2008.10.04 13:00 - "Mirror being busted"

The guardian for this meeting was Storm Nordwind. The comments are Storm's.

Wol Euler: hello storm
Storm Nordwind: Good evening Wol
Storm Nordwind puts the guardian tag on
Storm Nordwind: Hi Adams
Adams Dubrovna: Hello Storm
Adams Dubrovna: Hello Wol
Wol Euler: hello adams
Storm Nordwind: I thought of you Adams the other night when I stayed up past 3am watching a video cast from the US ;)
Adams Dubrovna: Ah, I went to an SL viewing with Neela

Adams and I had a brief discussion about U.S. politics, something that interests me greatly because of my imminent emigration there - and also my sharing some of Adams's viewpoints. Then we started to get back on track.

Storm Nordwind: So I have been busy on the Kira Cafe build today. It should be ready in time for the first meeting on Tuesday
Adams Dubrovna: I saw it last night
Adams Dubrovna: Looks good
Storm Nordwind: It's changed since last night
Wol Euler: ah :)
Adams Dubrovna: The other Adams had a few beers
Storm Nordwind: It now has tables and scripted chairs in the Cafe area itself (the opposite end to the lounge and bar)
Wol Euler: she's a rowdy one.
Adams Dubrovna: Hello Avastu. Good to see you :)
Wol Euler: hello avastu
Avastu Maruti: love to you my friends
Storm Nordwind: Greetings Avastu

So I steered on Play as Being.

Storm Nordwind: So... who has something PaB related they'd like to share or discuss?
Storm Nordwind breathes in the lovely silence
Wol Euler is in silent-geek mode, working on the autologger
Adams Dubrovna has had a busy week and the thoughts and feelings all seem to be half formed
Storm Nordwind smiles
Storm Nordwind: I had an interesting experience at my Buddhist class today that bears on PaB a little
Adams Dubrovna: please tell :)
Storm Nordwind: The class itself is quite long. I usually leave home at 8:30am and don't get back till past 3pm
Storm Nordwind: One of things we were doing was a particular kind meditation... the exact sort does not matter for this conversation
Storm Nordwind: And during the meditation I had a bunch of realisations.
Storm Nordwind: Again the exact nature of these does not matter for now
Storm Nordwind: I realised that by the end of the meditation, I had absorbed those realisations but had mentally forgotten them!
Storm Nordwind: I went back over the experience in my mind and rediscovered what they were
Storm Nordwind: And afterwards I wrote them in my journal
Storm Nordwind: So I was able to discuss them later with others
Storm Nordwind: The odd thing is that I am not a big one for logging personal experiences and realisations like this
Storm Nordwind: I do it in 'fits and starts', as anyone who has seen the alternate prolific blog entries interspersed with days and days of silence
Adams Dubrovna nods
Storm Nordwind: But this has reinforced for me the importance of note taking and note sharing
Storm Nordwind: And that works both for the individual experiences of PaB and the discussions we have

That was my PaB story of the day. Adams was having a different experience.

Adams Dubrovna: I have found it helpful for the most part :)
Adams Dubrovna: Ironically today I am having the opposite experience
Storm Nordwind: Please tell! :)
Adams Dubrovna: I have not gotten out my blog this morning yet
Adams Dubrovna: Nor have I written down the many ideas I have floating around in my head
Adams Dubrovna: It just seems like too much effort today
Storm Nordwind sympathises
Adams Dubrovna: but then I had a disturbing dream last night that seems like it has not relevance to anything
Adams Dubrovna: I wrote it first ting on my blog this morning so I wouldn't forget
Adams Dubrovna: and I am not sure I want to publish it
Adams Dubrovna: So I am having the opposite effect as you today Storm
Storm Nordwind glories in this diversity!
Adams Dubrovna: :)
Adams Dubrovna: The winds are pulling us differently

We morphed onto metaphors!

