WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.690 (soft piano music) 00:00:32.800 --> 00:00:35.760 - Hi, I'm Richard Lang and today I'm talking 00:00:35.760 --> 00:00:37.780 with my friend, Suvaco. 00:00:37.780 --> 00:00:39.160 - Hello Richard, 00:00:39.160 --> 00:00:41.870 and hello everybody watching this. 00:00:41.870 --> 00:00:42.930 - Yes. 00:00:44.080 --> 00:00:46.280 I'd just like to talk a little bit 00:00:46.280 --> 00:00:48.990 about how you came across seeing headlessness 00:00:48.990 --> 00:00:53.700 and what it's meant to you in your life and so on. 00:00:53.700 --> 00:00:56.550 So, where did it start for you 00:00:56.550 --> 00:00:58.150 in terms of the headlessness? 00:00:58.150 --> 00:01:00.162 What led up to it? 00:01:00.162 --> 00:01:01.950 - Yeah, that's thanks... 00:01:04.780 --> 00:01:06.900 How to answer the question... 00:01:07.600 --> 00:01:09.090 Well, I think there's a level first, 00:01:09.090 --> 00:01:11.627 it's important to say that... 00:01:11.627 --> 00:01:17.170 I can't really say what led up to headlessness 00:01:17.170 --> 00:01:19.130 or how I started seeing. 00:01:20.590 --> 00:01:23.590 There might have been moments early in my life 00:01:24.800 --> 00:01:26.890 when this was evermore present. 00:01:26.890 --> 00:01:30.530 There is not a sense of it started at a certain time. 00:01:31.060 --> 00:01:33.370 However, if you speak in terms 00:01:33.370 --> 00:01:36.230 of what we'll consider headlessness 00:01:36.970 --> 00:01:39.650 as taught by Douglas Harding, 00:01:39.650 --> 00:01:42.126 it is slightly remarkable. 00:01:42.126 --> 00:01:48.270 I was living in a very, very remote monastery 00:01:49.330 --> 00:01:55.756 on an island on the Thai border with Laos, 00:01:55.756 --> 00:01:57.730 a place with no electricity. 00:01:58.290 --> 00:02:02.370 And at a certain point, somebody, 00:02:02.370 --> 00:02:06.540 and I never knew who, cleared out his library 00:02:06.540 --> 00:02:09.580 and decided to donate his books. 00:02:09.580 --> 00:02:12.701 So, there was a mixture of Thai and English books 00:02:12.701 --> 00:02:14.980 to this remote monastery, 00:02:15.170 --> 00:02:16.970 where we were just two, three, 00:02:16.970 --> 00:02:19.987 literally two, three English-speaking monks. 00:02:19.987 --> 00:02:22.360 And among the many strange books, 00:02:22.360 --> 00:02:23.820 there was, you know, 00:02:24.940 --> 00:02:27.600 even pieces from Jehovah's Witnesses 00:02:27.600 --> 00:02:29.500 or old collections of the Bible, 00:02:29.500 --> 00:02:31.920 and books on insight meditation. 00:02:31.920 --> 00:02:34.300 There was book called On Having No Head, 00:02:34.860 --> 00:02:36.570 which I picked up. 00:02:36.570 --> 00:02:38.068 It called me. 00:02:38.068 --> 00:02:42.450 And upon reading it, I was sold. 00:02:42.450 --> 00:02:43.730 It was wonderful. 00:02:43.730 --> 00:02:47.380 It was a breath of fresh air. 00:02:47.560 --> 00:02:49.681 I'm in a period... 00:02:49.681 --> 00:02:54.552 This was my earliest time as a monk. 00:02:54.552 --> 00:02:56.490 - Roughly, what year are we talking about? 00:02:56.490 --> 00:02:59.380 - So we're talking year in '91. 