Beautiful passage. The whole book is really worth reading, by the way. Somehow Needleman captures the essence of a precious quality of exchange. I think what's most amazing is the quality of Lobsang's tone in addressing this 9 year old as a being in her own right and not someone it's necessary to "speak down" to. I'm sure Logsang's response was made with full awareness that he was speaking to a child, but also another being in herself. So the content, the words, no doubt were chosen with this in mind [not too abstract or technical, for instance] while the tone was this other thing which Jacob captures so well, this authentic and real response to a whole being from another whole being. Really wonderful.
On Apr 7, 2011 Richard Whittaker wrote :
Beautiful passage. The whole book is really worth reading, by the way. Somehow Needleman captures the essence of a precious quality of exchange. I think what's most amazing is the quality of Lobsang's tone in addressing this 9 year old as a being in her own right and not someone it's necessary to "speak down" to. I'm sure Logsang's response was made with full awareness that he was speaking to a child, but also another being in herself. So the content, the words, no doubt were chosen with this in mind [not too abstract or technical, for instance] while the tone was this other thing which Jacob captures so well, this authentic and real response to a whole being from another whole being. Really wonderful.