2010.02.28 08:00 - Guardian Session: Everything Totally Without Reservations

There were 8 guardians present for this profound session: Adams Rubble : Eliza Madrigal : Eos Amaterasu : Fael Illyar : Maxine Walden : Pema Pera : Riddle Sideways : Yakuzza Lethecus

Comments by Eliza

Eliza Madrigal: Hi Pema, Riddle, Ya, and Eos, too
Maxine Walden: ah...
Eliza Madrigal: one sec... brb
Riddle Sideways: amazes me what ppl do in one sec
Pema Pera: hi Fael!
Riddle Sideways: Hi Fael
Maxine Walden: indeed, Riddle! Hi, Fael
Eos Amaterasu: My son always says, "just a second.."
Pema Pera: I guess "repeat" is built in :-)
Maxine Walden: I was just musing about how rapidly the month of Feb has gone...thinking of how time races by when one is so occupied
Pema Pera: :)
Riddle Sideways: no, it is just that Feb is a short month
Maxine Walden: ah... maybe so Riddle
Fael Illyar: surprised me too. Although, at the same time. Surprisingly slow :)
Maxine Walden: interesting that it can be both: very rapid and very slow
Maxine Walden: at the same 'time'
Fael Illyar: After thinking so many times "oh it's still february" I suddenly realize oh, it's the last day of february today.
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Fael :)
Fael Illyar: hi everyone :)
Eos Amaterasu: :-)

Archaic Ruts...

Maxine Walden: Was unable to come to the final review of the Malta retreat; look forward to reading the log from yesterday
Eos Amaterasu: Plenary review
Eos Amaterasu: not necessarily final
Maxine Walden: right...
Pema Pera: yes, we had nine out of ten retreatants; only Arabella was missing, unfortunately
Maxine Walden: wonderful turnout even with her absence it seems to me
Eos Amaterasu has been wondering if a Maltese road bordered by stone walls will appear in the village
Maxine Walden: hmm the 'road to/from Malta' right in our midst
Pema Pera: and those tracks maybe?
Pema Pera: what were they called, ruts?
Eos Amaterasu: Might require terraforming :-)
Yakuzza Lethecus: cart ruts
Pema Pera: Storm is just an IM away :-)
Eos Amaterasu: Clapham Junction, a place in Malta with many many archaic ruts, of unknown origin
Maxine Walden: very evocative image, Eos
Pema Pera: so how to get out of our own archaic ruts, appreciating them without getting stuck in them?
Riddle Sideways: hi Adams
Maxine Walden: lovely segueway, Pema
Maxine Walden: hi, Adams
Pema Pera: morning Adams!
Eos Amaterasu: HI Adams
Adams Rubble: Hello everyone :)

Little Birds...

Pema Pera: Shall we start with our plan, last week, for showing our little birds/gems/etc ?
Eos Amaterasu: stuckness maybe comes partially from not seeing the rut at all... so seeing and appreciating are first step
Pema Pera: yes!
Eos Amaterasu: but it's hard to jump out of the one-track-rut you're in to see it
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Adams :)
Adams Rubble: most times we are in more than one rut :)
Riddle Sideways: am stuck seeing a storm terraforming a smooth plain into ruttedness
Maxine Walden: yes, Eos, when that rut defines the world of the moment. Being able to hop out of that rut/definition is the thing...via appreciation
Maxine Walden: regarding the rut lightly, the definition of one's world lightly
Maxine Walden: sorry, maybe diverging from Pema's suggestion that we review our tweets from the week
Pema Pera: oh, the ruts will lead us back to that suggestion, perhaps, sooner or later :-)
Adams Rubble: :)
Riddle Sideways: it is fun going in somebody elses ruts for a while
Adams Rubble offers some ruts to Riddle
Adams Rubble: :)

I thought of yesterday's long session, and not so much of what Mick said but the senes of shared feeling...  

