Juanita: So, It just seems like the assumption of going beyond or whatever is part of what we bring in -- is part of the assumption that we bring into dialogue -- that we need to go beyond -- that this is an earthly plane and we need to go beyond it.. And, I’m wondering I guess, to the degree at which we have assumptions about all of existence in terms of life and death and going beyond, if we don’t bring that assumption into this room and be willing to go beyond our purpose.

Ricardo: If that’s not the assumption then perhaps the assumption is -- Is this all there is?

Hilary: I’m having real trouble about this earthly and then going beyond. That is implying a dichotomy.

Ned: Hierarchy.

Juanita: That’s what I’m getting at.

Hilary: What?

Ned: Hierarchy.

Hilary: Hierarchy -- well -- in my -- I cannot accept that.

Juanita: I think that’s what I’m asking.

Hilary: Because to my way of thinking what you call earthly existence -- the reality of life and being -- has in it that longing to seek the edge of my limits -- that’s just part of the --

Juanita: I don’t think I was heard. I don’t think you really heard me. What I was asking about was questioning what I heard Daniel saying about going beyond and then what I heard Faye was about going beyond -- I was questioning that assumption, the very thing that there’s this separateness. I’m like looking at -- is that an assumption that we have that we -- Going beyond.

Faye: I see what it is.

Juanita: Is that possibly an assumption that we have on such a large and deep scale about this separation -- that that notion of separation is coming into this here.

Faye: Oh. Okay. I just caught something there. It isn’t a separation. When you go through something it’s in going through it that you go past it, beyond it. In other words, it isn’t like a dichotomy. What I meant was to go -- It’s in the process of being and doing and working through that you go beyond it -- you go. It’s kind of in an evolutionary sense. You go beyond where you were.

Mark: You quite sure about this?

[Laughter]

Faye: Yes. In other words that’s all I’m saying --

Daniel: Well let us remember that --

Faye: I ‘m wasn’t saying that it’s here and then you go past it to something else.

Jeff: Well, immanence and transcendence -- they’re related.

Ned: Is there something on the other side of dialogue.

Johan: Wow.

Juanita: I don’t think so.

Jeff: Well, there’s dialogue e-mail that I’ve been involved with --

{Laughter}

Ned: There’s this e-mail of newsletters --

Johan: E-mail is on the other side of dialogue.

Ned: The whole idea of holding everything is what we have to recognize -- that we cannot do this.

Faye: We cannot do what?

Ned: Hold everything.

Daniel: Hm.

Ned: We cannot hold the world -- it was not built that way.

Juanita: Oh?

Ned: Yeah, we’ll never say everything.

Daniel: Let me remind us that you know Bohm went from America, he was run out of his country, in a way, because he stood up to the Principle that he didn’t have to face the House of un-American Activities. And he found himself in South America and then he went to Israel. And when he was in Israel he did two things -- he met his wife, to my understanding, and then he read Hegel. Now Hegel says that

Faye: In that order? {Laughter}

Daniel: Ya, And what I think we’re seeing in Bohmian dialogue is a lot of Bohm taking a look at major things in his life -- and one of them is the Hegelian dialogue, where you go towards a synthesis, then the synthesis falls apart. And the other is that consciousness becomes aware of itself, and we know that we’ve read somewhere this notion that Hegel built this magnificent structure and then he lived in the porters shed. In other words, Hegel built this huge 19th cent. sense of the crystal palace where consciousness and history become aware of themselves and you get this great dawning of transcendence. But then Hegel said "well, that ‘s the model, but me, as far as I’m concerned I’m just going to live in the gazebo." In other words, Hegel was smart. He didn’t stick himself in the penthouse, he just said "here’s the monument -- let’s look at it, but me I’m going to live right over here in this little shed where I belong."

Laughter

Johan: Ya.

Daniel: I think there’s part of that to dialogue. It’s that we get into this business where we look at synthesis, we look at point and counterpoint and so on and synthesis, and then it all, you know, falls apart again. But the structure is there, and the structure is not so bad. As long as you don’t take is seriously and think you’re going to occupy it.

[Laughter]

Johan: Great.

Juanita: I think I’m struggling with something right now, because I feel like a few minutes ago what my attempt was, my interest was, was in maybe calling forth the possibility of an assumption that might exist for me, for others, for our culture. For -- that it sort of seemed like it was coming forward. And what I was interested in doing was making an attempt at maybe calling forward what could have been maybe an assumption, an assumption that there is this difference between earth and beyond or whatever. And what I felt I got in response was a lot of explaining to me and defense to me -- let me just finish -- and I felt like I got responses for you then from you; and then it was sort of like once that was explained then we went on to the next thing. Uh, and I really feel like --

Mark: Hasn’t Daniel been talking about this all along I mean?

Juanita: yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think -- um --

Jeff: I heard you as a question -- you were going into a question right?

