Do-Over or Catch Up!
This has been such a valuable exercise it’s worth doing again. One reason is that the thinking mind has to play some catch-up with the heart, because the heart already kind of knows what it means to really be with or see another person.
Let’s add in some more ways to look at this and some mini-exercises to get a little clearer in the thinking mind about how to do it.
Clarifying what the Focus Is and Isn’t:
The easiest starting place for the Encounter Between Souls is understanding what it is not. Everyone understands that:
Sometimes with acquaintances and strangers and loved ones, it’s like, we are in an ant colony, and just touching tentacles and going on with our busy programmed motions. (or maybe for ants that is a real joy).
We don’t take in other people, even when they’re close– we can be shut down and unavailable. Something is in us is keeping us shut-down, our social GPS system combined with a shrinking back from initial bruises we’ve suffered from being an open being born into this world and having various experiences. And having the social GPS and defense combo is not always a bad thing: it’s served us well and can still serve us. It’s just that it has taken on more than necessary and it’s somewhat obsolete.
So, I think we all know what it means to not really take people in.
So what does it mean to take them in?
In a certain sense, you have to disappear. The person has to disappear.
While you can be a “social person” and be very nice and good and friendly, and some people will be happy to interact on that level, just that level will not be enough for someone living intimately with life. You know how it feels when someone is being nice but it feels so fake, even when they mean it! It’s like a mask they push on you.
As a meditation model for what it means, we could use the example of a “look into anothers’ eyes meditation.” In this practice, you sit across from someone and just look into each others’ eyes for a long period of time. All kinds of squirmy feelings might show up, going in and out, social discomfort, laughter, etc. etc. And, an encounter of beingness too. You can imagine that exercise and see how that is a model for the Encounter Between Souls meditation.
In life, we could also imagine the strangers passing by on the side-walk situation. You each know the other is there, and you know that both of you know that. And you might wonder, should I look at them? When? For how long? (othertimes you might be oblivious that there is someone else there, or else you naturally just do the right thing and it feels right). But imagine it’s this situation—what if you decided you were going to look, but not only just glance, but really take them in, almost like the sitting meditation exercise?
Of course it will be over quick, but you can try.
Or take another situation, at the checkout, where it is very likely that you will have an opportunity for a connection. So now you have a few seconds probably. So you practice that, getting to where you can take someone in, in a few seconds.
Or you might be in a prolonged situation. There’s eye contact and talking and all that. There’s a lot of time to feel you are really with this person.
Beingness meeting beingness—exploring that deeply with the agility of brief encounters, or the opportunity of longer encounters.
Something in us knows also what it means to take someone in and not pass them by without recognition. Something in us knows what “really being with” feels like.
So you know “how” to do it, you know the instructions– it’s just in the doing of it that you get clearer, not before.
Awakening being is all about recognition. In meditation it’s recognition of the beingness. In living meditation it is recognition also of the beingness, even if in normal life the is the so-called “other person.”
Quite simply, if you have a sense of what it means to recognize your beingness or feel your way into that, and you can rest in that, then you can recognize that in others and start to rest in these moments too.
2. Go back and look at “On Having No Head” and “hollow yourself out” instructions from Day 1. Give them a try. Take these feelings into encounters. It helps to have a sense of “you the person” disappearing, and beingness stepping forward as present in the encounter.
3. Practice for Being with Close Others. This is one I’ve done many times and it conditions have to be right to practice it, but it’s worth it. Only do it if you feel the conditions in you and in the situation will be okay with it.
So, next time you are with someone you are close to, or any time really, frame the moment with the reflection that as far as you know, this could be the last time you are ever with them. On the level of the body-mind, this is true. They could be gone any time, and every single relationship ends in separation. On the level of the body-mind, no relationship can ever end in any other way. There is no forever on this level. There is only this.
What is your relationship really? It’s memories of the past and expectations of a continued relationship in the future. But on the body-mind level, your relationship is concretely only this. There is nothing else. When you are with this being, simply frame it as: this could be it. This IS it. There is only this.
Yes, this might feel sad in a way, and if the external situation in your body-mind is not right for this, don’t do it. But if you are okay, likely what you’ll find is that this frame is a bit poignant, but this poignancy is a form of joy, and you feel called to really be with the other and this feeling for being with them feels pure and right.
You could even take this into encounters with strangers sometimes and still feel this!
Go to the Hearth and report your observations for the day. Then come back here and mark as done!
