The Guardian for this session was Sylectra Darwin.
Neela Blaisdale: Hello Sylectra
Maxine Walden: not at all, doug. Hi, Syl
Sylectra Darwin: Hello everyone!
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: hey slyectra
doug Sosa: hello.
Maxine Walden: hi, Pia
Neela Blaisdale: Hello Pia
Sylectra Darwin: greetings, Pia
Pia Iger: hi, everyone
doug Sosa: hi Pla
Sylectra Darwin: So how is everyone today?
doug Sosa: big question.
Sylectra Darwin: smiles
doug Sosa: yes.
Pia Iger: I feel not that good, cuz I did not make much notes today
Pia Iger: let many thoughts slipped away
doug Sosa: which came first, not notes, or feeling not so good?
Pia Iger: no notes, then not good
Neela Blaisdale: What kind of notes do you take Pia?
doug Sosa: what was the pathway to few notes?
Pia Iger: PaB notes.
Neela Blaisdale: Hello Rajah
Rajah Yalin: hi
Maxine Walden: hi, Rajah
doug Sosa: Hi.
Sylectra Darwin: Nice to see you Rajah.
Rajah Yalin: rezzing you all in still
Pia Iger: lack of concentration, or bit restlessness in the mind, as answer to Doug’s question.
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: pia - how do you usually take your notes? do you have a special notebook? is it discrete or in plain site?
Pia Iger: plain site,
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: do others around you know what you are up to?
Sylectra Darwin: Hello Prosper
Pia Iger: nobody knows
Maxine Walden: hi Prosper
Pia Iger: Hello Prosper
doug Sosa: hi pros
Prosper Telling: Hi everyone
Rajah Yalin: hi prosper
Neela Blaisdale: Hello Prosper
Prosper Telling: How’s everyone?
Pia Iger: The reason I don’t feel good about not taking notes, is that I feel I let my insights slipped away, now I have no idea what they were.
Maxine Walden: that feeling of having lost something
Maxine Walden: or let it slip away
Maxine Walden: can be painful
Pia Iger: like you found a nice seashell on the beach, you did not pick up and keep it, then later it just lost in the sand unfoundable
Maxine Walden: and in my experience sometimes the ‘lost’ idea seems more precious in being lost
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: like a sand mandala?
Sylectra Darwin: Maybe it’s not really lost.
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: we do seem to be cultivating the habbit of preserving every drop of experience
Pia Iger don’t know what is a sand mandala.
Neela Blaisdale: Do you find that certain insights just stay with you anyway? And if so what makes those different? Why do some stay on their own?
Prosper Telling: In Harold and Maude if believe it was, the man gives the woman something beautiful and lovely, a ring or necklace maybe and the woman immediately throughs into the ocean so she will always know where it is
Neela Blaisdale: :)
doug Sosa: haha great.
Sylectra Darwin: wow.
doug Sosa: so all those notes are well filed - in the past.
Maxine Walden: some insights seem to stay when they convey meaning, at least for me. The meaning may change but still it makes the insight more vivid
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: ha
Sylectra Darwin: The sand paintings that are put together with great care and then swept off after a few days?
doug Sosa: carl sandburg said “the past is a bucket of ashes.”
Sylectra Darwin: Friend incoming…
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: yes, exactly. a sand mandala is an intricate work of art, made out of colored sand, which is systematically destroyed as soon as it is finished.
Prosper Telling: Does it ever seem to anyone that that process of reaching the insight might be more important than the insight? Not sure myself
Neela Blaisdale: Yes the journey itself
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: meant to symbolize the transient nature of reality, according to the Great Oracle of Wikipedia
Maxine Walden: oh yes, sometimes that process feels most important
Rajah Yalin: hi Nostrum
Sylectra Darwin: All, this is my friend Nos
Nostrum Forder: Evening.
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: hi Nos!
Prosper Telling: like in the briefest of moments the mind opens…
Maxine Walden: hi, Nostrum
doug Sosa: hi Nos!
Prosper Telling: Hi
Neela Blaisdale: Hello Nostrum
Rajah Yalin: I met Nostrum the other day
Nostrum Forder: Hi, Friedrich, Hi Rajah.
Pia Iger: hi, Nostrum
Nostrum Forder: Hellow, all.
Sylectra Darwin: Yes, that’s right.
Rajah Yalin: if she remembers before I fell asleep
Nostrum Forder: Yes, I remember, we were concerned you might have dropped off.
Rajah Yalin: lol.. it was 4am here
Nostrum Forder nods solemnly.
Rajah Yalin: :)
Sylectra Darwin: So Maxine you had a very interesting e-mail recently.
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: pia, do you normally go back and read your notes, or is the mere very of writing htem down enough to solidify your insights
Maxine Walden: interesting email?
Pia Iger: I do read them back. and see what thoughts I had.
Sylectra Darwin: About the new way of seeing?
Sylectra Darwin: Can you kind of describe the work you’ve been doing in the last day or so?
Maxine Walden: oh, yes, the email we all got from Pema
Sylectra Darwin: yes, yes
Sylectra Darwin: Would you mind summarizing the idea first?