Juanita: Yeah. Um. I just am wanting to explore how that -- what that reaction was. It’s really more about to me like putting it out there explore rather than just speak -- I mean even I saw you directing your energy toward -- it’s not about me -- if I put out the question it’s not about me, it’s about how we look at this. Can we look at this together? What was your words for this?

Hilary: I just wanted to sort of clarify to you that the subject sort of came up bing bang, but then when you stopped and added, and raised it I wanted to say " hey let’s stop it and look at it."

Juanita: Okay.

Hilary: In other words I was going to go into when you raised the question openly I heard the question and I wanted to point to it.

Ned: One of the things I keep going back to while I’m listening and being as attentive as I can is going back to the metaphor of the jazz ensemble. One of the things that we have a tendency to do is have this ongoing drum solo which is -- does not have any harmonic structure -- it’s just rhythm, percussion and time. And it can be very interesting. It can be novel; it can be very hypnotic. But the structure of the form of the piece that we’re dealing with, the music -- the idea of music and the interest has to be more delineated, not just drum solo, just rhythm, percussion and time. We have to really look at these things and not just bounce around what we’re doing. And that’s what you’re doing, is bouncing around these very convoluted concepts -- bouncing bouncing bouncing rhythm boom boom boom: no chords, there is nothing to tie in all this stuff you’ve been doing. There’s no thread -- no form.

Daniel: I don’t know. I think there’s two kinds of -- I don’t know, maybe I just shouldn’t say anything. There’s a poetic consciousness you might say that deals with sensibility and sensitivity and senses, and then it deals with associations and so on and it goes on to some kind of understanding that’s felt and works towards an imaginative expression of that; and then there’s the conceit that when you add reason to this and you add a construction of language that you’re going to move on up into a philosophical, scientific kind of mode where maybe using an example like Hegel and what you’re trying to say is that this is archetectonic, this is not just memory association or it’s not just drum beats; that it’s the box that the whole world comes in, and that’s the conceit of philosophy: that you’re dealing with the box that whatever it is comes in and you’re looking at the box font which helps you to know something about form and shape. These philosophical constructions Ned it seems to me are just saying "hey, what are the games that history plays with us and what are the games that we play with ourselves?" What I hear you saying is there just games for you, you know, or they’re kind of arbitrary.

Ned: They can be. But they also can be like a chant becoming a very hypnotic and cathartic event, if it’s shared. But having these things shared is a very difficult proposition. That’s my point. It’s that you’re not going to get into a primitive level of when the drum does the African beat into your body you feel the rhythm and it generates everybody the same rhythm and you definitely go into a different consciousness because of just the rhythm; no content here except for the rhythm and the percussion and the fact that you’re sharing this culture and you share this primitive feeling, and you go off, together. You know, that is something that is not going to happen with those kind of concepts.

Daniel: Yes. I’ve got you.

Ned: And that ‘s really what I want to look at -- is that idea that we’re going to share consciousness, we’re going to share this space now; how we’re going to get into that shared place, because we’re not in that shared place. We’re bouncing around like a Ping-Pong ball on observations and intention and --

Daniel: But --

Ned: My take on this and your take on this that -- it ‘s not the -- we’ve lost the thread.

Ricardo: This takes me right back to the thing that I tried to say earlier, that I think that there is an expectation that we somehow do and be all on the same wavelength, that we all get into that rhythm and in that rhythm we are going to experience dialogue, we are going to be. And I --

Ned: Well, that ‘s an assumption, though. I think that "that’s when we’re going to experience dialogue" those three words is your assumption, because that is not -- that ‘s

Ricardo: But. But.

Ned: You can’t assume -- about other peoples wavelengths.

Ricardo: No. No. The part that I’m trying to say here is it seems to me that that is asking for something to collectively happen that is what we don’t succeed in. And maybe that is an expectation that is too great.

Juanita: I don’t think you’re hearing him.

Mark: Well, Okay. I don’t care. What I am hearing here is that Ricardo is trying to accuse you of saying that there’s this collective space -- am I understanding you right?

Ned: Yes.

Mark: Okay. And Ricardo is saying that that’s not what you should be after.

Ned: I’m saying that I don’t want to defend dialogue as an umbrella that also is including the possibility of "yes, we can share this." That dialogue is a bigger umbrella then the times that we’re coherent and together, which is one aspect of dialogue. I think it’s a bigger thing.

Daniel: Well, yeah. I think so to.

Jeff: Does that go back to Faye retort earlier on that the -- she used the term "the unknown" and you said "off limits."

Ned: I don’t think that you could quote me on that. I think the idea was that we need to define the unknown.

Jeff: I see.

Johan: You’re saying that it’s a big abstraction.

Ned: Yes, it’s a big abstraction -- we need to be much more clear about our definitions and very precise with our language.

