2010.10.08 06:00 - A Small Scale Time Session

The Guardian for this meeting was Pema Pera. The comments are by Pema Pera.

Pema Pera talking to himself: after fifteen minutes I'm still the only avatar who managed to get in; via email I heard that there are significant problems with logging into SL, and it took me ten minutes to get in myself. I'll wait for a while longer

soon after I typed those words, about twenty minutes into the session, the first other avatar made it: Maxine.

Pema Pera: yeah, Maxine, you made it!
Maxine Walden: YES, Pema, wow
Maxine Walden: really makes me aware of how vulnerable we are to SL workings...
Maxine Walden: and a trial of patience
Pema Pera: I already mentioned in my email something about your report, shall we talk about that now? It will be on the log, even if others are slow to get in
Maxine Walden: ah, fine, sorry have not seen your email yet...could you summarize?
Pema Pera: sure!
Pema Pera: I have a question for Maxine. You wrote early on in your report: "I cannot see these as just phenomena" -- perhaps you interpreted that sentence as "just mere phenomena" rather than "sheer phenomena".
Pema Pera: I mean: when we say "just phenomena" we mean "mere" as opposed what goes beyond phenomena (like imputed existence).
Pema Pera: But if if phenomena would be all there is, in a "sheer" kind of way, like in "sheer presence"?
Pema Pera: to sum up, youre "just phenmena" may be something different from "only ever phenomena with nothing else"
Maxine Walden: yes, glad to have this discussion. I think I have been responding to my read that your mention of phenomena might minimize the depth of resonances, etc, the interplay between conscious and unconscious perceptions, etc...now maybe we can clarify if I have been misunderstanding your comments re phenomena
Pema Pera: yes, I understand very well that my writing may have come across that way.
Pema Pera: but what I meant is that everything is given through, really AS, phenomena
Pema Pera: including deep reasonances
Pema Pera: including conscous, unconscious, interplay between both, etc
Maxine Walden: guess for me there is something so mysterious about these deep resonances, about the unconscious that I have trouble considering them phenomena...

This brought us to the question what we mean with the word "phenomenon"

Pema Pera: what else could they be?
Maxine Walden: so mysterious about some aspects of these deep resonances...seems to me that we have only begun to scratch the surface of understanding the depth/complexity of the unconscious realms, (sort of like the external cosmos)
Pema Pera: how else could you contact them than through your consciousness, as conscious experiences?
Pema Pera: what else is there in consciousness but phenomena -- or if something seeps in from an unconsciousness, doesn't it have to become a phenomenon for us to know it?
Pema Pera: (I'm not sure what the answers are; there may be more than one answer -- I just want to pose them!)
--BELL--
Maxine Walden: perhaps this discussion helps me clarify even to myself how I seem to approach even my perceptions in an open-ended way...not quite sure what I may be perceiving and whether I may be using the appropirate resources/capacities to apprehend them fully/clearly...
Pema Pera: it also depends on how we use those words -- I don't want to limit "phenomena" to what a subject may perceive -- but that in a way is an arbitrary choice
Maxine Walden: it may be that we are orbiting around the notion of phenomena...and what we mean by that term
Pema Pera: if you prefer the term in a more restricted way, we have to find a new terms for non-subject-object phenomena
Pema Pera: yes
Maxine Walden: so, maybe an attitude toward what we perceive may come in here for me...
Pema Pera: what I find most interesting is the ability we have to make a shift -- away from what we experience as giving in its normal assocations toward a focus on the experience qua experience, independent of any of the usual ramifications
Pema Pera: which is what I think Husserl tried to point out with his notion of epoche
Maxine Walden: I had begun to think that in your use of 'phenomena' you were expressing a clarity perhaps certainty about what you/we perceive in terms of 'phenomena', while I find that I approach all my perceptions/ etc with uncertainty, even as to what I am perceiving at the moment...
Pema Pera: and that is a very practical ability to learn: when you're angry or sad or whatever, you then always have a way to shift/switch to watch what's going on rather than to be stuck in it
Pema Pera: oh no, that was not my meaning
Pema Pera: "a sense of clarity" is yet another phenomenon, and so is "a sense of a lack of clarity"
Pema Pera: (in my dictionary)
Pema Pera: or perhaps better "what appears" instead of "phenomenon" -- simpler expression
Pema Pera: clarity and lack of clarity appear, after all
Pema Pera: like everything else

Maxine made an interesting dynamic connection to "being stuck".

