October 23, 2024

Could you please explain the system fail of the story template?

I’ll use what the old engineers say. It wasn’t my fault. The system broke. I had no clue what happened. And the so the stories were created, the answers were not saved. And for you, probably it showed that it’s saving, but it never checked the mark, which means it never uploaded to the database.

So I suggested if you want to put it in the in the chat, that’s still working. I had an issue with Edge which we debugged. So I don’t know why Edge was not working and Chrome did work. I tried on my Mac and both were working for the chatroom.

The story is what we’re going to do. We still think it’s a really cool thing to do and very important as well to structure the writing. So I’m changing the back end adding some layers where it caches it as well on your computer. So even if you didn’t submit you still have it. So we’re adding some more technology to secure that part and test it. And in the meantime, you can use the anonymous chat room that’s still up and available.

I think we had a question around, the anonymity. Just so you understand the backend, this is when those story answers are stored there. They are tied to your ID but they’re not public. So no one without your ID can see them. Of course I can see them in the database. So they are not private in that sense. It’s not encrypted or anything.

What we were thinking is that when we open them as a public resource, for example, the data transcripts are public. For the transcripts, you’re logged in, you’re not logged in. It’s you. We don’t know who you are. They’re public. Same as with the anonymous chat. Anyone goes to that room, they see everything. No login. Login doesn’t matter. And there is no user association.

But for the story is it’s different. The story (outside of me, because I’m running the system), no one can see them until we make them public. And when we make them public, we will drop the ID connection to you. So that story becomes a new entity in the database altogether without the prompts, because now it’s structured in a prompt and that becomes a new data set, a new input to the book, if you want.

And that will become anonymous, that text will no longer have your ID with it. So we will not, at least whoever is reading it publicly, cannot tie it back to you. And in the database, it will not be tied back. So that’s it. It’s gone. There is no connection.

If you edit your story again, we’re not allowing that, but if you do, it’s completely disconnected. If anyone has issues with that or different workflow that they want to introduce, please share. This is a lot of experimentation we’re doing. So some of these things, we’re trying them as we go.

I think this was a very helpful experiment. It’s good to know that the prompts were helpful because that’s what we ideally want to create a structure that works universally almost as a way to get to these stories. And I don’t know, these things emerge and then we try them and then new ideas come. In the last few sessions whenever there is personal sharing or direct experience sharing, it’s much more powerful. I think everyone, as far as I noticed, had that sense of, oh, if we stop the theorizing and the explaining concepts to each other, and we speak from stories or experience, it’s much more powerful and something that’s lacking, I think.

There are the old teaching stories as we discussed and the Zen stuff, and in the old texts, there are stories, but these are our stories, they’re modern stories, and they’re from our daily lives. I’m actually really interested in this, and interested in, maybe even putting it front and center in what we do together, and also maybe seeing ourselves as collectors of stories, so that those who actively work on this LAB go out and become story collectors. So then it’s not direct experience, but direct experience once removed, stories by and of others to share in this book or in this work that we’re creating.

Okay, so stories for now are not there. When they come back, when they’re live again, we will share them with you. And it’s always a a new link. It will be fixed probably tonight. So hopefully I can get that working.

I’m just feeling unclear from before, so my mind’s always a bit, like a story that is a metaphor for something that’s trying to be expressed, but it’s not something that happened to this mind body, literally.

The questions are very specific once you read the question, you just answer it, it is not, like you don’t have to worry about stories or it’s very clear once you’re in it, of how you should approach it. Yeah, I wouldn’t really worry about what you’re writing or the story. You’re just answering the question, almost like journal prompt.

It’s an important question because if we’re going forward, I was just suggesting that maybe we could also see ourselves as collectors of stories. So then we would be collecting other people’s stories, but probably according to the same template. So we would ask them those questions. And get them to share, but we would input it, or something like that, I don’t know yet.

