04-06 - Micks back (late)

The Decision To Excel

As I watched a mother teaching her child to walk
I saw anticipation and excitement swell with each step
When the child would fall, it was not applauded
But immediately brought to its feet with tender help

Now I am persuaded resilience is a learned behavior
Because a child beginning to walk must decide to excel
Therefore the mentor motivates maturity which concludes
That a fall is never a decision to fail!

SourceSource type: Periodical
Integrated Gospel Perceptions http://
Contribution #3720

2010.04.04 01:00

Susi Alcott: wanna hear a story ?
Calvino Rabeni: +Yes :)
Bertram Jacobus: yes please
Qt Core: sure
Susi Alcott: there was once that I could keep my mouth;
Susi Alcott: there was a meeting; several 85 year old ladies
Susi Alcott: they had many kind of illnesses and most of them was a widow
Bertram Jacobus: (and from moon and from star and from cosma and from pab and all the members) ... (feel support) ...
Calvino Rabeni: :) Bert
Bertram Jacobus: :-)
Susi Alcott: one wondered that how they have only resign to not to care of there illnesses
Susi Alcott: the other asked;
Susi Alcott: "What else could've we been done ?"
Susi Alcott: so the question stayed in the air ...
Susi Alcott: but I thought of those many old and even younger people, who never did that; ignored there illnesses
Susi Alcott: but turned to be bitter and claimed many things included doctors that cannot help them at all
Qt Core: everytime i hear about old people and the verb to resign i think about this lovely lady: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rita_Levi-Montalcini

[1]

Bertram Jacobus: *click*
Susi Alcott: but the silence that landed among us for that question
Susi Alcott: was warm and gave ease to there pains
Susi Alcott: cuz they all could notice that they have just continued there life the best possible way
Susi Alcott: end of the story
Qt Core: (she is still working )
--BELL--
Bertram Jacobus: yes : one of the big insights : makin always the best out of all
Bertram Jacobus: i heared a story of the dalai lama and another so to say "great rinpoche" (think it was dilgo khyentse) : they sat together in a garden once, half an hour saying nothing and then one of them said : and that thing over there, one calls "tree" - and both laughed very much about it spontaneously ... :-)

2010.04.04 07:00

The Decision

2010.04.04 13:00

Maxine Walden: OK, just to remention that one of the profound things for me
Maxine Walden: in the reading was the constant experience of being in the presence
Maxine Walden: of a very wise person, the voice of the author and the language he used
Maxine Walden: That 'presence' was very calming, very containing, as I recollect
Maxine Walden: And contributes, I think to the experience of opening, trusting, unfolding, transforming...
Maxine Walden: so wanted to mention that. And as well, it occurred to me
Maxine Walden: as I was thinking of this second theme session,
Maxine Walden: that for me in an ongoing way the sense of opening to TSK and the learning being offered
Maxine Walden: suggested that one's experience of reality, and of the opening to the wider views and appreciations (getting lost in my sentence!! Just a moment)
Maxine Walden: ...that one's evolving sense of appreciation of TSK pivots on the state of mind, the opening of one's mind, vs the narrow, defensive, pressured, focus on the minute...
Maxine Walden: that the quality of attentiveness, guess that is really what I am trying to get at...
--BELL--
Maxine Walden: the quality of attentiveness seems key to me re how open, how allowing, how receiving and appreciative one can be
Maxine Walden: And this quality of attentiveness is not a contrived one from inside, but is one which naturally 'comes' in a relaxed, trusting, opening of oneself.
Maxine Walden: But when I have been fatigued, etc, I seem less able to connect with that relaxed open attentiveness...

Pema Pera: yes, and the attentiveness seems to have an aspect of appreciation . . . .
Pema Pera: not so much a grasping kind of attentiveness towards something in particular, but rather an appreciation of the whole scene, so to speak
Maxine Walden: absolutely, Pema...think that is key...the appreciation which is a soft resonating openness
Maxine Walden: getting past the 'self' with its agenda, and drive to possess, 'know' etc...and at times it seemed to take work to maintain the relaxed open aspect, as if the default position paradoxically was the 'self''s agenda
Maxine Walden: Pema, with all the readings you have done, the default position is probably something other than the self's agenda?
Maxine Walden: readings of TSK you have done...
Pema Pera: what do you mean exactly with the "default position", Maxine?
Maxine Walden: guess I mean the place one comes back to or sometimes begins from as one 'wakes' up in the morning...the place of least energy output...
Pema Pera: yes, when we wake up, we first dress up our minds, with all its attachments and identifications, and then the body . . . :)

