07-09 - Attending to the Music

Eliza,Scribing

It was a particular treat to pour through the logs from these days. Having just returned from San Francisco, I took great pleasure in 'catching up', even while realizing how impossible that would be. :)

We start off with a playful and clever Calvino, wearing his Story-teller's hat:

2010.04.07 01:00 - "Fed" Cal is telling a story

Calvino Rabeni: "So Lola, I get the feeling you're not quite leveling with me"
Calvino Rabeni: "Maybe a little of *this* will help"
Calvino Rabeni: She took a good stiff belt of my Old Crow and regarded me with eyes that were somehow dreamy and dangerous at the same time
Darren Islar is sitting at the point of his chair
Calvino Rabeni: "Sam, if you don't help me find Jimmy, I just don't know *what* I might do"
Calvino Rabeni: Lola, let me tell you something - I've seen this type of case before. Jimmy's probably down at the Five Bells pub or some joint like that, strung on on Phenomenology
Calvino Rabeni: "Phenomenology, Mr. Spade? That sounds dangerous"
Calvino Rabeni: Not to worry Lola - it isn't as dangerous as it sounds - really its just hard to pronounce.
Darren Islar smiles

Then move on to a beautiful session in which Eden introduces a special cookie ...

2010.04.07 07:00 - Sharing Pears, Cookies, & Silence That Covers Everything

Eden Haiku: Fingers's gateway / The silence that covers it all / Loud sunshine mountain

Eden Haiku: read in a Christaine Singer book something like this:
Always stand as if you were standing in front of a great Being. Even when you are alone.

Eliza Madrigal: Wow
Eliza Madrigal: that's quite powerful
Eden Haiku: Decision making in front of a great Being. :)))
Eliza Madrigal feels that
Eliza Madrigal: Sometimes when I act in a small way, I sense that there are large (or multiple) reverberations depending on the level or quality of attention....
Eliza Madrigal: perhaps in the same way that fingers can be a gateway
Eliza Madrigal: like whatever I have 'there', 'here', is enough
Eliza Madrigal: but Knowing it is, Matters

Eden Haiku: Prous'st piece about 'The little madeleine' (eternity in a tea cake) is the most wonderful piece of all French literature I think. Let me see if I can find it on the web in English...

Eden Haiku: http://bit.ly/8rPRQ1

Eliza Madrigal: OOoh, thank you Eden! You will be my gateway to fine French literature
Eden Haiku: It is called 'The cookie' in English.
Eliza Madrigal: :) printing to take to the doc's office
Eden Haiku: In French 'madeleine, is both a cake and the name of a girl.
Eliza Madrigal: Yakuzza... seems the bell interrupted you... a bell with bad timing, who would think :)
Eden Haiku: When I read that for the fisrt time (I was 15), I thought it was the story of a little girl.
Eden Haiku: But them reading it, I was shell shocked.
Eden Haiku: I became a writer reading this I believe.
Eliza Madrigal: !

Guardians discuss the ever-illusive "Creativity"...

2010.04.07 13:00 - On Creativity

Darren Islar: you can be creative by actually make something
Calvino Rabeni: Creativity has a sense of bringing new things into existence
Darren Islar: but you can also be creative by having a thought
Darren Islar: by doing and action
Calvino Rabeni: But that creates a "new" knowledge
Zon Quar: yes i think newness is a key
Darren Islar: by making a joke at just the right time
Calvino Rabeni: even if it is a thought not expressed physically
Vajra Raymaker: oh, Darren! That is such a good example
Wol Euler nods.
Zon Quar: Creativity is a mental process involving the discovery of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the existing ideas or concepts, fueled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight.
Zon Quar: from Wiki
Zon Quar: newness is there
Wol Euler: hmmmm
Darren Islar: wellI think every situation creates new things
Zon Quar: and mental process
Darren Islar: every situation is new
Wol Euler: that sounds like something that happens, rather than something one does.

And Stevenaia shares a new part of his personal practice:

2010.04.07 19:00 - What did you learn today?

stevenaia Michinaga: At the end of my Tai Chi Class my teachers asked each of the students..."What did you learn from class today" : (this was yesterday)
stevenaia Michinaga: and I was thinking that although there are always many things, it's sometimes nice to identify one thing : one thing to take note of, to take with you for tomarrow and forever to remember the day

SO I was thinking, while Bleu was here ... in silence for a bit, trying to remember what one good thing I did or learned today.... and each day so I can take that with me from this day forward, a good meditation to take with me for the 90 seconds, perhaps

Friends play with ideas of gender and species... 

