2009.05.19 19:00 - Large ball of appreciation

 

The Guardian for this meeting was Eos Amaterasu. The comments are by Eos Amaterasu.

Eos Amaterasu: Hi Pema

Pema Pera: Hi Eos!

Pema Pera: A quiet session, so far?

Eos Amaterasu: Yes

Pema Pera: thank you for lending your session for a phenomenology theme session!

Pema Pera: Hi Pila!

Pila Mulligan: hi Pema and Eos

Eos Amaterasu: Somehow I think that will resonate with appreciating the presence of appearance

Eos Amaterasu: Hi Pila

Pila Mulligan: hi Eliza

Eos Amaterasu: & Eliza⁄

Eliza Madrigal: Hello everyone :)

Pema Pera: somehow I'm sure you're right, Eos :-)

Pema Pera: Hi Eliza!

Pema Pera: Perhaps that is a good place to start, Eos

Pema Pera: to look at all phenomena, and to welcome them as friends, in appreciation

Eliza Madrigal: I need to sign off and on... lagging

Eos Amaterasu: What you said about the heart, Pema, some sessions ago, has resonated

Eos Amaterasu: Especially re the appreciation part

Pila Mulligan: hi Eliza

Eos Amaterasu: Which happens through all the senses

Eliza Madrigal: :)

Eos Amaterasu: More than just "visual" looking

Pema Pera: thank you, Eos, that was an inspiration of the moment, immersed as we were here

Pema Pera: yes

Eos Amaterasu: (hi Eliza!)

Eliza Madrigal: :)

Eos Amaterasu: the hearing and the feeling of texture under foot and of wind and air

Eos Amaterasu: much more immersive

Eos Amaterasu: less out/in

Pema Pera: yes, and all without effort . . .

Pema Pera: it seems that every week I recognize new vestiges of effort, which I can then gratefully recognize and let waft away . . . .

Eliza Madrigal: Hi Steven :)

Pema Pera: hi Steve!

Eos Amaterasu: it's like sometimes in music they skip a beat, and so you notice the space

stevenaia Michinaga: hello

Eos Amaterasu: hi stevenaia

Eliza Madrigal: I watched myself with a stack of books the other day and thought "Wow, so much effort to remove your effort!"

Pema Pera: yes!

Eos Amaterasu: :-)

Eliza Madrigal: The 'rests' Eos... spaces between the notes?

Eos Amaterasu: Yes.

Pila Mulligan: hi Steve

Pila Mulligan: hi genesis

Eliza Madrigal: Hi genesis!

stevenaia Michinaga: hello Genesis

Eos Amaterasu: hi Genesis

Pema Pera: hi Gen!

genesis Zhangsun: Hi!

stevenaia Michinaga: what is that interesting stone tablet on your shirt?

stevenaia Michinaga: planetary inscriptions?

genesis Zhangsun: oh this is from "spirit of the senses"

Pila Mulligan: Pema, have you seen Nymf? she returned to SL this weekend :)

Pema Pera: yes

Pema Pera: very glad that she came back!

Pila Mulligan: me too

Pila Mulligan: is this the phenomenology theme session?

Pema Pera: it is a theme session, with phenomenology as the theme :)

Pema Pera: Eos kindly agreed

Pila Mulligan: :)

Pila Mulligan: Eos is also an epocheista

Eos Amaterasu: !

Pema Pera: but as often happens, conversation drifts in and out of the theme

Eliza Madrigal: :)

Pema Pera: we started talking about appreciation

Eliza Madrigal: Not unrelated.

Pema Pera: and Eos made the connection with phenomena, all of which to be appreciated

Pema Pera: hi Fef!

Eliza Madrigal: Hi Fefonz :)

Fefonz Quan: Hi Pema & phenos

genesis Zhangsun: hey fefonz!

Pila Mulligan: hi Fefonz

Eos Amaterasu: :-)

Eos Amaterasu: Phenomena come with senses

Eos Amaterasu: or we come up to their senses

Pema Pera: :)

Eos Amaterasu: Goethe said that any object sufficently contemplated generates its organ of perception

Pema Pera: yes, he had an interesting angle

Pema Pera: we talked a lot about that in Kira Summerschools, ten years ago

Pema Pera: one of our Kira Faculty members, Arthur Zajonc, was deep into Goethe's approach

Fefonz Quan contemplate what does organ of perception mean. eye?

