2008.07.06 13:00 - Diversions, distractions and Meditations

That afternoon, Maxine was the guardian. This is the log with her comments; the title is hers as well.

I was at the pavilion only a moment before Quilty came; and very soon thereafter Fael, Adams and Pia

Maxine Walden: hi, Quilty
Quilty Bookmite: Hi Maxine
Maxine Walden: nice to see Maxine Walden
Quilty Bookmite: Maxine Walden too.
Quilty Bookmite: Hi Fael
Fael Illyar: Hi Quilty, Maxine :)
Maxine Walden: hi, Faek
Quilty Bookmite: hi Adams
Maxine Walden: Fael, sorry for the misspell

Fael asked me some things which identified that I had been meandering at the new PaB wiki and making mistakes which were evident. I made a plea for some tutorial help for the tech challenged among us

Fael Illyar: Maxine, I noticed created another user account on the wiki. Did forget the password?
Quilty Bookmite: One sec. Got to check on the bread
Maxine Walden: oh, may have think I need a tutorial for the wiki, such as how to post chatlogs, and just maneuver around
Maxine Walden: Hi, Adams
Adams Rubble: hello everyone :)
Fael Illyar: I’ll have to put together something explaining the basics I guess.
Faenik: ah :)
Maxine Walden: so did not mean to double register as it were; it would be very useful to have a very basic primer for some of us
Maxine Walden: you knowledge of these technical things is wonderful; many of us are not as skilled, or have our abilities elsewhere
Fael Illyar: you’re part of the pabwiki list so I sent you an invitation a few days ago. This new account you registered yesterday wasn’t really necessary
Quilty Bookmite: back.
Quilty Bookmite: Bread is slightly overdone. :-)
Fael Illyar: Ah, Pia figured out how to move wiki pages, good :)
Maxine Walden: looking after bread and looking after the pabwiki…

Stevenaia Michinaga then joined us.

Fael Illyar: Hi Steve
Quilty Bookmite: Hi Steve
Fael Illyar: Hi Pia :)
Maxine Walden: hi, Steve
Maxine Walden: and Pia
stevenaia Michinaga: hello
Pia Iger: Hi, everyone.
Adams Rubble: Hi Stee
Adams Rubble: Hi Pia
Quilty Bookmite: Hi Pia
stevenaia Michinaga: being careful not to sit on someone..waiting to rezz
Quilty Bookmite: The cushion directly in front of you is empty
stevenaia Michinaga: thank you
Adams Rubble: I am experiencing lots of lag here

And we soon noted lag due to interesting diversions such as the Wimbleton finals

Pia Iger: I am still hooked by Wimbeldon now.
Adams Rubble: :)
Maxine Walden: seems some of us do have lots of lag
stevenaia Michinaga: not over yet… I may be distracted by the same
Quilty Bookmite: I have just finished watching doctor who confidentiua
Maxine Walden: ah, different things tugging at attention
Quilty Bookmite: _confidential_
Maxine Walden: creates its own kind of lag
Quilty Bookmite: So you have my full attention. :-)
Fael Illyar: :)
stevenaia Michinaga: nothing ic confidential here
Fael Illyar: Yes, everything going publicly on the blog.
Fael Illyar: and wiki
Quilty Bookmite: No problem here.
Quilty Bookmite: Is there a link from the blog to the wiki
Adams Rubble wonders what the doctor will think
Quilty Bookmite: :-)
Fael Illyar: no, not yet
Pia Iger: haha
Quilty Bookmite: It is the one program I hate to miss.

We were then joined by DakOta Paule who had met Fael previously and invited to look into PaB and the website. It soon became clear that there were several conversations in the pavilion