arabella Ella: ok you said 'a switch from having to being' ... and 'having knowledge' may not therefore be such a good thing? Could you elaborate please about 'having knowledge'?
Pema Pera: where you are, but seen in a different light perhaps
Pema Pera: yes, dropping knowledge is a better way to start . . . .
Pema Pera: (to Riddle, and to Ara, respectively)
Pema Pera: we know too much already, or think we do . . .
arabella Ella: do we?
Wester Kiranov: knowledge is always there, and if you try to own it it will run away (@ara)
Pema Pera: we think we know we have a self, for example, etc etc
Calvino Rabeni: @riddle, a place to visit - You must visit the place where knowledge is seen from a place of knowing-ness or "already" rather than acquiring information.
Maxine Walden: to be alert to the anxiety about grasping, or trying to seize the good stuff, the Knowledge...for that forcloses the openness, the appreication of quiet, present knowingness as Great Knowledge
arabella Ella: but ... excuse the 'tourist question' ... are we not trying to 'know more' by being here? so is there not a paradox?
Wester Kiranov: there are loads of seeming paradoxes
Pema Pera: there are paradoxes, always, when we try to capture insight into words
Pema Pera: yes
Maxine Walden: awe in the presence of a quiet, uncontrived knowingness
Pema Pera: not "our knowingness"
Pema Pera: something else, more like inspiration, creativity, in that direction
--BELL--
Pema Pera: spontaneity
Maxine Walden: For the the paradox is also in the limitation of our language...we just don't have words to convey the presence of this knowingness, we tend to relate to 'our knowing' in our language, our questing even to open to TSK

2010.04.04 19:00

Calvino Rabeni: Picking up from earlier - the idea seems to be about knowledge being "constructed"
Calvino Rabeni: A reverse interpretation might make as much sense - that the meaning is not defined, but already present, and the definitions or representations are conformed to it. That would be a little like that "morphic field" idea you mentioned earlier.
Mitzi Mimistrobell: please continue!
Calvino Rabeni: LIke you said,it flies against the trend
Calvino Rabeni: You might call it a case of "monocausalitis"
Mitzi Mimistrobell: could I have you go back a little and say, what do you mean, "knowledge being constructed"?
Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... and is the word "meaning" substantially the same as the word "referent" when used in talking about language?
Calvino Rabeni: It shows up in that guise pretty often, I would agree
Calvino Rabeni: There's a tacit theory involved with that idea
Mitzi Mimistrobell: I like "referent" - seems more precise.
Calvino Rabeni: Like, language consist of signs that are intrinsicially meaningless, and the take their meaning by virtue of association with specific objective objects or situations (their "referents")
Mitzi Mimistrobell: yes!
Calvino Rabeni: And then, with a dubious philosophical sleight-of-hand, people talk as if the language was able to stand alone
Mitzi Mimistrobell: precisely
Calvino Rabeni: But if we admit a more flexible idea of what-causes-what, then , we don't have to take a stereotyped position
Mitzi Mimistrobell: How does causality come into this, then?
Calvino Rabeni: Stereotype 1 - I construct my reality. Stereotype 2 - I perceive an objective reality
Mitzi Mimistrobell: ok
Calvino Rabeni: By causality I mean, the dubious theory to be reductionist and say "which is primary, which is the result"

2010.04.05 01:00

Bertram Jacobus: and perhaps i may report in short : first i searched whatever in christian groups - for sure , i´m in this cultural sourrounding. didn´t find anything, searched in other systems. wre very angry with christian hierarchies for some time, lost the view for the essence of that ...
Tarmel Udimo: understand
Tarmel Udimo: yes
Bertram Jacobus: and then, after having found a bit in hinduism, buddhism - i found also the essence in christs teachings too : the love ...
Tarmel Udimo: yes love is tricky
Tarmel Udimo: because there is an assumption you need to give love to something external
Bertram Jacobus: love is often misunderstand or mixed up with other aspects
Tarmel Udimo: agree
Bertram Jacobus: even contrary ones (!) ;-)
Tarmel Udimo: where as love is in fact acceptance of one's true self
Tarmel Udimo: Self
Tarmel Udimo: opening one's awareness to who we are is love
Bertram Jacobus: i could express for example that love in my understanding is ultimate harmony ...
Tarmel Udimo: yes that would be one way
Bertram Jacobus: yes. what you say is included in my understanding of that

