2012.05.06 13:00 – Stillness

The Guardian for this meeting was Aphrodite Macbain. The comments are by Aphrodite Macbain.

Korel Laloix: Heya
Bruce Mowbray: Hey, Kori!
Bruce Mowbray: Hey, Lila!
Korel Laloix: Heya
Lila Darkmatter: Hi Bruce and Korel
Korel Laloix smiles
Lila Darkmatter: Hi Aphrodite
Korel Laloix: Heya
Aphrodite Macbain: Hello!
Aphrodite Macbain: Already there are people here! How nice
--BELL--
Aphrodite Macbain: Hi Bruce, Korel, Lila
Aphrodite Macbain: can you hear me Bruce? (Bruce is wearing headphones)
Aphrodite Macbain: Hello Storm
Storm Nordwind: Hello :)
Bruce Mowbray: Hey, Aph!
Lila Darkmatter: Hi Storm :)
Bruce Mowbray: Hey, Storm!
Aphrodite Macbain: How is Sunday going for you all?
Bruce Mowbray was wondering about frequent-rider miles on the Non-Dual Railroad.... have just ridden it again for the 67894635th time.
Aphrodite Macbain: my my!
Storm Nordwind: You get a special hat
Bruce Mowbray: YAYYYYY!
Lila Darkmatter: :)
Bruce Mowbray: I think I'm already wearing that one!
Storm Nordwind: And you have to wear the hat every time you're here
Bruce Mowbray: Hey, Sooop.
Sooop Resident: hi
Lila Darkmatter: Hello Elemmire
Aphrodite Macbain: Are those headphones you are wearing from the train?
(Lila arranges some colorful cushions on the pavilion floor)
Aphrodite Macbain: Big nummy Indian cushions
Storm Nordwind: Says NDR on the headphones, so yes
Lila Darkmatter: haha... well Korel started it
Bruce Mowbray thought he'd give the nummy cushions a quick try.
Bruce Mowbray: very comfortable.
Lila Darkmatter: :) feel free
Korel Laloix: Trendy me.
Aphrodite Macbain eyes the cushions longingly
Lila Darkmatter: Sorry, I am being disruptive during the stillness theme session :)

Bruce Mowbray: Go for it, Aph!
Bruce Mowbray: Yayyyyy!
Aphrodite Macbain: ahhhh
Korel Laloix: Heya
Aphrodite Macbain: soo comfortable. Thank you!
Lila Darkmatter smiles contentedly
Lila Darkmatter: but this may have an effect on conversation... so will stow them away for now I think :)
Aphrodite Macbain: Would people here be interested in discussing the topic of stillness today? or would you prefer to propose another topic?
Aphrodite Macbain: we can leave the cushions.
Aphrodite Macbain: We just don’t need to talk about them

Lila Darkmatter: Wonderful TS Eliot (quote) that you sent via email
Aphrodite Macbain: Yes- it is beautiful, isn’t it?
Aphrodite Macbain: Do you feel comfortable discussing such an abstract concept as stillness?
Bruce Mowbray: I'm up for a discussion of "Stillness" - and just sent a notice to the "Friends of Being" about this session.
Lila Darkmatter: hm, don't see it as an abstract concept
Lila Darkmatter: sure we all have personal senses of stillness...
Aphrodite Macbain: Then let's start with you Lila
Korel Laloix: I was thinking about this earlier actually.
Aphrodite Macbain: What does stillness mean to you? Is it something you wish to achieve? wish to avoid?
Aphrodite Macbain: or Korel?
Lila Darkmatter: would you like to continue Korel? I'll be happy to share thoughts next :)
Korel Laloix: For me, I am the most "still" in mind, when in rapid motion... like running or on my bike.
Aphrodite Macbain: so stillness is a desired frame of mind for you? Korel?
Korel Laloix: But tend to be the most mentally sprinting, when I am still in physical.
Korel Laloix: Yes, sometimes I desire it.
Aphrodite Macbain: Interesting Korel.
Korel Laloix: But I keep that separate from what I need to do with my bring to get to sleep.
Lila Darkmatter: so in activity you find 'stopping'
Korel Laloix: That is different.
Korel Laloix: Stillness is an option... I need it sometimes, not in others.
Aphrodite Macbain: Which is your preferred state of being?

