Maxine Walden: had a very interesting experience this morning actually after a rather hectic few days
Pema Pera: do tell me!
Maxine Walden: well, in this transitional period, trying new things re PaB, there have been times of chaos and pressure…
Maxine Walden: which I have just weathered, not unusual, but this morning I had a couple of dreams which I just had to think about…
Maxine Walden: they could have been disaster dreams, one was a road crumbling to deep depths under my bicycle (I cycle a lot around town), and there was the potential to consider it disasterous,
Maxine Walden: such as ‘what I am doing…going down the wrong road…’ and another dream of car crashed friend rather cheerful and making the best of things
Maxine Walden: so, in awakening I felt that I just needed the time and space to let these dreams speak not to me, but rather to the space, which was an extraordinary experience …
Pema Pera: Hi Cal!
Caledonia Heron: good morning :)
Maxine Walden: because I could then feel a wider message from the dreams, as all my not yet understood aspects about my most difficult patients came into clear view (which is also those aspects of myself) and I could understand the message as natural chaos and misunderstanding at the threshold of new things…just that, that the attitude one brings to the issues, such as the crumbling road determines the meaning, or rather the potential meanings of the dream or the messages accessible from the dreams…those potential ‘disasters’ became eloquent messengers to me of this new, uncertain road or journey into the unknown . So far that is the meaning I have gleaned. Hello, Cal
Caledonia Heron: sorry to interrupt your thread, the part that I got was hello :)
Pema Pera: Thanks a lot, Maxine! Sounds quite powerful what you just experienced
Pema Pera: Let me quickly repeat, Cal, I’ll just cut and paste — just a moment
Pema Pera: Maxine, when you wrote “rather to the space” can you say a bit more?
Maxine Walden: ‘to the space’ meant that somehow the space had a presence, the space in which I was witnessing the dream and my reactions to the dream; it was like a third presence of some sort
Pema Pera: That’s wonderful, Maxine, to sense space as alive and present
Pema Pera: in what we are doing here, of course your work and interest as an anylist can be brought in too, and I hope it will help for that, but I have the feeling that the most important aspect of what we are doing here goes beyond analysis as I understand it
Pema Pera: it is more a kind of direct seeing
Pema Pera: but that needs some discussion, probably, as to what that means (^^)
Maxine Walden: it does seem valuable, and I seem to be experiencing space, bounded space as necessary for thought and meaning to accrue…so it seems to be a live presence and a refuge for the growth of meaning. Not new concepts at all, but so meaningful to experience first hand and when in need of some guidance.
Pema Pera: yes!!!!!
Maxine Walden: yes, I am not being an analyst (which is an ambiguous phrase for me, because the work I do evolves over time and does not fit in any category of ‘analytic work’ that I know of.
Maxine Walden: the experience is more of ‘being’ in a wholeminded way, not an intellectual or looking down on something as if an expert in any way…
So far, I have not used any particular book as background reading for these Playing as Being explorations, but triggered by what Maxine had said, there was one book that came to mind.
Pema Pera: Did you read in the Time, Space and Knowledge book?
Maxine Walden: that title is familiar but I cannot recall directly, would you tell me what you are thinking there?
Pema Pera: It was written by Steven Tainer, thirty years ago, on behalf of his teacher, Tarthang Tulku, with whom he was studying then, based on many interviews between the two.
Pema Pera: In that book, Space as basic and alive in some very important sense is a central notion
Pema Pera: So I wondered whether you had read that book
Pema Pera: For me it has been a great inspiration
Pema Pera: more than any other book in my life
Maxine Walden: oh, how interesting, no I have not yet read Steven’s book; sounds wonderful; isn’t it interesting to happen upon meaningful concepts from individual experience. Sounds like a very inspiring book; I will look into it.
Maxine Walden: meant to say the various authentic experiences can lead to the same concept
Maxine Walden: Cal, I am sorry, I have been feeling that you may feel left out; I have been so ‘into’ my experience…did not mean to exclude you at all…
Caledonia Heron: :) I am listening, not excluded :)
Maxine Walden: good, had thought/hoped so. These ways of listening to each other seem to me to be very inclusive
Caledonia Heron: yes, a way to learn by sharing and by listening
Pema Pera: Here is the URL for the book
Maxine Walden: indeed. Listening seems so important, and underutilized in much of RL;
Caledonia Heron: like they say two ears, 1 mouth, you do the math…. :)
Pema Pera: haha!
Pema Pera: yes, I find that texting instead of speaking with a headset helps listening
Maxine Walden: agree
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Pema Pera: This TSK book, as it is called for short, helped me a lot
Maxine Walden: can you say more about how it helped?
Pema Pera: to find ways to connect the type of knowing that I had learned as a scientist
Pema Pera: with the type of knowing that I had came upon when exploring contemplation and meditation
Pema Pera: It basically gives the core or essence of the most direct contemplative approach
Pema Pera: without the usual religious and ritual overhead
Pema Pera: not that I don’t respect those
Caledonia Heron: interesting comment about overhead
Pema Pera: but it is nice to have a very crisp and precise description of the essense
Pema Pera: in modern terms
Pema Pera: so this “overhead” can be very helpful of course
Caledonia Heron: perhaps so
Pema Pera: especially if it anchors you in your own cultural tradition
Pema Pera: but for so many of us we are now in between so many worlds that the old anchors have become more like dead weights . . . .
