That night, at 1 am, I (Pema) met Gaya at the pavilion. It would be a quite night, with no one else visiting. It reminded me of the olden days, where two-people meetings were much more frequent.
Pema Pera: Hi Gaya, how are you?
Gaya Ethaniel: _/!\_
Gaya Ethaniel: Middling thanks and you?
Pema Pera: oh, fine, trying to catch up with everything
Gaya Ethaniel smiles
Pema Pera: from email to IM to all the other forms of modern communication
Gaya Ethaniel smiles
Gaya Ethaniel: Must be difficult…
Pema Pera: I just found an email about another email service called HitMeLater
Pema Pera: The idea is quite interesting:
Gaya Ethaniel laughs ‘HitMeLater’
Gaya Ethaniel: Yes?
Pema Pera: you can take an email that you got, which is quite important, but you really don’t have to time to respond right away
Pema Pera: now the problem is — I know this all too well — that if you don’t answer immediately, it will be buried under other emails
Pema Pera: while your inbox keeps filling up
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: so:
Pema Pera: you can send the email back to HitMeLater with a number attached, say 12
Pema Pera: then after 12 hours you get the same email back, as if it was fresh
Pema Pera: they call it an email snooze button
Gaya Ethaniel: oh
Gaya Ethaniel: But I just use ‘flag’?
Gaya Ethaniel: Hm… but a long list of reminders do crash my Outlook yes
Pema Pera: yes, but if you have a 1000 emails with 100 flags . . . .
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: http://www.hitmelater.com/
Gaya Ethaniel: Is that a freewear?
Gaya Ethaniel: Thanks
Pema Pera: seems free yes
Pema Pera: I haven’t tried it yet, but it is tempting
Pema Pera: oh well
Gaya Ethaniel: Lovely
Gaya Ethaniel: Do you think we are just delaying the inevitable?
Always the optimist:
Pema Pera: I think we will find a new etiquette for information exchange
Pema Pera: it just will take a few years to find a new equilibrium
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: nice combination, your flower and your somewhat more formal dress :-)
Gaya Ethaniel: ty
Pema Pera: I have to learn to do shopping in SL, haven’t found the time yet
Pema Pera: one of these days!
Gaya Ethaniel smiles ‘I can imagine but I’m kinda fond of how you look Pema, quirky’
Pema Pera: do you shop by going somewhere in person, or do you use one of those web site portals?
Pema Pera: ty :)
Gaya Ethaniel: Mostly to shops but I’ve learnt to use SLexchange yesterday
Pema Pera: ah! I got stuck halfway, trying to learn it
Gaya Ethaniel: It’s quite amazing… things ppl worked out in/around SL
Pema Pera: when I had to go in-world click somewhere and didn’t get a reply
Pema Pera: yes, indeed, that’s the power of SL
Pema Pera: the people and their networks
Gaya Ethaniel: Yes, I needed help from friends… they walked me through it
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: yes, 95% of what I know about SL is thru word of mouth
Gaya Ethaniel: I’m curious why ‘popluation’ of SL isn’t growing fast
Pema Pera: the “knowledge base” is pretty awful
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: you can find others asking the same questions you ask without clear answers — not very helpful :)
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: good question, Gaya, maybe several reasons
Gaya Ethaniel listens
Pema Pera: (^_^)
Pema Pera: I really don’t know, would need market research
Gaya Ethaniel: ah… I’ve heard that ppl call SL, sad life (from Register)
Pema Pera: :-)
Gaya Ethaniel: Perhaps some find it diff to get into?
Gaya Ethaniel: Perhaps mostly it’s ‘boring’?
Pema Pera: there is quite a steep learning curve
Pema Pera: hard to say
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Gaya Ethaniel: I’ve been re-reading logs again for adding excerpts
Pema Pera: yes, thank you!
Gaya Ethaniel: It’s amazing how I still find something new in them
Gaya Ethaniel: yw
Pema Pera: yes, I have the same experience when I do that
Gaya talked about PaB and change.
Gaya Ethaniel: I must be changing real fast…
Pema Pera: so much stuff there, a small encyclopedia by now!
Pema Pera: ah!
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: can you say more?
Gaya Ethaniel: Well… mostly I find new things in something, say a book… every few months or up to a year?
Gaya Ethaniel: But since PaB, I find new things in same thing I see every few days?
Gaya Ethaniel: Even same day?
Pema Pera: yes, I recognize that feeling. SL seems to have a much faster sense of time change than RL, and PaB maybe even faster . . . .
