of the work. Now it’s in advance of your understanding of it, that you make a commitment to something without actually knowing fully what you commit to. But there’s a part of you that glances ahead. There’s a part of you that’s slightly ahead of yourself. And so I worked with John on trying to articulate the fundaments of this crisis and the symptomology of that crisis, the way in which it appeared, the way in which it unfolded across time, the way in which it exists perennially in the individual, shows up in the most idiosyncratic of ways, the most unique and particular of ways, the most personal of ways, and also at the same time somehow in the most general of ways. And so that culminated about five years ago in a book called Zombies in Western Culture, which I co-authored with John and Filip Miscevich. And then after that, there have been a series of papers on the symptomology of the crisis and then slowly on the relationship between that crisis and this new and yet so very old practice of using dialogue not only to graduate and deepen relations between people, but that somehow the deepening of relations between people has something to do with the deepening of the relationship that we’re all in with whatever’s at the bottom of existence. So it’s funny, like you, when I think back to the experiences I’ve had that have been most meaningful, most enduring, most sacred, they are conversations in which a world seemed to appear around them, engulf them, that somehow recoloured everything in its wake. That kind of intimacy, which afterwards I associated, began to associate with proper platonic intimacy, phylaea in the deepest sense that John has lectured about and that we all mean, that somehow that seemed to open something that otherwise remained closed. And then beginning to connect that back to the meaning crisis was something that seemed to offer, if not a way out, then a way through. So my job as I see it here is to help with the articulation of the crisis in as many dimensions as possible and also with helping to understand what it is that happens when we find ourselves intimately known and intimately knowing someone else, how it is that that actually makes possible the exercise of knowing itself, when there’s no difference anymore between knowing and loving and there’s no difference anymore between the project of being intimate with another person and the project of being intimate with everything. Very happy to be with you all, fellas. Thank you, Chris. So Chris will be joining me later in the series, episode 15 and beyond, and this will be a dialogical practice we’ll do together. We’ll be talking about Socrates and Kierkegaard. Taylor. So, I’m Taylor Barrett. I’ve been doing authentic relating and circling practices for about 10 years now and I had the pleasure of starting these in relationship, in my primary relationship, this woman that I first started dating. And we noticed how fast we just took off together and burned through all our material, all the things that we were sort of coming into the relationship with that we had never quite addressed. And these asanas, these practices, these exercises that we were doing was really helping us get one another. And it just started to, like, I wasn’t even looking for it. I was a software developer. I was actually fairly misanthropic, particularly like people. I saw everybody else as sort of the source of my pain. I feel so far away from that now. But it was an interesting transition to be with people in this being way, really getting to the root and the truth of the moment that really just started to open me up. And it had me want to do every event. And then I wanted to get trained and then I wanted to lead the community. And I got to do this together with my partner for a number of years. Up until in 2019, when I first met John, I got the opportunity to circle him. And I remember being really nervous, not knowing who John was, but wanting to really like, I better not pay attention because then I’ll just be really nervous in the circle and I’ll have this idea of him. So I really wanted to take John in as if I knew nothing about him, which I didn’t. And then had the great fortune to be together sort of in an experimental group with a number of other peers. And at this time, I started to notice a synchronicity of where I was with the practice, where I was with these relational practices and where I was with Authentic Relating Toronto at the time of the community. And John was just filling in all the gaps of my knowing through his lecture series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. And it was just opening things up. And then the idea that we got to sit together and circle together and then do a little bit of experimentation and just like, hey, I want to I want to try this thing. What do you think about it? Yes, let’s talk about it. So it was so amazing to be able to expand this already huge, important set of practices, way of being in my primary relationship with my family. My father attended events. Can you