Aphrodite Macbain: What is the advantage of being still?
Korel Laloix: Resets.
Lila Darkmatter nods
Korel Laloix: Lets you clear your thoughts to start again.
Aphrodite Macbain: resets your thoughts?
Korel Laloix: And feelings.
Korel Laloix: I think the emotional resets are more important though.
Aphrodite Macbain: Do you stop thinking and feeling when you are still?
Korel Laloix: It makes them slow motion.. Maybe those are the words.
Korel Laloix: Can clear them out... let me stop obsessing.
Aphrodite Macbain: Bruce, Storm? Lila? Do you feel the same way?
Bruce Mowbray: Mmmm. Not exactly the "same" way.
Lila Darkmatter listens
Bruce Mowbray: me?
Lila Darkmatter: sure :)
Bruce Mowbray: Has Kori finished?
Korel Laloix: With those comments.

Bruce Mowbray: kk.
Bruce Mowbray: Well, for the past two weeks, there has been constant noise here during the days.
Aphrodite Macbain: Kori can continue to speak. This is a dialogue..
Lila Darkmatter: :)
Bruce Mowbray: The neighbors, their gf's, their kids, their radios, their machinery.....
Bruce Mowbray: NOSE!
Bruce Mowbray: NOISE, too!
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Lila Darkmatter laughs
Aphrodite Macbain: not a definition of stillness? J

--BELL--

Bruce Mowbray: Please do continue to speak Kori - - -
Korel Laloix: Those are my thoughts... there seems to me to be an inverse correlation between stillness of mind and stillness of body in me.
Bruce Mowbray: I find that a valuable observation, Kori.
Bruce Mowbray: Thanks for sharing it.

Bruce Mowbray: I frequently needed to remind myself that behind - or underneath -- the NOISE there was always stillness . . . residing, waiting.
Lila Darkmatter: nods
Aphrodite Macbain: stillness is the default?
Aphrodite Macbain: always there?
Korel Laloix smiles
Bruce Mowbray: Well, I don't know if "default" is exactly the word for it.
Bruce Mowbray: More like, underneath it all is the silence.
Bruce Mowbray: some might even say ‘the emptiness.”

Bruce Mowbray: It is very important that I remind myself of this on a regular basis.
Aphrodite Macbain: would there be stillness if we turned everything off or would there be constant motion!?
Bruce Mowbray: The motion doesn't affect me so much -- I can handle the motion better than the noise.
Aphrodite Macbain: Why Bruce? do you need to remind yourself?
Bruce Mowbray: Sanity, balance, ---
Bruce Mowbray: also, my connection to reality -- stillness.
Aphrodite Macbain: Is stillness the result of equanimity?
Bruce Mowbray: That's why I sit with the Quakers in RL.
Bruce Mowbray: They are very much into stillness.
Aphrodite Macbain: nods.

Bruce Mowbray: Enough from me for now...Will probably wish to say more later.

Bruce Mowbray: Hey, Zen!
Zen Arado: Hi all
Lila Darkmatter: Hi Zen :)
Aphrodite Macbain: Hi Zen. Please join us. We are discussing stillness
Bruce Mowbray listens.
Lila Darkmatter: appreciate stillness and emptiness connection
Aphrodite Macbain: Storm - I 'm interested to hear what you have to say
Aphrodite Macbain: sorry Lila
Lila Darkmatter: no worries at all.. am enjoying listening so much
Storm Nordwind smiles
Lila Darkmatter: musing
Aphrodite Macbain: feeling calm and still?Storm Nordwind: One needs stillness.