00:03:01.260 --> 00:03:05.730 In a time when there was very much 00:03:05.730 --> 00:03:08.190 still the sense of having to get established 00:03:08.190 --> 00:03:10.760 in meditation and in disciplines, 00:03:10.760 --> 00:03:12.480 and somehow, at the same time, 00:03:12.480 --> 00:03:14.380 in came, out of nowhere, 00:03:14.380 --> 00:03:18.014 this sense of it's all right here. 00:03:18.014 --> 00:03:21.992 And somehow, that has always stayed with me. 00:03:21.992 --> 00:03:24.750 Although, perhaps not always consciously, 00:03:24.750 --> 00:03:27.040 but even by reading the book, 00:03:28.940 --> 00:03:30.289 I saw. 00:03:30.289 --> 00:03:33.344 Something I remember was like (gasps) 00:03:33.344 --> 00:03:35.740 my goodness, it is so true. 00:03:36.500 --> 00:03:39.491 And then, wonder of wonder, 00:03:39.491 --> 00:03:42.930 a couple years later, I think it was in '94, 00:03:42.930 --> 00:03:45.060 perhaps '95, 00:03:45.900 --> 00:03:48.060 while I lived in the UK, 00:03:48.060 --> 00:03:49.970 I went for one of our... 00:03:49.970 --> 00:03:52.180 We have this, in this tradition, 00:03:52.180 --> 00:03:55.620 the sense of going on walk abouts, 00:03:55.620 --> 00:03:57.960 where we just kind of go, in trust. 00:03:57.960 --> 00:03:59.770 So we take a vote 00:03:59.770 --> 00:04:02.980 and we just leave the safety of the monastery 00:04:02.980 --> 00:04:05.090 and see what happens if we leave it. 00:04:05.090 --> 00:04:07.532 And one of these walks, 00:04:07.532 --> 00:04:11.010 I had an address of some-- 00:04:11.010 --> 00:04:13.250 I was supposed to be with another monk 00:04:14.140 --> 00:04:17.950 around Ipswich, and the only address we have 00:04:17.950 --> 00:04:20.050 was of a certain Douglas Harding, 00:04:20.050 --> 00:04:21.790 who immediately answered back, 00:04:21.790 --> 00:04:23.430 "But of course, come." 00:04:23.430 --> 00:04:25.900 And I am having a gathering. 00:04:27.320 --> 00:04:30.890 - So this is '94 or something like that? 00:04:30.890 --> 00:04:33.880 - [Suvaco] '94, '95, as far as I remember. 00:04:33.880 --> 00:04:35.380 First time I met you, Richard. 00:04:35.380 --> 00:04:36.450 - Right. 00:04:36.450 --> 00:04:41.520 - And what was very important was 00:04:45.340 --> 00:04:49.880 beside the experiments, which was absolutely phenomenal 00:04:49.880 --> 00:04:53.180 for me to try out because of the... 00:04:56.100 --> 00:04:59.580 I daresay, around the monastic convention, 00:04:59.580 --> 00:05:02.960 there is that slight sense that remains of, 00:05:02.960 --> 00:05:04.520 I am this 00:05:07.220 --> 00:05:11.670 endarkened person, who has to do these practices, 00:05:11.670 --> 00:05:13.835 meditation or otherwise, 00:05:13.835 --> 00:05:15.890 I'm on way to enlightenment. 00:05:15.890 --> 00:05:17.270 I am a seeker. 00:05:17.790 --> 00:05:21.730 And also, of course, every day you're reminded 00:05:21.730 --> 00:05:25.620 that you ain't, perhaps, in a subtle way, 00:05:26.460 --> 00:05:27.630 certainly in my case, 00:05:27.630 --> 00:05:30.521 the forms reenforce that. 00:05:30.521 --> 00:05:33.690 The forms meaning the daily meditations 00:05:33.690 --> 00:05:36.760 where you're always like, oh, my mind is still scrambled, 00:05:36.760 --> 00:05:40.190 or how come I ain't experiencing the great bliss? 00:05:40.790 --> 00:05:43.050 And somehow, just this freshness 00:05:43.050 --> 00:05:46.490 of actually having immediate experiments, 00:05:47.200 --> 00:05:50.980 the pointing finger, or dukkah, 00:05:50.980 --> 00:05:55.800 it allowed an openness that I hadn't allowed myself. 00:05:55.800 --> 00:05:57.940 And the important point was, of course, 00:05:57.940 --> 00:06:00.460 it was not as if I discover something new. 00:06:00.460 --> 00:06:03.040 It was if, yes, I recognize this freedom. 00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:03.750 - [Richard] Familiar. 