https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=mHAjg7G0wS0

Thank you. Welcome everyone to another voices with their Vicky, I am here with Ethan Kobayashi. Yeah. And I’ve spoken with Ethan before and he’s done some amazing things and he’s doing some amazing things with his partner, and they have a team at ecology and we released a video of them demonstrating some of that and so having Ethan back to talk more about that, where it’s going what’s happening insights. So, innovations and practice, etc. So welcome, Ethan. It’s great to have you here. Hey, thanks a lot. Thanks for having me back, John. Yeah, it’s really interesting to talk about this, I come with a little bit of weight because like, I’m thinking so much more particularly around, like, after the mechanical aspects are dealt with. After the ecology of practice has integrated itself procedurally, then what happens? Like, what happens internally to the person’s experience and what’s the process of integrating that? So that’s something that I’m interested in exploring today and I hope that we can get somewhere that like, we wouldn’t be able to get to. Otherwise, I think that’s the deal logos. Yeah, that’s one of the defining features of the logos. Yeah. So what is coming alive for you right now as you work out the psychology of practices. Yeah, something that’s really arriving for me is this sense of, because you and Chris had spoken about the difference between signs and symbols. And semiotics is actually quite influential part of performance theory. So if we look at the work of like Richard Schechner, very, very influenced by Victor Turner, for example, as well. So I was considering this is like, okay, maybe this would be a good first proposal. That signs are referential, and we know that, but I’m interested in looking at the nature of the relationship between the person and a sign. And so I articulate that relationship is largely orientational. So, you know, we go to, like in Singapore, we have a street, right. And there’s a temple and a mosque and a church all side by side. And so the sign tells you what’s what, but aside from an orientational relationship, there’s not much else there until it moves itself into the next stage, which I think, at the moment I put down as an idol. So there’s a relationship with an idol in a sense that it’s an aspirational relationship. So it’s coming into contact with the sign in a way that is not orientational, but instead has a direction to it. Right. So the question of like, you know, what would Jesus do, for example, there’s a kind of leaning in towards it. And so, you know, that was, why would you use the term idol there? The term idol is usually a negative term. Yeah, I suppose you’re like icon or something like that. So what’s this? Why use the term idol? Yeah, I think at the moment, because it’s, we talked about in terms of, I think it was mentioned that we are at, what is it? It’s like an impasse with the idolatry. It’s stuck there. I think I want to change the term. I think it’s not as exact, but I don’t have something besides that for the moment. I’m trying to work out this problem. And well, maybe it’s not that much of a problem, but I think that’s just bridging for me into the symbolic relationship. And so the symbolic nature of the relationship is existential. Right. So that’s bringing into a sense the participatory. And I’m working on this idea that ritual is the thing that bridges us between idolatry into a symbolic existential relationship with something. Ah, I see. How’s that landing with you? Okay. Now I understand better. And you know, yeah. So the sense is the term idol is when this intermediate stage in some sense becomes a blockage to us. We get fixated on it and we can’t proceed into the properly symbolic. Is that okay? In that sense, I don’t have any objection to the use of the word idol. Many thinkers on idolatry would use idol in that term in that way. Okay. Please continue. Yeah, because this had been brought about by something that I had read that Jung wrote in the 1930s. It was an essay called The Holy Man of India. And he had articulated that the big problem with the West was that they had othered God. And this was in relation to his visits into India. Of course, we have to place Jung in his time. But I felt that that insight was really powerful. This sense that there is some kind of difference between saying, ah, to be in the presence of God versus to be one with. It’s hinting at a very different relationship. And if taken to the extreme, right? Then I feel like, okay, that’s where we kind of get to megalomania, basically, right? Where the idea is that, oh, I am God, which is one end of the other of the extreme. But I think the other end of the extreme is this is an extension of this otherness to the point where there is no symbolic relationship that can be reclaimed. And that’s for me very, very tricky. So, yeah, this is where I’m kind of. Yeah. You’re trying to articulate the relationship. I think it sounds like to me, see this land, you’re trying to articulate the relationship between the symbolic apprehension and whether or not one is participating or identifying or just representing ultimate