2008.11.01 19:00 - Shifts Toward Appearance

Today we started a new experiment. Instead of having one weekly guardian session, in which we invite more PaB guardians to come to meet each other, we are now switching to four such sessions per week. For a few months we met at 8 am SLT on Sundays. During the new experiment, we will meet at 7 pm SLT on Saturdays, at 1 pm SLT on Sundays, at 7 am SLT on Mondays, and at 1 am SLT on Tuesdays.

So this was the very first session in the first weekly series of four guardian sessions. Stim was the guardian for this meeting, but I, Pema, put up the chat log, added comments and choose a title.

Adelene Dawner: It's been a long day and I'm just about out of words, so y'all will have to forgive me if I'm just not chatty.
Rowan Masala: when do we start at the new place again?
doug Sosa: hi all.
Stim Morane: Hi Adelene, Rowan, Pema, Doug
Pema Pera: On November 3, Rowan, Monday
Pema Pera: Hi everybody!
Rowan Masala: k
stevenaia Michinaga: hello
Rowan Masala: hi Steven
Stim Morane: Hi Stevenaia
Hester: hello Steven

Hester, sitting on Rowan's shoulder, also greeted Stevenaia. Steve had come flying in on a broomstick with a black witch's costume.

Rowan Masala: would anyone else like a broomstick?
Pema Pera: :)
Stim Morane: no thanks
Pema Pera: sure!
Pema Pera: can always come in handy
doug Sosa: lion, tiger, witches, bald and long red and beautiful girl, how ia anyoen supposed to think?
Rowan Masala gave Pema Pera LH_Lovely_witch_Ver2_type4.
Adelene Dawner: *is* anyone supposed to think?
Rowan Masala laughs
Adelene Dawner: ^.^
Stim Morane: :]

For the whole time, Stevenaia had been hanging over and slightly behind Rowan, a few feet over her head.

Pema Pera: Are you not going to fly, Steve?
Pema Pera: I've never seen a hovering witch!
Rowan Masala: Steven, love, will you come down? You're making me nervous

Steve took off, flew in a neat circle, landed at the other side of Rowan, somehow got rid of his broomstick and sat down next to Rowan.

Rowan Masala: thank you :)
stevenaia Michinaga: I didn;t wnat to know the new model over with my broom in flight
Rowan Masala: and no, I'm not going to put on my crime scene tape
Rowan Masala: oops, wrong window
stevenaia Michinaga: no need, I didn;t know anything over
Pema Pera: you were calling the police, about the witch, Rowan?
Rowan Masala laughs
Pema Pera: overknowing, Steve?
Rowan Masala: no, it was my costume from last night
Rowan Masala: I was a crime scene for halloween
stevenaia Michinaga: yes, show us, it msut be October 31st somewhere
Pema Pera: not any more . . . .
Pema Pera: but we had wonderful fireworks in Central Park, an hour ago!
Rowan Masala: oh!
stevenaia Michinaga: got to the point of time, doen;t it... does somewhere ahve to be in this universer?
Rowan Masala: for the day of the dead?
stevenaia Michinaga: goes
stevenaia Michinaga: does yesterday only exist here?
stevenaia Michinaga: as a memory?
Rowan Masala: are we talking about time and Being?
Pema Pera: perhaps nothing "exists"
Rowan Masala: do things "happen"?
stevenaia Michinaga: or everything exists

I used this turn in the conversation as a hook to start talking about appearance.

Pema Pera: all we know is that we are dealing with appearance . . . .
Pema Pera: the rest is inference -- speculation you might say
Rowan Masala nods
Pema Pera: (although very useful inference, for practical purposes, of course)
Rowan Masala: but perhaps there are inferences that might be more useful, closer to Being
Pema Pera: oh sure!
Rowan Masala: what might they be...?
Pema Pera: well, it starts with seeing . . . .
doug Sosa: appearance also is constructed. The.alot of the inferenes that are useful may be quite far frombeing. Money for example.
Rowan Masala nods

Doug took `appearance' to apply to how things appear within the normal framework of the world as we know it. This was quite different from how I have been using the word `appearance', as for example in the APAPB sentence: appreciate the presence of appearance as a presentation by Being.