00:06:03.750 --> 00:06:05.080 - It's familiar, it's... 00:06:05.080 --> 00:06:08.860 So it really is an act of familiarization, 00:06:09.490 --> 00:06:11.920 but what was very, very important 00:06:11.920 --> 00:06:19.070 was Douglas, at that moment, would point out to me, 00:06:19.070 --> 00:06:23.400 and here there is no hierarchy of seers. 00:06:23.400 --> 00:06:27.480 You can say that Douglas sees better 00:06:27.480 --> 00:06:30.487 because he has done this longer. 00:06:30.487 --> 00:06:35.610 He had a way of, where I felt really empowered 00:06:35.610 --> 00:06:37.106 and this is it. 00:06:37.106 --> 00:06:39.040 And I think this is the key point 00:06:39.040 --> 00:06:41.890 that I find with meeting Douglas 00:06:41.890 --> 00:06:44.530 and practice of headlessness, 00:06:44.530 --> 00:06:49.200 a unique contribution, that in a nonverbal way, 00:06:50.110 --> 00:06:53.110 and direct experiences, direct experiments, 00:06:53.110 --> 00:06:57.091 it actually hammers home the obviousness, 00:06:57.091 --> 00:07:02.742 that we always already are waking as we are. 00:07:02.742 --> 00:07:07.530 There's absolutely nothing that we need "doing." 00:07:10.300 --> 00:07:13.030 So emptiness is always on tap. 00:07:15.990 --> 00:07:19.656 - So, it sounds as though it 00:07:19.656 --> 00:07:22.780 fits in very well with your monastic life. 00:07:22.780 --> 00:07:24.400 - Indeed, it does. 00:07:24.400 --> 00:07:29.992 I think that coming back to the monastery, 00:07:29.992 --> 00:07:33.580 I had a sense of, well, this is actually 00:07:35.730 --> 00:07:38.980 the point from which I can begin to live a monastic life, 00:07:39.210 --> 00:07:40.951 because, in a way then... 00:07:40.951 --> 00:07:44.670 In a conventional reality, the life of a monk 00:07:44.670 --> 00:07:47.640 is actually set up in a way 00:07:47.640 --> 00:07:49.780 that if you, you know, 00:07:49.780 --> 00:07:54.140 it's not as if you have to get caught up 00:07:54.140 --> 00:07:56.780 in what about my mortage? 00:07:56.780 --> 00:07:58.820 Or, what about my retirement? 00:07:58.820 --> 00:08:05.980 We all have ways in which we postpone awakening 00:08:05.980 --> 00:08:09.310 because something in us is not yet trusting. 00:08:09.310 --> 00:08:10.800 There's something that says, 00:08:10.800 --> 00:08:15.040 yes, as soon as I have done this or that, 00:08:15.040 --> 00:08:17.390 then I can be awakened. 00:08:17.390 --> 00:08:19.280 And of course, even in a monastery, 00:08:19.280 --> 00:08:23.025 that patterning continues. 00:08:23.025 --> 00:08:25.980 But it was as if, however, 00:08:25.980 --> 00:08:31.338 the monastic setting is not to be taken so seriously. 00:08:31.338 --> 00:08:32.760 In some way, you know, 00:08:32.760 --> 00:08:35.390 it's a conventional reality being a monk, 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:37.919 but there is a level... 00:08:37.919 --> 00:08:40.630 It's held a bit tongue in cheek. 00:08:41.890 --> 00:08:44.400 So I found that was also great support 00:08:44.400 --> 00:08:47.320 in actually, the lifestyle in itself 00:08:47.840 --> 00:08:53.290 allows plenty of opportunities to actually lean back and see. 00:08:53.290 --> 00:08:56.980 And there was a little group of monks. 00:08:56.980 --> 00:09:02.840 I think we were four of us who had met Douglas. 00:09:02.840 --> 00:09:07.760 So we met up regularly and did experiments together. 00:09:09.940 --> 00:09:15.490 - And how do you think it affects your relationships 00:09:15.490 --> 00:09:17.990 with people, with friends, with whoever? 00:09:17.990 --> 00:09:22.310 The face to no face seeing? 