reality. So that the symbol is it not only is symbol on to to join together, it’s not only joining you and the thing in some other important way. It’s orienting you between identification and alienation. Is that is that landing for you? Between identification and alienation. Yeah. Yes. I think there’s some very important opponent processing happening down there. That’s right. Whereas like, God is not so far away from me that, you know, I’m stuck in an aspirational relationship and can only seek from here. But not so immersed to the point where it’s like I now have dominion over everything. There’s there’s something in between. And I wonder if this has to do with this sense of what was this that I was reading Bushido by Nito Beinazzo. And it’s a wonderful, wonderful book on virtue where he borrowed Matthew Arnold’s words that religion is. Religion is morality touched by emotion. I thought that was a wonderful way of thinking about it. Why so? Yeah, that. So why so? And how does that connect to the previous point? Because, I mean, there’s all kinds of ways in which morality can be touched by emotion. You know, self righteous indignation would be. Is that a religious phenomena? No, I don’t think so. So what? So there’s two things I’m trying to get connected. What felt right about that definition, because sort of in a semantic sense, it seems very inadequate as an account of religion. So many counter examples. And then what was it about that that you’re trying to capture about, you know, I take it you’re trying to get at something phenomenological and functional about either identification or alienation. To me, if you’d allow me, you’re trying to unpack what participation feels like. But the word feel is really inadequate there. Yeah, it’s how it’s you’re trying to how it shapes you and the world and fits you together with it. Things like that. Is that for you? It’s it’s a long it’s along that line. I think what I think, first of all, is like what participation, how it affects us, what is what it’s kind of phenomenological experience. That’s exactly right. Yeah. And then this this thing of morality touched by emotion. I kind of liked the the translation, but I was pulled in with this idea that one could be, if one could be so emotionally compelled to behave in a moral fashion, then that felt like something that was worth thinking about. Because it was kind of like, like, like in meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote that his he was thanking his mom and that his mom could not conceive of an evil thought. Yes, it was not even available. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I was like, Okay, so that feels that felt right, in a way. Okay, so let me reply to that because I mean, that’s classically in the reasons for love by Frankfurt. That’s what he calls the unthinkable. So, his mom could not have an evil thought, it doesn’t mean she couldn’t entertain it in the sense of, she couldn’t run it through her mind, or anything like that, but can’t bring herself to identify with the developmental pathway, or the sequence of action that would lead to that. Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. And so I use a similar example of, you know, it’s unthink my, my old, my eldest son lives with me. And it’s unthinkable to me that I would kick him out. On his career, right, there’s no, right, I can imagine it, I can, I can run the proposition. Yeah, I know to make all the inferences. Right, I can imagine him leaving. But as the phrase goes, I could never bring myself to do it. Okay, and I think that’s properly understood as love. That situation, that’s the title of Frankfurt’s book. And then I would put it to you that love is not a feeling or an emotion. Love is an existential stance. And I think we’re talking about therefore a kind of orientation like Stegmire talks about the way in which I locate and identify myself in the world. And, you know, what, what, how I, how I am giving a sort of an initial framing of things that I take to be sort of have a kind of priority for me. I’m oriented towards my son in a way that I consistently prioritize. I think what you’re, what you’re describing here with the prioritization feels like salience landscaping. Yes, it is what’s being foregrounded. But you can properly describe it as cultivating the character, character, character. Saying that right, right, characters, sometimes it sounds weird. You got it. Yeah. The character of your salience landscaping, like the, you cultivate basically as a set of constraints on your salience landscaping that prevents certain propositions or certain pictures from actually finding a place within your salience landscaping. And so, whenever I think about them, I have to disconnect myself from how I want to fit to the world. That’s what my mind. And so, that’s what it is to prioritize my son. And that means there’s certain propositions. There’s certain pictures that I’m trying to use very broad categories here that I will not allow to shape my salience landscaping insofar as I’m trying to fit myself to the world for action. Did that make sense? Yes, yes. And this is, this is giving me quite a lot of insight and I really appreciate this sense