2010.08.06 06:00 - Imagination and reality

The Guardian for this meeting was Darren Islar. The comments are by Darren Islar.

Today we had two groups, the one in sl we all could see and the one in Novia Scotia, where some of us were able to see each other 'alive'. Wol kept us posted about all the things that were happening there :).

In the meantime we tried to close in on chapter two a bit, with a few serious questions from Fefonz. But the focus seemed to be off a bit here and there.


Arrivals and the finding of Maxine's log

Darren Islar: hi Eliza, Corvy

    --BELL--

Darren Islar: hi Maxine, Fonz,Riddle
Riddle Sideways: Hi EveryBody
Fefonz Quan: Hi everybody!
Bleu Oleander: hi everyone :)
Darren Islar: hi Bleu
Corvuscorva Nightfire: hello all!
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Everyone :)... rezzing
Darren Islar: hi Pema
Darren Islar: hi Pema, Eden, Zen
Pema Pera: hi everybody!
Bleu Oleander: hi Pema, Zen and Eden
Zen Arado: Hi All
Eden Haiku: Bonjour!
Maxine Walden: hi, everyone
Eliza Madrigal: Bonjour!
Eliza Madrigal: I seem to be laggier on the laptop I'm using, but really nice to be here.
Maxine Walden: sorry, I mislaid my weekly report and Pema and Eliza have been helping rescue it. so sorry to have caused some delay
Eden Haiku: Nice to see you forest avatars :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: heh.
Wol Euler: hello, my dears.
Bleu Oleander: hi Wol
Darren Islar: hi Wol, good to see you :)
Zen Arado: Hi Wol
Eden Haiku: Good morning Wol :)
Maxine Walden: hi, Wol
Wol Euler waits for rezzing
Pema Pera: yes, sorry about my failed attempt to readjust Maxine's log
Pema Pera: we'll sort this out after the session
Darren Islar: hi Bruce
Maxine Walden: :) thanks for trying Pema
Maxine Walden: hi, Bruce
Zen Arado: hi Bruce
Fefonz Quan: where have the reports go on the wiki? did they change place?
Bruce Mowbray: Good day, Time Magicians!
Pema Pera: Thank you all for your reports, on http://wiki.playasbeing.org/index.php?title=PaB_Books/Magic_of_Time/Time_Sessions/Weekly_Reports/2010%2F%2F08%2F%2F06:_Reports : Bleu's Phoenix arising out of the fire of time; Eden's Northern lights as guides into zeroeth time; Adams' enough to be alive; Eliza's candles burning for others; Bruce's lovely poem.
Wol Euler cams around, looking a little more closely than usual at the avatars, and smiles.
Pema Pera: And Maxine's temporarily lost report . . .
Darren Islar: and mine just added there :)
Fefonz Quan: i see, you can't get it from the menu on the left though...
Maxine Walden: I wrote about Time and the Forest...and the timelessness of the forest, where we are at the retreat
Pema Pera: ah, yes, thank you Darren!
Maxine Walden: and how both timelessness and the arising moment seem to intersect...with help will try to post it in the correct place asap
Darren Islar: very fresh, almost in the moment :))
Maxine Walden: :)
Eden Haiku: "Inter-penetrating'

        Pema starts off with some comments about the weekly personal logs

Pema Pera: It was nice to see Adams commenting on how quickly our time explorations can actually produce tangible effects.
Pema Pera: I always keep being surprised about that myself
Eden Haiku: "Inter-penetrating dream-space" how nice Mxine. We can read Maxine's report through your last recent changes Pema.
Eliza Madrigal: Just a note that Maxine's report is now visible with the rest: http://wiki.playasbeing.org/index.php?title=PaB_Books/Magic_of_Time/Time_Sessions/Weekly_Reports/2010%2F%2F08%2F%2F06:_Reports/2010%2F%2F08%2F%2F06_Maxine_Walden
Eliza Madrigal: beautiful, Maxine :)
Maxine Walden: thanks, Eliza
Eliza Madrigal: most welcome _/!\_
Maxine Walden: :)
Pema Pera: And Bleu asked in her report: "how did we get to this now?" Well, perhaps we never did . . .
Bleu Oleander: say more Pema ...
Pema Pera: we feel we came here, and we remember coming here, and yet . . . .
Pema Pera: maybe we don't need more than that . . . .
Riddle Sideways: we were always here
Bleu Oleander: just the sense that we came here?

