2009.07.16 19:00 - Dropping is so important

The Guardian for this meeting was Sylectra Darwin. The comments are by Sylectra Darwin.

Sylectra Darwin: Greetings Pema!
Pema Pera: Hi Syl!
Sylectra Darwin: Hi Paradise!
Pema Pera: Good seeing you again
Pema Pera: Hi Paradise!
Paradise Tennant: hiya pema .. syl :))
Pema Pera: Sylectra, I hope it's okay for you to have this session as a theme session, this week?
Sylectra Darwin: no worries :)
Pema Pera: With Vajra Raymaker
Sylectra Darwin: Where is Vajra?
Pema Pera: I just got an IM from him
Pema Pera: hang on
Pema Pera: he seems to be stranded somewhere else
Paradise Tennant: :))
Sylectra Darwin: oh dear.
Pema Pera: at another meeting
Pema Pera: in fact, I have to leave unexpectedly early today :-)
Pema Pera: around 7:40 pm
Pema Pera: for an early lunch meeting, unscheduled, here at work
Sylectra Darwin: You have to leave unexpectedly today?
Pema Pera: I'm in Japan
Pema Pera: and it is 11:06 here now in the morning
Sylectra Darwin: Ah, okay.
Sylectra Darwin: So what's the theme today?
Paradise Tennant: :) nods ..sounds fine
Pema Pera: Okay, just finished my IMs with Vajra.
Pema Pera: We decided to postpone the theme session by one week
Pema Pera: if that's okay with you, Sylectra?
Paradise Tennant: ok
Pema Pera: given that he couldn't get out of his meeting quickly, and I have to leave early, we wouldn't have much time left today
Sylectra Darwin: that's fine!
Sylectra Darwin: How fun!
Sylectra Darwin: What is the theme again?
Pema Pera: sorry, "no self"
Paradise Tennant: :))
Pema Pera: or more broadly "intentionality", which is a philosophical term from the school of phenomenology
Sylectra Darwin: excellent. I think he was practicing last night, hehe
Paradise Tennant: good theme
Pema Pera: in short, the notion that normally every act of consciousness has an object
Pema Pera: and also a subject
Pema Pera: oh, he talked about it last night?
Sylectra Darwin: Not too specifically.
Sylectra Darwin: If I remember correctly, Vajra was here, right Paradise?
Paradise Tennant: hmm
Paradise Tennant: yes
Paradise Tennant: I think we talked mostly of fog :)
Pema Pera: nice topic!
Sylectra Darwin: ok, well we talked about broader principles of Buddhism.
Sylectra Darwin: hehe
Pema Pera: I love walking or bicycling in dense fog, a special kind of meditation :)
Paradise Tennant: yes
Pema Pera: does either of you have a topic you'd like to talk about today?
Paradise Tennant: it was a metaphor for what obstructs us from our pure being .. our buddha nature .. fog on the mirror
Paradise Tennant: :)) of our pure awareness
Paradise Tennant: hmm
Sylectra Darwin: yes, Paradise.
Sylectra Darwin: I don't really have a topic, but an observation about my day.
Paradise Tennant: ok
Pema Pera: please, Syl!
Sylectra Darwin: I had a very hard first half of the day, in which one of my clients accused me of not having done any work for her campaign thus far.
Pema Pera: do tell us!
Sylectra Darwin: I was able to easily show her what I had done for her each week, but it rattled me.
Sylectra Darwin: Then a hostile salesperson from another account was trying to reach me and the last time, he yelled at me for something I hadn't even done. So I said I had a meeting :)
Pema Pera: sounds like a rough day!
Sylectra Darwin: I went home to walk the dog for lunch and there was my sweetie, getting ready to take the kids to the beach for the day, and he asked me to go too.
Sylectra Darwin: It was like water for the thirsty person.
Paradise Tennant: :)) love the beach
Paradise Tennant: i bet
--BELL--
Sylectra Darwin: We went to the Jersey shore. The sun was streaking through the clouds off and on because rain was coming.
Sylectra Darwin: The waves were tiny on the bay side and their little peaks were bright silver.
Sylectra Darwin: I found a swing, and I just abandoned all cares for 10 minutes. It was absolute bliss.
Paradise Tennant: perfect remedy for the constraints of your morning :))
Sylectra Darwin: It was the power of being able to truly let go, knowing bliss is waiting for you as soon as you do.
Paradise Tennant: yes
Sylectra Darwin: Truly, Paradise.
Pema Pera: wonderful, Syl!
Pema Pera: dropping is so important . . .
Sylectra Darwin: thanks - just a happy moment, but significant.
Sylectra Darwin: I've been trying to do it every day, and managing several times a day, with practice.
Paradise Tennant: hmm there are some places that just move your spirit ..we have a beautiful beach here ..whenever I am working on something difficult it is the first place I head with the dog ..to just stroll and think :)))
Paradise Tennant: :)
Sylectra Darwin: Dogs are a wonderful invitation to let go.
Paradise Tennant: lol yes
Paradise Tennant: they are
Paradise Tennant: they wriggle joy with their whole being body and soul :)
Sylectra Darwin: Don't you just love it! LOL
Pema Pera: cats for me do a good job too, in a different way . . . going their own way
Paradise Tennant: slightly haughty but .. cuddly too !
Sylectra Darwin: Do you have a cat, Pema?
Pema Pera: very cuddly, yes, once you know how to read them and respond to them
Pema Pera: I grew up with cats, but now I'm traveling too much, unfortunately
Pema Pera: would be impossible to keep a cat, unless he/she would travel with me :-)
Paradise Tennant: i was going to suggest early ..how we learn to accept what arises in our day .. such a difficult daily practice and your story exemplified it :))
Sylectra Darwin: yea, even cats would get lonely, but you could possibly train one to happily go with you on the plane.
