That night, at 1 am, I meet Fael in the pavilion. It would only be the two of us, for the next half hour and a bit.
Fael Illyar: Hello Pema :)
Pema Pera: oh hi!
Pema Pera: Would you like to talk now, or in two hours?
Fael Illyar: two hours, I just came to greet :)
Pema Pera: Fine!
Pema Pera: In that case, I’ll log off and do some RL work
Pema Pera: see you later!
Fael Illyar: Yes, talk to you later :)
Fael Illyar: Hi Pema :)
Pema Pera: Hi again Fael!
Fael Illyar: I haven’t asked for your comment on my newest changes to my shape, have I?
Pema Pera: no, you haven’t :)
Pema Pera: The fish are certainly cheerful
Fael Illyar: :)
Pema Pera: are you planning to keep them swimming for a long time?
Pema Pera: or is this a temporary diversion?
Fael Illyar: no plan :)
Fael Illyar: I’ll keep them if I feel like it :)
Pema Pera: I’m just wondering whether other people will get distracted by them, in the long run
Fael Illyar: If someone asks, I’ll remove them.
Pema Pera: how are you otherwise?
Fael Illyar: Great :)
Fael Illyar: You?
Fael Illyar: Did you get work done?
Pema Pera: glad to hear that!
Pema Pera: oh sure
Pema Pera: but always more work than I can finish — which is fine
Pema Pera: I like Doug’s attitude: I have time :-)
Pema Pera: we all have time
Fael Illyar: I’m kind of feeling like the same… somehow I’m now having more than I can finish waiting for my attention.
Fael Illyar: Well, some of those do end up scrapped when they become less important.
Pema Pera: yes, it’s a matter of making priorities
Pema Pera: and also a matter of condensing some activities
Fael Illyar: I rarely read the meeting logs anymore either. When I do, it’s logs someone else links to me or ones I pick from the list with intuition
I asked about the Play as Being explorations “You seeing Being seeing”.
Pema Pera: Have you played with the YSBS exploration lately?
Fael Illyar: I wonder …
Fael Illyar: I’m doing some things intuitively that could be close though.
Fael Illyar: I sometimes just feel like hopping over to my balcony and sitting on a chair I’ve placed there, closing my eyes and … well, Being.
Fael Illyar: only feeling things that are quite close to me though.
Pema Pera: the transition from YS to BS is very interesting
Fael Illyar: but I’ve been quite aware of people walking past me and such even with eyes closed.
Pema Pera: on the one hand there is a kind of on-off, 0-1 discrete jump, and the other hand, there are still many gradations
Pema Pera: when we first try to move to BS there is still a lot of “Y” involved
Pema Pera: and each time we notice that, we can let Being see more purely
Fael Illyar: PaB bells … I still notice them but often I’m not aware of a change with them.
Pema Pera: there are so many levels, stages, types . . . even though from Being’s side there is no difference
Fael Illyar: and no ideas on how to make any in the direction it’s supposed to be.
Fael Illyar: but, you still didn’t comment on my shape :)
Fael Illyar: just the fishies :=
Pema Pera: ah! I must admit, I didn’t notice a very large difference . . .
Fael Illyar: any?
Pema Pera: I think I notice people’s clothes and skin more than shape — unless it is a really radical change
Fael Illyar: Well, looking at my AV myself, I’m not really able to tell at first glance which shape it is but if I look for a longer period, some things start bothering me about the older one :)
Pema Pera: did you change the shape yourself, or did you buy a new one?
Fael Illyar: I’ve never bought one :) All made by me.
Fael Illyar: Well, except ones that came with skins
Pema Pera: starting with a default avatar?
Fael Illyar: this one I started from a randomized shape.
Fael Illyar: well, after quite a few randomizations :)
Pema Pera: must have taken quite some time I guess
Fael Illyar: Oh yes, close to 80 hours total on all my shapes.
Pema Pera: for a serious hobby that is not too much, I guess :)
Fael Illyar: Well, most of that was in the beginning though :)
Pema Pera: yes, you said that you like to really plunge into a new activity!
Fael Illyar: Yes, and … well, now it just doesn’t take more than half an hour to go through every slider :)
We try out a few languages.
Pema Pera: experience makes the master!
