2009.04.23 01:00 - Possessing life?

The Guardian for this meeting was Fael Illyar. The comments are by whoever feels like it.

Susi Alcott: _/!\_
Pema Pera: Hi Susi!
Susi Alcott: Hi Pema
Pema Pera: Hi Bert!
Susi Alcott: Hi Bert
Bertrum Quan: hi Pema, Susi
Bertrum Quan: How is you day in Japan, Pema?
Pema Pera: fine! I found a nice quite place in a tea lounge
Pema Pera: just before a dinner appointment with colleagues here
Pema Pera: the only draw back is that there is no electric outlet in sight
Pema Pera: so I will probably have to leave rather early when my battery runs low
Bertrum Quan: I've been thinking lately about all of the unlearning we do to make sense of our experience.
Susi Alcott: Hi Fael
Fael Illyar: Hi Everyone, sorry I'm a bit late.
Pema Pera: yes, unlearning is the main topic in Play as Being . . .
Pema Pera: Hi Fael!
Bertrum Quan: hi Fael
Pema Pera: playful unlearning . . . .
Bertrum Quan: breaking the rote patterns... and it goes back to behaviours that may have been with humans as they came to consciouness
Fael Illyar: you can always do the breaking selectively :)
Pema Pera: if you can see your patterns
Fael Illyar: some of the rote patterns are there because of some others, though, so only letting some go brings problems sometimes.
Pema Pera: the relationship between seeing and letting go is interesting.
Pema Pera: (waiting for Bert to finish typing :-)
Bertrum Quan: Poet Galway Kinnell has a line in a poem that comes to mind: knowing death will come, sensing its onset, may be a fair price for consciousness." But it's a very big price actually--attachment is inherent in some ways and works against seeing.
Pema Pera: unless you are not afraid of death :)
Bertrum Quan: How do you feel about it?
Pema Pera: as for seeing: there are different ways and different kinds of clarity. Perhaps if you reall see, there is no need to let go of anything, since letting go can happen than naturally
Pema Pera: somehow, I've never been really afraid of death; not exactly sure why . . . a kind of intuition or belief/hypothesis perhaps
Pema Pera: twice in my life I was seriously ill, with a reasonable chance of not surviving, but somehow that didn't seem to be a problem
Pema Pera: each living moment is so precious in and of itself . . . .
Bertrum Quan: Can you share your intuition?
Fael Illyar: I haven't been that seriously ill myself that I can remember but I can relate to that :)
Pema Pera: it's not so easy to put in words . . . . it's so fundamental
Susi Alcott: I myself visited 'beyond' as 8 year 'old'
Pema Pera: a kind of trust in "what is" . . . but that may not be too clear :-)
Fael Illyar: a kind of trust that it's really not that big of a deal.
Susi Alcott: and so much I've helped also spirits beyond and remember flashes of my fromer incarnations and know people who's 'got' the same so I cannot but think that one dont fear death cuz it's only death from human incarnation
Pema Pera: or that each moment of your life is an equally big deal <- Fael
Fael Illyar: same thing, essentially, but yes, good to look at it from that way too :)
Susi Alcott: but I have thought a lot of the reason to fear death; as long as one has not found any reason to own human life may be the most big reason
Bertrum Quan: Doesn't attachment rise up if each living moment is precious and a big deal?
Susi Alcott: (knowing huge many people who would go there if they would 'remember')
Pema Pera: it is again related to seeing. Seeing more clearly the nature of time and the lack of a clear self definitely changes one's view of life and death, both
Fael Illyar: yes, lack of self that can die makes for rather big difference.
Pema Pera: attachment comes from attempts at possession -- real appreciation of preciousness is not hindered or obscured by desires for possession
Pema Pera: if we want to possess something precious we cannot really be open to it
Fael Illyar: hmmh... what does it mean to possess?
Pema Pera: clinging to something, being attached, is trying to possess it
Pema Pera: to keep it, to prolong the past into the future
Pema Pera: addiction in other words
Fael Illyar: yes, but what is it you're trying to do when you try to possess?
Pema Pera: (I'll have to leave in a few minutes -- low batteries and no electric outlet in this place)
Fael Illyar: to me to possess feels kind of abstract even.
Pema Pera: attachement, or clinging is trying to keep something, no? if not possessing, what would you like to call it?
Fael Illyar: different words for the same thing, those :)
Fael Illyar: equally abstract
Bertrum Quan: the battery is clear as an object and in its function and it is also a good metaphor ..
Bertrum Quan: especially one with no ekectric outlet nearby.
Pema Pera: sorry, Bert, metaphor for what? And does Fael's response answer your question?
Susi Alcott: ...to possess...like would like the battery to have/keep more power...
Bertrum Quan: and battery as one's finite energy...
Pema Pera: I don't know whether a battery "clings" to electricity . . . :-)
Pema Pera: you asked wether considering something to be precious would not lead to attachment to it
Susi Alcott: not to electricity...but metaphora to possessing
Pema Pera: and I responded that we can appreciate better without attachement
Bertrum Quan: Yes, that is clear.
Pema Pera: (and added "clinging", "wanting to keep", "trying to posses" as alternative descriptions)
Fael Illyar: hmmh... attachment dilutes appreciation because you then reject the idea of not having.
Pema Pera: yes, it is not open and free
Pema Pera: alas, I'll have to leave now -- see you next time!
Susi Alcott: _/!\_
Fael Illyar: so you no longer have 'not having' to contrast with.
Bertrum Quan: Thanks Pema.
Fael Illyar: See you later Pema :)
Pema Pera: bfn
Fael Illyar: it's the same thing as joy losing it's meaning if you're never sad.
Fael Illyar: equally, because there are lies, truth feels that much more valuable.
Fael Illyar: the same way, death is what makes life significant
Fael Illyar: if you reject death because you fear it, life starts losing it's meaning
Bertrum Quan: Pema's answer about all minutes being equally important suggests an entirely open way of seeing...
Bertrum Quan: There are so many learned behavours. Short-term "survival mechanisms" and ways we process information to achieve a goal that keep us from that open way of seeing.
Fael Illyar: The body does die though...
Bertrum Quan: the battery runs out of energy...
Susi Alcott: _/!\_
Fael Illyar: somehow battery feels a bit limited to compare with but... it's partially right :)
Susi Alcott: thankfully many are 'to recharge', yet; even that's limited
Susi Alcott: thinking that seeing more free is to 'recharge' the battery
Fael Illyar: perhaps the battery is endless but the wire from which the electricity flows gets clogged up
Susi Alcott: for now it's not resolved how to keep the human body as 'eternall' with known method
Susi Alcott: known by human beings
Fael Illyar: yes, no way to remove all the clogs
Bertrum Quan: nothing stays the same,
Susi Alcott: _/!\_
Fael Illyar: yes, I think it was 10 years that it takes for all atoms in the body to be replaced with new ones.
Bertrum Quan: but that process is finite... but all of the atoms are still somewhere...
Fael Illyar: yep, just moved
Bertrum Quan: and in the larger scheme of things, changed
Fael Illyar: yes, that too.
Fael Illyar: although... atom is not the smallest scheme :)
Fael Illyar: I wonder if there is a smallest scheme :)
Bertrum Quan: if there is, it too would change.
Fael Illyar: yes
Bertrum Quan: Need to say goodnight to you both.
Susi Alcott: _/!\_
Fael Illyar: Good night Bert :)
Bertrum Quan: Take care.
Fael Illyar waves.