I see this as critical: read what the lady says of her experience. Is this not a moment of real enlightenment in the midst of life?

Miriam:    Yesterday, I went to visit my parents, and I had planned to be more present and more open when I was there. On the way over in the car, I thought about how I am in the ordinary way. I get on quite well with my parents. It was like a veil lifting or a layer going that my ordinary way of being with them is mechanical. And underneath that, what I saw was that I didn’t really care.

Mr Adie:   Yes, no feeling.

Miriam:   Yes, and to actually realise that, I stayed with it for a while. It was quite a shock. It really touched me, and I did have a sense of what it was, and how it was. When I actually got there, I was able to be more present. It wasn’t continuous, but I was able to come back to myself on some occasions and have a feeling, remember my aim that I wanted to be there and be aware of what was happening in my mother at the time. But to be aware of her,

Mr Adie:   This experience of realisation that, in a way you didn’t care for them, changed your plan of work because the plan of work was to be present without taking into consideration who and what and the circumstances and the fact that normally you don’t really care. What took place was different from what you actually planned.

Miriam:   Instead of just being a head thought, because of this realisation, I could see, with something I don’t come to my appointments with.

Mr Adie:   But doesn’t it throw light on the whole situation? You choose that, to use and awake you. You have a moment of feeling, and the original proposal becomes nothing, because originally you had no thought for them. And how could you have a better, different relation? This essential element of understanding only appeared by chance, if you like. So, you begin to see the kind of things has to be included in this having this relationship. And in fact, in having an observation, because this sort of egotist can hardly have observations. The dead thing that has no feeling. What are his observations? His observation is one part is observing another, what he thinks. Don’t leave that. Try and keep that close. That’s a very good example of what I was trying to say, the danger in the work. The great danger in the work.

(to someone else) When you move your chair. You make this fearsome crackling noise. It isn’t the chair being weak; you move it on the floor. You see, there’s wax on the bottom of the chair, there’s wax on the floor, and everywhere it goes crack, crack, crack, crack. Have you seen it? Yes, and it’s too. I could tell because I saw the crack registered with the movement. It’s only just, try and not move the seat. If you want to move, move without moving the seat along the floor because it’s the wax. And it’s quite disturbing, and particularly with this hearing aid, which magnifies it, I think someone’s firing at me all the time.

(to Miriam) What I wanted to comment, because this is such a useful observation, is the danger of our work turning us into zombies, people that observe themselves. They’re going to meet their parents or they’re going to do this, or they’re going to have relation with somebody, a relation with the person they buy the fish from. And it just does not work because there’s no feeling there. So, what can this truncated thing without any of this do? It can only act like some sort of automat. And this shows just what is necessary in order to have experience and observe.

You all felt like it was very important?

Looking back, I can see with quite painful recollection how I failed to have contact with my own father; just the same as that. I really neglected what he was looking for or what he wanted. But I was “remembering myself,” I wasn’t going to be led into this desultory sultry conversation with my father. So, I was a hard creature, missing that life which could flow between us, albeit about mundane matters that don’t matter. So, we mustn’t on any account let our work and our ideas of effort become like that. There’s a struggle to find the softness and the life in it.