Can I Be Present in Conversation and in Being?

Is it possible to abide in the deepest sense of being while interacting with people, and does that quality of connection change over time? Rupert says: ‘King Lear has two different ways of speaking to his daughters. He can speak to them as their father, the King of England, in which case he’ll be upset with them. Or he can speak to them knowing that he’s John Smith, at peace, needing nothing from them. It’s exactly the same with us – our conversation can be informed by our sorrow, fear and need for approval, or we can be grounded in our being and feel completely fulfilled. When we’re meditating with our eyes closed, we give attention exclusively to our being. When having a conversation, our attention moves to the person and our being seems to recede to the background. But experience loses its capacity to obscure being, and though we first feel it in the background, it eventually overflows into the foreground.’

From event 05 - 12 April, 2025 Seven-Day Retreat at Mandali, 5–12 April 2025

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