https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=JHUNyS5pQlg
Welcome to Meditating with John Vervecki. We live stream every morning, every weekday morning at 9.30 a.m. If you’re joining us for the first time, don’t be put off by this. This is a Dharma day in which I’m teaching a new lesson. We meet on Mondays and sometimes Wednesdays and also Friday, but every Monday, every alternative Monday, we do a Dharma day in which I teach a new lesson. We alternate that with the Paya day in which I review the whole ecology of practices. One Paya day is from the Eastern wisdom traditions, Buddhism and Taoism, the practices we have cultivated from those traditions. And then the next Paya day is from the Western wisdom traditions, Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Platonism. We’re going through the wisdom of Vipasha right now and going through the practices for cultivating wisdom drawn from the Epicurean tradition. So if you’re here for meditating, don’t worry. Please see the description and find links to previous lessons and sits. Do lesson one, which will start you on core four of mindfulness. Try to do one or two lessons every week. Keep meeting with us and you’ll integrate very quickly with the course and with the Sangha. Please help me help as many people as possible by liking this video stream to raise its profile on the YouTube algorithm. We at the end, we will generally have a Q&A, although sometimes for time reasons we don’t get much of a chance for that. For those questions, please limit them to the ecology of practice. You get priority on Tuesdays and Thursdays to questions concerning the practices drawn from the Eastern traditions, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, drawn from the Western tradition. Classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday tend to be a bit longer, usually going 45 minutes, classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays going about 30 to 35 minutes. So let’s begin. Let’s get going. So we’re doing the Epicureans and we’ve zeroed in. I reviewed a lot on Friday about the sets of practices. And now we’re zoning in, zeroing in on the core practice, which is philosophical contemplative companionships. This is a way of generating philosophical fellowship within which we cultivate the virtues and wisdom together. Phyliia, the fellowship love of Sophia, wisdom, Phyliia Sophia. Contemplation, theoria, remember is these three things linked together. Making sense of the text because the practice centers on a text. Making sense of the text. Making sense of others, the other people that you’re entering into fellowship with. And making sense with others because all sense making is ultimately done with and through other people. These are all interconnected. Remember contemplate, feel, and theory. What’s our basic attitude? We are trying to travel far away from the familiar, the automatic, our opinion, our normal egocentric self, and see something that we have not seen before. Seen something we have not seen before. Okay, so let’s zero in first of all. Now today we’re moving more towards the practice. So some practice principles. Okay, so making sense of the text. So what’s the main, couple of the main principles here. So thinking through the text, by means of it and beyond it. Like seeing through my glasses, contemplate, thinking through the text. Not just thinking about the text or thinking at the text. And what you’re doing is relating not only to the what of the text, the content of the text, but the how of the text. What do I mean about relating to the how? What you’re primarily doing here when you’re making sense of the text is you are trying to adopt the perspective of the text. Or more personally, the perspective of the author of the text. So let’s say it’s Plato. You’re trying to adopt Plato’s perspective. So think about doing this adverbally. What I’m trying to do is to see, let’s say the text is from Plato, I’m trying to see through the text so I can see myself, other people, the others in the group, and the world, the situation. I want to see it platonically, adverbially. Not so much what. I want to, it’s serious play. I want to play as if as I’m reading the text, listening to the text, that that’s actually me thinking those words. As if I’m Plato thinking those words for the first time. And what do I see? This is somewhat like Lexio. How do I see myself and others and the world through this text? So what I’m very much trying to do is I’m trying to engage in envisioning. I want to see things through the text the way the author of the text saw them as they were thinking those thoughts. That’s the goal here, which is very different from our normal goal. Our normal goal is to get to understand as quickly as possible, get it just so that we can agree or disagree, evaluate, judge. We’re putting aside evaluating, judging, stating our opinion, and we are opening up the contemplatio, opening up and deepening that process of really enacted understanding of the text. So that’s the main thing we’re trying to do here. When we are trying to speak in reference to the text, what we’re trying to do is invoke. We’re trying to give voice to the text. Speak from the emerging presence of the author of the text. So as you start to see the text platonically, you start to get a sense of what it would be like to be Plato. Speak from that. Give voice to that. And think about you’re entering into a chorus, a bunch of people. It’s like there’s been a piece of music created called Plato, and you’re all singing it. And the text are the notes that you’re using to sing Plato into existence. It’s very magical in the ritual sense of the word magic. Okay, so that’s the basic principle. We’re trying to envision and invoke. Envision and invoke. We’re trying to