2009.06.04 07:00 - What is Essential/A Year at PaB

The Guardian for this meeting was Eliza Madrigal. The comments are by Eliza Madrigal.

I was thrilled to arrive at the pavillion this morning, having just said "Goodbye for now" to a very friendly tech person. Adams was already there, and feeling reflective to realize that it had been a year (!!) since she first noticed something interesting going on in the Tea Hut... 

Eliza Madrigal: Adams! Morning :)
Adams Rubble: Good morning Eliza :)
Adams Rubble: That dress looks so nice on you
Eliza Madrigal: Thank you. I like it. Perhaps I should always wear red :)
Adams Rubble: Glad your computer got righted :)
Adams Rubble: :)
Eliza Madrigal: I was about to say that I love the transparent jacket you're wearing also
Adams Rubble: :)
Eliza Madrigal: And YES, me too about the computer!!
Eliza Madrigal: I was thrilled to see the tech guy here before 9AM my time!
Adams Rubble: It is the first anniversary of the session on Thursday morning thaat I found people exiting the teahouse and they told me the times when PaB met and I attended my first session Thursday afternoon with Storm
Adams Rubble: Yes, great techie!!!
Eliza Madrigal: OH!!!
Eliza Madrigal: Happy Anniversary!!
Adams Rubble: thanks :)
Eliza Madrigal: How exciting :)
Adams Rubble: It has been a wonderful year
Eliza Madrigal: What are your thoughts about the year that has 'gone by'?
Adams Rubble: I started blogging about them early this morning
Adams Rubble: What I diid nto say was that I came to figure out to live Buddhism :)
Adams Rubble: How to be more compassionate
Adams Rubble: By a long route I am still working on that
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Adams Rubble: But everything seems to have come together to that
Adams Rubble: although I had forgotten my original goal
Eliza Madrigal: The overarching theme is Compassion?
Eliza Madrigal: Nice place to find oneself I thinK!
Adams Rubble: yes, but now I prefer to use the term Love
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Adams Rubble: which connects me to my roots
Adams Rubble: easier to understand the metaphors
Eliza Madrigal: In what way?
Adams Rubble: I get very confused by Buddhism
Adams Rubble: Easier for me to understand St. Paul :)
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, I hear you now.
Adams Rubble: Early on in PaB i made a choice
Adams Rubble: It was in the first couple of weeks
Adams Rubble: Learned that PaB was a short cut
Adams Rubble: It has worked for me
Eliza Madrigal: For me, the word 'love' had nearly lost all meaning for a while...felt that it had been distorted and abused and might need to be put to rest. The word itself, I mean...
Adams Rubble: yes, lnow what you mean
Adams Rubble: we can't think love
Eliza Madrigal: and I think I arrived back at it through the word 'Compassion'
Adams Rubble: we have to open to it
Adams Rubble: ah, how nice
Adams Rubble: do you want to say more?
Eliza Madrigal: From there it came alive again...like the word Faith/
Eliza Madrigal: I can hear St. Paul talk about love in a buddhist way now
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Adams Rubble: :)
Adams Rubble: they are talking about the same ting :)
Adams Rubble: thing
Eliza Madrigal: yes
Adams Rubble: I am learning how to open my heart but I do not do that regularly
Adams Rubble: That is my current exxploration I think
Adams Rubble: I have had an interesting thought looking back
Adams Rubble: How do we learn to display negative emotions and lose the ability to express love freely
Eliza Madrigal: The heart seems out of place in second priority... seems it must always be allowed to be open or not much else lines up right
Adams Rubble: some of us anyway
Adams Rubble: We are a bit vulnerable when we are open
Eliza Madrigal: How? I think we trust our intellects and for some reason are suspicious when intellect seems 'open'
Eliza Madrigal: it seems a vulnerable place
Eliza Madrigal: yes
Adams Rubble: Could it be an illusion?
Eliza Madrigal: the vulnerability?
Adams Rubble: the vulnerabvility that is
Adams Rubble: yes
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Eliza Madrigal: Good question, that one. Ultimately, yes....
Eliza Madrigal: but there's day-to-day
Eliza Madrigal: and there I'm not so sure :)

On Letting Go

Adams Rubble: There was a very interesting column in the New York Times yesterday. It was about someone who had been stabbed and thought he was going to die. And how surviving that he was happy for a year before he began to forget again.
Adams Rubble: http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2...ve/?8ty&emc=ty
Eliza Madrigal: "When I am weak then I am strong" comes to mind.
Adams Rubble: It says alot about day-to-day
Eliza Madrigal: Wow... will look forward to reading that. Makes sense actually.
Adams Rubble: ohhhhh
Adams Rubble: oh my
Adams Rubble: I see it!!!
Eliza Madrigal: When death is real and even 'alive' to us... it seems to illuminate our experiences somehow.. we notice more
Eliza Madrigal: we appreciate :)
Eliza Madrigal: but there is a sort of pull back to forgetting
Adams Rubble: yes, the column speaks to that (appreciating life"
Eliza Madrigal: thus, the daily practices and explorations?
Adams Rubble: Yes, help us refocus
Eliza Madrigal: But then I think that ultimately, life/death is also a dichotomy that one transcends?
Eliza Madrigal: and there is the timelessness you often help me remember :)
Adams Rubble: :)

