Jeff Warren teaches a meditation he calls “Welcome to the Party” that your brief mention of “Guest and Host” immediately reminded me of. The meditation teaches a non-clinging open awareness by suggesting the practitioner frame their conscious experience as a party, and every immediate sensory experience becomes a guest. The practitioner is encouraged to greet each “guest” with a brief note acknowledging the experience and an enthusiastic “Welcome to the party!” In my practice, I normally find that “Welcome to the party!” quickly transforms into a very brief mental symbol that resides in concept space near some kind of joyful hospitality, like I love receiving guests—not actually super typical for me IRL {curiosity, welcome to the party!}.
Now, my knowledge of the Zen tradition is extremely limited, but I wouldn’t put it past Jeff to borrow from whatever sources he thought might be useful (as one should). Do you think he might be pointing at (or maybe converging on) the Zen teaching of Guest/Host?
So, he is, but for reasons orthogonal to the way you describe it. The idea of guest and host doesn’t really match closely (in my understanding) with this idea of treating experience as a guest coming to a party, but it does present a way to get closer to seeing the host/absolute by not holding on so tightly to the guest/relative (as I’m understanding it from your comments).
Ah, so the mapping is host = territory = ultimate reality, guest = map = relative reality? Shades of impermanence from the metaphor, then? Accepting without clinging? Lots of places have had hospitality mores with that kind of flavor—though I don’t know how prevalent they are now and they seem to be all but absent in western culture as far as I’m aware. Is that what you meant by “holds little currency for us Westerners”? If so, you’re right that this isn’t much of a theme in WTTP as I’ve heard Jeff teach it, though (as you observed) one might be able to come to it if one were so inclined.
Not trying to be dense here, just trying to make sure I can at least tell what you’re pointing at. ;)
Jeff Warren teaches a meditation he calls “Welcome to the Party” that your brief mention of “Guest and Host” immediately reminded me of. The meditation teaches a non-clinging open awareness by suggesting the practitioner frame their conscious experience as a party, and every immediate sensory experience becomes a guest. The practitioner is encouraged to greet each “guest” with a brief note acknowledging the experience and an enthusiastic “Welcome to the party!” In my practice, I normally find that “Welcome to the party!” quickly transforms into a very brief mental symbol that resides in concept space near some kind of joyful hospitality, like I love receiving guests—not actually super typical for me IRL {curiosity, welcome to the party!}.
Now, my knowledge of the Zen tradition is extremely limited, but I wouldn’t put it past Jeff to borrow from whatever sources he thought might be useful (as one should). Do you think he might be pointing at (or maybe converging on) the Zen teaching of Guest/Host?
So, he is, but for reasons orthogonal to the way you describe it. The idea of guest and host doesn’t really match closely (in my understanding) with this idea of treating experience as a guest coming to a party, but it does present a way to get closer to seeing the host/absolute by not holding on so tightly to the guest/relative (as I’m understanding it from your comments).
Ah, so the mapping is host = territory = ultimate reality, guest = map = relative reality? Shades of impermanence from the metaphor, then? Accepting without clinging? Lots of places have had hospitality mores with that kind of flavor—though I don’t know how prevalent they are now and they seem to be all but absent in western culture as far as I’m aware. Is that what you meant by “holds little currency for us Westerners”? If so, you’re right that this isn’t much of a theme in WTTP as I’ve heard Jeff teach it, though (as you observed) one might be able to come to it if one were so inclined.
Not trying to be dense here, just trying to make sure I can at least tell what you’re pointing at. ;)
Yep, you got it.