Storm Nordwind wonders whether to continue the metaphor :)
Adams Dubrovna thinking of Pema's metaphor of ships sailing around outside the harbor
Storm Nordwind: Remind me of that one Adams please
Adams Dubrovna: Pema always likes to see our ships underway and not just sitting in the harbor meaning any activity is good
Adams Dubrovna: Last night at Zen Meditation the notecard was bout the fact that we see ourselves as on a journey and that this can create expectations and make us unhappy
Adams Dubrovna: At that point I thought how much better Pema's ship analogy is
Adams Dubrovna: No destination, just sailing around
Adams Dubrovna: I thought of your bus analogy too Storm
Adams Dubrovna: But it is a sign of things I just get muddled with the analogies
Adams Dubrovna: The bus analogy came up after a conversation with Cal this week
Adams Dubrovna: She always talks about experiencing nothingness
Adams Dubrovna: This week I experienced what I thought was a opening up of space
Storm Nordwind: I think that expectations are independent of there being a journey. Expectation is an error of seeing what is real. The journey thing is just an excuse.
Adams Dubrovna: It was only for a few seconds but it was beautiful
Adams Dubrovna: all boundaries were gone and I felt so free
Adams Dubrovna: When Cal and I talked we seemed to be describing the same thing
Adams Dubrovna: I was thinking of your analogy that we were on different buses but seeing the same landscape
Adams Dubrovna: Lots of half thoughts :)
Storm Nordwind smiles
Storm Nordwind: There is the notion of something called 'emptiness' in Buddhist meditation and some Hindu stuff too. It is often very much misunderstood by those who have not experienced it directly. The idea of 'nothingness' is not really it. On the other hand, that may be something entirely different from what you and Cal were discussing!
Adams Dubrovna: My experience has made me realize how I am living in compartmentalized space
Storm Nordwind nods
Adams Dubrovna: My thoughts seemed to be closed within these boundaries
Adams Dubrovna: It was only after this experience that I could see the limitations
Adams Dubrovna: Of course, the house and office are closed in but I feel it going back and forth
Adams Dubrovna: I have always been carving up everything into partitions
Adams Dubrovna: Living in a big box

I remembered something Adams and I had started to play with just a little 9 days previously until we had had to interrupt a beautiful conversation. http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/...e_from_reality
I had quoted from a book by my spiritual guide who was in turn quoting Buddha.

Storm Nordwind: We started to discuss something like this a week or so ago I believe Adams, or at least hinted at it
Adams Dubrovna: You and I, or others?
Storm Nordwind: The two of us, on what was for me Thursday evening...
Storm Nordwind: and I said...
Storm Nordwind: something about that I was taught about the union of method and wisdom...
Storm Nordwind: and how one is involved with living in the world as we find it...
Storm Nordwind: and the other is seeing entirely beyond...
Storm Nordwind: but in order to function and, indeed, to teach or in any other way help others, we needed to merge those two...
Storm Nordwind: to let wisdom inform method...
Storm Nordwind: rather than making us drop the world method completely
Storm Nordwind: but to see what is real, and to see what the world really is, and to use it as a tool to enact great compassion for others.

Avastu joined in. I preface the log of our discussion here by saying that, many years ago, especially in the mid-1970s, I had studied widely many different eastern spiritual systems. This was often practical study, not just words. (I don't get on with just words.) And because I have a practical turn of mind, I was drawn to ways I intuitively felt as being useful to the widest numbers of people. I guess it's the teacher in me! And there were also other ways that, although they embodied the highest truths, appeared to me to be less practical in inspiring the widest number of people, or simply removing their sufferings. Doubtless, others disagree with my assessment of their usefulness!

I am however conscious of the large number of people that pass through PaB discussions who relate less to sweeping non-dualism and more relate more to the baby steps we take every day in our lives. In the pavilion, during PaB discussions, I like to give everyone the opportunity for 'air-time', but there are some ways of thinking that I found, when expressed, usually tend to 'shut other people down' because their answers are simplistic and always the same. There really is no arguing against them! As someone else said, "as an injunction to relax and remember that life is absurd, it is very useful. As a tool of argument, it is very blunt and clumsy."

