https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=LOayfnYQTRY
Welcome everyone. I’m John Ravecki and I’ll let everybody introduce themselves. I’m joined with some of the members of the Meditation Sangha and also the broader community. And what we’re going to do today is we’re going to take you through philosophical contemplative companionship practice. But first of all, if everybody could just take a moment and just introduce yourself and then I’ll lead us into the practice. Hello, my name is Tracy Williams. I’m Robert Gray. I’m Kira Kerber. So thank you Tracy, Robert and Kira for being here. So we’re going to do philosophical contemplative companionship. What would happen is I’ll be the facilitator this time. And what happens is the facilitator will usually, and I’ve already done this, will prepare the other participants with a brief background of the philosopher whose text is going to be read and about the philosopher’s philosophy and the philosopher’s character. I’ve done that. We’re going to be reading a text from Spinoza. So I filled everybody in on sort of the background of Spinoza’s philosophy. I chose Spinoza because he exemplifies the attempt to integrate spirituality and science in a profound way. And his character is very exemplary. So what we’re going to do is I’ll explain to you the overall agenda. We’re going to first begin by taking a moment to engage our mindfulness abilities. All of the members have done meditative practice. And we’ll take time of finding the core four, finding your center, root, flow, and focus. And then we’ll come out of that. I will do what’s called a slow reading of the text from Spinoza. Then we will do a practice called ruminatio, which is a practice of philosophical chanting of a key passage from the text that sort of stands out to the reader. Then we will go into a practice called precious speaking. This is where each one of us in turn will try to, in a sentence or perhaps two, try to convey as deeply and extensively as we can what the text is evoking in us, what it’s provoking in us, how we’re trying to invoke the voice of Spinoza. We are all trying to not just speak automatically. We’re trying to avoid speaking about our autobiography. We’re trying to avoid speaking authoritatively. What we’re trying to do is to not even get into an agreement or a disagreement with the text. We are trying to basically make Spinoza and his philosophy as present as possible so that we can internalize that as we can internalize Spinoza as a sage through which we can cultivate wisdom. And after that, after we’ve done that, we will do what’s called intentional conversation, which is a more extended version in which we now are more interactive with each other. And then there’ll be a stage in which we do a takeaway, which is preform, and we just discuss what came out of the practice. All right, so we’re going to begin with a few minutes of none of us speaking. I’ll be silent. And people, all of us, the four of us, are going to be taking time, about five minutes or so, to find our center, our route, our flow, and our focus. Let’s all begin, please. Let’s slowly come out of the mindfulness practice. Try to keep that silent open space available to you to bring it into listening. And also when you speak, try to speak as deeply from the silent depths of that space. So, this is Spinoza from his treatise, God, Human, and their Well-Being, God, Humans, and their Well-Being. In itself, reason cannot fulfill us and make us happy. Therefore, we must ask whether there is a particular kind of knowledge by which we could attain perfect happiness. The kind of knowledge that leads to happiness does not come from a source that is distinct from happiness to the mind. And as the mind perceives happiness, it becomes united with it. To put it another way, the knowledge of happiness evokes love for happiness. In turn, love for happiness evokes love for its source, which we call God. God cannot reveal himself directly to us, but only through his blessing. In receiving his blessing, we become united with him. Thus, I do not say that we must know God as he is, or even that we should know him adequately. It is sufficient to know him to some degree in order to be united with him. Even the knowledge we have of our own bodies is very particular. We do not know God in the same way that we know him. Even the knowledge we have of our own bodies is very particular. We do not know our bodies just as they are. We are totally united with our bodies. This knowledge of God is not the consequence of something else, but is immediate and direct. The knowledge of God is the cause of all other knowledge, and so must be acquired by itself alone. Moreover, by our very nature, we are united with God. So without him, we can neither exist nor be known. This union with God is so close that it is evident we cannot know him except directly. For the ruminatio, I have chosen, as the mind perceives happiness, it becomes united with it. I’ll repeat it a few times so that we all can remember it. As the mind perceives happiness, it becomes united with it. As the mind perceives happiness, it becomes united with it. As the mind perceives happiness, it becomes united with it. I will now say it, and then after I say it this time, I will pass the ruminatio to Tracy. As the mind perceives happiness, it becomes united to it. As the mind perceives happiness, it becomes united to it. As the mind perceives happiness, it becomes united to it. As the mind perceives happiness, it becomes united to it. As the mind perceives happiness, it becomes united to it. As the mind perceives happiness, it becomes united to it. As the mind perceives happiness, it becomes united to it. to it. As the mind perceives happiness it becomes united to it. As the mind perceives happiness it becomes united to it. As the mind perceives happiness it becomes united to it. As the mind perceives happiness it becomes united to it. As the mind perceives happiness it becomes united to it. As the mind perceives happiness it becomes united to it. As the mind