    --BELL--

Pema Pera: the story fits, is consistent, seems to play itself out, and it's important to play our parts in the best way we can, and yet, there may be no backbone to the story, no rockbottom, nothing to hold it up -- even no past! That would be the ultimate liberation for the play of our life, to be what it is without need for a past to base itself on.
Pema Pera: The present doesn't have to be a prop carried by a past
Bleu Oleander: that's the essence of starting each moment fresh?
 

Wol tells us the 'Novia Scotia crew' as a group is both attending the session as watching us, which gives a new dimension to reality: one group of persons at two places at the same time, interacting in both places. Can we really do that nowadays? Wow.

Wol Euler: ((btw, for the non-RL'ers: Maxine, Eliza, Pema, Corvi, Eos and I are sitting together in the dining room of Windhorse Farm, smiling and sometimes talking above our screens))
Pema Pera: even beyond starting, perhaps, Bleu
Pema Pera: (and laughing now :-)
Eden Haiku: Wow!
Wol Euler: yeah, it adds a dimension to the conversation
Wol Euler: hello Paradise
Darren Islar: hi Paradise
Riddle Sideways: don't even start that... "how can you be in 2 places at once, when ..."
Eliza Madrigal: And somehow it feels very complete to look 'into' the screen at everyone here with us and visa versa :) Picture of integration
Bleu Oleander: we sl-bound av's can only imagine!
Pema Pera: hi Paradise!
Maxine Walden: Avs in the dining room, on the farm, in the forest
Fefonz Quan: oh, we envy all of you Wol...
Eliza Madrigal giggles at Riddle
Bleu Oleander: hi Paradise
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I am glad that we can be together, no matter where we are.
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Darren Islar: those aren't avs
Wol Euler smiles.
Maxine Walden: oh, forgot!!
Maxine Walden: the many realities we simultaneously inhabit
Fefonz Quan: be careful Maxine :)
Maxine Walden: :)
Riddle Sideways: :)
Paradise Tennant: smiles at everyone .. hiya wol pema .. good morning all :)

The movie Inception and the reality of dreams and life, bringing us to the point where imagination seems to be the key, or is that a form of reality?