see through the text adverbally. And you may be asking, where are we going to get the text and how big should it be? Hang off on those practical questions. I’ll answer those, but let’s get the principles first. Okay, making sense of others. I won’t write that down. You’re just making sense of others. What do we want to do here? Okay, so here the main thing is you’re trying to internalize other people. That means take their perspective, but also let their words reverberate. This is a good, reverberate within you. Try to create from mindfulness an inner space of silence away from that part of you that wants to judge, give opinions, react, and let the words reverberate in you. It’s like Alexio listening. You want to let the words of other people reverberate in you as much as possible. You want to see what their words in conjunction with the text, it’s like a triangle, here’s their words, here’s the words of the text, and they sort of triangulate in on you and they call something forth from you. They write, there’s something, so you’re invoking Plato, but they’re evoking from you. Okay, evocation. So you’re trying to have an evocative response, and you’re triangulating between the words of the text and the words of other people. Create a space that reverberate inside of you so that something is evoked in you. What we’re seeking here is to get something to emerge from your depths other than from the familiar center of your speaking mind. Theoria. So evocation. So we had the first two, we had envisioning and invocation, now we have internalization and evocation. So again, envisioning, when you’re making sense of the words of the text, envisioning when you’re making sense of the text, and you’re invoking, trying to invoke the presence of Plato, sounds almost magical, and here, when we are making sense of others, what we want to do is internalize them by reverberating and then evoking. So we’re trying to create a space that will tremble from us from the words of the text and their words. We create a silent space, we reverberate until something is evoked from us. So you’re going to be speaking at a much slower pace than you normally do. Okay. Making sense with others. Making sense with others. So what we want to think about here is the idea of coupled emergence. You’re trying to couple with the text and with others, but especially with the others so that what’s emerging from them and what’s emerging from you and what’s emerging from the text are all coordinated, coupled together. So here what we’re trying to do is the metaphor that’s being used consistently by Lahav, I wonder that we’re making use of this book as well as a bunch of other books by Lahav, is resonate. All these musical metaphors, of course. And here what you’re trying to do is when you are speaking, you’re making sense with others, this is incorporate, incorporating. This literally means, we now think of it as corporations, but it originally goes back to the body of Christ. This is sharing one body. We are trying to co-embodied together. So you speak and you’re trying to incorporate what other people have said and what the text has said. So this is the opposite of what we normally want to do. Normally we want to distinguish ourselves, look at me! We want to distinguish ourselves from the text and what others have said. This is the opposite. We’re trying to incorporate the text and what others have said. And so another metaphor that’s used by Lahav and many other people is jazz. You’re trying to pick up on what other people have said, incorporate it into what you say, add onto it, vary it like in jazz, somebody plays something, I pick up on it and then I play with it and vary it and then pass it on to somebody else who picks up on it, plays with it and passes it on. So the main metaphor you’re doing here is we’re trying, as I mentioned last time, we’re trying to create a chorus of voices. All of us, each one of us is trying to give voice to Plato or to Spinoza or to Kierkegaard. And we’re creating a chorus of voices together. All right. Now, what does that mean? What are some things we shouldn’t do? Well, here’s what we shouldn’t do. Don’t agree or disagree with the text. If you start agreeing, saying I agree or disagree, you’re not doing this practice. Okay? Don’t evaluate it. This is good, this is bad. Three things to avoid. You want to avoid automaticity. Automaticity, just what does automaticity mean? Just automatic, I’m saying, you know, quickly acting out of habit, acting out of what is familiar, acting out of speaking out of our normal opinions. So you want to avoid automaticity. We want to avoid autobiography. Avoid autobiography. Don’t give your anecdotes. Don’t relate this to your personal story. Avoid autobiography. And then finally, avoid authority. Don’t speak as an authority on anything. Because the author who is present is not you, not the other person. It’s the author of the text who is being presented, presented. Presented and presented. Okay. So I want you to think of 3D co-emergence. What do I mean by 3D co-emergence? You’re trying to get the depth of the text, the depth of yourself, and the depth of others. You’re trying to get these to all mutually afford each other. 