2010.04.05 13:00

Calvino Rabeni: Dropping is not about whether knowledge is valuable, or whether it is true, or whether you should remain committed to it in the long run.
Calvino Rabeni: It is about freeing attention and intelligence in present time
Calvino Rabeni: for a moment
Calvino Rabeni: Mick's word was "dexterity"
arabella Ella: but why say 'drop knowledge' if what is meant is 'free attention and intelligence'?
Calvino Rabeni: Because of the binding nature of knowledge on attention
Wol Euler nods.
Mickorod Renard: nicely said CAL
arabella Ella: is that always the case Calvino ... or not?
arabella Ella: does knowledge always bind on attention?
Calvino Rabeni: And I don't think the "knowledge" referred to is "factual knowledge" of course
Eliza Madrigal: right, wol... it isnt about undoing all your skills and education :)
Liza Deischer: ropping the attachement
Liza Deischer: *dropping
Calvino Rabeni: Knowledge informs and directs attention also, focuses it in a specific direction
Mickorod Renard: I guess it depends what u want to do with the knowledge,,u could just be a human library,,or you could do something with it
Calvino Rabeni: To refocus in a different direction - to see something new - might require dropping current commitments for the time being

2010.04.05 19:00

Lucinda Lavender: how did you get introduced to this place?

Eden Haiku: Oh to PaB. I was attending an event at Kira and left because I did not like it.

Lucinda Lavender: ah

Eden Haiku: Flew over and fell down in these beautiful gardens.

Eden Haiku: Walked around , went into a little charming house. 

Eden Haiku: (It was the pub, I discovered later.)

Lucinda Lavender: yes

Eden Haiku: Then I met this blond man I had seen at Kira.

Eden Haiku: Asked him if it was ok to walk in these gardens.

Eden Haiku: He said I was welcomed to and then invited me to the pavilion where the meeting was about to start.

Lucinda Lavender: I see

Eden Haiku: And I found this place so wonderful I kept coming back. :) Tell me your story now...:)

Lucinda Lavender: Calvino mentioned that this might be a place he could show me...

Lucinda Lavender: I came and walked a bit and found it very beautiful.

2010.04.06 13:00

arabella Ella: So Wol, if you dont mind ... self directed work and procrastination ...
Wol Euler: mmhmm
arabella Ella: how do you then manage to bring in some self discipline?
Wol Euler: well, it's not as simple as that brief description
arabella Ella: yes ... although I can relate to what you said
arabella Ella: but then deadlines or responsibilities or whatever enter the picture too
arabella Ella: and TIME
Wol Euler: I balance the "waiting for inspiration to hit" moments with some hard work when it does
Wol Euler: and there are always tasks to be done "beside" the thing that I am procrastinating about
arabella Ella: yes i can relate with that too ... mmmm
Wol Euler: for example, I have a mental list of about twenty things that need to be done sometime fairly soon on the current project
Wol Euler: and I know roughly which have to happen first
arabella Ella: then there is also the paradox about Time ... relaxation ... waste of time ... using time properly ... etc
Wol Euler: so I make a deal with myself. I'm only allowed to procrastinate on one thing at a time.
arabella Ella: he he
arabella Ella: I like that attitude
Wol Euler: if I am procrastinating on X then I *must* do either Y or Z
Wol Euler: and I choose the one that has the least resistance
arabella Ella: fantastic idea
arabella Ella: yes
arabella Ella: like doing the easiest stuff on a to do list first i guess
Wol Euler: this resistance is a kind of intuition, I think. It means that I am missing something to deal properly with the problem
arabella Ella: yes i guess it is
Wol Euler: be it time, or a fact, or an answer from some other part of the project that I might not even consciuosly know is related
arabella Ella: like when we dont reply to emails immediately ... it is often the case that we dont have a simply answer
Wol Euler nods.

