The collective Buddha series - Polilogue No 2

We have Jeroen and Karin with us today, representing the younger generation! Staying with Catherine in her chateau in France! Doug is in New Zealand, Mushin in Prague, Helen in Brussels.

After an opening minute of silence, Mushin gives some background to these calls.

Mushin: Isn’t what we’re doing tuning into our collective being and seeing and hearing and feeling what emerges from there? That’s a very important part of what we’re doing. And then we go exploring whatever emerges. That would be my view, in a nutshell.

And also, there has so far been some type of reporting also. We have been saying what was happening in our lives with regard to this sense of what we call we-fullness. And today, or these last few days, in my morning meditation, it has become a very strong component of my contemplations. The sense of internal we-fullness, the sense that, as what I call ‘my’ consciousness is connected to uncountable nerve cells, in a way also emerging from there is a number – probably a finite number – of voices or subpersonalities. And then my contemplation was very much on allowing these voices or personalities to just appear, come up and do their dance. And see this dance as enriching. Whatever the dance may be.

Doug: I want to understand. Are you saying that seeing the subpersonality respond to something in the field is part of that enriching?

Mushin: Yes. It’s like we are talking here, and as I was saying recently to Catherine also, I am getting a very strong sense of mutual apprenticeship in being in this world, in being with people. And then seeing or hearing or feeling these voices as giving something to the We that I am. And sometimes I don’t understand it, as when I feel what we usually call having negative feelings, or negative thoughts, but somehow upholding a sense of we-fullness - or coming from that, or considering that to be a true way of being - gives these so-called negative voices or subpersonalities a different character.  Then it’s enriching.

Doug: I also want to say, for those at the castle – in addition to reporting what we see in our lives, of we – if there is an image or thought from the silence or in your own meditation that is about this state, then we also share from those. At the end of New Zealand, I had a coaching session yesterday of opening the door for my friend and client to create a we-space for others. She’s been learning to slow down by being with me. And the time that we’ve had together has been very, very rich for nine days, and other people, including not just her, as one client who has been affected by this, but also my friend here, Glen, who’s my agent in New Zealand. He’s been noticing – other people comment to him about how he’s changed his way of delivering – himself, his thoughts, his speech – to a more spacious way. So when you said apprenticeship, Mushin, there is a growing interest in learning to be in a We way.

Mushin: (laughs) I like that: ‘We way’! It sounds like ‘Wu Wei’!

Doug: For those that don’t know that word, Wu Wei is the Taoist term for actionless action, or being in a being state. Wu Wei.

Catherine: I can add that after talking to Mushin about this apprenticeship, and the way of being in apprenticeship, I have practiced that with my guests – the visit of Karin and Jeroen – and that way of being has really enriched my experience with them.


Doug: Can you say more what you noticed?

Catherine: I noticed even a greater sense of trust in who they are as humans and as beings, and also a depth of learning and an openness for learning in their presence and through their insights and their gifts.

Doug: So we’re having the same experience in different groups. The openness for learning and the appetite was the same with Felicity and Glenn. Seeking into and wanting to learn from this big space of being that we were creating together. Even up to the very last minute of the last meeting, using the time to explore the consciousness of the three.

Mushin: From your experience, Doug and Catherine, would you say there is some basic stance, or position, or way of acting within a situation that seems to be most helpful?

Jeroen: For me, I notice a difference in consciously trying to be in contact with the other and having a standpoint of thinking that the other person has something precious to tell me. That makes me focus more on the depths of their words instead of – normally, when I hear something, my own mind takes off and starts processing and that cuts the dialogue. So that’s a change that I can consciously make, to focus more on the conversation and try to not immediately go into thoughts that distract me.

Doug: One contribution to the stance, for me, is being a non-anxious presence. And being patient, being more rooted in knowing that what will come will come from a being state, and not having to do, and then finding it’s true!