Avastu Maruti: seeing what is real, what the world really is - who remains to receive your compassion?
Storm Nordwind: Plenty of people who do not see it. I do not deny their existence and I am moved to alleviate their suffering. How could I do otherwise?
Avastu Maruti: hahaha!
Avastu Maruti: you are it, my friend - all of it
Storm Nordwind: Sure. That is obvious.
Storm Nordwind: But it is not helpful
Avastu Maruti: then who needs your help?
Storm Nordwind: Who are you asking that question to?
Avastu Maruti: no one!
Avastu Maruti: seeing reality is finding your true essence in all, every blade of grass, every gust of wind
Avastu Maruti: the very is-ness of this moment
Avastu Maruti: who gives compassion to who?
Storm Nordwind: But it is not the end. Those who see know this
Avastu Maruti: hahaha!
Avastu Maruti: those who see is a mental distinction
Storm Nordwind: It is a convention of words. I eschew intellectualisms
Avastu Maruti: on what did this idea appear?
Avastu Maruti: the name and form came upon what you are
Avastu Maruti: the idea of compassion came upon what you are
Avastu Maruti: even consciousness itself came upon your true essence
Storm Nordwind: These are not helpful ideas to most people
Avastu Maruti: not sure who you are speaking of - you are it
Avastu Maruti: the source
Storm Nordwind: Then why are you bothering to say that? :)
Avastu Maruti: hahaha!
Avastu Maruti: I have no idea!
Storm Nordwind nods
Adams Dubrovna: It would seem that for some compassion is seeing their true essence in others
Adams Dubrovna: others
Avastu Maruti: compassion, as a separate entity, always holds the seed of selfishness
Avastu Maruti: always something for "ME"
Storm Nordwind: That is to misunderstand compassion
Avastu Maruti: when it is seen clearly that you are it, the source, the knowing presence behind the appearance, then compassion is natural, effortless
Avastu Maruti: compassion is itself the very movement of this appearance
Avastu Maruti: love in action
Storm Nordwind: Compassion without action is not compassion at all. It is like the difference between sympathy and empathy.
Avastu Maruti: hahaha
Avastu Maruti: these words will never capture it!
Avastu Maruti: you are that, that's it
Avastu Maruti: you are and you know you are
Avastu Maruti: rest in that, my friend
Adams Dubrovna has felt love and compassion from both Storm and Avastu
Avastu Maruti: love and compassion are not given - they are your true essence, my friend
Storm Nordwind: So this is important for me. I can easily take Avastu's view based on my own experience. But I do not see that as worthy or resting upon. Having experienced true reality, I step inside illusion by choice (or laziness, who can tell), and in doing so have the possibility of helping others. There is the conundrum, if we let it be so, of expression, but this is why my home is in the ES not the BS of ESBS.
Avastu Maruti: storm, avastu and adams are only appearances
Avastu Maruti: seeing reality is seeing the illusion of choice
Avastu Maruti: even the one who steps is only an appearance, a mental distinction
Avastu Maruti: what is the essence behind the appearance?
Avastu Maruti: behind the stepping and the choices?
Avastu Maruti: can you see who is seeing mind?
Storm Nordwind: Sure. And only because that can I choose to choose!
Avastu Maruti: hahaha!
Avastu Maruti: look right now - find the one who sees mind
Avastu Maruti: don't be afraid
Avastu Maruti: look!
Avastu Maruti: who sees mind?
Avastu Maruti: who sees the idea of "Storm"?

I discourage this kind of commanding tone in PaB discussions. It has its place in the pulpit, not in the pavilion. It may be appropriate in a teacher-student relationship, but that is a relationship of mutual assent, and no such relationship had been agreed here.

Storm Nordwind: Hey - you do not make the rules for anyone else Avastu! :)
Avastu Maruti: hahaha!
Avastu Maruti: simply an invitation, my friend
Avastu Maruti: it doesn't appear you have long to look
Storm Nordwind: ?
Avastu Maruti: this consciousness itself comes and goes - within that the "small self" appears
Avastu Maruti: we are afraid of death because we haven't investigate the nature of this consciousness
Avastu Maruti: the investigation is to look now, before it's too late
Storm Nordwind: Who is 'we'?
Avastu Maruti: exactly!
Avastu Maruti: it's YOU, my friend
Storm Nordwind: No. We are not afraid of death
Avastu Maruti: it all appears in this container - you are the container, not the content
Avastu Maruti: the content is appearance only
Avastu Maruti: like a mirage
Avastu Maruti: can a mirage die?
Avastu Maruti: hahaha!
Storm Nordwind: Why bother to ask?
Avastu Maruti: hahaha!
Avastu Maruti: beats me!
Avastu Maruti: probably pointing out something you said which was misleading
Storm Nordwind: Misleading to whom?
Avastu Maruti: if you've seen reality, why mislead?
Avastu Maruti: why not speak directly
Storm Nordwind: Why not speak understandably?
Avastu Maruti: who understands?
Avastu Maruti: if you've seen clearly, you should understand clearly
Storm Nordwind: what does 'should' mean?
Avastu Maruti: hahaha!
Avastu Maruti: look within - find the one who is looking
Storm Nordwind: why?
Avastu Maruti: beats me!
Avastu Maruti: if one is suffering, find out who it is that is suffering
Avastu Maruti: then it will be clear that there is no one who can suffer
Avastu Maruti: the name came upon that beingness
Avastu Maruti: the form came upon that beingness
Avastu Maruti: you are not those
Avastu Maruti: you are being only - hiding simply by being everything!
Avastu Maruti: look!
Avastu Maruti: hahaha!

So I felt I needed to make a pragmatic check here.

Storm Nordwind: Adams... I'd like to ask you a question without putting you on the spot... but I hope you can answer
Adams Dubrovna: yes, Storm?
Storm Nordwind: Well, I wonder how you find such conversations, such as Avastu and I have been having...
Storm Nordwind: Do you find them useful? Or interesting? ...
Avastu Maruti: hahaha!!
Storm Nordwind: Or fascinating... or relevant or irrelevant?
Wol Euler surfaces and shushes Avastu. Let him answer.
Avastu Maruti: I think Storm is asking me to leave

Of course that wasn't the case. But I didn't interrupt Adams who was struggling with the keyboard.