Pema Pera: every week seems to have a distinct sense to it here
Pema Pera: at each guardian meeting, Sunday morning, when I look back, I see a totally different week than the week before
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Gaya Ethaniel needs to slow down… but find it hard to do so
Pema Pera: yes, SL can be addictive, and PaB too, I guess
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Gaya Ethaniel: Extremely… my interests in world is enormous, fundamental
Gaya Ethaniel: With ppl in the centre
Gaya Ethaniel: And myself
Gaya Ethaniel: Not saying the world evolves around me here :P
Gaya Ethaniel: Just a starting point
Pema Pera: meeting people here is so easy, I also find it fascinating — the first months that I explored in SL I met a larger variety of people than I normally do in many years
Gaya Ethaniel: Variety is the key isn’t it?
Gaya Ethaniel: In RL, we circle around a ’set’ group
Gaya Ethaniel: With RL responsibilities, it’s natural
Pema Pera: yes, and easy access: even in ten minutes of time you can go somewhere and come back
Gaya Ethaniel nods
About excerpts.
Pema Pera: was there anything particular in the excerpts that you found that was interesting or unexpected?
Gaya Ethaniel: Ah… was re-reading ESBS just now
Gaya Ethaniel: I understand more about what you were saying compared to when I was actually talking to you back then
Gaya Ethaniel: It flows better… you know what I mean?
Gaya Ethaniel: I don’t have to stop in the middle of the log to ponder so much before moving on
Pema Pera: yes, it always takes a while to let new ideas sink in and take form
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: and it keeps going, keeps changing
Gaya Ethaniel: Some of metaphors you used makes more sense too
Gaya Ethaniel smiles and nods
Gaya Ethaniel: Lightbox for example
Pema Pera: which one was that?
Gaya Ethaniel looks up her document
Gaya Ethaniel: Must be related to projector metaphor
Pema Pera: ah yes, that makes sense
Gaya Ethaniel: Pema Pera: You let Being see. Being sees in/as everything. Being has no need for eyes. No need for you even. Certainly no need for your eyes :-) Sky Szimmer: But still, I sense that the perspective is still somewhat linked to my body. It is not like I am floating above and looking down as I do now. Pema Pera: No, it isn’t. The light of the projector is not linked to any particular person appearing in the movie Pema Pera: Can you say more, Sky? Gaya Ethaniel: Maybe Pema, Sky is talking about my previous experience we talked about, like something looking down above my body. Sky Szimmer: I sense what you just described. Pema, but yet I can’t see in back of my head, i can’t see above myself. My point of view is still through “mouseview” Pema Pera: That is YS in YSBS. The BS part has no perspective, no vantage point. It is everywhere, like mist floating in a valley. Like the love of a mother being everywhere in the room of the child. Sky Szimmer: ah. I sense what you are saying. I am not there yet. The awareness
Gaya Ethaniel: Sky Szimmer: ah. I sense what you are saying. I am not there yet. The awareness is not there yet
Pema Pera: Ah yes, I now remember the exchange clearly
Gaya Ethaniel: Didn’t quite understand back then…
Pema Pera: that is a very tricky point to get across at first
Pema Pera: and then once you get a bit of a sense of it
Pema Pera: your understanding keeps growing
More about change.
Pema Pera: certainly for me, it keeps changing
Pema Pera: sometimes almost every day, as you said
Pema Pera: we are so centered on our own body & mind, to relax that perspective is really tough
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: certainly at first, but later too, we tend to keep falling back in the way we learned while growing up
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Gaya Ethaniel: So any new things or changes to add to the projector metaphor Pema?
Pema Pera: well, the latest suggestion I have made, over the last few days, has been a kind of variation on the BS of YSBS
Pema Pera: the Beeing seeing
Pema Pera: but in a more direct form, you might say
Pema Pera: through the sentence:
Pema Pera: Appreciate the presence of appearance as a presentation by Being
Pema Pera: APAPB for short
Pema Pera: rather than saying “LET Being see”
Pema Pera: to focus on “appreciate what Being is already doing”
Pema Pera: may help
Pema Pera: what do you think?
Gaya Ethaniel: Kind of mid-way point yes?
Pema Pera: hmmm, it is squarely on the side of Being, on the BS not the YS side
Pema Pera: if anything further thank BS perhaps
Pema Pera: hard to say
Gaya brought up another question.
Gaya Ethaniel: But ‘appreciate’… that invovles ‘I’ still…
Pema Pera: yes, ah, I see
Pema Pera: interesting question
Pema Pera: what has more “I” involved: to let or to appreciate?
Pema Pera: to let it rain or to appreciate the rain
Gaya Ethaniel ponders
Pema Pera: I could argue either way, I guess
Gaya Ethaniel: Let - when letting happens ‘I’ is involved but not afterwards
Gaya Ethaniel: Appreciate - ‘I’ all the time
Pema Pera: yes, I see
Pema Pera: what I thought earlier was: by “letting” you may seem to still have a bit of control, in the very fact of trying to give up that control, in letting something or someone do something
Pema Pera: while appreciation could be more totally control free perhaps?