Fefonz Quan: I recommend you all to see 'Inception"
Wol Euler: oh indeed!
Eliza Madrigal: !!
Zen Arado: hi Paradise
Wol Euler: excellent and thought-provoking film, really moving.
Maxine Walden: !! We all did, a couple of days ago. Fef, what was your experience of the film?
Fefonz Quan: somebody says there that the difference between dream and reality is that in dreams you never remember how you got to this place
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Fefonz Quan: great, i really liked it
Maxine Walden: :)) me too
Fefonz Quan: (and btw - pema is claiming the opposit here in a way, aren't you?)
Riddle Sideways: it doesn't matter if the top falls
Pema Pera: no, it is similar, I think, Fef
Darren Islar: dreams, virtual life and real life
Darren Islar: is there a difference?
Pema Pera: in a dream you remember what happened a little while before, but not the real beginning
Pema Pera: and similarly in RL
Fefonz Quan: what you say is stronger - that the fact that we have a 'memory' of the past, and how we got here, doesn't prove all that really happened
Pema Pera: yes, in that sense
Wol Euler: also in memories, most memories are single isolated incidents. So are our memories of reality, or of dreams?
Corvuscorva Nightfire: god I hope they are reality most of the time.
Maxine Walden: We may never know, Wol...
Wol Euler nods
Fefonz Quan: sometime some scars point to those incidents too wol, what then?
Pema Pera: the memories are clearly part of our present presence
Darren Islar: we seem to alter memories
Darren Islar: changing them over time
Maxine Walden: agree, Darren
Wol Euler nods emphatically
Zen Arado: the sense of 'I' is formed from memories
Eliza Madrigal: in how many layers do the scars appear...
Maxine Walden: time alters memory...memory alters memory
Corvuscorva Nightfire: how deep do they go?
Fefonz Quan: Eliza, i intentionally pointed to physical ones in order to escape complexities
Eliza Madrigal: escape complexities Fef? say more? :)
Wol Euler: ah, but how do you know that they are physical?
Fefonz Quan: and make some 'pysical' (perceptual surely) avidence
Wol Euler: just apperances ...
Riddle Sideways: just sensory inputs
Fefonz Quan: indeed, yet physical some how we concive as more reliable evidence than just memory
Pema Pera: evidence is always evidence within a context
Pema Pera: where do we draw the line?
Pema Pera: within which game?
Wol Euler: ((much laughter around the table))
Fefonz Quan: you can all see my scar (in RL), but not my memories
Wol Euler: perhaps you are dreaming that we see it, Fef?
Riddle Sideways: "within a context" is the point (maybe)
Pema Pera: within the context of interpreting everything within linear time, past-present-future
Fefonz Quan: sure, that can be one explanation Wol, but i am too humid to think that i invented you ;-)
Pema Pera: but there are other, perhaps wider contexts
Corvuscorva Nightfire: perhaps we create the stories of "how we got the scars"
Corvuscorva Nightfire: in the moment.
Fefonz Quan: :) humble is the word
Pema Pera: it's pretty humid here in Nova Scotia too
Wol Euler: :)
Pema Pera: we are all humid here :)
Maxine Walden: :)) fef
Eden Haiku: ;)
Darren Islar: I'm struggling with that too Fonz
Pema Pera: different characters in a dream don't invent each other, Fef
Eliza Madrigal: That's how we see it... leaks out in our words in our lives, what we see.. what others see we see and don't see... scars def more than physical
Pema Pera: that's all still within the same single context
Fefonz Quan: well, i am used to invent those in mine
Fefonz Quan: or do you hint that we live in someone else's dream Pema?
Bruce Mowbray: The "other times" problem (whether there is 'past' or 'future' is similar to the "other minds" problem: I have no way of knowing whether any other minds besides my own exist - - I see you; I see your scars; I hear to tell me about your scras, etc. . . but how do I know your minds are there?
Corvuscorva Nightfire: yet how do we know that we haven't invented all those around us as well as ourselves? Except that I'm not that imaginative.
Eliza Madrigal: do you remember beginning 'them'
Paradise Tennant: the logic works if we see ourselves as part of a whole :)
Darren Islar: I do know that my perception of your scar is different then yours, but that doesn't explain the scar itself