00:09:24.950 --> 00:09:31.280 'Cause relationships are the important area to think about. 00:09:31.280 --> 00:09:32.770 - Oh yeah, absolutely. 00:09:32.770 --> 00:09:34.050 I think also the question, 00:09:34.050 --> 00:09:36.520 the question you ask is even deeper. 00:09:36.520 --> 00:09:38.358 In a way, you know, 00:09:38.358 --> 00:09:42.720 not only your relationship with people, 00:09:42.720 --> 00:09:47.460 dare I say with that which we think as the other. 00:09:48.310 --> 00:09:52.700 So, whether it is my relationship 00:09:52.700 --> 00:09:55.926 even with a thought or a feeling 00:09:55.926 --> 00:10:00.560 or with other people, 00:10:01.350 --> 00:10:04.260 is it a relationship in which I set up 00:10:04.260 --> 00:10:07.000 a somebody, you know... 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:11.430 Often, Douglas used to call it head to head to head 00:10:11.430 --> 00:10:16.970 or residual space for that face 00:10:16.970 --> 00:10:18.915 that appears over there. 00:10:18.915 --> 00:10:20.980 Or can I actually be the space 00:10:21.210 --> 00:10:26.380 that allows any formation to arise and cease? 00:10:26.380 --> 00:10:29.520 And I'm humbled, this is a continuous act 00:10:29.520 --> 00:10:30.660 where I'm learning. 00:10:30.660 --> 00:10:32.600 It's an act of trust, really. 00:10:32.600 --> 00:10:36.184 If I fully allow the other to be, 00:10:36.184 --> 00:10:39.110 and of course, we have to sit through 00:10:40.180 --> 00:10:42.360 our own inner... 00:10:45.320 --> 00:10:47.200 We have an agenda always, 00:10:47.200 --> 00:10:49.682 a subtle agenda with the world. 00:10:49.682 --> 00:10:52.220 And is it possible, actually, to lean back 00:10:53.830 --> 00:10:57.280 and let, yeah, let this be? 00:10:58.780 --> 00:11:02.810 So that changes profoundly my relationship with the other. 00:11:02.810 --> 00:11:07.030 I become the openness for the other. 00:11:08.450 --> 00:11:11.540 And with people particularly... 00:11:13.610 --> 00:11:16.080 In the start, perhaps, it can sound a bit 00:11:16.080 --> 00:11:18.880 like a technique, a way, you know, 00:11:18.880 --> 00:11:21.000 that maybe I put up with others. 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:23.883 If I don't like them by being spaciousness. 00:11:23.883 --> 00:11:25.330 But more, it's actually become, 00:11:25.330 --> 00:11:26.540 I find over the years, 00:11:26.540 --> 00:11:29.611 it's more like a heartfelt sense 00:11:29.611 --> 00:11:31.730 of being with others. 00:11:31.730 --> 00:11:38.100 And it is really so that to hear in the silence, 00:11:38.100 --> 00:11:42.650 to hear two voices, two people arising, 00:11:43.780 --> 00:11:46.880 and being the space for both of them, 00:11:46.880 --> 00:11:49.130 and also the feelings that arise 00:11:49.130 --> 00:11:51.779 between the two people in this sense. 00:11:51.779 --> 00:11:55.020 So I recognize myself and find myself 00:11:55.610 --> 00:11:58.180 in the other, or as the other. 00:11:59.290 --> 00:12:01.030 Do you find something? 00:12:01.030 --> 00:12:04.580 - Yes, two voices now in the one silence. 00:12:04.580 --> 00:12:05.910 - Yes, yes. 00:12:05.910 --> 00:12:07.934 - Wonderful, isn't it? Isn't it? 00:12:07.934 --> 00:12:10.220 - Isn't it marvelous?" - Yes, alive. 00:12:10.220 --> 00:12:10.800 - Yes. 00:12:10.800 --> 00:12:12.560 - Unpredictable. - Yes. 00:12:12.560 --> 00:12:16.720 And a sense of, kind of, 00:12:16.720 --> 00:12:18.360 a bit like [PWOSH (makes hand gesture to smile)] 00:12:18.360 --> 00:12:19.780 - (laughs) Yeah. 00:12:21.100 --> 00:12:23.240 "Awe" .. "awe" is the word 00:12:24.050 --> 00:12:26.310 - What about trusting it? 00:12:27.540 --> 00:12:30.177 What are your thoughts about... 