The Guardian for this meeting was Eos Amaterasu. The comments are by Eos Amaterasu.

Eos Amaterasu: nada

--BELL--

Storm Nordwind: Good evening Eos :)
Eos Amaterasu: Hi, Storm!
Storm Nordwind: I've been away from SL for a day or so (apart from trying to set up a new PC) so have been unaware of any major occurrence or cataclysmic events. ;-)
Eos Amaterasu searches memory for recent cataclysmic events....
Eos Amaterasu: (perhaps the last gas fill-up I did....O)
Storm Nordwind: Ha!
Storm Nordwind: So no news is good news :)
Eos Amaterasu: financial system is being proved rotten to the very core
Storm Nordwind: This is a surprise?!
Eos Amaterasu: it's so obvious no one believes it
Eos Amaterasu: or else they get deer in the headlight eyes
Eos Amaterasu: -- what do we do -- ?
Storm Nordwind: When the numbers are big enough, people sometimes go numb - rather apposite for numb-er
Eos Amaterasu: :-)
Eos Amaterasu: Colorado is back to stability (whatever that means)?
Storm Nordwind: I can see the hazy outline of Pikes Peak again, 55 miles away. It's not clear yet, so I guess the smoke lingers a little while longer.
Storm Nordwind: And yesterday, I was at hospital nearly all the time while my stepson had his gallbladder removed.
Eos Amaterasu: erks
Storm Nordwind: Well his comfort level will certainly be more stable in the near future :)
Eos Amaterasu does not have a clear idea of the issues involved (asterisks it for future homewebwork)
Storm Nordwind: haha!
Storm Nordwind: Well they can range from nagging discomfort over years to life-threatening infection, such as my wife had at the end of 2010
Storm Nordwind: .

--BELL--

Eos Amaterasu looks at himself and internal organs and wonders how he came to be built so weirdly and precisely
Storm Nordwind: "precisely" is not a word I'd use!
Eos Amaterasu: how about highly fault tolerant convergence?
Storm Nordwind: ft the thing was put together by "intelligent design" I'd want to be in at the designer's yearly appraisal meeting. :)
Eos Amaterasu can just see the YouTube video :-)
Storm Nordwind: By definition, anything that _has_ survived, _will_ survive, and be to some extent fault tolerant
Eos Amaterasu: everything bends
Storm Nordwind: In other words, if you throw enough mud at a wall, some of it will stic... and here we are!
Eos Amaterasu: quantum mud has a life of its own
Eos Amaterasu: possibly a mind of its own
Storm Nordwind: eek!
Eos Amaterasu: but it's true, that's the thing, to comtemplate ourselves as walking slime
Eos Amaterasu: two eyestalks
Eos Amaterasu: two earstalks
Eos Amaterasu: various wierd systems
Eos Amaterasu: bipedal - how strange
Eos Amaterasu: and able to abstract about itself
Storm Nordwind: A temporary vehicle, for which I'm grateful. But quite strange. And the older I get the stranger it seems, and the more strange care it seems to need!
Eos Amaterasu: true, indeed, the final bend is a bow with no return....
Eos Amaterasu: "my boomerang won't come back" :-)
Storm Nordwind smiles... and groans

Eos Amaterasu: so did this week's theme of how to bring practice, or was it spirituality, to RL, bring anything interesting for you?
Storm Nordwind: No not at all ;) I think I said everything at your session early in the week!
Eos Amaterasu: :-)
Storm Nordwind: But for others, who knows? How about you?
Eos Amaterasu: oh, it's an interesting theme. I think the way it was phrased was a bit about getting measureable "good effects" from practice
Eos Amaterasu: but the "practice" I'm interested in, we're interested in I think, is not necessarily about that at all
Storm Nordwind: Measurable effect - I'm all in favor. Like the Neuroscience of Happiness investigations
Storm Nordwind nods
Eos Amaterasu: Mingyur Rinpoche won that one
Eos Amaterasu: And now he's gone, literally, from his retreat, into the world....
Eos Amaterasu: no retreat | world boundary

--BELL--

Storm Nordwind: Rather different from some of the stories in the Jatakamala, where in some incarnations of the being that was to become Buddha Shakyamuni, he deliberately went into permanent retreat out of revulsion for the harms of the world... which is very interesting
Storm Nordwind: It's interesting because personally I am strongly in favor of integration with the world, in order to help as many as possible...
Storm Nordwind: but the Jataka tales may have been snapshots (if true) of a not-yet completely developed being, who still had attachments
Storm Nordwind: (These come to mind as I'm reading through them at the moment)
Eos Amaterasu: folk stories of the buddha in human and animal realms.....
Storm Nordwind: yes
Storm Nordwind: (For anyone interested: http://www.amazon.com/Once-Buddha-Was-Monkey-Jatakamala/dp/0226782158 )
Eos Amaterasu: in terms of practice and RL, i see a king of syllogism: we need to pay attention to the mind behind the gun; so that mind can see things as they are; so then right aim can tak e place
Storm Nordwind would love to meet this "king of syllogism" ;)
Eos Amaterasu: ha ha
Eos Amaterasu: *kind
Eos Amaterasu: if mind isn't aiming right then all the technology in the world simply amplifies error
Storm Nordwind: The mind amplifies intent, and technology amplifies the mind.
Eos Amaterasu: hmm, yes
Eos Amaterasu: so how does intent train itself?
Eos Amaterasu: how do you set intention?
Eos Amaterasu: (I think intent is what sentient beings are about)
Eos Amaterasu: (back to the wierdo beginning of the session)
Storm Nordwind: How maybe initally a matter of trial and error. From which overarching intent eventually grows.

--BELL--

Eos Amaterasu: Hi Rhi
Storm Nordwind: But I tend to take a long view, if not timeless then over many lifetimes, and would see this intent forming gradually at first then strengthening and then being the primary motivator.
Eos Amaterasu: yes....
Eos Amaterasu: I think its energy is very strong even in the very beginning
Storm Nordwind: Hi Rhi
Rhiannon Dragoone: Hi Storm
Eos Amaterasu: well, the midnight gong just tolled...
Storm Nordwind: And I have some work to do too.
Eos Amaterasu: sorry to abandon this ship, good night!
Storm Nordwind: Me too
Rhiannon Dragoone: nite, Eos
Storm Nordwind: Sorry Rhi!
Eos Amaterasu: bye rhi,bye storm
Rhiannon Dragoone: Nite, Storm
Eos Amaterasu: :-)
Rhiannon Dragoone: NIce not talking with you. lol
Eos Amaterasu: :-)
Storm Nordwind: We do our best! ;-)