After spending a weekend retreat with Bentinho Massaro,
where he tried groups for the first time … I feel I have some insights.
Whenever, I heard someone vocalize a breakthrough from their old thinking, and
experienced a relaxation, I got teary. Not because it was sad but it was so
lovely to witness and the joy they felt, I felt. To let go of an old way of thinking to
not being involved in experience was liberating. It did not matter how they got
there nor the subject that prompted it, but I realized that the human body has
only a handful of reactions which we all experience. This happened time and
time again in groups, and it did not matter who it was. Sorry to break it to
you, but we are not as unique as we think. And without our ego involved with a
group with no other intentions we can honestly feel the other, which leads us
over and over again to the inseparability of all. Bentinho once said, “It is
like two ends of a tablecloth talking to one another.” One gentleman’s release, even though it could be perceived
as subtle by the thinking mind, was so profound for him that I felt a huge wave
of emotion that he was obviously feeling as well.
by relaxing into source before thoughts and experience. 
This leads to me to the
natural compassion every human has that comes when all thoughts and ego are let
go of. This compassion is not a new state, and is natural when all else is
cleared away.
A little update, I received an email from the young man
I met in Bagan thanking me for the money I gave his family for a motorcycle in
January. “ You have 'infected' my family and they want to see you again. The rose
plant you gave my mom is blooming. I will offer them to Buddha and pray for you.”
Imagine if for the next twenty-four hours you had to wear a cap that amplified your thoughts so that everyone within a hundred yards of you could hear every thought that passed through your head. Imagine if the mind were broadcast so that all about you could overhear “your” thoughts and fantasies, “your” dreams and fears. How embarrassed or fearful would you be to go outside? How long would you let your fear of the mind continue to isolate you from the hearts of others? And though this experiment sounds like one which few might care to participate in, imagine how freeing it would be at last to have nothing to hide. And how miraculous it would be to see that all others’ minds too were filled with the same confusion and fantasies, the same insecurity and doubt. How long would it take the judgemental mind to begin to release its grasp, to see through the illusion of separateness, to recognize with some humor the craziness of all beings’ minds, the craziness of mind itself?
— Stephen and Ondrea Levine