The

2010.04.06 19:00

Pema Pera: as for goats . . . .
Pema Pera: how about this? 

on a mountain path: 
meet a goat, open your coat 
to look much bigger

Eos Amaterasu: last I recall we were settling like a mountain :-)
Pema Pera: a floating mountain . . .
Eos Amaterasu: first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain....
Eos Amaterasu: then there is
Pema Pera: :-)
Eliza Madrigal: Eden Haiku: But if I may, I would like to ask you Eos, an experience in which you apllied this, in Real Life: being decisive, knowing what is, seeing clearly, ;)
Eden Haiku: ha ha!
Eos Amaterasu: Any othere questions?
Eos Amaterasu: But I passed the buck to Eliza
Eos Amaterasu listens
Eliza Madrigal: I spent it...
Eden Haiku: (((Shamed by my typos ))) hiding under my blue hair.
Pema Pera: Eos knowing what (it) is (to duck)
Eliza Madrigal: Kidding... maybe you missed my answer....will re post for you and for Cal
Eliza Madrigal: Eliza Madrigal: I have to say that this vision of the 'three confidences' is something I'm settling with... I mentioned 'big' decisions I feel I have to make, but really..... I'm inspired by this idea of settling in like a mountain... allowing decisions to be made.... 
[19:14] Eliza Madrigal: the mountain imagery is inspiring because its a caretaker of sorts
Calvino Rabeni: Thanks
Eden Haiku: What about you Calvino? Would you like to share an experience of Being decisive you had?
Pema Pera: I love that: being decisive by letting decisiveness be !!
Calvino Rabeni: Hmmm, can't decide what it would be ...
Eden Haiku: Eos seems to be avoiding his own subject so ;)))
Eos Amaterasu: how a caretaker, Eliza?
Calvino Rabeni: (searches memory)
Eliza Madrigal: I feel I'm not decisive in my life about some things because I feel the weight of the caretaking for others....
Eden Haiku: Look in inventory maybe Cal?
Eden Haiku: Ah yes, Eliza...
Eos Amaterasu: hmm
Eliza Madrigal: and while I might take some risks for myself... it takes a great deal of trust to settle into that kind of confidence when others are leaning....
Eos Amaterasu: ah
Pema Pera: not straying from openness is also a form of being decisive, though it may look like the opposite

Eliza Madrigal: leaning onto no ground.... yes
Calvino Rabeni: Last time I was decisive, it was to change the topic in a dialogue I was having, away from the expected topic to something else - that is, ti make a counter-proposal.
Calvino Rabeni: And another case is, I invited someone to lunch to learn more about a certain issue that had to do with a group
Eos Amaterasu: you can't be frivolous with others
Eden Haiku: Ok, that is decisive action with language then.
Eos Amaterasu: I don't think decisiveness means being right
Eliza Madrigal listens
Calvino Rabeni: The decisive action was with - what people were content to know and not know
Eos Amaterasu: it seems more a matter of engagement,
Calvino Rabeni: "rules of engagement" are negotiable
Eos Amaterasu: first by not running away from the charnel ground you're in (wish SophiaSharon was here)
Pema Pera: yes, decisively avoiding both fight and flight
Eliza Madrigal: She's engaged in letting go.... definitely engaging :)
Eos Amaterasu: letting go into that, which is a kind of fidelity to it, not running away
Eos Amaterasu: not pushing it
Eos Amaterasu: the weight isn't in this or that (clouds or goats)
Eos Amaterasu: it's in the openness of the space
Eos Amaterasu: which is immoveable
Pema Pera: neither huffing & puffing, nor giving up
Calvino Rabeni: Right
Eden Haiku: Ah yes, it is very subtle isn',it ?
Calvino Rabeni: You know something new will emerge, but can't control exactly what it is
Eos Amaterasu: so re others, staying with others, but with "deep in my heart I know there's no help I can bring"
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Pema Pera: yes
Eos Amaterasu: fidelity to them
Pema Pera: and also: no help is needed
Eos Amaterasu: there can be rain on the mountain
Pema Pera: ultimately
Pema Pera: and then I can make gestures to celebrate the "no need"
Eos Amaterasu: or share the no need in the midst of painfully apparent need
Pema Pera: yes
Eliza Madrigal: appreciate that sensibility too...
Eliza Madrigal: Which perhaps leads in a bit to "Know what is" ?
Calvino Rabeni: When people create, along with "no need", then it takes an air that is celebratory
Eos Amaterasu: you're not modifying anything, so it's "being seeing"
Pema Pera: yes, Eliza, last time and now too we seem to focus on "being decisive"; how about "knowing what is"?
Eos Amaterasu: yes, the best gestures are "empty gestures"
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, yes... leaning on 'me' would be tampering....

Pema Pera: . 

behind Buddha's back 
and behind Buddha's behind 
what is left to see?

Pema Pera reading the web for EMDR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMDR