Surrender and The Level

In our week-long journey from outcomes to process, we arrive at the ultimate goal: the present moment. This episode defines the state we are trying to achieve through all this preparation.

• The Act of Surrender: In a productivity-obsessed culture, "surrender" sounds negative, but here it means letting go of the tension of needing a result so you can actually perform the work.
• Being "On the Level": This isn't just a metaphor for fairness; it describes a state where everyone is operating on the work itself—nothing above it, nothing below it.
• Sublime Silence: Drawing from the building of the Temple of Jerusalem, this is the experience where the "tools of iron" aren't heard because the environment is so perfectly set.
• Transcendence: When you surrender to the moment, the work becomes obvious and the mechanics of the task become secondary to the experience.

What’s Next? Now that we've mastered the space and the mindset, we move into a new topic next week.

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• Tim Dedman
• Jorge

Creators and Guests

Host

Brian Mattocks

Host and Founder of A Mason's Work - a podcast designed to help you use symbolism to grow. He's been working in the craft for over a decade and served as WM, trustee, and sat in every appointed chair in a lodge - at least once :D

What is A Mason's Work?

In this show we discuss the practical applications of masonic symbolism and how the working tools can be used to better yourself, your family, your lodge, and your community. We help good freemasons become better men through honest self development. We talk quite a bit about mental health and men's issues related to emotional and intellectual growth as well.

[00:00] this entire series of episodes, we've been building something, a mindset, threshold practice,
[00:09] a minimum viable environment, and how to create a group experience where the threshold
[00:14] is crossed and elevated work begins.
[00:18] And I want to name kind of what all that's been in service to because every one of these
[00:26] steps isn't the point.
[00:30] Everything we've built this week, preparation, the environment, the threshold, all of it
[00:34] has been infrastructure for a single moment, the present moment, the moment you stop managing
[00:44] and start being.
[00:46] We've spent a lot of time creating this space, but to live in that space, to begin the process
[00:55] of doing that work is something that as a culture, we tend to avoid because we talk about this
[01:02] productivity outcome focus.
[01:03] What we're really doing in the present moment is surrender.
[01:13] And for a lot of work, a lot of people, that word carries a big negative charge.
[01:19] Surrendering to the present moment doesn't mean losing all your faculties.
[01:26] It doesn't mean giving up.
[01:30] It doesn't mean giving your will over to someone else.
[01:36] What it means is it's a letting go, a divestiture of the back and forth tension of needing something
[01:51] to be done so much so that it distracts you from doing it.
[01:57] This is the creation of flow.
[02:01] You have set the stage for all of the work to start, and now you have this opportunity
[02:10] to begin that flow experience.
[02:14] That clubhouse example we talked about in episode three, when the moment took over and the environment
[02:20] disappeared, that was not like perpetual optimizing.
[02:25] That was surrendering to the present moment.
[02:29] You stopped managing the experience and became a part of it.
[02:34] We have a name for what that feels like in the lot.
[02:41] And we call it being on the level.
[02:44] That means everyone's operating.
[02:47] It's not a metaphor for fairness or a description of how we resolve inequalities in society.
[02:57] It is a description of the state that we are in.
[03:03] We are all operating on the work at the same level.
[03:09] There is nothing above the work and nothing below the work.
[03:13] It is the work on the level.
[03:16] When we do this together, the experience as a group is profound.
[03:26] We talk about it a little bit in our ritual, this notion of sublime silence, that when the
[03:31] temple in Jerusalem was built, that no tools of metal or iron could be heard, that in sublime
[03:40] silence, our ancient brethren reared the sacred temple.
[03:43] So we talk about this experience.
[03:47] And when we get the environment set correctly, when we create space correctly, sublime silence
[03:54] emerges.
[03:55] Now, I want to be quite clear.
[03:57] It need not be silent.
[03:59] So I was recently passed with creating a program for our new members.
[04:05] And the cleanup crew had just as much fun, you know, blasting ACDC and moving chairs around
[04:12] in a elevated state as you would have had if you had attended the event and eaten the dinner.
[04:21] The elevated experience does not, again, doesn't need to be silent per se.
[04:26] It needs to have everyone operating on that level.
[04:33] When you have surrendered to the moment in this way, the work is obvious.
[04:38] The challenge is manageable.
[04:40] The people you're doing it with are all on the level.
[04:43] The entire experience becomes this highly codified and concentrated memory that you don't necessarily
[04:54] remember how many things you did or what the nature of how the work divided out.
[05:00] You're not thinking about the transactional mechanics of any of it.
[05:04] You are thinking about the experience and the transcendent experience of having surrendered
[05:09] to the work and achieve something great by yourself or with others.
[05:13] And that leads us to our topic for next week, where I will see you then.