Dak0ta Paule: oops
Dak0ta Paule: pardon me
Quilty Bookmite: But now it is finished.
Quilty Bookmite: Hi Dakota
Maxine Walden: Hi, DakOta, care to join us?
Fael Illyar: Hello Dak0ta
Adams Rubble: Hi Dak)ta
Dak0ta Paule: is this the play as Being meeting?
Fael Illyar: Yes
Maxine Walden: yes, it is
Dak0ta Paule: excellent! may i have a seat?
Maxine Walden: please do
Faenik is a hairy black ball with eyes and ears.
Adams Rubble: welcome Dak0ta
stevenaia Michinaga: that and the finals at Wimbleton
Quilty Bookmite: Not really bothered about Wimbledon. :-)
Quilty Bookmite: My mu
Quilty Bookmite: oMy mother watched it every year so I got bored of it.
Fael Illyar: Is this your first time Dak0ta?
Quilty Bookmite: Wasn’t referring the Mu there. Just a typo. :-)
Dak0ta Paule: yes, it is
Maxine Walden: interesting what experiences peak one’s interest
Faenik: why not?
Pia Iger: how do you know us, Dakota?
Maxine Walden: how did you hear of us, Dakota?
Dak0ta Paule: I stumbled upon this location during a meeting from the other day, and i ran into one of the…uhm, not sure what to call them. i suppose one of the guides of the group
Fael Illyar: That was me I think :)
Dak0ta Paule: and she directed me to the website where i did a little reading, and this whole venture looks very interesting
Dak0ta Paule: yeah, i thought your name looked familiar
Dak0ta Paule: as does your little friend there
Faenik meaows happily.
Adams Rubble: Ah
Faenik is a hairy black ball with eyes and ears.
Maxine Walden: you may then be aware, Dakota, that we post the conversations we have on the website you looked at; is that OK withyou, to have your conversation posted?
Quilty Bookmite: Faenik seem to know when people are talking about him/her
Maxine Walden: along with the rest of us?
Faenik can say exactly what Fael wants him to.
Dak0ta Paule: that does’nt bother me at all, however i don’t intend to interupt much
Quilty Bookmite: Is Faenik developing it’s own personality?
Quilty Bookmite: Ah, I see. ;-)
Maxine Walden: not a problem, we hope you will feel free to contribute, just want to make sure you are comfortable with the log
Dak0ta Paule: thank Maxine Walden
Fael Illyar: Quilty, but Faenik definitely seems to be getting a personality, little by little.
Quilty Bookmite: Yes. :-)
Adams Rubble wonders if Faenik knows she is recorded on the blog
Maxine Walden: perhaps Faenik does the PaB practice, Fael?
Dak0ta Paule: hahaha
Fael Illyar: Maxine, that’s debatable :)
Maxine Walden: oh?
Pia Iger: Have youtried 9sec meditation, Dakota?
Dak0ta Paule: no
Fael Illyar: Whatever personality Faenik might be developing is developing in the same mind where Fael and one RL person live.
Dak0ta Paule: my only excuse is that i don’t have the time for that
Fael Illyar: and that mind is doing explorations.
Maxine Walden: Pia, would you like to mention the 9 sec practice?
Dak0ta Paule: ;)
Pia Iger: (tennis is over, I am fully here now. )
Quilty Bookmite: Welcome back Pia. :-)
Maxine Walden: I see, Fael, yes, think I understand youre Faenik and you and the practice
Pia Iger: 9 sec is so short, but we still don’t have time for it.
Pia Iger: I feel that way, too. many times.
Faenik is a hairy black ball with eyes and ears.
Fael Illyar: Although, other than the personality that is developing for Faenik, there are also random lines from a script.
Maxine Walden: seems like we are bringing things that occupy our attention., maybe that distract us from the time for focused attention, such as the 9 sec practice would invite..
Maxine Walden: so many things in our everyday lives divide our attention, tug at our sleeve

But then we began to talk about the difficulties encountered in the practice of PaB along with various of our experiences

Adams Rubble: And it also requires a certain leap of faith to begin
Pia Iger: a lot of inertia, or resistance to break.
Adams Rubble: yes
Maxine Walden: yes, I agree, Pia and Adams
Adams Rubble: but once started, it becomes easier and easier
Pia Iger: glad to hear that, Adams. much encouragement for us.
Quilty Bookmite: I think the resistance is the self defending itself.
Pia Iger: oh?
Maxine Walden: yes, Quilty, say more please
Quilty Bookmite: There is a real fear there. That we will somehow cease to exist.
Fael Illyar: Quilty, wouldn’t “self-image” be more correct?
Quilty Bookmite: Even if we don;t consciously think that.
Quilty Bookmite: No. I’m talking about the self.
Fael Illyar: what’s the difference?
Quilty Bookmite: Meditation dissolves the self.
Quilty Bookmite: I think I once mentioned it is like leaping off a cliff. Terrifying and exhilirating.
Quilty Bookmite: What so you mean by self-image, Fael?
Maxine Walden: leaping off into space that is unknown to the familiar self perhaps?
Quilty Bookmite: Yes.
Quilty Bookmite: Maybe we really are talking about the same thing Fael.
Fael Illyar: it could be
Faenik: ah :)
Fael Illyar: At least I think that’s what Avastu was trying to say.
Quilty Bookmite: I thought Avastu was far more eloquent than I could ever be. :-)
Pia Iger: :)
Quilty Bookmite: He left me with a lot to think about.
Fael Illyar: Yes, a lot :)
Fael Illyar: What he’s saying is not complex but to understand it requires us to modify a lot of our complex mental models of the world
Quilty Bookmite: I think it is only when we have the courage to make that leap that we realise that there is no self and no cliff to leap off. :-)
Pia Iger: so Meditaion dissolve the self, hence dissolve the fear of death?
Quilty Bookmite: Yes, but you have to face the fear of death first.
Pia Iger: no cliff to leap off, means no death anyway?

