Delight in Thinking, Dancing With the Pathwork Guide
Coffee Time Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Pat: If we could feel more connection while we are here in the house, no matter what each of us is doing, that would be a new experience for us. Gary: Even while we sit here in coffee time together, a time of intentional connection, my mind wanders away from you and away from us simply being here together. While we sit here, from time to time my mind wanders off to just about anything, say something going on at Sevenoaks, or something I read in one of the Pathwork Lectures, or something on my To Do list that I want to remember. When this happens, I become unfocused, discombobulated, and certainly not here! More thinking, more doing, vs. we, you and I, being here together enjoying one another’s company. This latter sense of simply being together and enjoying being together is not very familiar to me. Doing is the bird in my hand that I know will satisfy. Simply being present with you are the two birds in the bush – evasive, unfamiliar, nothing that I am familiar with. And although I know two birds are better than one bird, I too often choose the risk-free bird that I hold in my hand, rather than risk having no birds if I go for the two in the bush.
Pat: The movement here is a “letting go” movement. “Being here with Pat” is not another doing but rather is a new experience that arises out of spaciousness as we let go of thoughts and doings. As a Buddhist teacher says it, “We are a clear knowing in which experience arises unceasingly.” Another Buddhist teacher speaks of the three characteristics of Experience: Empty, Vivid, both of which yield the third characteristic of Experience: Heightened Awareness.
Gary: For me, I experience delight in thinking. Pat: So for you there is a “You” and a “Thinking”? Gary: Let’s say I am reading or listening to one of the Pathwork Lectures or am engaged with someone in deep conversation. There is something inspiring, energizing, playful, and engaging in this process of thinking. I, whoever “I” is, take delight in these engagements with others via reading, listening, or entering into dialog. In these experiences I would say I am allowing my Soul to engage with the other. Pat: Are you your Soul? Gary: Good question. As I ponder this I would say the experience is observing both the Soul and the thinking. I am not seeing myself overly identified with either the Soul or the thinking, at least not in this moment. Somehow I am aware that I am in a dance, a playfulness here. In this dance I experience pleasure for sure.
Pat: The more empty we are the more we can enjoy all experience arising unceasingly. We are clear awareness. It is an illusion that we are separate minds. All that is here is awareness. Gary: I am amazed that just yesterday during my workout I listened to Pathwork Lecture 175 Consciousness: Fascination with Creation. I chose to listen to this Lecture rather than another for no other reason than it followed Lecture 174, a Lecture that I have been working with of late. I think this Lecture 175 planted a seed in me, a Knowing that indeed, I have a fascination with thinking – with new ideas, new perspectives, and so on – experiencing these all as creative processes. For my website I’ve selected an 11-paragraph quote from this Lecture 175 that truly inspires me (open quote). Posting this quote on my website, too, was a playful, creative and pleasurable experience – just taking my time – no hurry, reading these paragraphs carefully, summarizing them, highlighting the key phrases, etc.
After coffee time with Pat I had a 90-minute coffee time with brother Paul at Panera. Both of us it seems find sheer Joy in creative thinking, framing, organizing ideas, and so on. Perhaps Pathwork inspires me because I resonate so deeply with the thoughts, ideas, and worldview that the Pathwork Lectures provide. This resonating with the lectures is truly a perceived value of Pathwork to me – for me the value of Pathwork is the pleasure I get taking in and dancing with the wisdom I find in the Pathwork Lectures, as I take them in slowly, phrase by phrase. I guess I could say this is my experience of Dancing with the Pathwork Guide! I do not have to explain the Pathwork Lectures, argue for them, or figure out how to teach them. Rather I can simply witness to how my Soul is so inspired by them and dances with them. At the same time I am noticing that I am becoming more open to the Bible and other wisdom literature and these, too, inspire me. I am not overly attached to any particular idea that the Pathwork Lectures present. I do not feel moved or Called to teach this material in some systematic way. (Over two decades ago, when I was deeply into the Bible, I bought a multi-volume set titled Systematic Theology. Over time I came to smile as I glanced at the set. I found myself wondering, “Can true experiential Theology be systematized! My answer had become,”No.” Systematizing something like the Bible or other rich wisdom material seemed like robbing the raw material of its power.) Rather, I feel Called to let the material inform my Soul Substance phrase by phrase, applying the material bit by bit, seed by seed, to my life, and then letting my life manifest from what gets planted there. The process could be considered a devotion I have to Pathwork. It’s the Gandhi phrase, “My Life Is My Message,” or for me, “Pathwork, as it lands in me through my devotion to it, is seen in my Life, not in my teaching.”
Shared in love, Gary