Gaya Ethaniel: ah ok
Gaya Ethaniel: We understand these two words differently as we should do
Gaya Ethaniel: we do*
Pema Pera: but yes, there are differences
Pema Pera: “let it be” versus “appreciate what is”
Gaya Ethaniel: Appreciation = immerse onyself?
Pema Pera: the first one seems colder
Pema Pera: or could be colder
Gaya Ethaniel: Perhpas yes
Pema Pera: or instead of immerse, dissolve, let go?
Gaya Ethaniel: ‘Detachment’
Pema Pera: yes
Gaya Ethaniel: Yes dissolve is a good one
Pema Pera: or “wear lightly”, not really dissolving, but perhaps dissolving the attachment?
Gaya Ethaniel: This ‘wear lightly’… still doesn’t ring a bell for me after all these weeks
Gaya Ethaniel ponders on ‘dissolving the attachment’… sounds right somehow
Pema Pera: wearing lightly - something in between avoiding and sticking to it
Gaya Ethaniel: Attachment being ’selves’… ‘thoughts’… ‘emotions’…. ‘baggages’…
Gaya Ethaniel: Pema, lightly is the word that just bothers me…
Pema Pera: can you say more?
Gaya Ethaniel: If we are talking about dissolving… lightly doesn’t sound right
Gaya Ethaniel: It does feel light that state yes
Pema Pera: let’s take a concrete example
Gaya Ethaniel: But ‘wearing’ and ‘lightly’… together… not sure
Pema Pera: would you like to choose one?
Gaya Ethaniel: Let me re-read. One sec
Pema Pera: sure
Gaya Ethaniel: Dissolving is better than appreciation
About wearing lightly.
Gaya Ethaniel: Wearing lightly… still unsure
Pema Pera: the idea is that we can wear a jacket by buttoning up completely
Pema Pera: and wearing it day and night
Pema Pera: thinking we can’t live without
Gaya Ethaniel: Pema Pera: Yes and that is not wrong. That may well be a good way to start to begin to feel your way out of your usual perspective. But that is not yet Being seeing. It is more like “you seeing You seeing” :) Stepping aside means giving up, even giving up any notion of center. No center means no separation, the greatest intimacy possibly Pema Pera: The intimacy of Love
Gaya Ethaniel: Dissolving… fits what you said above
Gaya Ethaniel: ah… wearing lightly… not attached?
Pema Pera: and “wearing lightly” would be to unbotton and be ready to take it off and put it on again, whenever the situation calls for it
Pema Pera: not attached yes
Gaya Ethaniel smiles ‘got it’
Pema Pera: :)
Gaya Ethaniel: That quote is also from ESBS
Pema Pera: ah, thanks!
Pema Pera: the reason to focus on appreciation is that it is a kind of alternative to doing and not-doing
Gaya Ethaniel: ah
Pema Pera: doing here in the sense of reaching, trying to grab, find, search
Gaya Ethaniel: Observing…
Pema Pera: and non-doing here that can deteriorate in giving up and waiting
Gaya Ethaniel: Stepping aside and observe?
Pema Pera: yes
Gaya Ethaniel smiles ‘ok’
Pema Pera: and observing in a positive sense
Pema Pera: not cold or distanced
Pema Pera: immersed as you said earlier
Gaya Ethaniel: Yes not detached nor attached
Pema Pera: into it
Pema Pera: yes, exactly
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: like a mother watching a child
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: not attached to its games
Gaya Ethaniel: Alert… aware
Pema Pera: but very appreciative
Pema Pera: yes
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: and ideally the mother would not even be attached to the child — but that is extremely hard, almost impossible . . . .
Gaya Ethaniel: Now that sounds like BS again… for what I do
Gaya Ethaniel: Hm…
Pema Pera: caring for yes, responsible for yes, but not attached (ideally)
Gaya Ethaniel: YS*
Pema Pera: in the sense of letting the child choose what it wants, when it grows up
Pema Pera: rather than having plans for it
Gaya Ethaniel: See Pema… BS YS just very similar to me
Pema Pera: in what way, Gaya?
Gaya Ethaniel: When you mentioned so far about appreciation, wearing lightly and so on. You meant YS or BS?
Pema Pera: BS
Gaya Ethaniel: For me those are what I do to do YS or BS…
Pema Pera: of course it is great to do in YS too for sure!
Pema Pera: but the sentence APAPB is fully BS
Pema Pera: there is no room in YS to do that
Gaya Ethaniel: So… I’ve been doing BS but thought it YS?
Gaya Ethaniel descends into the world of words confusion again
Pema Pera: sorry, in what way?