Pema Pera: we have to be careful what we mean by "appearance" . . .
doug Sosa: more..
Pema Pera: when looking at a painting, we can shift our gaze from the painting to the paint
Bell: *ding*
Pema Pera: that is more radical than selecting particular aspects of the scene, like "money", I think
Pema Pera: of course, money also appears, but similar as everything else
Pema Pera: and the meaning of money appears
Pema Pera: and all associations with money appear
Pema Pera: but when we focuse on the appearing of appearance itself, we have made a big shift
Pema Pera: that is what this APAPB sentence invites
Rowan Masala: wait, so are you saying that focusing on the paint gets us closer to Being than focusing on the painting?
doug Sosa: lets take the paint example - "careful about appreance" would mean what?
Pema Pera: Rowan, I use it as a metaphor, the fact that we have the freedom to look at a painting and then to drop the interpretations
Pema Pera: and then to go back to the picture and all its meanings while *also* seeing and keeping in mind that it is all present as paint
Pema Pera: rather than getting lost in the meaning of the painting
Rowan Masala: but it would seem that a focus on the painting would be more of a focus on connection and consciousness, since that's what actually emerged from the painter's spirit
Rowan Masala: ahh
Pema Pera: So Doug, "careful" means here to be aware of both, painting and paint, and their relationship, not taking only one and glossing over the other
Rowan Masala nods, pensive
Pema Pera: yes, there is that shift too, Rowan
Pema Pera: many shifts are possible, and playing with those shifts, more and more, makes us more free from standard interpretations like "existence" and "this is only such and such"
doug Sosa: that is good.
Pema Pera: the more we shift and play, the easier it may be to see what is invariant amidsts all the shifting: appearance itself
Pema Pera: that what is *really* given
Pema Pera: presented by Being
Rowan Masala smiles, realizes that she has missed this element of Pema
Pema Pera is still missing many elements of Pema . . .
Rowan Masala laughs
Pema Pera: . . . and working on seeing more and better :-)
Pema Pera: . . . and being here with y'all is great practice in seeing more and better!
Rowan Masala nods

For me, participating in PaB helps me, each time, to realize better how and what we don't see clearly, individually and collectively. And that in turns helps me in a very direct way to see more, and more clearly.

doug Sosa: it is easier to see the paint and the painting than the moeny and social system that defines it by use.
Pema Pera: yes, but in my metaphor, the money and social system are squarely part of the painting, of the meanings
Rowan Masala: because there's an absurdity in it, as well as the complexity
Pema Pera: what I am trying to point at with the word "appearance" goes beyond that whole framework
Pema Pera: what absurdity, Rowan?
Rowan Masala: in money
Rowan Masala: it's something I can't ever quite believe in, or get my mind around
Pema Pera: Doug, when I'm trying to describe waking up from a dream, or seeing a movie as a play of light, than the dream money and the movie money is left behind . . . .
Pema Pera: but within the story of the dream or movie of course that money is very important
Pema Pera: abstract yet real in consequences

The conversation hen moved away from the kind of `sheer appearance' that I had brought up, to the role and character of money within the world we find ourselves in.

stevenaia Michinaga: Money is just a placeholder(abstraction) for a goat or cow, things formerly bartered with
stevenaia Michinaga: easier to carry
Pema Pera: (but a cow can carry you!)
stevenaia Michinaga: sow e are the cow's cash?
doug Sosa: think of money in relation to the property lines here in SL and the relation of these to the corporation. Money is... what?
Rowan Masala: I'm sure Fubu thinks of you as one of his possessions, Steven
stevenaia Michinaga: (fubu is my cat)
Pema Pera: ah!
Rowan Masala wonders if there are any economists in the group
Stim Morane: no
Adelene Dawner: I very much agree that money is weird, though, almost incomprehensible. Undefinable, in a relevant way.
Bell: *ding*
Rowan Masala pauses for 9 seconds
Adelene Dawner: As such, a good analogy.
doug Sosa: i need to paws for dinner. bye.
Adelene Dawner: 'Cause even *in* the framework, you (or at least I) really have to work to see any meaning in it.
Pema Pera: Bye Doug!
stevenaia Michinaga: bye doug
Adelene Dawner: cya, Doug.
Rowan Masala: bye Doug
Stim Morane: bye
Rowan Masala: we pretend that there is meaning in
Rowan Masala: it
Rowan Masala: we assign meaning to it
Adelene Dawner: We pretend there's meaning in *anything*. It's just especially obvious there.
Rowan Masala smiles and nods
Rowan Masala: and the degree to wich we are aware of that pretense in different areas defines our character to a great degree
stevenaia Michinaga: and our reality
Rowan Masala nods
stevenaia Michinaga: Is all this is the "appearance" we are speaking of?
Pema Pera: I don't think so . . . :)
Pema Pera: or at least not the emphasis that I had in mind
Pema Pera: but it is certainly interesting in itself as a (different) topic

I was groping for a way to explain how I saw `appearance' as really different. I decided to try to sketch a concrete set of experimental steps.

