The Guardian for this meeting was Bleu Oleander. The comments are by Bleu Oleander.

Zen Arado: you too :)
Zen Arado: Hi Riddle:)
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Riddle, too
Eliza Madrigal: So nice to have you back Zen
Zen Arado: Hi Maxine
Eliza Madrigal: and Hi Maxine :)
Riddle Sideways: Hi Zen, Eliza
Riddle Sideways: Hi Maxine
Riddle Sideways: Hi Pema
--BELL--
Zen Arado: Hi Pema
Maxine Walden: hi, Elize, Riddle, Zen, Pema
Riddle Sideways: Hi Bruce
Zen Arado: Hi Bruce
Pema Pera: hi Riddle, Zen, ELiza, Maxine, Bruce, Eden!
Zen Arado: Hi Eden
Maxine Walden: hi, Bruce
Riddle Sideways: Hi Eden
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Bruce, Pema, Eden :)
Pema Pera: you look so nicely in bloom, Eden!
Zen Arado: Hi Yaku
Yakuzza Lethecus: hey everyone
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Ya :)
Eden Haiku: Hi everyone; ) Nice to se you Zen :))
Yakuzza Lethecus: zen :D
Bruce Mowbray: Good day, Maine, Eden, Pema, Eliza, Zem, and Riddle.
Riddle Sideways: Hi Yak, Darren
Pema Pera: hi Yaku and Darren!
Eden Haiku: Thanks Pema :)
Zen Arado: Hi Darren
Bruce Mowbray: Maxine.Zen.
Darren Islar: hi everyone
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Darren
Maxine Walden: hi darren
Riddle Sideways: hi Ewan
Zen Arado: Hi Ewan
Yakuzza Lethecus: hi ewan
Darren Islar: hi Ewan
Bruce Mowbray: Hi, Ewan, Darren.
Ewan Bonham: Morning
Eden Haiku: Hi darren, Ewan,
Eliza Madrigal: Hello Ewan, Lucinda
Eden Haiku: Hello Lucinda
Pema Pera: hi Ewan and Lucinda!
Maxine Walden: hi, Lucinda
Zen Arado: Hi Lucinda
Bruce Mowbray: Hi, Luci.
Darren Islar: hi Lucy
Riddle Sideways: hi Lucinda
Bruce Mowbray: Hi, Luci.
Yakuzza Lethecus: morning luci :)
Zen Arado: Hi Bleu
Pema Pera: hi Bleu!
Bruce Mowbray: Hi, Bleu.
Riddle Sideways: Hi Bleu
Darren Islar: hi Bleu
Lucinda Lavender: Hello, Pema,Darren, Bruce,Maxine,Zen!, Yaku,
Riddle Sideways: hi Hana
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Bleu, Hana :)
Bruce Mowbray: Hi, Hana.
Eden Haiku: Good morning Bleu :) 6 o" clock he he
Bleu Oleander: hi everyone :)
Zen Arado: Hi Hana
Pema Pera: ahd hi Hana!
Darren Islar: hi Hana
Eden Haiku: hello Hana
Hana Furlough: Hi everyone~
Maxine Walden: a mouthful, Lucinda :)
Bruce Mowbray: Hello, Yaku.
Lucinda Lavender: :)
Bleu Oleander: hi Zen! great to see you here
Maxine Walden: a mouthful of guardians...interesting image
Eliza Madrigal laughs
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Ya :)
Eden Haiku: Who is swallowing us?
Riddle Sideways: Yak, you did not get a pillow fast enough
Maxine Walden: just my imagination, Eden
Yakuzza Lethecus: everythings rezzin really slowly to me
Eden Haiku: I meant it as a humm... philosophical question, like Chronos eating his children you know :))
Maxine Walden: sorry...got a bit concrete, if you can say that about the imagination

Pema Pera: Would somebody like to post the chat log for today, for this session, 6 to 7 am?
Pema Pera: perhaps we can have different volunteers for different weeks
Bleu Oleander: sure Pema