imagine that? My father was doing circling. And yeah, wow, what a what a gift it was to have these capacities, this way of relating to people at the time of my father’s death. Just so much gratitude to be able to see him in a completely new way, like to actually see him for who he was, was so I mean, it’s just I’m entirely grateful to practice. And I just continue to feel called to it. It’s it’s it feels right. It’s the really real that place that we get to. So after meeting, John started doing this experimentation. I wanted to get people together and sort of have generative conversations that weren’t just adversarial, but knowing that people would come into them adversarially. So I did a number of experiments on how to have really difficult conversations in a facilitated way. But this was right before Covid. So I only got to do a little bit of it. So Covid necessitated a shift in the experimentation that I was going to do. So I was still taking a piece of that. But I wanted to be able to bring all four perspectives, three or four, depending on how you look at it, that are available to us in any moment together into a dialogical practice. This idea that we can get to a particular place together and examine a topic or a subject or a thing, as John, I think, put it at one time, take circling and drop a problem into it. So that’s been really wonderful to be able to do that, to go through that experimentation process and then to develop a pedagogy, develop a program to to sort of build up the scaffolding, taking the authentic relating, taking the circling practice, taking in all the everything that John’s talking about here is all informed. I think it all slots and it all fits in moving up into these more complex practices within a fellowship of people. So I just feel grateful that John recognizes what I’m doing is in alignment with what’s being put forward. It’s just so great to be here with Guy, somebody that I look up to and see as like this co-founder of this of this practice that has been so giving to me, to me, my wife, my life. I just feel called to continue to do what I can to advance it, to introduce more people to these practices because of the shift that it made in my life. I want that for others. So, yeah, I’m just I’m stoked, a little nervous and really just excited to be a part of this. Yeah, really grateful. Thanks, John. Thanks, everyone. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to go through a series of practices. It’s a pedagogical program that are designed to scaffold you into the culminating practice, which is dialectic into dialogos. And we’ll talk a little bit more about the difference between dialectic and dialogos a little bit later. But some of these practices you’re already doing, but we’re going to be shifting them and modifying them a little. So just follow along. And there’ll be lots of time in which we’re also discussing amongst ourselves what’s happening, which should give you some flexibility of perspective on each and every one of the practices. So the first practice we’re going to do is the one that you already know, which is the Socratic humility practice. But we’re going to do a more compressed version of it because we do have some time constraints here. So you were doing the practice first in and then out. We’ll do it more simultaneous. But I’m going to take the four of us through that practice. And then we will do the opening and closing practice. And that will open us up. And then we will move into a meditative practice. A contemplative practice. And then there’ll be further practices thereafter. So all of us, let’s just take a moment. You already know how to do the centering practice, perhaps just quickly find your sense of being centered. You may just rest your hands here. I have been finding as I do this practice that putting my hands up like this is helpful. You may want to try that. You may want to keep your hands in front of you. What we do with this practice, if you remember, we silently say to ourselves and we’re trying to do it mindfully. We’re trying to enact what we’re saying within and without. There is so much I do not see because of all of the facts. We try to pick up on just how there’s so much information and a combinatorial explosion, explosive way in which all that information can be combined, organized, restructured. So silently, two or three times within and without. There is so much I do not know because of all of the facts. Now we move to within and without. There is so much I shall never know because of all of the fate. Now we move to within and without. There is so much I refuse to see because of all of my foolishness. Now finally, within and without. There’s so much I’m unable to see because of all of my faults, infinitude. I’m bringing your hands to your heart and remember you open your eyes, you open your hands very wide. You open your mouth, awe to the horizon of horror. And then to the heart, hearth, that home within, like getting into a warm bath. Let me bring our hands in front of our heart