That night, at 1 am SLT, once again I found Moon already waiting inside the tea house.
Moon Fargis: aloha
Pema Pera: alohahaha
Pema Pera: somehow SL seems to have slowed down considerably in the last couple months
Moon Fargis: yes
Pema Pera: I can’t remember that I had to wait here for half a minute
Pema Pera: before the cushions were finally rezzed . . . .
Pema Pera: but now it seems normal to take that long
Pema Pera: wonder why
Pema Pera: because they have more detailed modeling of the landscape?
Moon Fargis: maybe more users and same server capacy
Pema Pera: may be
Moon Fargis: oh pema we modified the bell again
Pema Pera: yes?
Moon Fargis gave you Play As Being Bell v1.
Pema Pera: thnx!
Moon Fargis: it now gongs every 15 min depending on the sl time
Pema Pera: great
Pema Pera: on the hour and then every 15 minutes?
Moon Fargis: yes no matter when you rezz it
Moon Fargis: ah yes and i finally finished the first hermitage house. well i thought i had already but there was so much things i had to change.. now its perfect
Pema Pera: great!
Pema Pera: how long did that take you?
Moon Fargis: well the whole day with some longer breaks ofcourse:)
Bertrum walked in and joined us, for his second visit.
Pema Pera: Hi Bertrum!
Moon Fargis: hi bertrum
Pema Pera: You have a lot of experience building in SL, Moon?
Moon Fargis: well yes i think so :)
Pema Pera: Bertrum, you are relatively new to Second Life, yes?
Pema Pera: Did you find us by accident?
Pema Pera: Or did you do a search?
Pema Pera: It is nice to see you back again!
Bertrum Quan: no, not by accident.
Pema Pera: about one third of the people come here by chance, one third through searching for Buddhism or zen or such, and one third because they hear from friends
Pema Pera: a nice mix!
Bertrum Quan: it is an intriguing construct
Pema Pera: When you were here earlier, you heard us talk about many topics, . . . , do you have some questions or things you’d like to bring up yourself?
Bertrum Quan: I am taking this virtual experience and reflecting upon it.
Pema Pera: yes, please take your time!
Pema Pera: everything we do here feels quite timeless
Pema Pera: no agenda, hardly any structure
Moon Fargis: gonnnnggg
Pema Pera: we just know that we can get back here any time we like, and that within six hours there will always be some of us to talk with and share company
Pema Pera: yes, nice, thanks Moon!
The new quarterly gong had gone off.
Pema Pera: One of my ideas in setting this up was to try to see whether we could combine the advantages of monastery practice and lay practice
Pema Pera: the continuity of a monastery
Pema Pera: and yet having your own life
Pema Pera: own job
Pema Pera: own family
Bertrum Quan: your blog is interesting. An impressive experiment.
Pema Pera: Thank you!
Pema Pera: The most amazing thing for me is that so many very serious individuals joined so quickly
Pema Pera: became dear friends and colleagues in this enterprize
Pema Pera: and by giving their energy and creativity and not to forget time
Pema Pera: it is now possible to carry this on
Pema Pera: indefinitely
Pema Pera: Moon’s computer must have crashed and/or his internet connection
Pema Pera: he’ll be back soon probably
Pema Pera: prophetic words :)
Moon had briefly disappeared, but then came back equally swiftly.
Moon Fargis: ahh seems i keep my daily crash promise
Moon Fargis: re
Bertrum Quan: technology is everything and nothing.
Pema Pera: who needs a bell when you have a Moon ?
Pema Pera: yup
Moon Fargis: the bell i gave you is full permission you can give it to everyone who is intrested in pab
Pema Pera: should we pay you something for it, or someone else?
Moon Fargis: no:)
Pema Pera: well, thank you!
Moon Fargis: i thought we are non profit :)
Pema Pera: we are :-)
Pema Pera: but even so, we do have to buy things, like land . . . . so I didn’t know where the bell came from, and I didn’t want to short change the original maker
Pema Pera: Or did you make it yourself?
Moon Fargis: yes i made it myself as a normal windbell wich gongs in 3 different gongs randomly fael just modified the script for me inside of it
Pema Pera: Ah, okay, I wasn’t sure whether you had modified an existing product or started from scratch. Nice job, Moon! It’s amazing what one can do here in SL.
Pema Pera: Like, when I said half-jokingly to Storm:
Pema Pera: “how about having a mangrove forest near the sea shore”
Moon Fargis: hehe
Pema Pera: for the land we had just bought there
Pema Pera: and next day there it was
Pema Pera: a mangrove planting . . . . .
Pema Pera: . . . . Storm later told me he hadn’t slept much that night :-)
Pema Pera: possibilities for self-expression are endless . . . .
Moon Fargis: ohhyes
Pema Pera: .. . . if I were without a job, or a student, or in jail or something like that with internet access, I could spend day and night playing here!
Moon Fargis: haha
Moon Fargis: yes ok internet and jail..
The idea of jail started me off on a train of thought.
Pema Pera: in a nice country
Pema Pera: like Holland
Pema Pera: not a random country!
