February 22, 2024
Principle 2. The Principle of Action and Reaction. Fourth Week.
“When you force something towards an end you produce the contrary.”
Last time: The Present. Compulsions, and the Game of Name It.
This time: The Future and The Game of Explain it!
There’s a lot of stuff here. Along with personal musings about the principles. There are reminders of what we did last week and what we will do next. There are also proposals to investigate the principles from different perspectives. These take us to first consider the general structure and implications of the principles. Then they guide me reflect back on my life, next to look around at what’s happening to me currently, and finally to reflect on my relation to things I hope or fear are likely to occur. We also explore the principles using games, specifically, four games that we call: Find It, Ask about It, Name It, and Explain It. We also include a sampling of illustrations, videos, music, anecdotes, etc that hopefully present some aspect of the principle we are considering. Some weeks we also include additional ideas about the experiences we are working with. Sometimes we go far afield.
Please don’t let this be yet another complication in your life. Don’t feel obliged to read all or any of this. Don’t feel obliged to carry out all — or any — of the proposed works. Take what’s useful for you, what you find interesting, or helpful, or challenging. Don’t worry about the rest. They are things that might be useful for someone else, or for another time.
Travel light. Pass along what you can, when you can.
This Week:
Over the previous three weeks we focused on the general structure, and implications of the principle, we also investigated how this principle played out (or didn't) in our past as well as in the present.
This week we turn to considering how I might apply it to what hasn’t yet happened, to what I believe will happen in the future.
How Can I Think About What Hasn’t Happened?
One way to approach this proposal is to consider the problems, pressures, challenges, or difficulties that I think I believe I will have to face. How might this principle apply in those cases? What light can it shed on the circumstances forming around me? How might it change things? And so on. Equally, I might consider what the consequences might be of misapplying or ignoring the principle.
More About The Future
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaRbhtXyWfQ&t=25s
Back To Our Principle
This week rather than share more ramblings and reflections I am including a video courtesy of Rafael Edwards (who also did the illustration included this week). I hope you enjoy it and find it as interesting as I did.
If you speak Spanish, you’ll find that the song that accompanies the silent drama supplies a narrative. I think that those who don’t speak Spanish will have no problem following the story. The opening title is in Spanish says:
When you force something towards an end you produce the contrary.
https://youtu.be/O3Bl3FOySzY?list=UUQ0q_lNxhNVZN-Z7S6XWNwg
This Week’s Game:
Explain It!
The rules for this week’s game are simple, and summed up in the name of the game, Explain.
Here are two possible approaches (there could be many others). Like with the game of Ask! we need to engage another player (or players). If I can manage to talk to someone that’s great but if I can’t, whether because of my personal circumstance, shyness, etc. I can write down my thoughts in a brief email — whether I send it or not is another matter. The point is to put my thoughts, and intuitions into a form that is suitable for sharing.
Of course, just as with other games, I might find myself with no one to play with. For example, in this case, no one whom I can either ask their opinion, or tell mine. Such a situation might well be an opportunity to reflect on what that absence implies, and perhaps even take measures in enrich my social environment.
Another thing this game has in common with that of Asking another’s opinion is that it’s a game! In this game our interest is on engaging and communicating. Convincing, preening, recruiting, etc. are outside of the goals of the game. Rather, you are sharing your interpretation of something you find interesting.
At our next meeting we can discuss our discoveries about, and our difficulties with this week’s reflections.
Coming up:
Next week we’ll turn to Principle 3 — Timely Action.
Worth Repeating:
“All worlds you aspire to, all justice you demand, all love you search for, all human beings you would follow or destroy are also within you. Everything that changes within you will change your direction in the landscape you inhabit.”
The Internal Landscape, chapter four_ Silo
Remember
Sometimes meditation require you sit down and close your eyes but that’s less than half the story.
There is a form of meditation that can only take place in the midst of life. It is the mundane events of daily life that make such a meditation possible. This is where you gain the raw material that nourishes your reflections just as it is the testing ground where you prove the results of your “internal” discoveries.
Want More:
Join us at our weekly meeting. Every Wednesday at 6:30 PM ET.
Ask me for a Zoom link, or find it on our Facebook Page (The Community of Silo’s Message Toronto Annex).
Note:
These notes have been posted on Facebook and sent to our email list. You will also find them along with other comments, and reflections on my website: dzuckerbrot.com
Stay tuned…
