2011.10.29 19:00 - Play as Being -- A Living Book

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

Pema Pera: hi there!
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Pema :)
Pema Pera: sorry to be late; had to reinstall my viewer
Pema Pera: but now all is well :)
Eliza Madrigal: Oh, good :)
Pema Pera: and how are you doing?
Eliza Madrigal: :) fine and well
Eliza Madrigal: you?
Pema Pera: enjoying the snow :-)
Eliza Madrigal: snow?
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Storm :)
Storm Nordwind: Hi both!
Pema Pera: yes, snow!
Eliza Madrigal: did you go visit Storm?
Eliza Madrigal: :)) snowing there...
Storm Nordwind: Ours is still melting
Pema Pera: such a surprise, waking up :-)
Eliza Madrigal: wow, nice!
Pema Pera: can't remember snow in October
Pema Pera: you see, all those lefties talking about global warming :-)
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Eliza Madrigal smiles
Pema Pera: the big chill !
Pema Pera: Princeton looked like a Christmas card today
Eliza Madrigal: ah :)
Storm Nordwind: We had 92 degreesF here on Monday. Tuesday evening it was below freezing and snowing.
Pema Pera: :-)
Eliza Madrigal: makes Miami's weather seem predictable and stable :)
Pema Pera: hi O !
--BELL--
Pema Pera: I've been thinking recently about the meaing of meditation
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Samúð :)
Storm Nordwind: Hi Sam
Pema Pera: triggered by the fact that sometimes it is equated with "going into a trance"
oO0Oo Resident: thank you... :)
Pema Pera: while in fact it is just about the opposite
Pema Pera: our normal way of going about our lives, for most of us, me included, is pretty much like a trance
Pema Pera: or at least has a lot of unquestioned habituality in it
Pema Pera: and the invitation of meditation or contemplation is to get out of the trance
Pema Pera: does that seem roughly right?
oO0Oo Resident: gently right
Pema Pera: :-)
Storm Nordwind: What do you think people mean by "trance"?
Eliza Madrigal: my question too
Pema Pera: I'm not sure :-)
Pema Pera: I have heard it here a few times
Pema Pera: My guess is: setting aside your normal freedom to operate, a kind of freezing
Pema Pera: and in fact, in many ways we freeze a large part of our abilities in ordinary daily functioning
Pema Pera: habits, unquestioned choices
Storm Nordwind: The only trances I'm familiar with involve stepping aside and letting some other trusted "force" take over.
Pema Pera: I don't think that is what was meant, when I heard it
Eliza Madrigal thinks of visions when thinking of the idea of a trance... which may be a questioning of habitual mode
Pema Pera: we have the expression "entranced by something"
Eliza Madrigal nods... hypnotized I guess
Pema Pera: but when we are not mindful, and live on autopilot, you might in fact argue that something else has taken over, a "habitual way of operating"
Storm Nordwind: The superficial effect of being entranced - as seen by onlookers - may be similar to that when they observe, say, a medium or shaman in the kind of trance I mentioned before
Eliza Madrigal: are robots in trance? :)
Pema Pera: you could ask them :-)
Storm Nordwind: Where's Boxy when you need him? ;)
Eliza Madrigal: hehe, they may be programmed to give an answer
Eliza Madrigal: it is an interesting question though Pema, thank you
Pema Pera: what made me think about trance was connected with the Buddhist idea of emptiness
Pema Pera: when hearing that idea, it is tempting to look for the emptiness in all things
Pema Pera: starting with a thing, as given, and then looking for something extra, a claimed something called emptiness
Pema Pera: but in fact, the "givenness of the thing" as we normally experience it may already be wrong
Pema Pera: part of a trance (or hypnosis, or habitual fixation)
Pema Pera: with the emptiness closer to what naturally is
Eliza Madrigal: mmmm
Storm Nordwind: So you might step aside from that misperception - drop it, so to speak - in meditation.
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: and what looks like "letting go of the world" is then only "letting go of a frozen/habitual way of dealing with the world"
Storm Nordwind: Yes :)
Pema Pera: but if may feel, for all intents and purposes, like "letting go of the world"
Pema Pera: which can be quite scary :-)
oO0Oo Resident: nods
oO0Oo Resident: if all possibility cliff
--BELL--
Storm Nordwind: I wonder if it's as scary nowadays as it would have been hundreds of years ago. After all, today we have a rapidly changing society in so many ways, and perhaps we're more used to having the rug pulled out from under our feet. In elder days, it must have been traumatic for some.