But it seems to me that this sharing of the direct experience via stories is something powerful that we’ve discovered in this group that is not the usual. These things are shared when people come together and share experience, or some very few books are maybe in that style, but most of the writing around the joy of not needing to be a someone is theoretical or it’s very abstract, philosophical. It’s not, this happened to me and then I experienced the joy.

I’m trying to think of the example. Like for example going back to my past history, when I was in my Buddhist organization this was an axiomatic part of that organization’s process that we would sit around every month and share stories with each other about our experiences. Of our practice of Buddhism and the stories were all similar in so far as it was like I practice Buddhism therefore this happened to me, kind of thing, where I’m associating what happened to me in some mystical way with my practice of Buddhism. So there’s a kind of formula, do you know what I mean? So okay, so I had an experience of some kind and I’m associating it logically with my insight of non duality or something like that.

Maybe we should have this discussion when we’ve all been able to try the storytelling. That’s my conclusion, because now we’re just speaking theoretically. So let’s wait until we’ve all tried the stories to see what we want to do, if anything, with the stories before I get all excited.

Regarding the stories thing I just, in fact repeat the structure and the prompts were all good and of course the personal sharing is always the more authentic or it conveys the message more clearly if it is one’s personal experience. But regarding your second suggestion of collectors, that also should work as a second option then if you feel resonating with the particular story, which is of course, others experience, but still it relates to you very much that you feel the message is same. That also can be possible. But yes the structure was good that that brings out the answer. In fact the way those few questions were there, is very effective, I think.

Okay. We are speaking about the joy of not needing to be a someone. Yes. Anyone have any experience? Let’s do that. Anyone have any experiences right now to share of where they felt the joy of not needing to be someone maybe today? Maybe this morning, maybe this week?

I had my colleague at my job, I was talking to my colleague and she was telling me about a talk that she had been to about this guy who was talking about choices and mind and mindset and stuff like that. And she goes you really like him, I think. And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t, just joking. And she goes, You’re not open to anything different. And I said, yes, I’m open to a lot of things different as long as it’s true.

And I couldn’t really talk. I couldn’t really say it properly. And then luckily she was distracted. So she had to leave. But I felt the joy of not even having to explain that. I felt like, yeah, it’s all good, and at the same time I’m thinking yeah, I just sound like a loony, crazy person who was totally closed and stuff. But at the other time, I just didn’t have to be anyone. It didn’t have to make sense. It didn’t have to do anything. So it was good.

I can share something. So I typically write every week. And then you stutter and stuff. And this week I had a lot to say, and then Sunday came and I didn’t write anything. I tried to write nothing like there were few words here and there. It was just a mess. So I stopped. And then I had like completely blocked, and then I didn’t send anything on Sunday. So it’s supposed to be Sunday. I was like, okay, fine. And then Monday came. And again I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to write. There had been floating ideas here and there.

And then on Monday morning I was having breakfast and then, some of the ideas just came. I wrote those and then within an hour I wrote the full thing and and I sent it, but that wasn’t the most interesting part actually. So after I sent that issue and I put it out on LinkedIn, I got a lot of good feedback about the depths that it contained.

Mind you. literally like a day before I had no clue what I was writing. And then in the evening, at the end of the day, I told my partner it’s really interesting. I have no clue where this came from because I have no clue how I wrote it. And really it wrote itself, yeah, there were fragments of these ideas all over the place, but the level of complexity that ended up in the final output, it was not me. I had no relationship to it in any way, even though I did write it.

And I left it at there of course, she thought I’m crazy, which is normal these days, a lot of times, which is fine, but there’s disconnect even from what you feel is your own writing or authorship. That is really like the gap that I had from the day before to the day afterI literally had no clue that those things will come to write them in that way and have all of those angles in them.

I can relate deeply to that. I would suggest that most of my best work, and I think this maybe comes across as false humbleness or modesty, but the best things I’ve done are things where I wasn’t really doing it. I wasn’t trying to do it, it just came through me. It’s where I try that I trip myself up and overthink and overwrought everything. It’s when I sit back and really don’t do anything, it’s not stressful, it’s not anything, it just flows. So it feels almost shameful to get credit for something that I didn’t even do. I just showed up.