Eden Haiku: A mouthful @Maxine http://www.solidariteetprogres.org/I...te-chronos.gif
Pema Pera: thank you, Bleu!
Bleu Oleander: do I claim the session?
Pema Pera: (can you please click on the fountain?)
Pema Pera: (yes, please, just choose "claim")
Pema Pera: thank you!
Bleu Oleander: yw!
Pema Pera: And thank you for the wonderful reports of this last week
Pema Pera: I was really enthralled reading them all
Pema Pera: beyond any expectation I had
Pema Pera: so vivid and authentic, each, in their own voice
Maxine Walden: inspired by your chapters, Pema
Eliza Madrigal: very much so
Bruce Mowbray: indeed.
Hana Furlough: no doubt
Bleu Oleander: yes!
Eden Haiku: Yes, very inspiring Pema.
Pema Pera: thank you, but in turn my chapters have been inspired by the whole PaB community and PaB experience, over the years
Ewan Bonham: Yes, enjoyed reading how you progressed in the meaning of experiences
Pema Pera: I learned so much from our conversations
Pema Pera: especially how to get down to the essence of an idea, in a leight-hearted way
Pema Pera: *light-hearted
Pema Pera: would anybody like to comment on the chapter or any of the reports?
Pema Pera:  for the reports

Pema Pera: for the chapter

Maxine Walden: I was smiling also about how we are inspiriing or 'speaking' to each other in the reports as well...
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Hana Furlough: verily, maxine
--BELL--
Maxine Walden: such as Eden including the Vermeer/Proust reference to the 'yellow wall' which reminded me of a bit of my report
Maxine Walden: but also images and ideas that nourish each of us from the other
Eden Haiku: True, the reports helps in "unpacking" the Pema's chapter on awareness which is really dense with minute details between layers.
Zen Arado: I only read the chaptr about an hour ago but I was thinking about how much artists do this 'trying to see appearances ' already. You can't really draw anything for instance unless you can see the object in q
Zen Arado: you are drawing without the thought overlays
Eden Haiku: Your "yellow patch og light" (in an email I think Max, a first reaction you had on reading the chapter) kind of illuminated my own reading of the chapter.
Eden Haiku: *of
Maxine Walden: nods
Bleu Oleander: perhaps my training as a painter has helped me "see" .... but it feels like concentrated experience in a way .... hard for me to differentiate between awareness and experience
Bruce Mowbray: Before reading Pema's chaper on Awareness, I'd never thought of "existence" having a price tage (a barter tag) on it.
Ewan Bonham: Was awareness akin to watching our minds?
Zen Arado: Vermeer would have looked long and hard at a small patch of wall and saw the fusion of all sorts of colours the rest of us would miss I think
Pema Pera: yes, we tend to take existence for granted -- while it is a kind of Faustian bargain (@ Bruce)
Pema Pera: awareness can go beyond there beying a subject, so it is like watching without a watcher (@ Ewan)
Eden Haiku: @Zen Lapis-lazuli and vermillion and all very earthen materials :)
Ewan Bonham: IC
Zen Arado: ys bot all kinds of subtle hues made from these
Bruce Mowbray: I know some artists personally, who do not seem to "make" the trade-off. They live in a world of awarenesses - not of existences.
Pema Pera: what struck me in all reports was the intense sense of new-ness of each moment, even in the re-living of old memories
Zen Arado: perhaps he can really lose 'self' in analysing apearance of colour
Pema Pera: while existence has a sense of continuation of the old, of the previous
Hana Furlough: yes existence is predictable and repeatable
Eliza Madrigal: in the way that the reports present a dynamic interplay and conversation... interesting for me to notice also each appearance presenting another, in a sense... reflecting and making way/room for... perhaps like colors... the light of one highlighting the depth of another...

.... no such thing as a dumb question .....