Mushin: This reminds me of what you were saying, Doug. Recently I had a down, and Helen had the grace to speak with me for a while. And one of the things which turned out to be an extremely precious way of looking – we were talking about the big I and the small I. And Helen was asking me “What do you think is the appropriate way of being of the small I”? And when I was thinking about it, nothing came, but then, spontaneously, out came that it is the sense of worship, and appreciation and acknowledgement. So what has become very clear and easy to do as soon as this anxiety that you were speaking about, Doug - of not being there any more - when that comes up for me, then I just remember that the appropriate gesture is worship and appreciation of this whatever it is that this is now. What is going on now. And that’s what I also hear, in another way, from Jeroen, when you said listening for the preciousness in what the other person is expressing.

Doug: Wow

Helen: When you say that, it reminds me of the practice which I have done for years and years, which has been very beneficial to me. I first learned how to do it when my children were babies. And I understood that if I used the eyes with which I looked at my children to look at everybody else in the world, that I could actually become a good person.


Catherine: Oh, beautiful.

Helen: Because when you look at your children, it’s like you just want to eat them up. They’re so perfect, so beautiful, so precious. Particularly if you ever have the thought that you might lose them. Just knowing that now is the only time that you have, and looking at people in the way Jeroen was saying – just seeing their preciousness – it completely transforms any interaction.

Doug: The other day, I talked to Morel about this – that stance of gratitude was very strong in an example of a presence in the Edge of Emergence group in Melbourne, a week and a half ago now. We had a man there from a Brahma Kumari centre who was about 75 years old. And in one of his sharings he said he had a practice of being grateful for everything, from morning till night. And even if he bumped his leg on a chair, he would say ‘thank you’ and ‘I love you’ to the pain as part of his practice of being grateful for everything from morning till night.

Jeroen: But sometimes you’re also really annoyed at somebody else, and that feels good too!

Helen: …Your precious teachers!

Mushin: There’s a story that comes to mind. Maybe ten years ago, I was sitting in a train from Berlin to Hamburg. I was going to a workshop by some spiritual teacher, and I was sitting there preparing myself inwardly with meditation and all kinds of good thoughts, and then in the train compartment, there were two people talking with each other across the whole compartment. And they were talking pretty loud. It was impossible to ignore them. And they were talking about how late the trains run, and how stupid everybody is, and how horrible life is, and how you can’t buy this and you can’t buy that…
and so after having to listen to this for ten minutes or so, I was getting very annoyed. And so I got up and went to this one person, and I said “Wouldn’t it be much nicer for you if you sat next to the other person so you wouldn’t have to shout all over the wagon?” And the person said “It is none of your business where I sit!” So I went back, even more annoyed than before. I couldn’t do anything. Then, all of a sudden, I thought “Well, maybe this is a nagging Buddha”. In Hindu folklore you have all these wrathful deities and so on, and suddenly I had this idea of a nagging Buddha. And as soon as I had this idea, somehow it didn’t disturb me so much any more, this whole thing. And then two or three minutes later, the other person got up and came over and sat next to this other person and they didn’t have to shout any more and I had my peace. So now, whenever I have this annoying and I’m awake – you know, I’m not always awake! – but when I’m awake, I think of the nagging Buddha and most of the time that gives me a sense of, “OK, here’s the nagging Buddha, doing his nagging work” Just imagine you would have to be a nagging Buddha! I’m so blessed and so grateful that I am not a nagging Buddha and I don’t have to play this horrible role!

Catherine: So again, in gratitude…

Jeroen: With the thing I said about annoyance, I completely agree that it’s a really good challenge. And I love the story of the nagging Buddha. But I’m also seeing that it’s good to acknowledge that this is there, and it’s present. And there are some moments when – suppose you are in this compartment, and this person is really touching your sensitive annoyance voice, and you are there but you really want to do something that is good work – for the good of the whole. You are maybe there with some other people, who really want to go into some kind of deep reflection or something. Then your sense of annoyance can also be a really good guide – you can just get up and go to another compartment together!