perceives happiness it becomes united to it. As the mind perceives happiness it becomes united to it. As the mind perceives happiness it becomes united to it. Now we’ll pause, let that reverberate in all of us. Now we’re going to move to precious speaking. Each one of us will try to convey as much as we can by saying as little as we can about what the reading and the ruminatio are evoking in us, provoking in us, and how we’re starting to invoke through it the voice and presence of Spinoza. Transcensing knowing happiness as a way of knowing what’s most real. Feel serenity, calm, yearning, reassuring. Surprised that this place could be gotten to and then excited to share it. Surprised to hear words that touch something deep inside about reason and happiness. Putting Spinoza in the playfulness between the reason and the happiness. Feeling the happiness written about is accessible and excited to seek it out. Sensing the mindset that would evoke a line like you can’t know happiness with reason Happiness as a love that allows me to know putting those three things together is insightful for me. You can’t know happiness with reason. You’ve been going the wrong way. This is a better way, a gentler way. And the mind feels happy in anticipation. Things are simultaneously very clear and also very different and very right all at the same time. I feel an unusual experience of happiness. Feeling deep into my body, mind, the world, the way they’re joined together. I feel a strange oneness at the present. Feels very, very ancient and very modern, but not quite as modern as today, maybe. I feel very connected to this experience in this moment. So we’ll now move to the intentional conversation in which we will continue the crushes speaking, extend it. Now there’s a musicality that is growing up between us and we will now try to share it in concert together. So the way Spinoza is trying to get us to see the way we’re united with our bodies is the way we’re united to what’s most real is both a simple thing to say, but I find it a profound thing to try and realize. But I’m hearing from each one of you, it’s almost like a musical note that’s allowing me to get a sense of what that’s like. I’m feeling the eminence of something extremely precious and more accessible than I ever thought it was before. I must get a sense that there was some self-discovery that Spinoza noticed in himself over time, not days, but years maybe. There was this, not an epiphany, but almost like underneath an epiphany or something like that. I’m noticing the, reading the phrase that we did, that we went over, the words perceive and united are popping out in a much more vivid and real way and having a sense of the perception of Spinoza and of each of you at the same time. I want to pick up on that, that weird and wonderful interpenetration of the way I feel like Spinoza is sort of here between us in this interesting way. And I like the way Rob picked up on, there seems to be almost for me a similarity between how he’s developing here and Robert’s sense of how he sort of, you can sense how he developed in his thinking. I feel that there’s a connection there. I’m feeling a terrific gentleness in his words. We read very little, but it’s so, the mind, usually so chaotic, feels that it’s in the right place at the moment with the four of us. Yes, it feels very comfortable. It’s almost like there’s this space that Spinoza had that he gave to us and now we’re all kind of in it together, appreciating not only him, but us and even the moment itself. I’m noticing almost like a sense of someone sitting next to me right now in this space, and I can’t tell if it’s one of you or him. And there’s a nervousness, an unsure, like what’s happening, like I’m not sure what’s happening. It’s unsettling and yet exciting at the same time. It is, I think, that beautiful imagery that Robert just gave us about Spinoza’s space and our space and the co-spatiality of those spaces. And then that made me think Spinoza’s trying to get us to understand knowing as this kind of unification, and we’re doing it, we’re exemplifying it, and we’re exemplifying him in exemplifying it. It is exciting and like you said, it’s strange, but it’s a good strange. I share the good strange feeling too. There’s a sort of delighted nervousness. And I’m feeling very reluctant to start to intellectualize the other things I heard. I’m feeling it more inside my body as a centering of the directness of knowing God, and I don’t want to start going up here and analyzing it yet. It’s it’s it’s it tastes nice, you know, it feels gentle. It feels like a warm sweater. It’s like, oh, thank God, this is nice. It is like you’re at a destination, but you’re also on a journey and you don’t want to really be at the destination because the journey is the better part, but there’s still a clarity to that destination that he kind of put in front of us. John, as you were speaking the last time, I had this word come into my head very loudly, which was like a seance. And and then have Tracy, what you said about not wanting to intellectualize it, because I could see the part of my brain that wants to do that. And like just trying to stay with the experience and they are just and also marveling at what’s possible just with the medium that we’re using of the technology and how this is coming about and what what it’s creating. Yeah, I don’t I don’t mind the sounds metaphor as long as we strip away. Yes. But I mean, it strikes me that we’re all doing what Spinoza said when we when we truly experience happiness and I’m getting a sense of how it’s distinct from pleasure. We are immediately seeking seeking to unite with the source of that happiness. And that and that movement is supposed to be something profound about us. It’s supposed to somehow reveal God to us. What’s ultimately real. Yeah, this must be why I’m feeling so comfortable with it because it’s a it’s a it’s a feeling of and I’m losing speech because I just like the feeling so much don’t want to spoil it with too many words. It may well be such a strange experience