of like having, it feels like, like guardrails. Like guardrails on the edge of a highway. And so, I would, if, I would propose that the cultivation of virtue is a kind of shaping of relevant realization in such a way that certain things do not appear to be salient and like they might be, they might be entertained, but unthinkable to action. That’s right. That’s right. So there’s guardrails. So I think that’s the, I think that’s the Greek virtue sopherson. Sopherson is that kind of character formation of your salience landscaping, such that, as you said, virtue, you’re constantly, virtue is that you are constantly and actively tempted by what, by the good. Yes. Yes. And I, okay. I also want to add to this. I think that by that building on that, that the character or the, or a sense of self and character is actually the line of consistency and invariance that exists across a multitude of different contexts. Yes. So things come in and test the character. Somebody does something and go, wow, man, that’s a bit out of character for you, you know, and it’s like, we’re trying to get a sense of like not overfitting, like what is that consistent line in between. I think that’s kind of character to use a data driven metaphor. But you see, I want to add a, sorry, go ahead. No, I mean, for me, I think that’s right. I think, I think that you’re describing like the phenomena of like a through line, trying to find the through line between all the different aspects of states and traits of being for me. I have certain states of mind and body and I have certain traits and I’m trying to figure out what’s the through line. And not only am I trying to figure it out, I’m trying to reorient the drawing of that through line so that it is, like I say, it’s continually being tempted towards the good. So I’m just saying it’s not. That’s why I don’t like the translate. I don’t translate it calling it temperament or moderation doesn’t capture what we’re talking about here. McGee argues in philosophy as a spiritual practice that the best translation for softness and is something like mindfulness. And a more better translation that’s becoming more popular out now is sort of sound mindedness, which found the mind is again, this that you have sort of this or you have this way in which you orient to orientation that basically makes many things unthinkable to you. In the way we’ve been talking about. And then the issue is, what’s the phenomenological experience of that to get back to the original question, what does that yes like. And what does that have to do with the issue of steering between and I’m starting to see the steering between the guide rails because the guide rails help us steer between alienation and identification. So you’ve got sort of this golden mean of orientation and virtues are sort of golden means. And so I’m starting to get a sense of where you’re going. Is this helping is getting clearer. Yeah, definitely. And I think we’re starting to move in a really powerful direction because then to add on to that question, which is, how do we do that because I’m more involved with the practical. So there has to be some kind of, I think, I think it’s a procedural stand. And so try to bring, I’ll try to bring symbol into this because I want to remind you of one other thing because you’ve already made a proposal. Right. And I want to bring that proposal back in because it’s right on this point of the interest between the perspectival and the procedural and the participants, which is the notion of ritual. I’ve been doing a lot of work on ritual and ritual knowing it because you made the proposal that ritual is exactly the how to do this, which is a very confusion proposal in some ways. So I’m just asking, I’m requesting of you that the answer or response you’re giving don’t lose touch with that original proposal because I think there’s something powerful in it. We got into this because we were trying to unpack that in the first place. Yeah, so I was, I was trying to bring symbols in relation to ritual because I think they’re quite closely intertwined. And this happened just out of a training session that occurred yesterday. One of the participants was really was really quite powerfully articulating this sense of a kind of metacognitive balance that was occurring. So I had issued to him a challenge. He was like, he was, he was in a state for a few weeks of like, oh, you know, I’m not very goal oriented or I don’t really find like I want to do anything necessarily in an improvisation or an exercise. I was like, we’re trying to figure out like, okay, how do you, how do we orient you to being more goal oriented? And then we sort of talked it out and arrived at this thing of like, maybe that’s the issue. If we zoom out a little bit, maybe the, maybe the thing that we’re trying to challenge is not having goals. So let’s try and boil that further down into just something that takes your attention. So I issued him this challenge as I usually do with each participant. It’s like, let’s see if during an improvisation, if something stands out to you and it’s super salient to you, can you vocally like verbally declare that I’m fascinated by this and then involve yourself