The Job of Language

The job of language is coordination, not orientation.

I have found in my gradually increasing number of years that a radically personal language for spiritual phenomena actually saves time and energy on clarification over consensus-projecting scientific/psychological language, as long as the language is sufficiently evocative.

When my vocabulary for spirituality HAD TO be grounded in Buddhism for… reasons, I created an intractable problem for relationships.

Sharing about the Great Matter required constant acts of translation and reframing into the words of an entity that was not present or speaking.

Communication IS constant translation and reframing, but conversation is only alive — is only INTERESTING — to the extent beings present and speaking are able to translate each other into themselves and themselves into each other.

Words can only drop away under those conditions.

The key to communicating in ways that allow words to drop away is to speak in terms that can be understood by being FELT.

The advantage of the language of “energy” for discussing spiritual matters is that it supports scientifically-grounded intuitions about how the world actually works, and it extends that domain into the realm of personal experience.

It’s okay to let people use their own language to describe their experience rather than requiring them to translate it into yours.

Even if you think it’s weird.

You can still tell if what they’re saying makes sense, if you actually listen to them.

You might even learn something.