Storm Nordwind: It is the state of Being
Storm Nordwind: It is what you really are
Storm Nordwind: It is What Is. Already!
Storm Nordwind: The experience is a side-effect of Being
Storm Nordwind: perhaps for some it is a route to Being
Storm Nordwind: It is What Is. Already!
Korel Laloix: Not sure I agree with that…I think we are actually creatures of motion, not stillness.
Aphrodite Macbain: nods
Korel Laloix: Just my thought though.
Aphrodite Macbain: rhythmic
Aphrodite Macbain: patterns

Alfred Kelberry: hi :)
Lila Darkmatter: Hi Boxy :)
Zen Arado: Hi Boxy
Aphrodite Macbain: Hello Boxy. We are talking about stillness.
Bruce Mowbray: Hey, Boxy!

Alfred Kelberry: lila - long time no see :)
Lila Darkmatter: :)
Alfred Kelberry: yes, read the memo, Aph :)
Lila Darkmatter: you can see me?
Lila Darkmatter laughs
Lila Darkmatter: (play on name)
Alfred Kelberry: i very well can see you :)
Storm Nordwind: Doubly so Lila!
Aphrodite Macbain: She is buried among the cushions, almost camouflaged by them

Lila Darkmatter: nice, Storm
Aphrodite Macbain: Storm - what do you think of what Korel said- that stillness can encompass motion?
Bruce Mowbray ponders "always, already here."
Storm Nordwind: She said she believes we are creatures of motion, and of course we look around us and see that must be so
Storm Nordwind: After all, a corpse is also still
Aphrodite Macbain: The moon goes around the earth, we go around the sun, the earth goes around its axis---never still
Storm Nordwind: And a rock
Lila Darkmatter: :) good points
Alfred Kelberry: isn't stillness a mind state?
Alfred Kelberry: i think it's only partly related to physical action
Aphrodite Macbain: perhaps what we avoid is disrupting from the norm in order to gain a stillness; a break or a sudden stop disrupts stillness
Zen Arado: stillness doesn't really exist though since everything is in motion
Storm Nordwind: In the experience of non-duality, there is no separation. Where there is no separation, there is flow within All. It's not going anywhere. In a way, that can be said to be still,
Alfred Kelberry: i think it exists, zen. as a balanced state of mind.
Lila Darkmatter: yes
Lila Darkmatter: non-arising
Aphrodite Macbain: balanced...
Storm Nordwind: In way stillness is an illusory concept.
Aphrodite Macbain: nods - something to be sought?
Zen Arado: it's a relative concept
Lila Darkmatter: my sensibility is similar to Storm's and Bruce's re 'default' and 'emptiness'... I have a little story that may express my sensibility about that better than if I tried to 'explain' why I would actually think of stillness as a livening force or quality...
Bruce Mowbray would like to offer a personal anecdote, but would like to hear from Zen and Boxy first.
Bruce Mowbray: and Lila, too.
Lila Darkmatter: if amenable.. may take a moment to tell...

Aphrodite Macbain: Zen and Boxy?
Alfred Kelberry: go ahead, bruce :)
Bruce Mowbray: please do, Lila.
Aphrodite Macbain: Lila?
Zen Arado: go ahead Bruce
Alfred Kelberry: i have already spoke
Aphrodite Macbain: Lila?
Lila Darkmatter: :) will wait, laughs
Bruce Mowbray: kk.
Bruce Mowbray: While all are gathering their individual stillnesses,
Storm Nordwind: STILL waiting ;)

