28-30 - Active Appreciation

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Hana Furlough: i think openness isn't what we think it is
Hana Furlough: it's not just allowing or surrendering in the conventional sense
Hana Furlough: it's an active and immediate response to what is going on
Hana Furlough: meeting our darkest places with the strongest love we can muster

http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2009/09/2009.09.28_01%3a00_-_Quiet

http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2009/09/2009.09.28_07:00_-_A_Small_Pithy_Fruit

Gaya Ethaniel: Dropping is a good start, yes but I sometimes think that opening up means see what's present more other than the 'barriers'.
Gaya Ethaniel: Like open a treasure box and see what's inside ... :)
Pema Pera: yes, seeing, watching, letting things present themselves, are all good gentle ways for opening up: like APA, appreciating the presence of appearance :-) : each moment really is a treasure box, fresh and new
Caledonia Heron: to add to these abstract ideas I have a practical experience story, about appearance and openess : it's very short really, and goes to how do I take what I know and learn to be true from here into my everyday life : and it goes like this

Caledonia Heron: there is a special someone (as we all have sometime) who I realized I was creating a certain way and things seemed discordant : so I didn't change how I created them, how that person appeared, I noticed the appearance, that I was doing it : and it went away, that appearance, and the fresh appearance, the openess to what might appear was transformational : not like burning bush transformational, but the freedom to let that super important person show up in their best way was like fresh air : that's it

http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2009/09/2009.09.28_13:00_-_Openness

Pila Mulligan: btw, September 28 (today), 551 B.C.E. is the traditionally observed
birthday of Confucius (maybe this explains today's extraordinary attendance:)

SophiaSharon Larnia: the question was "What does 'being open' mean to you all? (had to find it on my comp) :)

Mickorod Renard: some say I am too open
Eliza Madrigal: Who says that Mick?
Mickorod Renard: maybe those who like to be closed
Wol Euler: :)
arabella Ella: openness involves honesty too to some extent
arabella Ella:i meant honesty in the sense of acknowledging what one comes face to face with when one opens oneself up to Being
SophiaSharon Larnia: yes Arabella, that is a key there :))
Tarmel Udimo: the only openess we need to deal with is openess to Being, this will dissolve all those questions and unsureties
arabella Ella: yes we have to accept reality for what it is ... expecting more or expecting otherwise only leads to disappointment ... so why not accept reality with openness
Pema Pera: "open" can also be read as "natural" -- acting in whatever way the situation naturally invites you to do
Zen Arado: opening inwards or outwards?
Pema Pera: both
Gaya Ethaniel: How do you learn to act 'naturally' without acquiring another false habit?

Zen Arado: what stops us being open?
arabella Ella: inhibitions, fears
Wol Euler: the usual, I'd guess: fear, habit
Zen Arado: fears of what?
arabella Ella: insincerity
Bertram Jacobus: nothing ?
Wol Euler: laziness

http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2009/09/2009.09.29_07:00_-_Belief_feels_right

Riddle Sideways: belief == just accepting it
Yakuzza Lethecus: and somehow it bothers me but i don´t really know why it feels not so easy to get to know why things happen in the judeo christion tradition
Riddle Sideways: some people need scientific facts, cause/effect, rules, laws
Riddle Sideways: others can just play the music, do an art...

Yakuzza Lethecus: you take a walk and somehow you get a solution you didn´t think about for days
Riddle Sideways: or it is not in the verbal language that you consciensly use
Yakuzza Lethecus: but then you ,,want a solution for something" and you just don´t think constructivly

Pema Pera: yes, there is the noisy babbling layer of the mind, and underneath is a totally different layers at work, it seems. When we can let the babbling part rest, the other part can come out much more clearly
Pema Pera: when I deal with a difficult problem, I don't try to reason myself through it. Rather, I first put all the elements on the table, so to speak: try to watch very clearly what all the ingredients are. Then, watching those quietly, some kind of structure or idea suggests itself. Only then, from that point on, do I use reasoning to test my intuitions.

