2009.08.06 07:00 - APAPB "We LOVE Homework"

The Guardian for this meeting was genesis Zhangsun. The comments are by genesis Zhangsun.

I sat alone for about ten minutes and then noticed that Pema was there.

Pema Pera: Hi there, Gen!
genesis Zhangsun: Hi!
genesis Zhangsun: :)
Pema Pera: :)
genesis Zhangsun: started checking email :)
Pema Pera: I figured :)
genesis Zhangsun: hope you weren't wondering for too long
Pema Pera: oh no
genesis Zhangsun: how are you?
Pema Pera: busy and happy
Pema Pera: and you?
--BELL--
genesis Zhangsun: I am also keeping busy and happy
genesis Zhangsun: :)
genesis Zhangsun: its been a bit of a process with the transition
genesis Zhangsun: to the team, to job hunting, to tying up loose strings w/Kira, to retreat planning
Pema Pera: I can imagine!
Pema Pera: Thank you so much for all the organizing you've done for the retreat
genesis Zhangsun: sure!

Adams appears...

Pema Pera: Hi Adams!
genesis Zhangsun: Hi Adams!
Adams Rubble: Hello Pema and gen :)
Pema Pera: Adams and Fefonz and I had lunch two days ago in Princeton
Adams Rubble: Hello Sophia :)
Pema Pera: Hi Sophia!
genesis Zhangsun: wow :) lucky me Pema and Adams in the same place :)
genesis Zhangsun: Hi Sophia!
Adams Rubble: hehe
SophiaSharon Larnia: Hi All :)

Pema asks Adams about his homework assignment....

Pema Pera: Adams, how is your watching going?
Adams Rubble: I could say that about being the same place with gen and pema and Sophia :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: I am having trouble staying in sl, if I disappear, I crashed again
genesis Zhangsun: beautiful sari Sophia
SophiaSharon Larnia: Thank you Gen :)
Adams Rubble: Haven't done too much watching this morning, alas
Pema Pera: Do you want to summarize the exploration you're engaged in these few weeks, leading up to the retreat, Adams?
Adams Rubble: :)
Adams Rubble: Pema has given me a homework assignment :)
Adams Rubble: That I watch my thoughts and reort to him very day
genesis Zhangsun: "we LOVE homework"
Adams Rubble: hehe
Pema Pera: hehehe
Adams Rubble: yes PaB homework is fulfilling :)
Pema Pera: so the idea was to just watch how thoughts appear an disappear
Adams Rubble: A few interesting things have happened in the first two days
Pema Pera: without judging them or following them and also without trying to suppress them in any way
Adams Rubble: yes
Pema Pera: yes, would you like to summarize, Adams?
Adams Rubble: It is hard for not to judge and to not hold on the the thoughts
Adams Rubble: Well the first thing of interest was on the train
Adams Rubble: not necessarily thoguht watching but APAPB
Adams Rubble: It was a warm day and I arrived at the station a bit disheveled and probably pretty silly looking after the biccyle ride to the station
Adams Rubble: which was very much in contrast to the thoughts I had
Adams Rubble: It occured to me how much we decide about people based on their appearcne
Adams Rubble: and how wahat was going on in my head was unrelated to that
Adams Rubble: then I realized my appearance was a presentation of Being
Adams Rubble: It may have been the first time that struck me
Adams Rubble: and how my other manifestrations also are a presentation fo being
Adams Rubble: such different appearances
Adams Rubble: same Being
SophiaSharon Larnia: :)
Adams Rubble: The next event was last night
Adams Rubble: I had spent twnety minutes watching my thoughts
Adams Rubble: and trying to discourage them from lingering :)