Pema Pera: Perhaps I could mention a simple kind of exploration that may bring out the differences?
stevenaia Michinaga: please
Pema Pera: If you look at an object, like a table, or anything, you can go through a number of shifts
Pema Pera: 1. see the table "as" wood or whatever material it is made of
Pema Pera: 2. see the table "as" the light reflected of it that reaches your eye
Pema Pera: (this shift can come easily when you spend a whole day photographing!)
Pema Pera: 3. see the table "as" your experience, as how it is given in your experience
Pema Pera: 4. see the table as sheer appearance
Pema Pera: Each shift is a kind of subtractions, purification, leaving behind imputed notions that may or may not be right but that are more indirect
Pema Pera: Especially the last step is wonderful and liberating beyond description
Pema Pera: to see your own experience as not "ex" as not coming out of you or belonging to you
Pema Pera: just only as pure appearance
stevenaia Michinaga: sounds like derivations in calculus
Pema Pera: in a sense, yes, it's an interesting metaphor
Pema Pera: but really each shift has to be experienced, and then we can talk about the experience and ramifications and interpretations
Pema Pera: and of course we can talk about how to get into the experience
stevenaia Michinaga: into it through example is more and more helpful
Pema Pera: So to sum up: when I use the word "appearance" I mean "sheer appearance" of a type that we can talk about in two ways: how to "see" it and to the extent that we see it, what to make of it
Pema Pera: yes, Steve, whenever one of us gets a glimpse and tries to share, we all learn
Rowan Masala: so, is the hope that what is left when we can see everything as just appearance... is Being?
Pema Pera: in a way, yes, empirically
Pema Pera: but the real answer is that everything already is Being
Pema Pera: including our lack of seeing that :-)
Rowan Masala smiles
Pema Pera: so we playfully try to work our way back to Being
Pema Pera: inviting Being to show itself
Pema Pera: not realizing we are the ones closing our eyes :)
Pema Pera: like kids playing that the world has disappeared when they close their eyes
stevenaia Michinaga: if only someone of were able to put this to music and lyrics..
Rowan Masala: but before a child has learned object permanence, anything they can't see HAS disappeared
Pema Pera: yes, children may be closer to appearance, Rowan
Pema Pera: but they have to learn to function in the relative world too . . .

Quen entered, and she noticed the model of the new pavilion that Storm had put on the table.

Pema Pera: Hi Quen!
Stim Morane: Hi Quen
quen Oh: hello all :-) nice to see you
Bell: *ding*
Rowan Masala: hi Quen
Hester: hello Quen
quen Oh smiles
Pema Pera: we were talking about shits from matter -> light -> experience -> appearance :-)
quen Oh: ah a model of the new pavillion!
Pema Pera: yes, a tp device
quen Oh: lol
quen Oh: shits from matter??
Rowan Masala: lol
Pema Pera: seeing an object "as" matter or "as" light or "as" experience
Pema Pera: or "as" appearance
Rowan Masala: touche for the whole astornuts thing
quen Oh: interesting, reading Betrand Russel on that now
quen Oh: The problems of philosophy, it's about appearance and matter
Pema Pera: As for the first shift, from matter to light, has anyone had that kind of experience, when spending a few hours taking photographs, seeing the world as a world of light contours, rather than solid things?
Rowan Masala: not in photography, but in painting, and even here
Rowan Masala: we are all just light here
quen Oh: you mean some sort of impressionist experience Pema? like Monet?
Pema Pera: yes, Rowan, indeed!
quen Oh: it's an interesting way of looking, helpful for architects, artists etc
Pema Pera: I guess so, Quen, that must be related
quen Oh: you can also try to see the world in warmth, the colour frequencies.. (I am not kidding)
Pema Pera: yes, in touch too
Rowan Masala smiles
Pema Pera: And as SL reminds us: we have the ability to impute objects when we see the light shapes (as we do in SL!) independently or whether there is any matter there
quen Oh: not sure if thats what you want, but we can also see how things feel (cold, warm, hard, soft, smooth etc)
Pema Pera: Another shift: we can see a terrible problem we have as something solid -- and then we may find a way to shift to a way in which we see it as a play of something far easier and simpler and no longer oppressing (like light perhaps)

This last point is for me perhaps the most important thing I've learned from my explorations so far . . . but it seems so very hard to convey that in any meaningful and concretely practical way . . . .

