Conversations with Avant-garde Sages - The Wizard LLC

Conversations with Avant-garde Sages
everything I owned, I fasted so much, I only ate what came, I
trusted the moment, that's simply the way it was. At times, in your
wild fantasies, you always imagine the worst, this image came up
as like, am I going to like just disappear into the oat straw like this
hunger artist, where nobody cares, nobody knows. It's that pitiful
little self we all have that crops up once in a while.
TRIP: Well on the opposite end of the spectrum from totally
surrendering to the Mystery and just going with that. You've
observed that many people live in a fear-based comfort that
becomes deadly safe, the agent of a slow sorrowful death. You had
a remarkable encounter with a Japanese man that taught you
something about death in comfort. It was a really ordinary
experience, and I thought it was very enlightening, anybody could
have had it, and it was unlike some of these other dramatic
experiences you've had where you've had gangs in your house, or
whatever. Can you talk about that one?
JERRY WENNSTROM: Yes, it was ordinary in a deadly way. I
mean, I had done this presentation and this man came and he
invited me over for tea. And he had spent this life as a
Government worker and he was gay, from an older generation
again and so it was the generation where you couldn't come out
and be with that as easily as you can today. And so he was really
guarded. I mean, so when I entered his house he had the door
locked, he had this huge Doberman, he'd locked the door behind
us, and it was like he was so fear based, so afraid to do everything.
And I at the time I prided myself on my ability to find a way in, to
connect with somebody. It was like I was with this guy for as hour
or two, and it was like I could not find a way in, and I was so taken
by his extraordinary ability to stay shut out, and to shut me out,
and to stay shut down, and I just say that it was killing him. He
was obviously lonely, why did he invite me, he was unhappy. He
had every material advantage in the world, and yet there was
nothing about his life, he had to keep it all locked away and there
was nobody home there. So the encounter taught me something
about, for one thing it was humbling, because it was like, wow, I'm
not as clever as I thought I was [Laughs], I couldn't get this guy to
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