2010.04.08 01:00 - I am a lobster in real life

Crusty Goldshark: Confusion is my natural state
Zen Arado: we were talking about gender issues Crusty
Crusty Goldshark: I am a Lobster in real life -
Zen Arado: and using alts of a different sex than you normally have
Zen Arado: :)
Crusty Goldshark: ah yes - well I am a definite gender in real life but quite happy to be human in SL
Darren Islar: well, then you changed a lot Crusty
Zen Arado: women's sexuality is more fluid than that of a male I think
Zen Arado: males have more rigid roles
Crusty Goldshark: well I feel gender is important for sex procreation and warfare and sport which men seem to enjoy . . .
Darren Islar: yes I think your right
Crusty Goldshark: well I have just been playing a game as a woman - it was either that or a martian . 

And Widget describes how she 'plays as being' ...

2010.04.08 07:00 - american trains and the meaning of pab

2010.04.08 07:00 - american trains and the meaning of pab

Widget Whiteberry: Sitting here with all you around this pool, I am focusing on being here - and not multi-tasking at my computer. When the 90 sec bell rang, I took a deep breath and noticed what all my senses were offering my mind : If I can do that for 9 secs as I go about my day, I suspect I will 'come back to the moment' refreshed
Pema Pera: yes, there is a huge difference between sitting here while multitasking and sitting here and actually being here fully, if virtually!
Bleu Oleander: the same in rl
Yakuzza Lethecus: i still have the issue that i actually do the breathing but still have a problem to communicate little things that feel inimportant when in fact they aren´t
Widget Whiteberry: if I think of my day as a dance, the 9 sec pauses are like the little moments when we stop and shift or hold our weight
Pema Pera nods to Bleu
Pema Pera: perhaps changes our partners, like in a square dance :)
Pema Pera: switch to other worries . . . :)
Bleu Oleander: :)
Archmage Atlantis: I think I actually understand the dance metaphor Widget >)
Widget Whiteberry: or switch off worries for a moment and just attend to the music
Pema Pera: yes, much better!
Widget Whiteberry grins at Archmage

Darren shares a favorite story with much detail ...

2010.04.08 13:00 - about mantra's

Darren Islar: It is my own interpretation, but the blessings tell us something of what you bring out of your previous lives
Darren Islar: big street obviously had worked hard, and gained a lot of good karma
Darren Islar: but small street probably did something special
Darren Islar: once upon a time
Lia Rikugun: what do you mean by that: special?
Darren Islar: I don't know, maybe one day he did the right thing
Lia Rikugun: hm
Darren Islar: without studying for it
Darren Islar: just knowing
Darren Islar: could be anything
Lia Rikugun: :)
Darren Islar: there are more stories like that
Mickorod Renard: maybe he was just innocent,,even though he was lazy
Yakuzza Lethecus: he wasn't lazy

And Time Space Knowledge wonderfully spills... into Play as Being...

2010.04.08 19:00 - Learning How to Read TSK

Paradise Tennant: Cal has been instructing us on how to read tsk
Pema Pera: reading the TSK book is an interesting challenge, what did you recommend, Calvino?
Calvino Rabeni: Personal impressions actually, and I think, what I remember of what class participants said
Pema Pera: it looks like prose, it tastes like poetry, it feels like a jack hammer sometimes :-)
Paradise Tennant: smiles wow
Pema Pera: and sometimes like a feathered bed
stevenaia Michinaga: was it Stim who gave it a voice that complex?
Pema Pera: he wrote that first book yes, based on many taped conversations with Tarthang Tulku, and then of course going over the text many times with Tarthang Tulku
Paradise Tennant: smiles
Pema Pera: so it was a collaborative process in that sense, though the inspiration for the composition came largely from Tarthang Tulku as I understand it
Pema Pera: But Steven with his philosophy of science could give a voice to it that a recently immigrated Tibetan could never have done
Paradise Tennant: yes
Pema Pera: and Steven had progressed sufficiently in the few years that he had studied with Tarthang Tulku to have had enough experience himself to know what he was writing about
Paradise Tennant: knowing it as you do .. what comes to your mind most ...when you think about it
Pema Pera: hahaha
Pema Pera: so much . . . it really has become part of my life, because it fitted so well with what I had been looking for during the ten years before I found it
Calvino Rabeni: I think theres a style of "Stim" in the text
Pema Pera: from age 17 to 27 I had been looking for ways to integrate, or better find an already existing unity of, science and religion : and that book was the very first that gave me a glimmer of real hope that it could be done
Pema Pera: nothing else went deep enough
Pema Pera: nothing else was radical enough
Pema Pera: true to the rigorous quality control of physics AND contemplative traditions
Calvino Rabeni: That must have been heartening
Pema Pera: yes, very much so. That was in 1980 that the book found me :-)
Pema Pera: I found Steven 16 year later in Berkeley . . .
Paradise Tennant: steven wrote the book in 1980?
stevenaia Michinaga: he must have been quite young
Pema Pera: no, a few years earlier; I met the book in September 1980
Pema Pera: yes, late twenties

