We both aim to transmit ways of being. That demands a different mode than conventional teaching, which explains facts, concepts, theories, and procedures.
David attempts to transmit meta-rationality—not a theory or method, but a way of being, namely “actually caring for the concrete situation, including all its context, complexity, and nebulosity, with its purposes, participants, and paraphernalia.”
We both attempt to transmit Vajrayana Buddhism. That is a way of being: it includes elaborate doctrines and practices, but those are not the point. The point is effective beneficent activity, enabled by liberation from fixed patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting.
Vajrayana can be subdivided into Buddhist tantra and Dzogchen. Both include multiple, non-ordinary, centuries-tested ways of transmitting the way of being. Tantra uses elaborate ritual methods, such as abhisheka/wang/empowerment, which David described briefly in “You should be a God-Emperor,” and which we discuss in this podcast episode. Dzogchen relies on obscure non-instructions, as in “A non-statement ain't-framework.”
Traditional Vajrayana demands particular patterns of teacher-student interaction that in the podcast we describe as “gross.” They rely on dominance/submission dynamics, and we don’t believe they work well anymore. Charlie has developed an alternative approach, discussed in the podcast. (Also in “The learning relationship in contemporary Vajrayana” and “How to learn Buddhist tantra.”)
The podcast is a recording of a spontaneous conversation, in which David sought and received advice from Charlie on how to be as a teacher.
Transcript
David: We have these discussions that are really animated and exciting, and usually about 30 minutes into them when we’re more or less done, we say, damn, we should have been recording this.
Charlie: How many times?
David: Yeah, this happens every few days. And this time, 20 minutes into one of them, I said, okay, let’s stop, drop everything, and try and record something, and see. But we’ve now got the context of 20 minutes of animated discussion of a topic. And if we go back over it, it’s not going to be the same, but maybe we can talk about it a bit to introduce it, and then there was some stuff I was going to add on, and that was the point where I thought, okay, maybe we can record that.
Charlie: I remember the conversation starting when you expressed some discomfort around finding that people were beginning to be sycophantic or adulatory or have some response to your writing recently that triggered this reaction of discomfort of, well, can you say more about what that was?
David: Yeah, having started writing on Substack has changed the way I think about relating to an audience in ways that I don’t really understand very well. I want to get a better understanding of my side of the relationship with the audience. And also, what is functional for readers or listeners. And you know, what can I do that’s most useful? And I was seeing that some of the pieces I’ve written recently, and the most recent piece was the God Emperor piece, have gotten a lot of attention in ways that I’m not really completely comfortable with. There’s a sense of: I don’t want to be writing clickbait, I don’t want to be sensationalistic. With both that and The Piss Test, which also went somewhat this way, I wasn’t intending, or mostly not intending to be sensationalistic. I was just trying to explain a thing. There’s bits in there that are kind of deliberately over the top, but that’s just a normal part of how I communicate.
I worry about a number of different dynamics. One is that I might get sucked into writing that kind of piece rather than the much more serious things, and I think the more serious things are more important. Those are the ones that I really want the readers to take onboard. I’m worried about audience capture, where one gradually becomes a caricature of oneself in response to an audience liking a thing and then you do more of that thing and then your audience drifts into being more and more one sided of, they just want that entertainment; and then, you know, you can wind up being stupid.
I said I was uncomfortable with a lot of things, not that it was going to stop me, but that I need to think it through. And one of them is a discomfort with some people going over the top on the fan thing. And you asked me why that’s uncomfortable for me and partly it’s just being autistic and awkward, and not really wanting to be seen in some ways. I said I fear the possible ego inflation that could come with people going on about “Oh, you’re so great,” and some people do that, not a lot, but sometimes it’s kind of over the top. It’s partly how that makes me feel, but it’s more of this sense that they’re putting themselves down by doing that. Sometimes! I mean some people just genuinely offer appreciation, which is very genuine. And I think for them, that’s good. It may make me uncomfortable, but that’s not significant. But I think some people debase themselves in some kind of effort to maybe communicate genuine appreciation? Possibly in some cases it’s manipulative.
And you’d given me a lot of good advice, but we had gotten to talking about the way this functions in traditional Vajrayana, which both of us find really off -putting and just gross.
There’s this social norm of, I mean, it’s called devotion, but it’s, it isn’t devotion. It’s usually fairly fake, and it’s this hyper-effusive adulation combined with this dominance and submission dynamic. You know, I was just writing about master and slave morality. That was my jumping off point for the God Emperor piece, although mostly I just said this is stupid, but people do that. People are behaving like slaves to the lama and that’s just, it’s gross.
Charlie: It’s predictable, it’s very prescribed, it’s the same from one person to another. That’s one of the ways that it’s different to appreciation, which is usually very personal and specific.
David: I’ve been trying for eight years to move into a teaching role. You very kindly have provided a venue for me to start doing that, which is happening the day after tomorrow. So that brings up questions about what is my role? As something like a teacher. You’ve been working with this question for yourself for, well, decades, but especially since forming Evolving Ground four years ago?
Charlie: Yeah.
David: Yeah. You said a little about how you’ve handled that and how you’ve changed the way do it. And how we both feel that avoiding the traditional teacher-student dynamic that comes in Vajrayana, that’s gross. We don’t want that. And yet, there are some aspects of that that are functional and I was suggesting to you a few days ago that, in fact, you have separated yourself from some of the functional parts of that role in order to avoid the dysfunctional parts, and I was encouraging you to pick up a bit more of the functional parts. But you said you wanted to speak about sycophancy in general and how you think about that and how gross it is?
Charlie: Well, so, there’s the whole question of role or not role, or whether, we individually relate to what we are doing as role, and the extent to which we might step into a role.
In Evolving Ground it’s very explicit that role is a fluid concept, and there are some structures that people can move in and out of, including in the in the learning experience. And in the providing, the teaching, the mentoring, whatever. One does not take a fixed role and that is it, always that role in that context.
So there’s a different way that role, and relationship with role, is being offered and explored. But for me personally, it’s not so much about role anymore. It’s much more about how am I in this particular situation with this particular person or this group. What is the dynamic here?
So it’s a question of reading. It’s like I would read a room or a group dynamic or an interaction, and then be responsive in that situation. So it has much more of an immediate question around way of being, or response, than it is a general question for me now.
One of the reasons that we both left traditional context was because of that dynamic. Because the predictability of it makes it very dead. It’s actually just not interesting to be in circumstances that are that prescribed, and that people are behaving in a very particular way that is not coming from their individual experience, or it’s so boxed into a way of expressing that it’s very samey.
David: I think of Jordan Peterson as a cautionary tale that— I don’t know what happened with him, but it seems that the pressure of his being guru to millions of people somehow caused severe trouble for him. And I’m not going to be guru to millions of people for lots of reasons, but on a smaller scale that is a potential long term concern.
I’m much more concerned for the person doing the fan thing in a way that seems unhealthy for them, and I would like to find a way to be such that they don’t feel, whatever the motivation is for doing that, they don’t feel that they want to or need to do that, because it’s not actually good for them.
Charlie: Wouldn’t want anybody going over the top here.
David: Yes, god forbid anybody go over the top about tantra!
Charlie: Oh, no.
David: That’s right out in tantra.
I would be interested, if you’re willing to talk about it, you said that you have taken various tacks on this in Evolving Ground. You’ve changed the way that you are in a teaching situation, as a matter of skillful means in addressing some issues like this. And then I wanted to say, hey, I think actually, you may be partly missing the mark, or going too far in that— particularly in the context of transmission, is where this came up in an earlier conversation a few days ago, where I feel that something in this region is importantly functional. And when sane traditionalists talk about there being no substitute for the tantric lama, and the whole thing can’t function without that, they’re talking about transmission. And maybe we need to delete this section; it’s a sensitive topic. I think, based on something you said a few days ago, there may be an opportunity for you to relax certain things that you have set up as off limits for yourself, for very good reasons.
Charlie: There are a number of themes. There’s charisma, which is quite topical at the moment, so it could be interesting and useful to talk about that. There’s power, which overlaps, and is not the same. There’s transmission…
So I’ll say something about what I’ve practiced with, how things have changed it a little bit. I appreciate you wanting to see more of what you know I have done in the past, and I’m capable of: around that stepping into a particular way of being that is very conducive to atmosphere and to transmission.
I’ll say something about that in a traditional context: there’s a particular kind of dynamic, it, it involves a way of being that is supported by the structure of a traditional context, in that anyone who doesn’t fit into that immediately deselects themselves, or is deselected by the group.
