I’m preparing from my Zen Live talk on “Meditations on Eckhart Tolle” Each day I turn over a quote card, and apply that quote to my life as a spontaneous talk. Today’s quote: “Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as a field of conscious presence.”

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And I’m wondering if I come to FB to interact as a role, that of a teacher. Yet…a role is not creative is it. All a role or function can do is repeat itself as an incarnation of the past. So if I’m creative on FB, then it’s not a role….yet there is a taste of function in my being here. What if my function is to be creative?

And then there is this “field of conscious presence.” What is that? Obviously when you are a field there are no fences between you and the other, or something. I find my writing, my interaction through writing rising when I’m in a field (interaction) with someone I resonate with, like you. Ideas in action grow in a field. What is ideas in action but understanding. A Field of Presence is where dots connect through the intention of greater understanding.

So I come to Facebook for it is a field of presence where I increase my understanding of who I am as this world. You are the world and the world is you. When your intention is to understand, that means that fences of assumptions come down. The smaller pasture opens up into a field. The goats are released to romp and play. A Field of Presence is a field of play.

Yes. that’s it! When we come to other people as a role or function, we are not at play. Roles are being played, of course, but we are unconscious that we are playing a role, and when there is unconsciousness there is seriousness. When. there is seriousness, there is no discovery. Play is spontaneous discovery. Discovery is understanding.

It’s impossible to take your yoga role as a serious path to enlightenment when goats are playing on you.

The only way to describe play, or better yet, to teach play is to play with it. When you are at play, you are spontaneous, and when you are spontaneous, you are creative. The play is playing you. And yet, unlike rambling and jumping goats at play, there is an intention in play. But…we don’t know what that intention is. The Play knows. The art knows, the Dance knows, but you don’t. That’s the surprise in play. That’s the discovery in play. That’s the surrender in play. For play to happen, you have to surrender YOUR intention to the secret intention of play. You have to have FAITH that play has an intention for you to discover. Without that surrender, without that faith, there is no play, no creativity and, for that matter, no life. Life is play.

So. what is the Secret Intention of life as play, I ask myself. Greater unity, I would say. The intention of life is to create unity from the flowing fountain of life that is always bubbling chaos. Life creates order and unity out of chaos or death simultaneously. Life is death; death is life. And to connect a Hindu dot, this is Shiva.

Our idea of God is that God is good and death is bad, so God is on the side of life and the Devil is on the side of death. But in Dharma and Shiva life and death are One in play. Destruction and Order are One. In Buddhism, Samsara and Nirvana are One. Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. The One is two, two is One. “Night and day..you are the One”

So play is the One that is two: the player and the playing are ONE. The actor and the audience are One. The mirror and its reflection are one, yet they are separate. In play you can “love your enemy.”

Now here’s an idea: Play is transcendent of experience. When in play, you as something separate is not experiencing play, you and play are One, and the PLAY transcends you as someone having an experience. This is why when something interrupts your play, you kind of like come down and now you experience irritation for being interrupted, or jolted out of your play or Oneness.

A good move is play, and when someone talks during the movie, you experience that talking and get irritated. You are not experiencing the move like you experience that talking. You are the movie. You are in the movie as the movie, and you are in play as the play.

Therefore, when we play at life, we are IN life as play. We are not experiencing life as the observer and the observed. This duality of the mind is One in play. In our serious adult society we have to pay good money to play. Play is created so we can lose our serious mind. Those who can create play for others make serious money.

But this is not the spiritual path. The Way of the Buddha is to discover how to play as life without dependence on artificial play that is created for us. One creates play our of one’s life, out of what’s given. Follow Mr. Bean. If his car is destroyed, he retrieves the lock and plays with that.

So, picking up and connecting back to the. E.T. Quote, the “field of conscious presence” is play for there are no boundaries in the field of play. You can romp anywhere without judgment and morality. Play is beyond morality. This is why the serious mind hate play. The serious mind, the fundamental mind lives in a field with stone walls. The field is compartmentalized by beliefs. Every belief is a fence with two sides: my side and your side. The goats of play love walls to jump on and over.