Pema Pera: it's on an energy level, not physical

Eos Amaterasu: Yes, or could be more subtle than that (an eye for certain kinds of art, for ex)

Pema Pera: or not primarily physical, though of course it also has a physical component

Fefonz Quan: eye, like 'develop the ear' for improvisation etc.

Pema Pera: yes

Eos Amaterasu: especially when we think of non-visual senses it gets closer

Pema Pera: having the right touch . . . .

Eos Amaterasu: the boundary gets blurrier

Fefonz Quan: i see, ok. like the body develops an antidote for certain viruses

Pila Mulligan: "The human beings knows himself only insofar as he knows the world; he perceives the world only in himself, and himself only in the world. Every new object, clearly seen, opens up a new organ of perception in us."

Fefonz Quan: nice phrasing

Eos Amaterasu: Yes, I find that the suspension of playing as being puts in more liquid experience that of self & other, exper & expe-er

Eliza Madrigal: like that...appreciation takes on a life/energy of its own ... and one notices

Eliza Madrigal: rather than generating/creating (or what one would before that call creating)?

Pema Pera: yes, opening, celebrating

Fefonz Quan: and in the other way around, when this organ is developed, the object of contemplation is percieved in new ways, and ...

Pila Mulligan: more Goethe: "He who sees into the secret inner life of the plant, into the stirring of its powers, and observes how the flower gradually unfolds itself, sees the matter with quite different eyes — he knows what he sees."

Eos Amaterasu: that appreciation has a quality of freshness, or arising from openness

Eliza Madrigal: closer to alive

Pema Pera: yes, and there is a connection with time

Pema Pera: to really appreciate, we have to live in the presence

Pema Pera: but not the past-present-future present

Pema Pera: but a kind of timeless present

Pila Mulligan: Arthur Zajonc: "Goethe valued the rational as well as the empirical dimension of science. He sought to bring the rational element consciously into science, but not as an autonomous activity operating upon observation. Rather, he endeavored to embue seeing itself with the rational. The result was what he termed a 'gentle empiricism' possessed of perceptive seeing rather than mathematical techniques. "

Fefonz Quan: Today, while practicing the 20 min APA, i set by the pond and watched the small waves. then, although trying to see the 'ever present', the on going movement kept me in focus on time passing

Pila Mulligan: :)

Pema Pera: oh, I'm so glad you did that, Fef! How different was 20 minutes compared to 9 seconds?

Fefonz Quan: very different, of course, gives more time to sink into it

Fefonz Quan: (though this also let me be lazier and drop things more slowly :))

Pema Pera: yes, there are both sides, so it's good to mix

Fefonz Quan: also the length brings me outside, which is also nice. and more levels can be explored

Pema Pera: I had an interesting experience two days ago, when I felt just to sleepy to sit for 20 minutes, well past midnight -- but I had made the commitment and did it anyway. At first, sleepiness seemed to prevent me to focus on appreciation, but then somehow something opened up, and the whole shlebang became appreciated and appreciation at the same time, all the obstacles, all the perceived limitations . . . .

Fefonz Quan: again, the time part didn't feel like working...

Pema Pera: yes, nature helps a lot

Eliza Madrigal: and where were you Pema.. not meaning where were you sitting... I mean your attention?

Eliza Madrigal: in that moment?

Pema Pera: at first it wandered around aimlessly, then it became one large ball of appreciation, and I naturally stopped fighting the wandering, it was just part of the symphony, so to speak

Pema Pera: appreciating the seeming lack of appreciation

Eliza Madrigal: hmm, nice :)

Pema Pera: which transformed in a much deeper gentler appreciation

Pema Pera: more true, not forced of fabricated

Eliza Madrigal: not sure that 'can' be fabricated

Fefonz Quan: i mostly appereciated that calm layer that develop infront all things

Fefonz Quan: or 'below',

Pila Mulligan: or within

Eliza Madrigal: MM calm layer :)

Pema Pera: what I meant is we can try to push ourselves a bit to appreciate, encourage ourselves, just to get into it, and then we gradually learn to let go . . .