So there is an intense focus. And a coherent atmosphere, that can be found very quickly in a traditional context, because of that setup. And a key aspect of that setup is the lama in the center of that mandala of interactions, everybody’s attention on the lama. And the lama behaves— this is really very much more tantric than a Dzogchen style, to be honest. The lama behaves in a way that— It might be called charismatic. There’s a lot of direct relating, maybe eye contact; aspects of interaction that would normally be associated with social dominance. So, examples of that: long staring eye contact beyond what would be a conversational norm. Unwavering.
Often people will call it “presence.” It’s just so easy to do that. It’s so easy to cast your spell on somebody so that they become subdued into awe. And of course that functions, in that context.
At this point I am confident that it’s possible to transmit, in the traditional sense, transmit the experience of being in non-ordinary state, or being in a different way of being, interacting in a way that is highly non-ordinary, and beneficial and conducive to extraordinary experience, and extraordinary things happening.
And I think it’s possible for that to occur without the power-play. And in fact, often what is confused as transmission is the power aspect of that, and the dominance and submission. And of course it does work, but then the people who are operating in that context think that it is the same thing. They believe that in order to get the juice, we’ve got to go into this mode. You even hear people talking about going back to a particular lama to get the thing and to get that experience. And there’s a kind of hypnosis that comes along with that.
It’s an extraordinary experience. I mean, I’ve certainly had that myself, and it makes a lot more non-ordinary mind state accessible, but the question that I’ve had and that I, I’m pretty confident that I’ve answered now, is that it ought to be possible to— if you can access that kind of a state, open presence of awareness, let’s call it, it ought to be possible to access that in different contexts, without relying on the crutch of being back in that context with that person, with those people.
And so a lot of the work that I do in my one on one, or in different group contexts, is ensuring that, when something extraordinary happens, that it’s also embedded into that experience, that it is entirely possible to find it in different circumstances. And a lot of the methods that I’m developing are in order that that can be possible. So that’s the transmission part of the traditional context, and how it could look and feel very different.
And the charisma that is connected with that. And, you know, there’s a lot of discussion recently, which is really quite interesting around, well, what is charisma? And often I think charisma is confused with that power, to hold attention, hold— traditional word— hold the mandala, only through that social-dominance way of being. And actually, what’s really interesting is being able to do that when that isn’t there. That’s exciting. The very predictable, go into a retreat setting and be in the presence of this person who’s really stepping into a role, and behaving in a guru way, being the guru; actually that just personally to me that doesn’t appeal. I can do that, and I know well enough now that just I don’t like that. It’s something to do with seeing how much that limits the potential of other people who fall into that mode. I don’t think it’s any particular person who could fall into that. It’s just circumstances. You know, something can just happen in certain circumstances that make that possible. And it is so extraordinary when you have that experience that you can see why people get stuck in it.
David: A very funny thing happened. Well, it’s funny for me.
Charlie: What was that?
David: Very funny thing happened earlier today, which is you said to me, you said, “You are much more traditional than Evolving Ground.” And I was like “Me? I’m more traditional?? I thought I was the least traditional explainer of Vajrayana on the planet!”
Charlie: No you’re not! That’s so funny!
David: You know, there’s people giving me all kinds of flack for, you know, I have no right to speak about Vajrayana because, you know, you’re not doing the whatever. So that that was very funny.
But I want to come back to— In the “God Emperor” piece, I wrote about abhisheka, wang, as it traditionally was; and that’s not the way anybody does it now. But wang is a ritual that is orchestrated by the lama, is centered on the lama, and there is a decorum around it. The participants need to understand what is expected of them very clearly. They need to understand— well, often they don’t. I mean, very often in wang, nobody has any idea why they’re there; but ideally they should understand clearly what’s going on, and why they’re there, and what their role is, such that they will receive the transmission.
And part of that is— so I think this may be, you know, where I’m more traditional, and you’re going to reject this. Part of that is visualizing the lama as the yidam. For me, that was highly functional. And the ritual decorum around how one relates to the lama, for me was highly functional, just in the context of wang. Otherwise, a lot of the time it seemed fake, forced, unnecessary, and not actually good for anybody involved.
Charlie: Oh yeah, I totally agree. I mean, for me, in the empowerment, the formal empowerment situation, that was very moving, sometimes very moving indeed.
