2010.01.06 07:00 - No Need to BECOME Anything

The Guardian for this meeting was Eliza Madrigal. The comments are by Eliza Madrigal.

I was joined for this session by Zon for a moment, Resting for a glimpse, then Zen and Bolonath for the longer stretch. We first talked about methods of online communication, then themes around YSBS, Non-Duality, Non-Locality, Upbringings, and Reading Too Much! 

Eliza Madrigal: Hi Zon :)
Zon Quar: heya
Eliza Madrigal: Interesting for SL to tell you, while logged in, that you can now log in :)
Zon Quar: is there some kind of logging problem ?
Eliza Madrigal: It seems that there was
Eliza Madrigal: Now it is over... missed the turbulence I guess
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Zon Quar: well. its good to remind ppl that they r here, lol
Eliza Madrigal: hahahah
Eliza Madrigal: Are you experienceing lag?
Zon Quar: no, i just logged in
Zon Quar: i must go to al cture, c u later ã‹¡
Eliza Madrigal: Bye for now :)
--BELL--
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Resting, Good Morning!
Resting Thor: good morning
Eliza Madrigal: Thanks for joining me :)
Resting Thor: i can sit quietly :)
Eliza Madrigal: while I ramble on?? (giggle)
(snip ;-)
Resting Thor: i'll be on my best behaviour then haha
Eliza Madrigal: I really do enjoy hearing others online though... after so many months of text
Resting Thor: i enjoy voice as well....easier than typing :)
Eliza Madrigal: Well, for me it is easier to articulate what I am experiencing via text...
Zen Arado: Hi Eliza, Resting
Eliza Madrigal: most of the time.
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Zen! :)
Resting Thor: hi zen
Zen Arado: ever try voice typing?
Eliza Madrigal: I feel like voice exposes a lot... and especially if one doesn't quite know how to wrap their thoughts about something abstract..
Eliza Madrigal: You mean text that translates itself to voice, Zen?
Zen Arado: no, speaking into a prog that translates voice into text
Eliza Madrigal: No, I haven't done that yet.
Resting Thor: have not done that
Zen Arado: I try it off and on because my typing is so slow
Zen Arado: and inaccurate
Eliza Madrigal: Stephen Hawking, I heard, did not/does not want to upgrade the technology which creates his voice....
Zen Arado: but it makes a lot of mistakes too
Eliza Madrigal: I suppose he feels that is part of his identity
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, I'd imagine... just like the SL translators
Zen Arado: yes
Zen Arado: I will try it here if you like
Eliza Madrigal: Sure
Zen Arado: I usin it nw
Zen Arado: you see the mistakes it makes, but it is better in Word
Eliza Madrigal: Ohh, yes it would reduce you to phone texting quality
Zen Arado: I use Drago naturally speaking

Bolonath arrives...

Bolonath Crystal: namaste :)
Eliza Madrigal: Namaste Bolo! :)
Zen Arado: it doesn't work so well in second life
Zen Arado: Hi Bolo
Zen Arado: and it is hopeless with names unless you teach it first
Resting Thor: gotta go...RL :( ...later
Eliza Madrigal: SL seems to have much 'catching up' to do... or maybe it will just wait and leap
Eliza Madrigal: Bye Rest :) Nice to see you
Eliza Madrigal: Bolo, I was reading over the last YsEsBs session this morning...
Zen Arado: bye rest
Eliza Madrigal: I was intrigued by what you wrote... your perspective on the exercize
Bolonath Crystal: ah... yes?
Eliza Madrigal: Well, it is difficult to form a question...
Eliza Madrigal: what I want to ask is along the lines of whether you just 'stay' in non-locality thinking...
Bolonath Crystal: non-locality thinking? i never thought about it this way... but i think that fits somehow
Eliza Madrigal: I suppose the way I heard you was in a kind of relative/absolute outline...
--BELL--
Bolonath Crystal: imo all we perceive as 'outside' is a projection - as well as all we perceive as 'inside'. in fact there shouldn't be much difference
Bolonath Crystal: some things we are projecting 'outside', others 'inside'
Bolonath Crystal: but 'being' is neither outside nor inside - or maybe both as the same time
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, so it isn't that you are viewing 'from the absolute' and dismissing the relative as projection....
Bolonath Crystal: the relative is the way, in which the absolute sees
Eliza Madrigal: 'unity'
Bolonath Crystal: yes
Bolonath Crystal: in an absolute way there is nothing to see

Overlaps...

