The between space
Now in this situation you would probably feel some unease, tension, or a sense of inner conflict, even though you are not party to the conflict and have no involvement whatsoever in the conflict between the two people. Following on from my previous post about the illusion of separateness, there is also no separateness whatsoever between people. I am part of your external environment, you are part of my external environment, yet what is environment, what is 'you', what is 'me' and what is 'self' is entirely arbitrary and the only separateness or division is conceptual. Therefore the sense of unease or tension arising from the conflict between the two people is the same energy of the emotions currently being cycled by the brains of the two people involved.
Note that I did not say in the minds of the two people. Mind is space and therefore environment. Mind is not something which exists in your head. Mind is always outside of you, around you, and environment. To think that I have my own mind, you have your own mind, and everyone else has their own mind is in a sense buying into this illusion of separateness. If anything mind is perspective which is believed to be consciousness, but see consciousness is space, and space is reality whereas consciousness is existence. This might seem confusing, but always remember that reality is what defines existence just as space defines form.
But what this also means is that whenever we are in contact with another human being there is also a meeting of minds and usually we do not leave a neutral impression on the other person. Whatever is going through our mind is what the other person experiences. If someone is stressed we experience that stress, if someone is warm we experience that warmth. Sometimes we have contact with someone which seems to drain us of energy, just as sometimes we have contact with someone who seems to give us energy or vitality. This is usually something which is independent of physical form or someone's physical appearance. It's also not conceptual and independent of their identity.
Here's something I want you to think about
Assuming that - let's play with some labels here - you're white, cisgendered and heterosexual and you know that you are because this is all part of your identity, what difference does it make to you if you come across someone who is different? What if I were to say that there's something positive in being around someone who is say black, gay or trans? What if I were to suggest that someone being different to you only reaffirms and perhaps even validates your sense of identity? Yes I know it's a controversial take on things, but see why can't our social and cultural values celebrate the diversity and individual differences between human beings?
But please take note here I'm challenging the concepts of social hierarchy and ownership of identity. In the Chuang Tzu there is the question "Can you make your body like a withered tree and the mind like dead ashes?" You hear the piping of men, but not the piping of the Earth or the piping of the heavens. When the Great Cloud belches forth its breath we call it wind.
It's important to understand that in the Chuang Tzu, the later book in Taoism, the basic pattern is the circle for all existence is cyclical in nature. Any point on the circle can be the centre. Any point on the circle can be the beginning of the circle, but see whatever point on the circle you determine to be the beginning is also the end. You have different organs in your body, but which organ is the most important? You can say that the brain is the most important, but can you live without the heart, without a liver, or without lungs? Surely each organ is in its own way vital and necessary for life and life is what happens in the relationships between all the organs. Note here that if you have difficulty breathing then all the other organs are in some way affected. This is how we arrive at the concept of the circle of life, because life is as an experience a cycle, as is death.
This is where we get to what is known as 'tse rang', which in English means 'in itself so'. Existence exists because it exists. Why existence exists is not important. There is no reason. There is no purpose. Existence exists because of 'chiang', or heaven, but heaven here means the universe. If you look out from Earth which can be taken to be the centre of the universe from our perspective, everything is 'chiang'. This is the basis for the principle 'the environment creates, the individual (organism) grows. Now you might think that there's something in control of all this, but trust me, you won't ever be able to find it. Existence is so on the basis of interconnection and interdependence. There is no such thing as control. The notion of God in a Western sense is foreign in Taoist and Theravada (Buddhist) thinking as is the concept of authority or virtue/merit.
Therefore I say, the Perfect Man has no self; the Holy Man has no merit; the Sage has no fame.
-Chapter 1, Free and easy wandering, Chuang Tzu
This is why it's stated in the Chuang Tzu that you cannot claim the Dao as your own. Your life is not your own. Your body is not your own. Your offspring are not your own. All these things are delegated to you from the universe. You move you know not how. You are at rest you know not why. These are the operations and manifestations of Dao in accordance with the spontaneous rhythm of the universe. This is where we get into Natural Law, which doesn't exist in Taoist thought. Things happen not in any obedience to any law, because the law is our concept of what happens with some regularity or frequency.
There was some debate in ancient China that law should never be written down because it was felt that if law was written down and made permanent then people would develop a litigious spirit, become corrupt and create conflict. After all isn't this what lawyers do? This is why when developing Qultura methodology through Creative Law I sought to simplify Natural Law down to the three basic aspects of existence - being, doing, and change. Everything else outside of this is culture. Hence the name for this methodology, Qultura which is a deliberate misspelling of culture.
This is so I could base Qultura on the same concept of dependent arising which is a core philosophy of Theravada, which in Taoism is translated as mutual arising. This is everything existing together being mutually necessary and existence being dependent on everything else in existence. This is where space and relationship determine the form. This runs counter to domination culture, which is rooted in human nature. We evolved past this point when we left the forests of Africa, but devolved back with the concept of my child, my woman, my family and started needing monarchies, rulers, gods and religion and later governments. The desire of Mankind to dominate themselves, each other and their environment inevitably leads to trauma, chaos, disorder, conflict and struggle.
The whole principle here is all about success in life through not using force, through not trying to dominate or control anything, or grasp at anything, or push anything about. Instead the focus is on spontaneity and seeking to understand and experience the constant unfolding of life and existence. Who you are today is not who you were yesterday, last week, or last year and the same is true of everyone else.
Life as a continuous drama
It's important not to take life too seriously. For a start you don't live long enough for it to be worth your while to get really serious about life. Besides life is a transient, ever changing experience so by the time you get serious about something, anything, chances are something has changed and you've got to relearn something or become familiar with something else. This is where implicitly, if you understand Qultura, life boils down to just two things - trauma and drama. Fundamentally it's all about knowing the scene, knowing the roles and being in character. But then much of what acting is all about is improvization, as is life. All good actors are adept at improvization. They make the same number of mistakes as other actors. But see they also improvize, so nobody can really tell if they're making a mistake. Improvization obviously requires a great deal of environmental awareness.
You see you can only improvize if you know the story and you are 'in the moment'. This is where Qultura aligns pretty much with Taoism. The Dao is the present moment from which you cannot escape. Sure you can think about the past, but see the past is just memory. Sure you can think about the future, but the future is just your imagination. All too often when we interact with other people in life either we're thinking about the past or the future, or they are, or we both are. Something which is usually never really spoken about, especially in mindfulness circles, is developing presence of mind through social interaction. I'm not sure how it is in therapy settings. But in mindfulness circles all too often talk and discussion is about mindset and attitude and very rarely about developing good social skills and mindfulness during social interaction.
Meaningful dialogue and presence of mind in social interaction is pretty much the basis of the dream weaving experience. Sure you can eventually achieve some sort of mindfulness or conscious awareness through yoga and meditation, provided you have a good enough teacher who can give you insights into basic methods and make you aware of the pitfalls, eventually. Please keep in mind that meditation and yoga are really old, archaic ways of achieving mindfulness, and it takes ages before you get any serious results. Dream weaving is much quicker and far more effective because it is based on what human beings do naturally, and that is to socially interact with other human beings. The downside is that you have to put a lot of social conditioning aside, because personal prejudices and preconceived notions about other people is generally unhelpful and problematic when it comes to the dream weaving experience.
But this is where I'll leave it for now. Hopefully you will have figured just how important the 'between space' is when it comes to social interaction and just how much being in the moment and having presence of mind can help to leave a positive impression on the people you interact with. If you're interested in reading the Chuang Tzu you can click on the link below.