We spoke about learnings from others and from our direct experience, the fears and joys and uncertainties, and senses of the truth

stevenaia Michinaga: Good point Quilty, undetanding sometimes comes more easily through direct experience
Fael Illyar: that makes me wonder exactly when I faced it… I certainly haven’t had to face anything like that during PaB.
Quilty Bookmite: no death of the true Self, which can never die.
Quilty Bookmite: I must point out that these are things that I have been told and I see the truth of them, but I can;t really say I have experienced them in a direct way.
Pia Iger: I heard about this many times, too. still puzzled.
Quilty Bookmite: I think it puzzled me at first. And it doesn;t fit with my skeptical viewpoint to just believe it.
Quilty Bookmite: But I somehow feel it’s truth.
Pia Iger nods.
Maxine Walden: perhaps ‘truth’ can feel right inside even if we have never directly experienced it
Quilty Bookmite: We may be able to experience it but I’m not sure we can ever do it justice with words.
Faenik: could be
stevenaia Michinaga: what I am.. is the accumulation of may things I no longer wish to be, many things I let go of, what seems to remain are the joy and happyness and appreciation of the journey to get here now
stevenaia Michinaga: that is usually the things that put smiles on my face
Quilty Bookmite: And, as Avastu said, what you are is simply what you experience right now.
Quilty Bookmite: That is a truth I have known and forgotten many times and Avastu helped remind me of it again.
Maxine Walden: these thoughts puts memory in an interesting place, for many have suggested that much of ‘who we are’ is comprised of memories; memories so distract us from ‘this moment’ perhaps
Fael Illyar: Yes, I remember I once was of the opinion that “who we are” is the collection of memories we have.
Pia Iger: who said: memories are very malleable?
Quilty Bookmite: So if we dissolve the self does that mean we lose all our memories?
Quilty Bookmite: Wouldn;t that be terrifying if it was true?
Fael Illyar: Quilty, no, memories will stay but they won’t be what defines you
Maxine Walden: we might lose the thread of our lives, as recorded in memory?
Pia Iger: seems we tend to cross two levels: relative level and absolute level.
Quilty Bookmite: I agree Fael. :-)
Adams Rubble: we learn from our experiences
Quilty Bookmite: But that is what we feel defines us.
Adams Rubble: we don;t become our experiences
Maxine Walden: what do you mean, Pia
Pia Iger: so words are played very tricky. in different sentence, same word has different meanings.
Faenik: ah :)
Quilty Bookmite: I think what happens is that we cease to be attached to our memories. We stop interpreting the world through them.
Maxine Walden: it does seem more freeing to see the world through the lens of the present moment
Quilty Bookmite: English is a particularly bad language for that I think. :-)
Quilty Bookmite: And yet speaking a completely logical language is probably beyond most of us.
Faenik: indeed?
Fael Illyar: Every language has problems that way. The problems are just in different places. That’s why being fluid in more than one language is good.
Pia Iger: when we talked about memories, experiences, self is in relative sense.
Maxine Walden: language and memory, things we have with us nearly all the time, but which can get in our way
Quilty Bookmite: I am limited in that respect. I can only speak English fluently.
stevenaia Michinaga: are you suggesting Being is logical or can be explained by logic to be clear?
Pia Iger: then we also juggle with the true self in between.
Quilty Bookmite: I don;t think Being can be explained by logic.

