2008.08.20 07:00 - Hold the Pickles

My name is Cal and I'll be your guardian this session.... today's specials are...

Another new day:

Connected
Caledonia Heron: hey Doug :)
doug Sosa: morning!
Caledonia Heron: how's it going so far today? I'm waking up a bit still :)
doug Sosa: i am still getting to sleep :0
doug Sosa: :)
Caledonia Heron: late night?
doug Sosa: not really, just intense afternoon meeting.
doug Sosa: how are you?
Caledonia Heron: ah, for work? must be kind of draining
Caledonia Heron: all systems go for another day it would appear :)

Discussing the future of everything:

doug Sosa: well, i live so that i only do what i want. This is setting up some conversations between humanities folks and technical folks at [university].
doug Sosa: about the future of everything.
Caledonia Heron: of "everything"? or the future of the program? :)
doug Sosa: of everything.
Caledonia Heron: excellent :) interested to know how that turns out :)
doug Sosa: universe, species, science, novels, governance..
Caledonia Heron: will it be online somehow? inworld?
doug Sosa: are we too materialistic?
doug Sosa: What is the relationship between the twitter generation and energy reform?
Caledonia Heron: lol, funny thing, twitter :)
doug Sosa: may be online. you can actually see some of it at
doug Sosa: well, i need to look for the url
Caledonia Heron: ok, sure - no pressure, and, sounds very interesting
doug Sosa: back in a moment
Caledonia Heron: ok
doug Sosa: ah, can't copy and paste here.
doug Sosa: send me an email and i'll send it back. [email address]
Caledonia Heron: ok, thanks

9sec and meetings:

doug Sosa: i love the impact of the 9 sec on my way of handling such meetings.
Caledonia Heron: how does it show up?
doug Sosa: let the meeting, and its context, see me.
doug Sosa: and of course..
doug Sosa: i notice that alot of it is not paying attention to me at all :)
Caledonia Heron: so it is more on point? more efficient? or not that? I'm wondering how that plays out
doug Sosa: i mean the table, the walls, the projector, and even the people..
Caledonia Heron: ahhh, ok
doug Sosa: less trying to push the rope and more adjusting to it.
Caledonia Heron: yes, not driving it so much?
doug Sosa: more not being anxious about not driving it.
Caledonia Heron: like letting go of it?
doug Sosa: allows for fewer and more helpful "interventions".
Caledonia Heron: lol
doug Sosa: like discussion of military culture..
Caledonia Heron: I attend a standing meeting where one individual requires a running intervention
doug Sosa: oe group was hostile, glad this isn't like the military
doug Sosa: provoked a reaction, they are actually pretty good..
doug Sosa: but what abot the generals..
doug Sosa: and so i said when we have two cultures about something it is a really interesting momemnt..
Caledonia Heron: I can see how there might be moments when the cultures may not quite mesh
doug Sosa: more like standing on two sides of a ravine and throwing roocks at each other.
Caledonia Heron: lol, pointy sticks :)
Caledonia Heron: and surely at [university] there are conventions of engagement? :)

Some texting clarification:

doug Sosa: just to make sure, what is lql
doug Sosa: or lol
doug Sosa: i am confused because of that line under the o
Caledonia Heron: it's an abbreviation I use when something makes me laugh ... it stands for laugh out loud :)
Caledonia Heron: part of being in the texting world :)
doug Sosa: but why does the o have the extra line?
doug Sosa: and im glad i asked, in my world lol means lots of luck.
doug Sosa: so does the e, i see now, but not u.
Caledonia Heron: that's funny, now I will probably read some "lol's" as lots of luck :)

Issues that arise with social responsibility projects:

doug Sosa: I try to create conversations where we can ask "If we achieved what we say we want, would it be enough to make a difference?
doug Sosa: or, if we were successful, who would resist us?
Caledonia Heron: the first part of that: I think that's a nice way to frame it, to have maximum impact and, everything makes a difference (imo) so any movement in a direction has an impact
Caledonia Heron: the second part (who would resist the success) .... strange to consider there are stakeholders in not making a difference but it is a fact
doug Sosa: well, take a water project in kenya where the project team has never discussed who will own it when it is done. i don't think this project should be allowed to have "maximum impact".
Caledonia Heron: and yet the provision of water has/makes a significant impact
doug Sosa: not if it steals water and privatizes it.
Caledonia Heron: ok, understood ... and, the greater good argument might be that some water is better than no water
doug Sosa: or less water is better than expensive waer than only a few can purchase. Collective water for a number of farms turns into expensive water that only a few farmers can afford.
doug Sosa: and then they buy out the others.
Caledonia Heron: yeah, a poor scenario
Caledonia Heron: a less than hoped for result
doug Sosa: very common. the technical people don't look because they are glad to have the project.
Caledonia Heron: so I see your point, it is not enough to put something in place without rounding out the complete picture
doug Sosa: one can't just stop this, but the 9 sec heslps.
doug Sosa: yes. But complete picture is never complete, that is why openness is so necessary.
Caledonia Heron: that makes sense
Caledonia Heron: from my experience with social responsibility projects, there are so many disconnects it's a wonder that the actual thing that is of help reaches those that are to be helped
doug Sosa: take energy policy like "US energy independence". But that means loss of income in the ME which means evn more unemployent. Is this good?
doug Sosa: I am not sure any project to help people helps. I remember
doug Sosa: at the world bank, participation meant asking villagers "where do you want the hospital?"
doug Sosa: It just rationalized the delivery of what the Bank could get financed.
Caledonia Heron: hmmm, kind of superficial input
doug Sosa: but typical.
doug Sosa: that's why we hav so much to learn from the slow testing procedures of natural evolution, and thousands of years. we want to crate an innovation and drive a adaptation with little sense of secondary effects.
doug Sosa: :)
Caledonia Heron: I worry we may not have the time to learn it, so many errors and poor results are in evidence
doug Sosa: that is a starting point. can we allow it into the meetings?
Caledonia Heron: so if we play a game .... like, how if we could get all doing 9sec, would that impact or drive situations like these?
doug Sosa: yes, but...
doug Sosa: it would require helping people with income..
Caledonia Heron: people with income need love too :)
doug Sosa: because they might choose to stop what they are doing
doug Sosa: and a transition time is necessary.
doug Sosa: speaking of which i need to transition to clothes... bye. Good having this talk.
Caledonia Heron: ok, bye :) love the superman jammies :)

Just making it up about the jammies for visual effect ... Doug took off and Avastu dropped in:

Caledonia Heron: hi Avastu :)
Avastu Maruti: hello my friend
Caledonia Heron: how are you this day?
Avastu Maruti: perfect-and you?
Caledonia Heron: good :) right where I am :)
Avastu Maruti smiles
Caledonia Heron: we haven't really spoken personally before
Caledonia Heron: I deduce you are a buddhist from your approach and responses to conversation?
Avastu Maruti: As you know, Buddhism is just another label
Caledonia Heron: well yes, I'm aware of that and that is part of how we parse and make sense of our shared time so that's why I ask :)
Caledonia Heron: we all have a basket of labels we put on from time to time, as we do our different things
Avastu Maruti: it may be seen that in this very parsing with words and concepts, we fool ourselves and miss reality
Caledonia Heron: yes, it convolutes things and obscures a true kind of nature, our natural grace and yet, how else may I interact with you at this moment?
Avastu Maruti: of course!
Avastu Maruti: relativity is necessary for the world to appear
Caledonia Heron: exactly :)

Relativity and the appearing/disappearing world:

Caledonia Heron: I'm kind of juggling with the ideas of what makes it disappear ... straddling two realms which are really one... kind of a paradox of sorts :)
Avastu Maruti: Consciousness itself knows the world - yet Consciousness comes and goes
Caledonia Heron: yes I can understand that and at the same time get that naming it consciousness makes it "other" than myself at times
Avastu Maruti: yes!
Caledonia Heron: kind of a pickle
Avastu Maruti: there is a silent, formless watching or witnessing going on - in that all the relative passes like clouds in the vast sky
Caledonia Heron: mmm, yes I get that and... the watching/witnessing part is a sticky bit for me because sometimes there's no watching, it's the thing I don't do as often but is there all the time only I don't see it all the time
Avastu Maruti: and what's happening when that watching is gone?
Caledonia Heron: I can't tell
Caledonia Heron: memory is unreliable
Caledonia Heron: I can point to 2 things: 1. I don't know 2. time is irrelevant
Avastu Maruti smiles
Avastu Maruti: whatever is happening, you know it because of the presence of that watching
Caledonia Heron: it sounds like nothing is happening and yet ... *something* is evident but my muscles are weak
Avastu Maruti: even if the presence is not noticed
Caledonia Heron: like the dark defines the light kind of thing

So what?:

Avastu Maruti: you are there to know even the absence of consciousness
Avastu Maruti: yes
Caledonia Heron: yes, there and, it is good in and of itself but what of it?
Caledonia Heron: there is no "doing" with it,
Avastu Maruti: nothing
Caledonia Heron: so what's the point?
Avastu Maruti: nothing at all - simply recognize that this is your true nature - the formless knowing in which the world happens
Avastu Maruti: not the limited body-mind on which identification is mistakenly applied
Caledonia Heron: it seems more significant than something you check off a list
Avastu Maruti: significance is only placed in the mind
Avastu Maruti: you watch the mind

The watching, the seeing:

Caledonia Heron: ok, another tact, if you recognize your true nature, that the significance is placed by the mind, what's next? if there is no time, it doesn't matter
Avastu Maruti: nothing at all - there is only the watching, the SEEing
Avastu Maruti: no goal or nothing to get
Avastu Maruti: you already ARE that
Caledonia Heron: then why bother with all this stuff? we already are
Avastu Maruti: yet when identification is placed with the limited idea of a "person", then there is a reference point for all the suffering
Avastu Maruti: seeing your true nature is the end of all suffering and true Peace
Avastu Maruti: yet that isn't for "someone"
Avastu Maruti: that already IS
Caledonia Heron: yes, and, the discussion is kind of circular in nature
Avastu Maruti: the "someone" is just part of the appearance of the relative
Avastu Maruti: yes
Avastu Maruti: anything that can be said, any question or answer, only appears in Consciousness
Caledonia Heron: I can _see_ and notice _be_ and I still have a lot of very relative stuff; work, raising a kid, making dinner .... :)
Avastu Maruti: and you,what you are, knows the coming and going of Consciousness
Avastu Maruti: you are prior to
Avastu Maruti: of course!
Caledonia Heron: apriori
Avastu Maruti: yet it's been seen through
Avastu Maruti: like a mirage
Avastu Maruti: you no longer seek to quench your thirst within an illusion
Caledonia Heron: hmmm, that sounds kind of "quest-ish" but I think I understand
Avastu Maruti: the quest is only for the mind - you are prior to, formless, only watching
Avastu Maruti: seeing/knowing
Caledonia Heron: yes, that seems so

A cosmic joke:

Avastu Maruti: so all the suffering has been a story in the mind applied to a reference point or self-center that never really was what you are
Caledonia Heron: lol - isn't that a show stopper ?? :)
Avastu Maruti smiles
Caledonia Heron: kind of a strange punch line

Riding the same train, different cars:

Caledonia Heron: so surely you have your own questions, wonderings about the seeing/being ... it's not all buttoned up for you is it?
Avastu Maruti: anything that can happen, any "state" that could arise - is impermanent, it comes and goes IN this already-present witnessing
Caledonia Heron: yeah, but that's not what I asked :) It's easy to derail a question with a philosophical comeback :)
Avastu Maruti: the seeking has ended - not because all the questions were answered or it was all figured out, but because it was clearly SEEN that there never was a "seeker"
Avastu Maruti: never was a "me" to whom any of it could apply
Caledonia Heron: so if that is so, what is of interest in this group?
Avastu Maruti: interest for who?
Caledonia Heron: for you, for the not-you? .... you come to be with like minds? you are not seeking yet you seek out the group? :)
Avastu Maruti: what is the interest in eating breakfast, washing dishes, using the toilet?
Caledonia Heron: LOL ... this is where you totally lose me when you redirect with a parallel track .... it's a pretty straightforward question yet I receive no answer.... that's fine and, it's an interesting form of dialog :)
Avastu Maruti: I'm answering your question
Avastu Maruti: the ordinary is IT
Avastu Maruti: THIS
Avastu Maruti: whatever THIS is
Avastu Maruti: eating breakfast, using the toilet, sitting in PaB
Avastu Maruti: the point is that it all comes and goes in this formelss knowing
Caledonia Heron: there's lots of things to choose from, survival activities, pleasure, work ....
Avastu Maruti: who chooses?
Avastu Maruti: this core assumption of a "me" that could choose is the source of all suffering and seeking
Caledonia Heron: you choose to come here and talk, .... something chose
Avastu Maruti: no one is here to choose anything
Caledonia Heron: what's with the suffering?

Call it anything you like:

Avastu Maruti: the body-mind acts according to conditioning and programming
Avastu Maruti: what I am has nothing to do with it, is not involved in any way
Caledonia Heron: the body/mind you carry around with who you are has a lot to do with how you show up in the world
Avastu Maruti: what I'm pointing to, which you are free to discard as absolute bullshit at any time - is that there is no "I" that carries around anything
Caledonia Heron: lol... all right - I get that - thank you :)
Avastu Maruti smiles
Caledonia Heron: so what I was kind of poking around at is that the trappings of a particular speech/tradition/following might be BS also :)
Caledonia Heron: just saying is all ... :)
Avastu Maruti: yes
Caledonia Heron: perfect
Caledonia Heron: shall we call it a day?
Avastu Maruti: call it anything you like, my friend ;)
Caledonia Heron: just when I thought we'd moved past that stuff :) ok, ... I have some "relative" stuff to attend to :) and,.... I really appreciate you stepping around the buddha speak I have trouble decoding for a while, you have a lot of good ideas :)
Avastu Maruti: good bye for now, my friend
Caledonia Heron: :)