and we slowly open them out. We’re practicing that sense of reciprocal opening. Internalizing the world, indwelling the world, internalizing the world and dwelling the world, opening up who you are, opening up who the world can be in a reciprocally opening manner. Bring your hands back to your heart. Now we do the vertical dimension. Same thing. Slowly unfolding upwards, reciprocally opening. Bring your hands down and as you inhale, imagine you’re feeling as if you’re seeing deeply into reality. And as you exhale, you’re coming in, you’re looking at yourself more and more, stepping back as far as you can towards that center, awareness of awareness. And as you inhale, expanding out, seeing into the depths, to the horizon of the world. As you exhale, coming in to that innermost point where the mind is touching itself, the pure awareness of awareness. Inhaling out. Exhaling in. Inhaling out. Exhaling in. Now we’ll go through the practice of finding your center. Moving forward off center and then back. A little less each time, back and forth. Centered back to front. Side to side. Now your head back to front. Side to side. Now relaxing your leg muscles, your abdomen muscles, chest muscles, arm muscles, face muscles, really sinking into the sense of being centered, really savoring that, noting the effects on mind and body. Now beginning to follow the sensations of your breath in your stomach where you most feel the breathing. Noting the sensations of expansion and contraction. When you’re distracted, label the distracting process with an ing word. Then return your attention to following your breath, centering your attitude, neither fighting nor feeding your monkey mind. Now we’ll move into the contemplative practice. You’ve been doing this when you’re walking. Let’s go through it now as we’re seated. First come into that awareness of awareness. Just feel the being of aware. You’re not doing anything, you’re just being aware. Moment by moment you’re realizing how you’re realizing. Now connect with that, relax into it. That sense of realness. That sense of contact with reality. Don’t analyze it at all. Just touch it with your mind within and without. Within you and outside of you. That sense of reality realizing itself and you are participating in that. Just touching it with your mind within and without. You’re not making it, you’re participating in it. It’s allowing you to do the very act of touching with your mind. Now fuzes. Moment by moment there’s a rhythm to this realization. Maybe you feel the moment by moment with your breath or your heartbeat. Just the sense of time passing but moment by moment this rhythm. This rhythm of process. Now suke. The melody of patterning. Within and without equally and interpenetratively patterning is forming. Everything is singing its own name. Everything is unfolding its through line. The pattern is simultaneously within and without. Now noesis. There’s a gestalt. There’s that sense of a harmony of principle. It’s responsible for the ordering of the pattern. The principle is equally everywhere and equally nowhere. It’s not a thing. Noesis. Notice how the process enlivens the patterning. But the patterning makes the processing intelligible. Notice how the patterning makes the principle perceptible. Notice how the principle governs the patterning. Notice how the processing enlivens the patterning. The rhythm of process, the melody of patterning, and the harmony of principle are all interdefining, interpenetrating, interaffording. There is a one wanting. Bottom up, top down. One wanting. Knosis. This one wanting is not just happening here, it’s happening everywhere. The whole vast, incomprehensibly vast universe. Not just at this time, but all of the deep time in the past and into the future. This is happening. It’s not centered on you, it’s not centered on me, it’s centered on itself. The real realization. The self-realization of reality. The real self-realization of reality for its own sake, which is precisely what makes it real. Everywhere, all times, and at all levels. The one wanting. Try to be as open to this as you can. And as inwardly still as you can, so you are maximally receptive inwardly and outwardly of this. Theosis. It is paradoxical because it is both one and the source of all difference. It extends to infinity, but it inhabits every finite thing. It is inexhaustible. Any image you have, any sensation you have, any framing you have of your experience, be grateful for it. But it is only a symbol that participates in the infinite and exhaustible. Open yourself up, still yourself down, increasing wonder, increasing sense of conforming to this inexhaustibleness. Try to do now as little as you can, as much as possible. Let all of this, this, have a life of its own. Very, very slowly come out of this practice, trying as best you can to integrate what you cultivated in this practice with your everyday consciousness, cognition, character, and your sense of communitas. So I’m going to pass things to Taylor now, and he’s going to take us