Pema Pera: Hi Druth!
druth Vlodovic: hi guys
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Druth :)
Pema Pera: yes, that's the beauty of SL, especially, so in that sense things are easier
Pema Pera: but the pervasive belief in science in an almost charicature way may make things more difficult
Pema Pera: "science says that the brain does this and therefore that" type thinking
Storm Nordwind: Yes - the popular notion of science as fixed and factual, instead of ever evolving hypotheses.
oO0Oo Resident: Druth :)
Pema Pera: plus the notion that by now science has basically explained everything
Pema Pera: or everything worthwhile about reality
Pema Pera: so it means that traditional meditation manuals have to be rewritten dramatically: 1) the "meta" or "virtual" explanations can be shortened a fair bit; while 2) there are things science hasn't explained has to be prominently added, to avoid reification
druth Vlodovic: our love of stratification turns all things into fixed religions, even reality
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: hi Luci!
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Luci :)
druth Vlodovic: hi luci
oO0Oo Resident: Luci :)
Lucinda Lavender: hI all!
Eliza Madrigal: would you like a note, Luci?
Lucinda Lavender: sure...
druth Vlodovic: meditation as an exercise in "crawling out of our heads" :)
Lucinda Lavender: thanks\
Eliza Madrigal: K, one second :)
Pema Pera: yes, we've never been inside our heads :-)
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Pema Pera: so it may be hard to crawl out . . . .
Pema Pera: but good to crawl out of the mistaken notion, for sure!
druth Vlodovic: ??
Pema Pera: well, if we try too hard to "crawl out of our head" then that activity itself can strengthen the misake notion of "having been in our head"
Pema Pera: while seeing through the whole mistaken picture may be more effective
Pema Pera: though perhaps more difficult, since it's harder to do gradually
Lucinda Lavender: I may get knocked off...let's see...
Pema Pera: quicker than crawling, Luci?
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Pema Pera: Luci always reading to take a short cut!
Pema Pera: *ready
Pema Pera: ah, looks like New York!
Lucinda Lavender: finding that two computers is more challenging to the system than one
druth Vlodovic: "never been inside our heads" you mean in terms of understanding?
Lucinda Lavender: Luci is reading now
--BELL--
Pema Pera: the idea of "being inside your head" I think is a wrong way of looking at the world -- everything you experience, both outside and inside, you experience in your mind; so your mind is not in your head, and never has been. Or do you see that differently?
Lucinda Lavender: thanks you for making the note Eliza:)
Eliza Madrigal: most welcome :)
druth Vlodovic: ah, I see, the mind as an amalgam of everything that causes thought or feeling
druth Vlodovic: I was thinking more in terms of preconception
Eliza Madrigal: thanks Storm :)
Pema Pera: but it's very interesting to go back to that preconception
Pema Pera: what do you think it means, to "be in your head"?
druth Vlodovic: I was presuming a mist hiding and warping what wasn't already there
Pema Pera: can you say more?
Storm Nordwind recall the hippy phrase where "to be in your head" meant to self-involved with thoughts and emotions and to lose touch with the experience of "what-is"
Lucinda Lavender: Luci agrees with storm there
druth Vlodovic: yes, that :)
Pema Pera: pretty accurate, yes!
Pema Pera: the body as a fortification, with slits as eyes, behind which the "self" hides and glances at the world as "other"
Storm Nordwind: ghastly!
Pema Pera: that's the trance, I guess
oO0Oo Resident: appreciating the articulations
Lucinda Lavender: hippy because with the various drugs of the 60's...the exploration there with that set of people
druth Vlodovic: in the unexamined life you'd be sitting on top of it, unaware of what is inside you and how it affects your perceptions/conceptions
Lucinda Lavender: Luci thinks about mantra based meditation...is that trance?
Pema Pera: and examining experience can let you realize that everything is given in your mind helps to break the trance
Eliza Madrigal: great question
druth Vlodovic: hey tess
Pema Pera: it's perhaps a kind of counter trance?
Pema Pera: antidote?
oO0Oo Resident: Hi tess !
druth Vlodovic: perhaps a way to stop the thoughts so new things can force their way in
Pema Pera: getting you out of the trance you started in?
Lucinda Lavender: Luci is thnking about being chilly with this lovely snow!!
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Tess :)
Pema Pera: hi Tess!
oO0Oo Resident: I'll send you a notecard tess
Tess Aristocrat: hello :0
Lucinda Lavender: waking up to a present awareness seems to be less trance like yes
Eliza Madrigal: mantras do tend to show up the loops one is in
druth Vlodovic: exchanging the complex trance of life for a simpler one, an initial step
Pema Pera: ah, nice description, Druth!
Pema Pera: That reminds me of playing go, or any board game
Tess Aristocrat: ㋡
Pema Pera: the delight in playing that I feel is related to that increased simplicity
oO0Oo Resident: Are you considering writing a revised style text on meditation pema... a book?
