Exploring Excellence Notes for 12-05-2006

A Little Business

Talk to Sterling if you're still not on the class email list.

Daniel would like to have the classes recorded and transcribed.   Does anyone have the recording equipment, including microphones, to get this done?

An administrative meeting is scheduled for next Friday.  All are welcome to participate.

Class Agenda for Tonight

We are now focusing on connecting one?s life story and the ?I?s? with chief feature.

Check on class progress obtaining the book, In Search of the Miraculous.  Daniel relates the story of Ouspensky traveling to the Far East, meeting Gurdjieff, as a story about expectations vs. reality, and their ongoing conflict.  This conflict is an example of what happens when one takes an intellectual approach to the nature of being, i.e., the difference between understanding the nature of being and just being.  Their relationship is also an example of the challenge and necessity of giving up what one already knows or, ?surrendering to the teacher?, as in the Zen tradition.

*Task for next week: Read the first 20 pages of In Search of the Miraculous.

Review of Chief Feature Exercise (part one)

Previously we worked on understanding and defining chief feature.  In this area of study, Daniel asked students to share stories from childhood that offered insight into the origin of chief feature which now operate in their lives.

Now we are looking at chief feature and how it manifests in our lives.  The exercise in class was to spend a few minutes contemplating ?a real problem in our lives.?  The aim is to connect a major, here-and-now problem with your chief feature.  Remember to be ?objective about yourself.?

In the course of group discussion about the exercise: Identify an actual, concrete problem; notice that the problem is in you; Daniel quoted his teacher as saying that virtually all of our problems involve work or relationships; Daniel reminds that a good strategy to identify your chief feature is to ask others how you come across to them.

Daniel discussed the idea of ?buffers? from the In Search of? book, and noticing these as we contemplate chief feature.

Review of Chief Feature Exercise (part two)

The exercise in class was to think of an ?I? that is the most helpful for getting past chief feature.  If the ?I? is obvious, then just sit and be that ?I?.

We conceptualize chief feature as a door which stops us from getting to the next place, i.e., consciousness and development.

Gurdjieff said that the chief feature of humanity is being asleep.

Class Exercises

Concentrate on dual attention (remember yourself) and the details of your life.  ?Strain to stay awake.?

Describe to a partner something in great detail about your life while staying awake, i.e., ?don't lose yourself in the conversation.?  It helps to talk slower than usual.

*Task for next week: Write a simple paragraph describing the ?I? that is going to lead you forward, i.e., the ?I? you need the most.  After writing, then be that ?I? for a few minutes.
