2009.03.17 13:00 - Pema goes Wol and visa versa

The Guardian for this meeting was Mickorod.

Wol and Pema change roles in Q and A

   

Pema Pera: anyway, shall I get started?

Mickorod Renard: Hi bertrum

Fefonz Quan: that stand for the sounds american make while doing them

Wol Euler: please, let PemaWol start us off.

Pema Pera: :)

Wol Euler: hello bertrum

Scathach Rhiadra: Hello Bertrum

Pema Pera: Wol: well, Pema, you told us that time is an illusion. But yet it seems that time is pretty real. What gives?

Wol Euler: Pema: well, it's quite simple if we take it step by step

Pema Pera: Wol Euler waiting to hear the steps

Wol Euler: Pema: time is not an object or a place or an event, it is a perception, an appearance

Pema Pera: [Pema: I wouldn't say it is a perception]

Pema Pera: Wol: so there is an appearance of time -- but doesn't that appear in time?

Wol Euler: Pema: time passing is probably what you mean, Wol. that exists only in the appearance of time :)

Adams Rubble slips quietly away

Pema Pera: Wol: but does appearance arise

Wol Euler: Pema: no. Everything exists in Being in all states at all time.

Wol Euler: Pema: the change that appears to you is a change in appearance only, the reality of Being does not change.

Pema Pera: [Pema: hmm, I wouldn't use "exists" nor "states" nor "all time" -- but perhaps we should go to a more concrete example; Wol likes concrete!]

Pema Pera: Wol: I am willing to entertain the possibility that Being does not change, but Being sounds too grandiose to wrap my mind around

Pema Pera: Wol: let us start with something very simple

Pema Pera: Wol: I come to a PaB session at 1 pm

Pema Pera: Wol: before that time I was somewhere else

Pema Pera: Wol: is that not true? is that all an illusion? How so?

Wol Euler: Wol being wol: well, this is where it gets very difficult for me to answer! I feel I don't understand Pema's position well enough to present it fairly.

Wol Euler: I don't want to post a caricature, I am trying to be true-to-life, as it were

Pema Pera: Pema being Pema: we all live within this world, this realm we find ourselves, which has its own story, its own rules, its own narratives

Pema Pera: Pema as Pema: and within this story of course time exists and is very important

Pema Pera: as Pema: yet there is a way to look through all that, to see beyond the story, or more accurately to see through the story

Pema Pera: Wol: but what good does that do?

Pema Pera: Wol: what would I get out of that?

Chiaiu Chiung: time exists of course, but when the mind gets quiet and is aware of the actual moment, the mind lives in a state where it sees time as an illsuion

Wol Euler: Pema: insight? peace? contentment? release from some of the self-created unhappiness?

Pema Pera: not so much in a state, Chiaiu; state is still part of the language of the story

Pema Pera: Wol: yes, all of those are great things to reach or achieve -- but how do I get those by seeing my world as a story?

Wol Euler: Pema: if you could detach yourself from this idea of living in a flow of time, wol, you would feel less pressure and hurry

Bertrum Quan: Is the physics of time an illusion?

Wol Euler chuckles. I'll let the real Pema have that one.

Pema Pera: pema as pema: yes, and the crucial point here is which "you" we are talking about. The you that you normally associate yourself with cannot get out/beyond the story; the you that you really are is already beyond . . . this is the hardest point to see, because it is too visible, too easy, too obvious, it is what is staring us in the face all the time

Pema Pera: Bertrum, physics is part of the story

Pema Pera: the story is interesting, but all its aspects are only "true" within the story itself

Pema Pera: the story itself does not "exist" is not "real" has no independent status

Wol Euler: to which Wol would get huffy about what "reality" is, and Pema would ask her to define it as she sees it :)

Mickorod Renard: does it not then open into another story?

Pema Pera: no, not necessarily; what I am pointing at is the possibility of seeing beyond stories

arabella Ella: but the story does exist in the thinking on an individual level?

