2010.09.03 06:00 - Bypassing our linear approach of Time

 

 

Eliza Madrigal: Hi Eden :) Hi Pema :)

Pema Pera: Hi Eliza, Eden!

Eliza Madrigal: Hi Maxine, Good Morning :)

Pema Pera: hi Maxine!

Maxine Walden: hi, Eliza, and Pema

Maxine Walden: glad you could make it Pema, sounds like a busy time for you

Pema Pera: yes, I'm glad too!

Eden Haiku: Eliza, wanted to tell you. Poetry sessions are a good idea but I cannot commit now. I'm taking care of an aged uncle in a nearby hospital with last stage of Parkinson disease and then I'm moving back to Montreal in about 10 days.

Eliza Madrigal: Oh, how difficult Eden. Good that you can do that!

Maxine Walden: wow, Eden, what a time for you

Eden Haiku: Good morning Maxine :)

Pema Pera: you sure have your hands full, Eden, I wish you good luck handling all that!

Eden Haiku: Thanks Pema. Loved your so vivid report. Felt like a Chinese student in Beijing while reading it :)

Pema Pera: :-)

Eliza Madrigal: The poetry sessions are meant to be tried and ongoing if others like... we'll see. Certainly understandable that your uncle is priority

Pema Pera: I felt like one too :-)

Eliza Madrigal: yes, wonderful report... can feel the place in it

Pema Pera: Hi Liza!

Eliza Madrigal: Hi Liza :)

Maxine Walden: hi. Liza

Eden Haiku: Hello liza ;)

Eden Haiku: Just read Adam's lovely report. I agree with her about love being the basis of christianity.

Pema Pera: yes, and I'm sorry that she felt that I didn't appreciate religion -- that had not been my intention to give that impression

Eliza Madrigal: Thank you Eden!

Pema Pera: my intention was to point to how true Christianity, for example, invites us to surrender to God's picture of God, not men's picture of God

Eden Haiku: Welcome :)

Pema Pera: yes, thank you Eden!

Eliza Madrigal: (re the log) [for the log]

Pema Pera: I didn't mean to imply that all forms of religion look through colored glasses :-)

Pema Pera: only that it very easily can drift into that kind of attitude

Liza Deischer: God's picture of God, need to think bout that one :)

Eliza Madrigal: or maybe that in some sense we turn religion into something, like we do everything else... or tend to,,,

Eden Haiku: Maybe it was the use of the word 'stained' glass that created Adam's impression about that Pema?

Pema Pera: given that Adams is not here, I have no way of knowing.

Maxine Walden: interesting Eden...

Pema Pera: But I have to think about possible ways of rewriting, to not give un unintended idea

Eden Haiku: I'm guessing, obviously :)

Pema Pera: :-)

Pema Pera: devotion and surrender are very strong aspects of Christianity, not to make graven images of God

Pema Pera: so it was in that spirit that I tried to write

Pema Pera: hi Fef!

Eliza Madrigal: This chapter felt like the heat turned up a bit to me.. on me... that I saw my own tendencies

Eliza Madrigal: Hi Fefonz :)

Fefonz Quan: Hi all!

Eliza Madrigal: I was uncomfortable the first reading :)

Liza Deischer: hi fonz :)

Eden Haiku: Hi Fefonz :)

Pema Pera: can you describe a bit more what kind of discomfort that was, Eliza?

Fefonz Quan: (what chapter are we talking on?... sorry)

Pema Pera: the latest one, chapter four

Eliza Madrigal: http://wiki.playasbeing.org/PaB_Books/Magic_of_Time/4._Appreciation

Fefonz Quan: (thanks, i htought so)

Liza Deischer: (I felt some discomfort at the second part, about how you can approach it :))

--BELL--

Eliza Madrigal: Well, I felt not quite what Adams felt, but I felt that my romanticisms and capturing tendencies were exposed. Then at some point I felt that being uncomfortable in this way, this questioning way, made it possible to be part of a traditional context ... 'safely'

Eliza Madrigal: in an alive, seeing way

Eliza Madrigal: So it was a bit like having blankets ripped off in the morning, I felt

Eden Haiku: Ah, felt something like that too Eliza.