Eliza Madrigal: Nice overlap here in Zen, too... as koan practice can startle us out of being stuck in one view or another?
Bolonath Crystal: i don't know much about zen buddhism. but if there is a unity of everything, and if the 'absolute' is this unity, there is nothing to be seen in the absolute. only in the relative there a 'different' things
Bolonath Crystal: if we want to have perceptions, it must be relative
Eliza Madrigal: For some reason I have imagery of a ladle... of Being scooping out of the soup of projections and perceptions...
Eliza Madrigal: hah
Zen Arado: "Insight can’t be found in sutras, commentaries, verbal expression, or —isms. Liberation and awakened understanding can’t be found by devoting ourselves to the study of the Buddhist scriptures. This is like trying to find fresh water in dry bones. Returning to the present moment, using our clear mind which exists right here and now, we can be in touch with liberation and enlightenment, as well as with the Buddha and the patriarchs as living realities right in this moment.
Zen Arado: Thich Nhat Hanh
Eliza Madrigal: Hm... so let's discuss in terms of insight?? Insight, to me, would be the glimpses....
Zen Arado: We always seem to be lookng for some formula or method
Eliza Madrigal: Glimpses as exposures that there might be a clearer view or less stuckness...
Eliza Madrigal: available
Eliza Madrigal: Well methods are tools
Eliza Madrigal: hints, sometimes tricks :)

Bolo expresses what I was trying to ask...

Bolonath Crystal: we seem to think, that it is somehow 'wrong' to see in a relative way

 

For me, the Refreshing thing about PaB exercizes such as YSBS, "Dropping" and APAPB, is that they help one get comfortable with not pedestalizing or idealizing 'spirituality', but just relaxing into what is 'here' and 'everywhere' already.... the very material of our current life experience.

Zen Arado: yes but we have it already and keep looking for it !
Eliza Madrigal: yes! This is along the lines of what I was asking, Bolo
Eliza Madrigal: haha Zen, yes
Eliza Madrigal: That seems the trap, when we get more comfortable with 'absolute' or 'non-local' reality?.. that there can come a distance...
Eliza Madrigal: Maybe it is just pendulum swinging :)
Zen Arado: "Is there really an inside and an outside? Or is that just another thought, another concept that comes and goes? Notice: sounds in the room come and go. Bodily feelings come and go. Thoughts come and go. None of these are 'inside' or 'outside'. They are just happenings. 'Inside' and 'outside' are just more labels that appear. 'Inside and outside' is just another story that comes and goes in this awareness. Just another happening.
Eliza Madrigal: a kind of turbulence even, in the pendulum swinging...
Zen Arado: from a non duality letter I got this morning
Eliza Madrigal smiles... Swinging Door
Zen Arado: yes
--BELL--
Bolonath Crystal: we ARE eternal being, we ARE absolute awareness. maybe we don't know it yet, but there is no need to BECOME anything
Zen Arado: yes true
Eliza Madrigal: so not becoming, but becoming comfortable/confident... in a sense...
Zen Arado: maybe we just like thinking about it too much?
Eliza Madrigal: Confident enough to allow the hold of distinctions to drop?
Eliza Madrigal: Well, hm... thinking too much sometimes...
Zen Arado: we have to drop our story of 'me'
Eliza Madrigal: but playful thinking seems required... to get beyond the way we normally go about thinking
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, yes the story of me ... even the story of '"becoming enlightened, or selfless" 'me'
Bolonath Crystal: thinking is a good way to start experiencing. it is not the goal, merely a tool
Eliza Madrigal nods
Zen Arado: listening to Eckhart Tolle this morning
Eliza Madrigal: So... if we dropped stories and goals... What might this conversation sound like/look like?
Eliza Madrigal: just play... and it feels like that to me :)
Zen Arado: we might have nothing to say !
Eliza Madrigal: hehe
Zen Arado: just sit here silently
Zen Arado: http://campaign.constantcontact.com/...hk2YpI_w%3D%3D
Eliza Madrigal: I think words can be open...
Zen Arado: sory about that long link - it is to a non duality newsletter that Bolo might be interested in
Bolonath Crystal: *click*
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, yes and me too... the title sounds familiar "Life Without a Center"
Zen Arado: a friend send me non duality links all the time
Eliza Madrigal: No pinning down, non locality...
Bolonath Crystal: oops... long text... i bookmark it and read it later
Zen Arado: sure
Eliza Madrigal: yes I just saved it
Zen Arado: you don't have to read it
Zen Arado: I only read some of the stuff
Zen Arado: read too much
Eliza Madrigal smiles... yes I have that affliction too...
Bolonath Crystal: me too *g* especially when there are some pictures in the text ;)
Eliza Madrigal: :)))
Eliza Madrigal: One of my resolutions is slowing down... in the middle of doing things like reading...
Zen Arado: I have a bit more time to myself at the moment because my two art clubs and meditation groups are shut down for Christmas
Eliza Madrigal: letting a book be read...
Zen Arado: hungry ghost for books too
Eliza Madrigal: : )
Zen Arado: buy more than I can read
Eliza Madrigal: Well... think of what you've already read in life...
Zen Arado: and forgotten....
Eliza Madrigal: if you 'learned' nothing else from this moment....
Bolonath Crystal: hehe
Eliza Madrigal: read nothing else... prob what you'd read and have to work with is 'enough'
Zen Arado: exactly
Eliza Madrigal: I tell myself this... there is nothing 'needed' really....
Zen Arado: more than enough

Eckhart Tolle...

