Maxine was already waiting in the tea house, when I entered.
Maxine Walden: hi, Pema
Pema Pera: Hi Maxine!
Pema Pera: Good morning.
Maxine Walden: Good morning, yes it is a good morning
Maxine Walden: had some interesting dreams early
Pema Pera: do tell, please!
Maxine Walden: that seemed to be an exploration of that region beyond our ‘known’ world
Maxine Walden: well, it is vague, as these more moody dreams are for me
Maxine Walden: and I am in Britain I believe (where I lived for 8 yrs)
Maxine Walden: and on this ferry or boat with others
Maxine Walden: and there is a kind of creeping alien, presence
Maxine Walden: which seems unstoppable and will take over the ship, so to speak
Maxine Walden: I and others try to get away, our trip is interfered with
Maxine Walden: and we will not make the intended ferry crossing it seems
Maxine Walden: might all be stuck in some unfinished place…
Maxine Walden: that is what I can recall of the dream and awoke from it
Maxine Walden: just a few minutes before my alarm, just enough time to
Maxine Walden: think about it for the ongoing PaB discourse it seems
Maxine Walden: So, I could offer my thoughts or us think together about it
Pema Pera: please offer first!
Maxine Walden: OK, at first it was disturbing, that feeling of dread which I know well
Maxine Walden: which sort of says’ oh no, something dreadful is about to occur …
Maxine Walden: and probably I have done something wrong, etc
Maxine Walden: But then I found myself thinking of what I was mentioning last night at Steven’s ‘afterthoughts’ session re Sunday’s lecture
Maxine Walden: and I was mentioning the inevitable dread that resides just beyond
Maxine Walden: the limits of what we know…
Maxine Walden: that evocation of the medieval maps which might be understood as a map of the imagination
Maxine Walden: at least for me: beyond the world that I know dwell my unbearable
Maxine Walden: experiences which become my doubts and dreads (fanciful animals and finally those monsters of the deep)
Maxine Walden: So, my thought was that my dream was
Maxine Walden: reminding me of this emotional territory
Maxine Walden: which does hinder our widening reality
Maxine Walden: because we have to traverse the doubts/dreads which we project into the ‘Unknown’
Maxine Walden: not sure if this ic clear but that briefly is where my thoughts went
Pema Pera: thank you, Maxine, you really have rich dreams often!
Maxine Walden: oh, thanks, well maybe rich dreams, but it may be
Maxine Walden: the product of now decades of working at this edge of the unknown
Maxine Walden: kind of like an explorer at the edge of the psychic realm and the dreams are wonderful messengers
Maxine Walden: if I can bear to be still and listen to them, even if dread is conveyed
Pema Pera: I like to view what we are doing here as a kind of laboratory, and I like to talk about “life as a lab” but dreams are definitely part of that lab too.
Maxine Walden: Pema, a wondering.
Maxine Walden: I am wondering if you wish me to continue the 9 sec practice
Maxine Walden: when it seems that I am there most of the time in my professional day
Maxine Walden: I mean into that wider space most of the day
Pema Pera: oh, absolutely!
Maxine Walden: I am happy to continue the ‘lab’ method…ok
Pema Pera: oh no, I do not see a contradiction at all
Pema Pera: The 9-sec method is part of the lab attitude
Pema Pera: it is a way to remind ourselves frequently
Maxine Walden: guess I was thinking of the 9 sec as the portal or access to the wider state
Pema Pera: yes indeed!
Pema Pera: frequently that we are not just on auto-pilot
Pema Pera: engrossed in what we do
Pema Pera: but that whatever we are doing
Pema Pera: can also be seen in a different and wider light
Pema Pera: as part of the game, as part of the lab, as part of a life that goed beyond
Pema Pera: our immediate needs and plans and (often rather petty) concerns . . . .
Maxine Walden: yes, and I can see that maybe I can expand my experience beyond the dream, as it were
Pema Pera: oh yes!
The conversation then shifted toward the question `who are you?’