That’s how I wrote three books.

But the first one, was that as easy as the other one?

No, the first one was still a lot of belief that I was doing the writing. And after, the second and the third, but especially the third, because the third I didn’t even want to write. So that’s interesting. The ego self doesn’t want to write it and it is written anyway.

What I feel like I can say on this topic at the moment is this thought which is the greatest joy of not being anybody for me is I feel very safe. And I could say so many things, it’s not so important what I do, I have noticed that because I feel safe, my creativity flows enormously, and I love that but I’m not too sure whether that is actually related or not, I don’t know, actually. Might be. It could be. It seems like a causal relationship to me, but what I am aware of is as I am aware of being this presence, whatever language you use, but as I’m aware of being this presence, I feel very safe.

I feel like always, no matter what is going on, I feel that sense of safety, and that feels joyful to me. Because I don’t have to react to situations, I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to follow procedures or do anything any kind of way, I just have to tune in and just feel what comes through. And that’s freedom, freedom of just doing whatever’s coming through in the moment is beautiful and I just want to do it more and more. The safety of it is joyful.

I’ve noticed a lot that everything looks so beautiful. Perception of beauty is also beautiful and also really joyful to me. Insofar as objects, the whole world looks far more interesting than it ever did before. And the best way I can call it is the super ordinaryness of, one minute it was just an ordinary object and the next minute it’s like I don’t understand how that could possibly exist. It’s a miracle kind of feeling. A simple object like a computer or a dog, that is joyful to me. And then when I’m listening to other people, as I do a lot in my work as a therapist, I feel joyful that I can help someone else by keeping this sense of joy, and not getting sucked into their mind stories and psychological problems, and I feel like I found a way through all of that and that’s joyful to me.

And also the thoughts that all of this isn’t going to stop when my body dies. That’s very joyful to me. That thought, I’m not dependent on this body is verv joyful. That’s why it’s such an amazing thing to experience, isn’t it, really?

So a very current joy is the joy of not needing to be in any way nondual. And I noticed this sometimes I will be in the middle of doing something like today I was anging up the laundry and it suddenly hit me that, wait a minute, I am not being nondual. And then I had a laughing fit with myself because of course I have never been nondual. So it was just the mind doing this. Oh, are are you nondual enough? This old spiel of, that is being a certain way or thinking certain thoughts. It’s so funny how the mind comes up with these things. I had some really loud laughing in the cellar today. I don’t know if I can describe it. It’s like this short circuit in the mind, and writing all this stuff about nonduality and speaking about nonduality. And then it was in the middle of doing the washing, it was like, oh, but I’m not the thing. And of course that’s very funny because you’re never it. You always are it already, so you can’t be it because you are it. I have no way to describe this, but maybe it rings a bell. Just the total impossibility of it was very funny.

That absolutely rung a bell for me especially the laughing part. This last Sunday, I experienced something that I had never experienced. I generally go through something called the Sunday scaries. Every Sunday, I start to worry about the week coming up and all the things I need to get done. And if I’m going to be good enough to do that yada. And there’s a very familiar physical sensation that just washes over my body. And that generally triggers a lot of recursive thought. And this weekend it hit me and I found myself just laughing at it, reminiscing about how it used to just take me away. I didn’t purposely sit down and say, Oh, here it comes, I got to go meditate. It just wasn’t a thing anymore. And it was really mind blowing.

And that whole being someone who writes about or speaks about nonduality or with other people is just another persona, right? And then you notice that even the mind, it plays tricks on itself and it’s enjoying its own little loops.

I think it’s teaching me to work with the mind rather than be adversarial with it. Because in the beginning, I think I was trying to not do anything, including not be playful with it. And the bottom line is, while it is empty, it’s still something.