Tapping into what is Essential

Adams Rubble: I summed up my beliefs on my blog this morning...a mini Credo
Adams Rubble: timelessness was first
Eliza Madrigal: May I take a moment and go see? :)
Adams Rubble: OK
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Adams Rubble hums softly a Spring song with birds and flowers and rain and sunshine and much green
Eliza Madrigal: Adams, there is such a beautiful energy in your writing this morning :)
Eliza Madrigal: It gushes and makes me smile:)
Adams Rubble: :)
Eliza Madrigal is a little teary even..hhe
Adams Rubble: Yes, I wrote it sitting on the edge of the bed
Adams Rubble: It sort of gushed forth
Adams Rubble: It is the first parrt of thoughts in my head but I haven't had the chance to write the rest
Eliza Madrigal: You wrote about the moment...pauses...it is all that there's ever been or will be
Adams Rubble nods
Adams Rubble: but where do our explorations fit in?
Eliza Madrigal: Funny to stop and think that when you're in traffic and the guy behind you is blowing his horn
Adams Rubble: well, that is a perfect example...
Adams Rubble: of negative energy in the moment
Adams Rubble: Do we pick that up and carry it into the next m,oment?
Adams Rubble: or can we find a way to leave it in that moment
Adams Rubble: easy to say, hard to do. hehe
Eliza Madrigal: :) Well, we think about everything being perfect right there...and the guy seems silly... the craziness and manic-ness of it....
Eliza Madrigal: and we bring THAT into the next moment perhaps
Adams Rubble nods
Eliza Madrigal: He becomes a pointer... ahelper even!
Adams Rubble: we can be compassionate for his/her sorry state (giggles)
Eliza Madrigal: hahhaha
Eliza Madrigal: I see explorations as a sort of essay sometimes. We begin with a question? An intention?
Eliza Madrigal: To get clarity.... to string together a kind of picture that we can keep always?
Eliza Madrigal: Or at least a transparency to see through...
Adams Rubble: or another way of looking
Adams Rubble: through different eyes
Eliza Madrigal: yes!
Eliza Madrigal: Characters are the most contrasting material ... seemingly malleable but with boundaries one doesn't expect before hand... faces that look back
Adams Rubble: lots of possibilities in the vortual worlds
Eliza Madrigal: dimensionality that can't be understood with intellect
Eliza Madrigal nods
Adams Rubble: yes
Adams Rubble: I think that what I was telling myself this morning was that while explorations have their place, I must not forget the essence so to speak
Adams Rubble: the bigger picture
Adams Rubble: dropping all that
Adams Rubble: dropping my playing :)
Adams Rubble: at least for awhile to see more clearly
Adams Rubble: then go back and play again :)
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Adams Rubble is paraphrasing things Pema said
Adams Rubble: :)
Adams Rubble: lest I forget :)
Eliza Madrigal: When the internet went out yesterday, I was reminded that no matter what.... should be able to drop even things that are productive
Adams Rubble nods
Adams Rubble: they are not productive in themselves
Eliza Madrigal: Otherwise is an addiction...an attachment and grasping
Adams Rubble: yes!
Eliza Madrigal: and yes, that's really it!! Not in themselves

What is funny there, is that when I drop the internet for a day or two because I choose to, it doesn't bother me at all. When I am out of control about it, oooh, that can be a bother! :)

How might that apply to Identity? To Relationships?