with it? You know, and it’s like trying to just mark it. So what happened? Yeah. So he later articulated that like, it’s really bizarre for him because he said like, I feel a bit like detached. But then the experience is still very much occurring. But then I can do the thing that allows me to keep this event occurring. You know, and that’s kind of like what I’m trying to build for actors because it creates a kind of circular causality, right? It’s like, this thing is fascinating. I’m going to interact with it. That puts some constraints on the amount of emergent chaos. It moves a little bit forward that chaos informs what more constraints I put on it. And then it starts to get to this state of like this meta stability where things are still open for disruption to disrupt. But there’s a kind of like constant fascination with things in this particular participant’s case. And I think this is really fascinating because they started to get into this thing where it was like they were putting rocks in a glass and he was pouring water into this glass. And one participant who had started this, he started putting the rocks in. We had talked about it later as he was trying to just like express what is happening in his mind of just like thoughts keep coming in and they keep overflowing. And then another participant was like talking about it in terms of, oh, it feels dangerous and I want to like take care of it and all that. And then Tamaki was like, it feels like all of these things are like little like stones of energy and I want to drink the water that is coming out of it. I’m like, you guys have spontaneously made a symbol. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And that’s what I mean. And they were articulating it from various angles, this multi-perspectival. And then I asked the participant who had started dropping this in, I was like, well, what came up for you? What’s it like to hear people describe it in this way? And he said, well, it actually doesn’t feel all that bad. It’s okay. You have this. Yeah. So that’s why I’m tying ritual and symbol together in the sense of like procedural act of maintaining participation. Okay, so that’s very, very powerful. Let me try and respond in depth. I like this proposal of the ritual emergence of a symbol and this proposal of a symbol as a condensation of many different instances of perspectival connectedness, religio, perspectival religio. They’ve got all these perspectives and then the symbol is joining them together, symbol on they’re all converging together. And yet they’re sensed as not being orthogonal or antagonistic to each other, but somehow belonging together. Because that’s what you just reported. They all go together. They all fit together in some way. You want to say something. Go ahead. Because that’s the cognitive, that’s the confirmation bias leaning in a communal way. It’s like they bring their subjectivity into it and it gives the symbol more significance in that sense. Right. But they’re also open beyond their egocentric perspective because they’re joining theirs to symbol on, they’re joining theirs to others. Now, and that’s part of what’s going on in a lot of the work by Jennings and Williams and Boyd and Shilbrek that what ritual knowing is doing, it is doing something that’s irreplaceable, even by myth or narrative. What it’s doing is you’re actually engaging in this act of. It’s interesting because it’s a loop. First, a ritual has two sides to it. You’re fitting yourself to some situation. Yeah. Right. And you’re sort of getting better at that. But then as the symbol takes shape, you also are right. It’s becoming something like a masterpiece. You go from making it to then being responsible to it as it’s emerging. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And so the end the the the work by Shilbrek bringing those two currents together is important. And so the symbol is emerging out of that ritual loop. And it’s being done. Like, it’s done multi perspectively dialogically. And then is it that that symbol resists both alienation and identification because there is connectedness and at one minute, but it’s not yours specifically. It’s also others and therefore you avoid the alienation and the identification and you get a genuine sense of participation. Is that the argument that’s being made here? I think that is that forms like a good part of the of the argument. I just want to take a little bit, which is that it is it is that because it is co created, it’s already fitted into the world. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. So the coherence in the sentence in a sense is built in. And then the significance is drawn out from it in the dialogical process. Yeah, yeah, that’s very good. That’s very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s a sense in which the focus, the focal point of the symbol also has a life of of its own. Right. It has its own supply. And so whatever we’re doing with it, it’s not what you’re saying is it’s not a it’s not an empty canvas. It’s not a it’s not a blank slate. It also makes demands on us and in and demands us to conform in certain ways. Right. Is that part of the yes. Yes. Oh, yes, absolutely. And there is there is an element of how live it is in a sense that, OK, if in this example, if I used a plastic cup versus actual glass cup, right, I would argue that the degree to which the participants have to conform to the danger that’s presented by a glass cup would change radically. Yes. Yeah, that’s what I meant about the object having a life of its own. It puts demands on us. Now, there’s another dimension in the ritual literature that’s really important. And Jennings brings this out. And this is the issue of transfer. One of the ways of evaluating a good ritual is the breadth and depth to which that practice in the ritual translates to areas, other areas of your life. So it’s only right if it just stays internal to the situation. It’s actually not a powerful symbol or or a particularly good ritual. But if it if it transfers broadly and deeply, then it becomes a very powerful ritual. And the the objects that are being ritualized, I think that’s a fair verb, are become powerful symbols. Do you have any sense that the disclosures, the and the ways of orienting that emerged in that symbolic ritualization will transfer broadly and deeply? I think, okay, I think there’s two there’s two sides of this. One is that the symbolic act in and of itself has different degrees of transference potential, depending on the amount of relevance it might have for the person. Of course. Of course, of course, I think that’s definitely. However, I think what does have transference actually is the situations that cause the symbol to emerge from the ritual in the first place. Ah, so the process as a spoke as opposed to the specific content is widely transferable. And that’s interesting. You’re taking almost like a meta ritualistic. Right. But it’s analogous to Geertz’s idea of religion as a meta meaning system. Right. So the one I see what you’re doing, you’re sort of taking a step back and saying, sort of all the dialogical and cognitive and metacognitive, you know, balancing and dynamic, that transfers, whereas the specific sort of propositions and content descriptions and things like that, that probably is going to transfer to people broadly into people. Yeah. Okay. It’s localized. It’s localized in the same way that like video game mechanics are localized. Yeah. So I’m not going to use my fingers in this scenario all the time. However, if I can play a game in a particular way that challenges specific how do I say this, cognitive mechanics for me, I can also, I can transfer that. Yeah. Even though it’s not directly the procedural skill, but I can transfer the salience landscaping. Right, right, right. Yeah. Right. So, it’s part of the function of the symbol to help to capture that meta optimal gripping, to use my language, of the ritual. Right. So there’s all this stuff going on. And it might not, it might be highly localized. But what the symbol helps do is take out exacting those higher order, like meta orientation, meta optimal gripping features. Is that what you’re proposing? Yes. Yes. I like that. I think that makes sense. Okay. So I’m going to play devil’s advocate here a little bit, because then I think that there is something to be said for symbols which are object oriented, you know, but then I want to also think about symbols kind of loosely as anthropomorphized forms. So, something that Tamacha and I have been discussing recently is like, how come we don’t dream of people we don’t completely know? And so, okay, what does this mean? And it’s almost as if like, if I, if I, if I dream. So I want to make sure I understand the claim. Is there, is there a claim that we don’t dream of people we don’t know particularly well? Because I’ve had those, I’ve had dreams like that. Yeah. So, I just want to be clear what the claim is. Is that there is something that is akin to a feeling of knowing. And so, this had come out because she had this dream where she had met a stranger, but she knew that the stranger was me. In the dream. Oh, now I know what you’re talking about. Okay. So it’s separating the perceptual imagery from this feeling of knowing and this had come out of me looking at the work of Joel Proulx, who wrote Foundations of Metacognition, who’s a co-author on that and the philosophy of metacognition. What I found really interesting is that metacognition is in and of itself, at least procedural metacognition, pre-semantic, pre-propositional. That’s a good book. I have to get back to it. I haven’t finished it. Go ahead. Yeah, it’s really, really wonderful because I think there’s this sense that, okay, let’s say, okay, actors do this all the time, right? It’s like, okay, I have, there’s you. Okay, there’s Joel Vakie. Right? Now, if I dream of you while I’m sleeping, whether or not that has actually happened, I have no comment, but the dream symbol, the symbolic version of you that exists is not the actual you. That’s right. It’s an avatarization of myself in some way. So what I found really interesting about what actors do is they pay attention to this form. So if we go and look at, say, you know, ancient traditional writing on performance practice, things like I’ve talked about it, Zeyami’s treatises on Nō and Kabuki and the Natya Shastra, there’s a lot