through a noticing practice. So normally when we do this practice, we would do it in Paris. We’ll play with it as four of us rather than having two distinct conversations. So the thing that we are noticing generally is what’s here right now for us. So it can be a feeling, it can be a thought, or it could be a sensation, emotion, or an objective observation about the person whom you have your attention on. So when I say objective, it would be something a camera would capture, it can see. So feeling, thought, sensation, emotion, or objective observation. So we started off by using a sentence then, being with you I notice, and then you name the thing that you notice. And then the response would be hearing that I notice, or it could just be being with you I notice, because there’ll be four of us and it’ll get a bit peculiar. Now what’s important is when you’re doing this practice, you do not have to have what you notice be a direct response to the thing the other person shared. So it could be being with you I notice, I feel curious about the way you’re looking at me. And then Chris’s response might be hearing that I notice, I wonder what we’re having for lunch. And that is a perfect response in terms of just noticing what’s here right now as we’re in relationship with another person. So perhaps the way we’ll go is I’ll go to Chris and he’ll just reflect back to me and then Chris will notice something about Guy, Guy will reflect it back and we’ll just move in this direction. Does that work? Any questions? Okay. Yeah and it’s not a race, you don’t have to race, you can take your time. And if you want to challenge, you can wonder what the thing is that you’re noticing underneath the thing that you’re noticing. But it’s okay just to name the thing at the top. Being with you I notice how you are sitting. Being with you I notice you’re very symmetrical. And then you could share a noticing with Guy. Being with you I notice the novelty that I’m sitting next to Guy Sangstock. Hearing that I’m noticing an involuntary spontaneous joyous laugh. Being with you right now I’m noticing a deep warmth right in my heart. Hearing that I’m noticing that you’re almost shining for me. Being here I’m noticing I feel like I’m drawn into you by the way you’re looking at me. Hearing that I notice just struck with a sense of beauty looking into your eyes. I feel a bit breathless. Just struck with a sense of beauty looking into your eyes. Feel a bit breathless. Do another round? Let’s do a couple more rounds. Being with you I notice the amusement I have at trying to interpret what seems like your inquisitive look. Hearing that I notice we seem to be amused by each other. Being with you I notice how you seem so still even when you move. Hearing that being with you I notice I notice mental pictures of my body and what I look like to myself in my mind are happening. Being with you noticing your smile and now noticing you’re smiling more has correlates with this like tickly tickliness happening right here on my chest. Hearing that I feel like there’s this shaft of presence that’s running through you. Very powerful. Being with you I’m noticing a familiarity of this that I’d forgotten about. Hearing that I notice feeling touched. Deeply touched. Grateful. Yeah being with you I notice I’m struck by this desire to be your friend. Hearing that I notice myself quite giddy. Giddy about this whole exercise. Being with you I notice that all of the giddiness is somehow just still still with you but there but still. Hearing that I notice I had two spontaneous hmms hmms and Being here with you just I feel really close with you. Get up at like a soul level. Being with you I’m noticing your face has gotten warmer and warmer and warmer every time I’ve come to look at you and And just I’m noticing I feel close with you as well and I like that. Hearing that I feel very strongly connected to you like that shaft of presence that was vertical is now between us horizontally. Being here with you I now notice a softness in your face that’s really quite lovely. Hearing that I notice your face has gotten warmer and warmer and warmer and warmer I now notice a softness in your face that’s really quite lovely. You mean that I notice how soft I feel towards you? Safe, comfortable, like remembering. So that’s noticing. And one of the things you may notice about noticing, and this goes to what Guy was saying, is we are spending time enacting, reducing and enhancing phylaea. And we’re starting to bring into, you can see how we’re starting to resonate with each other. The phylaea is we want to take time to cultivate it. So the first practices we took us into gave us that Socratic humility, opened us up to wonder, gave us the first taste of the vertical dimension, and now we’re moving into the horizontal dimension and really cultivating the phylaea. Towards that even more, Guy is going to now lead us through another exercise. Yeah. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to practice a few things. We’re going to practice curiosity and deep listening and revealing ourselves. So we’re bringing in what, in revealing ourselves, self-disclosure, right, what we just practice in the noticing and using our curiosity to help open up the person that you’re listening to. And so what’s going to happen is I’ll ask a question, the other person answers it, and then I paraphrase, right, using some of their own words, the gist of what they said. And then I ask if I check for accuracy. And then when you then when when that’s done, then I’ll stop and go right now I’m noticing. And then, well, let’s see, let’s have a John if we we focus on you as curiosity and you can do it with me. Is that OK? So I’ll start speaking. Yeah, I’ll ask you a question. So I’ll ask you a question. I’ll get you paraphrase you. Right. Then I’ll reveal myself. Then you ask him a question. Get him paraphrase, reveal himself. And then I’ll come back, ask a question. Right. Or it could also be an instruction like say more about this or an indication to help you. Or an indication to help deduce him out and draw him out. All right. What’s what’s it? What’s it mean for you, John? To be right here with us doing this right now. It’s very mixed, not in a bad way. It’s wonderful. The connection and the flow. But I’m also apprehensive about it fitting in. Although it seems to be fitting in beautifully, but there’s an apprehension. And I feel like I’m within I’m. Not in a tearing sense, but I’m moving back and forth between. My role. As a participant and then my role as somebody who’s guiding the series, and I could feel those trying to harmonize. And settle down with each other. So what this is meaning for you and the way you’re experiencing it is there’s a couple of roles, participant and guy. And you’re noticing both of them are interacting with each other. Right. In such a way that I sense that it’s starting to harmonize. Is that right? Yes, that’s right. Hearing that, I feel. A sense of it evokes a familiarity for me and having had that experience before and just I’m so proud of you. For doing this. And then you ask a question. John, if you imagine for a moment that you’re someone who just discovered John Verveckis work, just discovered all of this that we’re doing right now and never known it, never heard about it and just saw it all for the first time. What we’re doing right now is not just a question of what we’re doing, but a question of what we’re doing. What would be beautiful about it and what would worry you about it? The second is easier than the first. I would worry that John Verveckis could go off the rails. What would be beautiful about it? It’s integrity. It’s integrity. It’s integrity. It’s integrity. It’s integrity. It’s integrity. John Verveckis is trying to live it as deeply as he can. And that’s what gives hopefully his speech, whatever authenticity it has. So if you came upon him, you might be worried that it could somehow go wrong, that whatever he was trying to do might end up being otherwise, might end up being different than he intended. Nevertheless, you would see that the effort was real, the effort was genuine, the intent was true and to purpose. Yes, you’ve hurt me. And now you. You respond, reveal yourself. Well, hearing that, I share both. Both reactions. John, I certainly find myself nodding at the sincerity, knowing it so well. For so long. Very completely. I feel defensive. In the face of anyone who would question the sincerity and the intent. And. And the pains of. Trying to bring it to fruition in a way that is as genuine as possible. And yet I also find myself worried. Trying to be honest about that worry, that apprehension. Worried about the fact that I’m not going to be able to do it. That worry, that apprehension. Worried about the smoothness of it. Worried sometimes that there aren’t enough rough edges. Not wanting it to be very smooth. Hearing Chris’s worry. What do you feel? What’s your experience hearing Chris’s worry? And desire. It lands very deeply with me. That worry. Is. It lands very deeply with me. That worry. Is. Powerfully present in me. But surprisingly, I’m also feeling. Right now. Some courage. That. With help. I may be able to steer this appropriately. So the worry is there’s something. There’s something that’s preventing the worry from becoming despair. And that’s becoming a little bit more prominent to me right now. And I can feel it even in my chest. So on one level you share the worry deeply. And you also notice a courage. And as you sink into it more in this moment. You’re noticing that the worry is dissipating and the courage is growing. Yeah. Got it. Yeah, hearing that. I kind of want to just sit here and keep growing it and growing it until John just dissolves. And I feel. Again, I just feel proud of you. Yeah. Now hearing that, I feel proud of him. I always do. I’m reminded of that. It feels odd to me that this is a moment in time. But it refers to all of the other ones. And it’s all the same and always. It’s also different. And I find myself still worried. But. But fine with that. Fine