2009.09.29 07:00 - Belief feels right

The Guardian for this meeting was Riddle Sideways. The comments are by Riddle Sideways.

For once, Riddle shut up and listened.  I hope what comments I add do not detract from the dialogue Yakuzza and Pema have.

Yakuzza Lethecus: hey riddle
Riddle Sideways: Good Morning, Yaku
Riddle Sideways: sorry,had a phone call
Yakuzza Lethecus: who calls at 7 am ? :)
Riddle Sideways: daugther forgot something
Riddle Sideways: could I bring it when I go to town
Yakuzza Lethecus: ah, she´s now at college or still highschool ? i remember she was in israel
Riddle Sideways: good memory, wow
Riddle Sideways: she is in last year of high school
Yakuzza Lethecus: many people here do a year in the states during highschool (gymnasium)
Riddle Sideways: did you?
Yakuzza Lethecus: no i´ve never been there
Yakuzza Lethecus: 24hrs in britain and 3 weeks in ireland
Yakuzza Lethecus: thats about it for me in english country´s
Yakuzza Lethecus: have you been somewhere ?
Riddle Sideways: very little, mostly 49 of the 50 states (never been to Alaska)
Riddle Sideways: Canada many times, some Mexico

Yakuzza Lethecus: how come ur interest in buddism ?
Riddle Sideways: interested in all religions
Riddle Sideways: need to understand all major religions to understand belief systems
Yakuzza Lethecus: i try to erase my biasess and prejudices about religions because when i hear something i just don´t trigger even on things that i don´t understand especially in my own religion
Yakuzza Lethecus: so i have no clue what all the liturgia means but i just accepted it

Riddle Sideways: belief == just accepting it
Yakuzza Lethecus: and somehow it bothers me but i don´t really know why it feels not so easy to get to know why things happen in the judeo christion tradition
Riddle Sideways: some people need scientific facts, cause/effect, rules, laws
Riddle Sideways: others can just play the music, do an art...
Yakuzza Lethecus: yeah, me too but i notices that i don´t even understand those facts :)
Riddle Sideways: most need to connect with something that they feel is bigger then themselves
Yakuzza Lethecus: so right now i have an episode in which i am really interested in epistemology
Riddle Sideways: yet we just accept stuff
Yakuzza Lethecus: how do we come to know things and the world, and how much space is there for metaphysics and how much do we need empirical data
Yakuzza Lethecus: thats a constant ongoing concern while i was around secondlife
Riddle Sideways: because a. it very well might get proven later b. it feels right
Yakuzza Lethecus: right, i often decide by feeling :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: 80% of the times what feels right is right

--BELL--
Riddle Sideways: each person seems to have different/personal levels of comfort with un-known-ness
Riddle Sideways: you can just feel that any unproven thing is just right/wrong
Riddle Sideways: some can not do that
Riddle Sideways: some have to be told. And they will accept what they are told
Yakuzza Lethecus: but i am also concerned with the issue that i just don´t think in language and don´t have a code/words for those thougtstructures
Yakuzza Lethecus: at some point we all are

Yakuzza Lethecus: hiya pema
Riddle Sideways: pls say more about structures
Riddle Sideways: good morning, Pema
Pema Pera: Morning, Riddle and Yaku!
Riddle Sideways: where is Pema today?
Pema Pera: in Princeton, for a change :)
Pema Pera: at least his typist is
Riddle Sideways: :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: change ?
Yakuzza Lethecus: change of vehicles ?
Riddle Sideways: I feel (maybe a little) like you must today
Riddle Sideways: I was in NYC for 48 hours
Pema Pera: vehicles, Yaku?
Riddle Sideways: red eye out and tooo early back
Pema Pera: that doesn't sound like much fun, Riddle
Yakuzza Lethecus: ah, i was thinking you´ve been in an amtrack yesterday the week before in japan
Riddle Sideways: true, was not much fun
Riddle Sideways: add fasting yesterday
Yakuzza Lethecus: omg you are moving all the time so i don´t know how you travel all the time :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: let me guess pema you have a bike from home to work in princeton ?
Pema Pera: the nice thing is that here in SL I always return to the same place
Riddle Sideways: Pema's laptop is his home :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: hehe :)
Pema Pera: that would be a long bike ride, Yaku, I live in New York, an hour by train
Yakuzza Lethecus: ah ok :)
Riddle Sideways: years ago I knew a traveling salesman that decorated his bedroom to look like a motel room
Riddle Sideways: so he would feel more at home at home and away

