The Guardian for this meeting was Storm Nordwind. The comments are by Storm Nordwind.

Storm Nordwind: Hello friends!
Riddle Sideways: Hello friends
Adams Rubble: Hello Storm and Riddle :)
Riddle Sideways: ok, less realities now.
Storm Nordwind: ?
Riddle Sideways: Have been playing with/in Opensim
Adams Rubble: :)
Storm Nordwind: Oh? Do tell.
Riddle Sideways: and had 2 of those lifes open
Storm Nordwind: Ah, I see.
Riddle Sideways: Sim on a Stick
Storm Nordwind: yes.
Riddle Sideways: close those that were distractions

Realities that are separate or integrated?

Storm Nordwind: Do you see it/them as separate realities, or as different parts of one combined reality.
Storm Nordwind: ?
Riddle Sideways: hmmm, interesting
Riddle Sideways: answer = both
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Adams Rubble: :)
Adams Rubble: I was working on a more convoluted answer that would have come down to the same thing
Riddle Sideways: long answer would be how you see yourself as multiple personality or whole one
Adams Rubble: different emphasis in the two worlds
Storm Nordwind: haha - both interesting responses
Riddle Sideways: are you a musician
Riddle Sideways: that also plays in religion
Riddle Sideways: are you a lazy bum that sits reading books all weekend
Adams Rubble: :)
Riddle Sideways: are those separate realities
Riddle Sideways: love that book
Storm Nordwind: Personally, I never fragment the bits of me. I've only ever been a whole. But that whole seems to do many many more different things than most people I've met. I guess it would be easy to fragment and separate, but i never have.
Adams Rubble: I remember being called lazy for reading when I was young
Riddle Sideways: those can be seen as separate and/or united
Riddle Sideways: so, we extend it to our second lifes?
Riddle Sideways: an then to our alts and multiple sims?
Storm Nordwind: Virtual worlds are, for me, extensions of me. Opportunities for expression and discovery in the same way that the so-called real world is.
Riddle Sideways: and we extend it out of (what is thought to be this me) ourselves to Being?
Riddle Sideways: ah, then there is an answer
Storm Nordwind: That's a mental step. We can give ourselves permission to do it, though most never seem to.
Adams Rubble: Personally I have found this world to be a good place to explore and learn about my multiple selves but I am finding myself much less fragmented these days

OS is a different for different people.

Adams Rubble: For me OS is a working world
--BELL--
Riddle Sideways: OS? Thank you, that came for the 90-sec. So many things OS could have meant. each to think upon
Storm Nordwind smiles and chuckles
Riddle Sideways: our Operating System is a working world
Adams Rubble did not stop and think :)
Adams Rubble: OpenSim
Riddle Sideways: yes, OpenSim is yet another different working world
Adams Rubble: OS = Our 90 sec Stop
Storm Nordwind: Yes, Operating System was the first interpretation that came to me. As it did not make sense in context, I had to stop and think (for a change!). :)
Riddle Sideways: :)
Riddle Sideways: that is the fun of PaB
Storm Nordwind: There's fun here?! o_O
Storm Nordwind: That must explain the last 8 years!
Adams Rubble: :)
Riddle Sideways: OpenSim needs/gives more G-d view powers then SL

An old man.

Storm Nordwind considers that June 20 is his 8th anniversary in SL, though originally with a different avatar.
Riddle Sideways: wow
Adams Rubble: I never noticed before that Riddle and I are close to the same age
Adams Rubble has learned to respect her elders
Riddle Sideways: Storm had already been creating worlds, environs and circles by our time
Adams Rubble: yes
Adams Rubble: Storm is the person who first patiently taught me to build
Adams Rubble: first AND patiently
Storm Nordwind smiles
Storm Nordwind: haha!
Riddle Sideways: still have not learned

In search of an understanding of emptiness.

