Q&A Lunch Practice Teaching

During lunch one day in April 2024, I was leading the group in a deliberate practice session of answering real questions. This was a rare occasion in which Soryu also joined us for the meal.

One question that a community member asked was, is there anyone out there? He related a recent experience where he walked from our training ground a long way through a rural area in the daytime, and didn’t meet one person, or hear any animals.

As we practiced answering this question, first a few people tried to get him to clarify what he was really asking. He realized that he was more interested in knowing, why is there no one out there? The next few people whose turn it was to answer seemed uncertain how to approach this. The last person who answered gave a beautiful answer about how people are harder to find as they tend to stay behind closed doors, but they’re there, and may be willing to connect if we ask. The asker wasn’t totally satisfied.

Then Soryu asked him, “Isn’t the answer that the animals are dead, and the people are behind screens?”

He considered this, and said, “Yes.”