Bruce Mowbray: I shall tell my story.
Lila Darkmatter: :) Storm
Bruce Mowbray: Last week, I had two guests here...
Aphrodite Macbain: yes Bruce
Lila Darkmatter listens
Bruce Mowbray: and they stayed until 3:00 a.m.
Bruce Mowbray: and we had a great talk.
--BELL--
Bruce Mowbray: At some point in the evening...
Aphrodite Macbain: whispers: bell
Bruce Mowbray: I brought out my singing bowl (bought in Edinburgh) and made it "sing" -- and sing and sing and sing....
Bruce Mowbray: After their amazement had settled,
Bruce Mowbray: I asked, "What happened to the silence\?"
Bruce Mowbray: where was the silence when the bowl was singing?
Bruce Mowbray: How did you know when the bowl had stopped singing?
Bruce Mowbray: It was a sort of Koan...
Bruce Mowbray: because my "point" was...
Bruce Mowbray: that the silence was always there.
Bruce Mowbray: Even when the bowl was singing its loudest,
Bruce Mowbray: the silence was there.
Bruce Mowbray: and I think that was also Storm's point.
Bruce Mowbray sits on hands.

Zen Arado: (also has Tibetan singing bowl bought in Scotland...but at Tibetan centre, Samye Ling)
Lila Darkmatter: :) lovely
Aphrodite Macbain: Thank you Bruce
Storm Nordwind: The song was not in addition to the silence. The song was also part of the silence.
Zen Arado: but silence and stillness not the same?
Lila Darkmatter: thanks so much for sharing that... like the singing was a pointer
Aphrodite Macbain: sound s like quite an evening :-)
Lila Darkmatter: :)
Aphrodite Macbain: Lila, did you want to say something?
Alfred Kelberry: does it mean there's noise present in silence?
Aphrodite Macbain: or silence present in noise?

Lila Darkmatter: have a story too :)
Bruce Mowbray listens for Lila's story.
Aphrodite Macbain: yes Lila?
Zen Arado: silence is lack of sound, stillness is lack of motion
Aphrodite Macbain nods
Storm Nordwind shakes his head
Aphrodite Macbain: often it is silent when there's stillness
Alfred Kelberry: well, given myriads of various signals in multiple frequencies, i'd say yes :)
Aphrodite Macbain: Lila?
Lila Darkmatter: K...
Alfred Kelberry: kori! :)

Alfred Kelberry: hi, ken
Korel Laloix: Hyea
Lila Darkmatter: Hi Ken :)
Kenneth Ebbage: Hello
Zen Arado: Hi Ken
Kenneth Ebbage: Hello all
Aphrodite Macbain: Welcome Ken

Bruce Mowbray: Hey, Ken. Hey, Zon.

Aphrodite Macbain: have u been here before?
Aphrodite Macbain: Ken?
Kenneth Ebbage: Thank you for your kind welcome.
Kenneth Ebbage: Yes

Aphrodite Macbain: Lila, please tell us your story
Lila Darkmatter: When I was first beginning to meditate/contemplate in a concerted way...
Lila Darkmatter: it was mostly by paying attention to breath and sort of just noticing what my mind was doing... more as a coping mechanism to deal with 'busy life'...
Lila Darkmatter: and one day I took my daughter to shop for shoes at a DSW..
Lila Darkmatter: huge shoe store... lots of people...
Lila Darkmatter: and when she was still looking I stood to the side, just watching...
Aphrodite Macbain: smiles
Lila Darkmatter: when I noticed that 'nothing' was going on my mind… no music loop, no conversations… there was just,…spaciousness….
Storm Nordwind smiles
Lila Darkmatter: it wasn't that activity wasn't appearing all around...dynamics, people...
Lila Darkmatter: just that there was this openness...
Aphrodite Macbain: in your mind?
Lila Darkmatter: I then thought something like "wow, did you see that?" which of course sort of took me 'out' of it… but I never 'forgot' that …
Storm Nordwind: You experienced a moment of pure awareness
Lila Darkmatter: it was so, hm… radical… new. I had no idea how much 'extra' was going on until it just 'stopped', revealing a kind of core restfulness.
Lila Darkmatter: yes
Lila Darkmatter: a kind of taste
Aphrodite Macbain: wonderful
Lila Darkmatter: stillness underlying everything
Storm Nordwind nods
Lila Darkmatter: (done)
Zen Arado: nice story

