2009.11.19 07:00 - Tiny Flames and Morning Glories

The Guardian for this meeting was Pema Pera. The comments are by Pema Pera.

Soon after I arrived, Eliza dropped by as well.

Pema Pera: Hi Eliza, good morning!
Eliza Madrigal: Morning pema :)
Pema Pera: Quiet morning, it seems, here in the country side of SL
Eliza Madrigal closes email
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Pema Pera: :)
Eliza Madrigal: The morning times are funny
Eliza Madrigal: Every once in a while quite a few people, but not too often :)
Pema Pera: it is nice to have the variety
Pema Pera: having ten or fifteen people can be interesting
Pema Pera: but having two or three people allows for a different dynamic
Pema Pera: both can be fun
Eliza Madrigal: Yes, true :)
Pema Pera: is there a topic you'd like to talk about?
Eliza Madrigal: I've come in a bit of a blank slate this morning actually, though I did wake up thinking about grace/letting go...
Eliza Madrigal: and somehow had the idea that when we're letting go of roles, that it is more than that... it is like entire lives
Eliza Madrigal: I know, strange thought but there it is :)
Pema Pera: hi Arch!
Eliza Madrigal: Hello Arch :)
Archmage Atlantis: Hi Pema,, Hello Eliza

Pema Pera: yes, Eliza, letting go of roles can feel like dying . . . in some sense, sometimes in a very real sense
Archmage Atlantis: Quiet here today
Pema Pera: we are used to identify so much with our roles that it can literally feel as if our life depended on them . . . .
Pema Pera: nice to have some quite time, Arch, don't you think?
Eliza Madrigal: Perhaps due to my Christian upbringing, grace and heaven seem to go together...so yes it seems like a substance almost, that allows the roles to fall away
Archmage Atlantis: All I have now is quite time, actually
Pema Pera: can you say more about that, Eliza?
--BELL--
Archmage Atlantis: Very interesting comment, Eliza.
Eliza Madrigal: :) Thanks Arch, and yes Pema, a little...
Eliza Madrigal: That the idea of Grace being that there is no more to 'do'... in a sense...
Eliza Madrigal: that Love has accomplished everything
Eliza Madrigal: So then what? What is one 'left with'?
Pema Pera: yes, that is a beautiful side of Christianity, Love and Grace
Pema Pera: and similar to the Buddhist notion that all of us already partake in Buddha Nature
Eliza Madrigal: Yes, fundamental Completeness... exactly
Archmage Atlantis: You use the past tense, that is unique
Eliza Madrigal: very striking
Pema Pera: that indeed there is nothing that we need to do in order to gain that, we always already have been part of it
Pema Pera: (past tense?)

Eliza Madrigal: 'has accomplished', you mean, Arch?
Archmage Atlantis: has accomplished
Archmage Atlantis: Yes
Eliza Madrigal: yes maybe that has to do with this idea of crossing over, too... overlap there for many traditions....
Eliza Madrigal: In contempative terms, we're always talking about waking up... but Hm.. to wake up is to...? Knowing? And that being a kind of heaven...
Eliza Madrigal: Well, anyway... there's my blank slate this morning :)
Archmage Atlantis: I think my upbringing left me with a sense that grace is in doing good works
Pema Pera: it's the central point, Eliza, thank you for bringing that up!
Pema Pera: we associate living with needs, a living creature is a needy creature, needing all kinds of things; when we hear that we don't need anything at all, the first reaction is that it feels like death!
Eliza Madrigal: !!
Eliza Madrigal: Yes
Pema Pera: and yes, Arch, we tend to feel that we have to do things
Pema Pera: in order to gain something, because we have those needs
Eliza Madrigal: Well when we know that we are fundamentally Complete, we are able to be truly generous perhaps.... so from receiving grace, to becoming grace, to giving grace?
Eliza Madrigal: as a kind of movement though... not stuck...
Pema Pera: yes, more and more, the more we find ways to drop hope and fear, including fear of death
Eliza Madrigal considers
Pema Pera: to the extent that we can drop identifying with our needs, we can be free . . . but it's not so easy to find that spot
Archmage Atlantis: Fear is certainly something that is a harmful condition
Pema Pera: traditionally that insight is reached through a long path of prayer or meditation
Pema Pera: we're trying to see whether we can get at least a flavor of it through frequent breaks in our armor of "needs", once every fifteen minutes
Archmage Atlantis: I probably need to hear this conversation, the world is too much with me today
Pema Pera: in what way, Arch?
Archmage Atlantis: And about things over which I have no ability to change
Eliza Madrigal: In the pauses we can sit with that... really feel it but let the hurt of it fall away perhaps...? Acceptance?
Archmage Atlantis: Oh, things that have happened to friends, things that do not belong in a discussion.......I just have to let go of wishing I could do something
Eliza Madrigal nods
Pema Pera: a radical way to practice going beyond needs is to consider how each moment everything disappears, everything dies, and to be okay with that; and then to accept the next moment, if it arises, as a whole new world, a new gift from the universe, fresh, something you did not have any right to. Rather than focusing on future needs, all we have to do then is to accept that next moment in gratitude, as a newly created world, for that moment.
--BELL--
Eliza Madrigal: That's really beautiful, Pema... your phrasing there...
Archmage Atlantis: Yes, well said, Pema
Pema Pera: ty :)
Pema Pera: it's very hard to do, at first, but the 9 sec (or 90 sec) can help us, like a lab or playpen, to try it out
Eliza Madrigal: I'm reminded of the Blake quote that Eos likes to give, too... "Gratitude is Heaven itself"... eternity in an hour... moments
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: Stim talks about our tendency to "bleed on" from moment to moment
Pema Pera: how we skip right past the kind of heaven or paradise that is offered to us each moment . . . .
Eliza Madrigal: Oh.. like a default of not paying attention... a groove?
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: grace is like a stop signal :-)
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Eliza Madrigal: You know I listened to one of the workshops this morning, and he was talking about a kind of natural aliveness which is like a tiny flame to tend to...