Adams Rubble: and it went OK, nothing spectacular
Adams Rubble: later i was with a friend who asked me how I was
Adams Rubble: assuming I had had a pretty successful day
Adams Rubble: and I immediately latched on to the fact that my big project was not moving that well
Adams Rubble: and then just like that...poof
Adams Rubble: I realized I could let that thought go
Adams Rubble: and di
Adams Rubble: did
Pema Pera: wonderful, Adams!
Adams Rubble: It was a useful use of the homework assignment :)
Adams Rubble takes a breath
genesis Zhangsun: thankyou for sharing
Pema Pera: it's so easy to let go, once we realize we can just let go -- but we tend to forget that we even can do that in the middle of arguments etc
--BELL--
genesis Zhangsun: when you let the thought go how did you experience the rest of your conversation with your friend?
Adams Rubble: It was a reset buttton
Adams Rubble: and my friend appreciated what had just happened
Adams Rubble: so we went back to talking :)
genesis Zhangsun: did you let it go because you saw it as an "attachment" or because you could see that was not what needed to be said
Adams Rubble: It did not need to be said :)
Adams Rubble: Maybe a judgement call in best not saying it :)
Adams Rubble: why wallow in the negative of the moment
Adams Rubble: grab the positive energy instead
SophiaSharon Larnia: it does seem sometimes that conversations with other people while thinking on these things can be a catalyst :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: the interactions revel a lot
SophiaSharon Larnia: reveal*
genesis Zhangsun: inside and outside complement one another
genesis Zhangsun: feed into one another
genesis Zhangsun: in a way what you describes sounds a bit like wu wei
SophiaSharon Larnia: like being needs being, to become aware of itself
Adams Rubble: To answer Gen's comment, yes in the sense that the exercise prepared the way and then it just followed
Pema Pera: It is surprisingly difficult at first to just watch thoughts, without preference, without chasing one and avoiding another, without judgment; our mind is like an auction or market place: anything that comes up we tend to evaluate and hang price tags off of, effectively.
Adams Rubble: Sophia, yes to the importance of other people to make us more aware of what we are saying. Like looking in a mirror while taklking
genesis Zhangsun: to Adams: yes and also in the way you were able to recognize something fundamental about reality at that moment as opposed to being stuck in a fabrication (your slow project) of what that moment could be
Adams Rubble: :) Pema
Adams Rubble: Is that wu wei?
Pema Pera: it's certainly related
Adams Rubble: I sort of think of wu wei as falling into awareness
genesis Zhangsun: "our old friend wu wei " as Wol says :)
Adams Rubble: :)
genesis Zhangsun: falling into awareness and recognizing something fundamental about reality
genesis Zhangsun: I think same speak
Pema Pera: judging is an added kind of action, a type of doing, that can be dropped to get not-doing, wu wei -- overly or unnecessary judging, that is; of course we do need to make natural judgments, like drivingon the right side of the road and such
genesis Zhangsun: you must have one to have the other
Adams Rubble: I am having a very silly thought
Adams Rubble: I think as this avatar I drive on the left side of the road, but they mostly don;t let me drive :)
Pema Pera: :-)
--BELL--