Solobill Laville is Online
Maxine Walden: Yes, let’s see, I believe it was suggested that we ’see’ from our eyes out, all that we might see as ‘normal’; then that we ’see’ as ‘Being’ might, from the vaster perspective
Rajah Yalin: hi Bill
Sylectra Darwin: yes, that was it.
Solobill Laville: Hi rajah
Neela Blaisdale: Hello Solo
Solobill Laville: Hi Neela, and all
Solobill Laville: Hi Neela, and all
Pia Iger: Hello Solo
Maxine Walden: I find that I can best do the ‘wider’ seeing when I am feeling rested and mind relaxed, and sometimes that is easy, sometimes not so
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: do you try to locate yourself anywhere? is it like an out of body experience of sorts?
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: or, beyond a point, somehow?
Maxine Walden: sort of looking from above my place in the world at the moment it seems; had not really thought of the location before you asked
Maxine Walden: what has been your experience?
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: dislocated? but, i don’t think panoramic, as has been suggested
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: i haven’t remembered to play with this over the past few days. thanks for the reminder, Syl
Neela Blaisdale: I find my other senses seem more heightened
Sylectra Darwin: I intend to try it.
Maxine Walden: yes, agree, Neela
Sylectra Darwin: Very exciting report, Maxine.
Pia Iger: what are the other senses?
Neela Blaisdale: Hearing, touch- feel the air around me more, actual seeing is more vivid
Maxine Walden: sometimes when I am fatigued it is quite difficult to do the PaB and can be dis-spiriting to feel unable to be present
Maxine Walden: have to be gentle with myself at those times
doug Sosa: what i like is inserting the 9 sec in the middle of very different activity. no preparation, just shift from “normal” to PaB.
Pia Iger: nods.
Prosper Telling: Yeah, ay the moment it is close to a hundred degrees around here… Sometimes it’s hard to get in the spirit.
Maxine Walden: how does that experience go for you? Jarring, interesting?
Maxine Walden: Wow, hot!!
doug Sosa: but that too can be observed. Sick, heat, fatigu, all are interesting from the 9 sec point of view.
Maxine Walden: yes, doug
Prosper Telling: All a part of the greater tapestry
Maxine Walden: right
Pia Iger: and you may found the real you is not that sick or fatigued at all
doug Sosa: bell, dinner calls…. bye (quietly)
Neela Blaisdale: Bye Doug
Maxine Walden: bye, doug
Prosper Telling: bye
Pia Iger: Solo, you said you did similar ’seeing’ practice before. can you say something?
Solobill Laville: Sure
Solobill Laville: Basically, it is a Soto Zen perspective
Solobill Laville: You may here people usinng the term “Monkey mind”
Solobill Laville: which sounds pretty bad, perhaps
Solobill Laville: but refers the usual way we chase our thougts around
Solobill Laville: this would be “little mind”
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: ooh ooh ah ah
Neela Blaisdale: Yes the busy monkey
Solobill Laville: or akin to the Stage 1 type of thinking, “observing what is around me”
Solobill Laville: there is a distinct “me”, and “other” as opposed to “me”
Solobill Laville: the second way is to see everything within itself
Solobill Laville: this is Big Mind
Solobill Laville: Or Being
Solobill Laville: easy to say, though…lol
Solobill Laville: through practice, it is achievable though
Neela Blaisdale: So seeing is like little mind and being like big mind?
Solobill Laville: I can only, and will only, speak for myself here
Solobill Laville: but they are both “seeing” in a way
Solobill Laville: It is “how” you are seeing
Solobill Laville: To me, it is all in the preparation, or practice
Solobill Laville: if your mind is like a garden
Solobill Laville: the better you prepare it, the better the plants will grow
Solobill Laville: but again, that is easy to say, and takes a lot of sincere and directed effort, to me at least
Solobill Laville: but…with that….I think anyone with effort can achieve something special
Maxine Walden: Afraid I need to go, look forward to seein you all soon
Neela Blaisdale: Bye Maxine
Pia Iger: :) just feel one min is muuuch longer than 9sec.
Pia Iger: To do this new practice, need more discipline. at least to me
Sylectra Darwin: yes, and maybe there is a different purpose to this one.
Pia Iger: anyway, I will try.
Solobill Laville: :)
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: i’m sure your lost insights will find you soon
Pia Iger: I hope so:)
Prosper Telling: I must go but thanks for the wonderful thoughts. Lots of good stuff to think on.
Friedrich Ochsenhorn avoids the problem by not taking notes at all, but occasionally wishes he did
Pia Iger: bye, Prosper.
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: g’night
Neela Blaisdale: Good bye prosper
Solobill Laville: night
Prosper Telling: g’night
Pia Iger: Fred, what occasions u wish u did notes?
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: nothing specific. i have the sense that it would sharpen my experience
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: i do try to formulate the notes I /would/ take
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: i did a few times at the beginning, but didn’t stick with it
Pia Iger: I’m thinking of your word “formulate”
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: does anyone else here skip note taking? or go back and forth?
