Class 3 · Practice 3

Cultivating a Wide Field

Including this, too

✦Opening Quote

Even though you try to put people under control, it is impossible. You cannot do it. The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in a wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control them. So it is with people.

— Shunryu Suzuki-roshi

💬 Sharing Your Wonder

  1. 1

    What Wonder did you encounter?

  2. 2

    What makes commitment generative?

  3. 3

    What did you learn that might encourage others?

🔍 Deeper Inquiry

  1. 1

    What obstacles or barriers did you encounter?

  2. 2

    What did Generative Commitment bring up, if anything?

🌙Practice 3 — Cultivating a Wide Field

…to see things as they are and to let everything go as it goes. This is to put everything under control in its widest sense.

— Suzuki-roshi

Core IntentionBe as you are, creating space for all of you as-is. Same with "others."

  1. 1

    Notice moments when you reject — turn away from or push away — parts of your experience.

  2. 2

    Instead, invite them in specifically. In the moment, enlarge their presence by increasing your contact (smell, taste, touch, hearing, seeing, intuiting).

  3. 3

    Turn toward the experience or your reaction with curiosity and care. Get closer — move in with your mind and/or body.

  4. 4

    Let yourself create a field wide enough for all parts of you to come out and play.

  5. 5

    If you wish, make a few brief notes about your experience to share in class.

📓 Reflection Journal

What did you notice when you invited in experiences rather than pushing them away?

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