Gaya Ethaniel: What you’ve described so far… I thought it was YS somehow
I try to summarize.
Pema Pera: let me step back, and sum up briefly:
Gaya Ethaniel: Thanks
Pema Pera: appreciation is wonderful, in the YS and the BS way
Pema Pera: In the YS way, appreciation is for things and people and circumstances
Pema Pera: very helpful
Pema Pera: but in the BS way there are no separate things, not even beings, no time, no fixed identities . . . . .
Pema Pera: . . . the ONLY thigns there are are appearances
Pema Pera: something appears, and we stop there
Pema Pera: we don’t reify it
Pema Pera: we don’t solidify it into objects and beings and things
Pema Pera: we just appreaciate how each appearance appears
Pema Pera: very thin and subtle and ethereal — and very lightly :-)
Pema Pera: now that kind of appreciation is the BS kind
Pema Pera: does that make sense?
Gaya Ethaniel: Ah ok… so more BS than YS recently for me then thou… I don’t mind either way… both nice
Gaya Ethaniel: Thanks for the summary
Pema Pera: If I can go back one more step, starting from daily-life perspectives
Pema Pera: if someone once steals something, we tend to call him a thief
Pema Pera: that is reifying
Pema Pera: from one act we construct a whole identity lasting over time
Gaya Ethaniel: But ppl change…
Pema Pera: that is far too much, and that hinders the “thief” to change back into a normal non-thief person
Pema Pera: exactly
Pema Pera: so instead of giving permanent labels, it is better to talk about what happens each moment
Pema Pera: about what appears
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: and we can draw that line of tracing back, of unpacking, further:
Pema Pera: instead of saying “I have a body” and I can see “each moment there is the appearance of a body”
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: with that attitude it may be possible to heal your body much more than if you thought it was solid
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: it is called the placebo effect in medical science
Pema Pera: but I would call it a shift back to appearance
Pema Pera: appearance as a research
Gaya Ethaniel remembers Adams cuddling her resentment
Pema Pera: appearance as a resource, sorry
Pema Pera: typo
Gaya Ethaniel nods
I refer to the power of placebos.
Pema Pera: appreciation of appearance can save your life!
Pema Pera: how so, Gaya, about Adams?
Gaya Ethaniel subtly points to clock…. bed time for Pema soon?
Pema Pera: no, 6 pm here, dinner time :)
Pema Pera: but thank you!
Pema Pera: the 7 am SLT session is bedtime for me
Gaya Ethaniel: ok
Gaya Ethaniel: So about Adams
Gaya Ethaniel: When I read that description on her blog… that was BS… my feelings that is
Gaya Ethaniel: That could have been an ‘appearance’
Gaya Ethaniel: That moment… does that make sense?
Pema Pera: sorry, which blog entry, about what situation?
Gaya Ethaniel looks up her diary
Pema Pera: ah, Adams wrote about “cuddling resentment”?
Gaya Ethaniel: Saying no to new Attachments - 46th Daily Log http://rubblebornthoughts.wordpress....6th-daily-log/
Gaya Ethaniel: mm hmm
Pema Pera: I have it up, yes; which point on that page, do you remember?
Gaya Ethaniel: 8. F. Remembering to sooth the attachments crying for attention which I forgot at this morning’s session. “There, there resentment and suspicion, everything is going to be OK. Thank you for your input, which was important to me. I think your concerns were addressed. Now go out and play and thanks”
Pema Pera: ah, yes, I see, nice!
Pema Pera: Like Rumi
Gaya Ethaniel smiles
Pema Pera: yes, this can be done in the YS and BS mode
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Gaya Ethaniel: But as Adams R wrote this
Gaya Ethaniel: Possibly leaning more on BS
Pema Pera: in fact, the distinction between the two is something I don’t want to push too hard — everything we say about BS we do here in the YS mode after all . . .
Gaya Ethaniel: Adams R or something else…
Gaya Ethaniel nods ‘yes… that is for another time Pema’
Gaya Ethaniel: Relative and absolute…
Pema Pera: probably yes :)
Gaya Ethaniel: We’ve discussed this before anyhow
Pema Pera: yes, and I guess I should get going for dinner now
Pema Pera: nice talking with you, Gaya!
Gaya Ethaniel: _/!\_
Gaya Ethaniel: Thank you Pema. Enjoy your evening
Pema Pera: _/!\_
Pema Pera: enjoy your, let’s see, . . . .
Pema Pera: morning?
Gaya Ethaniel smiles
Pema Pera: noon?
Gaya Ethaniel: 10 AM
Pema Pera: ah!
Pema Pera: enjoy your time :)
Gaya Ethaniel: ty!
Pema Pera: see you soon again
Gaya Ethaniel: Yes bfn