Eliza Madrigal: I've had my wrestlings with faith and belief of course... to the point of rejecting anything that sounded like that...

Eliza Madrigal: so appreciating beliefs and faith...

Eliza Madrigal: that's been a welcome turn... to be free there too

Yakuzza Lethecus: good morning everyone

Liza Deischer: hi Yaku :)

Eliza Madrigal: Hi Ya :)

Maxine Walden: you know, in these explorations, I have the feeling of 1) oh, yes, I have been here before...tried this exploration before...but also 2) that I am just a beginner, maybe can't recall what we did before. It is a peculiar feeling

Yakuzza Lethecus: afternoon/night

Eden Haiku: Good afternoon ninja friend :)

Pema Pera: hi Yaku!

Eliza Madrigal nods @ Maxine

Maxine Walden: hi, Yaku

 

 

Maxine Walden: maybe these explorations bypass our usual memory and capacities developed to get along in a linear world so in a way it is new every time

Eliza Madrigal: the word 'appreciation' tends to sound like something we know already, but stopping to 'switch gears' is always new?

Eliza Madrigal: :) Maxine

Pema Pera: interesting, Maxine, yes, quite likely so

Liza Deischer: In the beginning I felt the question was too big for me, and that is why I chose a point to start and that is here and now, with all that I experience, know and don't know, except that I understand that all my concet

Liza Deischer: concepts are fluid

Pema Pera: and so said you did not feel very comfortable in the second part of the chapter, Liza?

Liza Deischer: well, I felt some resistance

Liza Deischer: because to me appreciation is a subject thing

Liza Deischer: and I think it all starts there

Liza Deischer: that is not the point

Liza Deischer: but I don't see myself stepping outside the trail by appreciation

Pema Pera: we have to start somewhere, all of us . . .

Liza Deischer: yes

Liza Deischer: I agree upon that

Pema Pera: and "appreciation" is a word that can have many meanings -- as Bleu pointed out in her report :)

Eden Haiku: Helping my uncle with Parkinson eating yesterday at the hospital, witnessing his pride in wanting to hold his fork but needing me to give it a little push so he can lift it towards his mouth, I was reflecting on appreciating the presence of appearance, looking into his watering blue eyes as he was swallowing the food, exhausted yet happy to feel he was gaining his dignity back.

Pema Pera: how moving, Eden, to observe and appreciate that . . .

Eliza Madrigal: that's beautiful Eden

Maxine Walden: how poignant, Eden

Liza Deischer: but I have started to appreciate what we call reality more and more

Eliza Madrigal: Hi Hana, I'll give you a note of the session so far

Eden Haiku: Sometimes struggling with words like "Time presents all that appears" seems so difficult, and then the meaning reveals itself through what time does present...

Pema Pera: hi Hana!

Eden Haiku: Hello Hana:)

Hana Furlough: Hi everyone!

Liza Deischer: not trying to get rid of the cup of tea we make, or the sleep we need, or the money that provides us a roof above our heads

Liza Deischer: and to me that was the real first step

Hana Furlough: Thank you, Eliza!

Eliza Madrigal: ys :)

Eliza Madrigal: yw*

Liza Deischer: hi hana :)

 

 

Pema Pera: if I can come back to the role of faith; there IS a BIG role for faith, while not believing, in my view: there is a really subtle aspect here, about faith . . . in order to really plunge into working with a working hypothesis, we have to have lots of faith in it being worth while to spend so much time and energy and effort in challenging both belief and disbelief :-)

Liza Deischer: But maybe I needed that grounding effect

Hana Furlough: yes!