Adelene Dawner wishes she had the brainpower to talk coherently about synesthesia right now.
Pema Pera: see how things feel Quen?
Rowan Masala: which is what neurolinguistic programming tries to do, somewhat
quen Oh: yes, if you look around you take that information in too, and you get an impression, people walk on greater distances from a rough, cold concrete wall for instance than when it were carpeted
Pema Pera: and you use that information in your work, I guess?
quen Oh: yes, inevitable, if you are aware of these things you cannot ignore
Pema Pera: Did you learn to see that through your professional training?
quen Oh: partly, but I guess I was always very aware of my physical surroundings, material, light etc
quen Oh: only funny enough there are people, often involved with more abstract or scientific work who are less sensible for their material surroundings, very funny sometimes to try to study how they see the world
Bell: *ding*
quen Oh: also some people are very socially aware: they see very subtle facial expressions, clothing details, posture etc
Pema Pera shakes his head . . . knowing what Quen talks about, watching many of his colleagues . . . .
quen Oh: ;-)!!
Pema Pera: (refering to "very funny" sentence)
quen Oh: mostly they don't really hurt themselves too much
Pema Pera: oh, mathematicians do!
quen Oh: but it's for me sometimes unbelievable to picture their daily experience of the world
Pema Pera: When I hurt myself with a sharp carpet knife and went to the emergency room in Princeton, the first question was: you must be another mathematician
Pema Pera: (true story!)
quen Oh: gosh!
Adelene Dawner chuckles.
quen Oh: hahaha
Pema Pera: that was in 1986
Pema Pera: they thought that at the institute for advanced study there were only mathematicians
quen Oh: it seems they are more trained to concentrate on abstract matter, and have not the patience or the drive to concentrate on dull matter...
Pema Pera: they only ones they saw
Rowan Masala thinks of her parents, both math professors
quen Oh: ai... and is that true? you are an astrofysicist, so there must be others?
quen Oh: lol no architects or artists I assume
Pema Pera: four groups: math, natural science, historians, social science
Pema Pera: the other three groups are clearly less accident prone
quen Oh: gosh raised by math professors... and you lived! lol

By this time, after an hour, we all realized that the time had come to leave.

Pema Pera: btw, I really should get going; past 11 pm here
Rowan Masala checks to be sure that's still true
Rowan Masala: yes, alive and kicking
Pema Pera: hahaha
quen Oh: don't underestimate the social or historical interested ones, they can be totally unpractical too
Stim Morane: Yes, I will need to leave too.
quen Oh: me too, as it is 4 am here
Stim Morane: !
Pema Pera: yes, I know, Quen, but I based my (somewhat painful) research on what the emergency people told me :)
Pema Pera: anyway, anecdotal reference
quen Oh: very sorry for you.. hope you have all your digits?
Stim Morane: Bye everyone! Have a nice evening!
stevenaia Michinaga: ... night all
Rowan Masala: One of our theater arts professors cut off his finger last summer
Rowan Masala: night Stim
Pema Pera: oh yes, nothing irreversible, Quen
Pema Pera: bye Stim
quen Oh: bye Stim, stevenaia'
Pema Pera: wow, Rowan!
quen Oh: gosh Rowan... that's not nice
Rowan Masala: so I think we can all have our minds elsewhere
Pema Pera: Can someone send me (or post) the remaining chat log?
Rowan Masala: Hester and I need to go too
Rowan Masala: perhaps we should end the log here
Pema Pera: Happy dreams, Hester and Rowan (I presume Hester also dreams?)
quen Oh: yes, would be nice to be as aware in social or very abstract matters as in practical...
Pema Pera: indeed!
quen Oh: bye Rowan and Hester
Rowan Masala: so she says :)
Hester: bye Pema, Quen

Hestor's line was written in green, so I decided to answer to Hester in green too, having once acquired a little tool to do so.

Pema Pera: :-)
bye, Hester!
Rowan Masala: thank you, Quen!
Pema's invisible friend: bye, Hester
quen Oh: I think part of the awareness is enhance by communicating about it
Pema Pera: very much so!
Pema Pera: that's why we're here
Hester: bye Pema's invisible friend
quen Oh: which is why I was very late to really pay attention to more abstract matter..
=^+^=: (^_^)
quen Oh: no one in my social surroundinghad any interest or experience in that..
stevenaia Michinaga: question, what happens to SLT with the change in time tonight in the states?
quen Oh: yes, you're right
quen Oh: :-) no idea... hopefully you will be more in sync with us, as we did that thing last weekend...
Rowan Masala: you get sleepy at 11:30 instead of 12:30, Steven
stevenaia Michinaga: we shift the time back one hour tonight, dos SLT shift as well?
Rowan Masala: hmm, interesting

At this point I left, and I presume the others did so too, soon thereafter.