    --BELL--

Wol Euler: ((RL laughter and chatter)
Fefonz Quan am glad that we entertain the Nova Scotians :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire tosses a pillow at Fefonz. We're easily entertained.
Fefonz Quan: that's why i like you Corvi :)
Eden Haiku: There is glee in Arcadia :)
Darren Islar: if somebody drops a stone on my foot, without me noticing it, I still will feel it
Maxine Walden: I think we are being very moved, by all that is going on, and we erupt a bit with each other since we are in the same space.
Wol Euler nods.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: my proposal as that you have invented the story of the dropping to explain the present pain.
Eliza Madrigal: arisings and eruptions...
Wol Euler: heheheheh
Maxine Walden: :))
Wol Euler: a creation myth
Eliza Madrigal: maybe 'true' in its context, or rather 'valid'?
Pema Pera: It's an interesting question of what it means for there "to be no past" as Eden also wrote in her report; I'm not denying the notion of `past' within our usual context of talking -- it's rather that we have the freedom to go to a different level/context altogether, and yet retain all that presents itself on the level of phenomena/appearances.
Darren Islar: I don't think it is about imagination here
Maxine Walden: we were all pretty moved by the film Inception and have been exploring how our perceptions/dreams perhaps interpenetrate each other's reality...(too condensed a thought probably)
Fefonz Quan: yes, i was wondering the same issue too Maxine
Maxine Walden: :)), fef
Darren Islar: it is probably more about different realities
Eliza Madrigal: do we get here without imagination?
Darren Islar: and now an explanation for reality :))
Maxine Walden: :)
Fefonz Quan: I liked the kicking idea, having used it a lot myself
Corvuscorva Nightfire: So Pema, we can accept that past and future exist on some level, and fix our mind on....some new context?
Corvuscorva Nightfire: within which they are a less central phenomena?
Darren Islar: being able to imagine is a human quality, so I expect not Eliza
Pema Pera: From the context of our usual RL, timeless time is a fiction (read: a different context!); and from within the timeless time context, timeless time is indeed a fiction, but RL is included in it as part of the fiction.
Darren Islar: but isn't imagination a reality in itself?
Darren Islar: once you have imagined something, it exists
Wol Euler nods.
Fefonz Quan: i think the co-imagination is the intriguing point here Darren
Darren Islar: some can even make it exist
Darren Islar: that is indeed intriguing

Slowly going back to 'reality' with a warning

Bleu Oleander: without past, is there accountability? is there compassion?
Pema Pera: it depends what "without" means
Wol Euler: like Gottfried Benz imagining a wagon without horses
Pema Pera: if "without" means denying, then no
Darren Islar: right Wol
Eden Haiku: I woke up only a few minutes before the meeting and was dreaming someone was telling me I forgot to buy fish and then I realized the person meant I forgot to buy bread. Fish and bread: the Christ didn't have to buy them. He just multiplied them and everybody got ed on the mountain top :)
Pema Pera: if "without" means not buying into the usual associations of being stuck to the past, then: more and more open compassion
Eliza Madrigal: (((Eden))
Bleu Oleander: yes Pema
Pema Pera: (^_^)
Darren Islar: :) Pema
Wol Euler agrees with Pema, right action is right even for those whose past was full of "wrong"
Pema Pera: the main problem is: if we stay in the context of our story, and then proclaim that the elements of the story are not real, then we make a big mistake
Fefonz Quan nods to pema
Pema Pera: either we go to a wider level, or we stay and really take this level seriously
Riddle Sideways: or neither
Pema Pera: but if we're not familiar with the wider level (yet), then all that is being said seems silly
Darren Islar: or both
Pema Pera: or just wrong, or even dangerous
Eden Haiku: You are great evangelists of "Inception" guys, I want to see it soon!
Darren Islar: right Pema
Maxine Walden: seriously but still lightly, Pema?
Wol Euler grins.
Fefonz Quan: yes, dangerous i think too
Pema Pera: yes, Maxine
Maxine Walden: :)
Eliza Madrigal: you'll love it Eden... look forward to your reactions :)
Pema Pera: another problem is that we typically try far too hard to find a wider level . . . in that sense I very much sympathized and empathized with Bruce's struggle to connect with all the ideas presented in chapter 2. I often find myself in the middle of a similar struggle.
Fefonz Quan: but take that lightly too Eden, not too much expectation :)
Bleu Oleander: is the wider level an open spaciousness of possibilities?
Pema Pera: We read some inspiring description of a view, a vision, and then the question is how to create a seed to carry along with us in daily life, a kind of koan or other sound bite, like "play as Being". Perhaps "naturally arising timeless awareness" could be such a simple sentence?
Eden Haiku: Gosh, I hoped the movie would make the whole question of reality understandable at last ;((
Pema Pera: :-)
Pema Pera: (each wider level is like that, Bleu)
Darren Islar: I'm afraid it won't Eden :))
Fefonz Quan: it might make the question understandable indeed
Wol Euler: but you may take it more lightly :) and thats good too
Eden Haiku: sulking
Corvuscorva Nightfire laughs
Fefonz Quan: :)
Pema Pera: ((random acts of laughter abound here in the RL room))
Wol Euler: :)