Mickorod Renard: how to get out of the loop must be the big issue?

Wol Euler as Wol nods to Ara.

Pema Pera: well, the story appears, as a whole, and it includes as part of the story all kind of minds and all kinds of doings and thinkings of those minds . . . .

Pema Pera: as Pema: Wol as Wol, feel free to get huffy :-)

Wol Euler: maybe we need to unpack "story" a little better.

Fefonz Quan: somebody worked really hard to get all teh details of that story correct

Pema Pera: Mick, we can't get out of the loop

arabella Ella: but then is there the story at the individual level and the story at a global thinking level ... as a 'whole'?

Pema Pera: as long as we think we are what we now think we are

Wol Euler: story clearly doesn't mean "fiction" or "not true at the level of material physics" if we _all_ see it together

Pema Pera: yes, Arabella, there are many stories in the stories, from the point of view of the stories

arabella Ella: yes i see

Pema Pera: but for Being there is only appearance

Mickorod Renard: there is a restraint on our abstract thinking..Its what we believe keeps us sane

Pema Pera: Wol, within the story of our relative reality, we discern between "real" and "fiction"

Pema Pera: and that is very important

Pema Pera: I can eat a real banana, and not a fictitious banana

arabella Ella: so would you say Pema that many people 'fabricate' their stories which are not real?

Wol Euler: like my broken milk bottle.

Scathach Rhiadra: :)

Pema Pera: but going beyond the story, the whole story can be seen to be fictitious

Pema Pera: well, the seeming appearance of "people" is already fictitious, Arabella . . . there are so many layers

arabella Ella: yes

arabella Ella: individuals or selves then? or beings?

Wol Euler ponders. Maybe there is a better word than "story" which in English clearly means "invented, not necessarily entirely true"

Corvuscorva Nightfire: but in this case..that's what we mean?

Fefonz Quan: narrative (cough cough...)

Pema Pera: when I say that the whole world / the whole story of this world of ours is a fiction, it is a very radical statement about the totality of all that we normally consider real, lock stock and barrel

Pema Pera: good point, Wol, what would you like to call it?

arabella Ella: (yes narrative)

Pema Pera: It is like a dream, like a movie, like a novel, like . . . .

Wol Euler: to me that only poses the larger question of what makes the realness of reality

Mickorod Renard: are we facets of being,,a whole one,,and as such are one as with each other?

Wol Euler: a script...

Pema Pera: in the sense that it has internal meaning, very important meaning, yet is not "really real"

Wol Euler: is there perhaps an overlap in Physics?

Wol Euler: Newtonian physics, simple motion and geometry-in-time, is not actually true (says Einstein and the laws of thermodynamics)

arabella Ella: I dont wish to move to theory Pema but what you describe sounds to me a bit like Leibniz's monads which mirror each other

Pema Pera: "we" don't exist outside appearance of us, like a comic character doesn't exist outside the page it is drawn on, Mick -- and each appearance is all of Being

Wol Euler: but it is close enough to fly an airplane or drive a car, or build one

Wol Euler: and it is faster and easier than calculating special relativity when you want to buy some milk

Pema Pera: I think Leibniz may have had an intuition of these things we are talking about, Arabella

Fefonz Quan: /that's difficult - how can each appearance be the whole of being, if there are a couple of them?

Pema Pera: and yes, Wol, physics may help, at least on the level of metaphors

Pema Pera: oh yes, physics is very useful *within* the story

Wol Euler: (I'm looking for a metaphor that will let me understand what is unreal about reality)

Pema Pera: story = relative reality

Mickorod Renard: are there two beings? fef?