Adams Dubrovna: Storm, I am seeing a clash between your Buddhism and ideas of Nisaragadatta. I respect where you are and Where Avastu is. Avast4 has he3*ed 0e f5nd Nasargadatta and 0y 2eyb6ard has g6ne screwy
Avastu Maruti: hahaha!
Wol Euler: laptop?
Avastu Maruti: makes perfect sense!
Wol Euler: you have the function-numeric lock on :-)
Adams Dubrovna: re05nd 0e W63
Adams Dubrovna: he3*
Adams Dubrovna: ah it is fixed
Wol Euler: :-) that's the emulated numeric keypad under your right fingers
Adams Dubrovna: Avastu, I wonder about all the hahahas. You usually don't do that. It seems harsh
Avastu Maruti: hahaha!
Avastu Maruti: would you rather see LOL?
Wol Euler: I would rather see a little more respect.
Avastu Maruti: hahaha
Avastu Maruti: to whom, my friend?
Avastu Maruti: no disrespect has been shown
Adams Dubrovna: I know you are not one to show disrespect
Storm Nordwind: I am simply a pragmatist. If people are finding this kind of exchange useful then I'm happy to encourage it. If not, I am happy to discourage it.
Avastu Maruti smiles
Adams Dubrovna: but it seems harsh
Avastu Maruti: the "hahaha" is a replacement for "LOL"
Avastu Maruti: shall I stop laughing?
Avastu Maruti: Joy is present, that's all
Avastu Maruti: that Joy isn't dependent on spiritual concepts - it's ever-present!
Avastu Maruti: it's not dependent on finding something, gaining something
Avastu Maruti: it's your true essence!
Avastu Maruti: pause the mind for a moment and look!
Avastu Maruti: no disrespect ever intended
Wol Euler: I apologise for my incautious phrasing.
Avastu Maruti: hahaha
Avastu Maruti: love to you, my friend
Avastu Maruti: oops - LOL!
Avastu Maruti: hahaha!

quen joined us and a little levity returned...

Adams Dubrovna thinks Wol should stop tickling Avastu
Avastu Maruti: hahaha
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Wol Euler puts away her feather.
Wol Euler: It's his bare feet, they were so tempting.
Avastu Maruti: hahaha
Adams Dubrovna: :)
Adams Dubrovna: Storm, in further answer to your question, all conversations are useful
Storm Nordwind: Hello quen
Adams Dubrovna: Hi Quen
quen Oh: hello all :-)
Storm Nordwind: Thank you Adams :)
Avastu Maruti: love to you my friend
quen Oh: was preparing a lecture for next week, until the thought struck me that I am more fanatic than probably all my students working on Friday night after 2300 am...
Storm Nordwind checks his calendar
Wol Euler: hello quen
Wol Euler: hehe, start your weekend.
quen Oh: perhaps better :-)
Adams Dubrovna thinks we have come full circle...back to the original silence
quen Oh: (sorry to disturb)
Adams Dubrovna: Nothing to do with you Quen. Good to see you :)
Storm Nordwind agrees
quen Oh: :-) sorry was afraid to disturb some moment of silent reflection or meditation
Adams Dubrovna: In my case, my recent thoughts are not well formed (back to the beginning) :)
Storm Nordwind smiles
quen Oh sometimes loves mindclouds ;-) foggy can be nice too
Avastu Maruti: love to you my friends
Adams Dubrovna: bye Avastu
Storm Nordwind bows
Wol Euler: bye avastu
Storm Nordwind: Hmm... that one and a half hours
Adams Dubrovna: yes, action packed
Adams Dubrovna: :)
quen Oh: ouch.. was too late
Wol Euler: reminded me of Clint Eastwood films.
Storm Nordwind: It did?!
Wol Euler chuckles.
Adams Dubrovna: One of the saloon scenes in the old west?
Wol Euler: The near-silent, still, showdown in the spaghetti western.
Storm Nordwind shrugs
Adams Dubrovna: chairs being busted up
Adams Dubrovna: piano man, hiding behind his bench
quen Oh dares a challenging smile
Storm Nordwind thinks some exaggeration is going on
Adams Dubrovna: mirror being busted
Wol Euler laughs
Adams Dubrovna: people flying out the swinging doors
quen Oh: what would be the exact word or topic that I as newcomer in the saloon should utter for firework??
Wol Euler: well, I wasn't fully present, buried in scripts.
Storm Nordwind: Hmmm... quen...
quen Oh has courage
Adams Dubrovna: I don't like yer looks
Wol Euler: shall we go off-record?
Adams Dubrovna: :)
Storm Nordwind: we are off record
Adams Dubrovna: :)
Storm Nordwind is goc
Wol Euler salutes.

We were off-record! :)