Pema Pera: it seems we have to "do" a bit before getting into "not-doing" :-)

Pila Mulligan: :)

Eos Amaterasu: & appreciate the game of the two

Eos Amaterasu: touch & go

Pema Pera: yes, and then seeing both in a more subtle way as "already always having done nothing at all !"

Fefonz Quan: yes, cause for now with out this little effort the monkey mind abuse the let-go to jump around

Eliza Madrigal: ... was just thinking that the point where appreciating disappears.... doesn't seem something one can 'create'

Fefonz Quan: at least fefonz's mind

Eliza Madrigal: :)

Pema Pera: and then we can appreciate the monkey mind in a kind of non-doing way too . . . .

Pila Mulligan: hi kenji

kenji Pookes: hi

Pema Pera: Hi Kenji!

kenji Pookes: hello everyone

Eliza Madrigal: Kenji, Hello

Fefonz Quan: hello kenji

Eos Amaterasu: Hi Kenji

Pema Pera: Actually, I have to go, lunch with colleagues coming up in a few minutes

Pema Pera: lunch in Japan is very stricly at 12 noon, on the dot :-)

Pema Pera: ten minutes from now

Eliza Madrigal: :) Bye Pema, thank you

Eos Amaterasu: Ciao!

Pila Mulligan: bye bye Pema-san

Fefonz Quan: bye Pema!

Pema Pera: see you soon again, all !

Pema Pera: thanks for yet another inspiring conversation!

Eliza Madrigal: Eos, I'm curious as to how you began to think about phenomenology? what sparked your interest originally?

Eos Amaterasu: Hmm, long time ago when I was in College, studying Husserl & Heidegger & Merleau-Ponty

genesis Zhangsun: I must be going

genesis Zhangsun: bye everyone

Eliza Madrigal: Bye genesis, good to see you

Fefonz Quan: bye gen, night

Eliza Madrigal: So the academic interest preceeded the contemplative?

Eos Amaterasu: which also came along with pre-Socratics & Aquinas et al

Eos Amaterasu: but it wasn't just academic: I had run into Jacques Maritain and his "intuition of Being" practice

Eos Amaterasu: which was actually based on Aquinas' perception of Being as "esse", to be, and experience!

Fefonz Quan: what is this practice?

Eos Amaterasu: an experience

Eos Amaterasu: Well, it is basically recognizing the to-be of things

Eos Amaterasu: their standing out in existence, that they were at all

Eliza Madrigal: : ).. very interesting Eos, thank you

Eos Amaterasu: that then got illluminated by phenomenology, which had a different but related practice of open awareness

Eliza Madrigal: It should be astounding to us that we have to work so 'hard' or as Pema was saying, not, to recognize the 'to-be'

kenji Pookes: I'm sorry, but I'm a bit unclear on what the "to-be" means.

Eos Amaterasu: so you can experience your own "intentionality", for example, your own "to be" in and with world

Eos Amaterasu: Being as essence usually means to be this-or-that; to have certain kinds of attributes

Eos Amaterasu: To be at all is not something conceptual, or attributed: it's a direct experience

Eos Amaterasu: (this was almost my first experience with philosophy :-)

kenji Pookes: I see. That makes sense. But isn't the 'to-be-ness" of anyting structured in terms of one's cultural framework?

Eos Amaterasu: but it was a natural segue to buddhist awareness practice, which also sits in that same space

Eos Amaterasu: Yes, the cultural flavoring is I think part of what the Goethean organ of perception is about....

Eliza Madrigal: the cultural framework is part of what one wants to learn to 'set aside', isn't it? Once you notice that it is there, it becomes something you can isolate in order to see what else is there, or not. That's a beginning anyway?

Pila Mulligan: [19:49] Eliza Madrigal: ... was just thinking that the point where appreciating disappears.... doesn't seem something one can 'create' -- Pila agrees, Eliza, we act (or create) by setting our mind on the path to reach the point where the sought-after appreciating spontaneously disappears, and that point is probably the moment where what we are referring to as appreciating actually begins

Eos Amaterasu: :-)

kenji Pookes: I wonder if we can actually set aside our cultural frameworks. I am inclinde to think that culture is somewhat hard wired into our brains. Also, our concpeutalization of being is highly localized.