David: For the sake of listeners, wang, abhisheka, and "empowerment" are three different words for the same ritual.
Charlie: So yeah, I would use the English and I’d just say formal—
David: —formal, formal empowerment, formal transmission, right—
Charlie: transmission or empowerment, yeah. And those circumstances, if you are open to just stepping in to the structure and the experience of ritual, that can be very transformative and moving and beautiful. It can be a beautiful experience.
David: So I don’t know if you are avoiding doing that out of personal discomfort?
Charlie: How do you mean, in Evolving Ground? We’re just not quite at that point yet. We have formal tsok. We have a chöd practice. We have various group rituals.
But the whole way of relating to ritual and bringing a meaningful, alive, electric ritual experience into being— that takes a long time. You know, for a start, you have to have a group of people who have spent years together already, bonding and having a shared language and shared context of interest and practice. And that’s why we say we’re a “community of practice.”
There is that base now, there are those connections and friendships. The first group ritual that we had was January 2022, and we’ve been building on that, building on that experience, but the— yeah, we just haven’t gotten around to having the formal empowerment there yet.
But yidam practice: we have Evolving Ground yidams now. I mean, you can’t have an empowerment without a yidam, right? So you have to have, you have to have the
David: you have to have
Charlie: have to have
David: yidams.
Charlie: Yidam first.
Also, we have very consistently been constructing everything from perspective of Dzogchen understanding and framework and view. And that means that there is a particular flavor to the practices that come into being. And empowerment isn’t the first thing that you would set up and create, when you’re working from that perspective.
David: Right. Well, I’m thinking more about transmission in general, when there is some ritual element to it. And, one of the things I often say is, I actually have no idea what you do! You put it nicely that my relationship with Evolving Ground is nebulous. And my standard joke is that my official Evolving Ground title is Sangyum, which means the lama’s wife. So I, you know, I don’t know what you do. Maybe—
Charlie: Well, a lot of what I do is very personal as well. So, you know, in some sense you wouldn’t, and other people don’t, because the relationship that I have with one person is not the same as, or exactly the same as the relationship that I have with another.
And, we do have plenty of group contexts. But you know, in a way it would be better to ask other people what I do.
David: Mm-Hmm. Yeah.
Charlie: I guess?
David: Well, maybe I should don my anthropologist hat and interview a bunch of Evolving Ground students to find out.
Charlie: Yeah. And I don’t think it’s, you know, this isn’t false humility. It’s: a lot of what I do is seeing the possibility space, and seeing and encouraging the potential in some very serious and experienced practitioners in Evolving Ground.
There was a lovely story, today actually. I was with Tanner. So we were having this conversation about a sudden shift that he experienced in relation to talking to people about politics. He had been getting to this point where he had opinions, but it was really important to be honest in those opinions, and take them and share them with family and with his friends. And he was getting into these heated, really quite painful discussions, and falling out with people, and relationships were getting very difficult. And he spoke to Ari, who is a long term practitioner and apprentice in Evolving Ground. And he said, “Oh, Ari just said this one thing, and everything changed from that moment.”
I said, “Well, what, what did he say? Amazing! I, you know, tell me.” And he said, “Oh, he said ‘Really pay attention to the care more than the opinion. I tend to just be more focused on care than what the opinion is.’ And everything just shifted and changed.”
So there’s a context that, because of the relationships within Evolving Ground, there’s this ongoing discussion and conversation. So it’s much, much more of a continued conversation that gives rise to that kind of transmission.
David: Right. Yeah, I mean, it seems consistent with Dzogchen, and I guess maybe I’m just thinking about empowerment because I wrote about it a few days ago. I think you have said before that transmission typically in Evolving Ground is one-on-one.
Charlie: Not necessarily now, because we have so many group retreats now that a lot of— vajra retreat in Evolving Ground I’ll always start by giving— we’ll have a talk on atmosphere. I say a lot about what it is about an atmosphere that is coherent, not disparate, that can give rise to everybody being on the same page, a shared awareness. And when you’re in that space, that’s electric. It’s an amazing experience, when you know, and everybody knows, everyone in the same room is aware in the same space of awareness. And you can’t really have that if people are off doing their own, you know, some people are chatting in this corner and that corner.