00:12:30.177 --> 00:12:33.890 We sometimes talk about trusting who we are and so on. 00:12:33.890 --> 00:12:36.429 What are your thoughts about trust? 00:12:36.429 --> 00:12:37.420 - Yeah, that's big. 00:12:37.420 --> 00:12:40.420 That's another big subject, which... 00:12:42.860 --> 00:12:46.080 There is a level where perhaps the first thing 00:12:46.080 --> 00:12:49.460 that comes to heart is, 00:12:49.460 --> 00:12:55.046 oh my goodness, I have so little trust. 00:12:55.046 --> 00:12:57.300 In a way, the essence of, 00:12:59.300 --> 00:13:02.980 the essence of Suvaco is built around 00:13:06.650 --> 00:13:10.430 fear or contraction or defense, 00:13:12.620 --> 00:13:16.900 and the very act of seeing 00:13:16.900 --> 00:13:17.950 or, in this case, 00:13:17.950 --> 00:13:22.010 when I actually really see the fear 00:13:22.540 --> 00:13:25.870 that it begins to dissolve it. 00:13:25.870 --> 00:13:27.740 It erodes in a way. 00:13:27.740 --> 00:13:31.910 So seeing is, it certainly in my experience here, 00:13:31.910 --> 00:13:35.650 it's the erosion, and this is a gradual work. 00:13:36.510 --> 00:13:41.970 And it's not something I can apply technically, 00:13:41.970 --> 00:13:44.250 saying, "Oh, I really feel afraid now. 00:13:44.250 --> 00:13:46.755 "Oh, let me just go back to seeing." 00:13:46.755 --> 00:13:48.990 It doesn't seem to work like that at all. 00:13:48.990 --> 00:13:52.590 It seemed to really fully feel, 00:13:52.590 --> 00:13:54.100 fully noticing it, 00:13:55.390 --> 00:13:57.800 the anxiety or the fear. 00:13:58.700 --> 00:14:05.750 If I really am and fully stay with this "thing" 00:14:05.750 --> 00:14:09.930 as it arises, this other that I call fear, 00:14:10.580 --> 00:14:13.180 and somehow that begins to transform it, 00:14:13.350 --> 00:14:15.080 having a relationship with it. 00:14:15.620 --> 00:14:19.130 And in a way, there I begin to, say, trust. 00:14:19.130 --> 00:14:24.370 So, trust not in enlightenment, or in God, 00:14:26.280 --> 00:14:31.060 but trust in the immediacy that it is well. 00:14:31.060 --> 00:14:37.090 Even that which is difficult is a something to be embraced. 00:14:38.450 --> 00:14:42.750 So, in a way, of course, with seeing in itself 00:14:42.750 --> 00:14:44.430 it is so immediate. 00:14:50.250 --> 00:14:55.480 And then, of course, it is also that we're gonna find it as multilayered. 00:14:56.370 --> 00:14:59.973 Endless discoveries, perhaps. 00:14:59.973 --> 00:15:01.770 - In what way multilayered? 00:15:01.770 --> 00:15:06.340 - Multilayered, that seeing is also hearing. 00:15:07.180 --> 00:15:14.160 It's also deeply sensing and deeply feeling. 00:15:16.460 --> 00:15:19.028 We arise with all the sense thoughts 00:15:19.028 --> 00:15:20.910 from moment to moment. 00:15:25.220 --> 00:15:27.120 - It's where you're coming from. 00:15:27.120 --> 00:15:29.200 - [Suvaco] It is, yeah. 00:15:29.200 --> 00:15:30.640 - Whatever we call it. 00:15:35.420 --> 00:15:38.590 - Another way, I don't know how... 00:15:42.580 --> 00:15:45.360 I don't know how relevant it is in the context of seeing, 00:15:45.360 --> 00:15:47.360 but over the years, 00:15:50.380 --> 00:15:54.090 the other really great, should we say, 00:15:54.090 --> 00:15:57.460 support in stabilizing, 00:15:58.190 --> 00:16:02.060 so one thing is, as you know, seeing it, 00:16:02.060 --> 00:16:05.250 another is being it. 00:16:06.990 --> 00:16:10.240 That it just becomes a more relaxed 00:16:10.240 --> 00:16:13.800 and continuous sense of being. 