Eos Amaterasu: I think in terms of perception and of expression we cannot lay aside wired and acculturated framework

stevenaia Michinaga: I must go, night all

Eliza Madrigal: Pila, yes... then 'practice ' begins, in a sense?

Eliza Madrigal: Night Steven :)

kenji Pookes: For example, in English we have one way to say "to be" and it applies to all things. In Japanese there are two distinct words; one that applies to animate objects (iru) and another than applies to inanimate objects (aru).

Pila Mulligan: bye Steve

Eliza Madrigal: You begin to see inside-> out, then as your usual outside-> in, until that framework isn't relevant because it has become malleable... thinner.

Pila Mulligan: are you asking if it is possible to trasncend our culutral framework, kenji, or are you sayinf it is not possible?

Pila Mulligan: saying*

Eliza Madrigal: so it isn't that it does't matter...

kenji Pookes: I don't think it is possible to transcend culture

Pila Mulligan: :) thank you

Eos Amaterasu: You can't live without frameworks, or perceive without senses, but what you celebrate eludes those

kenji Pookes: I think we are fundamentally cultural beings--that is our primary adaptive tool for dealing with reality

Pila Mulligan: what is culutre?

Pila Mulligan: culture*

kenji Pookes: Good question.

Eos Amaterasu: the petri dish in which our preceptions flourish :-)

Pila Mulligan: that cold also be mythology, Eos

Pila Mulligan: could

kenji Pookes: brb

Eos Amaterasu: indeed!

Eliza Madrigal thinks none of this is comprehensible without meditation, which someone would say is a cultural bias probably :)

Pila Mulligan: :)

Pila Mulligan: any practice involves a trasncending of prejudices

Eos Amaterasu: Any given "x" is finite and biased; but !(any given x) is not!

Eliza Madrigal: yes, and I call many things meditation...hhe

Eliza Madrigal: Hmm...okay Eos, I actually see that bracketing language in use... very helpful

Fefonz Quan: going to sleep, good night guys!

kenji Pookes: I view culture as individual memories that are abstracted into collectivized memory.

Eliza Madrigal: Night Fef, glad you came :)

Eos Amaterasu: 'gnite!

Pila Mulligan: bye Fefonz, sewwt pond dreams

kenji Pookes: Good night

Pila Mulligan: sweet*

Eliza Madrigal: :) Calm dreams

Pila Mulligan: watch out for the gesse

Pila Mulligan: geese*

Pila Mulligan: he mentioned earlier there were geese by the pond where he was medtiating today

Eos Amaterasu: the space, the openness, is not just beween the notes; it's in the notes

kenji Pookes: Not a big fan of geese; they make quite a mess

Eliza Madrigal: :)

Pila Mulligan: they can be aggressive also, geese

kenji Pookes: yes

kenji Pookes: ducks are better

Eos Amaterasu: They were crossing the road yesterday, about 8 o f them, pretty large

Eliza Madrigal thanks for that clarification Eos...lovely and will think on that

kenji Pookes: My wife hit a deer the other day; made quite a mess too--of the car.

Eos Amaterasu: Why did they cross the road? :-)

kenji Pookes: Deer cross the road because they are stupid.

Pila Mulligan: oh, Eos, so sorry -- Steve di that recently alos

Pila Mulligan: oh kenji :)

Pila Mulligan is nearisghted :)

Eliza Madrigal: :)

kenji Pookes: I live in an area where there are a lot of deer. The jump out in front of cars constantly and also eat all of our plants. Kind of enormous rats with tiny brains.

Eliza Madrigal: They are stunning. The first time I saw a large deer, in Estes Park, Colorado... I wept

Eliza Madrigal: I couldn't believe the power of it standing there

kenji Pookes: The first time I saw the front end of my car smashed, I almost wept.

Eliza Madrigal: =P~

kenji Pookes: I actually find them frightening. I walk the dog and will find six large bucks with full racks of antlers as I turn the corner in the park near my house.