Pema Pera: Actually, the whole idea of “play as being” I first got from the last chapter of that book
Caledonia Heron: or places to swim back to
Pema Pera: and I had been wondering whether to somehow include that book in what I’m doing here
Pema Pera: but decided to prefer to start from scratch
Maxine Walden: dead weights, maybe like old definitions of ‘who I am, where I come from’ which entrap rather than allow for the new
Pema Pera: However, what Maxine said about space reminded me so much of the book, that I at least wanted to bring it up.
Caledonia Heron: maybe just guideposts, touchpoints
Pema Pera: Yes, and yes!
Pema Pera: and about our daily life
Pema Pera: We talk about Being
Pema Pera: so the question is how to connect the two
Pema Pera: The approach of that book is to give the first step, from Being to daily life
Pema Pera: and it is given in terms of the triad Space, Time and Knowledge
Pema Pera: and there is a connection between various triads in established religions
Pema Pera: like in Christianity the Father, Holy Spirit, and the Son
Pema Pera: like in Buddhism Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya
Caledonia Heron: good spelling there :)
Pema Pera: but the connections are not precise, more general directions
Pema Pera: hahaha
Pema Pera: practice, man, practice
Caledonia Heron: lol
Maxine Walden: triads are interesting in that a triad is needed to bound space,
Pema Pera: So when we ask how to let Being speak to us,
Pema Pera: rather than we playing Being
Pema Pera: how to let Being play us
Pema Pera: the notions of Space, Time, and Knowledge can be quite helpful
Pema Pera: or you can of course use elements from your own favorite spiritual approach, if you have one.
We continued talking about the way we can let reality speak for itself.
Maxine Walden: I think I felt played with in a creative way this morning in being able to let the space for the dreams speak to me, inform me
Pema Pera: Can you say more about triad bounding space?
Maxine Walden: well, in a dyadic connection there is a plane, but the notion of a third in mind introduces the internal experience of space, within the mind. This is something which some analysts have thought about for some time. The notion of being able to have an outside perspective, beyond ‘you and me’ , ie the dyad, seems important in terms of being then able to observe and symbolize, ie to think about what is going on in the dyad (or triad)
Pema Pera: Thanks, that is fascinating.
Pema Pera: Yes, in general dualities can be deadening, and a trap
Maxine Walden: Prior to the triad the experience (within the dyad) at least developmentally may be pre-symbolic and just be experienced as absolute, ‘how it is’ or ‘how it must be…not thinkabout about’
Pema Pera: Cal, what does it mean to you, to feel space as alive?
Caledonia Heron: mmm, my first response is that it is outbound in nature, a looking out, creating - not sure that make sense in this discussion or context
Pema Pera: oh yes, I think it does!
Pema Pera: Space has the potential for creating
Pema Pera: but we often see potential as something passive
Pema Pera: But Maxine, I have been focusing on this one short sentence of yours, about Space; I don’t want to distract from the rest of what you told us
Pema Pera: Is that part a central point in what you experienced, or is there another focal point?
Maxine Walden: I believe the main emotional experience which so moved me this morning was that in being open to just sit with what I feared were messages of disaster, that is just sitting, trusting in ‘being with’ that there might be a wider view, Cal, maybe that opening of space, a wider view which transformed ‘potential disaster’ into valuable information…guess that is what I felt grateful for and just felt I wanted to share it here…
Pema Pera: that is a beautiful description of an inroad to Being
Pema Pera: seen from our side that is
Pema Pera: or of the way Being is available and in some direct sense reaching out to us
Pema Pera: seen from Being’s side — to the extent you can put that into words
Pema Pera: without making it too religious sounding
Pema Pera: it is actually very simple and direct
Pema Pera: Part of getting older seems to be to learn to just be open in situations of worry and anger and shame and all that, to trust what IS rather than whatever skills you may have acquired . . . .
Maxine Walden: there is a simplicity to the experience, sort of like’ oh yes, it has been there in the background all the time’…
Pema Pera: yes indeed!
Pema Pera: to let reality speak for itself
Pema Pera: the Universe, Being
Pema Pera: whatever term you like to use as a pointer
Pema Pera: I am so glad that we can share our experiences here, about those central aspects of reality!
Maxine Walden: yes, and for me it brings awe and gratitude to have access to that ’simplicity’ as the more central reality.
Pema Pera: yes, it is really awefully awesome!!
Pema Pera: Cal, how would you put that, in your words?
Caledonia Heron: wow - there was a whole lot packed in there - not sure which way to go on that :)
Pema Pera: whatever strikes you as a resonance, one is enough ;>)
Caledonia Heron: well, I’ll go with “let reality speak for itself” which is often not a person’s first response to something -
Pema Pera: hi Sky!
Maxine Walden: Hello, Sky
Sky Szimmer: hi there
Caledonia Heron: acceptance and observance of that allows for an open space to operate from
Caledonia Heron: perhaps where space is alive :)
Pema Pera: yes indeed!
Pema Pera: to let go of our own intentions and goals and plans is so important
Pema Pera: but exactly how to do that without just shrugging and not caring is something we have to learn
Pema Pera: Openness is a more positive term than emptiness
Caledonia Heron: yes, perhaps a learned form of how we be
Pema Pera: I’m afraid I have to run now, there is an astronomy meeting starting in one minute, that I have to attend — but of course feel free to stay here!
Pema Pera: bye all, thanks for coming here!
Caledonia Heron: bye :)
Maxine Walden: bye, I have to go too. Very good to chat this morning