It’s like when you have a dinner party and there’s a small enough group that everybody’s having the same conversation. That is such a different experience to everybody sitting, talking to the person next to them. And some people are talking to the other people down there, and then there’s just this very different kind of atmosphere.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong or right with either sort of atmosphere, it’s simply that when there is a shared experience of awareness, then all other kinds of shared meaningful experience can come online. But you need that atmosphere first.
So we teach that. We look at, well, how does that happen? What is it that gives rise to that kind of experience? How do we facilitate that as a group?
And then transmission occurs, through the ritual, through spontaneous stuff that happens in those circumstances.
David: Cool. I have often wished that I was involved with Evolving Ground, much more intimately, from the beginning, but I haven’t been able to due to circumstances.
We actually started out talking about sycophancy, and how the traditional Vajrayana setup demands it, as well as encourages it, and you have found ways of not encouraging it, or actively disencouraging it; and it might be useful for me, because we started out this conversation with my saying that that was making me a bit uncomfortable, and making me think about how do I relate to my audience on Substack. And if I’m starting to teach, how do I feel and think about this, and what can I do to be helpful in discouraging artificial sycophancy.
Charlie: You just relate to them as an adult. You know, if somebody goes into, you know, makes themselves small for whatever reason, you simply just continue regarding them and talking with them and, and seeing them as an adult, and as capable, responsible, interesting, delightful person that you want to understand and connect with.
David: That sounds easy. Good. In that case, probably I should stop being concerned.
Charlie: Say more?
David: Something I learned in business is that as an executive, your personality defects are multiplied by the number of levels of hierarchy below you. If you’ve got five levels of people below you, any personality defects you have are going to get blown up fivefold. And that means if you’re going to be operating at that level, you really need to sort out your personality defects. And a lot of people don’t, and you know, there’s a lot of psychopathic CEOs. I think the same thing happens with any kind of status hierarchy. it happens pretty clearly with a significant number of Tibetan lamas who go off the rails. They would be fine being a town priest, but, when they have millions of followers, they get themselves in deep trouble.
Charlie: Do you think of yourself as having defects that you need to be careful about?
David: Yeah!
Charlie: What are those?
David: What are my personality defects? In some ways, I fundamentally just don’t care about people. I have dedicated my life very seriously to the benefit of other people. I just about always try to be kind and decent in interactions. There’s exceptions, but usually I manage that. But there is a level at which I just don’t actually care. So that’s one thing.
I have the standard kleshas, if we want to use Buddhist terms. I do have a tendency to grandiosity, which you’ve seen me joke about a lot, but I think you haven’t actually seen me in that mode because I’ve been hiding in a cave for 25 years.
Charlie: I have totally seen you in that mode.
David: Oh, I see. All right, fine. Right. So yes, ego inflation is a real danger for me, and there’s a lot of things that I have chosen not to do, for precisely that reason. Before I was involved with Buddhism, I was involved with Wiccan Neopaganism, which is actually tantric and it’s actually modeled on Hindu Tantra, although officially it isn’t, but that’s where a lot of it comes from.
And just because nobody else was doing the job that needed to be done, I gradually effectively transitioned into a guru role. People wanted that from me. I could do it. And having not gone at all far down that road— I was, I don’t know, 26, 27, 25. It was very clear to me that this was nuts. I was utterly unqualified for this role, and nobody should be looking to me for what they were looking to me for. So I just left.
Charlie: So how does that connect to your big inflated grandiose ego?
David: Well, I could see that there was, I mean, I it wasn’t an actual possibility, but it was a hypothetical possibility that I could have rolled with that. And, you know, I can in fact be very charismatic. I’m not sure you’ve ever seen that.
Charlie: I think I’ve seen that, too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I can think of certain circumstances, yeah.
David: So, I mean it wasn’t a real temptation, but it was a hypothetical temptation, and that was bad enough. And again, there was a point where I was suddenly famous in artificial intelligence, and I had fans and groupies, who were being sycophantic and adulatory in ways that I thought were quite inappropriate. I had a lot of reasons for leaving artificial intelligence, but being uncomfortable with that probably was number three.
When have you seen me being charismatic?
Charlie: When you wear a business suit. And you move into a different way of being.
David: That’s interesting.
Charlie: So you’re quite different when you’re in that mode. Often it involves— when you’re wearing different clothes, actually. So when—
David: Clothes make the man! That is tantric principle.