of emphasis on form. It’s very procedural. And so the idea here is that, okay, if I were to pay attention highly procedurally to your gaze, your tone of voice, your physical body language, I inhabit your form and pay attention to my salience landscaping. Right. Then I get closer to thinking as John. Right. Right. Right. I get it. I don’t know your propositions. I don’t know your knowledge. But it’s possible to arrive at a different way of looking at the world in that sense. So the idea being that we talked about internal family systems and this autopoetic pantheon before. And this is kind of where I’m trying to get to with it. It’s like, if we internalize, say, okay, internalize the procedure of dialectic into dialogos, the procedure of circling, the procedure of animal forms, the procedure of push hands, then, okay, I can speak to some avatarized symbolic version of somebody else, but it’s actually myself in this way. I’m accepting that procedure. But then blood is changing my perspectival knowing. And so if we do this for long enough, this entire machinery then becomes embodied. So we’re talking about embodied multi-perspectival awareness, multi-perspectival situational awareness. And we hear this a lot. Like a friend of mine who is simultaneously an artist, but also a carpenter. Right. And he’ll say things like, you know, I go, bro, what do you think about this idea? Man, you know, as the artist side of me is going like, yeah, that’s really, really sick. You’ll be cool to do. But the carpenter’s side of me is going, that’s going to be tough. And he has to negotiate those two. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. How does this, how does this land with you? Well, there’s a lot going on there. I was just fascinated. So, this idea, right, that you can catch somebody’s orientation, but not just their specific orientation, but something like their meta orientation and C and B as they are. I think, I think that’s, I think that’s deeply right. And I incorporate that into my practice of Alexio Divina. So I read the text, that’s the Alexio, and then the meditators, can I imagineally enact any of the images or metaphors or perspectives being taken in the text? There are ratio is, I, you know, I enter into a dialogical relationship with the perspective and the presencing of the text. Yeah. But in order to do what you just said, I do that, so that I can then open my eyes and see and be in the world from the perspective that generated the text. So I know I know exactly what you’re talking about. And then that seems to me to be. If the ability to take multiple perspectives is a core feature of wisdom, and that was one of the strongest proposals that came out of the wisdom consensus paper, then practicing this, this virtuosity, it’s not quite a virtue, but it’s a virtuosity. Practicing this virtuosity, I think is a powerful way to make ourselves wiser by making, by having us embody our, embody a viable and powerful multi-perspectival ability. That’s what I’m getting from this. And that, and then what I’m trying now to piece together. Is what we’ve said before, and that gem, right, that’s coming out is you, you see. Let me try this got the ritual. And then we’re getting the symbol that allows us to exact for transfer, but what we’re accepting is not that specific perspectival orientation. We’re accepting a more meta perspectival ability. In fact, this ability to write, take multiple perspectives is part of what’s yes. Right. And then we’re learning to embody that. And that’s actually a real practice for the cultivation of wisdom. If the ability to take multiple perspectives, to have that meta perspectival flexibility is crucial to wisdom, which, which I argue based on the consensus paper. Is in fact a central feature. That’s how I’m stringing this all together from what you’re saying. Yes, I think that’s, I think you’re absolutely right here. This sense of it’s, it’s kind of like putting, putting different perspectives together in a string. Yes. Until it’s so fluent that it’s not saying it’s not trying to ally oneself to one particular perspective is that I can, I can practice the skill of moving between perspectives and drafting this to the point where it’s completely embodied. And I would add to this and say that if it’s grounded in communitas. Yes, yes. Right. Is that sense of like, you know, no, like considering the idea that no sage is a lone wolf is this sense of like, oh, many sages and we were talking about this, like, you know, perhaps what the, what the ancient Greeks were doing in the act of philosophy is exactly this. Like, I want to try and think like my peers, so that they are almost, there is a version of this peer in me that I can dialogue with. Exactly. And then bring to the table. That’s what Antisthenes said he had learned from Socrates, he learned how to converse with himself. He learned how to enter into dialogos with himself. I would, that’s what I how I would put it. I think that’s exactly right. There’s a lot here that’s very, very rich in what you’re saying. I’m trying to, because I’ve been recording after Socrates and this is part of the argument I’ve been making about what dialectic into dialogos does and