A few pieces regarding APAPB fell together for me...

genesis Zhangsun: going back to APAPB
genesis Zhangsun: so appearance includes inner and outer appearances
genesis Zhangsun: thoughts and physical appearances
genesis Zhangsun: and it is is about appreciating both
genesis Zhangsun: seeing both
genesis Zhangsun: but attaching to neither
Adams Rubble: yes, Gen seeing all the appearance, not just aprt of it
genesis Zhangsun: and see that they are all contributing
Adams Rubble: but hard to see the inner of strangers
genesis Zhangsun: all nonthreatening, can be include in your experience
Adams Rubble: but then it is knowing it is there
Adams Rubble: what we share with fellow beings
Adams Rubble: thanks gen
genesis Zhangsun: just thinking alound :)
genesis Zhangsun: aloud
genesis Zhangsun: is that a word?
Adams Rubble: :)
Pema Pera: :-)
SophiaSharon Larnia: we do see appearances similarily, as shared experience
SophiaSharon Larnia: although can not see it
Pema Pera: on one level, strictly speaking, each phenomenon or appearance is different for each of us, each moment; and yet there is a lot that is shared
Pema Pera: like sitting here around the "same" pond together
SophiaSharon Larnia: yes
Pema Pera: while each pond is conjured up as pixels on screens thousands of miles away from each other
Pema Pera: as for "nonthreatening", also when appearances are threatening, the "threat" perceived itself is an appearance
Pema Pera: and as such can be nonthreatening!
genesis Zhangsun: yes perhaps what I meant to say is all included in appearance
genesis Zhangsun: which is quite radical!!!
Pema Pera: we don't need to add fear to create fear of fear -- we can just stop at fear
Pema Pera: yes, VERY radical!
genesis Zhangsun: this is the self cleaning oven :) concept we have talked about Pema
Pema Pera: we can accept threat without being threatened by threat
genesis Zhangsun: and what you referred to in " illusion of illusion"
Pema Pera: yes, it's all inclusive
SophiaSharon Larnia: i have been wondering if appearance is another word for awareness
SophiaSharon Larnia: (different word but smiliar idea)
Adams Rubble: or is the apprectaion the awareness part
Pema Pera: awareness gives rise to all that appearance as content of awareness
Pema Pera: appreciation is also an appearance :)
Adams Rubble: :)
Pema Pera: and so is lack of appreciation
SophiaSharon Larnia: :)
Pema Pera: or disinterest, etc
Adams Rubble: the appearance of APAPB :)
Pema Pera: and yes, we can appreciation our, or others', appreciation too!
Pema Pera: *appreciate
Pema Pera: appreciate the presence of appreciation of appearances :)
genesis Zhangsun: what I find so radical about it is that it heals the gap for me in the sence of outer and inner
genesis Zhangsun: into one fundamental reality
genesis Zhangsun: it also presents a groundless "ground"
genesis Zhangsun: one that does not require cultivation
genesis Zhangsun: or action to maintain it
genesis Zhangsun: just see it
Pema Pera: yes, the move in phenomenology, to see all that appears in any form as just phenomena, is an amazingly radical starting step
Pema Pera: much more amazing than most students or even professors in phenomenology seem torealize . . .
genesis Zhangsun: "plain as the nose on your face and too mundane to see it" :)
Pema Pera: :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: but are appearances being seeing itself? The illusion of appearance seem to have a functin, to me
SophiaSharon Larnia: why the illusion
Pema Pera: illusions are appearances too . . .
--BELL--
Pema Pera: and there is the question who is seeing (hearing, etc) all those appearances? Normally we would say "I do that" but if we play as Being, we can say "Being does the seeing, hearing, etc" -- and what Being sees is of course also Being, in the form of appearances.
genesis Zhangsun: also if you see inner and outer appearance as one fundamental reality there is no subject and no object
genesis Zhangsun: no self
SophiaSharon Larnia: yes, no subject without an object
genesis Zhangsun: appearance as the groundless "ground" makes playing as being possible
SophiaSharon Larnia: :)
Pema Pera: what we normally call inner and outer involves objects in both cases, like a stone we see and classify as an outer object, and a fantasy or memory which we call an inner object; in both cases we normally deal with the subject/object split
Pema Pera: yes, the presence of appearance is all that is given, no extra ground
genesis Zhangsun: but the question is do we see really see appearance as appearance?
Pema Pera: a focus on the presence of appearance helps counteract our habitual focus on the meaning or content of appearance
Pema Pera: and that helps to see appearance as "sheer appearance"
Pema Pera: as just "what is there"
Pema Pera: the presence of appearance
SophiaSharon Larnia: :) Pema
genesis Zhangsun: I must be going
Adams Rubble: bye Gen :)
genesis Zhangsun: thank you all for this wonderful conversation
Pema Pera: bye Genesis!
SophiaSharon Larnia: bye Gen
Pema Pera: thank you too!
genesis Zhangsun: bye all!
SophiaSharon Larnia: I must be going also, take care!
Adams Rubble: bye Sophia :)
Pema Pera: bye Sophia!
Adams Rubble is thinking about all the abstractions
Pema Pera: yes?
Adams Rubble: I am just slow in grasping them
Pema Pera: can you give an example?
Adams Rubble: It was the sheer number of words flying by, not any particular one. Sometimes seems just a changing of word order
Pema Pera: I always like to go slow, and to retrace our steps . . . .
Adams Rubble: But looking back, the not making judgments about content of appearances stands out as a useful thing to ponder :)
Pema Pera: like returning to the sentence APAPB, I can spend a life time on unraveing the many layers of meaning there . . . .
Pema Pera: yes, and that is the same as the exploration I suggested to you two days ago
Adams Rubble nods
Pema Pera: to just watch thoughts come and go, independent of their meaning or imputed value
Adams Rubble: maybe that is why it stood out :)
Pema Pera: talking about coming and going, perhaps I should be going too :)
Adams Rubble: OK. bye Pema :)
Pema Pera: please keep sending me the daily emails!
Adams Rubble: have a good day :)
Pema Pera: I enjoy reading them
Pema Pera: you too!
Adams Rubble: thank you :)
Pema Pera: bfn
Adams Rubble: bye