Tag: We-Space

Resonance as Resilience

The principles of Presence, Resonance and Inter-Being may be well known even now. They just haven’t been applied to the Deep Adaptation context to the extent possible. Resonance, the deep state of inter-subjective communion, may be called a shared experience of emptiness. It isn’t a total leap into a mutual experience of non-dual awareness, but it is a window into ‘awareness of Awareness’, a moment in which the true nature and presence of Being intrudes into the mutual common discourse of beings. This is a glimmer of the absolute, a moment of non-duality within duality.

In entering Resonance/Inter-Being, Self and Not-self do not exist independently. They are more like the Tao, continuously folding into and out of each other as polar expressions of a single reality, instantaneously and continuously trading places at the forefront of influence and awareness. We are just as fully in our ego-selves at all times as not. We are thus not capable of entering Resonance only if we are able to dissolve ego—as if only then can we enter mutual or group Resonance.

If we examine our experience of Resonance, we would acknowledge our heightened sensitivity to its appearance and disappearance—or, perhaps more correctly—the continuously fluctuating relative dominance of Self and Not-self as a feature of the field. Thus the field is not uniform; it is constantly changing in every way. But that doesn’t make it any less real. Just the opposite. We are not failing to achieve or sustain our intention. We can still choose to direct our attention, just as we do in solitary practice.

And where shall that attention go? Personal attainment does not depend on a permanent achievement of selflessness, but rather a capacity to live in a continuous awareness of appearance and emptiness as One. Likewise, the field awareness of Resonance is not at all about Not-self, but an ability to hold both Self and Not-self as immanent, timeless and unchanging, which is to be both–and neither–in every moment.

This quality of awareness implies the larger reality, Inter-being. We enter a quality of relationship enacted by whoever is present. Thich Nhat Hanh reminded us we are connected in ways we either do not normally notice or cannot (yet) consciously access. He suggested we learn to do so because Inter-Being is always at play, always enacting itself in the forms and formlessness of our relations at every fractal of the Whole.

From this vantage point, what we do in communion with each other, whether in dyads or groups, in the suspension of timeless inter-subjectivity, is perform mutual transfusion. We reflect to each other our essence; we tune in together at a cellular level of exchange; we sustain each other on a precipice of possibility; we nourish each other in the midst of decay and collapse; we recognize and empower each other in our grief within the unending cycle of birth and death; we relinquish the illusion of personal agency, leveraging it on behalf of the collective; we hold space together for what is to come without attempting to define what is not yet here.

This quality of Resonance is a message from Inter-Being, the message of Inter-Being; it is a bridge to Inter-Being. Entering Inter-Being consciousness at any scale is poietic, a productive and juicy flow of awareness of Awareness often flooded with rich and dynamic imagery. To do so in a group is a palpable shared entrance into the timeless paradox of Self and Not-self fully and simultaneously.

By whatever method or approach, we glimpse our true body, the trans-corporeal body of Inter-being, a deeply loving and forgiving and compassionate space of relationship, the source-less source of everything: emptiness. In other words, Deep Adaptation can be an induction into Inter-Being as an embodiment practice, accessing the clarity and unlimited creative potential of our fundamental and true nature. Justice, Values and Governance informed by this view are a future worth creating.

Resonance: An Emerging Ethos

We are currently being driven deeply into every remote crevice of consciousness, to every hidden root of clinging to the past and into the disintegrating present. As we talk of changing the collective Story, we focus on an emerging ethos. A new ethic springs forth, outlining the features of justice and the governance we so dearly seek. The past cannot be changed. We can’t fully imagine a future that is not yet. What we can do is attend honestly and rigorously to the present. Rather than spinning a yarn about a possible future, I would look at some of the relational foundations of future scenarios, the principles and proficiencies necessary to build right now. We are familiar with some, but perhaps not all.

Rather than imagining Events or Things, we might start with the most basic process of relationship. Part of this journey is to re-envision wholeness. The terms taking center-stage in this drama increasingly center on Presence, Resonance and Inter-Being. We are talking our way into dialogic process accessing or generating inter-subjective field phenomena. The experience of Resonance is a foundational feature of Resilience. It may be applied to what is discovered in the inter-subjective field with intent to generate impulses arising from communion. Such field phenomena have been called collective intelligence, morphic resonance or energetic manifestations of increasingly intimacy characterized by courage, trust, compassion, fearlessness and love.

Inter-Being is an intrinsic portal to potentials evoked spontaneously or by deliberate group interaction. Whether it’s psychological or spiritual or evolutionary depends on whom you talk to. The full potential of Inter-Being remains unexplored and virtually unlimited. Diverging from formal hierarchies, we explore the potential of We-Space/Inter-Being to facilitate direct interactive non-conceptual experience, functioning as a matrix connecting diverse collective awakening practices or to highlight the limits of–if not overthrow–the paradigm of scientific materialism. But that is the grand design, is it not?

Such development is analogous to long-term solitary spiritual practices or parallel development of religious or sacred philosophies. Group practices are exploding out of a rapidly growing knowledge base resulting from deep and creative explorations with roots reaching back five decades, driven by an intuition that solitary practices may be leveraged to group process.

The intention and language of Deep Adaptation evokes emergence, coherence and authenticity and the attendant heart-opening practices permeating that world, driving our progress and building a durable foundation. We are struggling to comprehend what we are called upon to know and do in a world collapsing around us. Whatever excitement we have about our gains is tempered (and driven) by the torrent of grief underlying the urgency.

In short, we are learning about communion, to become agents of communion. In so doing, communion becomes a force driving us as its agent. We have already cultivated the passive arts of accepting, embracing and allowing. But we can be tourists no longer. We must move further into becoming and owning a process of forging the persona and systems of Deep Adaptation, even as we remain explorers. In this sense, we become professionals, increasingly attuned to impeccable relations—professionals deepening our embodiment of the emerging ethos. As professionals, we fully accept our obligation to drive further into the coda of presence, resonance and inter-subjectivity, evoking Inter-Being as it influences and shapes a possible future, deliberately framing our communications as a message to that future.

Buddhism says the union of appearance and reality is complete, permanent and unchanging. When we consider whether and how this view operates in relationship, we enter a new domain. We already know something happens when people come into a deep and trusting connection. We call it empathy, authenticity or synchronicity. An interactive quality of openness and exchange occurs, immersing us in a larger field; as if an altered state can envelope each one and the augmented communication within that envelope takes on an extraordinarily enhanced quality. In this realm, the object disappears. The sense of Other dissolves. Two subjects become One.

Another feature of Resonance is its timeless-ness; the future and the past fall away and all that exists is this moment. Surely there are biological markers of this condition such as a parasympathetic response. Consciousness of threat abates and defenses dissolve into an intrinsic state of mutual trust, safety and unbroken availability for more. Boundaries become mutable. In such a moment, karma falls away. There is opportunity here like no other. It’s a delicate restorative condition, but one that can be cultivated, particularly if we have a better understanding of its elements and principles. At the very least, we are reconciling the divisive influence of modern society.