Mushin (laughing): I never thought of that!

Jeroen: So it’s good to sometimes see that. Maybe you’re just annoyed because this person is dragging you down, pulling you from a certain point of gravity, pulling you towards a certain perspective or way of interpreting the world which is getting you out of the We-ness space – like the sacred space that we had with the Brahma Kumaris – and at a certain moment you can keep sticking with this something and trying to see it as a challenge. But you can also say “Well, screw it, I don’t like to be here, let’s go somewhere else”. I don’t mean that you have to be disrespectful or something, or that it’s not good to be aware of this voice in you, but it’s also interesting to see that if we really want to make progress, that sometimes we have to go away from the people who annoy us, from the people who keep you down, in a way. And make sure that we keep our spirit on fire together, so we don’t get bogged down by a lot of constraints or negative patterns that other people are putting into the world all the time. As long as we have this precious baby that is not fully grown and it’s still really fragile, it’s really important to also keep this in a protective sphere and stay away from influences that will just bog you down.

Helen: This is what the Buddhists talk about with the Sangha, keeping good company. This is at a different level, because it’s already a collective rather than individuals.

Jeroen: So we could say that there are different forms of reality in which you can grow. And one form is that you can grow personally, by sitting still on a cushion and letting everything be there and see how it affects you. Seeing how these annoying Buddhas trigger your own kind of ego things, for example. And there’s another reality, of creating a Sangha, creating a sacred space, in which sometimes you just have to be realistic and kick out the elements that distort the Sangha. And I think the Buddhists also say that sometimes it’s easier, if the world is made out of nails, to cover your feet with a layer of protection instead of covering the whole world. I think we pretty much live in a world right now where there are a lot of nails out there, so sometimes it’s good to move to these places where there are not that many nails, and where we can protect the small Sanghas, away from this. And the feelings of annoyance can be a really good guidance in that. Just as long as you’re aware of it, that it should not be something you can keep indulging in and feeling better about than somebody else. Just, there are some negative sides to it, and just so long as you are aware of that, that maybe helps us out.

Karin: And I don’t want to push the other nails away, but I want to say that you, by yourself, can make the decision to go away from the nails, if you like. Because if you are pushing away other people, then they don’t have the chance to get in. And if you give them their own choice, maybe some people will, at a certain moment, be aware of their own consciousness of joining you.

Helen: Yes. I was having a similar thought myself.

Catherine: Also, the image that comes to mind is, years ago, at Tienanmen Square, where there was this student rebellion, and the tanks came. And the lone student who stood in the road and stopped I don’t know how many tanks.

Mushin: The same thing happened here in Prague, when the Russians came in 1968. People actually stood in front of tanks, in such an obvious, human, helpless way that the drivers of the tanks couldn’t just go on and drive over them – which were their orders, actually, both in Prague and in Tienanmen square.

Catherine: And I listened very deeply too, because we were actually talking about – in terms of my own life, and in terms of the we-ness from my work in the past, and then developing and moving into work in the future, and I think I was in a bed of nails. And these were people whose actions were out of integrity at many levels, and I often was – or it was with an angry group of people, and I would be the one who stepped in. And believe me, I wanted to run away, because it was painful for me. I’m not sure it had to be, but it was at the time. And yet that’s also another way to see it. It’s like I felt that was my calling at the time, to enter these dyads, these triads, these large groups of people that were annoying to a very great extent! And help them work through their annoyingness. Does that make sense?

Helen: It makes total sense, and I have a feeling that what we’re trying to do here is something very different. Because we are not trying to heal something that’s broken. We’re taking something which is whole and healthy and seeing where we can fly with it.