Johan: Well, yeah.

Ned: As precise as possible.

Johan: Well, maybe there’s another word.

Ned: And if she’d rather not, that’s okay too.

Jeff: It seemed that people like Wittgenstein says that you can’t really say "blue" and "yellow-toned": you’re caught in -- you point towards -- language is limited.

Ned: Of course. The idea of talking about anything is going to be not the thing.

Juanita: So you feel like you really know what you’re saying, right now? Do you know what you’re telling me?

{Laughter}

Juanita: I’m getting the impression like you sound like you know what you’re talking about.

Ned: I could bluster along and drone some good B. S.. Bohmian bombshells here, but basically the idea of language is not --

Ricardo: Is that a "no?"

Ned: -- for people to define something is I think inherent in all of us. You try to describe anything -- salt or a table or a chair -- and you’re going to be way off the accuracy of the reality of the thing. So, we all know this.

Mark: But nevertheless when we try to use language we should try and be as precise as we can. I think it is important, because even though we may point to that language and not be able to state a fact. We may be doing something more subtle than that. {Noise}. If we appear to contradict ourselves too rapidly in succession then everybody else -- at least I have seen this happen and it seems to happen in other groups -- when someone says one thing and then at the next moment seems to be saying the opposite. At that point, I’m not sure what’s going on, and there’s a sense that the dialogue breaks down in an unuseful way. And this happens also when we --

Ned: Try to save face?

Mark: Well -- Yeah, when the dialogue becomes a sort of connection between thoughts, becomes too arbitrary. I lose I mean, I try to look back to see --

Jeff: What was it?

Mark: But then I’m not there anymore.

Johan: Well, yeah, but I mean we’re trying to do something that ‘s sort of deep and sort of serious and sort of impossible and so the fact that something like that happens isn’t really very surprising and I would like to see us lighten up some --

Mark : Well, that’s --

Johan: Especially when --

Mark: You shouldn’t always take me that seriously?

Johan: Right!

{Laughter}

Johan: I mean, it could mean that No. I guess what I mean is maybe sometimes get in too serious a play. I mean, Confucius said something about -- I can’t get it right, I can never remember quotes -- but he said something abut the sage takes lightly what other people take seriously or something like that. You know, in other words --

Mark: Are you suggesting this --

Johan: Or I’m saying something like aesthetic distance in drama. If you get too close you lose aesthetic distance and you’ve got to back off a little bit or if you get too intense you lose the meaning of everything you’re trying to pursue.

Juanita: Yeah, you go blind trying to see the picture.

Hilary: The way my perception was that I was feeling a thread going through the evening and I was very intent and then I wondered whether you were not feeling a thread. And your experience of not thread sounded like l fireworks or like, you know ga ga and you know it was frustrating when you were experiencing the frustration for one reason or another, either because your mind is moving in a different place or some other picture. And then what I experienced the group to do was -- to do -- ah, everyone does their own way of avoidance of what just happened. So we waste twenty minutes with everybody going up and you know Confucius or whatever, and not sticking to what happened. I mean I thought you were on a thread -- I didn’t think -- I mean, I thought we were on a thread.

Johan: Oh, we were. But --

Hilary: And so then I would like to say it is somewhat like -- I saw that you were frustrated and that weren’t feeling on a thread, and hello Ned and um -- are you feeling frustrated -- a need to go off on some diversion or something.

Ned: Pardon me, but I thought that the diversion was much earlier in this dialogue -- that’s what my feeling was.

Hilary: Oh. I wondered what was going on with you.

Ned: Yes.

Hilary: Okay. Well then that wasn’t fair of me. Thank you for answering.

Johan: But I -- maybe I never sense things clearly enough to know when a thread gets broken.

Ned: It doesn’t matter.

Johan: Yeah.

Ned: It really doesn’t.

Johan: I don’t know.

Ned: If we’re all connected then there is a thread; but if we’re not connected then there isn’t a thread.

Mark: Now it seems that we’re getting to this --

Daniel: Ya, Ya

Mark: -- that we all have to be in this together.

Ned: No no no no. I didn’t say all the time. I’m saying that there is a time when we are together. That’s all I’m saying. And when it does happen that we are together it’s moving. There really is special, and I look forward and anticipate that kind of transcendence is just what the doctor ordered for a dialogue. And to aim for it is maybe my own personal target and maybe it’s my assumption, a non-negotiable assumption. But I’m happy talking about anything.

Mark: This is precisely --

Johan: To aim for it it’s not as likely to happen. I think it’s a very subtle thing: you get it and you go with it for awhile and then it poops out and you ah "wow." And then I guess the thing is to say is "wow it was great." Or maybe when we’re talking about it pooping out we’re on another thread.

Juanita: Or, if it’s good sex you only know it when it’s over, like "gee that was great," but you didn’t notice it at the time or something?

