I came across this transcript only recently. I was there on that evening: my question will appear in a future post, under a pseudonym. This is the first question:

Sally: I wanted to ask, Mr Adie, how can I use my head in a better way? I’ve tried different approaches to use it, and in some situations I haven’t been able to find how to let go. 

Mr Adie:   Could you give an exact example? It makes it much easier to get an answer, much more accuracy, much more to the point if you could give an answer how you tried to use it, and how it went. For what purpose, on what occasion? Not general, not your conclusions about it. Your conclusions persuade you to bring the question. Now if you got an example that would help, otherwise we could try, but …

Sally:  Well, I came to that question particularly from the weekend, the Sunday work. But it’s something I’m relating it to my work, outside the work here.

Mr Adie:   You mean your daily life work?

Sally:   Yes. It hasn’t seemed to be effective, using my head to stop daydreaming.   

Mr Adie:    What, to bring daydreams to a full stop? That’s full of difficulties, but it’s part of the whole of our work. You have got no other alternative but to use the head. You direct the attention with the head into some part, either to deal with a question or to plant something in its place. Your tool is your attention: the attention, the chisel, or a bow guard, something like that. The tool, the laser beam is your attention, when you use it like that, and you can do that with a certain amount of presence, it’s very effective.

[I note that Mr Adie’s reference to a bow guard is intriguing. Wiktionary defines it as: “A protective cover worn on the wrist or forearm, sometimes extending to partially cover the hand, which provides protection from the snap of a released bowstring.” The use of the attention to protect one, from downward spiralling associations, and from negligence and forgetfulness, makes Mr Adie’s image an illuminating one. Mr Adie continued:]

So, the question is: where is the control point for this laser beam? It’s something about which I care, so I’m serious. It matters; it isn’t just an intellectual question, it concerns my very life. So, perhaps it comes from here somewhere, perhaps between the head and the feeling. With three centres there’s some worthy control, the direct direction is coming from a balanced place. I’m looking from some place or other.

Does it mean anything to you, what I’m saying?

Sally:   That is exactly what I am trying to find.

Mr Adie:    I’m trying to sketch a method, and then as I use that method, I find that there are all sorts of different parts along the path, being present so as not to be swept away, and to come back to that balanced place. I need again, a centre of gravity, I certainly need a centre of gravity for any action. To think and to ponder is an action. I have a wish, and I direct my attention – that’s an action. I spin the beam that way and thus I repulse other things. Does it mean something?

Sally:    Yes, but …

Mr Adie:    But, but what?

Sally:   I find that my head comes up with …

 Mr Adie:   But you haven’t tried this way, have you?

Sally:   There’s a question of how much, and what should I pay attention to, or where.

Mr Adie:   You’ll have to decide that. You can neither escape that nor delegate it to somebody running beside you. Whenever you wake up, you could ask the question: to what should I pay attention?

You have something important there, that’s why I want you to deal with it more neatly, not so broadly. I want you to really get to the point – and that is at any moment I have a question.

One thing is to be quiet, to be in that place, then sense what I’m after. Am I serious about it? Am I willing, so?

How can you think, if you are not thinking?

There is thought going on. It proceeds. There is a question of level, and there is also a question of becoming aware of my thought.

Turn a laser beam of attention, it is a representative image: it swings out from the centre, that is how your attention works, and how your thinking works, because you can’t think around a corner. How can you? You pay attention here and swing this way, then something around the corner is encountered, and maybe my thought corresponds.

If the level of my being is sufficient, then many things, or at least some things, will correspond to the effort of your inquiry: they come by attraction. Your thought, directed with a wish behind it, attracts certain things which correspond; and if you’re patient and not demanding in the wrong way you will see that ideas simply come.

It’s like being lost in a forest, if you could imagine, and you want to know how to go out. You don’t know which is north or south, east or west, you’re just there. What do you do? You take stock of your immediate position, and then see: where is the sun? In which direction are the shadows are falling? The birds are still twittering, so you know it’s not night-time, although you may be down deep in a rain forest without any light. Does that to some extent your question?    

 Sally:   Yes.

Mr Adie:   Could you say that you’re satisfied?

Sally:   Yes.

Mr Adie:   Good, try that way, it’s a definite way. You have your question, you’re sitting on the chair and you want to find out about it now. You turn your attention to that, and you’re patiently waiting. You keep it in your mind. Ah! What is that? I need to prepare my supper! I need to talk about this matter with that person? I need some things from the shops.