Trials and Tribulations

N had returned from abroad to the Brexit situation. While he had tried not to react emotionally, there were times when he felt upset, frustrated, amazed and shocked as to what had taken place in this country, and the racist attitudes he had seen existing. There were also personal experiences, with people talking very loudly. We were always coming into contact with other people and to try to stay present and not react to those things was important - he thought that was where a large part of the Work exists. At the collective level the Brexit vote had taught him not to expect the best of people in this country. He had always thought Britain was a very decent country which he thought it fundamentally was, but he had not been impressed with how we had ended up.

EXERCISE “ Intentional suffering - once a day to compel yourselves to be able to endure the "displeasing-manifestations-of-others-towards-yourselves".”

D had boarded a bus to get to the Meeting in good time, but it was diverted as the Hampstead Summer Festival had closed one of the village roads. He had to get off the bus a long walk away, and tried not to react. At first he was fuming but started to calm down. The sun was shining and the little back streets were nice. He found it extremely frustrating. Also, the other day he had been on a bus and two women got on and sat right behind him, although the bus was quite empty. One put her feet up on the back of the seat in front, and the other sat across the aisle, and they were talking so loud, shouting across, and he was trying not to react, although he really wanted to say something. When they got off the bus he smiled to himself, as he thought he had achieved something. So twice he had been in a situation where it was very hard not to react.

RM had been continuing with his meditation techniques and was getting more and more sense of presence all the time. It was no longer just moments. It all started that moment when he woke up, sat on the side of the bed, and did that one-minute meditation. He noticed that as he was more present, there seemed more synergy, harmony with nature. If he was late for the train, the train would be late for him.

T didn't manage to plan intentional suffering but had experienced suffering and had a few moments in the suffering when she became aware that this could be the exercise and to consciously remain in it rather than try and end the situation. One example happened when she had lost her Oyster card, and received a phone message from TFL the day after but the voice was indistinct and then had cut off. She deduced the card had been found, and phoned the number back, only to hear an announcement that it was a TFL number at which no message could be left. There ensued several lengthy phone calls to the main number waiting to be connected during which she began to realise that she was suffering. This change in thinking from suffering to intentional suffering gave her energy a surge. She continued over several days, without giving up, to no material avail, except it had served as intentional suffering for her.

L had discovered that there was no need to go in search of opportunities for intentional suffering. He had bought a kettle some time ago online which was faulty. He had had emails with the firm he had bought it from. They stalled but eventually sent a replacement, but it wasn't left where it should have been and got taken away with recycling. So there was endless opportunity to stay in touch with them and they would keep stalling forever. There was also a problem with broadband at home, and BT was likewise stalling about fixing it, so he could keep phone calls going on with them. They were very annoying phone calls, because he was passed from one person to another, and each time he had to identify who he was, and go through the whole story. So he could keep that going on forever, until he switched to Virgin, which was going to happen sometime soon. So there was endless opportunity for intentional suffering, and it was good to take it with good humour, but of course the natural response was to be very cross.

On a different matter, the referendum reminded him of the discussion last time about gravity, the difficulty of going into orbit and getting away from the pressure against independent thought,  and one way of looking at the referendum was different thinking from a wider authority, and removing institutions from a wider legal system, and it was very hard, there was a lot of resistance, and even after the result, a lot of pressure not to act on it.

Following the contributions, the Meeting moved to responses.

D's trials with the buses recalled to GC's mind an incident years ago when he had the opportunity to negotiate on the price of a house with an elderly man who was very unwell in hospital, with amputated legs. The asking price was higher then GC had been advised it was worth. He decided, under the circumstances, to step back. On reflection, it seemed to him that in certain situations you have to go forward, and not step back and allow life to do what it will with you, because there are certain times when you want to do some thing, or people are annoying you, and you can't just take a back seat. If you opt out and don't have to get involved in these sort of things, sure, live that life, but once you are involved, sometimes you have to step over the line to let be done what you want, because unfortunately if you don't somebody else will. These memories were reinforced by D's account - if someone is annoying you, you either move away from the situation or say something. T said that D had become the puppeteer, he had walked up the string into the puppeteer - he had been watching it rather than being involved in it which was partly an exercise, as most of the time we are tussling with the character in the play.

RM was not sure this was a proper assessment of the right thing to do. He said his understanding was that if you were going to be in the play, play the part. If you were going to be angry, be angry. The main point is to be there while you're doing it, see your body being angry. You live the act of the body doing what it wants to do, but observe what happens. As the body sees the observer, it modifies itself and becomes more subtle in its actions. He thought that to stop and not get involved was missing the point. D thought this was a matter of choice, and you had the power to make that choice. He thought that to react angrily, if you took it to its logical conclusion, was very dangerous, though he understood what RM meant in a higher sense. N said that sometimes we are reacting to absurd situations which we can't affect at all, like the weather. Sometimes there is an impersonality about these situations. Perhaps that was the right attitude to take to Brexit, to accept the fact it had happened. Other situations, such as those D had mentioned, can be changed - you could complain about people talking noisily, but maybe they would react quite aggressively.