Paradise Tennant: *earlier
Sylectra Darwin: smiles
Paradise Tennant: hmm in a carrier
Paradise Tennant: :))
Paradise Tennant: with drugs lol
Pema Pera: :)
Sylectra Darwin: Some cats travel very well!
Sylectra Darwin: I had a boss that traveled with her cat Felix when she drove from Tulsa to Chicago.
Sylectra Darwin: He would lounge in the back seat, totally unperturbed.
Paradise Tennant: :)) he liked road trips :)
Paradise Tennant: me too !
Pema Pera: cats come in many different flavors, like dogs . . . .
Sylectra Darwin: You do travel a lot, Pema!
Pema Pera: well, yes, I'm all over the place :)
Paradise Tennant: loses its thrill when you have to do it so much :))
Pema Pera: not really, I still enjoy it
Pema Pera: but it's more like international commute
Pema Pera: I have a few places with ongoing work collaborations:
Pema Pera: Tokyo, Kyoto, Berkeley CA, Amsterdam
Pema Pera: so most travels are not to totally new places, that would be far more tiring
Paradise Tennant: yes :))
Sylectra Darwin: I see how that would be.
Sylectra Darwin: Your schedule sounds like fun sometimes, to me.
Pema Pera: oh, it is :-)
Paradise Tennant: nice :)) to be at home where you go :)
Pema Pera: definitely
Pema Pera: that's home it feels
Pema Pera: *how
Pema Pera: interesting typo :)
Paradise Tennant: :))
Sylectra Darwin: Tell me how you do it.
Sylectra Darwin: How do you feel at home in so many places?
Pema Pera: hmmm, the simple answer is: I just do :)
Pema Pera: perhaps because my parents moved a lot when I was young
Paradise Tennant: :))
Pema Pera: every three years or so to a new house, every six years to a new town
Sylectra Darwin: Do you have a ritual that helps you get oriented when you arrive in a new place?
Pema Pera: no, at least no special ritual
Pema Pera: I do have my own forms of practice/explorations
Pema Pera: and that certainly helps ground me
--BELL--
Paradise Tennant: :)) finding the nearest starbucks would be one of my first choices :)) .. sometimes .. a familar taste helps :)
Sylectra Darwin: Maybe you meditate when you first get to your destination?
Pema Pera: by now meditation is so much part of my daily life that it sort-of naturally blends with anything I do
Pema Pera: it doesn't feel so much like a separate act or time
Sylectra Darwin: nice observation!
Paradise Tennant: :))))))))))))
Pema Pera: though of course it is always great to just sit for a while, as an extra treat
Pema Pera: yes, familiarity in a place helps a lot, Paradise
Sylectra Darwin: For someone like me, that still must deliberately plan on being quietly mindful, what is it like to have very little separation?
Pema Pera: That's why traveling to Kyoto or Tokyo for me is like a commute; have been at both places at least once a year for the last 25 years or so :)
Pema Pera: well, for all of us, Syl, focus comes and goes, and we all tend to forget what reality is like, and how easy it all is :-)
Pema Pera: in my experience, though, over the years the time between forgetting and remembering becomes shorter and shorter
Pema Pera: from months to weeks to days to hours to minures or seconds :-)
Sylectra Darwin: wonderful...the time between forgetting and remembering.
Pema Pera: over the 40 years or so since I started to explore emptiness, etc
Pema Pera: perhaps more important than shrinking time intervals
Pema Pera: is the keen knowledge that you'll get back there, that nothing is ever lost
Pema Pera: that makes such a huge difference
Pema Pera: that you can smile about being "out of it"
Pema Pera: knowing that you're still in it
Pema Pera: from past experience
Sylectra Darwin: I love being out of it. :)
Pema Pera: :-)
Paradise Tennant: there is a release when you get a taste of .. not sure the word but say the bigger perspective that takes a lot of the fear away from daily life and the prospect of death
Pema Pera: oh yes!
Sylectra Darwin: I was walking in the woods with my young friend who is 12. She is unusually good with adults.
Pema Pera: how nice!
Sylectra Darwin: I was trying to express to her the expansiveness you can feel when you are in natural spaces.
Pema Pera: btw, I'll have to take off for my unusually early lunch now
Sylectra Darwin: She has never been exposed to the idea of meditation or anything like that but seems very receptive
Sylectra Darwin: have to go, Pema?
Paradise Tennant: kk pema enjoy your lunch :))
Pema Pera: yup
Sylectra Darwin: ok, you enjoy and we'll see you soon, if not next week!
Pema Pera: see you soon again!
Pema Pera: ah yes, thanks again for letting us hijack your session :-)
Paradise Tennant: :))
Paradise Tennant: would you like to do a quick meditation syl .. or do you have time ?
Sylectra Darwin: sure
Sylectra Darwin: what do you have in mind?
Paradise Tennant: ok say five minutes of simply sitting
Sylectra Darwin: sure!
Paradise Tennant: focusing on your . expansiveness .. :))
Sylectra Darwin: k
--BELL--
Paradise Tennant: :)
Sylectra Darwin: Lovely
Paradise Tennant: I enjoyed that thanks very kindly syl ..
Sylectra Darwin: me too.
Paradise Tennant: lovely be quiet and at peace
Sylectra Darwin: absolutely
Sylectra Darwin: Unless you would like to discuss something further...
Sylectra Darwin: I think I am almost ready for bed. :)
Paradise Tennant: me too
Paradise Tennant: good night :))
Paradise Tennant: be well :))
Sylectra Darwin: nite Paradise!
Sylectra Darwin: you too.
Paradise Tennant: nite nite