No wrong moves

"Play" not as in playing games — play as in the play of sunlight on the water. Spontaneous, responsive participation.

Welcome to the last arc

The first four arcs explored vividness through perception, space, form, and energy. As these become familiar you may notice they aren't really separable. The categories were a scaffold; the territory is one thing. This final arc names the felt quality of inhabiting that one thing — what the original course called play.

Play here doesn't mean games (though it includes them). Play means spontaneous, responsive participation — the way light plays on water. It has three aspects we'll spend the arc unpacking. They're worth stating up front so you can feel what we're pointing at:

The rest of this lesson works with the first aspect. The next two lessons take the second and third in turn.

Basic trust in your own responsiveness

In spaciousness and appreciation we discover there are no existential problems — no insoluble dilemmas concerning the self or the world or the fabric of reality. There are only practical problems: we'd like things to be different than they are, simply because that's what we'd prefer. From that attitude, all circumstances are workable. There are opportunities for action in response to any situation.

Regrets about past actions don't imply we were inherently wrong to have acted. They're feelings that arise as part of remembering that situation, which we can use to re-orient and consider the next move. Fears about future moves provide sensitivity to what we want now. Moves that feel wrong right now are, again, feelings about right fit — increasing our sensitivity to what the situation calls for.

Your action may not yield the result you're hoping for. But it always yields another workable circumstance. Actions that embody this view are playful.

A drummer's vibe

The legendary session drummer Bernard Purdie demonstrating the attitude. There are no inherently wrong moves — only material to work with.

His vibe is contagious. It can be useful to plan carefully, to work to repair an unfortunate situation. But notice what it might look and feel like to do that playfully — invoking some of his wonder and appreciation of accidents and expertise.

The analogy game

A small experiment in speaking before you have time to think. The original seminar runs this with five participants on camera, each completing analogies one after another at five-second intervals. The point is that you can't plan — you have to speak before the planning starts.

Solo version: read each analogy below aloud, one after another. When you reach the end of the sentence, complete it out loud — before you've decided what to say. It's fine if it makes no sense. It's fine if it surprises you. It's better if it surprises you. Don't go back and improve. Move on.

Playfulness can be both method and result when learning to trust your own responsiveness. Playing with being more playful is the method. Embodying playfulness in response to each evolving situation is the result. Notice if you tried to turn a perceived failure to be playful into a new wrong move.

Where this is going

Next: how trust in your responsiveness becomes available — through ritual, through stepping into bounded "as-if" worlds where what counts as a right or wrong move is contextual.