That night, at 1 am SLT, the area around the tea house was unusually lively. Fael, Hotaru were both present, and soon Sky would ariive, so there were four of us.
Fael Illyar: Hello Pema
Hotaru Myoo: Hi Pema!
Pema Pera: Hi Hotaru and hi Fael!
Hotaru Myoo: three points on the globe converge!
Pema Pera: ah, yes!
Pema Pera: But soon you’ll be in Japan
Hotaru Myoo: true
Pema Pera: We’ll have to find a way to get Fael to Japan too!!!!!
Hotaru Myoo: and keeping ‘regular’ hours
Pema Pera: funny that all three of us speak Japanese . . . .
Hotaru Myoo: wait…mine is very limited
Hotaru Myoo: Hi Sky!
Fael Illyar: I’m thinking of changing the way I do PaB explorations a bit. I’m thinking of not trying to drop everything but selectively leave something.
Fael Illyar: Hi Sky
Faenik: ah :)
Hotaru Myoo: lol
Sky Szimmer: hi all
Hotaru Myoo: kind of like sloughing off dead skin cells?
Fael Illyar: Yes
Hotaru Myoo: unwanted hair?
Pema Pera: Hi Sky!
Hotaru Myoo: fingernails?
Sky Szimmer: what will you keep Fael
Sky Szimmer: not time no see Pema. Stayed up late just to give you a visit : )
Pema Pera: thank you, Sky!
Pema Pera: Wonderful to see you here
Pema Pera: as always!
Sky Szimmer: Thx!
We talked more about what Fael had brought up, concerning dropping.
Pema Pera: Fael, about dropping, perhaps the metaphor of a dream is helpful here
Fael Illyar: Although, I examined doing that a moment ago instead of my normal meditation. I’m not sure if it ended up all that different though.
Pema Pera: In order to wake up from a dream, the idea is to “drop” the whole dream
Pema Pera: not the elements in a dream
Hotaru Myoo: ah…
Hotaru Myoo: leave it behind
Pema Pera: You don’t drop the houses and clouds and trees of a dream
Hotaru Myoo: shedding the insight
Pema Pera: or parts of your dream identity
Pema Pera: it is far more radical
Pema Pera: having said that, it may still be interesting to drop parts, like playing scales on a piano
Pema Pera: as long as you realize that that is not the ultimate idea
Pema Pera: the MOST difficult thing here in PaB is to convey how terrible radical PaB is . .. .. .
Hotaru Myoo: it is part ofthe process tho
Hotaru Myoo: as in free radical?
Pema Pera: more free :-)
Pema Pera: more radical (^_^)
Fael Illyar: Well, partly it’s because I started thinking the way I’ve done them is a bit reckless. Just drop without regard to what.
Hotaru Myoo: more is more
Pema Pera: Fael, it is great to experiment, so please continue in any possible way you can think of!
Hotaru Myoo: ah…so you want to give it a name?
Pema Pera: I’m just pointing to the horizon
Pema Pera: but you can still wander around exploring the landscape
Faenik is a hairy black ball with eyes and ears.
Pema Pera: but if you don’t know about the horizon you can explore forever
Pema Pera: so I suggest you do both
Pema Pera: explore here and there AND keep in mind how radical the horizon is
Pema Pera: and more and more you will get glimmers of the horizon
Pema Pera: and you will recognize them
Pema Pera: and/or when you talk about them here, we can push them a bit to make them more recognizable
I was getting into one of my more radical moods :-).
Hotaru Myoo: I would agree to have a vision of sorts….something to project and bounce off of…
Pema Pera: well, it has a name, Hotaru, Being :)
Pema Pera: more than a vision . … .
Pema Pera: even more than a vision . . . .
Hotaru Myoo: what about bouncing …instead of dropping
Pema Pera: sure, you can use many pointers
Pema Pera: how do you see bouncing?
Hotaru Myoo: the elastic band
Pema Pera: dropping has the implications of a radical cut, a waking up, a jumping of a cliff
Hotaru Myoo: stretch it …and realx/reflect
Pema Pera: without bouncing back ;)
Hotaru Myoo: stretch…relax/reflect
Pema Pera: really going beyond
Hotaru Myoo: trying to
Pema Pera: again relaxing is good to!
Pema Pera: but not the ultimate
Hotaru Myoo: no
Hotaru Myoo: need tension
Pema Pera: in fact, the ultimate is beyond relaxation and stress
Pema Pera: and can be found in both, yes
Hotaru Myoo: stasis?
Pema Pera: beyond any dualities, like stasis and out-of-equilibrium
Sky Szimmer: so once you are beyond, realizing you are out of the dream, do you still get held back, or are you free forever and ever
Hotaru Myoo: to include the wobble?
Pema Pera: ah, there you bounce!