00:16:15.380 --> 00:16:19.600 There I found the sense of listening, 00:16:20.130 --> 00:16:22.340 and listening to 00:16:25.330 --> 00:16:28.590 what is called the sound of silence, 00:16:28.590 --> 00:16:32.350 so this is if, in the very act of relaxing 00:16:33.170 --> 00:16:35.440 into the wider field of listening, 00:16:35.440 --> 00:16:38.130 this high pitch 00:16:40.890 --> 00:16:42.330 resonates. 00:16:43.730 --> 00:16:48.390 And that gives also, really, another very, very clear background 00:16:48.390 --> 00:16:52.070 in which I can hear the sound of this voice, 00:16:52.670 --> 00:16:57.524 I can see you, and how it all arises, 00:16:57.524 --> 00:17:04.599 and sees upon this continuous shimmering sound 00:17:04.599 --> 00:17:06.685 as a background. 00:17:06.685 --> 00:17:10.810 That is not quite, again, it's a bit like seeing. 00:17:10.810 --> 00:17:12.880 It's not quite localizable. 00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:15.000 Is it inside? Is it outside? 00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:16.400 Is it both? Is it...? 00:17:16.400 --> 00:17:18.940 It is global. 00:17:19.450 --> 00:17:20.609 Yeah. 00:17:22.940 --> 00:17:28.060 - You're training in craniosacral therapy? 00:17:28.060 --> 00:17:30.806 How does this awareness 00:17:30.806 --> 00:17:35.764 inform your experience in that field? 00:17:35.764 --> 00:17:38.050 - Oh, that's a wonderful question. 00:17:41.680 --> 00:17:46.360 Even more so, it is, again, it... 00:17:47.590 --> 00:17:50.060 So, what this work of seeing is, 00:17:50.060 --> 00:17:53.924 is again, I find it is endless discoveries, 00:17:53.924 --> 00:17:59.690 and the discovery that even through touch, 00:17:59.690 --> 00:18:03.550 and putting your hand on another person, 00:18:04.650 --> 00:18:07.920 and listening, and being completely open 00:18:07.920 --> 00:18:12.020 and silent, it allows something to happen 00:18:12.020 --> 00:18:16.695 in both the seer, or the giver and the receiver. 00:18:16.695 --> 00:18:19.670 (mumbling) And I find that that is marvelous, 00:18:19.670 --> 00:18:22.420 that sense of, you empty, 00:18:22.420 --> 00:18:25.595 and the more you step back and empty yourself, 00:18:25.595 --> 00:18:32.890 the more you give the space for the other to come forward. 00:18:32.890 --> 00:18:35.161 - It's something to unfold. - Yeah. 00:18:35.161 --> 00:18:39.780 - And I think this is really the essence, actually, 00:18:39.780 --> 00:18:43.180 of it, that sense of if we... 00:18:43.180 --> 00:18:45.680 Perhaps, the word there again is trust. 00:18:46.300 --> 00:18:51.840 When we step back, and we allow the world 00:18:51.840 --> 00:18:54.320 to arise and cease. 00:18:54.320 --> 00:18:59.380 So often, in Buddhist jargon, 00:18:59.380 --> 00:19:03.080 there is this sense of, you know, 00:19:03.080 --> 00:19:06.835 it sums up everything that arises, ceases, 00:19:06.835 --> 00:19:12.750 and on there is a great emphasis for many people of wanting so badly 00:19:12.750 --> 00:19:16.040 to make everything go to cessation 00:19:16.040 --> 00:19:20.140 so we become detached, we become the subtle one 00:19:20.140 --> 00:19:25.070 who is observing this dream, you know, 00:19:25.070 --> 00:19:31.780 this slightly constructed self of a somebody who is beyond it. 00:19:32.540 --> 00:19:35.460 But actually, if we fully 00:19:37.180 --> 00:19:40.260 allow something to arise, 00:19:41.630 --> 00:19:45.310 that is what I'm really excited about, these things, actually. 