Aphrodite Macbain: Kenneth - we are talking about the concept of stillness and what it means to us.
Storm Nordwind: For that second or two, you were Being :)
Aphrodite Macbain: simply being
Lila Darkmatter: :) it is the feel of the 'do you hear the mountain stream?' koan
Kenneth Ebbage: Calm waters of the mind?
Lila Darkmatter: yes :) Being still
Aphrodite Macbain: nods at Kenneth
Zen Arado: 'he leads me beside the still waters'
Kenneth Ebbage: Meditation of one form or another means different things to different people
Lila Darkmatter: :) aw
Aphrodite Macbain:

 ... at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.  T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton

Aphrodite Macbain: I love this quote
Zen Arado: yes
Lila Darkmatter: still point
Zen Arado: I don't really 'get' stillness
Aphrodite Macbain: “where past and future are gathered” - in the constant present
Aphrodite Macbain: The dance, in this case, is I think, the dance of life

Bruce Mowbray: but you spent the weekend at a Zen retreat, right?
Zen Arado: in meditation I sit still but the movement of everything then reveals itself
Bruce Mowbray: yes, an all-day meditation retreat.
Zen Arado: that is part of the purpose I think
Aphrodite Macbain: nods. A nice way to put it Zen
Zen Arado: to see that nothing stays still

-BELL--

Lila Darkmatter: mm
Aphrodite Macbain: But you need to be present, focused and still to see that, no Zen?
Zen Arado: oh yes...so a relative stillness is all there is
Zen Arado: one of the most important revelations to me is that ever-changingness
Aphrodite Macbain: So meditation is really about achieving that stillness and that awareness?
Zen Arado: that formlessness
Zen Arado: no, meditation is just sitting doing nothing to me

Storm Nordwind: A Zen story: Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: `The flag is moving.' The other said: `The wind is moving.' The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He told them: `Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving.'

Zen Arado: no attaining
Zen Arado: ha ha yes
Aphrodite Macbain: Wonder why I was moving like that (strage shaking overtakes aph’s avatar)
Bruce Mowbray: didn't look like stillnes to moi, Aph.

Aphrodite Macbain: didn’t feel like it either

Zen Arado: relative vs absolute
Bruce Mowbray: The mind is moving. What is not moving?
Zen Arado: there is a similar one about a monk using a fan at the end of genjokoan
Aphrodite Macbain: genjokoan?
Zen Arado: yes from Dogen's Shobogenzo?
Aphrodite Macbain: k
Bruce Mowbray listens for the other one.
Aphrodite Macbain: fan moves; hand moves; air moves; mind moves?
Zen Arado: everything moves
Aphrodite Macbain gets dizzy
Zen Arado: they were lost in the relative concept
Storm Nordwind: They were lost in duality
Zen Arado: yes
Bruce Mowbray: Stillness feels like an aspiration -- sort of like Equanimity . . .

Zen Arado: 'Zen master Pao-ch'ih was fanning himself one summer day when a passing priest asked: "The nature of wind is stationary, and it is universally present. Why do you then use your fan, sir?" The Zen master replied: "Though you know the nature of wind is stationary, you do not know why it is universally present." The priest asked, "Why then is the wind universally present?" The master only fanned himself, and the priest saluted him. Enlightenment through true experience and the vital way of right transmission are like this. Those who deny the need for fanning because the nature of wind is stationary and be cause the wind is sensed without the use of a fan understand neither the eternal presence of the wind nor its nature. Because the nature of wind is eternally present, the wind of Buddhism turns the earth to gold and ripens the rivers to ghee.'