Pema Pera: I've written a number of manuscripts, but I'm still not happy with each one :-)
Pema Pera: so much easier to talk to living individuals, one on one, or in a small group
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Pema Pera: compared to reaching out across the pages to who knows whom!
Storm Nordwind: Instead, we have Play as Being - a living book :)
Pema Pera: hahaha, yes
oO0Oo Resident: :)
Eliza Madrigal: well no reason one should inhibit another :)
Pema Pera: there is no framework in our culture for writing about nonduality
Pema Pera: unlike writing about math or daily life or whatever
druth Vlodovic: and the need for frameworks is srtongly felt
Pema Pera: so even the very first few words I use will likely be misunderstood . . . .
--BELL--
Pema Pera: that's why poets and novel writers have it so much easier -- nobody will accuse them of "being wrong" or "disagreeing" -- at worse they can say "I don't like it" :-)
Storm Nordwind: /To try to appeal to a universal audience by finding the right vocabulary might delay it forever. Instead perhaps you could simply say, "Let he that hath an ear, let him hear!" :)
Eliza Madrigal: :)))
Pema Pera: :-)
Lucinda Lavender: nods...interesting
Pema Pera: the last two manuscripts I did put up on the web
Pema Pera: so those who can't wait can start reading there :-)
oO0Oo Resident looks forward to Pema's book of poems.
Storm Nordwind smiles
Eliza Madrigal smiles
Pema Pera: :-)
Pema Pera: http://wiki.playasbeing.org/PaB_Books/Magic_of_Time is the latest
oO0Oo Resident: clicks
druth Vlodovic: sounds familiar :)
Pema Pera: hmm, the URL of the preious no longer works . . . pity
Pema Pera: have to check that
Pema Pera: it used to be "http://lab.kira.org/lab"
Eliza Madrigal: ah yes... doesn't go through
Storm Nordwind: Do you remember the title?
Pema Pera: I'm glad I checked!
Pema Pera: "Life as a Lab"
Lucinda Lavender: thinking...
Pema Pera: (like a Labrador, running, eating, sleeping)
Lucinda Lavender: :)))
Storm Nordwind notices that Google is still linking to the defunct URL
Pema Pera: something must not have survived the various transitions of the Kira pages
Pema Pera: homework!
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Pema Pera: well, time for me to get some sleep
Lucinda Lavender: the coming back into ones awareness...asif using some kind of telescopic viewer
Pema Pera: good seeing you all !
druth Vlodovic: http://www.sns.ias.edu/~piet/publ/other/alan.html
druth Vlodovic: 'night pema
Pema Pera: that's a much shorter version
Storm Nordwind waves
Pema Pera: an article, not a book manuscript. but yes, it is related
Pema Pera: bfn
Eliza Madrigal: Nite Pema :)
Lucinda Lavender: bye Pema:)
oO0Oo Resident: Pema :)
Tess Aristocrat: ㋡
Eliza Madrigal: just looking at the question of trance is an interesting exploration... daily life, asking oneself
Lucinda Lavender: compartmentalization has been going on for me
Storm Nordwind: oh?
Lucinda Lavender: tm, dream circle, yoga, beeing seeing
Lucinda Lavender: truthfully must say
Lucinda Lavender: taught different methods
druth Vlodovic: you haven't been trying to integrate them?
Lucinda Lavender: not sure...each was at a different stage of life
oO0Oo Resident: maybe overlapping frameworks
Lucinda Lavender: as I have gone down the road they seem to have qualities
Tess Aristocrat: compartmentalization an important way of storing memory for me
--BELL--
Tess Aristocrat: I know that the brain stores some things on the same shelf, for instance ㋡
Lucinda Lavender: yes over lapping frameworks I guess...
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Eliza Madrigal: mosaical perhaps eventually, backing up
Lucinda Lavender: maybe so...
Lucinda Lavender: must go for now...
Eliza Madrigal: Night Luci :)
Tess Aristocrat: bye, take care
oO0Oo Resident: then sometimes as life goes on... frameworks want to be integrated into larger or more complete ones?
druth Vlodovic: have fun luci
oO0Oo Resident: Night Luci
Alfred Kelberry: snow!