Jeroen: To me, there’s also something about conscious choice and leverage. For me that means that I like to change the world, and if at a certain moment I think I can help a structure or system that is annoying, but that through my help might be improved and then have a big impact, then I might put my powers in that direction. But if I have the idea that a lot of different structures are not functioning well any more, then it might be good to just have them destroyed. Not that I have to destroy them, but to not put my energy into something that’s doomed to fail because it’s built on assumptions that are no longer fitting with the new paradigm. But I think it’s good to evaluate at every moment, and to make a conscious choice about where you put your energy. Do you make something that’s a bit broken work, because then it can keep on working? Or do you focus on something new?

Doug: And it’s a story that some of you may remember. Also in the time of the invasion in Prague. The violinist went out into the square, when the tanks were rolling, and started playing Mozart on the violin. And his family and friends went out and said to him “How can you do this, how can you be so crazy as to play your violin in the square with the tanks and the war starting?” And he said “How can they fight with tanks and a war when I’m playing my violin?”

Jeroen: I love that!

Catherine: I hear the music!

Mushin: Actually, Vaclav Havel, the first President of the Czech Republic, after the independence of the Warsaw Pact, he told about when they were negotiating with the communists about the new government. They were withdrawing from power and so on… And whenever they came to a point where nothing would move any more, but something had to move, he said he and his crew started to laugh. They just started to laugh. And they laughed for maybe a minute, or two minutes, or three minutes, until everybody was somehow going “Hmmm, hmmm”, and then they would look again at this thing that was causing trouble.

Doug: There’s a girl named Stace in the Australian Emergence retreat. In the evening of the special night, she asked all of the people to laugh from nothing for five minutes. And we did. And she taught that if you laugh, even for no reason, it changes the brain chemistry completely, and you’re in a new state. Amazing.

Mushin: That reminds me, I just recently read in the New Scientist that what they did was give people some difficult intellectual jobs to do – math and stuff like this – and just before these people started to look at these things and answer these questions, they were shown either some nice pictures or some awful pictures. Now guess who was faster in solving these things? Isn’t that amazing? So even if we go into some sort of exam or situation like that, if you just laugh or smile, then your inner body will have changed enough to make it easier for you.

So I think that what we’re talking about – the pattern I’m sensing here is we’re looking at navigation, right? Navigating the spaces. The we-spaces, actually. I think there are not only coherent and beautiful we-spaces, there are also ugly and confused we-spaces. Here in our we-ference or polilogues, we are aiming for highly coherent, we-full spaces, but of course in my viewing of this whole topic, I see that actually – for most of our lives, we are navigating we-spaces.

Helen: You’re speaking to something which is incredibly important here Mushin. I am suddenly thinking: which is more powerful. Is a coherent, beautiful we-space? If you bring that into an ugly and confused we-space, will it bring coherence to the ugly one, or will it lose its coherence? My sense is that the beautiful and the coherent is more powerful.


Jeroen: To me, it depends on momentum. I think both exert a certain gravitational power, and the one that’s stronger will win. I think that in general, the beautiful coherence has an edge, so that if it is 10 people against 10 people, then the beautiful will probably win. But if you go alone into a big space with a lot of people, it’s going to be really tough.

Helen: You can’t go in there alone as a we-space.

Jeroen: Except if you are a Jesus or a Buddha, with such an immense coherence…

Helen: But look what they did to Jesus!

Jeroen: Yeah, but look how we’re still talking about him!

(Laughter)

Catherine: Try this on – because I got another very strong image of – what was the movie? Saving Private Ryan? – And I think of the battlefield. I didn’t even want to see that film, because I had heard about it and I thought why would I want to expose myself to this recreation of such ugliness and horror and all that? And yet, at this moment, in our we-fullness, I see all that as sacred. And the battle as sacred. And everything that happened as sacred. Because here are our beings, and if we’re in apprenticeship to all these beings, and really living that and really being in that, then there is a sacredness to even the ugliest scene that we might enter, or the ugliest relationship that we might find ourselves in.