Bleu Oleander: this may seem like a dumb question, but how can we experience awareness if there is no watcher .... who is experiencing awareness?
Pema Pera: reality itself, we could say . . . but that's just a word
Pema Pera: awareness is aware
Pema Pera: and it's an excellent question!!!
Pema Pera: THE question
Ewan Bonham: Awareness is removed from the 'I'?
Darren Islar: I doubt awareness is an experience, pondering about it
Bleu Oleander: seems richer to me to realize that "i" am aware
Pema Pera: not so much removed, but before the split into self and other(s)
Pema Pera: inclusive
Pema Pera: that's an interesting observation, Bleu, and we have to be very careful with words here . . . .
Zen Arado: isn't it like you start to notice meditating doint you rather than the other way around - the 'doer' starts to disappear?
Eden Haiku: I felt I was being teleported in each person's world as I read their reports. Like really being there, in a kind of time capsule. That felt very good. It's like the chapter was our mothership and we were satellites of time-capsules,
Bleu Oleander: i've noticed that .... words matter
Pema Pera: it's not like any self of "I" is erased or forgotten . . . it is more inclusive
Zen Arado: don
Zen Arado: doing*
Darren Islar: 'I' sounds like a claim, which in essence would mean you cannot share
Eliza Madrigal: Eden... yes, so much
Pema Pera: beautiful way of capturing the reading, Eden !!
Bleu Oleander: I feel the opposite Darren, if I can experience something I can share it
Pema Pera: Bleu, perhaps when awareness is aware, it can express awareness in what may look like sharing
Eliza Madrigal: like " *I* am listening"... putting the I in a receptive mode, Blue?
Pema Pera: without a defensive I that wants to isolate itself
Bleu Oleander: yes Eliza
Ewan Bonham: That is where th inclusion is?
Pema Pera: perhaps if the small sense of I can step aside to let a much bigger sense of "the I of the world" speak, we are talking about a much wider sense of "I"
Pema Pera: ultimately the most inclusive "I" : Being
Darren Islar: maybe we use 'I' as a translator, but who is the experiencer
Riddle Sideways: or the dropping of the "I"
--BELL--
Eliza Madrigal: awareness allowing the relaxation perhaps
Bleu Oleander: my "I" doesn't feel defensive, more like a convenience to allow me to include myself in the "I of the world"
Darren Islar: *the one that experience
Pema Pera: in Christianity: it is not me speaking but the Father speaking through me; in Hinduism Atman, in Buddhism "no-self", in Taoism the Tao
Ewan Bonham: Bleu, i agree as my ideal
Darren Islar: the 'through' can be felt as 'I'?
Zen Arado: I'm not totally clear if when we shift from existence to awareness the appearance should become dominant and the 'seeing' and the 'seeer' should drop away?
Ewan Bonham: A guidance through Spirit
Pema Pera: yes, Bleu, I wouldn't worry too much about the exact words
Pema Pera: it's hard to formalize all this, Zen
Pema Pera: we can't catch it in a precise definition
Pema Pera: and there are many many levels of "no-self" and "sheer awareness" -- hundreds of them
Bleu Oleander: in some sense if you can put words to explain awareness have you shifted to experience?
Eden Haiku: Oh my God!
Eliza Madrigal: I hear a sense of "the eye through which I see god is the same eye through which god sees me..." and yet a softening ,,,
Pema Pera: and each time we fall into a deeper level it seems like the universe smiles upon us afresh
Eliza Madrigal smiles @ Eden
Zen Arado: ok the problem is when you start to explain with concepts you get causght in them
Pema Pera: the danger is that the first few times you fall into in that way you might think "hey, now I am enlightened" . .. :-)
Pema Pera: and then it keeps happening and keeps deepening
Riddle Sideways: exactly, Zen
Pema Pera: if you continue, and don't get stuck
Darren Islar: right Zen
Bruce Mowbray thinks, "Hey, I just started at the end!" pffft!
Eliza Madrigal: hehhe
Pema Pera: :-)
Darren Islar: :)
Pema Pera: from pffft to pffft to blessed pffft . . . .
Riddle Sideways: :)
Maxine Walden: :)
Eden Haiku: sighs
Eliza Madrigal: still giggling
Pema Pera: so you use the best concepts you have . . . and then drop them again . . . and again . . .
Bruce Mowbray: I loved Maxine's "felt like a kind of surrender of self into the soft light, the embrace of the beloved trees,"
Eliza Madrigal: yes, beautiful
Bleu Oleander: romantic
Ewan Bonham: Yes, like a falling, knowing we will be gently caught
Darren Islar: are we?
Riddle Sideways: of course
Darren Islar: how do we knwo?
Bruce Mowbray: Trees embrace each other all the time, of course.
Eden Haiku: Hugging((( Darren )))
Darren Islar: wb Hanah
Hana Furlough: lol! sorry computer CRASH
Bruce Mowbray: Hana Hana Hana!
Darren Islar: interesting picture of 2 (?) I's ??
Hana Furlough: oops sorry
Hana Furlough: i'm not really good at tooling around yet
Bruce Mowbray: no problem, I "saw" myself I being embraced by a tree. . . named "Hana."
Darren Islar: :)