Pema Pera: in fact, Sky and Hotaru
Pema Pera: ah!
Pema Pera: let me describe how it is for me
Hotaru Myoo: drum roll
Hotaru knew how to set the stage.
Pema Pera: one moment I clearly feel in touch with Being
Pema Pera: hahahaha, LOL Hot
Pema Pera: and then very briefly thereafter I realize I’ve falling out of it
Pema Pera: (different use of falling dropping, sorry :)
Pema Pera: so then I have various options
Pema Pera: I may just “bounce” back as soon as I realize not being in touch with Being
Pema Pera: or I may feel a bit stuck
Hotaru Myoo: the elusive nature of Being
Pema Pera: carried along by the current of everyday concerns
Pema Pera: so then I have a variety of techniques that I can use
Hotaru Myoo: freeze frame?
Pema Pera: and many of them I use for just a split second or a few seconds or perhaps longer
Faenik: なるほど^^
Pema Pera: basically an arsenal that I have built up over decades of experimenting with various approaches
Pema Pera: like having very many friends to call upon
Pema Pera: and there are always a few around
Pema Pera: so getting back into Being can take many forms
Hotaru Myoo: tools you pull out to jump start…?
Pema Pera: and in fact, the most beautiful thing is the knowledge that you’ve never fallen out of Being
Pema Pera: Once you have begun to really see that, everything becomes so very much easier
Hotaru Myoo: welll….you truly can’t can you?
Hotaru Myoo: even in a vegetative state
Pema Pera: yes, but you have to see that
Pema Pera: knowing it is not enough
Hotaru Myoo: lose Being?
Pema Pera: intellectually knowing something is almost useless . . . .
Hotaru Myoo: quite
There is always the tension that I feel between wanting to share what I see clearly, and yet not wanting to give the impression that I see more than I see :>). What I see clearly, I want to share. What I see dimly, I want to explore together with all my peers here in PaB. What I don’t see yet, I want to hear more about, so that I can begin to explore that, too. But in order to explore together, we need a base, a starting point, some kind of seeing at least.
Pema Pera: Time for a disclamer here:
Sky Szimmer: what is the difference between seeing and knowing
Hotaru Myoo: 2mm
Pema Pera: what I say about seeing Being and feeling clearly in touch with it is correct, but there are very many ways of seeing and feeling that much more clearly, so
Pema Pera: on the one hand I am a total beginner still
Pema Pera: but on the other hand I have seen enough of it that I feel qualified to at least point to it.
Hotaru Myoo: it is always full circle..
Pema Pera: Sky, seeing is something direct
Pema Pera: like seeing a math proof, or just seeing an object in front of you
Hotaru Myoo: don’t you think
Hotaru Myoo: seeing is forgetting what one sees
Pema Pera: I really recommend strongly to all of you to use the opportunity to ask very pertinent questions about all this to Stim
Pema Pera: because Stim sees all this quite a bit more clearly than I do
Pema Pera: but you may have to prod him to talk about it :)
Hotaru Myoo: bring him on!
Pema Pera: he is less talkative than I, partly personality, partly probably because seeing IT better may make it even more difficult to try to talk about it authentically . . . . .
Pema Pera: you bring him on Hot!
Pema Pera: just keep asking
Hotaru Myoo: oki
We got a deal here! I’m counting on Hotaru, next time she meets Stim.
Pema Pera: the problem is most people ask one or two questions and then don’t continue
Pema Pera: you have to drill
Pema Pera: keep going
Hotaru Myoo: sure
Pema Pera: really wanting to know
Hotaru Myoo: that is the same with anything
Hotaru Myoo: it has to have relevance
Hotaru Myoo: …once it does…
Hotaru Myoo: drilling is a no brainer
Pema Pera: yes, Hotaru but there is one big difference here . . . . with anything else
Pema Pera: With anything else you can see some progress, while you go along
Pema Pera: Here anything that seems like progress in fact becomes a hindrance (almost)
Faenik: ah :)
Pema Pera: Faenik got it!!
Pema Pera: :)
Hotaru Myoo: lol
Fael Illyar: Nah, he’s just faking :P
Pema Pera: well done in that case :)
Sky Szimmer: sometimes with this stuff, it is hard to know the questions to ask.
Pema Pera: actully, Fael, PaB is faking
Pema Pera: So Faenik is on the right track!
Hotaru Myoo: sure…
Hotaru Myoo: because it names it…
Hotaru Myoo: bottles it
Hotaru Myoo: ah…
Hotaru Myoo: ummm
Pema Pera: Being is playing us, in some sense, so we are faking to be Being, and while playing as Being, we’re luring Being out of the Being tent, to show us how Being plays Being
From faking to questioning, we kept circling around the hot potato of Being.
Pema Pera: Yes, Sky, asking the right questions is more than half of the answer . . . .
