Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More


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Day Service

Barnhouse Napa Brews, Napa, California, USA

August 19, 2024



"I'll have a cigar and a cappuccino."
... 
answering Laurence Platt's question "What will you have, Werner?" aboard the Canim - Sausalito yacht harbor, California, USA - circa 1984
"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve."
... Albert Schweitzer quoted by  
"When I don't know who I am, I serve you. When I know who I am, I am you."
... Hanuman speaking with Rama in the Sanskrit epic Ramayana
"Before enlightenment: chopping wood, carrying water. After enlightenment: chopping wood, carrying water."
... Zen koan derived from Layman P'ang's "My supernatural power and marvelous activity: drawing water and chopping wood." - circa 800
"Chop wood, carry water, make tea."
... Laurence Platt, Not Writing: Koans In The Key Of B-Major
This essay, Day Service, is the companion piece to


People who Assist (we once called them simply "Assistants") are known for their tireless, generous work, producing the programs, seminars, and workshops which deliver the work of transformation. I've often heard it said (accurately, I might add) that you get your life from assisting ie that instead of interacting with life in order to get something from it, assisting is the opportunity to make something (specifically, transformation) available to others. Listen: if you're assisting in order to get something from it, that's not an appropriate context for assisting. If you assist in that context, don't. You're just wasting your time.

Cuban cigar and cappuccino

Photograph courtesy Las Vegas Cigar Guys
"I'll have a cigar and a cappuccino." ... Werner to Laurence
Assisting in its pure form, is serving ie assisting is service. Assisting is serving people rather than moi. It's a calling. I love assisting. Assisting comes in many forms. It has many expressions. The one I love the most was known as day service. Day service provided the service so that Werner, his staff and guests were supported in their meetings ie they were taken care of / served while they worked. It was both my privilege as well as my good fortune to serve in day service myself, and to also manage the day service team. How was day service set up? How was it all planned?

For starters, it wasn't night  service. Assembling a team for night service would have been easy. Mostly, people don't work at night. Many more people would have been available for service at night. Assembling a team for day  service would have been a challenge were it not for the fact that a tight, dedicated, committed team of people truly loved  day service, and they loved being around Werner and his staff and guests. They loved ensuring they were taken care of and had everything they needed to get the job done in a relaxed and enjoyably supportive environment. Day service wasn't considered work. It was an opportunity to discover who you are in service.

People clamored  to take time off work during the day to participate in day service. Filling all the hourly slots during the day, was a breeze. Here is how a typical call on my list went: "Taylor it's Laurence.", "What time?", "2:30?", "I'll be there, bye!" (click). After the hour ended they stayed, reluctant to leave. Part of that was the space. A lot of it was Werner. Primarily it was the service.

Serving tea and (non-alcoholic) drinks is easy. Look: there are only so many ways you can add ice cubes to a diet Coke. With those requests, the focus was on the presentation itself: immaculate, impeccable, and rapid. Cappuccinos are another order of things altogether. In the making of the perfect cappuccino, there are a lot of moving parts, all of which have to be mastered. And this being Werner's monastery within a monastery, if you hadn't mastered the art of making the perfect cappuccino, you would undergo further training until you could. Only then would you be allowed to do day service again. In the ordinary course of events, such rigor is often deemed to be excessive. In day service it was considered to be the mark everyone (in their heart of hearts) aspires to.

We learn to get along with people ie to be civil in society. That's smart (very smart) if you don't want to fight your way through life. But there are very few opportunities to learn to really serve  people. Day service was an opportunity to really serve people, to have your attention on them rather than on yourself / moi. To serve, you have to be complete with yourself. Being incomplete, who you are just gets in the way. Day service provided two brilliant Zen primers: on serving, and on being complete as a springboard for anything worthwhile in life. Like anything else around Werner, it was sublime, potent, extraordinary.



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