During a coaching conversation, someone told me they’d been receiving the Daily Reminders for ages, scratching their head because I kept casually mentioning the ‘3Ps’ or the ‘3 Principles’ or just ‘the principles’ but I never actually said what they were.
As a logical, scientific person used to information and learning and understanding and remembering and applying, this had them completely baffled.
Why would I do that? What was wrong with me?
Was it a mistake? Or some kind of test of initiative? Why didn’t I explain what they were and how they fit in with what I write about each day?
(Guilty as charged 😬🤷🏻♂️)
So they took it upon themselves to go and look them up… and were none the wiser!
😂
And there’s a reason of course, and that reason is that they’re not really a thing.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, we can talk about them, put words to them, describe what we see them as, or think they are. I could definitely do that.
But it won’t help you.
I already knew this, but I re-realised it at this year’s 3 Principles conference. I was sat there in the audience, listening to one person after another not actually talking about the 3Ps and I thought, Is it any wonder we struggle to share this profoundly life-changing understanding with people?!
🫠
Let me help this to make a bit more sense for you.
In the last few weeks, a number of unrelated readers have got in touch with me completely randomly, to say they’ve come across something online—a podcast; a blog post; a workshop—and it really looked like the person speaking/writing was ‘3Ps-aware’ and yet they weren’t actually mentioning them.
Did I think maybe they’d come across them? Are there maybe more people out there who know about the 3Ps than are letting on? Could I have a listen/read and let them know what I think?
🤔
And this is exactly it, for me. For the answer is both:
AND
Because the 3Ps aren’t actually a thing.
Not a tool, or a technique. Not a belief system or a method. Not even a ‘set of principles to live by’ (even though they’re labelled as ‘Principles’, how crazy is that)?! 🤪
The 3 Principles are simply a metaphor for the ineffable mysteries of life, in the same way that art, or poetry, or film, or religion, or music or dance or every damn thing I write about here in the Daily Reminders are all metaphors for the ineffable mysteries of life.
The key, as is so often quoted in Zen teachings, is:
🌗 Don’t look at the finger pointing to the moon, look at the moon.
None of what I point to has anything to do with learning or understanding or remembering or applying – these are the tools of the mind (the equivalent of ‘looking at the finger’).
All that stuff is great for pub quizzes and remembering how to tie your shoelaces, but it’s got naff-all to do with you living a happy, fulfilled life.
For that, just keep showing up, stay curious and keep gathering your own evidence for these principles at play in your life – you’ll find it everywhere, when you look!
💟
Giles
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Giles P Croft
What you do need, if you're in the market for change.