with being that. As long as we can just be that together in good company. Remember to ask a question. What’s is there anything right here right now? That’s missing. There’s people missing for me that I’d like to be here. I’d like Taylor inside of this practice as well. There’s something about. There’s something about. I used to have this more. Sense of. A peaceful line. As following like when you’re sailing. It’s still there, but it’s. It’s not as present as it has been in the past. I miss that. Well, hearing that, I’m reminded exactly why I love you, my friend. And I’m reminded of that. It’s a very powerful practice. Really. Opens up. I was wondering if the two of you could now do it another round with Taylor. Sure. Absolutely. And just to just to highlight some contacts that you can you can notice. Like what really distinguishes what we’re doing right now and what it what highlights what’s being highlighted here is usually most conversations are triangular. There’s me, there’s you, and then there’s the thing we’re talking about. And what we’re doing here is bringing this element and X in an explicit and implicit way where we’re where the thing we’re talking about is what’s happening right now with each other. And you could almost feel that dimension open up. It’s like another dimension when you bring that kind of presence to just the moment and stay in relationship and make that explicit. Right. So I just want to know. I just wanted to note that. All right. What is it. At the deepest level that you can you can feel. That has you here right now. What is that. It’s like when you said the deepest level I first just went into my gut into my belly. So like something land there. And then when you said that’s like having me here. That was still there. It’s like it didn’t shift. And I’m like wrestling with my brain because it’s like I know what the answer is. But some part of me wants to like have the answer come not not from here. So. Yeah there it is. As I feel calling. And it’s weird to call it that something like I’m resistant to calling that. But I know this is like emotion like a little tightness in my throat. Around acknowledging that. So I think what I heard you say is immediately when you heard my question you felt it. Right. Right. In your stomach. And then you noticed that you know the answer. And more in your head. But the real difference is that you’re not feeling it. You’re not feeling it. You’re not feeling it. You’re not feeling it. You’re not feeling it. And more in your head. But the real desire was to stay with. This and speak from here. And when you did there was that moment where you went oh there it is. And it’s a calling. It’s a calling for you to be here. Hearing that I’m noticing. One I’m just enjoying you. And I’m enjoying your particular. It is a particularity about you that I am just getting the first taste of. And I really like it. And I’m also can feel imagine that I’m feeling and definitely appreciate your. The seriousness in which you take. The practice of circling. It’s really inspiring and feels good for me to be around. So question paraphrase. So question paraphrase. Finding yourself here. With the three of us. What is it that’s changed. What is it that’s. What is it to be here now with three of us. That isn’t. What you expected it might be. The immediate answer is I didn’t think we’d go this deep today. Is a part like with the cameras and stuff and it’s just now it’s not going to be possible. Like it’d be nice. We’ll touch into some stuff but we won’t quite get there. I think some part of me although why I could believe that with giving my company like if I really thought about it I would never think about that. Yeah I think that’s like oh okay we’re here. Well we’re really doing this. We’re really going to go there. Yeah. Yeah there’s a part of me that’s like a. I don’t know tripping out on that like oh okay it happened. It’s crazy. Yeah. Say I’m here. I’m hearing you say that. That we’ve actually. Arrived somewhere that you’re used to arriving. But weren’t sure that we could actually arrive at today. Because of all of this. And yet. It works. As it always has worked. And you’re finding it here working. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah that’s it. Never ceases to amaze me. Never. It’s just like. It’s a constant remembering. Not that it was forgotten. It’s just like. Okay. Yep. And it just continues to give me life to continue to do it. Yeah. So hearing that I noticed something just dropped. Mm hmm. For me. That. It’s hard. The oddness. Of doing something private. In public. Is it. Tension. And then sometimes. In this moment. The tension just breaks. And then. Just. Thought. Very strange. Pardon me. I thought we’d move on to the next. So these practices are really about. The. The. So these practices are really. Getting us. To listen deeply. And as Guy said we’re not so much focusing on what we’re saying as. The communication is in service of the communing rather than the other way around. And we’re building up Phylia. We’re now going to turn that Phylia. Towards. Wisdom. And what we’re going to do is enter into dialogue with. A sage. Somebody. That is. Deemed. Wiser than us. They don’t have to be enlightened. They just need to be wiser than us. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to do a practice called. Philosophical fellowship. And what it involves is us. Continuing the Phylia with each other. But also trying to bring it to bear on a particular passage that we’re going to be reading. So first what we’ll do I’ll go through the instructions. I have the passage here that I’m going to read as well. I’ll be the reader when you get the group of four. I’ll be the reader. And I’m going to read the passage in a particular manner. I’m trying to read the passage in a particular manner. I’m trying to read the passage so that I can afford. My friends having the passage sink into them. As deeply as possible. I’m not trying to get through the practice. Did you get it? That’s not what’s happening here. I’m trying to do what’s called slow reading. I’m going to read slowly and mindfully. I’m going to periodically pause. My intent is how can I read this so it will sink as deeply as possible into each person. We’ll pick an order now. I’ll be one, two, three, four. This is the order in which we’ll do things. After we do the reading. I’ll pick the reader gets to pick whatever it is jumps out at the reader as somehow capturing what the text is about and it will change. If you use the same text even I found that. And then the reader will begin the next process. This is the process of chanting. Now you can just chant it in speech or you can bring a more melodic element to it if you wish. But the reader will first chant that particular. Pivotal element. And then it’ll pass to the second person who will pick up the chant. Will then pass to the third person and as in all chanting we’re trying to enchant each other. We’re trying to pick up the resonance from each other and we’ll go around and we’ll do that. Remember not to chant mechanically. You’re trying as much to convey. You can’t say anything but the phrase but you’re trying to convey in the chanting what is coming up for you as you resonate with the text. After that we will move into what’s called short speech. Short speech is a word that does not have a single meaning. Short speech is the word that is used to describe what is coming up for you. Short speech is the word that is used to describe what is coming up for you. After that we will move into what’s called short speech. Beginning with the reader. Each person says no more than three sentences. This is very crucial because what you’re trying to do is to convey as much as you possibly can in those three sentences. You’re trying to convey your sense of the presence of the perspective of the author. It’s almost like we’re summoning that perspective and making it present. We’re not so much evaluating the text. We’re trying to internalize the sage. We’re trying to bring the sage forward and enter into dialogue with him or her. So you’re trying to convey the presencing of that perspective. You’re trying to convey how that sage is being invoked for you. You’re trying to convey what is coming up for you. You’re trying to convey what’s being evoked in you, what emotions, associations. And you’re also trying to convey what’s being provoked in you, what’s problematic, what’s questionable. And you say that in the short speech, no more than three sentences. We’ll do four rounds of short speech. I’ll announce each one of these as we do the rounds. Then we move into engaged speech. You can speak for about, but no more than three minutes. And you’re trying to connect this passage to something from your personal memory that has been called out by encountering the passage, encountering the person behind the passage. In this case, it’s Martin Buber. We do that. We do this for just one round, engaged speech. And then we move to free speech, in which we just, in a flowing manner. And again, we’re trying most to invoke the sage and resonate with the passage. While we resonate with each other about how we are encountering the sage so that we can help each other. So try to remember that the sage is not just in the text, but showing up in the responses of the other people. Is everybody clear? I’ll now begin with the slow reading. This is a text from Martin Buber. I won’t do it here because Chris and I are later going to do an episode on Martin Buber. But when you’re about to do this practice for yourself, it’s important to remember that you’re not just in the text. You’re going to be doing an episode on Martin Buber. But when you’re about to do this practice for yourself in a group, it’s good to get some historical context. Read a bit about the particular sage, whose passage you’re going to use. So it enables you to imaginably invoke them. I’ll now start with the slow reading. Please remember that this is written in the 30s and Martin Buber may not have all of our current conventions of speech. Be charitable