Johan: Yeah. It’s a little bit that way.

Mark: I uh I don’t disagree with any of this. Nevertheless, there’s a distinction for me between. I mean, there’s always threads going out, Okay, and I could always pick up always create some kind of thread, okay, to keep the dialogue going if you wanted to pretend that there is a thread going around never interrupt whatever that last person said -- just let go, you know, and I’ve certainly done that in the past. When I first came to dialogue that is what I thought dialogue was about.

Johan: Now you’re more focused on inquiry.

Mark: I guess I feel like I’m pointing something out which I sense, rightly or wrongly, when there is a sense of confusion in the dialogue. And it’s usually, I’m looking at other people’s reactions --

Johan: Yeah, yeah. What the hell is Ned talking about anyway?

Mark: This person seems to be, this person seems to be. Maybe not everybody’s going through this. Maybe some people are following threads to start with. But I think that this is important to look at -- It think that to pretend that it’s not there is not going to make it go away. If indeed you seriously want to pursue this goal -- there won’t always be a perfect thread to follow. I mean we have to --

Ned: The perfect thread is of course never found.

Mark: Let’s not make that assumption --

Ned: Well, it’s --

Mark: Look Ned, I want to leave this open, okay. But I guess I sort of feel on the job. This or something like it, something interesting, is more likely to happen if we don’t impose any preconceived idea about what’s going to happen. Okay this is what I’m saying: this attitude is very much against what I understand of the spirit of dialogue as an inquiry. Any kind of idea about what good dialogue should be because perhaps it’ll change. You know, perhaps --

Ned: Of course it’ll change.

Mark: What I experience as good dialogue a year ago has changed. I mean, it’s not that a year ago was any worse than it is now; it’s just I see different things.

Ned: And when you listen to music, when you really get into listening to music, you get more critical and your expectations for listening to better music that grows with your knowledge of music and you’re enjoyment of it. I think that perhaps my expression is a little feeling less tentative and more absolute when I lay it out like that . . .

Daniel: Yeah.

Mark: But I think that we’re still in a search mode, which is that tentative attitude, and the idea of a thread is something of an ideal. [End tape 1 side 2]

Ricardo: to be hear and to be present with whatever is going on as opposed to wanting it to be. It is a form of your own agenda to be wanting to acquire this degree of fidelity to satisfy your needs instead of being willing to hear the symphony that’s at the table.

Ned: One of the things that you have to do is to give up the goal. That is also the most difficult thing in the world unless you get into the process of understanding all these instruments in this orchestra and learning how to play all the instruments learning how to read the entire score like the maestro, you get a very different perspective on the music, certainly. But no one has that kind of time and energy. So I guess you have to talk about this stuff -- this is the language that we are choosing to share to talk about this process and it’s not something that’s going to go away just because the ideal state is transcendent.

Faye: I feel we have to take the time to learn the process.

Ned: It’s all process.

Faye: Just get into the process.

Ned: It’s all process.

Faye: Instead of talking about it.

Ned: It’s all process. It’s all process.

Mark: OK. Actually there’s a fundamental disagreement here which we have never addressed. See, we never, um -- various people pointed it out. You have made the comment before and during [this discussion?] and I had made the comment before also that we are in the process talking about the process. We are still in the process. It’s not mutually exclusive. So -- OK, but um -- I don’t know -- I -- I express it that way because I’m trying to express it clearly[?].

Faye: Yeah I understand what you’re trying to say.

Mark: But you know it’s interesting that you seem to continue to hold this . . .

Faye: Okay, I’m just seeing something. Okay I just noticed something. My assumption -- OK, and it is an assumption -- but I just saw something. I understand what you’re saying, and I know what you’re sayings correct, that talking about the process that is itself the process.

Mark: Well, being in the process -- being in the process means listening.

Faye: OK. What I would assume is -- what I had assumed is that the process is an inquiry entrance into something rather than into the process of it -- that’s my assumption.

Mark: See, this is interesting because to me the real inquiry is into the process of inquiry -- the real inquiry is self-reflective in that way -- I mean, that’s because that in a way encompasses everything else.

Faye: It’s OK. And to me it has a subject and the subject and the subject can be anything.

Faye: No, I’m showing I’m seeing something here.

Ned: Obscene?

Faye: I’m seeing something and it can be obscene to you --

Ricardo: {Laughter} It probably will be.

Ned: Just a bad joke!

Faye: Um -- I made the assumption that it’s -- the process is having a subject and it doesn’t matter what the subject is, and it’s through that process of whatever the subject that you see something that you didn’t see something. Okay that was my assumption. What you’re thinking is that you -- the process is viewing the process.

Mark: It’s getting all tangled up in semantics.

Juanita: I have a question.

