The three essays comprising this trilogy are not about
the Mastery Course per se. Neither do they intend to recreate the rich
body of distinctions and the breakthrough in transformation the
Mastery Course unerringly, powerfully,
rigorously,
inexorably
delivers. To get those, register yourself in the next Mastery Course.
There's no investment more worthwhile. Really.
Rather, this trilogy comes from my experience with
Werner
and
Dr Joseph DiMaggio
and over five hundred other
participants,
staff, and people who assist, in the three-day Mastery Course in
London
in November of 2019.
Prior to (behind, before) the being (who you and I really are) is the
nothing.
That's
Laurence
recreating
Werner
recreating
Martin
Heidegger.
And
Werner's
is an entrancing, mesmerizing,
brilliant
Heideggerian discourse. Delivering it in a voice that springs from a
fountainhead of sheer intention, he strides from point to point in the
spacious course venue, directing himself both to the group at large, as
well as to individuals one at a time. It's an essential truth that
whatever
Werner
speaks, he
demonstrates.
In this course
Werner
is therefore
demonstrating
being a master. Watching him, and allowing the full impact of what he's
unleashing through his speaking to impact me unimpeded, unscreened,
unfiltered, makes me gasp,
moves me to tears,
takes my breath away. Man! He just sets my
heart
on fire. The power!
Heidegger's "the
nothing"
prior to the being, is exactly that:
nothing.
Hey, I know that
nothing!
It's not new to me. So I make it new for me (if I don't,
smart aleck "Mr Know-it-all" me will get in my own way of
what there is to get). What is new for me is his
(Heidegger's) assertion that without experiencing the
nothing,
I can't fully appreciate the being - that is to say without being
willing to experience the
nothing
prior to the being, I can't fully appreciate who I really am (which in
and of itself has a heady, counterintuitive, slightly jarring
Zen-koan-esque
quality, yes?).
At this point in the discourse,
Werner
and Heidegger are in lockstep,
arm in arm,
eye to eye (figuratively speaking). It's coming from this space that,
with another of many pointedly
brilliant
items of coaching,
Werner
exhorts us to "hold ourselves out into the
nothing".
Wait! I have to listen carefully to make sure I get it. He doesn't say
the more colloquial "hang out with the
nothing"
(Werner
may be many things, but one thing's for sure he's never, is
colloquial). Rather, what he says is the experimental /
experiential "hold our-selves out into the
nothing".
So I take it on, and it becomes my
walkingZen
(that's like Zazen ie sitting meditation, except I'm bolt
upright on my feet and in motion). I
walk
along a brisk, cobbled bank of the river Thames, holding myself out
into the
nothing,
not looking at but rather seeing what
happens, seeing what occurs, seeing what shows up. Listen: this
is a powerful practice. For me, the megalopolis of
London
(not to mention all other cities and all other locations and all other
points on the planet) will never be the same again.
London
(that is to say my experience of
Londonshowing up as my experience of
London)
is irreversibly, irrevocably transformed.
There's no
mystery
to this. Transformation is neither esoteric nor mystical, even though
it may not be easy. It's quite pragmatic in fact: it's we
ie it's you and I who allow ourselves to slide deeper and deeper into
regarding the world in which we live, as blatantly,
stoopidly
obvious. That's a
deadly
transformation killer. When the world in which we live is obvious,
there's no "WOW!" factor anymore. Reality, which starts
off as knowable, is eventually made obvious. This obviousness comes at
a terrible cost, a cost not to reality itself but to you and I ie to we
who live in the world. I'm stunned, listening
Werner,
as I, aghast, let it sink in. I also get it's become obvious to us that
who we wound up being, is who we really are. That's an error
which lived again and again, gives new meaning to the term "zombie
apocalypse".
Werner's
invitation for holding myself out into the
nothing,
allows the "WOW!" factor to re-emerge and to inspire me again to stop
living life as obvious. When I stop living life as obvious, secondarily
I get to see life with new eyes; primarily I get to see who I really am
(if you like, I get to see who I might be really, like a
possibility). It's a timely, critical distinction because of this:
the way a master of life interacts with life is the
natural outcome of the way a master
sees and makes sense of life.