about that, please. Spirit in its human manifestation is man’s response to his you. Man speaks in many tongues. Tongues of language. Of art. Of action. But the spirit is one. It is a response to the you that appears from the mystery. And addresses us from the mystery. Spirit is word. And even as verbal speech may first become word in the brain of man. It may become sound in his throat. Although both are merely refractions of the true event. Because in truth, language does not reside in man. But man stands in language and speaks out of it. So it is with all words. All spirit. Spirit is not in the I, but between I and you. It is not like the blood that circulates in you, but like the air in which you breathe. Man lives in the spirit when he is able to respond to his you. He is able to do that when he enters into relation with his whole being. It is solely by virtue of his power to relate. That man is able to live in his spirit. We will now move to the chanting. Spirit is not in the I, but between I and you. Spirit is not in the I, but between I and you. It is a response to the you that appears from the mystery. And as verbal speech may first become word in the mystery. Spirit is not in the I, but between I and you. Spirit is not in the I, but between I and you. Spirit is not in the I, but between the I and you. Spirit is not in the I, but between I and you. Spirit is not in the I, but between I and you. Spirit is not in the I, between I and you. Spirit is not in the I, but between the I and you. Spirit is not in the I, but between I and you. Spirit is not in the I, but between I and you. And you? Spirit is not in the I But between I and you Spirit is not in the I but between the I and you Spirit is not in the I but between I and you Spirit is not in the eye, but between I and you. Spirit is not in the eye, but between I and you. Spirit is not in the eye, but between I and you. Now we will move to short speech. Feeling the rhythm that’s gathering between us. Sensing Boober here, almost smiling in that rhythm. Wondering how I can be more responsive to that. Boober evoking between, but also beyond, to find our real here. The obviousness of it all. The absolute obviousness of it. It’s so obvious it’s almost funny. Yeah, I’m here with Boober having done his job and wondering, am I doing mine? Picking up on that sense of responsibility. Making his perspective more present thereby. Really wanting to listen deeply. In listening deeply, there’s a finding oneself as a listener beyond what he was before. And the responsibility is also relief from the sole responsibility. I don’t have to be Spirit. I just have to participate in it. My word is yes. That feels like all that’s here. Just yes. The shift. Feeling more something emerging from the three of you. Trying to slow down to pick up on that subtle presence. Finding myself slowed down through listening to thou. My hand wants to go. Boober? Oh, Boober chuckles. We’re giving up to him now. Giving up properly. Yeah, there’s a sense that more words are an injustice to the feeling of the presence. Blurring and bleeding between the two of you. Blurring and bleeding between Boober and the Spirit that he’s talking about. Relation, relation, relation and more relation. Needing it. Making it. But not having to make it alone. I look at the space between us and wonder what Spirit looks like. That provokes in me the difference between this and what was referred to by Spirit in my past. I find myself already related. And in noticing that relation, it’s a revelation. It’s a freedom. It’s also a freedom. To choose what already is. This time freely. I feel like a gathering. A growing gathering. As we go around, as more words are said. So now we’re going to move to free speech. But we’re going to try to always keep Boober in this way present. Not just talk about, but talk to. And try and see how all of the different things that are being said could possibly converge on the perspective of him as our sage. I was very powerfully moved when Taylor mentioned the reflective question of the taste of Spirit. And how different that was from how I experienced it in my childhood past within a religious framework. Hearing what you just said, in some sense I get that. Even there there’s Boober. Because you notice how I heard you notice that is through the relation. You’re relating differently. And that which you’re relating to, right, corresponds and participates with that relation. I just heard that in what you said. Yeah. That sense of Spirit as a presencing of that relating that as Chris said, sort of liberates you from a normal kind of I have to do. I must be the driving agent. That’s what came out when you said that. That’s what came to the fore. The second thing you might not pick up on is the tendency to fall into speaking autobiographically. So do not talk about yourself. We are all trying to be what Socrates was, a midwife. We’re trying to give birth. And so everything should be towards trying to give birth to the presencing of the virtue. Thank you.