Solobill Laville: I don’t Fred
Sylectra Darwin: I am about half and half.
Nostrum Forder: I’m not sure if this has any direct bearing, but I have an experience that might be helpful here.
Neela Blaisdale: I don;t take notes. I’m concentrating on trying to remember to practice through out the day
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: i even tried getting a special small pen to go with my moleskin - easy to carry around.. but i didn’t get into it
Pia Iger: oh. pls share, Nostrum
Nostrum Forder: I was, for years, a compulsive journaler. I have written journals of daily events that go back for almost 40 years.
Pia Iger: wowo
Nostrum Forder: Recently, some circumstances in my life led me to abandon journalling entirely. My confidence was betrayed, and I was actually advised by a lawyer to stop for a while.
Solobill Laville: Really wow!
Pia Iger: lawyer?
Nostrum Forder: Curiously, for about 6 months, I went through a kind of “withdrawal” where I felt I had to compulsively tell me daily stories to anyone who would listen.
Nostrum Forder: yes, there was a legal aspect that I’d rather not go into the details on.
Pia Iger: then?
Nostrum Forder: So for six months, I was essentially, excuse the expression, a royal pain in the ass to anyone within earshot when I needed to unload the days baggage.
Nostrum Forder: After that, though, I found that the need to talk through the day subsided. I also noticed something more basic.
Nostrum Forder: I was “in the moment” much more.
Nostrum Forder: I was “there” when things were happening, instead of stepping outside myself to collect data points for my daily report. :)
Sylectra Darwin: I like that.
Nostrum Forder: So for me, the record was an obstacle. It forced me outside the moment, and I didn’t really live each moment fully.
Solobill Laville: That is true for me as well. Though it seems we are in the minority on that front, Nostrum, from what I’ve heard over the past few months ;)
Neela Blaisdale: What do you mean Solo?
Pia Iger: I would say there are different kinds of record.
Nostrum Forder: I’ve since gone back to journalling, btw. but I am far more terse and condensed now.
Solobill Laville: Many people like to write thoughts, or perceptions, or perhaps track effort and results
Solobill Laville: I just have seen that as a bit of a barrier, to my own practice
Solobill Laville: Perhaps I worry to much about how I should phrase something
Neela Blaisdale: Nostrum’s story reminds me of doing a silent retreat- for 5 days-couldn’t speak or read or write at first feeling very
Neela Blaisdale: panicky- then thoughts became clearer
Nostrum Forder: Neela, were you entirely alone, or with a group who had vowed silence?
Neela Blaisdale: less writing, less words makes it easier to “be”
Nostrum Forder: My spiritual adivsor once said to me, “Make it an objective to do less and be more.”
Neela Blaisdale: :)
Solobill Laville: That is nice
Neela Blaisdale: I was with a group part of the days and alone for part Nostrum
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: it is a nice sentiment, though, to me it is hard to seperate being and doing
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: in a way, we are the sum of our choices.
Sylectra Darwin: Interesting, Friedrich
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: choices aren’t identical with actions. you can choose not to act. but, I am now confused ;-)
Sylectra Darwin: :)
Nostrum Forder: Do not allow your identity to become synonymous with your actions. If that happens, you are nothig but furniture.
Nostrum Forder grins.
Sylectra Darwin: lol
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: i’d like to be a nice, comfortable sofa
Pia Iger: good choice!
Nostrum Forder: Well, yes. If you must be furniture, be comfortable and useful.
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: if you don’t excercise your freedom, its hard to claim you have it
Pia Iger: another good one!
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: it doesn’t really stress me out to be defined by my choices (possibly different than actions)
Neela Blaisdale: To go back a minute,Sometimes I notice that I’m doing something automaticall, without being aware of it. Then it feels like doing rather than being
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: in fact, i think that’s connected to teh stripping of I Am X we have been talking about
Sylectra Darwin: Being here now, Neela, I need more of that today!
Pia Iger: Neela, I think you sort of point out “what is not Being”
Nostrum Forder: Friedrich, perhaps you might say then that, essentially, defined by your *capacity to choose* rather than by your specific choices.
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: perhaps, but that’s a slightly different idea
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: i think.
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: i mean, if we live in a multiverse, what makes ‘me’ me? how am I differentiated from my parallel selves?
Solobill Laville: ah, now I am confused ;-)
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: its specifically my specific choices that define me
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: ok. lets stick to our universe ;-)
Nostrum Forder: yes, please.
Sylectra Darwin: Solobill, I am confused too.
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: i still think the history of my chioces describes, if not defines, me now
Sylectra Darwin: We could probably fill another PaB session with that one topic, Fred
Sylectra Darwin: smiles
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: yeah… speaking of which… i think that’s my cue
Neela Blaisdale: Yes, describe vs define
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: i choose door number 1
Friedrich Ochsenhorn: gnight folks
Neela Blaisdale: Good night Fred
Solobill Laville: night all
Sylectra Darwin: night, Fred
Pia Iger: long session this is. bye all.
Neela Blaisdale: Good night everyonne