A visitor drops by for less than a minute

Quilty Bookmite: Hello Elizabeth.
Fael Illyar: Hello Elizabeth
Elizabeth17 Twine: hello
Adams Rubble: Hi Elizabeth
Faenik: ah :)
Maxine Walden: hello, Elizabeth, would you care to join us?
Elizabeth17 Twine: sure
Maxine Walden: have you been here before, Elizabeth?
Quilty Bookmite: Logic is all about dividing the world up. Dissecting it and learning new truths…
Elizabeth17 Twine: no
Quilty Bookmite: Being (or any other name you care to put to it) is beyond that. It can;t be defined by duality.
Pia Iger thinks a notecard will be handy at this time
Maxine Walden: we are speaking about ways of understanding reality, and being
Quilty Bookmite: Sorry. I’ll pause for a bit. :-)

Elizabeth disappears and the possible advantage of a notecard to explain PaB was raised once again

Fael Illyar: I guess she wasn’t interested.
Quilty Bookmite: I guess that was a bit heavy.
Quilty Bookmite: :-)
Pia Iger: or we are scary:)
Maxine Walden: yes, Pia, you are probably right, if we could hand Elizabeth a notecard explaining our endeavor
stevenaia Michinaga: is was he second day in SL, I might have run away too
stevenaia Michinaga: her
Quilty Bookmite: I scare myself sometimes. :-)
Pia Iger: yes. that is fast to give her a card.
Maxine Walden: yes, hard to know…

Noting the time and realizing I wished to take this log to the Pabwiki I felt I needed to begin to mention my leaving and that I would hope for help getting the log on the new wiki

Maxine Walden: I have about 5 minutes more before I have to go to another meeting…just to say before hand
Maxine Walden: Quilty, You were in the middle of a thought…?
Quilty Bookmite: OK. As always, I will leave at 2.
Fael Illyar: Speaking of the notecard, what sylectra put together is at the wiki http://playasbeing.wik.is/Play_As_Being_in_a_Nutshell
Quilty Bookmite: Yes. Not quite sure where I was going with it. :-)
Maxine Walden: thanks, Fael.
Fael Illyar: Everyone should read it and edit it if there is something that’s wrong or could be said better
Quilty Bookmite: Being can’t be defined by duality. :-)
Quilty Bookmite: Being is everything and nothing so you can’t disect it.
Quilty Bookmite: Does that make sense?
Pia Iger: yes, but not much helpful.
Quilty Bookmite: Also, I’m straying from the original point wildly.
stevenaia Michinaga: I must go , thank you all
Adams Rubble: bye Steve :)
Fael Illyar: Bye Steve :)
Maxine Walden: Bye, Steve
Quilty Bookmite: I think the self senses these things even if it is not consciously aware of them.
Quilty Bookmite: bye Steve.
Quilty Bookmite: meditation is the way to experience the bigger Self.
Faenik: why not?
Pia Iger: so we hope PaB can help us see clearer.
Fael Illyar: “We all know it, we just have forgotten we do”
Quilty Bookmite: Yes. :-)
Quilty Bookmite: To experience the bigger Self is to disolve the smaller self.
Quilty Bookmite: And that is terrifying.
Maxine Walden: I will go as well, and will take the chatlog as it is my turn. It would be so helpful, Fael, and Pia and those who know this technology so much better to have a couple of simple directions as to how to how to bring the chatlog to the wiki and where to put it in the wiki.
Quilty Bookmite: At least that is why I feel I struggle with meditaiton. :-)
Pia Iger: yes, Quilty, it sounds like a trip to unknown.
Quilty Bookmite: bye Maxine.
Maxine Walden: Sorry to have to focus on that rather than Quilty’s thoughts right now; so many things to attend to; also if someone would like to take the rest of the chatlog after I leave, that would capture the rest of the conversation which seems very interesting
Fael Illyar: Quilty, I think I’ve recalled when I spent the time being afraid of this.
Fael Illyar: Maxine, we should take some time when you have some to go over the process. For the time being, You can still mail it to Pema.
Adams Rubble: I must go too. Bye everyone :)
Fael Illyar: Ok, see you later Adams :)
Quilty Bookmite: Bye Adams.
Pia Iger: to me, just make a page, then move it under the chat log folder, right? Fael?
Fael Illyar: Yes, open the Chat Logs page
Pia Iger: bye, Adams.
Fael Illyar: click on the “New Page” button
Fael Illyar: Type: 2008/07/06 1PM - Title for the log goes here
Fael Illyar: that’s the title part of the page
Fael Illyar: then copy&paste the log under it and start editing.
Fael Illyar: if you want, you can save it after pasting it.
Maxine Walden: I will do that, thanks and I will take your instructions. Thanks
Pia Iger: pls make sure to replace your name with “Maxine Walden”, which Moon did not do in his log.
Pia Iger: so it can be confusing who the you it is.
Maxine Walden: bye, must go