how it works for us. What I like what you’re bringing in here, which I also was trying to do in the series is connecting ritual and symbol formation to this internalizing a symphony of sages as a way of cultivating wisdom. It becomes deeply embodied. It has to become soft for some, it has to become, as we say, as we say, second nature to you. The second nature of your second self. Yeah. I just, I just want to pause and just, it’s really, it’s a golden opportunity to talk to you because you and your partner and your community, you’re doing so much experimental participation, trying to get at the machinery of symbol and ritual and and the, you know, and the multi perspectival flow that makes one wiser. Yeah. Getting to a place where you have these perspectives and you can genuinely flow between them, almost get into a flow state through them. That, that’s. I imagine the people in your group feel like they’re participating in something incredibly special and important. No, no, no. We actually have an ex student of yours in this group. Yeah, you do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you should ask them that. Because to my mind. This part that you’re working out this inactive ritual symbolic form of dialectic into the logos. This has got to become part of any understanding of dialectic into the logos. So in addition to the propositional conversational gestural that guy and Chris Guy Sandstock and Christopher master picture and I are emphasizing this right this ritual dramatic version that you’re talking about. They’re both needed. I’m struggling because but do you see what I’m saying. Right. Yeah, any apology of practices should have both the conversational version if you allow me to put it that way. And, and the improvisational enacted version. I don’t know quite what the right adjectives are to use for. I think, though I think an active an active is absolutely correct. I think, but something that we have run into recently is that, and this is not to discredit the great work that you’ve done on the meditation practices but it’s like they were really difficult for people to get into because of, like, one I think the amount of propositional content. But two is that not meditation is not necessarily for everybody at every single life. I know this, you know, I often I often there’s a significant minority, but reliable in any class I teach where I tell them, stop the seated meditation take up Tai Chi Chuan, you need to be doing a moving mindfulness practice Yes, I totally I totally yes. Yes. My, my, my, my sort of anecdotal evidence from two decades of teaching it is very consistent with what you’re proposing. Yes. Yeah, no, we have one that we had, we had one scenario where it was actually just after running through the core form, we were about to get into metal contemplation, and like, this feedback was coming through from the participants like wow I’m getting it is hard to grab this, like, the propositionally foundational stuff to do the meditation I don’t have to feel like, oh crap, there’s a, there’s a gate, there’s a gate that I can’t cross. So, what we did was we actually turned the metal contemplation into a dialogical practice. I’ve been doing things. I mean, I’ve turned the matter into more of a reciprocal opening and dialogical practice between you and the world done, imagineally so yes, I’ve been letting direction. Yes. Okay, so in some versions I actually encourage people to do an active gesturing to do the reciprocal opening gesture, as they are actually trying to reciprocally open with the world. Yes. Yeah, okay, because what we’ve done is we’ve made it like completely one to one. So, it’s that it’s like, okay so in this exercise I mean I don’t mind sharing this is that like, we’d be in a we’d be present with each other. Right. And so, I have three options available to me at any time and if you’re watching this you can try this out as well. With a partner, right, you have three options available to you any point. Who am I to you and who are you to me. Yeah. Right. Do I want anything from you or am I with you, or rather do you do I want anything, do you want anything from me. Or are you with me. Yes. Right. And how does that feel. So, we would go back and forth, and I might answer the question but then I have to then end that with another one of these three options. I see. And so what ends up happening is like, it is trying to turn this partner into into an internal symbol that can ask these questions. Yeah, you know, who are you to the world. And surprisingly, it was easier for them to do it afterwards. Of course, the metal contemplation that makes that makes perfect sense to me. That’s very good. I like that. Very good. So I’ve been trying to do this with the, with the rest of the meditations as well trying to get an enacted dialogical part of the in. And this comes to the, or what I what I feel is, is one of the bigger roadblocks which is that my best friend had said it, that we are at, we are in the age of the facilitator. And coming out of the age of the instructor so the age of the instructor being to instantiate a structure. And then facilitator which is to, you know, make things easy but I think it’s