Mark: I think that’s a simpler way of saying what. --

Juanita: What I’m kind of interested in is I’ve heard you say this before, about going deeper and even last time I heard you say that nobody goes deeper, and so I guess what I would encourage or I’m interested in having you do is take responsibility for going deeper. If don’t feel we’re going deeper, then what is it that you need to do to get us or you to go deeper? In other words there’s something to me about an awareness I had last time about taking my own responsibility for what am I doing to contribute(?), rather than this attitude that it seems we have about what we are doing or not doing. It’s like the same thing as -- well, it’s not taking accountability for your own contribution.

Faye: Well, I just took accountability.

Ned: Yes, she did.

Faye: I just took accountability.

Juanita: OK. So in that recognizing that you see that what I would like to get into is that if you do see it in terms of going into the process, and you do have a way to go into it in a different way, that you do that, that you bring that in -- that you do that.

Faye: That’s what I’m doing.

Juanita: OK.

Faye: And I’m seeing what I’ve been doing what Mark was saying; I would characterize what I understand what you’re saying is that -- he sees it as a -- that the process is looking at the process of dialogue, and what I had been saying is that it’s more -- that’s part of it but it was more than that. The other part of it is it doesn’t matter what the subject is, it’s the inquiry into it as well as looking at the process of the inquiry into the question.

Juanita: And so what I’ve been inviting you or asking you to please do is to do that.

Faye: That’s what I’ve been doing all along. But it seems to be totally unsuccessful, so I --

Juanita: Oh, I see. So why have you given up with it has it been unsuccessful?

Faye: Because the group seems not to do more on the order of talking about the process.

Mark: Well, what should we be talking about in order to go into.

Faye: No, it’s not a question of should or shouldn’t. I mean this is an observation.

Hilary: But, I have wondered, just paraphrasing what you were saying Mark. Um, what would be really satisfying for you. Is it finding truth belief systems or what would be it the subject.

Faye: It doesn’t matter what the subject -- It’s to inquire into it and go as far as you can possibly go with it and in that process is a process of discovery. I mean, you can talk about bullshit, you can talk about a safety pin, you can talk about anything, but you’ve made a deep inquiry into it, the meaning of it, what lies beyond and behind it, what is it? Why? How? where? And inquire deeply into that and it’s in that process of inquiry that you have insight. But as long as you’re going to inquire into the process an the process and the process you can only go so far. It’s use the process is just inquiring into this dialogue. I mean, it seems to me that we’re going around like a squirrel.

Ned: It seems to me that you’re whining.

Faye: OH, come on.

Ned: Well, that’s what it sounds like.

Mark: Well, I don’t think that’s true --

Daniel: Yeah.

Faye: I’m not whining. What I’m saying is I’m answering a question.

Hilary: That’s right. I agree with that. I appreciate your answer. I have wondered whether it’s more belief system that -- because I’m sure that you don’t want us to talk about a safety pin, you know. I mean, I assume.

Faye: It would be interesting.

Hilary: So if -- what kind of subject. Would it be more like this kind of subject about " is war necessary?" You know what would satisfy you?

Faye: Anything.

Mark: Okay, but that --

Faye: Let’s take a safety pin --

Faye: What is the meaning of a safety pin?

Ricardo: Faye! How can you say anything if you’re discontent with the process. I mean we are all pretty much committed to this inquiry of the process, and that is certainly something, and you’re saying anything, but that isn’t working for you.

Mark: Can we try to, seriously try to understand what Faye means.

Juanita: That’s what I believe I’m doing. I feel that you have something to offer here in terms of what you see, in terms of where you go with it, and what I’m inviting, what I’m interested in having you do, what I hear you doing is saying " We can go into anything." I hear you describing all the time, I hear you describing this need of needing to go deeper, I see your hands going like this, I hear you describing it saying we don’t do it, but I don’t see you doing it, I don’t see you leading the way, I don’t see you taking --

Faye: Do you want me to give you an example?

Juanita: Yeah. Sure.

Ricardo: I want you to assist, when we’re spending three hours here, assist us in going deeper into whatever we’re going into.

Faye: Okay, let’s take a safety pin.

Hilary: Are you sure you want to ?

Faye: Well -- I give you a -- this is -- you know I’ll take anything I don’t care.

Hilary: Pick something that has more to it.

Mark: But -- But -- The thing is --

Faye: I mean, give an example so you understand what I mean.

Mark: Okay.

Faye: Just bear with me, for a minute. Whoever invented the safety pin should be a hero because it’s a very simple useful object. It’s interesting in the sense that with one piece of wire you can take a whole turn and you’ve go two ends. One is pointed, and the other one is capped with a rounded cap, and it’s in that -- OK -- So, within this one piece you have two poles. We could consider one as the aggressive point and the other as the receptive, that which holds it. You could also look at this as a male or female or whatever you want -- But it’s all one. OK, now what does a safety pin do? It ties two things together, essentially, and in order to do that it has to be able to open. OK, so as an example we can take two pieces of material. What do you do with the pin? You pass them through both and you penetrate the first layer, and you go through it to the other piece and you go through it. Then you come back up, and then it’ s in closing it and in forming that complete unit that it synthesizes it. Now maybe you could look at the cloth as an example of what I’m saying. I mean you could take anything and looking at thought’s meaning in that way by making an inquiry..

