Vision
Four Beings In a Room: 1, 2, 3, 4
(for now, all men)
stage directions in parentheses
1
1 To what end are we here?
2 To change our culture to be more as we wish.
3 Where are the women?
4 I've not been introduced
to one
who broods
in this way,
and who wished to be here,
now.
2
2 What is the vision that you have?
How does it differ from the present?
4 We wish to benefit
from more minds
devoting more time
to listening
to the silence.
3
1 What benefits shall accrue?
2 The silence shall speak
through more minds.
3 What is it saying
to you now?
4 Visualize how the change shall progress.
4
1 What is the silence?
How do I listen?
2 It is stillness.
3 It is the place
from where all action
comes.
4 I listen
by (becoming quiet)
(and still).
5
1 How do I not listen?
2 By doing what you have been told to do,
by following existing paths,
without reflection.
3 By filling one's time with the voices
and directives
of others,
allowing no time
for your own.
4 What would you do,
were all your time your own?
6
1 How would things be different
if more minds
listened to more silence?
2 Experiences that allow
greater dialog
with the silence
would be valued
more
than
activities
allowing
less
individual responsibility
for the experience.
Consider singing
as compared to
listening
to music--
3 Is there a clear hierarchy of value deducible from our goal,
offering solid guidance toward the most productive and rewarding
experiences of life?
7
1 Dare I rest now? I am tired.
2 Relax, and I will play a song on this instrument.
3 I'll dance.
4 I'll watch.
8
1 In my dream in my world there were four dozen people.
We lived primitively.
I learned to sing the old songs.
I made new songs.
My family listened to me.
They all
listened to me.
4 I saw the arrogance of the author.
That she would spend hours
alone
or with her dancers
making something never seen before
A world that would not exist were she not here.
2 What possibly could you have to do or say that would be of interest to anyone but yourself?
3 Why should you do or say anything that would be of interest to anyone but yourself?
9
1 How can one move from a fear of silence to a longing for silence that grows more intense the longer one has been away?
3 At one time you were contemplating a portrait on the wall or a dustjacket across the room of Napoleon, noting that you did not have a plan.
2 You had all time till the end of time, and knew not what to do. Nothing moved you. You could think of aught
to look forward to.
You felt absence
of emotion.
Little reason to continue.
Looking forward to death.
Deigning not to suicide.
You knew you were dying.
3 The time flew by. You were distracted from how little you had to live for.
10 - 12
3 He had loved.
13
2 That choice of where to focus attention!
3 We choose to have our attention guided.
4 Listening to the silence has to do with being and feeling alive?
It is a sense, a capability we have, that to ignore is... like deciding you don't need sight or hearing?
2 What if nine tenths of the world don't hear?
14 - 17
(silence)
18
(exeunt)
19
(enter all)
3 You're not going to make the world become as I am.
4 Come here.
3 Rest.
2 We're done. There aren't more distinctions to be made.
3 We're not done.
4 How can we tell more people?
1 Stand on a street corner.
"The end of the world came and went
and you missed it."
2 When they stop to talk you tell them this.
20
1 I don't stop to talk. What could you have to tell me?
2 Space here. Use intense imagery. Draw in, breathe out, exhale.
3 Your presence is distinctive.
4 Visualize how the change will occur.
21
1 It is occuring. I don't need to visualize. I watch it happen.
2 Why then this talk?
4 We wish to participate!
3 Play.
22
2 What do you see?
1 People meditating and stuff.
23
1 What do you see?
4 People.
3 Red dust. You fret about what will always be.
4 @@@@ the red dust.
24
4 I see focus on what is best.
I see a dialog about vision.
I see an active question in everyone's eyes.
"What are you doing tonight?
"I'm thinking about where we're going.
I see dissatisfaction with what is recorded and played back.
I see joy in thought being formed.
I see a feeling of pervading intensity and spirit, or Qi.
I hear her practicing her flute.
I see a subordination of all activity to that sense of what is beautiful.
"Is it beautiful?
"Then it shall not be.
3 It is time for-
4 It is not.
I see contemplation.
I see human life
pausing
before it acts.
Knowing not what to do,
it does nothing.
Embracing
stillness,
silence,
inaction.
2 We are a **** of a long way from that.
4 We are not.
I'll teach you.
You'll teach him.
The others will learn.
1 And I, who do not, do not.
I cause children.
They learn my way.
2 Your ideas, however good, do not make you the parent of even one human child now being born.
The kids next door are screamed at often and loud.
25
4 My ideas are so good, they make me parent of billions of humans born.
2 Your ideas are not yours.
1 I learn.
26
2 Shall we get to nuts and bolts?
3 People trying to feed themselves;
to escape squalor,
perceived;
to maintain some, any, engagement in life,
regardless of cost,
even should it kill them,
and everyone they know.
2 We help them feed themselves. Escape squalor. Create engagement in life.
27
1 Become teachers.
4 A holy order of sorts.
3 They're going to be like you because just by looking at you, being with you, they know your way is better.
28
1 Are we done?
3 How evangelical?
4 Break silence when the break is beauty.
29 - 40
(sit in silence (sealing it in))
41
(exeunt/light down)
42
(just voices trailing off by end of 44)
2 What about flailing?
4 Trial and error?
3 Making noise in an attempt to get some response,
any response at all.
1 The inability to know an action will be beautiful in advance of execution.
4 Becoming familiar with your instrument.
43
2 Wavering?
44
2 Doing something not beautiful because it is easier and helps you to focus on something you value?
4 Done in and in seeking awareness,
in sensitivity
to the
void,
with awareness of the more beautiful way.