Pema Pera: and yes, Liza, definitely

Pema Pera: we don't have to radically try to change everything all at once

Liza Deischer: To me it works the other way around

 

--BELL--

 

Liza Deischer: I need to plunge, because there is no answer I can find in the 'real' world, and appreciation is becoming familiar and comfortable with that idea. But first felt the great discomfort of being disconnected, before there was something new

Pema Pera: hi Bleu!

Fefonz Quan: And faith here should be understood as "trust" more than "beliefe" or "destiny" (as i see it)

Bleu Oleander: (hi all )

Liza Deischer: hi Bleu

Maxine Walden: agree, Fef

Fefonz Quan: hi Bleu

Hana Furlough: Hi Bleu!

Eliza Madrigal: Hi Bleu :)

Maxine Walden: hi, bleu

Hana Furlough: Fef, it really is like trust

Liza Deischer: *appreciation made it famliar and more comfortable to work with the uncertainty

Eliza Madrigal: Nice... relaxing/resting in that open questioning...

Eden Haiku: I wrote my report about the heron before I knew my uncle was hospitalized. He is a very tall thin man who loved birds and someone had brought him a beautiful yellow orchid. He took a looong and painful time to tell me the orchid is called "The great heron". I felt honoured to hear that, to appreciate the fact that my struggling with the experiment about appreciting presence of appearances and what time was presenting me with were all connected, I was also very moved by Bruce's report.

 

 

Eliza Madrigal: Hi Bruce :)

Maxine Walden: and for me faith involves being able to bear the uncertainty (with doubts and even dreads)

Liza Deischer: hi Bruce :)

Hana Furlough: Hi Bruce

Liza Deischer: I like fonz word 'trust' better, but I guess that is personal

Eden Haiku: Good morning Bruce. Found your report very moving ;)

Pema Pera: hi Bruce!

Bruce Mowbray: Good day, folks. I'm very sorry to be late -- talking with insurance adjusters all morning.

Yakuzza Lethecus: good morning bruce :)

Fefonz Quan: Hi Bruce

Bruce Mowbray: Thank you, Eden.

Maxine Walden: probably a different world than here, insurance adjusters, Bruce

Pema Pera: how moving, Eden . . . .

Bruce Mowbray: please continue with your discussion. . .

Pema Pera: T.S. Eliot wrote in "East Coker" in the Four Quartets! I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Eden Haiku: Thinking about worlds colliding: assurance adjusters and PaB Timers :))

Fefonz Quan: (to maxine about fiath) - that's why somehow i translate faith to "faith in oneself" - not trusting anything outside me, but trusting that through these uncertainties and doubt, i'll get safe to the other side

Maxine Walden: agree, to Fef

Pema Pera: but trusting anything inside you, Fef?

Fefonz Quan: (which can surely be like trusting Being)

Fefonz Quan: infact, this trust is not towards any object in particular - including myself

Eden Haiku: God is living in you as you my ex-guru used to say :)

Liza Deischer: words like faith and trust refer to something, someone

Liza Deischer: that makes it hard to use those words in a different way and still understandign each other

Fefonz Quan: it is some trust that "everything is going just fine"

Eden Haiku: Yes, I see what you mean Fefonz.

Fefonz Quan: (hoping it doesn't slip to silly optimism ;-)

Pema Pera: I think it's good to start with some form of trust, Fef, as a kind of scaffolding

Pema Pera: for the time being

Pema Pera: without holding on to it forever

Liza Deischer: "Time Being"

Liza Deischer: :))

Maxine Walden: ...but stays on a deep level of trust, that the deep uncertainties may be there but not overwhelm the more fragile trust perhaps, Fef?

Fefonz Quan: maybe Maxine.

Pema Pera: (and thank you, Bruce, for sharing so many dramatic turns in your life in one week, and your responses to it all!)

Bruce Mowbray:  It  was good to have someone to share the week with. . .

Liza Deischer: it is hard to escape the question: 'what is this trust based on?'