Fefonz Quan: no, but a few appearances

Mickorod Renard: phew

Pema Pera: the logic of one and many does not apply to Being, Fef

Pema Pera: Being is beyond all dichotomies

Pema Pera: including one and many

Scathach Rhiadra: so one being can perceive the whole universe Fefonz

Pema Pera: Being is not one

Pema Pera: Being is not many

Corvuscorva Nightfire: I really like what you said about close enough Wol

Wol Euler: ty :)

Corvuscorva Nightfire: it seems to me that we create a set of definitions and limits nd destinctions

Corvuscorva Nightfire: so that we can act in the world

Wol Euler: the point that I was suggesting to myself is that our stories (keep the word) are true enough to get us around life and each other

Pema Pera: ah, now I know why Wol breaks bottles -- buying milk at the speed of light!

Corvuscorva Nightfire laughs.

Wol Euler: even if they are untrue because totally limited and incomplete from God's point of view.

Corvuscorva Nightfire: but each definition breaks down if we look too close.

Wol Euler: heheheh

Corvuscorva Nightfire: each limit is clearly untrue.

Corvuscorva Nightfire grins.

Pema Pera: oh yes, our stories are pretty much self contained, including the suffering . . . from which you can't really escape WITHIN the story ; that was Buddha's message, and that was the message of all great spiritual figures

arabella Ella is intruiged

Pema Pera thinking about our "phew view" of reality . . . .

Wol Euler ponders

Pema Pera: "phew -- it is all an illusion!"

Mickorod Renard: he he eh

Pema Pera: the only way to end suffering is to give up hope and fear, both, and totally so

Pema Pera: to give up the whole story

arabella Ella: but Pema that leads to contradiction when you say 'it is all an illusion'

Pema Pera: to give up buying into the story

Pema Pera: what kind of contradiction, Arabella?

Mickorod Renard: so what can we buy into?

Korii Tiger: but thats no fun.. life without a story is borring..

Wol Euler: I can see where disbelieving in time ties into giving up hope and fear.

Pema Pera: nothing, Mick

Mickorod Renard: cool

Mickorod Renard: cheap then?

Wol Euler: well, except perhaps to buy into the concept that you cannot buy anything.

arabella Ella: because even the sentence 'it is all an illusion' is then taken as an illusion itself and therrefore not seriously

Pema Pera: ah, we don't have to drop the story, Korii, on the contrary, if we see it for what it is, it no longer scares us and we can then *really* enjoy it!!!

Wol Euler: which is a philosophical framework like any other

Pema Pera: not disbelieving in time, Wol, that doesn't help anything -- beliefs are powerless. Seeing through the illusion of time is what liberates

Wol Euler: the idea that time does not exist is true within the framework that "time does not exist"

Mickorod Renard: and that that we can enjoy,,is still this illusion,,but for what a good illusion it is?

Pema Pera: I'm trying to point to what can be seen -- not trying to argue in an abstract way

Korii Tiger nods.

Pema Pera: So Arabella and Korii, what I mean is that you can enjoy the happiness and sadness within a movie, fully, precisely because you know it is not ultimately real.

arabella Ella: perhaps ... seeing through time ... like seeing through a pane of glass?

Mickorod Renard: can we see snippets of slight of hand..of being?

Pema Pera: if you think real people are being killed in front of you, it would be very different

Wol Euler: I am scrabbling about my understanding of time and space and life with a crowbar in one hand and a hammer inthe other, trying to find a crack in the encasement.

Korii Tiger understands.

Pema Pera: great, Wol!

Pema Pera: Keep going!

Wol Euler: words like "philosopical framework" etc are attempts to put the crowbar into a possible crack

Pema Pera: seriously, we have to keep trying to hit it and then it hits us

Wol Euler: which often turns out to be just a shadow

Pema Pera: see, "we" have to keep trying until we get thoroughly exhausted from trying to the point of seeing we didn't have so much the wrong tools but the wrong "us" using the tools

Pema Pera: as computer help line folks would say: problem exists between seat and keyboard

Wol Euler grins.

Pema Pera: we are not what we think we are

Pema Pera: but it is so hard to turn the lights around

Fefonz Quan: problem exist between "no-chair" and "no=keyboard"

Pema Pera: to see ourselves

Pema Pera: honestly, nakedly

Pema Pera: to see all of our defenses that keep us in the story

Pema Pera: glued to it, chained to it

Wol Euler sputters.

Pema Pera: Wol, when we did the YSBS exploration the other day

arabella Ella: so we have to direct the 'spotlight' on to our own being?

Wol Euler nods

Mickorod Renard: perhaps we do look sometimes,,but are too afraid our idea's are too outlandish?

Pema Pera: you got unglued to some extend, right?

Wol Euler: mmhmm, that worked surprisingly well :)

Pema Pera: yes, Arabella, but it is not "we" who directs . . . it is Being

Corvuscorva Nightfire: being directs?

arabella Ella: ok

Pema Pera: Wol, can you perhaps summarize or better give us a flavor of what happened?

Corvuscorva Nightfire: i'm lost suddenly.

Pema Pera: Wol's example will explain, Corvi

Wol Euler: (answer Corvi first perhaps)

Wol Euler: ah

Wol Euler: ok

Pema Pera: and the "surprise" shows how surprising it is to even temporarily drop out of the story!!!!!!!

Pema Pera: and the next moment the cloud cover closes again, but we do remember . . ..

Wol Euler: ok, so in YS I looked around myself and saw a problem, a biiiiiiiiig problem that I had been carefuly and with great efort ignoring for nearly 18 months.

Wol Euler: one that fills me with dread, which is why I had beenworking so hard to ignore it.

Wol Euler: "I" just couldn't see any way to addrss it, there was no starting point, no crack for the crowbar's tip

Wol Euler: BS then looked at the problem and saw four places that I might start, and what I might do at each point in order to create movement.

Wol Euler: without any of the fear and anxiety and morbid doubt that "I" felt when looking at it

Wol Euler: it was really quite amazing.

arabella Ella: amazing

Wol Euler looks at Corvi. That lead into what we talked about at the weekend...

Mickorod Renard: yes

Corvuscorva Nightfire grins.

Pema Pera: BS = Being Seeing

Pema Pera: rather that YS = You Seeing

Wol Euler: yes, sorry.

Pema Pera: yes, Wol, and all that we put into words is the steam from the locomotive -- but what you describe is the fire, what gives it traction

Pema Pera: we should try to look beyond the words

Pema Pera: and apply the nourishment which you just gave us, as an example

Pema Pera: And thank you so much, Wol, for being game in our role reversal!

Mickorod Renard: yes,,thankyou to you both

Wol Euler: :)

Wol Euler: it's fun but enormously hard work, I am exhausted

Pema Pera prescribes three teaspoons of BS for Wol

Wol Euler: :)

Wol Euler dissolves them in her tea and sips

Fefonz Quan: there is no teaspoon :)

Pema Pera: :)

Wol Euler: heheheh

Pema Pera: have to run now, to a RL meeting

Fefonz Quan: (i couldn't help it)

Wol Euler: bye pema, thank you.

Pema Pera: ((then we can't help you, Fef))

Mickorod Renard: bye Pema,,thanks

arabella Ella: thanks Pema thanks Wol

Fefonz Quan: bye pema, see you

Pema Pera: (((hehehe)))

Scathach Rhiadra: bye Pema

Chiaiu Chiung: bye pema

Pema Pera: bye everybody!

Fefonz Quan: no one to help, no one to get help...

Wol Euler: if you also believe "and no help needed" that is fine

Mickorod Renard: interesting,,very

Fefonz Quan: what i do believe connects with what we talk here is the later sentence from teh movie:

Fefonz Quan: "if you try to bend the spoon, you will find it impossible. instead just see that it is yourself you are bending"

Wol Euler reaches out carefully and strokes Korii's nose.

Fefonz Quan: very carefully WOl, we are all at teh fire range :)

Wol Euler: :)

Wol Euler: with dragons, as so often in life, one ahs to believe in their good intentions.

Squee Vemo found the safe spot ^.^