The dropping of the need to be someone also includes the need to be non-dual. Because even that must also drop and then the real joy, the uncaused joy just is found there. Then you are so much relieved. Being nondual was also a thing to work on and that also has gone. So that is the last relief. So that also is as you said a big relief because being nondual also is maybe the last thing to do, but still it is a thing to do. So once that goes Then the the uncaused joy is really there.

And it’s never done. It’s not like it’s done forever, right? It’s not like I will never find myself again realizing that I’m trying to be nondual. It remains a carousel. But that’s cool because then we experienced the joy of not needing to be that. Again and again. And you find that it is always already there. We recognize it again and again.

That’s a big relief and revelation that it is always there only we miss even in our trying to get that is also a missing. Once that need also goes. That is even a more deeper relief you get. Then the only thing left is to laugh, actually. Then you laugh.

I would suggest it’s also a very peculiar laugh. It’s not a judgmental laugh. Oh, you idiot. It’s a wow. It’s very different. I’ve laughed at myself many times thinking I was dumb, but this is a different one. And you’d think, of all the things, oh, I just made up several beings within myself. It’s a big kind of flub up, and for some reason there isn’t judgment there, which is interesting.

It’s sometimes called the old fool laugh, the wise old fool. Uncaused joy. And sometimes it’s crying. It’s not always laughing. Sometimes it’s crying. It gets expressed in different ways.

So in the story template there, first, there’s a feeling of contraction of some sort. Oh, I’m a separate self in some sense. And then there’s this expansion and the falling back into the uncaused joy. And often we don’t notice the contraction until after the expansion.

In between contraction and expansion, there is a period of being nowhere, you are totally lost what to do then. Yeah, there is a gap between these two contraction and expansion, but in between a lot of struggle also happens. And yes, when you get out of it, then you feel expanded, but you agree there is a gap between these two.

I don’t know. Maybe a gapless gap.

But it’s the same, first the contraction of wanting to write and ego wanting to express something and I need to sit down and write and then the total expansion, then it just flows.

I think contraction is the most beautiful word for it. Because the feeling and the idea that in reality you are making yourself smaller than what you truly are. So it is actually a contraction. So the questions specifically about contraction, throughout the entire week, I was noticing when I was feeling that contraction. And the big thing that came away for me was time. Anytime something comes up that I need to do and time comes into the play, I can feel that whole contraction begin, which I think lends itself to the Sunday scaries and whatnot, and I think being vigilant about, aware of my contractions, helps mitigate those, the Sunday scaries.

Time, anything that I need to do if I’m thinking about, if I’m sitting there with my daughter experiencing that. It is wonderful. And then if we introduced something needs to be done at this and this date, calculations start running in my head and it’s all this noise that happens, so it’s almost anytime time gets brought up, even in the smallest way. And it takes me away from that present moment. That’s when the contractions begin. But if you don’t notice it at that point, you can be like an hour down the road, gone through several different ego senses. And so to be vigilant and stay aware of that has been crucial.

The expansion of the eternal now.

So my big challenge is publicizing my work, and that causes me massive contractions of energy. But the thing is, in the end, I don’t really care too much. It doesn’t bother me that I’m feeling a bit contracted. I realize the body tends to get contracted when it’s facing challenges of the mind, that’s what happens, especially when it’s trying to do things it doesn’t really know how to do very well, and it’s trying to learn new things. And the key thing is I found for the most part, able to stay free of that spiral into separation, separate self territory, where you’re feeling self.recriminatory and so on.

Keep on trusting the flow, as they say, it’s all going to be fine. And I’m not going into the head and not trying to strategize. I used to run a business and I used to employ 350 people in the business. And and I know the pressures of running a business are enormous. And business seems to operate on processes and methods a bit like psychotherapy, you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that, and an endless kind of list of things you should do.

And then I realized the most successful businesses in the world are the businesses that are meant to happen. They’re not forced onto the world. Those that are tend to go and die quite quickly. So I’m not running a business now, but I’m just trying to realize that the whole marketing publicity thing is for me like completely not making any sense whatsoever. And I know there’s a mechanical process to it, but I just can’t see any point in it. It feels like that’s taking you into mind, taking you into methods and strategies and mental strategies all the time.