Eden Haiku: :))
Pema Pera: I also liked the newness in Hana's report: Each time I called the Name of Amida Buddha, that was new, too -- normally we think of chanting as repeating the same short sentence, but at some point each repitition can become totally new
Riddle Sideways: :)
Hana Furlough: sweet
Lucinda Lavender: :)
Bruce Mowbray: new every time.
Ewan Bonham: Yes, i think that is the point
Hana Furlough: yes!
Eden Haiku: Ah yes, that was very interesting Hana!
Eliza Madrigal nods nods
Ewan Bonham: Each time, is the present
Pema Pera: like Bruce's 60-year obsession, and Eliza's early youth memories, both so new and fresh
Hana Furlough: thank you
Pema Pera: life as a mantra
Ewan Bonham: yes
Eden Haiku: We can see worlds opening u and up and up (the 100 layers I guess) when repeating mantras...
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Bruce Mowbray: It rather amazed me that an "obsession" could also have "newness"...
Maxine Walden: :)
Eden Haiku: I thought it was Blub's obsession?
Bruce Mowbray: If new, no oppression in the obsession. . .
Eden Haiku: All this water!
Hana Furlough: it's interesting, because on one hand a mantra is an anchor, on the other hand it is self-renewing
Darren Islar: nice Hanah :)
Eden Haiku: Would be nice if we woud have mantra chanting in PaB...
Ewan Bonham: Yes, hana...what a mix
Pema Pera: yes, an anchor in the clouds
Bleu Oleander: in voice or text Eden :)
Hana Furlough: : )
Eden Haiku: In voice, sure...
Yakuzza Lethecus: you can try later
Riddle Sideways thinks we already do (in chat)
Darren Islar: copy, paste, copy, paste, paste, paste .......:))
Riddle Sideways: Hi/bye
Lucinda Lavender: :)
Pema Pera: :-)
Eden Haiku: But than chanting "Being, sheera appearance, existence, mere appearance, experience, awareness' might not have enough vowels...
--BELL--
Hana Furlough: : )
Pema Pera: APAPB :-)
Pema Pera: me playing as Being playing as me playing as Being playing as me . . .
Hana Furlough: nice!
Riddle Sideways: YS ES BS
Zen Arado: feling a bit tired - will slip away quietly - bye all
Pema Pera: bye Zen!
Darren Islar: bye Zen
Bleu Oleander: bye Zen
Hana Furlough: bye Zen!
Pema Pera: glad you could join us again
Eden Haiku: I'm looking at my laptop's screen seeing these color pixels, wondering what am I seeing?
Eden Haiku: Bye Zen, take care ;))
Darren Islar: pixels :)
Ewan Bonham: bye Zen
Eden Haiku: Pixels would be "mere appearance" right?
Lucinda Lavender: Bye to Zen...nice to see you again.
Pema Pera: it could be; the pictures you see can be mere appearance too, anything can be . . . .
Riddle Sideways: or looking at all these molecules and wondering what I am seeing?
Pema Pera: harder to see the molecules than the pixels :-)
Riddle Sideways: ran low on proper words
Eliza Madrigal: much playing between the layers of appearances ...
Pema Pera: :)
Ewan Bonham: awareness
Ewan Bonham: can awareness be playful?
Eden Haiku: I'm also picturing each of you in their own world somewhere on this earth. That is my imagination but the images are also appearances yes?
Ewan Bonham: i think so
Riddle Sideways: yes, I think
Bruce Mowbray: M.C. Escher's awarenes was playful, sometimes:
Darren Islar: when playful means using space, I would say yes
Bruce Mowbray: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...248&page=1&nds
Maxine Walden: I feel I could spend a few years musing over this chapter, Pema. Maybe we all feel that way :)
Eliza Madrigal: yet as you said, in exploring reports eden our worlds were all intertwined in one anothers....
Bruce Mowbray: Talk about "starting at the end"!
Pema Pera: thanks, Maxine :-)
Hana Furlough: agreed
Pema Pera: and yes, playful is a key, I think -- hard to imagine otherwise
Eden Haiku: Ever heard of bit.ly Bruce ;) ?
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Bruce Mowbray: nope, Eden, I've not.
Bruce Mowbray: ?
Yakuzza Lethecus: she meant to shrink ur link
Yakuzza Lethecus: http://bit.ly/b1FRpn
Yakuzza Lethecus: like this
Pema Pera: making a URL into a haiku . . .
Eliza Madrigal: it would be more popular if titled 'shrink your link' I think...
Bruce Mowbray: Escher seems to have "caught" the "entertwining" as well as any artist I can think of. . . (surprising, in a way, from a GRAPHIC artist).
Pema Pera: hehehe @ Eliza
Pema Pera: or link your shrink @ Maxine
Eliza Madrigal giggles
Lucinda Lavender: listening to this conversation today is special for me...feel such thankfulness for it. Be right back ...my chickens call...
Bleu Oleander: ha!
Maxine Walden: :))
Bruce Mowbray: ahhh. . . to see the world in a shrinked link. . . .
Pema Pera: :-)
Maxine Walden: :)) Bruce
Yakuzza Lethecus: take care luci
Pema Pera: linking the shrinking world in a shrinking link . . .
Eden Haiku: Thanks @Yaku, was trying to shorten Bruce's link it but bitly wouldn't for now ;)
Ewan Bonham: Do you know how many weeks we will be meting on this topic?
Riddle Sideways: ah, to see the world as a shrink
Riddle Sideways: :)
Eliza Madrigal: hehehe
Maxine Walden: :))
Darren Islar: :)

