What a day today.  The sun shining bright, blue sky, people moving about.  A seat on the train, Temple of Heaven green tea, and a classroom of sometimes smiley students awaiting me.  Best of all, I have the ability and permission to teach in a way that makes me feel free intellectually, and yes, even spiritually.  The goal is to feed the students quality so they increase their bravery as they battle to express their inner truths with the world, and then, hopefully, accept, feel and spread life's joy more freely.

I am fortunate to speak with and listen to lots of people every day, and even luckier that they pay me to do so.  Depending on the class, we may have group discussions or smaller conversations in groups or pairs.  Today we did both.  We discussed all sorts of family topics.  I enjoy the back and forth, although I don’t always agree with everybody, and I know that some of them feel the same way about me.  That’s what being an individual with a unique experiential point of view provides you: you may say what you think and express what’s inside.

Expressing yourself is one challenge, but having a quality conversation which improves all involved requires a whole extra journey that starts with fearful risk of your protective shell, but if you're lucky, proceeds toward mastery.  To speak takes skill, practice, courage and something worthwhile to say in the first place, but to listen involves patience, love, peace, understanding and the ability to improvise in ways that bring out the best in both of you.

When we have breaks I often go to the teacher's lounge, and sometimes a discussion with some level of intellectual depth takes place.  We had a very good one today.  Somehow a teacher got riled up about mysticism because of a book another teacher was reading.   He groaned and grunted and generalized and complained and was soon putting down half the magic spin ball in favor of a homo sapien information diet of pure rationalism.  Yes, I know, a conversation that happens and has happened all over the world through all time, so where are we going to get during a lunch break on this one?  Still, it was interesting, a little fun, and of course, I learned something.  Definitely better than sitting in silence or muttering about things that don't matter.  The only problem was the guy didn't want to listen to anyone.  He had his ideas, and that was it.  All you need are facts, apparently, or at least to say things that sound like facts while raising your voice and smacking your hands together.  Yet I think that if one is more open to the world, one may push the mind to contemplate, making new imagination resonate, and a soul will vibrate

Whatever the idea, the tone or the words, please, for your own sake, listen.  If you listen to many people, you will sound more intelligent, informed and trustworthy when you speak to others, and you will also be more confident and content on the inside, because you'll know that you are speaking with as much authority as any life could hope to be.  We don't have to have a conversation with anyone, but if we're going to speak, then we have time to listen.

As for the group of international individuals speaking together, with a rich variety of opinions offered by all, we learned a lot about each other this afternoon.  We also learned a little more about our respective cultures’ general tendencies of thought, that is, as accurately as those could ever be conveyed by single representatives of supposed nations of complex individual human lives weaved together in intricately spiraling sophisticated stories.  This was only one group of people in a little room on a big ball, but I enjoyed the experience and felt completely natural and comfortable with the circulation of communication.  I had an advantage in my comfort zone because I am experienced with starting, organizing and energizing otherwise completely organic conversations amongst human beings.  I am used to hearing large varieties of opinions expressed by people from all sorts of stories, experiences, beliefs, languages, pleasures, fears, families, cultures, philosophies, nationalities, traditions, religions, ages, smiles, accents, laughs, fashions, diets, styles, ideas, artistic joys, and levels of inclination toward imaginative innovation.  Whoever you are, you are welcome to voice your inner truths and share them with the class, so long as you accept the universal gifts of your classmates' wisdom, knowledge, experience, imagination, creativity and personality.

In fact, I encourage you