Eliza Madrigal: I thought that Mick's softness yesterday was a moment, in discussing how he feels about pab and friends here...
Eliza Madrigal: during the long Malta session
Eliza Madrigal: The session isn't posted yet, but those uncontrived sharings always strike such a chord...
Pema Pera: yes, I very much enjoyed that too
Pema Pera: his courage to deal with what is still very tentative
Fael Illyar: Ah, time to go. Have fun everyone :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: bye fael
Adams Rubble: bye Fael
Riddle Sideways: bye Fael
Maxine Walden: bye, Fael
Eos Amaterasu: Ciao1
Pema Pera: take care, Fael
Eliza Madrigal: :)

Maxine bravely, tenderly, and eloquently (as always) shares an experience and consequent exploration from the week...

Maxine Walden: daring to venture into uncertainty without grasping for the security of the rut/known has been a tweet for me this week I supposek
Maxine Walden: I suppose
Maxine Walden: presenting a paper amidst colleagues who then in their discussion and questioning triggered doubt in my mind about a portion of my presentation; and that doubt for a bit became debilitating, as if defining my work as very flawed, with no value; Being able
Maxine Walden: to step back and regard that whole situation as an example of what I was wriring about, how doubt can be so debilitating, being able to step back and walk through my experience exposed to the group of questioners became a venture for me
Maxine Walden: venture of trusting in the value of the venture, and stepping out the the rut of doubt even amidst the external questioners/doubters...
Maxine Walden: 'twas a meaningful navigation for me; grateful when my PaB practice, as it were, served well in that self-rescue
Adams Rubble: thank you for sharing that Maxine. Doubt can keep us way down in the rut. It is wonderful you could see that in the midst of the crisis
Adams Rubble: self-doubt

Eos Amaterasu: That's been kind of a theme I've been noting: "follow-up" from RL retreat into post-RL retreat, or into SL, etc. Including setbacks, learnings, breakthroughs
Eos Amaterasu: or from SL to RL, or back

Self-Doubt and Navigating ruts, sudden drops ...

Adams Rubble: I have been struggling to see past self doubt this week too
Maxine Walden: thanks, adams, defanging the excoriations of self doubt can be a gift from our PaB experience
Eliza Madrigal nods. wonderfully expressed Maxine... a snapshot of a venture which is part of a larger one ... thank you
Adams Rubble: seeing where we might be seeing things wrongly while keeping the tools we need to correct them can be difficult
Maxine Walden: indeed, adams
Maxine Walden: gently compassionately correcting our 'seeings' or allowing the wider view without collapse into the rut of self doubt for the 'error'
Maxine Walden: combatting the rut of self-doubt with compassion
Pema Pera: yes, real seeing is enough . . . . a recurring theme in PaB !
Eos Amaterasu: How did that moment happen ,Maxine? : Being able
[08:31] Maxine Walden: to step back and regard that whole situation
Eos Amaterasu: Being in-the-rut, and then somehow stepping-back (out)?
Maxine Walden: Eos, I had to take myself in hand, actually, to wrap my doubt-filled self in a Pa
Maxine Walden: PaB moment as it were
Maxine Walden: and thus be amidst my inner company of PaB experience
Adams Rubble smiles
Eos Amaterasu: Beautifully said
Pema Pera smiles too
Maxine Walden: That was what allowed me to emerge, but it took some discipline to not collapse into the doubt or let the dogs of doubt re-consume me
Pema Pera: :)
Adams Rubble: PaB dog food
Pema Pera: feeding yourself to the dogs of doubt . . . . quite an image!
Riddle Sideways: your meta-self / being seeing you in the rut and reaching into that reality to nudge/knock you
Pema Pera: the fangs of the cats of criticism . . . .
Maxine Walden: PaB to the rescue amidst the jungle of our doubt/criticism, etc
Eos Amaterasu is engulfed in vivid imagery of dogs of doubt, fangs of criticism
Maxine Walden: vivid stuff!
Adams Rubble: :)
Pema Pera: leaving the dogs and cats to fight with each other, while stepping out of the ruts :-)
Maxine Walden: indeed, Pema
Pema Pera: and yes, riddle, just dropping is hard, seeing something reaching in to rescue you is easier, a kind of move of devotion

Devotion...

Pema Pera: I've been thinking about devotion a lot, and it's role in PaB, after Malta
Maxine Walden: please, Pema

Pema Pera: btw, the little bird I brought today was also from yesterday afternoon's session, with Wol's open and honest discussion of her steep and deep depression upon returning home
Pema Pera: it is so easy to tell each other and ourselves "just drop it all" but that does carry the danger that we find ourselves with a kind of hopeless gaping gap . . . .
Pema Pera: so "play" and a sense of "Being" are kinds of antidotes to a more nihilistic "dropping"

Maxine Walden: nicely said
Pema Pera: a sense that "what IS" really can be a resource
Eos Amaterasu: is that devotion?
Pema Pera: that we can directly SEE, that we can look into what presents itself
Pema Pera: the courage to do that requires something that for me at least has a flavor of devotion
Pema Pera: or let me say "devotion to the examples given by those who have gone before us" helps me to live in hopelessness, without hope and fear
Pema Pera: devotion to an exploration that makes no sense within the context of our daily life, our ordinaty logic
Pema Pera: devotion to the ideal of dropping all ideals . . . .

Pema Pera: Here is a quote, from one of Trungpa's talks, that for me has a strongly devotional flavor:

Since all things are naked, clear
 and free from obscurations, there
 is nothing to attain or realize.

 The everyday practice is simply to
 develop a complete acceptance and
 openness to all situations and emotions.

 And to all people -- experiencing
 everything totally without reservations
 and blockages, so that one never
 withdraws or centralises onto oneself.

Riddle Sideways: thank you, did not think the word "devotion" carried all that
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Pema Pera: devotion to Being, rather than acquiring or searching or fighting or giving up
Pema Pera: way beyond fight AND flight
Maxine Walden: and way beyond all doubt: being open to all views without reservation
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: embracing what appears, as it appears

Eos asks a probing question... 

Eos Amaterasu: Pema, what is the "personal" quality of that devotion?
Eos Amaterasu: What makes you call it "devotion"?
Pema Pera: devotion for me has the quality of daring to proceed without knowing what will happen, a quality of trust
Pema Pera: trusting the universe, or Being
Pema Pera: distrusting anything that tells me that I'm too small, too weak, too insignificant
Pema Pera: claiming my birth right
Pema Pera: not based on what I have, or have accomplished, but what I really am
Pema Pera: what we all are

Riddle Sideways: does devotion = belief ?
Pema Pera: not necessarily
Pema Pera: I prefer the notion of a hypothesis
Riddle Sideways: ok
Adams Rubble: one can be devoted to the belief
Pema Pera: in a hypothesis you suspend belief and disbelief both
Eos Amaterasu: maybe also confidence that in the gap, in the unknown, there is living awake
Pema Pera: and I feel devoted to persuing the hypothesis of Being
Adams Rubble: (meant that hypothetically)
Pema Pera: yes, Adams!
Pema Pera: the words are not so important, it all depends how devotion is carried out -- really carried WITH you in daily life
Pema Pera: so it can start with belief, but as T.S. Eliot said: it will be belief in the wrong thing

Eos Amaterasu: I think a living belief will constantly put you on the spot: not necessarily comfortable
Pema Pera: so then you shed that belief, like skins of a growing insect, time and again
Pema Pera: yes, Eos, beyond comfortable, for sure!
Maxine Walden: shedding defensive beliefs and theories to remain open to the new and uncertain in a trusting way

Riddle Sideways: a disproved hypothesis is easily shed. a not 'proved' hypothesis is always in progress?
Eliza Madrigal: Thank you Pema, very moving. An extraordinary session ... Appreciate you all and have another meeting so must slip away.
Pema Pera: (oops, I misremembered T.S. Eliot's quote: it was not about belief, but it could have been!

He wrote

"I said to my soul be still, and wait without hope; for hope would be hope of the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet fath.

But the faith, and the love, and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: so the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing."

Maxine Walden: wonderful, Pema, thank you so for that quote!
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, nice, that...
Pema Pera: yes, in progress, Riddle, something to play with, chew on, work with
Eos Amaterasu: Yes, a remarkable session. Thank you everyone (including T.S. Eliot :-)
Maxine Walden: indeed