Session Four: Civil Discourse with Those Who Differ

Retreat Series: Spirituality for Atheists, Agnostics, Druids, Pagans, and Seekers

Listening, Then Meaning – Two Strict Meetings

Introduction

This fourth session takes what the first three sessions placed in silence and solitude and offers it to a small group of people whose answers differ. Physicians, lawyers, teachers, law-enforcement officers, or political opponents may sit together. The purpose is not to change anyone’s mind. The purpose is to practice the same civil discourse the retreat has modeled: each person answers the six questions from the life they have actually lived, and everyone receives each answer without correction.

The six questions remain: What is the purpose of life? What is your purpose of life within that purpose? What does reality look like? How does it all fit together? How do you love fiercely? You know you are going to die; now what? Tripping on why these six and not some other six is avoidance. The questions are the common ground. The answers belong to each person.

Science measures the visible. Human reason and free choice also address what remains invisible—purpose, Center, love, the fact of death. Einstein called the world’s comprehensibility a mystery. Buber said the world is embraceable by embracing one of its beings. Fromm taught that love is a practice, not a feeling. In this session, those insights become practical rules of speech and silence.

The group stays small—four or five people—so there’s enough time, and no one is forced to perform. You can use the format in a room or on Zoom. The rules are strict. They exist to keep the conversation from tearing throats out. Follow them exactly.

Meditation

Before the first meeting, sit alone for a few minutes with the six questions—notice which one still feels unfinished. Notice the one Center you named in Session Three. Bring only what your life has already produced. No new theory is required.

The first meeting is for listening. Each person writes in silence, then reads what they wrote, then the group sits in further silence. No commentary is offered. The second meeting is for meaning. Each person has five minutes to say how the six answers hang together around the single Center already chosen. Again, no interruption. After both rounds, fifteen minutes of silence in the upper room allows the whole to settle.

The dignity of another person’s reason is not an abstract principle. It is the concrete decision not to interrupt, not to correct, not to explain why their Center is inadequate. When the other person finishes, the only response is ten minutes of silence in which you may write one or two words that arose while you listened. Those words stay private unless you later choose to share them.

This format does not require anyone to abandon what they believe. It requires only that each person state, without defense or attack, what their own life has produced in the six categories, and then listen while others do the same. The ontic possibility of the manifestability of reality—the question “So, what do you believe?”—is answered by the life already lived, not by a winning argument.

Purpose of the Meetings

To let each person answer the six questions from personal experience and free choice, and to receive those answers with profound listening, silence, and respect for another’s reason. No one is asked to change a belief. The work is to speak what is true for oneself and to hear what is true for another without tearing the conversation apart.

Rules That Govern Both Meetings

1. Each person has the right to their own belief. No one may interrupt while another is reading or speaking.

2. Respect for the human reason possessed by another is required. Do not argue who is right and who is wrong.

3. Listen profoundly. Silence while others talk. No commentary, no correction, no cross-examination.

4. There is no right or wrong answer in the room—only the dignity of each person’s reason and free choice.

5. Groups are limited to four or five people. Larger numbers destroy the silence the format requires.

6. The format may be used in person or on Zoom. The same rules apply.

First Meeting: Listening

1. State the purpose and the rules aloud. Confirm that everyone understands the prohibition on interruption and commentary.

2. Each person moves to a separate part of the room (or mutes and turns off the camera on Zoom). For twenty minutes, there is total silence. Each person fills out the workbook with the six questions from their life so far. No talking.

3. The group returns. There is no time limit. Each person, in turn, reads aloud exactly what they wrote. No commentary or discussion of its meaning is permitted.

4. After each person finishes reading, the group remains in silence for ten minutes. Each person listens with mind and heart and may write down one or two words that arose. Do not share those words at this time.

5. When every person has read and the final ten minutes of silence have ended, everyone stands and walks out in silence. No discussion follows.

Second Meeting: Meaning (Follow-up)

The second meeting occurs after sufficient time has passed for each person to sit with what was heard. It may be the next day or the next week.

1. Restate the purpose and the rules. Confirm the prohibition on interruption.

2. Each person is given ten minutes, and only ten minutes, to explain their six answers and how those answers make sense around the one Center already chosen. The question being answered is: “So, what do you believe?” No one may interrupt or comment while another is speaking.

3. After every person has spoken, the group remains in silence for fifteen minutes. Each person goes to the upper room of their inner self and processes both meetings.

4. Only after the fifteen minutes of silence does an open discussion begin. Limit the discussion to what each person learned in the two sessions together. It is not a debate about whose answers are better.

Notes for Facilitators

Keep the group small. Enforce the silence. If someone begins to argue or correct, gently return the group to the rule: no right or wrong, only respect. The format is strict precisely so that people of differing beliefs—physicians, lawyers, teachers, law-enforcement officers, political opponents, believers and non-believers—can sit together without tearing their throats out. The six-question workbook is the only agenda. Each person’s life is the only textbook.

Three Reflections on Listening and the Limits of What Can Be Said

“The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings.” — Martin Buber.

“Love is not something natural. Rather, it requires discipline, concentration, patience… It isn’t a feeling; it is a practice.” — Erich Fromm.

“The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.” — Albert Einstein.

Contemplative Time of Fifteen Minutes

After the sessions, or between them, go to the upper room of your inner self. Sit in silence and solitude for fifteen minutes. Let what you heard and what you said settle. There is nothing to achieve. Be present to the dignity of each person’s reason and free choice, including your own.

Action

Carry one insight from the two sessions into the next ordinary conversation you have with someone whose answers differ from yours. Speak less. Listen longer. Write down one sentence about what you noticed. When you return home, visit www.organism.earth and listen in silence. If enough people want more meetings, schedule them yourselves. Copyright of Michael F. Conrad, Ed.D. The Center for Contemplative Practice. All rights