Omega II: Visiting with the Sages
Day 2 - Afternoon Session - Part 3

by Alisa Joaquin

The question and answer period continued with a woman asking a question in regards to the Self-Awareness Questionnaire that Arnold Tayam read off to us during the Friday evening session.. She was trying to understand the differences when faced with someone with a negative force.

Rob answered with, "We had a situation again involving Phil, right. It was with Carlos who was the key grip. Carlos in fits of guilt had made him so mad. He came to me about it and he had this need to say something and he asked me if you had ever had such a disliking with someone so immediate that you absolutely needed to kill something (it was difficult to fully understand what he was saying , but that was the gist of it). I was in a position where I had something easy to say. I said, 'Yeah, happens all the time. Usually I find out I just need to get to know them better.' And I think that was the case with Phil. We don't always have the luxury of being able to really make a first impression, but that ability, to not overreact, helps to keep your self control while we're trying to make it. There are other alternative reactions, but our greatest gift that we have in life is our ability to choose. That's something that they can't put in a cage. They can lock you up into a little room, maybe, but they can't take that away. You have to live with the outcome of your choices so access yourself. Your sensitivity, it's a powerful act, it's not an easy thing. And it's a life time choice. For ultimately, hopefully if you're aware of it. One of the lessons for me is if you just take one breath before you start, it will put you in a whole new frame of mind and you won't stay *#@*@*# or something or up #####, you won't overreact to negativity with people of a darker shade. That's a very good lesson to be teaching even for parenting."

David then said, "Remember the first day out there. We were just talking about this. Something had . . . we showed up to start this whole series. It was like a whole new world; a universe. And the very first day, and the very first thing, there's something that, we don't remember what it was, there was something that just wasn't there or was wrong. And it couldn't even be done now, it was a given. And I was just so angry . . ."

(a portion of the conversation had been missed in the recording. When they continued recording, David was referring to releasing the anger.)

" . . . wrinkle brow. And the thing was that just thinking that. You say, 'Okay, take these wrinkles out of my brow.' And suddenly, once you do that, and think about doing that, and you try it, it's impossible to get pissed off. And then, later on in the day, and Rob said, 'I just feel like I'm not doing anything and their paying me for this.' and I said, 'What are you talking about? You just earned a whole year's salary with that one line.' Instead of walking on the set LIKE THIS (raising his voice and yelling in an angry tone) to begin the series, I was, 'hi guys' (far more laid back and relaxed) you know. And the thing is that, that, you know you talk about emotions getting in the way of what you're trying to achieve, trying to bring the chi into you, trying to heal yourself. Trying to make everything good around you. And the emotions that get in the way, well by the same token, the emotions can be the actual tool, can be the meat of the thing. You know, I mean, even like I'M HHUUNNGGRRYY Right? And I'm doing this with GOD I'M SO HHUUNNGGRRYY, right. And now hunger is essentially sort of a negative, or what we think of it is, you know I really need to eat or I'll starve. But to use and then all of the sweet, sweetness of emotions that came come into . . . if you layer them over things that some things going wrong. You're in traffic, you know. And what do you do, you turn on the radio and listen to music and that changes your . . . and you go 'well, you know, hey I don't mind sitting here in this freeway, you know. Know what I mean? And uh, uh, I'm digressing, I'm just babbling on again."

Another participant had a question and he stated, "Well there's this constant question on whether to confront or just breath or something. I remember in an early episode in that series, you had beat up another Master in the temple, and sort of kicking him across the floor . . ."

Someone said, "Tan."

David added, "He was a really bad guy."

The participant saying, "You will leave this temple and never come back."

And another said (I believe it was David Nakahara), "He was really asking for it."

The participant continued with, "And I'm watching that and well, that's cool, you gotta protect the temple and you're taking care of business. But I think it was that same uy who came back . . ."

David responds, "That's right."

And the participant added, "So I don't know if there's any answer to the question, but it's an endless question of how you decide when to confront.

Rob Moses answered this question with, "Well, I remember choreographing that. I wasn't the choreographer, but David said, 'What are we going to do when I beat this guy?' It's like, I said, 'Do the old man kick.' David has this old man kick that he can just really wallup anything with the side of his foot. (David laughed in the background.) And if you see that episode again, you'll see, yeah he whooped the guy, it was a humiliation more than a destruction. He didn't really stomp (David says at the same time, "I'm not really hurting the guy.") on him. And boom, he's knocking the guy back down. And he's humiliating him in front of all the other people. That was a . . ."

David interrupts and says, "Actually, that came from Kam Yuen."

Rob states, "Right, right."

David continues with, "I watched him do John. There was this student. This is our Master, but he's regretted that probably ever since. Though he doesn't talk about it any more, but for a while you could get him to talk about it. He had this student who was a brilliant, his most brilliant student. And the guy sort of started a kind of mutiny in the school. He went around telling everybody that the Master wasn't really a great fighter, that he really didn't care about anything but business, and he was nothing. And one of the things he didn't want to do was get Kam pissed off. It really wasn't a good idea. Finally, Kam confronted him. And that's the way he fought him. He very quickly made him fall down. Got him on the ground. Right in front of all his students. The guy would start to get up and he go like that, he wasn't like kicking him. (David got up and demonstrated what Kam did by actually showing how Kam shoved the student and David also got on the floor to show how the student reacted) He was just shoving him, right? And the guy, you know, was down like this, and he'd get up and all of a sudden, he'd be down like that. And he's go 'Humph!' And just kind of kicked him all the way across the room, and essentially out the front door of the school. And he thought later, how it would have been so good that he could have shown the guy his supremacy as a Master did, shown him his kindness at the same time. Shown him that these emotions would not come to him, that he had been a true Master, because as it was, he lost the guy. The guy was humiliated and never came back. And the ringleaders of the mutiny went with him. He lost half a dozen or so of his best students. And he always regretted that. This is the Master talking, right? I mean, even a Master that means, we're all just human. But, when we did that scene, I wanted to . . . you know, 'cause I tried to bring as many people from real life and as many lessons. Because you can't try to invent these lessons on a piece of paper . . . write um like a script. If you've seen something actually happen and I wanted people to see that moment that I had seen that was so important to me. So, I went ahead and put it in there. And I think the lesson really is something about the fact that, later on, we had to deal with that guy again in the series. And intensely more powerful. Because by humiliating him, I had made him so angry, I'd given him power. If you have an enemy, confronting him is a dangerous thing to do because it does make him more powerful. You throw that negative energy at him and then now he's got it. Something about the fact that the way to retain power is not to express it."

A woman spoke out and said, "Well even Christ had to throw the moneylenders out of the temple. You know it's got to be done . . . ."

And David said, "And you know what happened to him." That got a big laugh out of everyone and I think it was it was David Nakaraha or Rob Moses who said, "And he used the same kick, too, I think."

End of Day 2 - Afternoon Session - Part 3

Alisa Joaquin Copyright@2001.
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