Zen Arado: so though everything is moving, we are also part of that movement
Aphrodite Macbain watches the train move by
Bruce Mowbray: Ram Dass used to say, "I might say the wisest words, but unless I AM wise, the words are empty boxes falling into the void. If I AM wise, then I need say nothing at all and the wisdom is transmitted." That, to me, is the power and reality of stillness.
Lila Darkmatter: yes
Lila Darkmatter: Being :)
Aphrodite Macbain: How is the wisdom transmitted Bruce?

Zen Arado: I'm just an idiot though :)
Lila Darkmatter giggles
Aphrodite Macbain: me too
Bruce Mowbray: Perhaps through the being of the wise person. All we have to give each other is our being...
Aphrodite Macbain: we can learn from idiots too
Bruce Mowbray: Idiots also have being.
Bruce Mowbray: are being.

Zen Arado: we are on a planet hurtling around a sun...
Zen Arado: everything is a dance of movement
Aphrodite Macbain: yes
Aphrodite Macbain: in the “still centre is the dance”
Zen Arado: but we reify things for usefulness
Zen Arado: but then forget the changingness
Lila Darkmatter: play arising from the void... 'guardians of the void'
Korel Laloix: Thanks for the chat all… off to a church service...
Korel Laloix: Ciao
Lila Darkmatter: bye Kori!
Zen Arado: kk bye Korel
Storm Nordwind waves
Aphrodite Macbain: thanks Kori Bye.
Bruce Mowbray: Tai Chi, I feel, is not about movement -- It is about relating one's self to stillness.
Korel Laloix smiles
Kenneth Ebbage: Take good care
Aphrodite Macbain: Bert's meditation is in 2 minutes
Bruce Mowbray: Bye, Kori!
Zen Arado: if we are in harmony that is a kind of stillness
Lila Darkmatter: lovely line Zen
Aphrodite Macbain: Yes. Moving through stillness
Zen Arado: still relative to another
Aphrodite Macbain: thinks “wholesome” is a good word

--BELL--

Zen Arado: kk better slip to meditation
Bruce Mowbray: Thank you , Aph -- and everyone.
Zen Arado: bye and ty
Aphrodite Macbain: whispers by bye all and thank you for your beautiful insights
Bruce Mowbray: Please do come back if you can, Kenneth.
Lila Darkmatter: bye everyone, thank you very much
Lila Darkmatter: everyone going, should say :)
Alfred Kelberry: hi :)
Lila Darkmatter: :)
Bruce Mowbray: Hi, Boxy!
Lila Darkmatter: ltns Boxy, hehe
Alfred Kelberry: so, did your daughter pick a nice pair of shoes after all, Lila? :)
Lila Darkmatter laughs
Lila Darkmatter: I think so... honestly don't remember but it is funny that I still find DSW to be a meditative place
Lila Darkmatter: :)
Alfred Kelberry: never been there
Storm Nordwind had to look it up
Lila Darkmatter: just a big store... but long aisles and hmm...
Lila Darkmatter: people go into this sort of special shoe buying ritual dance
Lila Darkmatter giggles
Storm Nordwind: More like a ritual trance!
Lila Darkmatter: yes in a way... sometimes
Lila Darkmatter: it is like a gallery
Alfred Kelberry: consumerism at its best
Storm Nordwind: yum
Alfred Kelberry: freedom to choose from many shoes
Lila Darkmatter: well were I to have been given a catalogue of places to have an insight like that...
Lila Darkmatter: I may have chosen mountain top
Lila Darkmatter: but :)
Storm Nordwind: We've reserved one for you here. I can see it from my window!
Lila Darkmatter: it has been useful in my seeing that one doesn't have to go 'away' to be in touch with stillness
Alfred Kelberry: insight doesn't care much for a location, i think
Lila Darkmatter smiles
Lila Darkmatter: seems so boxy
Lila Darkmatter: no location, in a way
Alfred Kelberry: i like to sense stillness in crowded cafes :)
Lila Darkmatter: :))
Storm Nordwind: Who, I wonder, has ever heard silence?
Alfred Kelberry: we're good at filtering background sound
Lila Darkmatter: yes it has the same sensibility as you describe your pause practice being when you appreciate a meal
Lila Darkmatter: mmm 'who' hears
Alfred Kelberry: quite a challenge in a big city, sotmr
Alfred Kelberry: er, nice typo :)
Storm Nordwind: Mr. Sot... not anymore!
Alfred Kelberry: :)
Lila Darkmatter: I used to avoid crowds and malls but at times now it is almost like the crowd and business draws out stillness
Lila Darkmatter: Hello Hanny
Bruce Mowbray: That's interesting, Lila.
Bruce Mowbray: You know, Garrison Keillor says that he goes to New York for the peace and quiet.
Lila Darkmatter: haha
Bruce Mowbray: really!
Lila Darkmatter: Stim once likened a mall to a great mandala to run around in
Bruce Mowbray: So, I started saying the same thing...
Bruce Mowbray: because in a strange way, it's true!
Storm Nordwind: Best place to hide one's own tree is in a forest.
Kenneth Ebbage: The dim of the city drowns out all that could be imagined, real or not real.
Bruce Mowbray is very much into hiding, of course.
Lila Darkmatter: you feel at peace in NY Bruce?
Kenneth Ebbage: New York has that effect on many people.
Bruce Mowbray is reminded to put in his 99-Days entry for the day....
Bruce Mowbray: : Where I Hide: Ordinary Space, Available Light."
Bruce Mowbray: I do feel at peace in the city, yes.
Kenneth Ebbage: Was there when I was much younger.
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, Kenneth?
Bruce Mowbray: Do you still remember the stillness there?
Kenneth Ebbage: Yes, I am a displaced New Yorker now.
Kenneth Ebbage: :)