Helen: That is a reminder that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Mushin: If we take away the romantic coating there, then I agree. But only if we take away the romantic coating. There is an interesting thing in what we are looking at now: While we are looking at the strength of coherent we-fullness and incoherent, destructive we-fullness, in moving as we are moving, we are actually in a party of angels. Because we have a message. Our message is actually that it is possible to live in a highly coherent We-space, and it is actually possible to live a beautiful and joyful life. And as much as we are of course apprentices of each other, each other is apprenticed to us. So I find that the strength of we-fullness depends on the depth of the conviction that is carried by it. It has something to do – from my point of view – with conviction. If a person, let’s say, explodes in my face, and I’m in the strength of my conviction, of the sense of we-fullness and the understanding of preciousness that Jeroen was speaking about before, then that strength of conviction will – even if there is a multitude of incoherent, even destructive we-fullnesses around – then that cannot destroy the beauty that is here. But if my conviction is not so strong or so deep on that day or in that situation, then of course I am easily destroyed. And I think the real strength of beautiful we-fullness is the cultivation of conviction and depth. Because that is the invincible power of it, really.

Helen: Can I rephrase that in Wilberian terms?! What you are describing is the transition from a state to a trait. So we are cultivating a state in which we are anchored in a powerful we-fullness, and it comes and goes, comes and goes, comes and goes, until it stays. And it is through our practice and our cultivation and our learning to awaken into that state fully – that is when it becomes a trait, or an acquired stage. Like once you’ve acquired language, you don’t go back to a state where you don’t have language any more, barring strokes, brain damage and things like that! But what’s interesting there is the fact that a we-full state is by definition something that is shared. So can you be in a powerful we-state if the rest of us have fallen into incoherence?

Mushin: Difficult but possible, I would say. I’ve tested this a few times recently. Come into situations where I could test that. And it is actually possible. I have found that I saw several phases, reflecting about it. The first phase is becoming annoyed that it is apparently not feasible. Then the second phase would be to allow that annoyance to be there. Somehow to breathe it in and say OK, I’m really annoyed now. Somehow make that part of the we-fullness. So in a way it is like surrendering my intention for a beautiful, coherent we-fullness, surrendering that to the state of annoyance. And then I saw that in two out of the three situations I tried this in, it worked. In that then the state of annoyance gave way to a kind of mutual flow which I was serving, basically. The other person was not serving it, but surfing it, more or less, and being somehow taken along. And then in the end we would somehow embrace and that was it. And one time it simply didn’t work because I couldn’t really surrender to the annoyance – I was actually taken over by the annoyance.

Jeroen: I really like the thing you were saying about cultivation of conviction and I think, even creating the We-space serves our own trust in ourselves, when we go outside the we-space into the rest of the world. I think that the conviction of that is something that we can train. For me it’s like if you meditate in the morning it’s easier to stay conscious in the following period, and if you don’t meditate, it’s easier to get carried away.

For me the parallel with the We-space is that since there is only a relatively small number of people who are thinking about this kind of thing, you are reaching a point where, if the majority were to vote on it, you’re not sane. You’re an outlier, in that sense. And the more you are an outlier, the stronger the conviction you need to keep your sanity and to trust that the things your are seeing and following are actually the right way. And finding fellow travellers on your path who notice the same thing, and whom you see as people who have something valuable to say, acknowledge to you that the things you are seeing are true, and support you to continue going in that direction, is also providing a strengthening of your conviction that you’re doing the right thing.

I think that’s what’s so powerful about going to the Edge of Emergence, for example. That you experience the difference between talking to people who didn’t even know each other before, but who are like-minded and like-spirited, and how much strength you gain in that. And for me, an important lesson in that is that I can actually make a conscious choice to talk to people who are more distorted or to talk to people who are more coherent. If I want to keep my strength, I am at this moment probably better off focusing on the people that are more coherent, because even while talking to them, there’s a lot of chaos that I need to find clarity in for myself. And since there’s a new paradigm emerging in which most people – or everybody I know – don’t really see the next paradigm, it’s really easy to get into a wrong direction. And you want to talk to coherent people who can steer you in the right way, because distorted people will probably steer you in the wrong way anyway. And if they do that with more conviction than you have conviction in your own drive, then you’re going in the wrong direction. So it’s essential to me to create these We-spaces, these circles of fire in which we support one another.

Helen: That is, in a way, a very powerful restatement of what we were saying earlier about the importance of choosing our company healthily to support our own growth process. Having been a junkie of workshops and places where one can find like-minded people, the thing that struck me about the Edge of Emergence was the delight in – I don’t know what to call it, whether it’s alchemy, or what – but particularly with Mushin, Doug and I, who have been doing this trialogue for a while – I think I can speak for all three of us, that it very quickly reached a depth where it doesn’t turn off any more. So that even when we’re not in communication with each other, I really feel like part of a Siamese triplet. That’s what I sense is different in what we’re doing here. It’s not just a group that comes together, feels good, has a good buzz, feels nice when it thinks back and thinks about the others… there’s something different here. There’s some kind of non-local being. As in sentient being – even though it doesn’t have a body – that seems to almost have an independent existence, whether we’re consciously turning our attention to each other or not.

Doug: And since we’ve learned that it takes a field to host a field, in addition to conviction, I would offer the power of intention to bring the opportunity to others to enter a healthy We.

Helen: I think it’s part of what we need to do for our species on the planet right now.


Karin: This reminds we of experiences that I had in past years of being surrounded by people who are on the same level of consciousness or not. At the Edge of Emergence, it inspired me, and at the same time, the words of the chaos pilots where I was last week – being surrounded by people who have the same level of consciousness or have the same will to put something good into the world, is so powerful. Even if I don’t know where to go, it makes a big difference to be surrounded by people who have that will.

Mushin: So there is the strength of conviction, and also the strength of intention. Like a heart’s intention. I’m reading this book “Collective intelligence” by Pierre Levy, and I would like to read you a little quote from Chapter 5, it’s called Choreography of Angelic Bodies, the Atheology of Collective Intelligence, and it says there, “According to Al-Bagdadi – who was a Jew from the middle ages – souls are grouped in spiritual families, thus forming different species with a common genus. Our souls originate in different angels, and other angels, as many as there are families of souls – are required to perfect our intelligences.” The understanding - and why I am reading it - is that in a way, I feel that what we have been attracting and what we call now a sense of coherent we-fullness might be actually the coming together of these spiritual families, or angels. Where an angel, in this sense, would be a being consisting of multiple individuals. And then – Al-Bagdadi says – other angels are required to perfect our intelligences. So in a way it is, I think, both annoying angels, as well as the furthering angels, that are there somehow to perfect our intelligences!

Helen: I just wanted to say that this is very reminiscent of this idea of the collective buddhas coming together. So that we come together as a cohort to explore a pattern that we are fascinated by – in our case we are fascinated by we-fullness – and we are coming together to explore that. There are others who are fascinated by other aspects, like collective intelligence, who come together to explore that. And the need that we now have to look up and see each other, all of these different collective buddhas, need to start working together. So a lot of convergence is happening at different levels. But again, Morel was talking about soul families as well.

Jeroen: I also read something else in it, and that is that as we come together as collectives, if we want to manifest the angelic intelligence that is within the collective, then we need to learn from each other in the sense that we all bring our own incongruities into the we-space. If we at the Edge of Emergence come together, we really see each other as like-minded people, which is great, but we also each bring in our own incongruities or blind spots. But because we are already like a kind of collective family, other people within this family will have dealt with those barriers, but they will bring in different barriers. So if we can learn from our own incongruities within this small we-full group, we can speed up our own development, and enhance the purity or cleanness of our own mirror to reflect this intelligence. So I would not only look at how our club could learn from other clubs, but focus on the thing that is already there, the people that have already been brought together into one club, and try to perfect this one so that we can weed out the wrong patterns in ourselves, because then we can become more powerful to groups outside as well.

Helen: Not only that, but each one of us is normally a member of multiple constellations. We are all community straddlers, all members of more than one community. And what we uncover in one community we then take with us into other communities. So there is a great deal of overlap, of contagion possible.

Mushin: “The greater the number of collective intellects with which an individual is involved, the more opportunities he has to diversify his knowledge and desire. Moreover, he is enabled to enrich with his living variety of thinking communities he helps to construct. In each virtual world we traverse we will be closed with a different angelic body”.

Helen: Spooky

Mushin: Isn’t it? I think that is – Jeroen, you were saying within one collective there is a learning. I find there is an extremely fast learning available within my clan, as you might say, within the angel I’m part of, because we are learning from ourselves. And it’s much easier to learn from ourselves than it is to learn from others, I must say! And I think what Doug is describing – I get this feeling of actually turning the places where you come into a coherent we-fullness. Just your presence there works like that. That is the viral part of it. There’s no defence against it, really. Not for our family members!

Jeroen: I previously looked at a lot of the things that I’m doing as planting seeds. Which pretty much means that I talk about certain things to people, but I don’t need to convince them too much. I’m pretty much trusting that two or three people will meet them later on and plant the same seeds, that certain things start to blossom. For me that’s a big part of the contagiousness, not ‘practice what you preach’ but ‘preach what you practice’. To get the word out there that there is an alternative. And I can imagine that the next stage after throwing out a lot of seeds is to look at where the seeds landed and where they start to blossom from themselves, and then focus attention of groups – of we – on those seeds. To see which places provided the best fertiliser for those seeds to grow. And then, from that moment on, it’s like strategy – you can grow the babies where they start growing, in a healthy sense, to a more mature, steady, stable forms, so that other people will be attracted to that. So that at a certain moment there’s a divergence of planting seeds everywhere, and I think the next stage will be a convergence of groups to start to focus on the seeds that work, and make them blossom.

Doug: And you’re describing the emerging plan coming out of the last retreat in Melbourne. You’re describing the plan to spread with new people more who had the experience into different parts of the world. It’s the meeting I’ve been in this week and next week, and it’s a very accurate description of the discovery of where emergence is going.

Helen: It’s also the imaginal cell metaphor. Where you’re putting out your call and you’re noticing who puts their head up and who’s resonating with it. And it’s my famous pancake batter, as well, where you draw in the flour that’s closest to the eggs. And it’s got to do with calling in the people who resonate most closely. So it’s basically: Don’t go for the really hard stuff first. Do what a snowball does. Go with the stuff that sticks when you roll it!

Catherine: Yes, and at the same time, if we expand the we-ness – even if the other beings don’t understand what we’re saying, or they’re confused, or they laugh at us, remember that the laughter changes their thought patterns… And confusion is one of the most effective ways of stopping someone’s thought patterns and planting a new thought. Because when people are startled or confused, they’re blank. And so our presence, however coherent we are, enters their energy and enters their thought-full-ness.

Mushin: I have one last quote to add, before signing off… “This project implies a new humanism that incorporates and enlarges the scope of self-knowledge into a form of group knowledge and collective thought. The old adage “I think, therefore I am” is generalised as a process of collective intelligence, leading to the creation of a distinct sense of community. We pass from the Cartesian Cogito to Cogitamus.” For those who don’t know their Latin any more, Cogito means ‘I think’, and Cogitamus means ‘we think’.

This is the part of my morning contemplations: Who are we? This is what I’m asking continually: Who are we?

Helen: I’d like to rephrase that: Who am we?

Mushin: Oh, beautiful, yes! Who am we? In German: Wer bin wir? Very nice. In Dutch it’s even better: Wie ben wij?

Catherine: Shall we all have a good laugh to bring this to a close…