Adams Rubble: I am struggling with something I do not understand that seems connected to what Stim and Pema tried to get across to me
Riddle Sideways: OpenSim started blank (mostly) and needs building
Riddle Sideways: /listens
Storm Nordwind: I have an easy ability to put myself in a beginner's mind. Which is not difficult, because I can so easily forget everything I've learned! ;-))
Riddle Sideways: :)
Storm Nordwind: Please continue Adams :)
Adams Rubble: As you know I have been reading Yeshe Geshe Tobden's commentary on Shantideva
Adams Rubble: For the first time I am beginning to understand the Buddhist concept of emptiness
Adams Rubble: I think so anyway
Adams Rubble: Most recently the discussion has been about emptiness of worldly feelings
Adams Rubble: What I am not understanding is that they have tied it together with space
Storm Nordwind nods
Adams Rubble: Tibden even has talked about atoms which immediately made me think of Pema
Adams Rubble: Pema had us do exercises which resulted in thinking about the space between atoms in furntiure and ourselves
Storm Nordwind remembers
Adams Rubble: Tobden talked about how if there is space between us and and object then we are spearate
Adams Rubble: if there is not space we are connnected and are one
Storm Nordwind nods
Adams Rubble: somehow they seem to have connected that to the emptiness of feelings
Riddle Sideways: confusing
Adams Rubble: yes Riddle
Riddle Sideways: yet an 'us' has spaces in there also
Riddle Sideways: or does it not?
--BELL--

Choosing arbitrary boundaries in soup.

Storm Nordwind: Everything is a soup. Everything. We can choose to see the boundaries of the stuff in the soup. Or not. We arbitrarily define boundaries because it seems to make it easier to exist in the world. A pragmatic choice. But all it does is make it easier to exist with other people who, like ourself, have chosen to make those arbitrary boundaries.
Adams Rubble glad to have some time to take that in :)
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Adams Rubble: Let's use an example of a worldly feeling and see how it applies
Adams Rubble: I receive a great deal of money and I am very happy
Adams Rubble: Then I begin to worry about losing the money and do not see how I can keep it and get very unhappy
Adams Rubble: can you help me to see where the boundaries fit in?
Adams Rubble: or not fit?
Storm Nordwind: It is easier to use the soup and boundaries with the physical world. However, the point about arbitrary choice still applies. You choose to be elated with the money. You choose to be worried at the thought of losing it. But you could choose otherwise.
Adams Rubble: I could give it all away :)
Adams Rubble: (it is easy to give away hypothetical money)
Storm Nordwind: Indeed! The soup and boundaries shows us that the sense of self is arbitrary. You choose to protect that arbitrary boundary of self and protect it, and so your feelings come from that unless you choose otherwise.
Storm Nordwind: This is why the normal exaggerated sense of self is worked against by so many Buddhist practices.
Adams Rubble: I am still confused by the atoms :)
Riddle Sideways: A boundary gets put up between a you and a money. Now all that maters is your attitude toward the money.
Riddle Sideways: like "self of welf"
Riddle Sideways: *self of self"
Storm Nordwind: They are just atoms with different properties. Just particles with temporary properties. Over the the long run they change and dissociate and re-associate. We put boundaries on for our convenience but then we make the mistake of becoming attached to the arbitrariness of what we've imputed to them.
Adams Rubble thinks
Riddle Sideways: yes, atoms are vague anythings. Money is a specific that took on your meanings
Riddle Sideways: soup parts are kinda in the middle :)
Storm Nordwind: It doesn't mean the atoms are not 'real', as long as we realize that the separateness we ascribe to different blocks of atoms is just a choice, for convenience
Adams Rubble: hehe Riddle
Storm Nordwind smiles

Playing at "better".

Adams Rubble: I certainly see the emptiness in the feelings I initially had about the money
Adams Rubble: and how there is a better choice
Adams Rubble: I like the idea of boundaries and need to think more about how they are applying
Riddle Sideways: hold it! Better is yet another topic
Adams Rubble: :)
Adams Rubble: another coice
Adams Rubble: choice
Adams Rubble takes back "better"
Riddle Sideways: :)
Adams Rubble: yes that is almost a definition of emptiness
Storm Nordwind: When we 'play' we can play at 'better' too. And reassign it playfully to unexpected things. If we want.
Riddle Sideways: yes
Adams Rubble: can you give me another example of boundaries with feelings that might help me see more clearly?
Riddle Sideways: defining/declaring some boundry
Riddle Sideways: and playing with how that feels
Adams Rubble avoids better
--BELL--
Riddle Sideways: feels better? worse? to separate out the carrots from broth?
Adams Rubble: brb
Riddle Sideways: trying hard (and it is hard) to remember the arbitary boundry playfully constructed to play with the feelings is a construct and can be moved
Riddle Sideways: very hard when laying in bed thinking about money

A poor advisor.

Storm Nordwind: It's hard for me to give feelings examples. Without wishing to sound odd or elite, I suspect I transcended that a long time ago. Nowadays I find it hard to think into a world where people are hamstrung by their own feelings. It doesn't invalidate those feelings, and I do not look down upon them. But I no longer suffer in the ways those people evidently sometimes seem to do.
Adams Rubble is back and reading
Storm Nordwind makes a poor advisor :)
Riddle Sideways: a boundary
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Adams Rubble: :)

Already there? Start at the end!

Adams Rubble: This has been helpful
Riddle Sideways: yet still confusing
Adams Rubble: I am still new to learning about many of these things
Adams Rubble: still taking my baby steps :)
Adams Rubble: although not so many of me trying to take steps now :)
Storm Nordwind: We are told (including by Pema and Stim) we are already there. The journey is an illusion. Which is why we can start at the end! ;-)
Riddle Sideways: at 6 years, it seems good to learn from an older 8 year old
Storm Nordwind: ha!
Adams Rubble: yes and that advice has been helpful
Adams Rubble: hehe Riddle
Adams Rubble: I think I got lost in space
Adams Rubble: all those atoms
Riddle Sideways: all those Adams
Adams Rubble: :)

Remember to belly laugh often.

Storm Nordwind: So many are attached to the journey. It is helpful to some. But it becomes an end in itself. Like ceremony. If it helps, fine. But do not get attached to it, especially when you are closer to being there than your next breath!
Adams Rubble: There seems to be a path following me :)
Riddle Sideways: :-))
Storm Nordwind: ha - that is brilliant! :))
Riddle Sideways: the path you can see is not The Path
Storm Nordwind bows
Riddle Sideways: Laughs
Riddle Sideways: remembering that in the midst of these deep studies ... to belly laugh often
Adams Rubble: :)
Storm Nordwind: Agreed. Though such laughter is frowned upon by those who believe we should be serious, especially when viewing the woes of the world.
Adams Rubble: We get in trouble when we take our religion too seriously
Riddle Sideways: yes, PaBers debate that our Play is not serious enough because of the laughing

Wearing someone else's mask.

Storm Nordwind: Well, there has been more than one occasion when bosses I have worked for have interpreted me as not caring or being supercilious.
Storm Nordwind: They wanted me to wear their mask.
Riddle Sideways: yes
Storm Nordwind: But if I had it would not have changed anything in the way I did my job.
--BELL--
Riddle Sideways: and all the serious troubles thought to be in the world over a boundary drawn someplace
Storm Nordwind: They thought it would have changed their perception of me,
Storm Nordwind: But of course they could have changed that perception themselves, without any help from me! :)
Adams Rubble: nice example of emptiness of feelings :)
Storm Nordwind: :)
Riddle Sideways: nice summation
Riddle Sideways: nice day
Adams Rubble: I thank you both your your help
Adams Rubble: you too Riddle
Storm Nordwind: I enjoy your company and companionship. :)
Riddle Sideways: ah, but we gave the help to ourselves
Adams Rubble: :)
Adams Rubble: always the best
Riddle Sideways: thank you All
Adams Rubble: bye for now :)
Storm Nordwind: Thank you my friends
Storm Nordwind waves