2010.03.13 07:00 - Clouds, pictures, and remembrance

The Guardian for this meeting was Calvino Rabeni. The comments are by Calvino Rabeni.

Adams Rubble: Hello Bertram
Bertram Jacobus: hello adams ! :-)
Adams Rubble: Are you guardian today?
Bertram Jacobus: no (!) -
Bertram Jacobus: was wondering ...
Adams Rubble: hmmm
Bertram Jacobus: may be he or she still comes ...
Adams Rubble: Sophia
Adams Rubble: Anthing new with you?
Adams Rubble: Anything
Bertram Jacobus: ah. hm. yes - pandora and new gf ... in the case you didn´t know yer - and you ? something interesting actual. too ? ;-)
Adams Rubble: conratulations on the gf; what is padora?
Adams Rubble: pandora?
Bertram Jacobus: did you see the movie "avatar" ?
Adams Rubble: my spelling is terrible today
Adams Rubble: oh no, I didn't
Adams Rubble: I get enough avatars here (giggles)
Bertram Jacobus: mine even more. ty for not letting me alone with it :-)
Bertram Jacobus: ah okay. pandora is their planet. wher the na'vi live - they look like i do atm
Adams Rubble: ahh, the blue :)
Adams Rubble: I have had clouds in my vision. They come and go every day
--BELL--
Bertram Jacobus: clouds ? visions ? that sounds interesting (?) ...
Adams Rubble: I am learning to see the cluds now for what they are
Adams Rubble: They caught me by surprise
Bertram Jacobus: what kind of visions are they ?
Adams Rubble: when what we think is there, really isn't
Adams Rubble: not visions, but allowing my mind to create its own reality
Bertram Jacobus: ah. hm ...
Adams Rubble: It is a new experience to have the mind vreate new things which need to be dropped in order to see
Adams Rubble: new experience for me that is
Adams Rubble: before I was dropping long held things
Bertram Jacobus: understandable ...
Bertram Jacobus: i´m not sure of anything actually. and that is okay for me ;-)
Adams Rubble: :)
Bertram Jacobus: i like this state :-)
Adams Rubble: It is good to have a comfortable state :)
Bertram Jacobus: oh yes. i´m very happy having found back to it ... hm -
Bertram Jacobus: so - you create things with your mind, drop them and then find something ? did i get that right ? insights ?
Bertram Jacobus: ahh - cal is coming - hi mate ! :-)
Adams Rubble: I have caught my mind creating fairy tales :)
Adams Rubble: Hello Calvino
Calvino Rabeni: Hello ! Did I miss the good stuff :? :)
Adams Rubble: If Sophia does not come, I can pick up the log this morning. I have not done it for a while
Bertram Jacobus: would be great. i´m even more unknowing about such i guess adams
Calvino Rabeni: I can do it
Adams Rubble: I was just noting that I am learning to see new clouds drifting across my vision
Bertram Jacobus: and i´m not sure - want a nc cal ?
Calvino Rabeni: Please
Adams Rubble: I hope you have had a nice stay in Pronceton, Cai
Adams Rubble: Princeton
--BELL--
Bertram Jacobus: i think, he´s reading the card ...
Calvino Rabeni: Thanks. There is a big storm - some old trees were pushed over - nature's excited.
Bertram Jacobus: what happend in princeton ? and when ?
Adams Rubble: it has been a rough month or so, weatherwise
Calvino Rabeni: I might get the opportunity to hang out at the airport :)
Adams Rubble: ohh :(
Calvino Rabeni: It's quiet here at the office too - Saturday is a day off, so it is just me
Bertram Jacobus: that sounds good (?) :-)
Adams Rubble nods
Calvino Rabeni: I can watch all the trees blowing, outside these old windows, and get a sense of history
Adams Rubble: :)
Bertram Jacobus: tel
Adams Rubble: I am personally glad this is not snow :)
Calvino Rabeni: Extreme conditions of nature create markers in what could be otherwise a bland long term memory
Adams Rubble: California people have it so rough :)
Calvino Rabeni: Earthquake, tsunami, 100-year rain / flood
Bertram Jacobus: (back)
Calvino Rabeni: Some high points ! Otherwise .... nice :)
Calvino Rabeni: A pretty benign universe we are in!
Calvino Rabeni: Of course we are made (or evolved?) for one another.