00:19:45.310 --> 00:19:50.030 That act of trust, that sense of curiosity, 00:19:51.630 --> 00:19:55.350 this is a complete new something. 00:19:57.100 --> 00:19:58.780 And so it's something almost with like, 00:19:58.780 --> 00:20:00.120 it takes me a bit... 00:20:00.120 --> 00:20:01.670 I don't have any safety. 00:20:01.670 --> 00:20:05.290 It drives me a bit in an uncertain territory 00:20:05.290 --> 00:20:09.270 and then, if I fully let this come in, 00:20:11.120 --> 00:20:13.780 and I don't know what will happen. 00:20:13.780 --> 00:20:14.980 Will it ever end? 00:20:14.980 --> 00:20:16.670 What will happen to me? 00:20:16.670 --> 00:20:19.820 Oh dear, I better go back to seeing 00:20:19.820 --> 00:20:21.620 or whatever ways we have, 00:20:21.620 --> 00:20:23.750 but no, can I trust in..? 00:20:23.750 --> 00:20:28.215 If I let it, if I welcome it as it comes, 00:20:28.215 --> 00:20:30.690 and then the question is, 00:20:31.200 --> 00:20:34.170 can I then witness, 00:20:34.170 --> 00:20:38.260 can I then, again, see it as it goes? 00:20:38.260 --> 00:20:40.140 Yet another condition. 00:20:41.010 --> 00:20:44.138 So in a way, you know, it allows that flow of life. 00:20:44.138 --> 00:20:46.320 - So creative. - It is. 00:20:46.850 --> 00:20:49.060 It's another wonderful expression. 00:20:49.060 --> 00:20:51.931 It is endlessly creative. 00:20:51.931 --> 00:20:54.230 And you and I are, again, 00:20:55.150 --> 00:20:56.880 we are creations in it. 00:20:56.880 --> 00:20:58.510 - Yes, wonderful. 00:20:58.510 --> 00:21:00.092 - It is, isn't it? 00:21:00.092 --> 00:21:04.843 - And perhaps one more question here, Suvaco. 00:21:04.843 --> 00:21:07.223 What about suffering? 00:21:07.223 --> 00:21:09.680 Seeing and suffering, if you like. 00:21:10.540 --> 00:21:13.950 Buddhism is hot on the end of suffering, I think. 00:21:13.950 --> 00:21:16.380 - Yes, I think it is, 00:21:16.380 --> 00:21:20.370 it, again, is on the... 00:21:23.180 --> 00:21:26.100 How shall I put it in a few words? 00:21:27.440 --> 00:21:30.580 Perhaps, in the Buddhist corner 00:21:30.580 --> 00:21:32.080 on the spiritual market, 00:21:32.080 --> 00:21:35.740 particularly the doctrinal take, 00:21:36.640 --> 00:21:39.520 a way in which the word, 00:21:39.520 --> 00:21:42.400 the classical word dukkha, 00:21:42.400 --> 00:21:47.530 which means stressful, as if you knew 00:21:48.290 --> 00:21:50.650 everything that arises and ceases, 00:21:50.650 --> 00:21:54.070 by its nature, it is changeable, 00:21:54.070 --> 00:21:57.056 and it is stressful. 00:21:57.056 --> 00:22:00.590 It is not a value judgment, it just is. 00:22:00.590 --> 00:22:02.990 That is how this universe is. 00:22:04.380 --> 00:22:07.220 So, recognizing that it is like this, 00:22:08.780 --> 00:22:11.390 that there is a sense of (sighs), 00:22:11.390 --> 00:22:14.565 we don't expect it to be otherwise. 00:22:14.565 --> 00:22:16.501 I think that's the key. 00:22:16.501 --> 00:22:22.210 The suffering comes because we expect conditions to be otherwise. 00:22:25.130 --> 00:22:31.530 So, there is that level of daring to say yes to life. 00:22:32.820 --> 00:22:34.810 - Including all. 00:22:34.810 --> 00:22:35.960 - Hopefully. 00:22:35.960 --> 00:22:38.260 And then I say, you know, ooh. 00:22:38.260 --> 00:22:41.786 When you say the ooh, touch wood. (laughs) 00:22:41.786 --> 00:22:45.310 Because we all experience these moments, you know, 00:22:45.310 --> 00:22:51.580 when it is overwhelming. 