Piet to Heloisa and Rod

Dear Rod and Heloisa,

Thank you both for your inspiring reports! Rod's way of working with Heloisa's formulation of the experiment opens up ways for appreciating feelings and phenomena in general without getting stuck to the standard associations and interpretations that we normally are glued to, without realizing it. It is paradoxical, but by stepping back, we often seem to be able to be more in touch, perhaps because we also step back from the plastic wrappers of concepts that we use to wrap the whole world and ourselves in. So while the mirror metaphor that Heloisa worked with may seem to indicate a form of distancing, at the same time it invites a form of intimacy for which there are no words and concepts within the conventional view of what we are and what we are capable of. I appreciate the way Heloisa connected this with painful aspects, such as poverty. Action on the basis of this deeper intimacy can be far more effective than ill-guided actions based on concepts and calculations, no matter how well intended.

As for Heloisa's comments, in her last contribution, yes, I recognize similar nuances, that it is more difficult to focus on a different way of being when interacting with others, or when engulfed in a familiar situation. As far as recapturing experiences of a different way of being goes, that is by definition impossible. The one who wants to capture, first, and then recapture, is the result of the conventional way of being that trades in terms of subjects and objects, beings in a world embedded in space and time. That type of `I' cannot (re)capture anything outside that framework. It would be as if we expected a character in a novel to suddenly rise out of the pages of the book, to start walking on the street. In contrast, the person reading the book can look up and walk on the street. That would be closer to the way you described feeling as if you were the mirror rather than the reflections. 

Piet