3D co-emergence. If you get Lahav, not all of this is in Lahav. This is me putting it together, integrated with epicureanism, integrating with some coccine mnemonics, an idea of what is the depth of the text. I’m not trying to get Lahav to use these words. It doesn’t quite schematize it this way. But I think this is very, very consonant with his text. Depth of the text, depth of yourself, depth of others. Okay. So now, the setup. How do we set this practice up? these words. It doesn’t quite schematize it this way, but I think this is very, very consonant with this text. Depth of the text, depth of yourself, depth of others. Okay, so now the setup. How do we set this practice up? So you have a four by four, he recommends four to six. All the work I’ve been doing, all the participants, this seems to be the golden number. You want four people who agreed to meet at least a minimum of four times. Four people who agreed to meet, and this is going to be very much online, four times. What you’re going to do is you’re going to rotate the facilitator. Each time it’s a different facilitator. What does the facilitator do? Okay, so the facilitator goes to Agora. This is a website. It’s www.filopractice. This is where you at least start, and then of course with time, there are other sources.org. And there you will find a bunch of two paragraph readings, philosophical readings that have been chosen to be specifically used in this practice. When everybody meets, the facilitator will organize the order. When you’re meeting in person, you can do it spatially. When you’re meeting online, a good idea is to order people alphabetically and everybody remember who comes before them and who comes after them. All right, so organize the order, and the facilitator is going to lead people through the sequence of the meeting, the sequence of practices. Okay, so one of the things, the first thing the facilitator does is when people meet, of course people are welcomed, they’re greeted, but the facilitator basically tries to reduce or prevent socializing. Do not start by socializing. Socialization comes after. People should greet each other, but then we should move immediately into the practice. That’s actually highly emphasized in a couple places in Laha’u’i, because if people get in, they get into this other mode, and then it actually thwarts them getting into the mode we’re trying to get into with this practice. So plan to meet 60 to 90 minutes. Okay, so the sequences, as I said, obviously the facilitator welcomes, everybody comes in, greets everybody, and then what you want to do is you want to, he has a much bigger notion, he says do centering practices. I recommend setting up the core four of mindfulness. Find your center, all of you together, take some time, ten minutes or so, find your center, find your root, find your flow, find your focus. Then you’re going to do the main exercise, which I will describe shortly, and then everybody does, sorry that’s a four, everybody does a takeaway. What did they get from this? And then if people want, you can go into socializing. Okay, so that’s the basic sequence. Okay, so let’s talk about some basic procedures. These are practices that you’re going to engage in regularly and reliably that cultivate the skills that you are going to be putting into practice as you do the main exercise. Okay, so the first is slow reading. So the name is quite explanatory. Whenever the text is being read, it’s usually, as we’ll see, it’s initially read by the facilitator. The facilitator reads it slowly and reads it in a lexio divina fashion, reads it in a sense of reciting it. The reader should pause periodically throughout to give people a chance to understand it and also a chance to start to reverberate with it, like in lexio. And so as I said here, what you’re trying to do here is this is basically, you’re trying to afford, the reading is trying to afford people internalizing the text, starting to be able to envision it, starting to be preparing to invoke it. So that’s the intent, the slow reading. Really, this is, take this seriously. This is also a way of bringing a reverential attitude in. Reverence doesn’t mean I agree with this or everything is true. Reverence is this is the potential of being profound. Okay, so the next is precious speaking. These are the haves names, precious speaking. Okay, so when you are speaking, so let’s talk first about the form of your speech. You want condensed and focused speech. What’s the principle? I want to say as much as possible with as few words as possible. I want to say as much as possible with as few words as possible. And I won’t utter more than one or maybe two sentences at most. Okay, what’s the manner? The manner especially goes into that point about resonating, that resonance metaphor. And here’s where the previous epicurean practices come in. Speak and as you’re speaking, you are savoring, savoring your speech. You’re opening yourself up silently to all of these associations. And you are also seeking various connections between all those associations. You’re not speaking that, you’re conveying it. You’re savoring, savoring, savoring your speech. That’s why we practice savoring so much. Okay, remember, speak through the text, not at the text or about the text. Speak through the text, contemplatio, theoria. Speak through the text. What you’re trying to do is you are trying to envision it, you’re trying to invoke it, right? You’re trying to incorporate what the text says, what other people say into your speech. Okay, so speak through it, not about it or at it. You are trying to invoke whoever, let’s say, Augustine, and you’re trying to speak through the text as if he was speaking through you. Okay, what about the content of what you say? As I said, you’re trying to presence the author of the text while incorporating what other people say. Presence the author of the text while incorporating what other people say. You’re trying to enter into fellowship, right? Bring into the company of the companionship the author. So you’re giving voice to the author, you’re doing the coupled 3D emergence. You’re trying to speak from depth to depth to depth and listen from depth to depth to depth. Coupled 3D emergence. That’s slow reading and precious speaking. Third kind of procedure, intentional conversing. Okay, so when you’re listening, as I said, listen from