00:22:52.810 --> 00:22:55.410 I think my experience has been, Richard, 00:22:55.410 --> 00:22:56.980 that actually, 00:22:57.940 --> 00:23:00.470 the bare experience of being 00:23:02.030 --> 00:23:05.910 a human being in a separate form, 00:23:05.910 --> 00:23:09.157 and experiencing the world through the senses 00:23:09.157 --> 00:23:12.028 even under best conditions, 00:23:12.028 --> 00:23:15.950 it is a rather overwhelming experience. 00:23:15.950 --> 00:23:18.930 And to acknowledge also 00:23:18.930 --> 00:23:21.790 that often we are overwhelmed, 00:23:21.790 --> 00:23:25.970 so when people act out of patterns of fear 00:23:25.970 --> 00:23:28.510 and violence and self contraction, 00:23:28.510 --> 00:23:30.580 to hold both ourselves and others 00:23:30.580 --> 00:23:32.370 with that sense of it is 00:23:32.370 --> 00:23:36.040 and it really comes from a place of overwhelm. 00:23:37.020 --> 00:23:40.180 - And how does what we might call the seeing 00:23:40.340 --> 00:23:41.450 or whatever you want to call it, 00:23:41.450 --> 00:23:46.290 how does that help you cope with 00:23:46.290 --> 00:23:49.860 that kind of situation? 00:23:49.860 --> 00:23:50.980 - It doesn't. 00:23:51.190 --> 00:23:53.650 I will put it slightly different, 00:23:53.650 --> 00:23:56.050 that it has never been my experience 00:23:56.050 --> 00:23:59.230 that "seeing" helps me. 00:23:59.230 --> 00:24:02.235 Again, that's making a thing out of seeing. 00:24:02.235 --> 00:24:04.040 What I notice is 00:24:06.220 --> 00:24:08.710 seeing doesn't solve anything, 00:24:09.270 --> 00:24:12.580 but it dissolves the one, 00:24:12.580 --> 00:24:16.657 even just for a moment, so like now, 00:24:16.657 --> 00:24:22.320 it dissolves the one who "thinks" 00:24:22.320 --> 00:24:25.460 or feels like he has a problem. 00:24:26.450 --> 00:24:30.600 And of course, as it is, 00:24:30.600 --> 00:24:32.150 it can be sometimes, you know, 00:24:32.150 --> 00:24:34.940 the overwhelm that is so strong that I'm, 00:24:34.940 --> 00:24:37.540 a second later, the somebody's back again. 00:24:37.540 --> 00:24:38.500 (Richard gasps) 00:24:38.500 --> 00:24:40.990 And then again, the very act of seeing, 00:24:43.140 --> 00:24:44.390 let go, 00:24:45.840 --> 00:24:47.120 so here it is again. 00:24:47.120 --> 00:24:50.960 So the seeing doesn't solve anything, I would say. 00:24:50.960 --> 00:24:54.420 I prefer, my experiences being it dissolves 00:24:56.200 --> 00:25:00.078 the one who thinks that this is a problem. 00:25:00.078 --> 00:25:06.278 And emotional distress takes sometimes a little bit longer. 00:25:06.278 --> 00:25:09.320 It certainly can dissolve immediately, 00:25:10.750 --> 00:25:12.479 the thinking. 00:25:12.479 --> 00:25:15.430 If you find that the mind is spinning around, 00:25:17.380 --> 00:25:18.770 there, it's gone. 00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:23.830 And yet of course, (inaudible), 00:25:23.830 --> 00:25:27.680 there can still be a reaction that sticks. 00:25:27.680 --> 00:25:29.590 And that also, so that's again, 00:25:29.590 --> 00:25:31.560 so then we bring attention to that. 00:25:35.420 --> 00:25:37.650 And that can be a little bit more gradual. 00:25:41.450 --> 00:25:42.750 - Wonderful. 00:25:44.390 --> 00:25:46.910 Share the two voice in the one silence-- 00:25:46.910 --> 00:25:48.260 - It is. - Do you see it? 00:25:48.260 --> 00:25:49.780 Coming out of nowhere. 00:25:52.670 --> 00:25:54.726 Thank you very much. 00:25:54.726 --> 00:25:56.230 - Thank you, Richard. 00:25:59.440 --> 00:26:01.720 (soft piano music)