Daniel: Well, I’ve just heard you speak a poem, and -- from right off the top of your head. I’ve read a lot of poems written by people who did not declare themselves poets, and you’ve spoken a wonderful poem. You had a real consistency with your image, you’ve used language in a way that’s intensely visual and you’ve used the language with a great deal of spareness and a good deal of concentration. You have created a perfect object of your performance to be looked at and seen. You’ve created a mobile out of words and they balance very well. I think you’ve created a successful poem. My point is that it is a poem and that is one way to inquire into the nature of objects and life, and not all of us have that kind of gift to create this kind of poetry. Some of us are nerdy, if you like, in another direction. I tend to be nerdy in a philosophical direction.

Faye: Well, I thank you for the compliment. But that, mainly, was an example of what dialogue is to me. It’s a -- it’s-it’s an inquiry into a matter using words, but it’s that inquiry into me, into what lies behind anything

Mark: You see, you know, I see that, I see what you did as being equally beautiful as inquiring into the process. It’s simply that you’re choosing to express it in a beautiful metaphorical way. It’s a very ah -- it’s kind of a rather obvious clues to tie things in, this image. But it’s a -- I mean, I would have nothing against it if the whole group would agree to communicate this way.

Faye: Okay, let’s uh -- Mark, each of us is going to have our own style.

Mark: True.

Faye: Well, my style is not the style.

Mark: Okay what I want to ask you is now -- having done -- OK you’ve given us the safety pin, it’s come in and it’s come back, and it has the two poles, OK; but -- what do I want to do to stretch it out, how do I go deeper into that safety pin?

Faye: OK -- If now you take what occurred with the safety pin in a universal sense, that’s what you do with it, then what I saw were you looking into this with the necessity to start with openness and then to penetrate through all the layers and then come back up through it again from almost an opposite perspective and then tie it together so it unifies itself and essentially you are doing dialogue.

Mark: Okay, so this is a safety pin dialogue, okay, so -- and it’s very interesting because it is a structure which has occurred -- it is a structure which has occurred, and you know, it’s an interesting something to talk about when you take a particular viewpoint and then you shift during the inquiry and take the opposite viewpoint and then see that your truth was a synthesis of both. But, OK, if we wanted to go deeper into this, we could perhaps ask questions about how do we know, for example, when we penetrate the -- how do we decide how deep we go. I mean there are various questions which one might suggest, which we could follow if we all we were all seeing that as being important to whatever we consider to be the question the inquiry. Um -- I don’t know um I can’t quite follow this.

Juanita: Um. No, I think what um what is wrong is that in order to go deeper in the way that I hear you describing it is in some sense requires or asks us to stay with a particular topic, to, so -- in my experience with the dialogue in Portland we had kind of the topic of evaluation, and it was kind of in a circle for quite some time, and evaluation effects everybody differently because it’s basically about judging others about being right or wrong, or A or B, or F or C or whatever. So the whole topic of evaluation is including all these things. But basically we went deeper into the topic, we explored it, we put it in the middle of the room and we kind of really picked it apart, how to relate to it?, what’s my experience?, all of my judgments about it -- um, and so in order to go deeper we need to stay with the topic, let the topic hold the space, which I think would be a very successful thing to do in order to get us in order to kind of adhere to something and go deeper into it. And what I see that we do pretty traditionally is that we don’t stay with one particular topic. So what I’m learning from -- what I think I’m learning from your frustration -- is that if we allow ourselves to stay with the topic no matter what it was and let the topic hold the center, we could go deeper into it.

Faye: That’s putting it very well. Yes. It doesn’t mean that the whole session is on one whatever, but when the whatever comes in you stick with it long enough -- so, to go somewhere with it in consciousness. To ride -- now it’s sounding utopian. It requires a certain steadfastness -- maybe that’s a little I don’t know -- to stick with something long enough to go somewhere with it so that you can go almost dead center[ -- to the source and get some insight into it.

Juanita: To me in order for that to happen it’s like "for example" had we sort of put the assumption out into the middle earlier about "do we have assumptions about heaven or earth or do we have assumptions about things in general; how can we collectively look at what this is? How can we share our perspectives so that the topic itself was holding us all in one place.

Faye: Yeah. I think in -- I think for dialogue to occur that’s essential.

Juanita: And so what I see is that’s a pattern that we don’t have. We don’t hold a topic.