--BELL--

Alfred Kelberry: Anyone want to come to the weekly Humanism meeting? It’s where we talk about science and secularism vs religion. It is just starting. Click to teleport: ROMA (231,241,31)
Kenneth Ebbage: Manhattan during a winter snow is one of the most silent places in the world. You can hear the snow crunch under you feet as you walk. The air is crisp and all is quiet

Bruce Mowbray: AHHHH! I can almost feel it, Ken.
Bruce Mowbray: I going there now, Alfred. Thanks!
Alfred Kelberry: http://slurl.com/secondlife/ROMA/231/241/31
Storm Nordwind: Thank you boxy. My father was a Humanist. I just use his memory as a role model. :)
Bruce Mowbray: Thanks for that fine memory!
Bruce Mowbray: I'm off to discover the Humanists.
Bruce Mowbray: May you all be stable and clear.
Lila Darkmatter: :) Bye Bruce
Alfred Kelberry: bye
Storm Nordwind: May you hide in the light :)
Lila Darkmatter: thanks Boxy
Kenneth Ebbage: Take good care Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: Come back and join us, Ken!
Alfred Kelberry: will go squash some religions
Kenneth Ebbage: :)

Lila Darkmatter: equanimity would seem to be peace in the city, peace in the country... "Walking is Zen, sitting is Zen; Speaking or silent, active or quiet, the essence is at peace."

Storm Nordwind: Humanism is not at variance with all religions :)
Lila Darkmatter: think will sign off now... nice to stretch my legs, don't get out much :)
Alfred Kelberry: "talk about science and secularism vs religion"
Alfred Kelberry: fight!
Kenneth Ebbage: Hahahaha, religion, whether good or bad, is still part of our humanity
Alfred Kelberry: ok, the battle is on and i'm late
Lila Darkmatter: :) Kenneth
Alfred Kelberry: bye, folks
Kenneth Ebbage: Bye
Lila Darkmatter: waves :)
Storm Nordwind: Excuse me I'm off too!
Kenneth Ebbage: Good bye
Storm Nordwind waves