Maxine Walden: ah, we may be approaching common footing re observing vs being stuck in something.
Pema Pera: "we" are never stuck
Pema Pera: "the aspect of me that likes to focus on X" can easily get stuck!
Pema Pera: but that's not the whole me
Maxine Walden: For me currently we have at least two states of mind, one of 'being' in the moment and that quality of observing which is far more 'whole' (but not a 'totality)
Maxine Walden: the 'stuck' me has no wider stance or stepping back quality; it operates more on the concrete 'this is it' mode, while the observing, wider perceiving self approaches what you are advocating....so we may not be that far apart.
Pema Pera: and what observes may or may not be rightfully something that can be called a self . . .
Pema Pera: sometimes it does feel like a "second self"
Pema Pera: but sometimes it's more impersonal, or so it seems
Pema Pera: Hi Lucinda!  And hi Adams!
Maxine Walden: Agree, the concrete observer who says 'this is it, or IT' feels it knows itself, perhaps owns itself, and seems quite 'certain' of boundaries, knowledge, etc. (very left brain it seems). While the wider, humbler, softer-edged 'observer' is more open to the vast uncertainty, etc..grateful and humble rather than 'ownere' and possessor. The former is terrified of 'not knowing', the latter welcomes it
Lucinda Lavender: HI Pema, Maxine...:)
Maxine Walden: hi, Lucinda and Adams!
Adams Rubble: Hello Lucinda, maxine and Pema :)

Suddenly there were now four of us.

Pema Pera: and perhaps the softer observer is not an observer . . . .
--BELL--
Maxine Walden: yes, I am very open to that
Maxine Walden: Not sure what 'term' to use in trying to contrast it to the left-brain 'self'
Pema Pera: a field of awareness -- without a need to attach a "subject"?
Pema Pera: or a body even?
Pema Pera: or a mind in the usual brain-mind sense?
Maxine Walden: fully open to that, find it very compatible to consider it 'field of awareness'
Pema Pera: where "field" has no clear meaning (as yet) but mostly points to something more intrinsic than a stand-alone "self"
Lucinda Lavender: are you perhaps diffuse vs focussed?
Maxine Walden: beyond bodies...boundaries of self
Pema Pera: many terms we could use, yes, Lucinda -- the challenge is how to communicate to each other what we mean with each term
Lucinda Lavender: (speaking of)
Pema Pera: we can't borrow the usual language tool box :)
Maxine Walden: that becomes increasingly clear
Pema Pera: and yes, not focused in the usual sense
Maxine Walden: glad to have this clarifying discussion, thank you :)
Pema Pera: letting one's gaze defocus, letting one's eyes grow softer, is a good warm-up exercise
Pema Pera: telling your eyes "sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight" :-)
Maxine Walden: :)
Maxine Walden: seems we or at least I need to have these clarifying conversations occasionally...interesting to think why: maybe we drift away at times from mutual understanding, back toward our own ways of perceiving...
Pema Pera: oh, we need them all the time
Maxine Walden: without this mutual tool box we may drift away from common or shared understandings
Pema Pera: we are not just discussing using language, we are creating a new language while discussing; we have no choice!
Pema Pera: yes
Maxine Walden: explorere of new territory can only use the tools they have brought with them, until they can discover/invent new ones which serve the newly discovered 'lands'
Pema Pera: yes indeed
Pema Pera: and tool invention and tool use go hand in hand
Pema Pera: it's a boot strap process
Maxine Walden: indeed it is

Adams asked about what new meant here

Adams Rubble: Is it really new territory or just new to us?
Maxine Walden: yes, new to us, I imagine, Adams...at least in my view...
Pema Pera: yes, new and old are also part of a duality, and when we go beyond duality that question evaporates
--BELL--
Pema Pera: I guess we'll switch to the next session now -- I'll stop the recording for this session