Yakuzza Lethecus: back to the problem of language and thoughtstructrues often i just don´t know how to put all emotions and thoughts into one sentence
Yakuzza Lethecus: when i have the feeling that something is right then i guess i have enough experience even to expalin it
Yakuzza Lethecus: but i might not have an elaborated code to put talk it away
Pema Pera: btw, Yakuzza, I enjoyed hearing you talk about :)
Pema Pera: :)
Pema Pera: oops, sorry
Riddle Sideways: yes, back to belief without proof
Pema Pera: cut and paste problem
Pema Pera: about thoughts the other day -- is that what you were talking about today as well?
Yakuzza Lethecus: what have i said the other day ?
Pema Pera: let me check, better than trying to guess
Yakuzza Lethecus: we´ve been talking about accepting things before
Riddle Sideways: more about 80% being right about feeling right
Yakuzza Lethecus: how much knowledge do we need to accept

Pema Pera: I meant from two days ago: [2009/09/27 7:54] Yakuzza Lethecus: so i am stuck by the question ,,how we really think"
Riddle Sideways: each person seems to have a belief level
--BELL--
Yakuzza Lethecus: pema:yes that is the same problem i am constantly thinking about
Riddle Sideways: yes, we think therefore we are... is a great thing, but
Riddle Sideways: how do we think?
Yakuzza Lethecus: i think that i often trick myself, i start thinking in lanugage but i circle the same words around often and don´t get anywhere
Riddle Sideways: we think about thinking
Yakuzza Lethecus: so i don´t know what thinking is but i feel that it´s not the verbal process i even use with myself
Yakuzza Lethecus: you take a walk and somehow you get a solution you didn´t think about for days
Riddle Sideways: or it is not in the verbal language that you consciensly use
Yakuzza Lethecus: but then you ,,want a solution for something" and you just don´t think constructivly
Yakuzza Lethecus: i am talking about myself obviously

Pema Pera: yes, there is the noisy babbling layer of the mind, and underneath is a totally different layers at work, it seems. When we can let the babbling part rest, the other part can come out much more clearly
Pema Pera: when I deal with a difficult problem, I don't try to reason myself through it. Rather, I first put all the elements on the table, so to speak: try to watch very clearly what all the ingredients are. Then, watching those quietly, some kind of structure or idea suggests itself. Only then, from that point on, do I use reasoning to test my intuitions.
Yakuzza Lethecus: so i am really interested in epistemology at the moment and also don´t know how to get something out of the phenomenology workshops i participate in
Yakuzza Lethecus: stims one :P
Pema Pera: do you try the kind of exercises that he suggests?
Yakuzza Lethecus: i try, but i don´t exersise i leterally circle in words that i don´t know what i should do even when i know what i should do in words
Yakuzza Lethecus: literally
Yakuzza Lethecus: not leterally :D
Riddle Sideways: :)

Pema Pera: if you do a physical exercise, like bicycling, or perhaps yoga or tai chi, your body tells you what is right and wrong, what is most natural -- could you apply that kind of "feeling what is natural" more broadly in your life?
Yakuzza Lethecus: i try to find techniqes, my concern is not that i counldn´t try the problem is to try those right
Riddle Sideways: can you loosen up the "must do right" concept?
Yakuzza Lethecus: i even don´t try to think about what i am doing here on pab, but i know that it feels right and is interesting in many situations even when i coulnd´t really explain a friend of mine what this is really about