Pema Pera: yes, I could feel that, Bruce, from your writing

Bruce Mowbray: And doubly good to have a method of mindfulness to help me keep balanced and present.

Eden Haiku: Yes, it's a precious report Bruce. Appreciated.

Fefonz Quan: This trust can just be a hypothesis too :)

Pema Pera: :-)

Liza Deischer: could well be :)

Bruce Mowbray: Hmmmm. . . for me, basic trust is self-reinforcing....

Bruce Mowbray: For example, when I "go" to that place in consciousness where I am appreciating the presence of tha ppearance...

Eden Haiku: listening

Bruce Mowbray: I need to do NOTHING to arouse trust (no logic, belief system, philosophy, etc.)

Pema Pera: yes

Bruce Mowbray: The trust is self-evident in the moment itself.

Eden Haiku: Ah, like an impulse?

Fefonz Quan: it's like a scientist entering a lab for a new experiment. nothing tells him something will come out of it, but it is woth the try

Hana Furlough: it was quite the opposite for me: once trust found me, then it was much easier for me to appreciate, as ie were

Bruce Mowbray: For me, it is Trust with a capital "T" -- whereas the logician has "trust" that his logic will provide "reasons" - eventually.

 

--BELL--

 

Bruce Mowbray: My Trust does not require reasons.

Pema Pera: yes, but the scientist doesn't randomly tries anything in sight -- she/he has some basic faith that a particular approach may well be worth all the effort

Eden Haiku: Being able to experiment like that, reading the chapters and then doing the experiments and writing about them is developing in me a new trust about my ability to understand consciousness of time at a deeper level. I'm very grateful to Pema and to you all.

Pema Pera: very interesting distinction, Hana and Bruce! -- but I have a sense that some of the scientists may sometimes feel something similar too perhaps . . .

Bruce Mowbray: sorry - talking to insurance agent now -- afk.

Liza Deischer: Trust is probably based on appearence itself

Maxine Walden: :), to Bruce

Pema Pera: thank you, Eden -- yes, another kind of trust that is empowering, giving you a willingness to try

Eden Haiku: Picturing the shifting of conversational style Bruce is operating right now ;))

Pema Pera: :-)

Eliza Madrigal: Thank you Eden, for your vivid pictures and sharings

Eden Haiku: smiles

Liza Deischer: trust based on the movement you feel in the moment, like when you try to stand completely still and not being able to do so

Eliza Madrigal: and everyone of course. Each time we engage one another perhaps that is faith itself

Maxine Walden: seems to me we are exploring trust in bypassing our familiar linear approach to the world,

Eden Haiku: How interesting Maxine, care to say more about our non-linear approach?

Eliza Madrigal: mm, nods Maxine

Pema Pera nods at Eliza

Liza Deischer: there is a lot of strength and structure in feeling that

Liza Deischer: without capturing it

Eliza Madrigal: (and switches her word 'engagement' for 'attention' @ Fef ) ;-)

Maxine Walden: seems to me we are exploring our trust in bypassing our familar linear approach to the world,

Liza Deischer: very much alive

Liza Deischer: (going on my own trail here, I'm afraid :))

Fefonz Quan: :-)

 

 

Eliza Madrigal: not at all Liza.. I was pondering that... 'feeling the strength'... was thinking of an eagle I saw chained down at a nature center once

Eliza Madrigal: alll that natural power...

Liza Deischer: yes, so sad

Maxine Walden: sorry for the double type: the non-linear approach is what I think Pema is advocating...

Eliza Madrigal: well, he was there to heal, but didn't know that

Bleu Oleander: what do you mean by linear approach Maxine?

