... | answering the question "Many people have a guru. Who is your guru?" | |
... Jose Ortega y Gasset read out loud by | |
It started (as so many great things do) in a conversation with a good friend of mine. There's something about transformation which is both timeless and impersonal. It's always been here like a possibility, and it's always been a possibility for everyone. There's nothing special about me and my life lived with transformation any more than there's anything special about me and my life lived with breathing. We've all got it (said with rigor, we've all got it like a possibility). That's why my own transformation is inextricably and inseparably connected with everyone's transformation - and therefore also with everyone's un‑transformation, as the case may be. The thing about transformation is this: it lives in language. So if I don't speak transformation, it disappears. There's no sense ruing this aspect of it. It's the way it is. You're transformed as long as you're in Conversations For Transformation. And when you're no longer in Conversations For Transformation then you're no longer transformed. That's it, folks. End of story. No longer speaking transformation ie no longer being in Conversations For Transformation is one way to step away from (if I may say it that way) being transformed - unintentionally or intentionally. Another way of stepping away from being transformed is by deploying a deadly method called jargonizing. You can't ever really speak about transformation. You can only speak coming from transformation. As soon as you speak about transformation, you're more than merely at risk of jargonizing transformation: jargonizing transformation is the first step toward killing it off entirely. This is the conversation I was having with my friend: the inevitability of killing off transformation by jargonizing it. I asked him what I can do to stay present to transformation in a way which forwards the transformed action and lives it so that it speaks louder than (and therefore overrides) my unintentional jargonizing it - a kind of safeguard, if you will. He isolated two options, both of which are entirely noteworthy, the second of which I'd like to explore in more depth later in this conversation. |
1) |
NOT
"IN HERE".
Speaking neurologically, it may be true you see the redwood in here. I say it may be true ... but I don't know: I've personally never seen the inside of my head or the inside of my eye. So I'll defer this assertion to the science of neurology. However, speaking from Life as it's lived, it's critical you get you don't see the redwood in here. If you did, it would be less than one inch tall, it would be be upside down, and it would be mirror reversed. That's what we know about redwoods seen through the lenses of our eyes, firing neurons in the retina which is the light-sensitive tissue lining the inner surface of the eye. But you don't see the redwood in here, and you don't see it less than one inch tall, and you don't see it upside down, and you don't see it mirror reversed. That may be a valid explanation speaking neurologically. But it's not what happens in Life as it's lived. In Life as it's lived, you see the redwood hundreds of feet tall, and upright, and not mirror reversed, yes? Now, I ask you again: where do you see the redwood in Life as it's lived? |
2) |
"OUT HERE"
In Life as it's lived, you see the redwood out here. In Life as it's lived, you see the redwood hundreds of feet tall, upright, and not mirror reversed out here. You don't see the redwood in here. Where you see it, which is to say where your sense of seeing it is, is out here. That's where the redwood occurs for you: it occurs for you out here. That's where the redwood shows up for you: it shows up for you out here. Don't point to your head. That's not where you see the redwood in Life as it's lived. You don't see it in here. Examine this assertion closely. You'll see in Life as it's lived, you see the redwood out here. You'll see in Life as it's lived, the redwood occurs for you out here. You'll see in Life as it's lived, the redwood shows up for you out here. And what I want you to get about the value of the neurological explanation that you see the redwood in here, is simply this: you ... don't ... live ... Life ... neurologically! ... Gee! I hope you get that. |
3) |
NOT "OUT THERE"
By the way (and it's really important you get this too): it's "out here" ... not "out there". You don't see the redwood in Life as it's lived out there. If you say you see the redwood out there as opposed to out here, "in here". Try this on for size: "out there" reinforces "in here". yes? (this is basic Zen). So Life as it's lived shows up "out here". To misconstrue it as showing up "out there" is to reinforce "in here" ... and Life as it's lived doesn't show up "in here". |
4) |
WHERE LIFE IS
Although we're thrown that it is, Life as it's lived isn't in here. You don't see the redwood in here in Life as it's lived. We're also thrown to make very loose distinctions ie distinctions without rigor. Be careful as you consider Life as it's lived isn't in here, not to make the very loose, equally inaccurate distinction, that Life as it's lived is out there. It's not. Life as it's lived ie the redwood as you see it, is out here. Life as it's lived doesn't require congruency with our internal state. As hard as it may be to confront (mostly because of the incredible waste of invested time and energy it represents), "in here" has got nothing to do with Life as it's lived. Life as it's lived doesn't move for our way of being ie for our attitudes or for our emotions or for our bodily sensations or for our thoughts. So speaking neurologically (and only speaking neurologically), you could say you see the redwood in here. But speaking from Life as it's lived, where you see the redwood is out here. Out here is where Life is. Stop lying about it. |
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