All that we properly have in life is the quality of our attention…
The beginning of seeing others, is to see them. This is on the ground floor. Little Me, the egotism, only sees itself. This is in the Basement. This is a lonely place, because Little Me is all there is, bumping blindly around. We are apart from the world, and the world is only our projection of what we think it might be: a larger Basement than ours.
To escape this loneliness, Little Me demands recognition and acknowledgment. But the demand, from what is lower in us, sets up a process which prevents this. The appropriate action is to climb the stairs to the ground floor (first floor US). But Little Me is blind and fails to see the staircase. If Little Me is lucky, a light might be shone to show the way to the staircase. And, if I move up a floor, I might see a world I had somewhere in me always hoped to see, but which appeared to be hiding. Perhaps I sense: this world – with other people in it! – is as available to me as I am myself available to it. I see people as they are, not who I thought they were. Seeing them clearly, perhaps they also see me.
So how to shine a light?
Michael Dornbier: Had you been at least, 'acknowledging' that I existed...even looked me in the eye...when I approached you as you were sitting alone out in the venue (Ballard, WA LoCG) before the show...
RF: Being “looked in the eye” is an act of direct attention. Attention requires a quality of energy which is in short supply. Simply, we have a limited amount of volitional attention available to us. So, to engage our supply of attention requires discrimination. To give our attention, willingly, to others takes a lot from us which, otherwise, may serve our own more immediate aims.
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity (Simone Weil).
IMO all that we properly have in life is the quality of our attention. The younger Mr. Dornbier perhaps believed he had the right to attract/demand my attention, from my precarious hold, as I was preparing for the performance. Maybe seeking a real contact between what is higher in each of us, with an instinctive sense recognising that what is highest in each of us is not far from what is highest in another; even, at a certain point, that we are the same person. But when we are immature, it’s more about Me.
The practical question, is how to bring about a real contact? IMO by strengthening what is higher in us, so that the Who guides and instructs the What. When I Am, and so are you, then we meet each other. A high form of this is Encounter: where what is highest in each of us recognises itself in the Other: I am Thee and Thee is me. Where this is so, an accompanying sense is present: what is highest in us all is not far from what is Highest.
The good news: this is an entirely practical matter.
The bad news: the price to be paid for seeing ourself in the Other, knowing ourself in that direct and immediate contact, is to leave our egotism in the Basement. We drop all the demands for attention by Little Me.
More good news: the means to develop presence and engagement with others are readily available from many schools and ways, providing we go looking for them with Wish and open eyes.
Even more good news: although we don’t know it, those schools and ways are already calling to us. If only we might listen, if only we can listen.
So, what is required for Encounter?
Innocence, which takes two primary forms:
- The Innocence that springs from purity: there is nothing in the way.
- The Assumption of Innocence that may accompany years of practice: we can get ourselves out of the way.
How not to bring this about this Encounter?
Where what is lower in us demands acknowledgement. In a word, egotism. Egotism only recognises itself. When the lower demands recognition and acknowledgement, it sets up an action which limits the exchange, such that the higher is not seen and has little room to engage. Barriers are put in place which prevent us from being available to reach each other: our attitude of entitlement, the right to be acknowledged!
Worse than this IMO – I have right to be acknowledged because I give you money! At which point our simple human contact is governed by commerce.
What is a high form of acknowledging an audient? By being present. Being present, for the musician, enables a space/place where music can move through/past them and into the performance space. When this takes place the action is utterly impersonal, yet experienced as intimate.
To be present is a lifetime’s work and in a moment. There are degrees and qualities of presence, and qualities of presence which are more/less enduring and ongoing.
Fine words. What is our own experience?