Eliza Madrigal: yes, powerful creatures can do damage :)

Eliza Madrigal: Kenji you must live in a magnificent place

kenji Pookes: No, I live right in the city of Austin, Texas. A suburban neighborhood...

Eliza Madrigal: the geese are the largest beast around where I live... heheh

Pila Mulligan: kenji, my question about culture was not a tease, but relates to my expereince of having more or less immmersed myself for many years at a time in three quite distinct culures, and having felt that in doing so I was gradually seeing the limits of acculturation

kenji Pookes: Sorry, I forogot your quesiton. But I, too, have lived in several different cultures. I do not think it is possible to fully acculturate.

kenji Pookes: Again, I think there are some wiring issues in the brain that prevent it.

Pila Mulligan: how so?

kenji Pookes: For example, I speak pretty good Japanese. Good enough that on the phone I can be mistaken for a native speaker--for a few minutes. But my native toungue (English) will eventually betray that I am not native to Japan.

kenji Pookes: Also, there is evidence that suggests that ideographic languages lke Japanese are stored in a different part of the brain from languages like English.

Pila Mulligan: do you think the fact that your native language is deeply imbedded is evidence that your capacity to perceptive is also limited to your first culture?

Pila Mulligan: to perceive*

Pila Mulligan: this relates to the idea you expressed earlier that 'our concpeutalization of being is highly localized'

kenji Pookes: I think so, to some extent. The proces of childhood learning and socialization set neural pathways in the brain and these create some limitations. I'm not saying that we cannot grow and change, but I think there are some limits. Sort of an anatomical version of Bourdieu's notion of habitus.

Eliza Madrigal: Our early learning/conditioning is indeed all in images... which to me doesn't seem to say necessarily, that those pictures can't take on new interpretations/contexts and be part of a larger pool of expereince.

kenji Pookes: I agree, but I also think there are some limits. The fact that they are largely visual, for instance is one limit.

Pila Mulligan: so even if our brain over-emphasizes certain early socialization patterns, can we not practice conceptualizations that exceed them?

kenji Pookes: I think we can expand our perceptions, certainly, but I think there are some fundamental limits. Back to language. Why is it that for people who learn a language later in life (say after puberty) it is very difficult to completely eliminate an accent?

Pila Mulligan: my own expereince had led me to believe that these things are 90% physical

Pila Mulligan: 10% mental

kenji Pookes: What doe you mean by mental?

Pila Mulligan: what we think

kenji Pookes: Isnt' that physical?

Pila Mulligan: no

kenji Pookes: how so?

Pila Mulligan: physical in the context I'm refrring to is like posture, muscle patterns, etc

Pila Mulligan: how we hold our body and how it holds us

kenji Pookes: I'm a materialist at heart, so I think thinking is just a brain function. Not really any different from walkng.

Pila Mulligan: that's a thought

kenji Pookes: Ithink it's a thought about thinking.

kenji Pookes: I think

Pila Mulligan: but walking is mre physical to me

Pila Mulligan: more than thinking

kenji Pookes: Walking requires thought

Pila Mulligan: sometimes

Pila Mulligan: not always

Eliza Madrigal: :)

kenji Pookes: Hmm. Can I walk without thinking? I'm not sure about that.

Pila Mulligan: maybe some day you will :)

Eos Amaterasu: walking can be seen as embodied intention

Pila Mulligan: do oyu walk in your dreams?

kenji Pookes: Are we taling about thinking or the difference between conscious and unconscious thinking?

Pila Mulligan: autonomous vs. etc?

kenji Pookes: yes

kenji Pookes: D I walk in my dreams. Hmm.

Pila Mulligan: I'm thinking of thinking as what we do when we write words, and physical as the condition our body is in

kenji Pookes: I do when I am imagining myself as walking.

kenji Pookes: This has always confused me. How is the thinking I am doing now different from the thinking I do when I walk?

Pila Mulligan: not the brain messages that allow is to have learned walking

kenji Pookes: Still seems like brain function for both actions.