Pema Pera: yes, finding new directions, beyond the usual polarities we seem to be captured between

Eliza Madrigal listens

Eden Haiku: Trying to understand what Maxine is saying about our non-linear approach, I sense there is something powerful there, it connects to how I'm living these experiments. It carries me far back in the past and in other levels of conciousness as well. Very difficult to put in words as said in many reports :)

Maxine Walden: the appreciation of the moment, giving up our attachments to past, present, future, and to the 'stories' about certainty which such attachments 'bring'

Pema Pera: linear here is also connected with drawing a line further into the future, predicting what will happen, and without realizing it chaining yourself to your predictions and expectations

Maxine Walden: we live our lives attached to 'what I know' (a kind of linear sequence of 'things'); I think Pema asks us to bypass

Pema Pera: yes

Eden Haiku: Ah, the giving up of certainty, yes, I think I see what you mean now.

Pema Pera: being able to turn on a dime . . .

Bruce Mowbray: thinking about words and language - and how 'knowing' seems to depend of having words for things. . .

Pema Pera: as Bruce did this last week

Liza Deischer: but not giving up the living moment

Maxine Walden: hmm, yes

Bruce Mowbray: Is it not true that one of the major purposes of language is to give us confidence in the illusion that we can step into the same experience twice?

Pema Pera: :)

Maxine Walden: so true, Bruce, that clinging to words as things in order to 'know'

Liza Deischer: so right Bruce

Eliza Madrigal: :) Bruce

Maxine Walden: which for me brings up that trust again in allowing the uncertainty, the not knowing to flow around us but not drown us...

Bruce Mowbray: Language gives us that illusion -- by making words that last. . . but the experiences that those words refer to do not last -- each moment is entirely new -- No stepping into the same moment twice (apologies to Heraclitus.)

Fefonz Quan: In a way the words cut us from the truth, the wholeness of experiencing and being

Liza Deischer: but dropping and giving seems to be like we are throwing something away, instead of gaining anything

 

 

Eden Haiku: Just realized the insurance adjuster must have been on the phone...Was picturing Bruce dealing with the man in person standing next to his computer, looking at us all, avatars sitting by a pool, typing words on a screen. ;))

Pema Pera: no doubt increasing the insurance rate!

Maxine Walden: :)), and maybe each of us has an 'insurance adjuster' of sorts...

Liza Deischer: *dropping and giving away

Liza Deischer: like we loose something

Bruce Mowbray: [that's why I needed to go "busy" for a minute.]

Maxine Walden: close to hand...ready to downrate this SL stuff

Bleu Oleander: is it an illusion that we can give up attachments to past, present, future?

Eliza Madrigal: haha Maxine

Eden Haiku: Or a soul adjuster Maxine :)

Maxine Walden: ahah, Eden

Liza Deischer: heheh

Fefonz Quan: In Judaism =- the ceremony of circumsice - is called "brith Mila" and Mila is "word"

Pema Pera: we can only do so if we give up our picture of what "we" are, Bleu, which is what makes it so tricky . . . .

Eliza Madrigal: are we trying to bypass him or make friends? :)

Eden Haiku: What happens to girls and words Fefonz?

Bleu Oleander: is it really desireable to give up what "we" are?

Liza Deischer: *give up, that's the word

Maxine Walden: the cynicism so available to the 'adjuster' state of mind...can so downrate the value of our endeavor here

 

--BELL--

 

Bruce Mowbray: or maybe, "back off from..."

Fefonz Quan: Bleu, it might be what we think we are

Liza Deischer: I don't think we are giving up anything

Pema Pera sneaks out waving goodbye to everybody; time to get some sleep after a very busy week

Eliza Madrigal: The next session is about to begin...

Liza Deischer: except maybe our concepts

Bruce Mowbray: thank you, Pema...

Fefonz Quan: good night Pema

Maxine Walden: hard for us to stop the time session...

Eliza Madrigal: :::reaches for her wand to change the recoring::::

Hana Furlough: bye, pema!

Bleu Oleander: bye Pema TY!

Eliza Madrigal: Thanks Pema, glad you made it

Maxine Walden: thanks Pema

Pema Pera: :-)

Liza Deischer: bye Pema

Pema Pera: thanks everybody!

Eden Haiku: Bye Pema, enjoy!