Guide: People

Guides are a Pathway in The Map of Everyday Enlightenment which are typically articles about a particular time and place for meditative practices. Guides contain Landmarks that highlight examples of how this could work for you, as well as other explanations of how to make use of certain concepts or techniques. The Landmarks in Guides can be reviewed in the context of progress through the Realms of Everyday Enlightenment, and when used in that way, Guides become another way to decide where to go next.

Guide: People
Landmarks	Observe Impermanent People Try Out Other-Centeredness Listen to Someone Mindfully

The Guide to People shows us that because we interact with other people regularly, it's a perfect opportunity to practice shifting our perceptions. As we shift our perception, we should notice different experiences of Self and Other.

You will find a great range of meditative practices can be done while interacting with people, and especially the skills in this guide. You can do these exercises anytime you are around other people, and most especially in these types of situations:

• Eating around a table; at a restaurant
• In a meeting or on a conference call
• Talking one-on-one
• On a walk with someone

General Visual Exercises

• When with one or more other people, shift your attention to one other person, and notice that from your own visual perspective, the other person is infinitely more real than you are. Try to be fully present and you will notice that although you do not manifest in any meaningful way, the other person is manifesting in many ways.
  • They are expressing emotions on their face and body language - From your perspective, none of that is present about yourself; you can't see your face or interpret the position of your arms.
  • They are making sounds from their mouths and as their body shifts, or objects they are holding are making soft sounds - If you are resting in the moment, none of that is true about you.
  • Pick out as many details about this person as you can - especially notice features that are not available about yourself from your own perspective.
    • What do they look like - hair, skin, ears, face, hands, clothes.
    • What do they sound like - each minor sound from their body as they move, inflections and timbre in their voice.
    • Without any judgement, note the quality of their emotional energy - are they at peace, are they amused, are they joyful? Turn attention back to your own emotional state and allow that to evaporate into nothingness.
• When in a group of people, observe each person in turn, recognizing that from their perspective they are the center of the universe. Shift to the next person and note how different the world is from their perspective. This can range from the very simple to the profound.
  • What can one person see that the other person can't? Most obviously their own faces, but whatever is behind them at the time isn't visible to them, but it is to everyone else.
  • How might different emotions affect the way each person is experiencing the moment?
• Note when two people are talking to each other and shift your attention from what one person is experiencing and then to what the other person is experiencing from their perspective. Note again that from your own perspective, each of these people is more real than you are.
• Remind yourself of The Headless Way and note that everyone you see except yourself has a head, and a body, and a clear set of attributes that are not perceptible in yourself from your perspective.

Listening

Another practice is to fully devote all your attention to another person. The main points are to give the other person all the time they need to say what they want to say, and to pay attention fully to that person and what they say.

Beginner

• Practice paying attention to ...
  • the tone, emotion, energy, inflection, or any quality of voice you notice
  • the topic as if it is the most important thing in the world
  • the opinions expressed, and mentally feel the great value of the other person's wisdom and knowledge
• Notice if you have an urge to interrupt, or just an eagerness for "your turn" - relax that need until it goes away
• Whenever there is a pause, enjoy the pause for its own sake and quality. Let that pause linger, not anticipating more conversation, but welcoming it if it does come.
• When the other person asks for your engagement, give it to them fully, focusing on responding to their topic, their energy

Intermediate

• As you listen, imagine the person as if they are the only person in the world (including yourself!)
• Allow your own opinions and thoughts to soften, and feel the sense that at least in The Now, the words you are hearing are the only words that exist.
• Allow your own judgement and your entire self to evaporate and discover that person is the new center of the universe. Feel that recentering, feel the real knowledge that they are experiencing emotions and thoughts, and urges and needs. Note that they can feel their own body, and they can focus their attention on sounds and sights from their own perspective and driven by their own needs. Finally, allow yourself to become them for even one blink of an eye.
  

Use the following Landmarks as ways to integrate meditative practices into your everyday life and to check in on how you are progressing in your own journey.

Landmark: Observe Impermanent People

Landmark: Observe Impermanent People
Beacons	Association
Realms	Enrollment
Lenses	Nonself
Guides	People
Trails	Learn About Association

The Landmark of Observe Impermanent People is a chance to experiment with the idea that there is no permanent, unchanging self. This Landmark is within the Realm of Enrollment, and is part of the Beacon of Association, more specifically the Lens of Nonself.

Landmark Lookouts:

• Changes in Other People: Can you observe and acknowledge that other people change from year to year, and even more often than that, they are in fact changing every moment?
  
• The Changing You: Can you see - at least at some level - how "You" (The Self) is a constantly changing concept?
  

Whenever you're in a group of people, especially if there's a variety of ages...

• Think about who you are in this very moment. Your age, your appearance, your health, your clothing, your hopes, your anxieties. This is "You".
• Look around at all the people. Who are they? What is their age, appearance, health, and everything else?
• Choose a person, whoever you like. Is there anything about them that reminds you of what you used to be like, or what you think you'll be like after some years have passed?
• Think of yourself as a young child. Is that "you" - it couldn't be, they barely resemble anything about you now.
• Think about what you might be like in 10 or 20 or 50 years. What about your older relatives, what are they like? Will you in the future still be the same you of today?
• Think again about who you are in this moment.
• Look around again at all the people. Notice that wherever each of them is going, whatever they're doing, whoever they are Now, that person will be gone forever in 10 years - they would have transformed to their future self.
• And finally, just for a while, realize that each of us is changing each day, each hour, and really each second, and there is no "You" that could last for longer than that.
  

Landmark: Try Out Other-Centeredness

Landmark: Try Out Other-Centeredness
Beacons	Association
Realms	Engagement
Lenses	Other-Centeredness
Guides	People

The Landmark of Try Out Other-Centeredness is a chance to try something in two different situations, once with someone you are talking to directly, and once with a person in the distance. For this first exercise you're trying to switch perspectives and see what another person might see. This Landmark is within the Realm of Engagement, and is part of the Beacon of Association, more specifically the Lens of Other-Centeredness.

Landmark Lookouts:

• You are the Center: Is it clear how the default perspective is that your direct visual experience is the center of everything?
  
• The Changing You: Are you able to consistently gain a glimpse into your own "non existence" from the perspective of the other person?
  

Once you are engaged in an activity or a meeting or a conversation that will last a little while, try these steps.

• Become as Mindful as you know how.
• Be aware of your own visual and audio field - what you see and hear. You may even notice the other sensations such as your clothing, any air that's hitting you, being pushed down on your seat or the floor.
• Notice all of those sensations originate from your own perspective. For this exercise take a moment to feel the weight of being the absolute center of everything. Rest with that weight for as long as you find it helpful or interesting.
• Finally, notice that one perspective you can experience is that the other people with you are insignificant, they are here as part of your conscious experience, nothing more.
• Next, prepare for a complete shift from that perspective.
• Choose the most likely person with you, for example whoever is speaking the most, besides yourself.
• Return to your most mindful state, with all your attention on that person. Relax any attention on yourself, simply absorb everything about that person.
• Acknowledge to yourself that from their experience they are the center of all sensation and experience.
• Be a little creative and put yourself in their position. What sensations would they be experiencing? The sounds coming from their mouth. Their hair itching, their feet hurting, their finger tapping on the table. Rest with this mindful exercise for a little while, really absorb this imaginative perspective.
• If you're familiar with the Headless Way, shift into that. If not, simply use your own visual field to find that you are in fact pretty unimportant in this scene, because the other person is all that matters.
• The last thing is to shift that perspective onto the other person - from their visual perspective they are the center of everything and you are just there in their consciousness.

This might not be easy to do at first, but feel free to do as much of it as you can, and experiment with the concept. Regardless of how deep you are able to experience that shift, try this next exercise which takes the idea in a slightly different direction by applying it to someone in the distance.

Landmark Lookouts:

• You are the Center: Can you see how someone far away that you don't even know is just another object in your experience? And that if you choose it, that person is completely unimportant and insignificant?
  
• They are the Center: Can you reverse that perspective? And most importantly can you see that your relative importance is essentially an illusion?
  

These steps can be done almost anywhere but will work much better outside or near window where you can see other people going about there business. You could also look at an airplane or a window in a building and picture a person there.

• Mindfully engage everything near you, the sounds, the sights, the sun, the wind, whatever it is that grounds you to your immediate position in the world.
• Look over at your chosen person and acknowledge them as another thing in your visual field. Notice other things near that person such as a street light or a cloud or a pigeon. Allow that person to be on equal footing as everything else that is distant from you - more or less inconsequential, but still at least a small part of what you're experiencing.
• Acknowledge clearly that you are the center and they are not
• Now, being creative again, shift your perspective to that other person, even if you can't actually see that person. What are they experiencing? Go as deep as you like, but stay mindful - don't slip into a daydream fantasy, stay present.
• Notice that this other person, if they could see everything you could, would see it from the "opposite" viewpoint. This person has every experience you have, but from the perspective that they are the center of all experience.
• Acknowledge that to them, they are the center, and you are not.
• Finally, relax your attention and acknowledge that the billions of people in the world exist in a world where they are the center and you are not.