Archmage Atlantis: I feel most aware when I am in a garden
Eliza Madrigal smiles
Archmage Atlantis: The morning glories by my door reseeded themselves this year
Eliza Madrigal: Oh, lovely Arch. On their own?
Archmage Atlantis: And they are beginning to bloom
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Archmage Atlantis: yes
Pema Pera: how nice, Arch!
Eliza Madrigal: A nice gift :)
Eliza Madrigal: And you noticed!
Archmage Atlantis: yes, it was a gift
Pema Pera: from tiny flames to tiny flowers . . . .
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Archmage Atlantis: it is a gift to be simple, and to accept simple gifts
Pema Pera: yes, accepting is often harder than giving . . . .
Archmage Atlantis: Thank you both for your sharing. I need to leave now. Blessings to you.
Pema Pera: bye Arch!
--BELL--
Eliza Madrigal: Arch mentioned things that one can't change... that's such a shift I think... when one is able to settle into something that 'can't' be changed and see how it might open perhaps... in an unexpected way. Maybe we have ideas of what 'change' looks like...
Pema Pera: or even more radically, go beyond the notion of change . . . .
Eliza Madrigal: hmm... keep going?
Pema Pera: if we really dare to explore what it may mean that each moment is on itself
Pema Pera: that each moment is eternity
Pema Pera: than we can drop the bonds of "change" or "continuity"
Pema Pera: no change then does not mean continuing the same
Pema Pera: there is no same
Pema Pera: each moment is a new gift from the Universe
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, yes that does seem radical and daring!
Pema Pera: that's the idea of Appreciating the Presence of Appearance
Pema Pera: just the Presence
Pema Pera: not the ongoing changing or not changing . . . .
Pema Pera: grace without conditions . . . conditions talk about change or no change
Pema Pera: in Princeton we talked about "no ground" and unconditional confidence
Eliza Madrigal thinks of your term raw givenness...hmm... of presence being enough
Eliza Madrigal: yes
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: hopelessness . . . . fearlessness . . . .
Eliza Madrigal: abandon
Pema Pera: letting go
Pema Pera: liberating each new moment
Eliza Madrigal: Ah... the presence is the liberation... nothing to do
Pema Pera: yes
Eliza Madrigal: already there
Pema Pera: setting free: from little fire to little flower to little moment :-)
Eliza Madrigal smiles widely... very nice
Pema Pera: (^_^)
Pema Pera: wonderful meeting you and Arch and sharing such delicate angles, Eliza!
Eliza Madrigal: Thank you Pema, you too. :) Nice way to re-start the day 'anew'!
Pema Pera: yes, isn't it!
Pema Pera: see you soon again!
Eliza Madrigal: :) Bye for now