Pema Pera: in science as well as contemplation
Fael Illyar: Why I haven’t said much is mostly because I tend to need to understand to some degree to be able to ask questions.
Pema Pera: yes, Fael!
Pema Pera: And here is where note taking comes up
Hotaru Myoo: I think the point is tho to not try to understand….
Hotaru Myoo: because that kills it
Pema Pera: lab journal style in PaB
Pema Pera: when you write down how you don’t understand, what you don’t understand
Pema Pera: and you try to be really precise, you can learn a lot
Pema Pera: right there and then
Pema Pera: Hotaru, yes,
Pema Pera: in some way that is right of course,
Hotaru Myoo: hmmm
Pema Pera: but how do you see that in practice?
Pema Pera: Not trying to understand?
Pema Pera: How do you do that?
Hotaru Myoo: that is not forgetting what one sees but rather…
Hotaru Myoo: seeing through it to the farside
Hotaru Myoo: looping forward
The intersections of the comments and questions by Sky and Fael and Hotaru formed a kind of focal spot that had heated up the conversation, or so if felt.
Pema Pera: Fael and Hotaru’s questions are interestingly similar, pointing to the same problem with the same answer
Pema Pera: if we don’t know what to ask
Pema Pera: we may begin to find a handle on stopping
Pema Pera: seeing through, yes Hotaru, that is another way of saying stopping
Pema Pera: As long as we can find questions to ask
Pema Pera: we are still in the dream
Pema Pera: even very clever and pertinent questions
Faenik: ah :)
Pema Pera: are almost certain to led us further into the dream
Pema Pera: by the time you’re beginning to exhaust questioning
Pema Pera: you’re getting closer
Pema Pera: or something is getting closer
Hotaru Myoo: sure…as long s the questions don’t damage the membrane of the dream
Pema Pera: it is not you . . . .
Hotaru Myoo: would it be the accumulation of the detritus?
Faenik loves wells!
Pema Pera: zen questions may poke holes in reality, Hotaru
Pema Pera: although membrane and holes are too limited, they may give some taste of the idea
Fael Illyar: you mean Zen stories? Koans?
Pema Pera: yes!
Pema Pera: you stand on top of a 100 feet high pole, and you have to take a step — now what?
Pema Pera: you have to drink a river in one gulp, how do you do it?
Pema Pera: in science the same thing
Pema Pera: it is called a working hypothesis
One of my favorite expressions, to describe the role of faith in explorations of reality, is to introduce the notion of a working hypothesis, something we use in science all the time: put aside belief and disbelief, be totally open and totally critical, and then explore, while putting on hold all of the usual prejudices you may have — even the prejudice that there is a you and that there is time and space in which the you and the world appears!
Hotaru Myoo: same questions
Hotaru Myoo: that’s the horizon
Pema Pera: what is the horizon, Hotaru?
Hotaru Myoo: the Hypothesis
Hotaru Myoo: ??
Fael Illyar: Clever to call it horizon :) Implies you can walk towards it but never reach
Hotaru Myoo: yes…
Fael Illyar: I guess the implication is then “don’t walk”
Hotaru Myoo: run!
Pema Pera: yes, Fael
Fael Illyar: same with run
Pema Pera: the working hypothesis starts with a paradox
Pema Pera: like a koan, very much so
Fael Illyar: looks like a paradox but is it, really? (yes, rhetoric)
Pema Pera: good question!
Sky Szimmer: never understood koans, didn’t understand the working hypothesis, good thing there are many different roads to rome
Pema Pera: perhaps I can give one example
Pema Pera: of a working hypothesis in science
Fael Illyar: Sky I doubt you can understand those with one reading :)
Pema Pera: perhaps too technical but let me try
Pema Pera: (Fael: Sky has been struggling with this for many years)
Sky Szimmer: : )
Pema Pera: (I have the advantage of backround RL knowledge :)
Pema Pera: (unfair advantage, sorry :)
Fael Illyar: Oh, many years … then what I said might not apply.
I thought about clarifying the notion of a working hypothesis a bit, by giving an example, but that was probably not necessary.
Pema Pera: So an example would be: physics tells us that microscopically everything is time reversable
Hotaru Myoo: love it!
Fael Illyar: I don’t understand all Koans but some feel like I’m getting something out of them.
Pema Pera: so there is not difference between the motion of a ball flying forwards or backwards, same type of trajectory
Sky Szimmer: no Fael, what you say is true for me indeed. I read a koan once, my eyes get crossed and I turn the page..
Pema Pera: but when you stir cream in coffee you cannot unstir this
Pema Pera: for a long time, throughout the nineteenth century
Pema Pera: this was a paradox
Fael Illyar: Sky, sounds like some sort of mental self defense mechanism
Pema Pera: for physicists
Fael Illyar: your current mind shielding itself from whatever the koan is suggesting
Faenik: could be
Sky Szimmer: hmmm…
Sky Szimmer: and then?