that the strangeness of this experience is that it feels so comfortable. It doesn’t feel alien or or as it doesn’t feel awful. It feels strange. Lovely. It is near a very terrifying place because there is a lot of uncertainty. Probably in all of us right right now, but also there’s a lot of trust and a lot of goodwill. And also it’s kind of interesting that there’s all these different perspectives yet we’re still holding this this perspective at the same time. I’m appreciating that sense of it like being in a place where you’re not just in a place where you’re seeing this strangeness that or this you know the strangeness that isn’t there’s an element of scary there’s an there’s an edge to it and yet there’s a familiarity with it. I just had this thought of wondering what Spinoza would think of what this is creating in the in this space and just trying to think of what you know what words might be put to that and I’m at a loss at this moment but maybe by the time it comes around it’ll be some thoughts. Well we’ve now done the four rounds of Intentional Conversing. And we’re already if you notice we’re already sliding into you know more free-flowing dialogue. So now we do that we start to do a little bit more of what we’re getting from this but also you know a little bit more free form. So I’ll start what I would recommend is we first keep the sequence going but people can speak a little bit more fluidly a little bit longer. So what what first of all I wanted to thank everybody because it was just like that that that I’d like to get Kira said you know maybe we could call it a secular seance or something. And you know having that and Robert’s metaphor was just for me I mean everything was beautiful but when Robert spoke it it was like somebody ringing a bell everything just the the the this like almost a super imposition of what was happening between us and then what was what Spinoza was saying and sort of that the him and us together that space of Spinoza the space between us I thought that was amazing and the way it was the way we were not just speaking what he was talking about but we were progressively exemplifying it we were enacting it now when you go back I think about what will happen to me when I go back and read that passage now like that passage is just going to sing to me it already was a meaningful passage to me that’s why I chose it but now I fully expect I think it’s very very plausible prediction that when I read it again I mean I’m going to feel this I’m going to feel the concert of intelligibility we made together I’m going to feel that presence of Spinoza. So I have a I’m wondering about what that would mean to you guys because I see how this practice would help me to internalize a sage how it would help me to cultivate wisdom absolutely yeah absolutely yeah no. The the thought that’s coming to mind at the moment is like being able to you know I haven’t read Spinoza but now I want to and like and going back and reading this and like having you guys all like come into the room as I as I’m reading you know not just Spinoza coming into the room but you guys coming into the room and it evoking something like I you know that line that we repeated there’s there’s no way that I’ll ever be able to read that without just having kind of a whoa whoa whoa moments. This must be the difference between happiness and pleasure. I think pleasure is yeah. Yeah this is pleasure pleasure is not this is not pleasure this is this is a feeling of happiness which is the strangeness of it yes and the direct experience of God is the one that keeps replaying in my mind we can only experience God directly partially because I don’t know what it means yet and I want to I’m very curious to know more about what he meant by that and how one could probably maybe experience that. The thing that’s provocative for me about that and we all picked up on it as we should have is you know the the initial line that he starts with about you know how reason can’t bring about happiness so the thing is Spinoza is what is maybe the most rational he’s considered one of the great rationalists. Reading him is like reading these very complex logically tight arguments and yet he starts off this passage by saying that like there’s something going on here he wants to take us beyond argumentation to he’s going to he’s using argumentation in the passage but he wants to take us beyond it and there was something and there’s something like really interesting about that to me because I’m thinking like the way Tracy has seen happiness is something beyond pleasure there’s this state beyond argumentative reason that’s analogous to how happiness is beyond pleasure is that making any sense to you guys are you getting a sense of what because I that’s what I’m feeling Spinoza is trying to lead me to. Yes feels like he’s feeling it in his neurons he’s not thinking it in his words go ahead Tracy. I agree with what you just said he’s feeling it in his neurons that that makes perfect sense and and maybe that’s the effect that the text just is having on me I’m feeling it more than thinking it. When John when you first read that line of that you know you can’t get to happiness through reason like I felt this sense of relief like a tremendous sense of relief and then just as we’ve been talking here in this moment the word embodied kept coming into mind which is like you know instead of spending all of the time in my in my head in the mind being able to be in the body and the heart and there was almost like being given permission that that line like gave me a permission of something that just like created this relief flood through my system. Well see that’s one of the deep differences between Spinoza and Descartes Descartes gives us the modern separation of mind and body and Spinoza consistently argues that mind and body are two different aspects of the same thing. I felt a sense of very sweet relief when I heard that reason was not the ultimate solution and I also felt that it’s as kind of what Kira was just saying that it’s like oh thank God I don’t have to do all this head work so much I can just go back in here and feel and be direct and be directly experience body God mind without having to intellectual reason is it can sometimes make my brain bleed. I almost feel like I’m on a bicycle and it’s like I could go left towards pure rationality and romanticism and abstraction and I’m like I’m not going to be able to do that but Spinoza takes me sharp right into the full human being and into a rediscovery as well as an awareness of himself and his world or something like that. That for me was the challenge when i read the ethics because reading in the ethics is like reading Euclid’s geometry but the thing is the ethics is like reading Euclid’s geometry. But the thing is, if you just read it in that head space, you don’t get Spinoza. Like you don’t, you have to, I almost want to say you have to, you have to read it viscerally. I mean, I have to, Rand Manhattan came up with philosophical contemplative companionship and that gives me a chance to give him credit right now, thank you. Right? He talks about, you’re not, you’re not speaking about the text or thinking about it, you’re speaking it and thinking it. Like you’re like this notion of embodying it. And if you’ll allow me a neologism, you’re in minding it as well. Right? Right. And it’s only when you do that, you sort of go beyond the argument to like this other thing. It’s a very powerful experience. It’s the sense of experiencing it and going back to what we were talking about a moment ago about feeling it in the neurons. I’m actually having this sensation of like a tingling in my fingers and this sense of, and I had this moment of like, I guess, a voice saying, we get to be part of this process too. Like it’s like the mental neurons always get all the attention and all the, and you know, they’re always doing all the work and like the rest of the body was like, okay, we get to participate in this too. I think that might have been where the relief came from was, yeah. So I’m feeling a tremendous concern for humanity from the passage that you read, a warmth and a love of humanity from him. I think you started to get the answer to your question about what it means to know God directly. Okay. Really? Yeah. Cause he said he’s, maybe he talks about the, you know, the, you know, God, the way the mind knows the body and it’s a relationship of loving. It’s almost like this. Go ahead. I was just going to say, it’s a loving that keeps you moving towards the source, the grounded. What are you going to say? I was going to say it almost reminds me of this positive feedback loop where he’s just, once you get caught into the momentum of it, then it carries you at this new order of magnitude up, up, up, you know. That’s pretty cool. I’m just reminded of a story I read once and somebody talking about having like a love affair with the millions of cells in their body and just, and knowing God in that way of like, yeah. That, you know, it’s like just having a deep sense of appreciation for the, you know, this, the body and the organism and like every piece of it that works and like how every one of us in humanity is needed to make things work. That’s very interesting. Ursula Goodenough, what a great name by the way. And the sacred depths of nature actually propose, and I think she’s very much in the tradition of Spinoza. She proposes exactly that. She proposes that sense of sacredness as she calls it transcendence into rather than transcendence above. It’s really cool. So I would like to propose, I know we could do this forever, but I would like to propose we now move to sort of a second stage of the takeaway and offer some reflections on the process, like what about the process of philosophical contemplative companionship. I wish I was talking to Mark about this, right to Brett. I mean, it’s his name and so we have to use it, but I actually like the term philosophical fellowship better, philosophical fellowship. So with due regard, and I’ve given him appropriate credit in citation, I’m going to now switch to saying that. What do you think about this process of philosophical fellowship? This is incredibly precious. This is an absolutely gorgeous, stunning, beautiful, wonderful process. Reading is such a lonely affair most of the time and to have this is incredibly beautiful, I feel. When you asked that question, I immediately had this image of like going through a funnel and like an incredible narrowing that was like a spotlight that created a very specific container and then opened up into this thing. So it was almost like the beginning was like all four of us walking through like a very narrow hallway into a place that was a larger space to explore in, that did something that I want to do more of. It’s interesting how like I’ve heard, I think you John, talk about if you read a book from like hundreds of years ago, it un-animatizes your sense of time. And I think like what Kira was saying, there was almost this shared sense of repopulation of the normalness of time that we’re all so disconnected from in the modern moment and in the modern digital world. Yeah, that’s an excellent observation, Robert. There is that very different shifting of sort of the relationship between being and time. That’s a very good observation. So I’m sorry, but we have to move towards wrapping this up. We’re trying to keep this as succinct as possible. So the people can use it as an example. But I want to give people one more opportunity for anything summative or final they’d like to share about it. I’ll take my turn on the summative thing just by expressing my deep thanks and gratitude for all of you. This was wonderful. Thank you so very much. I’m feeling a gratitude for getting to participate and an excitement to now take this. Now that I’ve had the experience, I’m like, okay, now I want to take it and want to show it to everybody and take the experience to the group. And one more thanks to Randle Have for bringing this and ultimately to Epicurus and the whole idea of philosophical friendship. Thank you, one and all. Thank you.