Pila Mulligan: yes

Pila Mulligan: that is a thought

Eos Amaterasu: thinking when walking and thinking when talkiing?

kenji Pookes: I don't have to think about breathing, however, but I do know that my brain is operating my lungs.

Pila Mulligan: science of course sees the brain as the seat of perception

kenji Pookes: yes, although I would be inclined to see the body as a set of perception. The brain is the unit that interprets sensory data.

Eliza Madrigal: Often one takes years to come to a conclusion, and is attached to all that time they spent, so can't see around it... or take it to be one thing among many. We know sooo little really

Pila Mulligan: how about the heart?

kenji Pookes: I mean seat of perception. Brain and body are not separate.

kenji Pookes: What about the heart?

Pila Mulligan: can it interpret sensory data?

kenji Pookes: No, I suppose it can't.

Pila Mulligan: :)

Eliza Madrigal is quite tired and looks forward to reading the log :)

kenji Pookes: Interpretation happens only in the brain.

Pila Mulligan: bye Eliza

kenji Pookes: Bye

Eliza Madrigal: Nite guys! Pleasant dreams and such like :)))

Eos Amaterasu: Midsummer night's dreams, Eliza

Eliza Madrigal: :)

kenji Pookes: Sorry, guys, I didn't mean to barge into the conversation.

Pila Mulligan: well, kenji, I am not so committed to the brain as the sole source of interpretation

Pila Mulligan: no problem

kenji Pookes: What else can interpret?

Pila Mulligan: the eyes, the heart ... maybe the liver

kenji Pookes: How can those things interpretl? They can't think.

Pila Mulligan: thank you

Pila Mulligan: the answer is in the question

kenji Pookes: huh?

Pila Mulligan: :)

Eos Amaterasu: non-brains can't think

Pila Mulligan: you are assuming that for things to interpret they must think -- remember my comment that what we think is mental?

kenji Pookes: I agree.

kenji Pookes: I do, but I don't see the point.

Pila Mulligan: well, interpretation is not always mental

kenji Pookes: What else is it?

Pila Mulligan: like a device that measure something, and gives an independent reading, outside of thinking

Pila Mulligan: that is what the heart does

kenji Pookes: I'm not clear on this. Without thinking the reading is meaningless.

kenji Pookes: aside from thought the heart just beats

Pila Mulligan: ever heard of heartache?

kenji Pookes: Thats an emotion somatized, but still a form of thinking

Pila Mulligan: it is a measure, to me

Pila Mulligan: a direct spontaneous reading

kenji Pookes: I take that back. Emotions are not necessarily thinking, but the interpretation of emotions are forms of thinking.

Eos Amaterasu: the question is what do we think with?

kenji Pookes: brains

Pila Mulligan: only if you think anbout them :)

Eos Amaterasu: it may not be just with the brain? Why should it be?

kenji Pookes: Well, I know a few people who think with their asses, but that's a different issue.

Pila Mulligan: :)

Pila Mulligan: another direct reading

Eos Amaterasu: Exactly :-)

kenji Pookes: I'm not clear on wht you mean by a direct reading. I don't think we have direct readings, as I understand what you are saying.

Pila Mulligan: yes, I see you don't

kenji Pookes: I think all encounters with the world are interpreted and, thus, are impossible to fully separate from culture

Pila Mulligan: but what I mean is that 90% of our culutral perception is physicalm not mental

kenji Pookes: Say again?

Pila Mulligan: 90% of our cultural perception is physical and not mental

Pila Mulligan: not thinking

Eos Amaterasu: What does that mean, pila?

Pila Mulligan: 10% is thinkiing

kenji Pookes: What is "cultural perception"?

Eos Amaterasu: OH!

kenji Pookes: How do you measure the percentages? Could they not be different in different cultures?

Pila Mulligan: I am really old, and have lived a third of my life in three different culutres, that is how I came to this conclusion

Eos Amaterasu: You mean we're not consciously aware of it, whether it be physical (like how our body bends in different cultures), or how our vocal apparatus shapes words

Pila Mulligan: yes Eos

Pila Mulligan: how our body shapes feelings

Pila Mulligan: how oyu hold your butt, your jaw, your chest, your arms

Eos Amaterasu: INdeed, we learn a lot into our bodies, and then get driven by that

kenji Pookes: I would agree that our bodies influence emotions.