Hotaru Myoo: reflecting on it as a mirror might
Fael Illyar: can you remember any of the Koans?
Sky Szimmer: Pema… and then? or is that it
Pema Pera: no, there is more, but I didn’t want to interrupt you and Fael :)
Sky Szimmer: no can’t remember Koans. Not my thing.
Sky Szimmer: which is ok.
Pema Pera: perhaps it is your thing, Sky
Sky Szimmer: maybe
Pema Pera: You often say “I don’t get it!”
Pema Pera: that’s EXACTLY he right approach for koans, haha!
Sky Szimmer: not after our last conversation!
Pema Pera: what changed?
Hotaru Myoo: maybe he is dropping it
Sky Szimmer: I realized that it was a huge impediment.
Fael Illyar: Pema, exactly the right approach would be “I don’t get that, yet” I think
Sky Szimmer: thanks to you!
Hotaru Myoo: ye!
Pema Pera: I’m glad to hear that, Sky, and what came in place of that?
Sky Szimmer: nothing
Pema Pera: Fael, yes, but that then should not sap the energy of the question
Pema Pera: so you have to be careful with the “yet”
Pema Pera: Koans are hopeless!
Hotaru Myoo: maybe create more questions
Pema Pera: no hope
Pema Pera: no yet
We circled back to the “don’t get it”, a tough nut to crack . . .
Fael Illyar: I get the feeling that Sky reads, decides “I don’t get this” and stops trying.
Sky Szimmer: no. that is not it.
Sky Szimmer: when I say to myself I don’t get it. Then there is a presumption on my part that there is something to get
Sky Szimmer: or that there is a picture or a goal to reach
Hotaru Myoo: something ‘yet’ to ‘get’
Sky Szimmer: so it was a block
Pema Pera: and yet, Sky, it is also not a question of shrugging it off…..
Sky Szimmer: no.
Pema Pera: has any of you ever gotten a fish bone stuck in your throat?
Pema Pera: really stuck, for hours?
Sky Szimmer: no.
Hotaru Myoo: of course!
Sky Szimmer: i swallow rice.
Pema Pera: can’t swallow it, can’t get it out either
Pema Pera: really stuck?
Sky Szimmer: what’s ya point?
Pema Pera: well, that feeling
Faenik loves wells!
Pema Pera: helpless hopeless, stuck
Sky Szimmer: and then?
Pema Pera: paradox
Pema Pera: koan
Hotaru Myoo: panic/release
Fael Illyar: I remember getting something like that with Koans :)
Pema Pera: you don’t get it
Pema Pera: and yet you can’t let go of the question
Fael Illyar: Can’t stop wondering about them, can’t really wonder about them either
Pema Pera: you can’t shrug it off, and you can’t answer it
Pema Pera: yes, Fael
Hotaru Myoo: yes Fael!
The key point with koans is to get a sense of how impossible they are without giving up working with them . . .
Pema Pera: you want to wonder about them, but don’t know how
Pema Pera: I wonder how to wonder :)
Hotaru Myoo: lol
Hotaru Myoo: look at the horizon
Pema Pera: and you can do it playfully AND still feel stuck!
Sky Szimmer: what are we talking about? I am lost!
Pema Pera: so here you are with the bone in your throat, you can look at yourself and laugh!
Hotaru Myoo: reminds me of hairballs
Pema Pera: and yet you are stuck
Pema Pera: a hairball you can spew out
Pema Pera: not a bone . . . .
Fael Illyar: talking about the effect Koan has on us.
Pema Pera: btw
Pema Pera: I have to leave for dinner now!
Hotaru Myoo: k
Sky Szimmer: chao
Sky Szimmer: chow
Hotaru Myoo: I ae the transcript
Fael Illyar: Ok, see you Pema :)
Pema Pera: but I’m really enjoying this discussion
Pema Pera: I feel that we’ve come quite a bit further
Pema Pera: relatively speaking of course
Pema Pera: :)
Pema Pera: with PaB
Pema Pera: looking forward to continue!
Hotaru Myoo: don’t choose the fish for dinner
Lol, Hotaru!
Pema Pera: ah, before I forget
Pema Pera: I’ll be careful Hotaru
Hotaru Myoo: lol
Faenik: なるほど^^
Pema Pera: thanks for playing along and with each other here :-)
Hotaru Myoo: Pema…I got the transcript
Pema Pera: thanks, Hotaru, do you want to comment or shall I or Sky or Fael?
Pema Pera: I’m happy to do it
Pema Pera: since Hotaru already went out of her way to come her
Pema Pera: see you all soon!
Pema Pera: c u !
Fael Illyar: See you :)
Hotaru Myoo: ciao!
