The Stoa

> something happens at a different point... there's a different atmosphere... a possibility of understanding things in a different way

...definitely some part of me that is guarded towards Jean-as-teacher, being on this stoa call with Liminal Space Agency folks

which is interesting in the sense that nobody is even saying that!

but it is obviously super relevant

I really like the written piece: somebody has to point something out

but doesn't have to be an ongoing teacher

although there's a puzzle of like... who guides you into which meditation practices etc?

> 3 elements of eG

I'm getting the sense that Jared is a founder/designer of the eG container, but maybe started in a student role along some other dimension? while codesigning it with Charlie? not sure this is accurate but seemed worth asking about? because it implies neither a single-hierarchy model nor an egalitarian model

mmm this is sort of a general puzzle/challenge with scaling mysticism in general while keeping it alive and not having it turn into a kind of "dead" religion

David Chapman > esoteric & exoteric scaling

Andrew Connor > witnessing the learning process is very helpful

Charlie Awbery > metasystematicity

transmission

drawing primarily on yogic/village practice

David Chapman > vajrayana > spiritual & other stuff not separate

"chöd" is pronounced much like "should" (but voiced first consonant)

vividness in every relationship

august 6-10 — eG having a community retreat (those dates open to public)

zen phrase

J to Charlie > you weren't acting like a teacher, you weren't displaying as a teacher

C > if you swap out "teaching" for "communicating"...

C > we talk about personal autonomy, and people think they have it

worth noting that most of the development of NNTD I've done has been in the context of groups that are already quite high trust

[could have used more stuff here about what trust is]

then what other elements are important?

N > I'm main reference for most people I know for stuff like H3

M > I guess I basically just need to give enough of an intro that the audience questions aren't bad

56:52 - M > And, I guess the other thing I could say was that I've long had a fascination with interfaces. And I mean that in very abstract sense, not just like computer interfaces, and not just the interface of designed objects in general, like this handle is an interface with this mug. So, of course, is the lip of the mug, don't forget, that's a necessary interface for drinking. But interfaces between people as well, and like what kinds of interactions between people yield mutually satisfying, 'upward spiral' type dynamics? And what kinds of interactions between people lead to disappointment and despair and frustration and challenges and so forth? Well challenges, you're always going to get challenges, but difficulty in like the psychological sense, strain? And, from the get-go, it was just really clear that these folks had a model of human relating, and thus human interfacing, and that was more sophisticated than anything I'd ever seen. And remained more sophisticated than anything else I would come to see over the following eight years. You know, there's been important key pieces that we've incorporated from other places, and things that I've found, you know, like missing or like necessary elements of various things. But it remains the case that the basic framework being pointed at there is one of the best things I've ever seen in the world for pointing at different human dynamics. And it was outlining kind of, you know, "Here are the basic things that lead to the upward spiral, and here are the basic things that lead to the downward spiral." And having seen that, as clearly as I had, in terms of like, 'what was I trying to accomplish there?' In the most general sense, it's like, "Get the upward spiral going more upwardly and spirally. And, you know, bigger and with more people in it, and more consistency," and whatever else, I mean. Which is pretty general, and I think the generality is something that I've been revisiting recently and sort of feeling into, "Do I want to have more specific targets? Or is that even possible or wise given that part of the nature of things is that you don't know what's possible until you make it possible? And like, you don't want to like constrain yourself too early? And there's this kind of dynamic tension between planning and improv or other dimensions like that. [pause]. Yeah, I think part of what's interesting -in terms of like, "What was I trying to accomplish there?", and I've been reflecting more about this recently- is that in some sense... so, as you know -and it has sorta implicitly been hinted at by how I've been talking about this group versus what I'm doing now as distinct- I left Waterloo and I left that scene in late 2020. And I was reflecting to Eric, recently. We were talking about home and I said, "This feels like it could be home." And he asked, "Was Waterloo home?" And I said, "Ah, hmm." And he and he said... or maybe he asked, like "Waterloo could be home," or something like that. And I said, "No, Waterloo was home. Waterloo never was 'could be home'". And there was something really valuable about getting in touch with how the whole time I've been living in Waterloo, I'd never intended to live there indefinitely. Like, I was there as a university student, who are notoriously transient, right? Although, I mean, a substantial fraction of university students end up living, indefinitely, wherever they do University, it's one of the main things that gets people moving, and so on. But, you know, for the years that I was visiting the Bay Area, I kind of always assumed that sooner or later, I would move there. And, you know, [there were] various factors, including social dynamics and also the fires, as well as other things that led me to sort of feel less inclined to try to move to the bay. But there was something meaningful in recognizing, "Yeah, I haven't been treating Waterloo, like the place I'm intending to live for the rest of my life. Like, I'm mostly just friends with the small group doing this culture incubator thing here." And most of my other friends just measured in terms of like, number of people I know, who know me and know each other kind of thing, are in the bay. And I wasn't bothering to try to make friends in Waterloo for the most part. So, there was a way in which I kind of was recognizing, oh, yeah, I was... I feel like I'm answering one of your questions right now, but I've forgotten which one.

I have thoughts on the shadow work stuff and doing it together... I'd say that like Visa said, other people can point out your shadow, and if you're in a group or partnership then other people outside that can point out your collective shadow. Pretty much always. But most of the time, it's very hard to point at the shadow clearly, because the nature of blindspots is that, well, they're hard to see from the inside! And because of projection.

So it's important to be able to say "okay, I see you're trying to point at something. I don't really know what it is, but we can explore it and try to get more clarity." Rather than feeling like you need to immediately change or defend yourself."

visa said something like

links

re membranes