Alfred Kelberry: hi, folks
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Boxy :)
druth Vlodovic: hey box
Storm Nordwind waves
Alfred Kelberry: you should have sent your letter a bit earlier, storm :)
Tess Aristocrat: ㋡ Alfred
Tess Aristocrat: waves
Eliza Madrigal waves to Tess
druth Vlodovic: I suspect we are the framework into which what we do and learn gets integrated
Alfred Kelberry: luci, how are you hens? :)
Lucinda Lavender: yes Sam...integrated\
Lucinda Lavender: Hens are ok...young pullets the only ones laying right now
Alfred Kelberry: :)
Lucinda Lavender: only 2 colors of eggs in the fridge
Lucinda Lavender: winter slows things down I guess
Alfred Kelberry: i prefer brown ones
oO0Oo Resident: :)
oO0Oo Resident: coloured eggs makes me happy
Lucinda Lavender: :)
Eliza Madrigal: :) pictures Luci tending to chickens in long gown....
druth Vlodovic: goodnight all
Eliza Madrigal: Night Druth :)
oO0Oo Resident: Night Druth
Lucinda Lavender: yep need that gown...
Alfred Kelberry: somehow i associate brown eggs with countryside, hence healthy and eco-friendly :)
Eliza Madrigal: :)
oO0Oo Resident: [oops missed Tess] Night Tess
Alfred Kelberry: is storm asleep?
Lucinda Lavender: bfn...
Eliza Madrigal: bfn :)
Eliza Madrigal: thanks for clarifying my guardian session email, btw, Boxy
Alfred Kelberry: bye luci girl :)
oO0Oo Resident: Storm is in a non-trance
Storm Nordwind noticed that US eggs tend to be white and thinner shelled than thye brown British eggs
Eliza Madrigal giggles
Eliza Madrigal: are they Storm? less hearty?
Alfred Kelberry: eliza, i didn't clarify. just was playing after i read your tl;dr comment :)
Storm Nordwind: British eggs are easier to cook with. Then don't shatter shell into your mix!
Storm Nordwind: *they
Lucinda Lavender: the fresh eggs ...behave as you say Storm
Lucinda Lavender: Luci thinks they are the sam from a fresh US HEn
Lucinda Lavender: same
Eliza Madrigal: ah
Alfred Kelberry: storm, ah, that nice crunchy sound when you eat your freshly cooked eggs :)
Eliza Madrigal: :) Boxy, yes I know... just great
Storm Nordwind: perhaps the same from free range US hens
Lucinda Lavender: in my experience
Lucinda Lavender: I do think so
Lucinda Lavender: ok bfn:)
oO0Oo Resident: what joy luci's hens bring... in so many ways :)))
Eliza Madrigal cannot believe how many things she has never payed attention to before
Lucinda Lavender: ha ha
Alfred Kelberry: yep. i want to make pictures of them.
Lucinda Lavender: I will do the close ups soon Boxy
Alfred Kelberry: :)
Eliza Madrigal: :))
oO0Oo Resident: :)))
Lucinda Lavender: like at areally
Lucinda Lavender: was thinking like at a drama show
Lucinda Lavender: ha ha
Eliza Madrigal giggles
Alfred Kelberry: no drama please :)
Lucinda Lavender: :)))hee hee
Lucinda Lavender: certainly no dram...just the close ups
Lucinda Lavender: tomorrow more cider work
Lucinda Lavender: will see what I can do
Storm Nordwind: mmm... cider...
Lucinda Lavender: :))
Eliza Madrigal: next retreat Luci's house... :)
Lucinda Lavender: hee he
Storm Nordwind: Good 8% abv cloudy cider - yum!
oO0Oo Resident: moves to live in community, with provision, that Luci is there
Lucinda Lavender: :)))
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Lucinda Lavender: smiling widely here
Eliza Madrigal: me too :)))
Lucinda Lavender: pours you all a loveley one...
oO0Oo Resident: :)))
Eliza Madrigal: ty Luci :) and some for the chickens...
oO0Oo Resident: so generous
Eliza Madrigal wonders if chickens make good confidantes
Lucinda Lavender: ok...yes' so bfn and the movie is starting...so must go
Lucinda Lavender: love to all:)
Eliza Madrigal: :) Night
--BELL--
Storm Nordwind: I will bid you "adieu" friends :)
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, night Storm :)
oO0Oo Resident: adieu Storm :)
Eliza Madrigal: wondered what you were up to
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Eliza Madrigal: :))
Storm Nordwind: Namaste
Eliza Madrigal: Namaste'
oO0Oo Resident: Namaste
oO0Oo Resident: well, I'm wanderingtoo then. Best wishes Pabbers :)
Eliza Madrigal: Night Sam :)
oO0Oo Resident: Night (((Boxy))) (((Eliza)))
Eliza Madrigal: boxy seems to be away
Eliza Madrigal: night, Boxy :)
Alfred Kelberry: bye sweetest eliza :)
Eliza Madrigal: :))
Eliza Madrigal: wonderful wave :)
Alfred Kelberry: yes, sorry, a bit busy
Eliza Madrigal: that's okay... me too... this and that, always this and that :)
Alfred Kelberry: yes, it's just come up
Eliza Madrigal waves