Moon Fargis: they have internet in every cell ?
Pema Pera: I don’t know but I think yes, or at least allow you to bring your own
Pema Pera: what I meant mostly is that it is quite comfortable to be in a Dutch prison
Pema Pera: unlike many prisons in many other countries, the US included . . . . or so I hear
Pema Pera: German prisons should be safe too, I guess, yes?
Moon Fargis: yes they got atleast a tv in every cell
Pema Pera: keeps them quiet, like passengers in an airplane :-)
Pema Pera: I’ve been in prison only one night in my life
Pema Pera: interesting experience
Pema Pera: when I was 17
Moon Fargis: rebell pema aha :)
Pema Pera: I was with a couple friends, and they decided at some point to paint slogans on an abandoned house
Pema Pera: I was watching them, bemused
Pema Pera: but when the police came, rather quickly and unexpectedly
Pema Pera: I was taking in as well, with the two others
Pema Pera: was fun!
Moon Fargis: hehe
Pema Pera: a meditation experience
Pema Pera: good food too
Pema Pera: convenient
Pema Pera: coffee even
Moon Fargis: wow
Moon Fargis: seems i have to go to holland and rob a bank
Pema Pera: they even asked me whether I was not depressed, to make sure I was okay
Pema Pera: and when I happily said I was perfectly fine, they seemed a bit disappointed
Pema Pera: nothing else for them to do then
Pema Pera: next morning they let me go
Pema Pera: and I had to make my own coffee again :(
Moon Fargis: awwww
That in turn triggered other memories for Moon and me.
Pema Pera: Bertrum, what attracted you most to come into SL?
Bertrum Quan: the creativity.
Pema Pera: any particular goals, ideas?
Moon Fargis: ahawell the only time i was catched by police was when i went with a friend in an oooooold industrial area.. it was fascinating ut w didnt knw it was private so a wardener came up and called the police hehe
Pema Pera: hahaha, what happened?
Moon Fargis: took my personals and let us go
Pema Pera: no coffee?
Moon Fargis: not even prison
Pema Pera: rats
Moon Fargis: yea
Moon Fargis: but we made a bunch of niiiic photos
Pema Pera: Well, I got caught a few times when I was trying to ride a motorbike well before age 18 but they could never prove me wrong . . . .
Pema Pera: Somehow I always saw them coming and then I was just standing there, pushing my motorbike, not riding it, and asking them innocently: “but officer, when I am 14 years old, I am allowed to push a motorbike, yes?”
Pema Pera: hehe
Pema Pera: they didn’t like that
Moon Fargis: haha
Pema Pera: My first bike was two years older than I was
Pema Pera: a one-cylinder Sparta, 200 cc, Dutch made like me :)
Moon Fargis: oha
We then turned a bit more serious.
Moon Fargis: bertrum: are you in buddhism ?
Bertrum Quan: How do you mean, in?
Moon Fargis: well not outside of it :)
Bertrum Quan: Then yes.
Moon Fargis: what kind of?
Bertrum Quan: I am interested in it. Especially the idea of connections.
Moon Fargis: ahyes, do you mean the conections between everything ?
Bertrum Quan: yes. that is why this use of information technology is so intriguing.
Moon Fargis: for sure:)
Moon Fargis: sl can be a good example on some ways to explain things in buddhism
Bertrum Quan: yes, but not limited to that.
Moon Fargis: yep
Moon Fargis: if you got any question dont hesitate to ask :)
Bertrum Quan: are there many groups who have contructed these gardens and many temples, gompas, etc.?
Moon Fargis: there are alot of groups in sl but there gardens here where build by dakini and storm
Pema Pera: Some of the buildings here in Rieul and Mieum have been built by others
Bertrum Quan: the one gompa I visited was listed as private.
Pema Pera: There is whole community of reasonably like minded people
Pema Pera: you mean you couldn’t go in there?
Pema Pera: if you click on an object you can get the name of the person who built or owned it
Bertrum Quan: I could go in. But I wondered.
Pema Pera: Ah! I’m not sure
Pema Pera: but in SL any place that is accessible you should feel free to walk in
Pema Pera: as long as you are respectful for the place and its atmosphere
Moon Fargis: well if someone really wants to keep his property privat he can lock his doors or allow acces to his area only to specific people
Bertrum Quan: I’m sure some areas are restricted… it’s a large world that’s being created in SL.
Moon Fargis: ohhhyes:)
Moon Fargis: alot of temples, meditation places… ans sex shops
Pema Pera: about the size of Manhattan in surface area . . . . .
Moon Fargis: you will find nearly everything in sl wich comes out of human mind
Bertrum Quan: yes. especially when you add in real-time interactivity.
It was time for me to move on.
Pema Pera: I’ll have to go to dinner in RL now . . . .
Pema Pera: good seeing both of you again!
Moon Fargis: ok see you later then pema :)
Bertrum Quan: thank you for inviting me to join your conversation.
Pema Pera: yw, Bertrum!
Pema Pera: Feel free to stop by, any time
Bertrum Quan: okay.