Following the responses, the Meeting continued reading from Beelzebub's Tales, Chapter 21.

... endurance towards others' manifestations displeasing to oneself could alone crystallize in their common presences that 'Partkdolg-duty' which in general is necessary for all three-centered beings.

With acknowledgments to Harold Good Watch on YouTube

T thought  that this was what D had been doing in the episode with the noisy passengers on the bus. RM said that, though D had not been directly involved, his feelings had been involved so he had been suffering. D cited Body Integrity Identity Disorder, in which a person might insist on having an amputation. Doctors tell them it is not rational, but in certain circumstances have performed amputation of a healthy limb for their well-being, and it had produced relief in patients. D did not know why that had come to mind. T said that earlier GC had mentioned a man whose legs had been amputated.

And so, for the purpose of this famous 'suffering' of theirs, many of the three-centered beings of that planet of yours, either singly or in groups, that is to say, with others who thought as they did, began from then on to go away from amongst beings similar to themselves.

They even organized special colonies for this purpose, where, although existing together, they nevertheless arranged everything so as to produce this 'endurance' of theirs in solitude.

It was just then that their famous what are called 'monasteries' came into existence, which exist down to the present time and in which, as it were, certain of your contemporary favorites as they say, 'save their souls.'

RM said this explained exactly how people misinterpret what Buddha had said. They believe they have to do intentional suffering, find others who will share in such a practice, and then they form a club, or monastery, and they feel very good.

Gene Wilder, as Rabbi Avram Belinsky in The Frisco Kid (1979), undermines monastery tradition.
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... when these certain parts of the Great All-embracing, already spiritualized by Divine Reason, return and reblend with the great Prime Source of the All-embracing, they should compose that Whole which in the hopes of our COMMON ENDLESS UNIBEING may actualize the sense and the striving of all that exists in the whole of the Universe.

Further, it seems Saint Buddha also told them:

You, three-centered beings of the planet Earth, having the possibility of acquiring in yourselves both chief fundamental, universal, sacred laws, have the full possibility also of coating yourselves with this most sacred part of the Great All-embracing of everything existing and of perfecting it by the required Divine Reason.

T wondered if it was deliberate that the word unibeing can be read as Un-I-Being, a complete absence of "I". RM saw it as Uni-being, the unified one being we were all a part of. N said that Buddhism was a religion which did not require belief in a god, so it was an interesting juxtaposition that unibeing appears in this passage. T thought it amusing that Gurdjieff prefixes Buddha's name with the word Saint, bringing together two different belief systems.

... But when the second and third generations of the contemporaries of Saint Buddha began wiseacring with His explanations of cosmic truths, they just wiseacred with their peculiar Reason and fixed—for its transmission—a very definite notion to the effect that that same 'Mister Prana' already begins to be in them immediately upon their arising.

Thanks to this misunderstanding, the beings of that period and of all subsequent generations including the contemporary, have imagined and still imagine that without any being-Partkdolg-duty they are already parts of that Most Great Greatness, which Saint Buddha Himself had personally very definitely explained.

L found the reference to partkdolg duty interesting, and the idea that nobody can make progress unless they are doing it. He saw it as paying for his life, with the talents with which he was born. T said that partkdolg duty was something other than sitting down meditating for eight hours a day in a monastery. L said that the passage says that Buddhism was misinterpreted to indicate that everybody was born with the capacity that partkdolg duty is required to attain. GC said that if you want to lose weight, it's very simple - Eat less and move more. What we were aiming for was also very simple - Think less and do what needs to be done. It was as simple as that.

... they were warned by still another Saint-Individual, also a genuine Messenger from Above, namely, the Saint Kirmininasha.

And this Saint and genuine Messenger gave this warning to them in the following words:

' Blessed is he that hath a soul; blessed also is he that hath none; but grief and sorrow are to him that hath in himself its conception.'

T said it suggested that some people had souls and some did not and that conception meant something had been conceived in that person, and the grief and sorrow is the growing pains. GC disagreed and said it meant that you create your own reality - it was about the issue of mind. RM said it meant if you had your own conception about it, you were in trouble. L thought it meant we human beings were born without a soul, and then by exercising partkdolg duty the soul can be built.

Following the reading, there was a discussion about what exercise to adopt for the coming month, and a suggestion from GC was adopted: When you are in the company of someone who is, in your judgement, talking a load of rubbish, observe your own thoughts and then annihilate them. Then respond naturally.