Faye: The pattern we had -- the pattern we had is like a butterfly -- it’s just swish swish swish swish swish, and occasionally it would stick with something, and when it starts to get into something it jumps, and that’s when my observation entered in it, and I felt frustrated that you can’t get into dialogue this way. At least that’s my sense. You have to stick with something I don’t care what it is it could be anything long enough to get insight, and each will have a different insight. The style of it’s own. It’s this kind of sticking with something long enough to it.

Mark: This . . .

Hilary: Um, My -- I’m looking for something I have not experienced, and when there is a subject, then it is already limited because you stay with the subject. So it falls into a different category like "research" or "inquiry" or "description" or whatever it falls into or everything we can think of on it and writing a collective term paper on it or something. It wouldn’t be of interest to me because I want the group thought to move with exploring beyond the edge of what I have thought.

Johan: But I guess what Faye’s claiming is you know you’re not going to stick with a subject forever, but by having -- in other words, talk about the assumptions that you had about whether we had a traditional view of a thing, and of course when it comes around to somebody like me I would say "very much not." I mean, I’ve never had that point of view and going into the language or something like that. In other words, I think what Faye is saying is that the subject is almost sort of an excuse. It’s not that you’re doing research into a subject that you’re going to publish or something like this, but it’s sort of a touchstone for bringing out people’s assumptions and ideas about something by focusing on one particular aspect of something. And in a way --

Juanita: So the assumption is --

Johan: And I mean you could argue the other thing -- well you could bring out, I could bring out my assumptions and so forth by focusing on nothing in particular maybe. I don’t know whether? But I sort of like the idea. It’s not that we’re going to -- Because in a way you know you could say we have been dealing with a subject -- we’ve been dealing -- we’ve been talking about -- and dialogue has been our subject, and we’ve been trying to dialogue about dialogue for the last ten times, and so we have had a subject. It’s dialogue itself. And I don’t think Bohm had in mind that you were going to do nothing but talk about dialogue every time you get a group together.

Juanita: And there is, you know -- there are different ways of going about dialogue.

Johan: But you know I’ve found -- I mean, actually, I don’t feel in a very critical mood -- I thought we’ve been -- I thought it’s been rather interesting tonight. We’ve done rather well on the whole thing, and maybe it hasn’t been transcendent, but I think it’s been good for the most part and um. But, so, I mean maybe the answer -- I think we have been talking about one subject but maybe too much. Just the subject of dialogue itself.

Faye: That’s been what’s frustrating to me is that it’s dialogue about dialogue --

Johan: But of course the point is if you’re talking about something else like your religious assumptions or assumptions about spirituality, you could also in the process of talking about that bring in the dialogue kind of inquiry with somebody, you know.

Juanita: You know, I kind of --

Johan: In other words, it’s not that you’re trying to understand that subject, but you’re looking at what various people’s point of view or reaction to that subject is and you could bring in the spirit of inquiry about "why do you say that? Why do you think that?" What is the language saying here? and "Why do I reject that language? Why do I find it appalling.

Juanita: So -- I think the point is that it’s not that we bring in a subject and agree "this is what we’re going to talk about" but in the course of our dialogue, when we have an assumption -- like I think Jeff pointed out a very important thing that when you used the word "All" or when -- what are the triggers that we can reveal? What are the things that we collectively think? Like maybe the -- you know. How can we be tuned in to "OH, I’m noticing maybe this is an assumption that we might all have. Let’s put it in the middle and explore it for awhile and let the assumption stay in the center and go deeper with the assumption. It’s not like the topic needs to be coming from the outside and "OK let’s talk about this." It’s like what emerges from our collective understanding that we could explore together.

Ned: Yeah.

Johan: Or even I’d say "Gee, I’ve never had that assumption in my life. My assumption instead is something else."

Faye: Right. Just whatever comes up.

Mark: OK, so perhaps in order to get there we need to ask the question "Why doesn’t this happen? What is stopping us from sticking to the subject? Why do we keep going on And we need to ask this question, but we don’t need to answer it right away.

Johan: Yeah. There you go.

Mark: This is what our habit is: This is why, and I’m going to answer it before anyone else gets a chance to.

{much laughter}

You’ve got the answer already. Just say the answer.

{much chaotic discourse}

Mark: It’s a tentative answer. It’s a tentative answer. The tentative answer is because we can’t come up with the answer right away, all the time. Instead of really looking at what the issue is. And so we don’t we don’t have enough time to look at this issue before you know somebody comes over and they bring up a whole bunch of other issues so that we get immediately distracted. So I mean I think the reason that this is not happening is that --

Johan: We’re getting to the answer lever too quickly.

Hilary: And I think that what we’ve been trying to do for the last few weeks, and why I brought this, was that unless we have a sense of how to talk about something in a true spirit of dialoging on it, we can’t be successful. So since we’re bringing up one thing or another (how I feel) so let’s figure out how we go about dialogue.