Yakuzza Lethecus: but he´s also not into meditation and i know how he reacts even on the term ,,meditation"
--BELL--
Pema Pera: yes, I have many friends like that -- PaB is in part an answer to the question "how do you delve into an exploration of reality without using the word `meditation' ?" :-)
Yakuzza Lethecus: that is even anothing thing i am concerned about, that we already have meditation experiences ,,innert"
Yakuzza Lethecus: or during our development without transcribing it with the ,,word" meditation
Yakuzza Lethecus: somehow i had this ,,schema" about buddism and all those ,,fancy eastern religions" so often it seems that erasing thoughtstructres is more of an problem for me then learning new things
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: meditation is definitely not about erasing thought structures
Yakuzza Lethecus: awareness :)
Pema Pera: but rather about letting them flow freely without manipulating them
Pema Pera: we tend to be caught up in control and analysis

Yakuzza Lethecus: but we might get aware about a mindset that is just irrational and don´t persue that
Yakuzza Lethecus: so we erode it over time
Pema Pera: erode?
Yakuzza Lethecus: erase
Yakuzza Lethecus: i thought about erodieren :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: yeah, just erase
Pema Pera: but there is nothing to erase
Pema Pera: meditation is not about erasing anything
Yakuzza Lethecus: right
Yakuzza Lethecus: i meant it as a sideeffect
Pema Pera: why do you think it would have that side effect?
Yakuzza Lethecus: because if you become aware of a problem or unhealty behavior and understand it´s irrationality you might now behave in that way again
Yakuzza Lethecus: and when you don´t do that again it might just end up in ur experience that there are people exactly thinking in an irrational way where contamplation is ,,stupid crap "
Pema Pera: but I think that most of what we do is "irrational" in a very positive way -- from brushing our teeth to doing scientific research; we follow natural patterns and then afterwards we can reflect on them
Pema Pera: as for the notion of contemplation as "stupid crap" (which many people think nowadays), do you find that a problem when talking with others, or also when deciding for yourself whether contemplation is worthwhile doing?
Yakuzza Lethecus: i think more about my schema´s and that i just don´t know what it´s about and that i don´t even know what my own culture is
Yakuzza Lethecus: ,,stupid crap" is a habit i had towards many things other people also didn´t understood and decided to be stupid crap, and stupid crap can be fun
Pema Pera: as for "just don't know" -- if you can hold on to that openness, that then would be a great place to start an exploration from, without prejudices!
--BELL--

Pema Pera: then you can find out by honestly doing experiments, without expectations, just to see what happens. Experiments like "drop what you have to see what you are" and "appreciate the presence of appearance", two explorations we do here. Then, when you report what you find, you can compare notes with others here in the group, in the sessions and through email as well -- perhaps in your case email may work even better, since we can respond in paragraphs instead of just one or two sentences.
Yakuzza Lethecus: right stupid crap is ,,i just don´t know and i will never care about it"
Riddle Sideways really really wants you 2 to continue, but must slip quietly away to RL crap.
Yakuzza Lethecus: i do observe what other people explore
Pema Pera: bye Riddle!
Yakuzza Lethecus: bye riddle
Yakuzza Lethecus: practically those thing are providing me experiences how to talk about my own experiences better
Yakuzza Lethecus: i am even in the homework group for the phenomenology workshop
Pema Pera: you mean the Ways of Knowing group with Stim?
Yakuzza Lethecus: and i do listen to lectures/podcasts about philosophy
Yakuzza Lethecus: right
Yakuzza Lethecus: sry

Pema Pera: (we'll get a new workshop, called Phenomenology, on Fridays, starting this week, 8 am SLT)
Yakuzza Lethecus: wasn´t there an phenomenology workshop already ?
Pema Pera: yes, comparing what others report with your own experiences can be very helpful
Pema Pera: yes, there was one, but then that one stopped for the summer, and now we will start a new one
Yakuzza Lethecus: just heard about husserl today :)
Pema Pera: we will be talking about Husserl a lot, yes, -- how did you hear about him?
Yakuzza Lethecus: from math to phenomenology :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: a lecture about his life and work
Pema Pera: by whom?
Yakuzza Lethecus: and how he influenced the other existentialists
Yakuzza Lethecus: it´s a big lecture series
Pema Pera: oh yes, he had a great influence
--BELL--

Pema Pera: [note for the chat log: after our exchange above, Yakuzza and I talked for a while in IM]