Some RL 'reality' and a bit of relaxing chitchatting

Riddle Sideways: so you've done RL checks that "lol" is real laughter
Corvuscorva Nightfire: oh yes
Bruce Mowbray: Life, the Universe, and Everything is just a four-letter word: Koan.
Wol Euler laughs!
Pema Pera: :-)
Eden Haiku: Ah, that could be a good reminder: Koan!
Maxine Walden: :)), Bruce
Wol Euler: and I do nod and smile in RL as often as here.
Eliza Madrigal: and does say "goodnight my dears" too ;-)
Wol Euler: heheheh
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Oh yes
Bleu Oleander: ha!
Paradise Tennant: smiles at Pema lightly :)
Maxine Walden: :) Paradise
Pema Pera: :)

    --BELL--

Darren Islar: (I start to feel for Blub, feel like a fish in a container, watched at :)))
Maxine Walden: ? Darren?
Wol Euler: ((it's godlike to be on retreat, one says "let there be coffee" and it arrives))
Corvuscorva Nightfire stares at Darren.
Paradise Tennant: smiles :)
Maxine Walden: :)
Riddle Sideways: :)
Darren Islar: (seeing faces around a computer screen, watching us Maxine)
Eden Haiku: 'That it is enough to be alive' as a mantra as Adams says in her report. I love that.
Wol Euler nods.
Eliza Madrigal nods too
Darren Islar: (it's just a joke)
Bleu Oleander: have been trying that in RL Wol, but seems I'll have to get up and get it myself:)
Wol Euler: heheheh
Riddle Sideways: that happens too
Wol Euler: "sudo bring me coffee"
Bleu Oleander: ha!
Pema Pera: sudo install laughter
Riddle Sideways: can't remember making coffee. but here is the empty cup
Bleu Oleander: ty Bruce!
Bruce Mowbray: anyone else for coffee?