Four Beings In a Room: 1, 2, 3, 4
(for now, all men)
stage directions in parentheses
1
1 To what end are we here?
2 To change our culture to be more as we wish.
3 Where are the women?
4 I've not been introduced
to one
who broods
in this way,
and who wished to be here,
now.
2
2 What is the vision that you have?
How does it differ from the present?
4 We wish to benefit
from more minds
devoting more time
to listening
to the silence.
3
1 What benefits shall accrue?
2 The silence shall speak
through more minds.
3 What is it saying
to you now?
4 Visualize how the change shall progress.
4
1 What is the silence?
How do I listen?
2 It is stillness.
3 It is the place
from where all action
comes.
4 I listen
by (becoming quiet)
(and still).
5
1 How do I not listen?
2 By doing what you have been told to do,
by following existing paths,
without reflection.
3 By filling one's time with the voices
and directives
of others,
allowing no time
for your own.
4 What would you do,
were all your time your own?
6
1 How would things be different
if more minds
listened to more silence?
2 Experiences that allow
greater dialog
with the silence
would be valued
more
than
activities
allowing
less
individual responsibility
for the experience.
Consider singing
as compared to
listening
to music--
3 Is there a clear hierarchy of value deducible from our goal,
offering solid guidance toward the most productive and rewarding
experiences of life?
7
1 Dare I rest now? I am tired.
2 Relax, and I will play a song on this instrument.
3 I'll dance.
4 I'll watch.
8
1 In my dream in my world there were four dozen people.
We lived primitively.
I learned to sing the old songs.
I made new songs.
My family listened to me.
They all
listened to me.
4 I saw the arrogance of the author.
That she would spend hours
alone
or with her dancers
making something never seen before
A world that would not exist were she not here.
2 What possibly could you have to do or say that would be of interest to anyone but yourself?
3 Why should you do or say anything that would be of interest to anyone but yourself?
9
1 How can one move from a fear of silence to a longing for silence that grows more intense the longer one has been away?
3 At one time you were contemplating a portrait on the wall or a dustjacket across the room of Napoleon, noting that you did not have a plan.
2 You had all time till the end of time, and knew not what to do. Nothing moved you. You could think of aught
to look forward to.
You felt absence
of emotion.
Little reason to continue.
Looking forward to death.
Deigning not to suicide.
You knew you were dying.
3 The time flew by. You were distracted from how little you had to live for.
10 - 12
3 He had loved.
13
2 That choice of where to focus attention!
3 We choose to have our attention guided.
4 Listening to the silence has to do with being and feeling alive?
It is a sense, a capability we have, that to ignore is... like deciding you don't need sight or hearing?
2 What if nine tenths of the world don't hear?
14 - 17
(silence)
18
(exeunt)
19
(enter all)
3 You're not going to make the world become as I am.
4 Come here.
3 Rest.
2 We're done. There aren't more distinctions to be made.
3 We're not done.
4 How can we tell more people?
1 Stand on a street corner.
"The end of the world came and went
and you missed it."
2 When they stop to talk you tell them this.
20
1 I don't stop to talk. What could you have to tell me?
2 Space here. Use intense imagery. Draw in, breathe out, exhale.
3 Your presence is distinctive.
4 Visualize how the change will occur.
21
1 It is occuring. I don't need to visualize. I watch it happen.
2 Why then this talk?
4 We wish to participate!
3 Play.
22
2 What do you see?
1 People meditating and stuff.
23
1 What do you see?
4 People.
3 Red dust. You fret about what will always be.
4 @@@@ the red dust.
24
4 I see focus on what is best.
I see a dialog about vision.
I see an active question in everyone's eyes.
"What are you doing tonight?
"I'm thinking about where we're going.
I see dissatisfaction with what is recorded and played back.
I see joy in thought being formed.
I see a feeling of pervading intensity and spirit, or Qi.
I hear her practicing her flute.
I see a subordination of all activity to that sense of what is beautiful.
"Is it beautiful?
"Then it shall not be.
3 It is time for-
4 It is not.
I see contemplation.
I see human life
pausing
before it acts.
Knowing not what to do,
it does nothing.
Embracing
stillness,
silence,
inaction.
2 We are a **** of a long way from that.
4 We are not.
I'll teach you.
You'll teach him.
The others will learn.
1 And I, who do not, do not.
I cause children.
They learn my way.
2 Your ideas, however good, do not make you the parent of even one human child now being born.
The kids next door are screamed at often and loud.
25
4 My ideas are so good, they make me parent of billions of humans born.
2 Your ideas are not yours.
1 I learn.
26
2 Shall we get to nuts and bolts?
3 People trying to feed themselves;
to escape squalor,
perceived;
to maintain some, any, engagement in life,
regardless of cost,
even should it kill them,
and everyone they know.
2 We help them feed themselves. Escape squalor. Create engagement in life.
27
1 Become teachers.
4 A holy order of sorts.
3 They're going to be like you because just by looking at you, being with you, they know your way is better.
28
1 Are we done?
3 How evangelical?
4 Break silence when the break is beauty.
29 - 40
(sit in silence (sealing it in))
41
(exeunt/light down)
42
(just voices trailing off by end of 44)
2 What about flailing?
4 Trial and error?
3 Making noise in an attempt to get some response,
any response at all.
1 The inability to know an action will be beautiful in advance of execution.
4 Becoming familiar with your instrument.
43
2 Wavering?
44
2 Doing something not beautiful because it is easier and helps you to focus on something you value?
4 Done in and in seeking awareness,
in sensitivity
to the
void,
with awareness of the more beautiful way.
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