Our afternoon session, with three participants, started with a report of the 9-second awareness exploration:
Riddle Sideways: every 15 min I have been doing breathing, thinking and writing
Storm Nordwind: That is impressive
Riddle Sideways: it is becoming a pattern
Pema Pera: great!
Pema Pera: That’s quick
Pema Pera: you said you had done similar things before, right?
Riddle Sideways: right
Riddle Sideways: the time thing was more business org
Riddle Sideways: getting things done
Pema Pera: getting things undone here ;>)
Storm Nordwind smiles
Pema Pera: Lila — Sanskrit for play, right, Storm?
Storm Nordwind: Yes that is true. It has several deeper meanings depending on your outlook
Riddle Sideways: yes
Pema Pera: what is your outlook?
Storm Nordwind: It felt like it was one being playing parts
Storm Nordwind: Difficult to put into words
Pema Pera: perhaps what no-self points to in Buddhism?
Storm Nordwind: And whereas Riddle has got into the habit or breathing, thinking and writing, I have got into the habit of breathing and not thinking!
Pema Pera: but writing nonetheless ;>)
Storm Nordwind: Only sometimes. You see the tip of the iceberg
Storm Nordwind: Most times there is only being
Pema Pera: we need Dakini, she sometimes wears the tip of the iceberg on her head ;>)
Storm Nordwind laughs (for the record!)
Pema Pera: lol!!
Pema Pera: yes, that is not captured
Pema Pera: I wish we could capture the whole event
After a while, we talked further about the notion of `being’:
Pema Pera: Storm, you said “Most times there is only being” — can you say a bit more, hard as it may be to talk about that, if nothing else to see what we can convey to others?
Storm Nordwind: The time comes to do the time tax thing and i take a breath and simply perceive. There is only awareness at that point. I can jog into being aware of being aware, but the Silent Watcher has no thoughts at the point to distract him.
Riddle Sideways: I was caught up in ‘B’ vs ‘b’
Storm Nordwind: It is hard to describe
Storm Nordwind: I guess it comes of having meditated for 35 years! :)
Pema Pera: indeed
Pema Pera: But I think I know what you mean
Pema Pera: yeah, we are both 55 and most have started at roughly the same time . . .
Storm Nordwind: right
Pema Pera: as for B and b
Pema Pera: I like to use B to set it off a little
Pema Pera: but that is just a convention
Pema Pera: both Being and being are just poitners
Pema Pera: like pema and Pema
Storm Nordwind: You have a greater attention to detail than I can manage!
Pema Pera: ;-)
Riddle Sideways: yes
Pema Pera: they say “be all you can be”
Pema Pera: but we mean “be what you are”
Pema Pera: already
Storm Nordwind: Then I *could* think (if i wanted to) “This won’t do. I have to fill my blog with profound thoughts! Let’s think about this experience” I exaggerate of course, but the simple being is fine for me
Pema Pera: yes, that would overshoot the mark
Pema Pera: but somehow we are all overshooting all the time
Pema Pera: unless we are fully and completely and ultimately enlightened ;>)
Storm Nordwind: There speaks a man of experience?
Pema Pera: experience in overshooting — for sure!
Pema Pera: /said while overshooting
Pema Pera said while overshooting
Pema Pera: rats
Pema Pera: those / !
Storm Nordwind again laughs (again for the record!)
Riddle Sideways: feedback loops always need adjusting
Pema Pera: yes
Riddle Sideways: it seems more what we say than how we spell it in here
Riddle Sideways: or how we say it
We then got into a discussion of the power of Second Life:
Pema Pera: it is amazing how much we can get across — the pixels! — in here
Riddle Sideways: now that is tooo long a story
Storm Nordwind: Ah yes. It is immersive indeed.
Pema Pera: as for immersive, I really feel as if I have moved in here, in a very gut’s feeling kind of way.
Storm Nordwind: I agree with that
Pema Pera: memories too are like real memories
Pema Pera: when I think about last week, buying the land meeting you, talking
Storm Nordwind: AFAIC there is no difference between SL and RL. Many people’s profiles protest the opposite, but they have a particular escapist fantasy life here
Storm Nordwind: As Far As I’m Concerned - more jargon
Pema Pera: ah!
Storm Nordwind: Not to be confused with AFAIK As Far As I KNow
Pema Pera: yes, I enjoyed seeing people’s profile
Pema Pera: LOUDLY protesting wanting to know anything about RL
Pema Pera: “Never the twain will meet”
Pema Pera: but they already meet in anyone’s mind and awareness
Pema Pera: denying/divorcing yourself from your own awareness is pretty petty
Storm Nordwind: Quite so. I met a Buddhist teacher who wanted to use SL as a kind of analogy
Storm Nordwind: in their teachings
Pema Pera: how exactly?
Storm Nordwind: They did not elaborate but I can see how this might happen
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: I may have mentioned this before but I see the sequence of getting
Pema Pera: a *good* kind of overshooting ;>)
Pema Pera: out of SL into RL and then overshooting into Being
Storm Nordwind: It may work for some
Pema Pera: each one more is one more!
Storm Nordwind smiles
Pema Pera: can’t make anything work for everyone
Storm Nordwind: the work of a bodhisattva is never done!
Storm Nordwind looks at the clock - 45 minutes - and wonders about these 15 minute meetings. Ah but time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so
Pema Pera: I wanted to say I had to leave after half an hour
Pema Pera: just too interesting
Pema Pera: but yes, we have to learn to discipline ourselves
Riddle Sideways: I needed to leave 15 ago
Riddle Sideways: too
Riddle Sideways: :)
Pema Pera: so okay, let’s call it an end . . . for now!
Pema Pera: Happy lila everybody!
Storm Nordwind smiles
Pema Pera: (see Storm’s blog)
Riddle Sideways: bye all
Pema Pera: bye
Storm Nordwind: bfn
