1983-07_22 Conscious Dialogue Q&A - 4

Talk: 19830722-Larry_Rosenberg-UNK-conscious_dialogue-1470 Start_time: 00:52:08 Display_question: How do we have a real dialogue without being limited by communication terminology? Keyword_search: dialogue, Greeks, party, conversation, stop, question, term, dharma, talk, idea, striving, communication, terminology, term Question_content: Questioner: My first question would be then I didn't realize that I was doing that. Larry: Oh, no, it's just not just you, all of us. Yeah. Questioner: My question is, how is it that–I include myself, obviously, in this because it comes from myself–that the terms that we use, which have a certain, well, they carry a certain ideal with them actually keep us from moving towards what they embody? Larry: Perhaps like even the phrase dialogue, ancient Greeks and all that puts a too austere a coloration on it? Questioner: No, I wasn't thinking of that. I was thinking more of the spirit of inquiry. I don't know. There are a thousand of them. Larry: Okay, but what is your question? Questioner: That's my question. How is it that they get in the way? Larry: What gets in the way? Questioner: Those kinds of terms when actually what they mean deeply to us has everything to do… Larry: Yes. Questioner: …with communication. Larry: Right. Questioner: …with opening. Larry: Okay. What I'm learning is to not use that terminology but just start doing it. Now at other places. That's what I do. Here there's a tradition of Dharma talks. Maybe it's because I've been here as a yogi quite a bit, where someone gives a talk and everyone sits and listens to it and that has some value. And so in some way, I'm given a more detailed explanation of how I wanted to try and change that a little bit, at least tonight, instead of just changing it. Questioner: Yeah, what I mean by that is I'm used to that form. Larry: Which form? Questioner: Of there being a talk presented like a Dharma talk and myself listening to that and trying to listen in enough to hear what's going on in me so that I can respond even if it's nonverbally to what's happening. Larry: Right. Questioner: My question comes… let me, if I can make a picture. I had the experience once of being at a party when there was lots of people there, some of whom knew each other rather intimately and others less so. There's a large, maybe 15 people and there was a lot of talking going on and it wasn't alive. You could hear the sound but it wasn't alive. And then somebody said something. And… Larry: “Wake up!” Questioner: … and what happened in that room was that 15 people stopped talking. And what they said wasn't critical at all. But what they had done was they had shared something with somebody in some corner about themselves or maybe they asked a question. I can't remember what it was, but what it allowed… The picture I have of it in the moment was it was like a sword and you could kind of feel it cutting the atmosphere, and it allowed everyone else in that room then who wanted to to speak from the same place. And what I remember most about it was that that person's words had none of those terms that we hook onto, that we think we know, but they somehow keep us from getting to talking. Larry: Why? Why for you tonight? Questioner: Why for me tonight what? Larry: Did that happen? Questioner: Did I remember that? Larry: No. Questioner: Why did I now? Larry: Yes. Questioner: Yeah. I think that somehow the presented form impacted me in such a way that I felt that I should, that… it reminded me of some conversations in the past with people where I felt that we both had a particular ideal in life that we were striving for or kind of holding in mind. But what was happening in the moment wasn't that we needed to talk about that as well. Larry: It sounds like to me that what happened was that at some point you left here and became quite involved in your past, the association. That's part of what is being asked is that we pick up on when we move from here and get caught up in associations. Questioner: I don't think that that's what happened because I think that that was very momentary. Larry: I see. Questioner: Like, that was just “sht” and it was and I was back here, so I don't feel like that's what occurred. I think what occurred more is is that what you presented stimulated me. It didn't make me feel uptight or now we're going to be in this Socratic situation, that maybe we really would talk. And when we spun off into some other things, I felt we weren't talking. And it's at that precise point I associated with the past. Larry: Are we talking now, you and I? Questioner: I'd like to think so. Larry: Okay. End_time: 00:59:08 __________________________________________________________________________________