Steven to Heloisa, Maria, Rod and Piet

Dear WoK Experimenters,

I greatly appreciate the time and care you’ve put into WoK’s first investigation of using an hypothesis to guide and focus attention to reconsider what might be true about the reality in which we find ourselves. I know you are all busy and must have made many sacrifices in order to leave time for your explorations and reports.

It is precisely this issue of time that motivated some aspects of the Experiment. Piet and I both like experiments and have used them often in working with various groups. For me this always meant exploring my favorite subject over the past several decades—directly-apprehended “completeness”—as aided by meditation and yogic training etc., to facilitate sensitization to such subtle features of existence, features that are normally missed altogether. However, precisely because it is difficult for the significance of “completeness” to be correctly located and unpacked, and because the time it takes to train someone in these sensitizing methods and related analyses is very considerable, Piet and I mused on whether some more direct approach might be possible.

As we discussed modern ways to present the main point of contemplative traditions without requiring any extensive preparation, Piet—ever the scientist—suggested the idea of using some sort of working hypothesis as a way of carrying most of the weight. At the outset there were several competing candidates for our working hypothesis. Piet suggested "wonder," "no limits" and a few others, and even offered them in the WoK Experiment itself because he was very concerned about being open to your interests and intuitions, rather than just forcing one particular hypothesis upon you from the beginning.

It surprised me when, in this rather open atmosphere of inquiry Piet created, things nevertheless gradually gravitated towards the completeness theme and somewhat related notions of surrender etc. The former often seems, as I mentioned, rather abstract in the absence of intensive yogic training, and the latter perhaps runs counter to the achievement-orientation that is so much in vogue these days. I guess despite our hope that a direct route to traditional insights might be possible, I still had doubts. In any case, this convergence was intriguing, and I also liked both the intuitions that frequently emerged and the questions which surfaced at the end of this inquiry. Perhaps it’s always best to “end” with new or more keenly-felt questions, since that is what seeds further investigations.

I'm also aware of the difficulties you must have faced in accommodating each others’ individual styles and views … particularly in an area which by definition is so intimately personal. You proved that it is possible to hold true to your individual experiences and insights, while still being open to other perspectives, a crucial component of any good experimental regime.

Piet and I are learning as we go, and thanks to your efforts, we have gained some new understanding of what features of the fully-lived life matter to (at least a few) different sorts of people, and how access to those features may be facilitated.

With many thanks,

Steven (WoK Editor)