Pila Mulligan: e-motion

kenji Pookes: How you hold your butt, jow, chest, etc. is influenced by culture. Back to Bourdieu and the idea of habitus. I think he is right about that. I am an American and it is pretty obvious when I travel just by the way I walk.

Pila Mulligan: ever heard of bandhs?

kenji Pookes: Bandhs? No.

Pila Mulligan: related to yoga

Pila Mulligan: heard of chakras?

kenji Pookes: Oh, I don't really know anything about youga. Heard the world chakras.

Pila Mulligan: okay, chakras are like ganglia

kenji Pookes: What do they do?

Pila Mulligan: bandhs are more like sphicnters

Pila Mulligan: they shape energyu internally

kenji Pookes: Are you talking about ki æ°—

Pila Mulligan: no

Pila Mulligan: ki is a form of internal enegry though

kenji Pookes: Assuming it exists.

Pila Mulligan: :) it does

kenji Pookes: I'm not sure about that.

Pila Mulligan: I am

kenji Pookes: I am not saying it doesn't; just that I have not been convinced.

Pila Mulligan: I understand

Pila Mulligan: I am just sayig I have been :)

Pila Mulligan: so bandhs are a nice way to see cultural differences

kenji Pookes: I should probably add that I am about the most unspiritual being possible.

Pila Mulligan: an extremist eh?

kenji Pookes: I guess so, but not really as a political statement, more based upon what I see as evidence in the world.

kenji Pookes: I'm open to alternatives, just unconvinced that any I've studied are accurate.

Pila Mulligan: well, wait for the proof :)

Pila Mulligan: skpeticism helps

kenji Pookes: I'm not really waiting for proof, just evidence. Skepticism is a good way to be--the only way to maintain an open mind.

Eos Amaterasu: There is a questioning process that is helpful, and might lead to the unexpected

Pila Mulligan: actually proof is usually a subjective interpetation of evidence

Eos Amaterasu: That is the question: "who is experiencing this?"

Eos Amaterasu: "what is experiencing this?"

kenji Pookes: experienceing what?

Eos Amaterasu: Experiencing exactly what you are just experiencing!

kenji Pookes: I am

Eos Amaterasu: Who is convinced of that?

kenji Pookes: OF what?

Eos Amaterasu: That "I am" is experiencing that

kenji Pookes: Well, I'm the one writing, so I must be the one experiencing this.

Eos Amaterasu: And who is this "I"?

kenji Pookes: The biological organism that is typing these words.

Eos Amaterasu: :-)

Eos Amaterasu: Cool - the question does not really require an answer, because answers will prematurely stop the questioning.

Eos Amaterasu: In fact that's what an answer is.

Eos Amaterasu: It's more important to keep asking the question

Pila Mulligan cannot spell -- it is bandhas, not bandhs -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandha -- please pardon the correction as an interruption

kenji Pookes: Yes, all ansers generate more questions, thus no real answers.

kenji Pookes: I agree that questioning is best.

kenji Pookes: But answers are useful landing points form which to generate more questions.

Eos Amaterasu: Indeed - but staying in the question, not leaping out of it, helps see those answers which come too quickly....

Eos Amaterasu: I think this "question" is more a practice than a question, though it is a real question

kenji Pookes: I'm losing the thread on the what "I" am question here.

Eos Amaterasu: I think it's related to the Play as Being practice of suspending the "having" connection to experience, including that of myself as the author of my experience

Eos Amaterasu: either brain or mind can be premature answers to being in that question

kenji Pookes: Oh. I think of myself as the co-author of my experience. Since there are other people and things, it is impossible for me to be a sole author.

Eos Amaterasu: Yes, very much so.

Eos Amaterasu: My thoughts would never have arisen here without yours :-)

Eos Amaterasu: IN fact, 99.9% of my thoughts seem to come from other people :-)

kenji Pookes: Let me rephrase my thinking on this. I don't think the question "what am I" is important. I think the important and interesteing questions are what do people do? The doing is what matters and the interpretation of doing.