the depths. Try to create a space of silence within, letting things reverberate. Savor what other people are saying. Savor the text. Savor what other people are saying. Savor it. Savor the text. This is why we practice savoring so much. I like Rusin’s title of his book, you are bearing witness to epiphany. You’re bearing, when you’re listening to others, you’re bearing witness to epiphany. Like you are at a birth of a child. You’re bearing witness to it. Remember that that’s the original meaning of conceive. Your concepts. But now we’re trying to give birth. We’re bearing witness. We’re giving birth to Plato or Spinoza or Augustine and we’re also giving birth to ourselves in coordination with that. So as I said, when you’re speaking, you speak from the depths. What it basically is here is extended precious speaking. So you do the listening I just mentioned. So here now you’re going to speak maybe four or five sentences max. Same form, same manner, right? So you do this very savoring listening like Alexio Davina listening and then you do, when it’s your turn to speak and people are taking turns, you speak in an extended precious speaking. The facilitator makes sure that people speak in turn according to the order that was assigned at the beginning. So as I said, you’re trying to speak and so what the project is here is together in a coordinated, cooperated, coupled fashion. We’re trying to co-presence in an adverbial fashion the author of the text, the worldview of the text, the way of seeing things of that author and that is calling from us and we’re calling to each other to that. 3D coupled co-emergence. Okay, so now what’s the main exercise? Oh, sorry, one more, sorry, one more procedure, ruminatio. This is philosophical chanting, philosophical chanting. So the, after the text has been read and the facilitator makes sure that everybody has a basic understanding, the facilitator chooses one sentence and then you have sequential chanting. One person chants it out, chants out that sentence. Next person, next person, next person. When you’re not speaking and another person is chanting, you are accompanying them in your head with silent recitation, silent repetition and you do that for a sequence. You can decide how long you want to do it. It’s good to maybe do at least four rounds. Fours are good in these kinds of practices. I recommend after each round you also do like a moment of silence, a pause, so people can recollect what has happened. Okay, now what we basically do in the main exercise is after people come in and greet, welcome, we move to this sequence of procedures, this sequence of procedures. Slow reading, then two, ruminatio, the philosophical chanting. Three, precious speaking. Now the precious speaking is in response to a question. It’s analogous in some ways to meditative questioning. A good question is something like, what is the text provoking and evoking in you? What is the text provoking and evoking in you? And everybody, again, decide the number of rounds you want to do this. Everybody does precious speaking in response to the question, precious speaking in response to the provocative, evocative question. Try to make it present-oriented. Don’t do something like, what does it mean to you? Make it procedural, processual. What’s being evoked? What’s being provoked in you right now? Okay, then you move to a round of intentional conversing. And then five, the takeaway. Everybody in sequence spends a bit of time saying what they’re taking away from a whole ritual. That’s it. That’s how we do it. That’s how we engage in philosophical contemplative companionship. That’s how we create the phylea, the fellowship of Sophia of wisdom. Remember that Sophia always implies also phronesis. And there’s lots about Sophia and phronesis going on here. Okay, so there’s going to be a moment. We’re going to adjust the camera. We’re going to sit together, a short sit again, do a brief chanting, and then we will go into the silent sit. We want to see where the camera is. Here. So everyone, please get in position. Set your phones and do not disturb. We will begin when I say begin. We will begin with a chant, a short chant, and then we will go into the silent sit. Begin. Om One Om One Om Om Begin your silent sit. Huh. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you So we’re about at our time again today. I do promise that we will do some extended Q&A tomorrow, Wednesday, and Friday. We will catch up with all of your questions. Please be patient. We’re trying to accommodate as much as we can into the space and time that we have available and remaining to us. I would say to everybody, please now, if you wish, you can go on and begin reading the second degree of wisdom in the wisdom of Hypatia, which is about Stoicism. Now we’re moving to high school. So everybody, thank you for joining. Please subscribe to this channel to be notified of the next video. Please potentially join Twitter so you can get the latest updates on the stream. Invite others who might benefit by sharing this series. Join the Discord server to do extra sitting, movement practices. We’re going to try and phone philosophical contemplative companionships practice there on the Discord server. There’s just a lot going on. There I’ll be on the Discord server tonight for the general Q&A at 6 p.m. Eastern Time. So please remember continuity of practice is more important than sheer quantity of practice. Don’t hold yourself to a standard of harsh perfectionism, but virtuous friendship. Maybe virtuous companionship. Because there is no enemy worse than your own mind and body. There is no true friend, ally, companion on the path greater than your own mind and body. Relapse unto yourselves and to each other. I’ll see you all tomorrow. Take good care of everyone.