Johan: Well, maybe you figure out how though by --

Hilary: By doing it, that’s right.

Johan: With a certain, with a subject, and things happen.

Hilary: I -- I um -- Yeah.

Faye: You learn by doing not by talking.

Johan: Well, our talking is where we’re trying to learn it.

Daniel: If we’re trying to find out how our minds work in part I think. Let me be bold for a minute and say there’s kind of two ways of looking at how our minds work. One is what Kant said which is "we’re all in it together; we’re born with these minds and they all work pretty much the same." And then he went on to say "and they work in the following manner, and there’s an imperative here and there’s a moral purpose and there’s a practical reason and so on, judgment and aesthetics." And he laid out this system -- German system. It’s great, ideally. It’s all laid out and it’s a great system. Well, Kant is right in the sense that we’re all born with this brain stem, we’ve all got the same material at the end of our spines and there’s very little difference of what’s inside my head than anybody else’s head. But over a period of a lifetime you privilege certain ways of using it and we then privileged -- You know, we create different kinds of poetry -- You know, your poetry’s kind of metaphysical, somebody else’s poetry might be something else. And we privilege these ways that we use the manner of what we’re dealing with. I think in dialogue we get a chance to see what we’ve created inside our own head. We get a chance to say "Jesus Christ I think in this way and I’ve thought in this goddamn fucking way all my life. No wonder I haven’t been able to make this work and that work.

Johan: {Laughter}

Daniel: But we see each other display this and we say "Oh yeah well I think like that sometimes but it doesn’t work for me; I’d rather think like this other cause that seems a little less chancy." And so we’re just displaying. My point is what we’re trying to learn is how do we think and how do we process." And we’re trying to learn it by listening to ourselves attempt to describe it.

Juanita: . . .we -- what are? -- not just the process of our thinking, but the

Hilary: Emotions.

Juanita: No. The assumptions of what we think.

Daniel: How we’re cultured.

Johan: The underlying the un -- un -- The unconscious thinks that we don’t even we believe, but that we in fact do believe.

Juanita: That’s right. How do we -- And that we may believe or not believe collectively. How do we? What’s right and wrong? What’s up and down? What are these assumptions that we have about the world that we live in -- life.

Faye: Exactly and I’m going right with you We all look at life through a different colors, and that color which is uniquely our own, our own tone our own shade is our individuality we carry with us. And so it’s honoring those differences and seeing how my shade [differs] from your shade and it’s that [wondering {or} oneness it’s [that sense of color {or} the absence of color -- that we honor those differences but realize that we are one. No one’s ever going to do things exactly like you and you’re not going to do everything exactly like someone else. You’re always going to be looking through your own notes and your own color. Those are your veils.

Hilary: Daniel I would like to ask you: do you experience happening what you say? Do you experience seeing yourself getting insight into yourself evolving in your personal self? Do you feel the process we use is really helping you? Or, maybe you’re just the kind of person that does this automatically all the time because that’s the nature of who you are. So maybe you do it without the groups help. But do experience the group helping you do that.

Daniel: Oh yeah. Without any hesitation. I feel I’m running around inside a squirrel cage. Let me be clear about that -- my own mind is like a squirrel cage and just run around in it and I become addicted to running in it and all of that. But the group makes me see that the wheel is turning this fast rather than that fast and in this direction rather than that direction, and now I’m up and now I’m down.

Juanita: There really is a chipmunk in there.

Daniel: So, and there really is a chipmunk in there, and -- so, yeah.

Hilary: How many, I mean what really --

Mark: Aren’t we done at ten?

Juanita: Yeah, we’re done, out of here at ten, but I don’t know what time it is now.

Johan: Ten of ten.

Juanita: Oh.

Hilary: Do most of you experience what David said?

Johan: No. I don’t know what I experience, but it’s not bad.

Ricardo: Well, I do. I think that’s very clear to me. That there is a --

Johan: No, I mean I do -- Sometimes I experience that

Ricardo: There’s a part that resonates and I realize that that’s part of all the chatter that goes on inside of me in that moment. Then there’s connection. But that’s not the part that I’m really so much here for -- is hearing how it is in your head that it isn’t in mine that intrigues the hell out of me.

Daniel: Yeah, because we get this as a bounce-off --

Johan: Yeah!

Mark: That change -- radically changes the state of my mind. I mean I can listen meditatively, but that’s full of limitation. But I don’t get what I get when I’m listening to you.

Ned: You certainly don’t.

Juanita: Ooooooo.

Jeff: It lingers after I leave.

Ned: Sure.

Faye: It’s something like continually changing the color of the bathroom.

{Laughter}

Juanita: Every two weeks.

Ned: Get a new room change!

Daniel: Oh boy. Let’s quit on that note. [end tape two/side two]

Contextual Essay ... by Nick Consoletti