Charlie: Times in Montana when you were behaving in a very magnetic way. So, I associate charisma with the two Buddhakarmas, magnetism and the power one, destroying, those two. And there’s a mode of being that is very direct and clear, that I do think is charismatic. And I think it’s not associated with the more common social dynamics that, once you can see those, they just become really tedious, and just uninteresting. And yeah, there’s something very different about a way of being that is clear and present and commanding, but not commanding of any particular person for anything. It doesn’t need anything.
I had a lot of conversations with Barine around need and perceived need. She’s had a lot of experience with different teachers in very different contexts, and something she really picks up on when somebody is needing the energy from the audience or the students, for their own sense of well being, or sense of being important or status or whatever it is. And it’s so obvious.
It’s also really obvious when you just don’t need something from people. And that can be frustrating for some people.
David: One of the things that has impressed me about some of the lamas that have impressed me is exactly that sense that that they— well, I think it’s actually maybe related to the sense in which I don’t care about people. It’s that I don’t actually need anything from anybody.
Charlie: Well, I was going to ask you when you said that: What do you make of the contradiction of “in some way, at some level, I don’t care about other people at all, and I have dedicated my whole life to other people?”
David: Yeah. I think I said that partly because I don’t feel I understand it very well. Maybe this is self-congratulatory. I do think it’s related to the sense that I don’t need people to be any particular way or do anything. Maybe it’s the opposite of narcissism? Being narcissistic means that you constantly need the reinforcement and… I was about to say I’m indifferent to it, but we started out with my saying that in some ways I’m actually actively uncomfortable with it. Maybe that’s out of a fear that I am also narcissistic as well as anti-narcissistic. That I am, historically have been, prone to ego inflation. It doesn’t seem to happen anymore, so maybe after six decades I’ve grown up a little bit, I don’t know.
And you did say that you had modified the way that you taught in the first— I think you said it was in, like, in the first year or so of EG— in order to deliberately discourage that, and I said that I wanted to know how you had done that, and I don’t think you’ve answered yet.
Charlie: Well, I went out of teacher mode, I stopped giving presentations. All of the early recordings of eG, they’re just me blathering on for like 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, just giving a presentation, teaching a thing. It’s the closest that we had been to “giving a dharma talk.” I never give dharma talks now. I might— five minutes, ten minutes maximum, give an introduction to a topic if it’s not something that we’ve talked much about before or spent a lot of time on.
Usually I will teach in the way of having conversation, and eliciting experience, encouraging people to talk about their own experience, and hearing about their experience, and asking questions and responding, such that something will just arise in context. And I might— some kind of rant will arise or something that might seem to be useful given where the conversation is going.
It’s not that there isn’t teaching and learning happening, but it’s much more fluid. We have this phrase “the learning relationship,” and it’s much more that the attitude is one of “what is there to learn here?” Not “what is there to explain?” And if you simply have that holding attitude, everything changes. The method changes, the method of transmission changes, the method of interaction changes. And it becomes much less “Here is an expert giving a talk”; people retain only about 5 percent of that anyway. And it’s much more interesting, it’s much more alive for the people engaged in that topic, because they’re actually relating whatever it is to their lives.
I mean, it seems pretty obvious, but it’s not the way that it’s usually. I do think, I really do think Evolving Ground has developed its own style in this area.
And each of the gathering types are very distinct, they have their very own particular method or mode of interaction that is not the same across the board. So, for example, we’ll have one that is much more a Q&A circumstance, where everybody in the room is invited to give their answers from their experience, from their practice. Or, another one is much more of a deep dive where one person is exploring their practice, facilitated by others there. So there are these different modes that have naturally grown, and it’s much more interesting, I think.
David: So I have a couple of questions about that. Maybe I’ll ask all the questions at once, so I don’t forget them and then you can forget them instead! One is, How does this relate to discouraging dysfunctional sycophancy? And the second one isn’t a question, it’s more of a comment, which is that I assembled a “dharma talk” out of your doing that thing, and turned it into this video presentation about tsa lung in Dzogchen, which I think is great, and has about a thousand views on YouTube so far. So I’m not the only person who thinks it’s great. So possibly I have misled everybody about what you do, but maybe giving dharma talks might actually sometimes be useful. The third thing is, when you suggested that I start doing a monthly Q&A, I think one of the things you said was something roughly along the lines of “You’re much better at giving boring theoretical and historical explanations of boring stuff—”
Charlie: Sure I didn’t say exactly that.