Pema Pera: (don’t know whether that is a proper English saying)
Pema Pera: (we say something like that in Dutch)
Fael Illyar: Well, the meaning comes through :)
Fael Illyar: in Finnish “Harjoitus tekee mestarin”
Pema Pera: and what is the literal translation?
Fael Illyar: practise makes the master
Pema Pera: ah! That may be closer to the proper English saying
Pema Pera: in Dutch “oefening baart kunst”
Pema Pera: “practice give birth to skill”
Pema Pera: *gives
Pema Pera: how has your work been going, the last week or so — is there a change in the way you do it, or they way you feel while doing it?
Pema Pera: *the
Fael Illyar: work as in, practise?
Pema Pera: work as in what you get paid to do for a living :-)
Fael Illyar: that’s been on a pause for a bit over a week, although I did do a few hours yesterday again.
Pema Pera: it probably took a while to get back in the swing of things?
Fael Illyar: Also ended up paying the (well, token) fee for the university for the year.
Pema Pera: ah, yes, you mentioned that, I believe
Fael Illyar: Yes, I was stumbling into issues that I wasn’t used to so that took a while to stabilize.
Fael Illyar: Well, used to but not in the way I now handle them
Pema Pera: a week is not very long
Fael Illyar: well, week was from any work
Fael Illyar: I do both remote work from home and some at the university
Pema Pera: do you have to catch up now?
A natural retreat!
Fael Illyar: the university one has been on pause for a bit over a month
Pema Pera: ah, summer time?
Fael Illyar: So, it’s been close to a month long retreat what I’ve been doing, really.
Fael Illyar: just not a traditional one :)
Pema Pera: perfect timing then!
Fael Illyar: almost hermit life :)
Pema Pera: do you go out for a walk occasionally?
Fael Illyar: Yes, at times I feel like going for a walk.
Pema Pera: all traditions that I know of recommend to get your body moving regularly during a retreat, to keep body and mind in balance
Pema Pera: it’s probably a good idea to walk for at least half an hour a day or so
Fael Illyar: I’ve also done walking meditation since you suggested it every once in a while.
Pema Pera: how did that feel?
Fael Illyar: those have been close to half an hour so far.
Fael Illyar: just kept going as long as I felt like going.
Fael Illyar: well, yesterday walking to work and back took care of that.
Pema Pera: yes, you can listen to your body’s preferences
Pema Pera: the more you do that, the more you can learn to discern what your body naturally prefers
Pema Pera: yoga and tai chi or chi gong help to sharpen our senses of what is really natural
Pema Pera: chi gong is the simplest of all those: just standing
Pema Pera: letting gravity tell your body exactly how it wants to stand
Pema Pera: if you are even very slightly out of balance, in some part of your body, and you just stand for ten minutes of longer, very quickly you will notice it
Pema Pera: as if your whole body became a magnifying glass
Pema Pera: and also it feels great to let gravity be your teacher, your sports instructor!
Fael talked about different ways of walking.
Fael Illyar: lately, I’ve tended to just let my feet take me without trying to control.
Fael Illyar: which led to a rather weird walk one day :P
Pema Pera: in what way?
Fael Illyar: Well, walking through places I felt a bit uncomfortable walking through.
Pema Pera: ah! interesting — so that was new?
Fael Illyar: taking slight detours and then ending back to the main route.
Fael Illyar: yes
Fael Illyar: just let my feet take me, not thinking about where I was going.
Pema Pera: wonderful to explore that way, especially with a novel intuitive element in it
Fael Illyar: ended up back home at the end.
Fael Illyar: although, the return trip was quite a downpour.
Fael Illyar: enough that I ended up walking eyes closed for a while.
Pema Pera: it will be interesting to see how you will learn to integrate those intuitive elements with the need for some systematic elements too, like work and other things that need to be done on time
Pema Pera: as we talked about before
Fael Illyar: I agreed on the next time I go to the university work intuitively.
Pema Pera: they will blend more and more, the intuitive and the systematic
Fael Illyar: just felt the dates.
Around this time we decided to move to another place, to continue our conversation, given that no one else had appeared. We took a tp to Kyoto in SL, which was funny for me, given that I was in Kyoto in RL as well.