Pila Mulligan: sounds brainy :)

Eos Amaterasu: It's not really a question of what I am in the sense of what collection of attributes can be found to describe "me"

kenji Pookes: That's certianly where it's happening--lots of doing in the brain.

Eos Amaterasu: It's more a matter of catching myself being the being that claims to be "me"

Pila Mulligan: how do you do calmness?

kenji Pookes: Actually, I think it is just a question of attributes, which is why I don't hink it is a very interesting question.

Eos Amaterasu: Ah!

Eos Amaterasu: That

Eos Amaterasu: is it!

kenji Pookes: is what?

Eos Amaterasu: To be is a verb

kenji Pookes: or not to be

Eos Amaterasu: Be-ing is not a noun, in that sense/derivation

Pila Mulligan: wherefore art thou being?

kenji Pookes: Being is a process.

kenji Pookes: IT is a continuous unfolding.

Eos Amaterasu: MOre that that: process is a noun describing what your a be-ing right now!~

Eos Amaterasu: Am I being unfolded, or am I unfolding?

kenji Pookes: both

kenji Pookes: I am unfolding you as I interpet you and your existence; you are unfolding as you experience the interpretations others ascribe upon you and impose upon you and that you generate yourself.

Eos Amaterasu: Yes, we find ourselves in a mutual soup

kenji Pookes: It's called culture.

Eos Amaterasu: All our gestures and vocalizations and even intentions are shaped by that

kenji Pookes: yup

Eos Amaterasu: but the question who is experiencing that is still there

kenji Pookes: huh?

Pila Mulligan: was that a culutral huh?

kenji Pookes: All huh's are cultural huhs

Eos Amaterasu: am I the american? the canadian? the belgian? the japanese one?

Pila Mulligan: :)

kenji Pookes: huh

Pila Mulligan: now that huh was form Texas, I heard it :)

kenji Pookes: Sorry, I don't mean to be dense, but I don't get it.

kenji Pookes: that would be huh, y'all

Pila Mulligan: :)

Eos Amaterasu: I think there's a disconnect between two ways of thinking:

kenji Pookes: Could be.

Eos Amaterasu: a) everything we experieince is through our mind

Eos Amaterasu: b) everything we expereince is through our brain

kenji Pookes: But our mind is just another world for our brain.

Eos Amaterasu: brain is mind's word

kenji Pookes: mind is brain's word

Eos Amaterasu: exactly: that's the two ways :-)

kenji Pookes: Well, if you are suggesting a dualism between mind and brain, then we are on diferent pages. I think brain is all we've got.

kenji Pookes: I follow the zen notion of no mind...

kenji Pookes: literally

Pila Mulligan: that may be an approximation of zen

kenji Pookes: Well, guys, it's getting pretty latein Texas. Thank you for this fascinating conversation. i've enjoyed it (or at least my brain has).

Pila Mulligan: I hope your heart also was happy

Pila Mulligan: bye kenji

Eos Amaterasu: No matter, never mind!

Eos Amaterasu: bye Kenji

kenji Pookes: Just pumpig--but my brain is quite happy. Bye.

Pila Mulligan: defending the fort :)

Eos Amaterasu: Heh heh

Eos Amaterasu: Francisco Varela talks about the "blind spot", not seeing "first person experience"

Pila Mulligan: I frimly believe in blind spots

Eos Amaterasu: touch and go

Pila Mulligan: this time is kind of a blind spot for Europenas as a phenomenology theme session

Pila Mulligan: mostly sleeping

Eos Amaterasu: you lose yourself, your reappear, you suddenly find you have no on e to fear, alone you stand with nobody near till some trembling distant voice unclear startles your sleepy ears to hear that somebody thinks they've really found you

Eos Amaterasu: (Bob Dylan)

Pila Mulligan: no ka oi :)

Pila Mulligan: (the best)

Eos Amaterasu: Speaking of sleeping, it's way late here.....

Pila Mulligan: yes, I was just thinking about what a late hour it is for you

Eos Amaterasu: Nice to be here, ciao!

Pila Mulligan: bye Eos, sweet dreams

Eos Amaterasu: Bye Pila!