Adams Rubble: Is Adams Rubble and addiction?
Adams Rubble: I have often worried about that :)
Adams Rubble: an not and
Eliza Madrigal nods vigorously ... me too... what about Identity in general?
Adams Rubble: yes, it gets tricky
Eliza Madrigal: Are others addicted to my playing certain roles? Why? Have I made them that way?
Eliza Madrigal: hehe
Adams Rubble: yes, our avatars get loved by others too :)
Eliza Madrigal: the layers are endless
Adams Rubble: our avatar friends :)
Eliza Madrigal: As a mom, it isn't love to make my children dependent on me...
Adams Rubble: I love them dearly
Eliza Madrigal: hard for some parents to learn.
Adams Rubble: yes!
Adams Rubble: to both
Eliza Madrigal: And friendships moreso at times, because no clear 'role descriptions'
Eliza Madrigal: it is a more liquid role maybe.... which can be a very positive thing
Eliza Madrigal: Is that a strange way to say that?
Adams Rubble: :)
Eliza Madrigal is an odd duck
Adams Rubble: It is what it means to you that is important
Adams Rubble: no no, not an odd duck, a human being :)
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Adams Rubble: no more odd than the rest of us
Adams Rubble: :)
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Eliza Madrigal: So this ultimate level... this essential place...
Eliza Madrigal: this Love
Eliza Madrigal: No fixed roles
Eliza Madrigal: but still clay to work with
Eliza Madrigal: to play with
Adams Rubble: Love is above the clay
Eliza Madrigal nods... Love adds the animation
Adams Rubble: hehe. I think loive is above the animation
Eliza Madrigal: YES
Eliza Madrigal: It makes the clay not dangerous though.... makes it light...
Eliza Madrigal: Illumination as animation
Adams Rubble: As I am listening to you try to find words,
Eliza Madrigal: heheh
Adams Rubble: it reminds me that Love os of the heart
Adams Rubble: is
Eliza Madrigal is always about that business I think.... words words words
Adams Rubble: maybe we can't figure out what it is with our minds
Adams Rubble: it is something we feel
Adams Rubble: that's where the explorations are helpful to me
Eliza Madrigal: I'm sure we can't figure it out... we can get more comfortable in the place of not quite figuring though?
Adams Rubble: I can see where I open up to Love and, in my latest exploration, can see where I should be opening up and I am holding back. It is not so easy to see that in RL

A different way of Feeling

Eliza Madrigal: Does our essential 'self' have different feelers you think?
Adams Rubble: I spent much of the year searching for my "essential self", the real me
Adams Rubble: For some reason, I sense that might be a question that just frustrates
Eliza Madrigal: Hmm
Adams Rubble: Maybe we need to look at all of humanity to get any odea of what that is
Adams Rubble: I am you and you are me, etc
Eliza Madrigal nods... yes
Eliza Madrigal: there seems to be a distinction between feeling and emotion sometimes....
Adams Rubble: you have to say more so I understand :)
Eliza Madrigal: when one opens... and feels love...
Adams Rubble: and gives love
Eliza Madrigal: that transcends the sort of emotion we become accustomed to calling feeling
Eliza Madrigal: Yes
Eliza Madrigal: And it is an insightful place
Eliza Madrigal: viewpoint
Eliza Madrigal: (s)
Adams Rubble: maybe we try to "feel" with our brains
Adams Rubble giggles
Eliza Madrigal: yes maybe that's it :)
Eliza Madrigal: "If you like-a me and I like-a you and we like-a both the same..."
Eliza Madrigal: (sorry...burst into song there thinking Steve Martin)
Adams Rubble: hehe
Adams Rubble: shall I be Gilda?
Eliza Madrigal: heheh
Eliza Madrigal is thinking over how long a year of PaB is
Adams Rubble: It seems to go very quickly :)
Adams Rubble: When I first came I thought I'd stay three weeks tops
Adams Rubble: Then Pema started talking about three years
Adams Rubble: I could not imagine it at all :)
Adams Rubble: so I decided to expand it to a couple of months, then the summer
Eliza Madrigal: :) a natural expansion then
Adams Rubble: Yes, and there continues to be an influx of new energy...like yourself :)
Eliza Madrigal: : )

I'd been on SL only about a week or so before I met Adams Rubble. :)

Eliza Madrigal: I was first dazzled by your clothing at Zen Retreat
Adams Rubble: I never could have imagined it :)
Eliza Madrigal: You were my first girl friend in SL :)
Adams Rubble: :)
Eliza Madrigal: Yes...I've yet to find a better dresser
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Adams Rubble: I hope not just for my clothes. hehe
Eliza Madrigal: hehhe...no... then you just seemed very warm
Adams Rubble: thank you Eliza :)
Eliza Madrigal: No, thank you. I appreciated that then and appreciate it about you now.
Adams Rubble: We have managed to have our own diaolgue this morning, our own special session. hehe
Eliza Madrigal: And why not... that's what the universe carved out for us :)
Eliza Madrigal: A present!
Eliza Madrigal: Happy Adams Day
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Adams Rubble: I'd like to note to those readinng this, that Eliza and my conversations often sound much like this one :)
Adams Rubble: Thaks Eliza :)
Eliza Madrigal: My daughter told me that I'd managed to raise 'three nerds" to which I scoffed....
Adams Rubble: hahaha
Eliza Madrigal: I said if its true I have no idea how...
Adams Rubble: congratulations!
Eliza Madrigal: She said "Well, look at you! Look at what you are doing!" hehehe
Eliza Madrigal: She said "You go on there... and sit!"
Adams Rubble: People just seem to think I am getting stranger
Adams Rubble: Nice to have support :)
Eliza Madrigal: :D
Eliza Madrigal: (at the time I was at zen)
Adams Rubble: It has been wodnerful chatting with you this morning. Thanks for helping celebrate my first anniversary :)
Adams Rubble: :)
Eliza Madrigal: It is always lovely to chat with you :)
Adams Rubble: I must go back to RL now. bye for now :)
Eliza Madrigal: Bye Adams :)