Yakuzza Lethecus: that is even anothing thing i am concerned about, that we already have meditation experiences ,,innert"/ or during our development without transcribing it with the ,,word" meditation
Yakuzza Lethecus: somehow i had this ,,schema" about buddism and all those ,,fancy eastern religions" so often it seems that erasing thought structres is more of an problem for me then learning new things
Pema Pera: yes : meditation is definitely not about erasing thought structures
Yakuzza Lethecus: awareness :)
Pema Pera: but rather about letting them flow freely without manipulating them
Pema Pera: we tend to be caught up in control and analysis

http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2009/09/2009.09.29_13:00_-_Malta_retreat_revealed

    bodacious Lemondrop: are you connected with a certain type of buddhism or meditation?
    Bertram Jacobus: and the backgrounds of the people here are various ... which one is yours bodacious ? :-)
    Mickorod Renard: I am christian, but the trend here is more Budhist
    bodacious Lemondrop: i practiced a japanese form of buddhism for over 25 years...
    bodacious Lemondrop: then i moved on to advaita vedanta (more hindu)
    bodacious Lemondrop: the practice of non duality
    Mickorod Renard: we have regulars from all corners of the world and religions
    Mickorod Renard: that sounds very interesting
    Bertram Jacobus: but here are also not religious orientated people and hindu and islam ...
    bodacious Lemondrop: that is good
    bodacious Lemondrop: i am more into the practice of being
    bodacious Lemondrop: mindfulness
    Mickorod Renard: sounds like this is the place for you
    bodacious Lemondrop: i guess i "stumbled" into the right place!
    Bertram Jacobus: the practise of being is exact that what happens here (!) :-)
    Mickorod Renard: yes, I would say so
    bodacious Lemondrop: excellent!

http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2009/09/2009.09.29_19:00_-_90_sec_oceanic_puddles

Eos Amaterasu: Ladies and gentlement, we approach the next gap
Aidan Spiritor: any insights?
stevenaia Michinaga: I often see an empty sphere with those who surround me defining it
stevenaia Michinaga: I am defined by my actions and thir affect on others
Aidan Spiritor: That's very interesting; how does it feel?
stevenaia Michinaga: a hug, a smile and the reflection of that back

Paradise Tennant: was remembering - once when I was a kid lying on a big rock in a rain storm and
watching the rain form a big puddle on my rain jacket just around my stomach... and imagining what being an ocean would be like .. just feeling unbelievable happy to be in the rain .. and a sense of being totally connected :) i suspect opening that door is a happy experience

stevenaia Michinaga: relates to what I I was thinking, you are what wthout that which surrounds you, , friends, rain, people
stevenaia Michinaga: being

Eos Amaterasu: Paradise, that quality of limitless senses you were describing....
Eos Amaterasu: appreciating the presence of appearance
Eos Amaterasu: we melt into its puddle
stevenaia Michinaga: we observe
Paradise Tennant: yes the rain is the puddle and we are the puddle too because we contain it :)) one with experience ..
Eos Amaterasu likes the 90 second puddle :-)

Aidan Spiritor: Rain makes me remember childhood freedom and running in the rain with no clothes
Widget Whiteberry: no but I think
Widget Whiteberry: Manilla is underwater
Aidan Spiritor: Tsunami?
Eos Amaterasu: a persistent one
Widget Whiteberry: typhoon Ondoy
Paradise Tennant: well emptiness has kind of a misnomer more like connectedness None of these translations of Anya is, however, quite satisfactory and there is much to be said for Stcherbatsky's [Stcherbatsky (1927). The Conception of Nirvana.] rendering - relative or contingent. Phenomena are Anya or unreal because no phenomenon when taken by itself is thinkable: they are all interdependent and have no separate existence of their own.[3]

Eos Amaterasu: waves from 8.5 earthquake in Samoa should hit western US about now.....

http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2009/09/2009.09.30_07:00_-

Pema Pera: My little story leads to a small stepup I found the other day, after starting with APAPB
Pema Pera: I realized that if I consider all that appears, and appreciate all that as a presentation by Being / that that would then include also the appearance of me, of a self, of a mind and body that I call me / so I can appreciate that as a presentation by Being
SophiaSharon Larnia: us too
Pema Pera: so I can play as a presentation by Being
Pema Pera: and from there it is only a small step then play as Being itself
Pema Pera: since a presentation as such is nothing independent
Pema Pera: I hope that makes some sense, but please ask me to clarify where I was not clear enough

SophiaSharon Larnia: it does but i have a question...what does the observing, no 'i', being seeing
Pema Pera: from the point of view of Being, which is not really a point of course, there is only Being
Pema Pera:so all appearance of doing is part of Being -- the difference is that for Being there is no doing, no separation; that is the absolute view. In contrast, for us, in a relative view, we see a world populated by all kind of things, and doers. The challenge is to relax all those phenomena, all those appearances, back into Being. In other words, the challenge is to freely allow both, the relative and absolute view
Eliza Madrigal: Seems almost overwhelming expansiveness
SophiaSharon Larnia: yes
Pema Pera: it would overwhelm if you would try to hang on to the small self identification :)

