The Encounter Between Souls

How To Do It:

Dedicate your day to the theme of seeing and being present with the other beings today. Particularly useful is encounters with “strangers” such as in checkout counters or passing by in the street or relating to people we serve or are being served by. Just as good are people close and familiar.

Whenever you can, try to look them in the eyes and really see them– the eyes are the mirror to the soul. While it’s difficult to describe the difference between skimming over someone and really taking them in and recognizing them, you know what it means. And… and this is very important… you can explore even more what it means on this day.

Of course, all the social conventions may still be at play and not every being is a good candidate for this meditation. We still have to navigate socially and not disturb people as far as possible, as well as remain safe! And, on our end, we will also possible get snubbed, ignored, or seem to communicate something we don’t mean. All that stuff is still in play, a lot of the time. And that’s good for this meditation, because we can see the difference between beingness and personyness more clearly this way.

That is the point and purpose of the meditation. To have experiences that drive home what living from beingness means.

Of course it doesn’t hurt that for the most part we will be giving people something very nice and good, doing good deeds and being a good person. Let that just run in the background, and see if you can practice the mission instead!

The mission is to have this be about becoming clear about the beingness! It’s not about being good, or about the trial of you.

If it’s not already clear, the source of the good that we do here is the beingness anyway. What we give to others is coming from there. The recognition that many other beings really want is not recognition of their personyness. It’s the recognition of their beingness (other times referred to rather narrowly as their “humanity”). So in abandoning being good and the trial of you, you are not short-changing anyone anyway.

See if you can practice at that. It’s practice! It won’t be perfect. But try. Keep it up for one day. Realize that there will be lapses.

Participation in the Group Challenge in the Hearth will help greatly with keeping it up.

That’s why we can call this a “Living Meditation” exercise, because we are practicing, deliberately and on purpose. But our goal is not to perfect the exercise or perfect our life, it’s to be clearer and clearer about living from the beingness.

Your being needs no improvement.

And good luck out there!

1. There is no need to stick with this practice if it’s too uncomfortable. You are not doing it continuously. Just do it often, and skip over any situation that you feel like skipping over.

2. Since we may not be accustomed to being open to others, we might sometimes squirm and even burn in squirmy feelings. This is the energy of personyness meeting beingness. This is usually a good thing. To deal with it, it could be helpful to try to “hollow out” your body and face and head. Feel as though your are transparent and empty, and let the squirms squirm or burn in the open space of you.

3. Similarly, the feeling from the exercise “On Having No Head” (Douglass Harding) is useful here. Sit quietly at short distance from a blank wall if possible. Point at the wall and look at the wall. Then start pointing down slowly and keep looking at whatever you are pointing at. Go down the wall, to the floor, then closer to your body. Then point to your body and up your body, looking at what you are pointing at, all the way slowly until you are pointing to your own head. You might notice that you don’t see it!

Practicing the encounter of souls can benefit from having no head.

4. Really use the frame of doing a meditation challenge, the limit of a one-day theme, and using the Hearth for reporting to create a “quarantine” from trying to be good and kind, etc..

Instead, explore the experimental freedom this frame gives you to go straight to the point purely, with no strings attached.

Even if you firmly believe this is the best way to be a person, any sense of the burden to keep it up for the rest of your life could unconsciously create resistance.

5. When practicing (or “failing” to practice!) with close others like family relationships you might not squirm, but don’t be surprised if a wave of recrimination or other visitor arrives, be it about your person or their person or both. It’s also likely that a wave of taking this practice as “how you are supposed to be” arises too. For instance, if you treat others very differently than the instructions. It’s important to stay strong in the conviction that this is not about how you are supposed to live. That’s an important part of this way of Living Meditation! Can you turn away from that and focus on the being instead? The being is already perfect. Have eyes only for that!