Pema Pera: The first thing that came to mind for me, when you said “the inevitable dread that resides just beyond the limits of what we know…”
Pema Pera: was
Pema Pera: “how about going not only beyond the limits of what you know”
Pema Pera: but also “beyond the limits of what you think you are”
Pema Pera: so instead of taking the you for granted
Pema Pera: and looking beyond the not-you awareness-scape
Pema Pera: to go beyond the you
Pema Pera: the you that you think you are
Maxine Walden: actually, that is very relevent…yes, yes
Pema Pera: so widening both
Pema Pera: beyond the limitations of subject and object
Pema Pera: seperately and together
Maxine Walden: yes this would be going beyond the ‘ways’ of knowing that have been familiar to me so far
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: the “ways of knowing yourself” too
Maxine Walden: yes, yes
Pema Pera: My intuition tells me
Pema Pera: listening to you
Pema Pera: that the source of thread may be
Pema Pera: the imbalance of trying to go beyond the known without trying to go beyond the knower
Pema Pera: if we do both, there is much more of a sense of balance
Maxine Walden: how interesting
Maxine Walden: that would be interesting to hold in mind
Pema Pera: and perhaps little or no dread
Pema Pera: or threat
Pema Pera: (not “thread”, that was a funny typo!)
Pema Pera: (but it gave a thread, haha!)
Maxine Walden: well, maybe a typo or an interesting new meaning
Pema Pera: (source of threat)
Maxine Walden: yes,
Pema Pera: *(source of thread), argghh
Maxine Walden: one ‘wormhole’ perhaps I have found is the ’slip’ like ‘teachouse’ and maybe ‘thread’
Pema Pera: this is getting confusing, my multiple typos! So I wrote “source of thread is imbalance between going beyond known and knower”
Pema Pera: I meant “dread” and “threat” but yes, that realization can form a “thread” to help us out of the “threat of dread” . . . pheewww
Maxine Walden: oh these tortuous threads of meaning (maybe)…I think unconscious elements come forward in our slips
Pema Pera: haha yes like teachouse indeed
Maxine Walden: new potential meanings
Pema Pera: what fun that we can play here
Maxine Walden: yes, it is fun, refreshing new ’stuff’
We were both surprised at the lessons we learned from our typos.
Pema Pera: play is antidote for dread and threat — u c got right this time!
Maxine Walden: I c
Pema Pera: Being is beyond dread/threat and play is the thread — there we go!
Maxine Walden: oh, very nice
Pema Pera: play as Being
Maxine Walden: play as thread not threat
Maxine Walden: yes, yes, very nice
Pema Pera: hahaha
Pema Pera: how funny all
Pema Pera: but makes sense
Pema Pera: in a funny way
Maxine Walden: funny but so informing…
Pema Pera: yes
Maxine Walden: like discovering new things
Pema Pera: so look at what we are doing here, how delightfully unorthodox:
Pema Pera: we make serious meditation into a 9-second affair
Maxine Walden: isn’t that so, and part of the pleasure is the ‘non orthodox’
Pema Pera: and instead of pondering reality we just play
Pema Pera: and yet it really seems to work!
Maxine Walden: yes, I like that notion of play…play is not something I have done much til recently…
Pema Pera: beyond the dread of the orthodox
Pema Pera: welcome to the club!
Maxine Walden: (I have 5 min more to play this morning…an early appt)
Pema Pera: I have an astro meeting coming up too
Maxine Walden: yes, glad to be part of this club…very grateful
Pema Pera: and I’m delighted to find people like you to play with!
Maxine Walden: how nice that it goes both ways
Pema Pera: Being here gives me two images that oscillate in my mind:
Pema Pera: I feel like a kid in a candy store and
Pema Pera: I feel like a kid going out into the street looking for other kids to play with
Pema Pera: both strong images being realized here simultaneously
Maxine Walden: very nice images and isn’t it nice to have the both together..have to go my appt is here. See you later…
Maxine Walden: Bye
Pema Pera: okay
Pema Pera: c u !