Widget Whiteberry: I've been charmed by the notion of 'playing as being'
Widget Whiteberry: note the small 'b'
Widget Whiteberry: and take it as encouragement to allow myself to be present in more playful ways
Widget Whiteberry: to consider that all expression can be play
Widget Whiteberry: still within the framework of my awareness of self
Widget Whiteberry: and it seems to result
Widget Whiteberry: in more creative expression
Widget Whiteberry: and more engagement with others
Widget Whiteberry: or maybe , a lighter engagement with others

Pema Pera: the funny thing is that from the relative point of view there is no absolute
Pema Pera: and from the absolute point of view all is absolute, also the relative, so there is no relative
Pema Pera: in other words, you can't get there from here
Pema Pera: so what to do?
Eliza Madrigal: so both would be openness.... something that can't be defined or pinned down
Eliza Madrigal: but pointed to? Being
Pema Pera: yes, theoretically, but how to experience that?
Eliza Madrigal: playing with appreciation?
Pema Pera: that would be one way, yes
Pema Pera: starting with playing as a self, as Widget described
Pema Pera: and to really appreciate the sense of self
Widget Whiteberry: â˜†smilesâ˜†
Eliza Madrigal nods
Pema Pera: and of other, and everything else that appears
Pema Pera: and THEN to switch in a number of small and easy steps
Pema Pera: switching from judgment and identification to the appreciation of those

Yakuzza Lethecus: i always feel that i canÂ´t exactly describe what i think
SophiaSharon Larnia: and takes time to adjust to it,the adjustment phase of anything new brings up
its own emotional residue, fear, or despair, or keen interest and joy

Eliza Madrigal: I'm finding fearlessness I think... but like an excited puppy I think I make splashes which bother others
SophiaSharon Larnia: ha! loves the image of excited puppy
SophiaSharon Larnia: there is true delight in splashing like that
Eliza Madrigal: Yes! In just letting yourself play
Eliza Madrigal: and that in itself says to others "Come on in, the water's fine"
SophiaSharon Larnia: and such a tricky thing to tamper that down, because you dont want to annoy others
Eliza Madrigal: yes exactly
SophiaSharon Larnia: i tend to overburn, puppy gone wild
Eliza Madrigal giggles wildly

http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2009/09/2009.09.30_19:00_-_...cease_to_cherish_opinions

Eos Amaterasu: "Pema Pera: the invitation is to switch from appearance to only the bare PRESENCE of appearance"
stevenaia Michinaga: ....reading
Paradise Tennant: just reading the log ..looks llike a wonderful starting point
Eos Amaterasu: appreciate -> appearance -> presence -> be-ing
Paradise Tennant: simple but as Pema says the practice for a life time
Eos Amaterasu: true - I love those kind of simple things, that reach deep down
stevenaia Michinaga: yes, refinement if an idea is never ending
stevenaia Michinaga: although seeing being is an individual perspective
stevenaia Michinaga: I love that shared perspective of a single idea, like each of us looking at the fountain, we all see it yet each from a different perspective, the fountain looks back from a single point
Eos Amaterasu: yes, and it is still adorned with its pink tutu
Pila Mulligan: :)
stevenaia Michinaga: like seeing being and being looks back
stevenaia Michinaga: it calls to me :)
Paradise Tennant: ;)
stevenaia Michinaga: (claims log)

Eos Amaterasu: quiet can be in every act
Paradise Tennant: yes
Eos Amaterasu: like the tread of a tiger :-)
stevenaia Michinaga: looking for that reference
Pila Mulligan: quiet can also reveal the nature of a place - such as the rustling of leaves in a forest or the sound of an ocean
Eos Amaterasu: you feel the space in the sound
Paradise Tennant: i think silence also supports space .. sometimes I think our incessant chatter both verbal and mental .. makes our lives narrow constricted with the repeatition ..of the mundane
Paradise Tennant: ;)
Pila Mulligan: I agree, words have velocity and inertia
Eos Amaterasu: we play commercials of ourselves, selling ourselves to ourselves
Pila Mulligan: we try to keep up and they take us with them
Paradise Tennant: walked by a sign this week on church a quote from conrad to the effect words are a path away from reality
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Eos Amaterasu: "do not search for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions"
Paradise Tennant: :))
Pila Mulligan: