Sacrificing suffering

The meeting started with a reading from the first lecture of the Eight Meetings in Paris, held on 8 April, 1943, in which the second question addressed to Gurdjieff was how to understand the words "sacrifice thy suffering". Drawing on an earlier talk, Gurdjieff replied: "Sacrifice your suffering for your neighbor, your voluntary suffering, not for yourself, but for others. (This rule used to form part of the oath pronounced formerly by doctors when they were astrologers and a long time ago when they had to promise to sacrifice their sleep, their fatigue, their suffering, for others.)"

He then went on to talk of three excrements of which the third is "formed in the head; it is rubbish of the food impressions, and the wastes accumulate in the brain. (The physician ignores it, just as he ignores the important role of the appendix in digestion, and rejects it as wastes.)"

A discussion followed the reading. "R" said that by the "third excrement", Gurdjieff was referring to more than a wandering mind - it can elaborated through looking at diagrams in the literature of the Work.

Moving from the reference to digestion, the issue of vegetarianism was addressed. R said that his teacher, the Swami, and Khalil Gibran, said there was no spiritual need to be a vegetarian. However R said he would be unable to eat a dolphin, as dolphins were very intelligent. L asked where one would draw the line between animals one could and could not eat, and suggested it was cultural. None present would want to eat a cat, although they are eaten in other parts of the world.

Following on the plan outlined in the December meeting, the participants, in turn, presented relevant experiences from the previous month. T spoke of how life drawing helps focusing, and is very humbling. L mentioned how ego undermines art and its administration.