homework ....

Pema Pera: every two weeks I'll write a new chapter, Ewan, for who knows how long :-)
Maxine Walden: timeless perhaps
Ewan Bonham: ok
Pema Pera: could be a year almost, probably a bit shorter
Pema Pera: So for next week, we'll again focus on the difference between experience and awareness, as we did this week, using the same chapter 1. -- I am very much looking forward to reading the new reports!

Eden Haiku: Thanks for the link to Escher Bruce, these would be great puzzles to build in SL for the next Art of Being Puzzle project. Just ask Storm to help you build those, it will be a breeze ...(Winking at Storm)
Darren Islar: there is a RL meeting coming up, does that influence the ruthm?
Darren Islar: rythm
Darren Islar: I mean retreat
Bleu Oleander: shall I end my claim and let the new GoC claim the reg session Pema?
Pema Pera: ah, I may have to skip one Friday, depending on internet accessibility
Yakuzza Lethecus: bye everyone
Maxine Walden: bye Yaku
Pema Pera: Eliza will take care of that, Bleu
--BELL--
Hana Furlough: bye, yaku
Eden Haiku: Bye Yaku, see you later on voice chat session at 12 SLT
Pema Pera: as the new GoC
Riddle Sideways: Thank you all and bye
Bleu Oleander: ok great
Eliza Madrigal: Thank you time travelers :)
Eden Haiku: Bye Riddle.
Maxine Walden: bye Riddle
Hana Furlough: bye, riddle