Zen Arado: re listening to ET earlier
Zen Arado: amazing what I missed before
Zen Arado: perhaps you have to be ready fro some teacings
Eliza Madrigal: His teachings are wonderful examples of overlaps in traditions... he truly does not worry about the compartments
Bolonath Crystal: for me some writings change meaning every couple of years
Eliza Madrigal nods, yes absolutely!
Zen Arado: he has 'Westernized' and made teaching accessible
Eliza Madrigal: there is an audio which I found through i-tunes of ET... about finding purpose... it is a treasure
Zen Arado: but there is more depth there than we realize
--BELL--
Zen Arado: I like 'In the presence of a great mystery'
Eliza Madrigal: Well, for a while I thought that his teachings being on Oprah would really affect my mainstream 'mom' friends... everyone seemed to be listening... but it does seem that timing is a huge factor when it comes to hearing
Zen Arado: yes ..it wears off again

Upbringings...

Eliza Madrigal: Bolo were you raised in a 'spiritual' way, or was there a life place that made the interest strong?
Zen Arado: just realizing that so much of his teaching is about getting out of the mind and into the body awareness
Bolonath Crystal: i wasn't raised in any way spiritual, eliza
Bolonath Crystal: it developed somehow
Eliza Madrigal: hm... just somehow? :)
Eliza Madrigal: And you Zen?
Zen Arado: I had little spiritual upbringing too
Bolonath Crystal: i was rather anti-spiritual for a long time, caught up in scientific thinking
Zen Arado: parents sent me to Sunday School
Eliza Madrigal: hm, guess we can't pin beginnings down either
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, I think I've tried on a hundred paradigms... went through a few years of reading all the athiest books and such even ...
Zen Arado: I became an evangelical Christian late 30's
Zen Arado: sort of mid life crisis
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, I tried that on too Zen :)
Zen Arado: was disillusioned with materialism
Eliza Madrigal: haha... well, I tried to try it on really....
Eliza Madrigal: was thought of as 'rebellious'
Zen Arado: lasted a long time with me
Bolonath Crystal: being rebellious might have been my spiritual starting point
Eliza Madrigal: !!
Bolonath Crystal: for this life
Zen Arado: I think it is curiousity with me
Eliza Madrigal: I like that... maybe it takes a kind of rebelliousness to be willing to question
Bolonath Crystal: yes
Eliza Madrigal: and really wrestle
Zen Arado: 'what are we here for...what is the purpose of life'?
Zen Arado: and the meaning of life
Bolonath Crystal: i started meditating when i was 15, mainly because i liked david carradine in his kung fu films :)
Eliza Madrigal smiles
Zen Arado: :)
Zen Arado: hah so grasshopper :)
Eliza Madrigal: Why not :)
Zen Arado: I read a Buddhist book just before I became a Christian
Eliza Madrigal: 15 does seem quite young to begin meditation without a family background
Zen Arado: should have stuck with that
Bolonath Crystal: but it is the best age to become a 'rebel', eliza ;)
Eliza Madrigal giggles
Eliza Madrigal: well yes
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, but it is all helpful Zen...
Zen Arado: but so out of tune with culture of that time I N.Ireland
Eliza Madrigal: I'm very grateful for the intense Christian focus I had for years...
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, sure Zen
Zen Arado: well....we still learned spiritual truths I guess
Eliza Madrigal: When Christian, I used to secretly read Deepak Chopra books...
Eliza Madrigal: wouldn't have told anyone :)
Zen Arado: :)
Zen Arado: blasphemy !
Eliza Madrigal: but I was never comfortable with that aspect of the teachings... of not listening to anything else... closing one's mind, etc
Zen Arado: yes ...me neither
Zen Arado: they wouldn't read a book about evolution unless it was christian author
Zen Arado: so much fear
Eliza Madrigal: yes
Zen Arado: like clinging to an answer
Eliza Madrigal: fear can be a trap for all of us... whether in a tradition or out
Bolonath Crystal nods
Zen Arado: and refusing to ever question it
Eliza Madrigal: wanting so much to find something to hold onto... something that won't let us down
Zen Arado: yes we have to be aware of that
Zen Arado: could cling to Zen tradition too
Eliza Madrigal: Sure!
Zen Arado: though they warn you against it at least
Eliza Madrigal: Maybe it is about the heart place... of it being personal
Zen Arado: 'if you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha!
Bolonath Crystal: sorry, afk
--BELL--
Eliza Madrigal: That's okay Bolo :)
Zen Arado: sorry have to go
Zen Arado: friend in RL just called
Eliza Madrigal: Bye Zen :) Have a lovely day
Eliza Madrigal: or evening :)
Zen Arado: bye

I waited a little while...

Eliza Madrigal: Bolo?
Eliza Madrigal: I'd hate to leave you sitting here alone... not a very good host thing to do...
Eliza Madrigal: :) think I must though. It was wonderful that you could come today, Thanks and bye for now