David: “…and doing a traditional boring dharma talk…”
Charlie: although it is true.
David: So I, I will bore everybody to death with these things.
Charlie: Well, we’ve been looking for a guru.
David: Right, well if drafted I will not serve.
You know, I think I’m good at answering boring questions with boring answers. More seriously I’m good at giving conceptual explanations of things. It’s a different mode than what you do, that is also useful for some people and—
Charlie: Yeah, I mean, it depends on the context. There are contexts in which I will give much, much more theoretical framing, and answer questions theoretically. It depends. The monthly regular gatherings tend to be more personal experience oriented. The book club sometimes can be more theoretical. But courses, and certain classes and retreats, there’ll be much more of that, providing some historical context, or teaching on the principle of something, or giving a little bit of a framing, or a theoretical, much more of a kind of “talk” style. So I do do that, sometimes, certainly not averse to that in some congruent context.
What was the first question that you asked?
David: How does this mode discourage sycophancy?
Charlie: Oh, because, it isn’t simply, let’s everybody share experience here. There is an, element of inviting people to bring their experience. And that does provide an interesting context for what arises from that. Usually there is a lot of riffing on that, such that it’s not simply a “let’s all share our feelings” and it’s much more considered than pure expression. Many people are contributing. I mean, if you were going to be sycophantic, you’d have a hard job, because you’d have to like, be keeping up, like it would really difficult because because everybody is shining. Everybody is actually very interesting.
And the more that you bring out people, to their edge, of their practice or their life experience— because we’re always relating it back to life experience— the more that somebody gets into that zone where “actually, this is something I really don’t quite understand about how I can work with this, or what this is, or what’s going on here,” then it’s interesting.
If you’re inclined to sycophancy, it’s a very difficult context to manifest that in, because, you know, our community norms are that we’re encouraging skillful disagreement, we’re training curious skepticism, we’re, you know, these are baked into the nature of the interactions. So that’s one reason.
Another reason is that nobody is there giving an expert opinion and “talk.” And therefore there isn’t a reference point on which to glom your sycophancy.
I want to have more conversation about charisma, or even if we don’t call it charisma, you know, there really is something that can happen in interactions that is very powerful. And it would be easy for— I don’t know whether we want to keep this on the recording at all or not— but there are moments in which I can choose to be powerful, and that isn’t a problem for me, and I can just move into that mode, and execute, or provide what is needed. Certainly, at this point in Evolving Ground, I still don’t do that very much at all. I might do it occasionally, in individual circumstances, or very small group circumstances. It’s too easy for me.
I don’t think the reason that I don’t do that is because it’s easy. It’s partly to do with fit. That kind of mode really does work very well with people who are more inclined towards making themselves insignificant. And, to the extent that people do tend to do that in Evolving Ground, I want to encourage the opposite. I really encourage people to see their difference, to see how they’re autonomous, to have that as their base. That’s our base for the Fundamentals, one of our bases, and it’s important for entering into any tantric practice: that you’re quite adept at knowing your own boundaries, knowing how to be different, being able to express difference, autonomy. All of the things that go wrong in traditional contexts would not go wrong, if people had available that capacity to self-distinguish. And set aside from difficult or unhealthy group dynamics.
So we’re very actively encouraging that mode, and it is somewhat contrary to that to move into a mode that is easily powerful and conjuring with atmospheres and interactions. Those two things do not sit easily together. So I tend to just be a little cautious around that.
David: Yeah. Just conceptually, a very interesting question, if you have a group of self-authored, confident, self-contained people, how to structure a ritual atmosphere, which can actually draw on that, and that empowers a different kind of ritual atmosphere, where there’s a sense of, “Okay, everybody here is actually powerful, and knows they’re powerful, and therefore together we can do magical things.”
Charlie: That’s the question that we’ve been answering, basically. And it works. And it’s amazing. And we have had circumstances that speak to that desire and that necessity, and we’ve had enough circumstances that answer that, and provide for that, that we know that, yeah, we’re, we’re doing that now.
David: That’s what you’re doing. You’re confident you can do that, yeah.
Charlie: Yeah. That’s what we’re doing in the, in the small group ritual retreats, like the chöd retreat that we just had in New York.
David: Cool.
Charlie: It is.
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