It can take you into your mind, it doesn’t have to. It can be fun, because that’s what you’re saying, it can be fun to do. It’s not something that’s right or wrong. I guess the contraction when things feel difficult or they feel frustrating then it also has to do with beliefs that we have about our capabilities and the resistance to it. It shouldn’t be hard. It shouldn’t be difficult.

I think talking about space and time is interesting. The contraction I always think is there, but I think space and time are one of the most critical, our perception of them. For example, for me, I haven’t been in the same place this year for more than sometimes a week. So I’ve been on the move a lot, and I used to have significant connection to space and especially spaces that felt sacred for me. And in some way that stopped me from doing something like because I needed to be in the space to execute something, the space was a reliable source. And then once that relationship changed, like now, I do what I need to do. I don’t care where I am.

I don’t have that exact same relationship with time yet. But with space, it has been the way I described it. I used to go to a place that used to be like my sacred spot spiritually. And I go there and everything goes away, fades away. The space used to create that for me. And the last time I went I didn’t feel it, I felt the opposite relationship. I felt the space was in me rather than me in it. And as soon as that happened, and since that has happened, working, doing my stuff and traveling a lot, I haven’t been in my home where I have my setup for probably over a year now. Doesn’t matter. I am no less efficient. I’m no less present in conversation or anything else I want to do. And that detachment has created so many opportunities by itself which has been interesting.

For time, there is so much connection to past and future, that notion both of past and future sometimes keeps expected behaviors or expected ways of dealing with something. A simple example, we booked a place last minute, which we didn’t like. We get there, it had so many issues and my partner she’s complaining this is not working. This is bad and rightfully so, all of them are fair points, but I didn’t feel any of that. I didn’t feel those pressures. Probably, I could assume that this is a bad decision that we’ve made. But somehow it was less important. It was no longer important. And what was important and really reframed the whole evening was like, we’re together. And it changed the mood of the whole conversation rather than just complaining. But even these things my perception for them changed. I think it’s really related to the connection to the space and what I want from the space, what I expect from the space to give me.

Can you define time?

I’ve written about this and I still don’t feel I figured it out because for me, time is a relationship to the past and the future, like creating that connection that this timeline, this linearity for me is time. The perception of linearity for me is time. And I’ve been trying to get outside of this linear, how can we move forward? Beyond this, like how do you have a multi dimension? Because stepwise, we talk about story. It’s stepwise. That’s time. Time has a sequential component to it. At least in how a day passes a year passes, a summer, your past passes, or your future. So for me, time is like this continuum of linearity, which I don’t like because it feels it’s limiting.

Okay, so you do think there’s such a thing as time?

Yes, I do believe I have a perception of time.

I feel like maybe increasingly, it feels like just a thought. Time is some kind of thought that time exists, but it doesn’t actually exist. There’s no such thing as time. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but almost, does it ring true that everything is happening spontaneously in the moment by moment, and there’s no causal lineal time whatsoever? It’s just another way of looking at it, and you don’t know which way is true. I think increasingly that things seem to be just appearing like an appearance and then another appearance, maybe something like that, but there’s no such thing as time as such. And you could say it’s just a belief system.

You have to know I’m an engineer. So that’s not how my brain works. If I want to put it in that context too I mean, it’s a perceptual thing. It’s an interesting discussion.

I’m experiencing exactly now the joy of not needing to say anything about this.

On that note, thank you for sharing more stories. I call these stories. Let’s see when we can get it up and running again, because there’s something about this template and the five steps that makes it more doable and helps to guide us through that. And then once we’ve tried that, and we have a little bit of practice with it, then we can tweak it, we can optimize it and change it.

So you’ll have the prompts when it comes up again. It will be the five steps and each step has its own prompt. And it will be the same link. So if you had the previous link and we will reshare the link. I will open it up once I validate it’s functioning.