less about a comparative judgment between easy and difficult, and more of how to guide towards ease. Yeah, you’re trying to be conducive. I think that’s that that’s, yeah, I think that’s right. I like this idea though about trying pairing individual versions of the meditative or contemplative practices with dialogical twins, if I can put it that way. And then they mutually inform each other. That’s really good. I like that a lot. Sort of doing that a bit but that’s an example of what I mean by layering practices together. Yeah, as design principle and ecology of practice. That’s very very cool. That’s very very cool. Yeah, that’s really cool. I’m working on this idea here just like I think the, it’s hard to, to depart necessarily from, from a tradition, I think that’s not easy to do but I think that innovation is going to be useful innovation in the form, in a sense that is context specific, you know, And so I started to contemplate facilitation as an agapic practice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and of itself. You’re trying to conduce people into soft person. And then the software symbol can use them into other virtue, and then the virtues will conduce them towards wisdom. Yeah. Because the, I think you brought it up also in one of your, in one of your, your talks I can’t remember if it was the rationality and ritual one, but that like, if you were to speak to your son, he’s internalizing you. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And so, in the act of facilitation, it’s kind of, it’s multi layered in the sense that first as a facilitator I have to really deeply participate in the person and go, where are they finding difficulty was going to be difficult. What have they done before and can I hold, like, can I hold them at that standard because they know that’s where I know that they’ve already done their best. Right. And so that’s kind of like the, the, the standard at which I will, I will put my foot down. But then the other part of that is also saying, I will take them as that is. But at the same time, how am I going to get them to, to stay there what kind of voice, how am I get them to, to stay and surpass and transcend this level. But what kind of voice do I want to be as a facilitator. Right. If I’m going to be internalized. What am I going to be. And that makes me think real like hard about. Yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about that. The indwelling internalizing loop you have to end well, your student, so that they can internalize you and you have to internalize them as well so right you’re trying to you indwell them so you can internalize them so that they can end well you so they can internalize you and that sort of that matching and what does that feel like and what are the skills around it. That help make it work, and then what is the proper orientation that make it right, make it work well and make it work morally in a morally. In a morally worthy manner. Yeah, I agree I think that those that those questions, but those questions are, they overlap with the very questions of how to practice dialectic into the logos because that’s exactly. We’re trying to be mutual facilitators to each other. We’re trying to the group is trying to be the Socrates to each member of the group. So that that’s that that question is it, I keep coming back to it, and I get more clarity on it but I need these discussions that I like I’m having with you, Ethan because I need all this, all this convergence from many multiple perspectives to unfold the depth of what’s happening here. We’re almost out of time and I like to offer people the last word. Here’s your opportunity for the last word. Yeah, so what do you do, I want to really thank you. This was really excellent. So your experimental phenomenology where you’re also reflecting on the underlying functionality is exactly the kind of improvisational investigation that people should be engaging with as they, they write as they are curating an ecology of practices, you’re doing it auto didactically you’re looking at important, you know, philosophical and cognitive scientific theory, and like the way you’re putting that all together is amazing so I just want to note that. Thank you very, very much. Yeah, I am, I can be found at five to midnight.org I’ll drop the link at the bottom. We have a set of new packages and kind of like training opportunities I’m more than happy to speak with people and arrange some stuff out. If you’re a student, it doesn’t matter, like, just come let’s have a conversation and see what works. I’m also started a podcast called minutes to midnight, and that’s available on the five to midnight channel. The first, the first episode is kind of like a, I think it’s a version I called it the cave because it’s a version of like Plato’s myth, but we’ll be exploring how more in depth about how TMA actually counters, hopefully counters parasitic processing in the perennial problems. Yeah. If you’d like to check me and Tamaki out we’ll also do some dear logos episodes between the two of us and put them up on the YouTube channel, so you get a chance to watch that as well. Excellent. Excellent. Thanks so much, John. Thank you so much.