    Enoughness, life as being enough

Eliza Madrigal: this week (@Eden), Corvi used the word 'enough-ness' which seems to have resonances ... the enoughness/suchness of life...
Wol Euler nods.
Riddle Sideways: ah very nice
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I suspect that I heard that word here first.
Eden Haiku: Nice word: enoughness.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: that it is not MY word.
Wol Euler: but which "here"?
Eliza Madrigal: wherever 'here' is...
Maxine Walden: :))
Corvuscorva Nightfire whaps Wol with a pillow.
Fefonz Quan: one of the hardest tasks i bumped into are explaining to people that think that living is not enough why they are wrong
Pema Pera: neither here nor there
Wol Euler ducks and laughs.
Paradise Tennant: smiles and goes for more coffee :) magically now in the kitchen :)
Maxine Walden: say more, fef?
Eden Haiku: You sound like you are in a pyjama party there in Arcadia!
Riddle Sideways: hard to force others to see your way?
Fefonz Quan: well, that are people that feel that it is not enough, and that there is no much reason to continue it.
Wol Euler: heheheheh
Wol Euler: ((much RL laughter))
Maxine Walden: ah, that may be THE reality, Eden
Eliza Madrigal: you're visuals are apt, Eden :)
Fefonz Quan: could you have a good argument for it?
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I always have a pillow for whapping...whether here or there.
Eden Haiku: Picturing your different style of jammies...
Pema Pera: shall we tell them about the multi-avatar large bath tub?
Wol Euler looks to Maxine.
Pema Pera: with candle light and flowers?
Maxine Walden: uhoh...
Bleu Oleander: session is getting interesting .....
Eden Haiku: Oh jacuzzi in the woods?
Pema Pera: late late at night . . . .
Maxine Walden: I did wonder if it would become a public 'spectacle'
Eden Haiku: Can you tp us there?
Wol Euler: :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire works on that.
Paradise Tennant: smiles
Pema Pera: when there was nothing more left to say . . .
Pema Pera: you can drive over, Eden!!!
Eliza Madrigal: Eden, on the first day here Corvi and I came across a little cat on the forest path... did you send her to spy?
Eden Haiku: Only some 1000 kilometers away, I know :(
Maxine Walden: that is a difficult one, fef, for those folks seem to have collapsed into an 'empty, lifeless' place or somehow projected their liveliness away...
Wol Euler: in case any non-RL-retreat-attendees are wondering: the retreats are not all serious and intense contemplation :) there is fun too
Wol Euler: and very good food
Pema Pera: we'll keep the bath hot, Eden :-)
Eden Haiku: Yes Eliza, in fact I did, but she didn,t tell me about the jacuzzi with candles and flowers. I guess she felt asleep.
Riddle Sideways: ah shucks, you've spoiled our serialness image
Eden Haiku: *fell
Eliza Madrigal: she did seem a little drowsy...
Eliza Madrigal: wearing grey striped pajamas...
Bruce Mowbray: Good day, Ewan.
Pema Pera: Hi Ewan!
Fefonz Quan: Maybe maxine, but that shows that the enoughness is not working sometimes, so i would look for a better argiment
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Ewan
Corvuscorva Nightfire: the question of Maxine's and Fefonz's is how do you respond to those who feel hurt by life, that it is not enough in this moment.
Wol Euler: hello ewan
Paradise Tennant: hiya ewan
Wol Euler: /ne nods to Corvi and sits up straight.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and I have to say that my moment of understanding enoughneess came from my struggle with not enoughness.
Fefonz Quan nods to Corvi, indeed.

    meat, mild and other animal products

Eden Haiku: Food was all vegeterian Wol?
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Ewan Bonham: Hi folks!
Pema Pera: hi Yaku
Bruce Mowbray: Good day, Yaku.
Zen Arado: hi EWan, Yaku
Bleu Oleander: hi Yaku, Ewan
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and I wouldn not tell anyone that they must find this moment enough!
Riddle Sideways: hi yak,ewan
Corvuscorva Nightfire: but only that we can all pretend and see what happens.
Fefonz Quan: i agree Corvi, that's a very good pont
Eliza Madrigal: indeed indeed
Wol Euler: yes, eden, all veggie and some raw
Eliza Madrigal: Hello Mickael
Wol Euler: though we had eggs and chese and milk and yoghurt
Bruce Mowbray: Good day, mickael.
Pema Pera: and almonds
Maxine Walden: and even some beer
mickael Rexen: bonjour
Wol Euler: hello yaku, mickael
Fefonz Quan: now i am glad i am not there Wol, Thanks! :)
Wol Euler: :-PPPPP
Fefonz Quan: i really meant it :)
Wol Euler: you can do without the thinly sliced dead animals for a week :)
Maxine Walden: really, fef?
Fefonz Quan: fefonz and any milk-oriented food are big enemies
Eden Haiku: Yummie (for the food , not the not-enoughness).
Maxine Walden: ahhh, fef
Wol Euler: oh, that. Those were optional.

    Pema is closing the session

Pema Pera: What a fun session (both in RL and SL) -- and looking forward to seeing you all next week! Like this week, we'll explore the suggestions made at the end of chapter 2: http://wiki.playasbeing.org/PaB_Books/Magic_of_Time/2._Arising
Fefonz Quan: Thnaks Pema
Eliza Madrigal: thanks everyone :)
Pema Pera: and feel free to add your reports again on the new page that we'll create

    --BELL--

Bleu Oleander: thanks Pema and all the retreaters :)
Pema Pera: thank you all !!