Calvino Rabeni: I'd call it a pretty good deal all told
Adams Rubble: :)
Bertram Jacobus: yes cal ... your words sound to me ... like poetry, nice ... warm ... comfy ...
Calvino Rabeni: Meanwhile the wind is howling - you know the sound n- just outside the window :)
Calvino Rabeni: Two riders were approaching ... no, it turned out to be a car I see.
Bertram Jacobus: :-))
Adams Rubble: :)
Bertram Jacobus: cal paints pictures into my mind ... :-)
--BELL--
Calvino Rabeni: I'm painting pictures into my own mind - memory of recent events
Adams Rubble: :)
Calvino Rabeni: What if, memory is more a creative canvas than a picture recording
Calvino Rabeni: And using it as artists use their media
Adams Rubble: It is the staring point for artists
Calvino Rabeni: With a little support from scientific evidence, that memories have a creative unstable improvisatory element
Calvino Rabeni: It's a meditation that can be enjoyable and energizing
Calvino Rabeni: I don't know if there are "practices" from history, but suspect there are.
Calvino Rabeni: Do you know of any?
Adams Rubble pictures Calvino sitting in the office looking out at the wind blowing the trees
Bertram Jacobus: sry tel here again
Calvino Rabeni: Revisiting the memories, with a fine attention quality
Calvino Rabeni: to see what develops there
Adams Rubble: we are getting very close to coming back to my clouds :)
Adams Rubble: to much imporovisation there
Adams Rubble: too
Calvino Rabeni: Things develop "out of" the image
Adams Rubble: yes
Calvino Rabeni: Latent qualities I could not "see" the first time
Calvino Rabeni: Maybe a normal type of feeling is - you only have one life to live
Adams Rubble: :)
Calvino Rabeni: so things "pass by" in time, not fully realized
Bertram Jacobus: (backk again sry)
Calvino Rabeni: I think that is a kind of common way the life stream appears
Bertram Jacobus: ah - leave the session before the bell - best wishes !
Adams Rubble: bye Bertram
Calvino Rabeni: TV tried to solve the problem for sports fans with the "instant replay" :)
Bertram Jacobus: ty ! :-)
Calvino Rabeni: Bye!
--BELL--
Adams Rubble: The instaant replay often demonstrates that we did not see so clearly the first time :)
Calvino Rabeni: Its effect loops around and becomes a cause
Calvino Rabeni: Causing less seeing the first time
Adams Rubble: not sure I understand that
Calvino Rabeni: Have you heard of a certain study about traffic safety, that has the same theory that safety engineering and markers, lead to a relaxation of vigilance by drivers
Calvino Rabeni: And there's a tendency then for the accident rate to stay constant
Calvino Rabeni: regardless of the mechanisms engineered into the system
Adams Rubble: Hmm. makes sense although traffic fatalities are dropping
Calvino Rabeni: And I think it's been studied with other data than traffic statistics
Calvino Rabeni: There's a causal loop involved
Calvino Rabeni: In the sportscasting, if you know the "good parts" will be captured by the media for replay, then it is less necessary to be alert to see the plays
Adams Rubble: One certainly is more vigilant driving on a highway in an urban area than on a country road
Calvino Rabeni: And then it gets tempting for the format of the coverage to emphasize primarily the "good parts"
Adams Rubble: Hmm. there is a difference in that watching sports is purely entertainment
Calvino Rabeni: I think, this same tendency is at work in the normal way we structure attention and experience
Calvino Rabeni: It's a way of being less mindful
Adams Rubble: In the first time there is the anticipation fo the result; in the second only how it happened
Calvino Rabeni: And pre-filtering things for significance
Calvino Rabeni: The anticipation helps reveal how things work
Adams Rubble: Back to my clouds with the pre-filtering :)
Calvino Rabeni: The "second time" is - not so much how they worked, but just a token fact that somehow it did work
Calvino Rabeni: Tell me about the clouds again, if you could?
Adams Rubble: In my time in paB, I became used to searching out things that were in the way of my seeing clearly
Adams Rubble: It seemed to me that I had rooted most of them out
Calvino Rabeni: (but?)
Adams Rubble: what I have coaught my mind doing recently is creating new "clouds" to block my vision
Adams Rubble: I was a little surprised at this
Calvino Rabeni: How does that work?
Adams Rubble: and have only begin to watch them come and go
Adams Rubble: One imagines something is true and it becomes true
Adams Rubble: It can cause lots of pain but one holds on to that thruth
Adams Rubble: truth
Calvino Rabeni: I'm curious naturally (1) where did the emergent thing come from, and (2) how do you know / recognize "seeing clearly"?
