The field and the ground of love

The talk opens with a vivid image: the field is perception—poised, boundless, and instantly translating words into meaning; the ground is feeling—love, the substance beneath perception. Memory stands aside; it is only needed when we wander into the past. Whenever memory is consulted about emotional matters, problems begin. The 'thinker' is a field whose ground is emotion; leave the present for that system and life is lost to images and old pain. He applies this to lovemaking: fantasy introduces a 'third in the bed', collapsing presence. Man must end sexual fantasising and woman must not drift into a self-pleasuring trance. Joy and verbal affirmation help keep both present in the transition. Questions from the room touch fear, world events, mothers and the dead, migraines, and the courage to love. Barry returns to the cause: lovelessness within. Knowledge is now and cannot be remembered; news is only information. The practice is to feel sensation until it eases into rightness and subtle love—the home one must come to before death. Nature mirrors this ground, and responsibility begins and ends here.