You come to a practice seeking something. Perhaps you know that you are not supposed “have an ego” or to act from ego. But without a question you are and if you have any capacity for self-reflection you know this. It is part of the challenge of having approached the practice in the mindset that you need to get something from it. Enlightenment or whatever. But you can’t as long as you are acting in this manner, bound by your ego. If you are serious, you persist anyway. This is the first step into a life long journey. With this practice and with others. If you are serious your life becomes a kind of practice. A “practice” consists of certain elements, rituals, motions, activities. But it is always different and it is creative – at least when you manage to wean yourself a little bit away from the mindset that you need to get something from it. You’ve become able to learn in the sense of bypassing your conditioned reactions – you find your blocks, attend to them and they dissolve. You become more responsive because you become more attentive.

This was a note that came to me late one night in October and it became the starting point for a dialogue with Tony Dias. We’ve been having this kind of dialogue for years and we’ve previously published some of them in written form.

Tony was visiting where we live in Ry as he had come to give a class on space craft to my students. This was the first time we met in first life and the first time we had a chance to speak without the mediation of the internet. This direct contact opened something up.

Rather than going through the whole process of transcribing the recording we share it here, as it feels like our spoken dialogues are ready be opened up for others to hear. And perhaps joined. This is the first of three which I’ll post here in the coming weeks.