Adams Rubble: It takes a shock, and maybe some courage, to turn it around and ask how it would look if that was not true
Adams Rubble: Ahh, two good questions
--BELL--
Adams Rubble: 1) one way is to have desires that do not need to be fulfilled, maybe even should not be fulfilled; 2) we can only see that we are at peace with ourselves and able to listen or "see"
Adams Rubble: as you are doing in that office there
Calvino Rabeni: I agree / see about the shock and reversal
Calvino Rabeni: And the little bit of courage
Calvino Rabeni: there seem to be, two sides to the "thing" issue
Calvino Rabeni: And the idea of "seeing" has a built in preference for one side, the "given" side
Calvino Rabeni: In that "seeing" is almost defined in terms of objects
Adams Rubble: I was using it in a broader sense
Adams Rubble: like listen
Calvino Rabeni: The other side....
Calvino Rabeni: regardless of sensory modalities
Adams Rubble: seeing with more than our eyes
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, but what is the other side of "thingness"
Adams Rubble: did I use the word "thing"?
Calvino Rabeni: No, I did, I'm suggesting that seeing / perceiving has a conventional reliance on the existence of objects or things
Adams Rubble: OK
Calvino Rabeni: And asking, what's the other side of that
Adams Rubble: I am used to thinking in terms of spiritual seeing
Adams Rubble: seeing that we are going to die
Calvino Rabeni: Like, if that is a habit, a convention, or even a way physical organs work, then the "other" side of seeing is outside that
Adams Rubble: that our life is impermanent
Adams Rubble: one might subsitute the word "knowing" for my seeing maybe
Calvino Rabeni: The other side of thingness - applied to the idea of life - is not that we are here now and will die, but are continuously being born
Adams Rubble: :)
Calvino Rabeni: The experience of "seeing" may include the constant arising as well as the constant passing away
Adams Rubble nods
Adams Rubble: we need to shed things
Adams Rubble: the concept of rebirth is a recognition of the clouds that form and must be shed
Adams Rubble: Hello Yakuzza
Yakuzza Lethecus: hey, you both
Calvino Rabeni: And it doesn't favor either there being "lots of things" or the opposite - so in that sense I don't follow the "shed things" idea which seems biased to the side of not having things / stuff around
Yakuzza Lethecus: was, sophia here today ?
Calvino Rabeni: No, sadly :)
Adams Rubble: no Yaku
Yakuzza Lethecus: very shiny ring adams :)
Adams Rubble: :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: ok, i am also going to join paradise on a live music event in a second when i get her tp
Adams Rubble: depends what you are shedding Cal
Yakuzza Lethecus: cya both!
Calvino Rabeni: Adams is a pulsating cloud to my view today
Adams Rubble: bye Yakuzza
Calvino Rabeni: BYe
--BELL--
Adams Rubble: the idea of rebirth suggests we are separating ourselves from something we were previously
Adams Rubble: why be reborn?
Adams Rubble: because we had slipped into a state of not seeing
Calvino Rabeni: Why not? It seems to be what happens - I have no preference
Calvino Rabeni: Are there preferences involved in "what to shed" ? I suppose I didn't understand your last staement "depends on what you are shedding"
Adams Rubble: I am afraid i must be going. It was good chatting with you and maybe we can continue this another time :)
Adams Rubble: OK
Calvino Rabeni: Same here Adams, thanks
Adams Rubble: I can start to imagine things that are not there. It might be due to jealousy.
Calvino Rabeni: I will go arrange my "airline things" properly :)
Adams Rubble: It clouds my vision
Calvino Rabeni: Jealousy - maybe that's part of the big vista
Calvino Rabeni: A big vista with clouds and mountains in it
Adams Rubble: I can be reborn in the sense that I shed that "desire" (jealousy in this case)
Calvino Rabeni: Jealousy, the cloud over the mountain
Adams Rubble: :)
Adams Rubble: yes
Calvino Rabeni: I like the heavy weather (sometimes)
Calvino Rabeni: Not always
Adams Rubble: Yes :)
Calvino Rabeni: :)
Adams Rubble: I hope you have a good trip
Calvino Rabeni: Thanks ! So, good talking to you - later .
Adams Rubble: bye for now :)
Calvino Rabeni: :)