Calvino Rabeni: I wanted to make a comment about the "dropping" practice I haven't heard here before - about its inner structure - sometimes the effects of what my mind does during that 90 seconds initiate a process that continues to unfold slowly throughout the rest of the session.
Pema Pera: that's very nice, Calvino!
Pema Pera: yes, a little tear in our veils can keep unraveling more and more of its surroundings
Pema Pera: we all have so many of them . . . . .
Calvino Rabeni: The reason I think it deserves saying, is I think there's a tacit assumption that what you do with the mind only affects what is happening during the time attention is being controlled
Calvino Rabeni: but it seems to go much beyond that
Pema Pera: one moment of jealousy can spoil your whole day (and that of others) . . . :-)
Pema Pera: (or envy, still haven't learned the distiction)
Pema Pera: (same word in Dutch)
Calvino Rabeni: Yes OTOH I was reading an old blog by Stim about whether the short focus "9-sec" could have any effect
Calvino Rabeni: because it is so brief. This is a rationale for "Yes!"

Quoting from _Time, Space, Knowledge_:

Pema Pera: An integrated, natural intelligence, unfragmented into reason, emotions, sensations, and intuition, is our greatest treasure, and our key to progress. Exploring our realm of experience with such an intelligence can be an inspiring undertaking. If, for instance, such an open intelligence is brought into play in reading this book, even the reading and thinking process itself can become a visionary path. Through integrating a theoretical approach with one which is more experiential, we can actually begin to change our lives.

Then we find ourselves back with stories and their tellers ... 

2010.04.09 01:00 - Human nature is stronger than furniture arrangement

Archmage Atlantis: Interesting how that style of hat is associated with individuals in detective work........My father was a railroad detective
Wol Euler: "Complication is my middle name." Brilliant.
Calvino Rabeni: TY. I was impressed by the way the genre is understood widely outside USA
Calvino Rabeni: Everyone has seen it I suppose, translated to their language
Wol Euler nods.
Calvino Rabeni: but a lot of it is idiom and slang.
Wol Euler: we've all seen the films
Calvino Rabeni: There's a radio humorist - Garrison Keillor, who does a funny regular skit called "Guy Noir" about some crazy detective
Calvino Rabeni: I dunno how well these translate for non-american speakers
Archmage Atlantis: Before Keller there was a group called "Firesign Theator" that did a similar character in a mock radio show
Calvino Rabeni: "Nick Danger"
Calvino Rabeni: "Third Eye"
Archmage Atlantis: Yep
Wol Euler smiles.
Archmage Atlantis: Nick would read his name backwards looking out through the glass on his office window.....
Archmage Atlantis: Talk about a change of perspective *g*
Wol Euler: :)
Wol Euler: do people still have their names written in mock-gold leaf on glass doors?
Wol Euler: I can't think when I was last in that kind of office building, if ever.
Archmage Atlantis: No one has doors anymore
Wol Euler: true, that would be it.

So, what IS laziness?

2010.04.09 07:00 - Looking at Laziness

Yakuzza Lethecus: what is laziness ? is lazyness a decision to avoid something we learned / something that we don´t appreciate / and it´s not about becoming virtuous to do it through all the pain would we still not do something when we´ve learned to drop the non appreciation of that situation and when we don't see any sense in a particular situation is it really lazyness that makes us stop doing something since being active will usually have much better outcome on the long term, so is there true lazyness ?

Pema Pera: often we are too lazy to look clearly which type of laziness just came up, haha
Darren Islar: :-) @ Pema
Pema Pera: and I think same with "should", Darren, some of the should feelings are obstacles, but some are a kind of natural wisdom of our body and mind
Darren Islar: (toe hurts, for Yaku standing on it :-))
Eliza Madrigal: thinking... it seems helpful to look at it as a moment-by-moment thing... the pull toward the 'easier' way... which sometimes is avoidance...
Yakuzza Lethecus: i did that on intention :) *looks mean at darren*
SophiaSharon Larnia: yes there's that Eliza
Eliza Madrigal: and to nurture something which asks that
Gaya Ethaniel: I think laziness [perhaps fear] about looking into "what types of laziness it is" is a tough one.
Pema Pera: yes : and a funny one too
Gaya Ethaniel: :)

Never too lazy for onigokko it seems...

2010.04.09 13:00 - Friday night sillyness, dresses and strange decorations

Wol Euler: the silence after an oni is always startling
--BELL--
Agatha Macbeth: And silent
Agatha Macbeth: Does anyone get any interesting results if they do a meditation straight after an ONIGOKKO?
Eliza Madrigal can think of pausing during onigokko... seems quite a picture of practicing amidst the chaos and distractions of life :)
Agatha Macbeth: Or the chaos and distractions of you know what...
Qt Core: ar even that after all that running you end up in the same place
Eliza Madrigal: rampant silliness?
Eliza Madrigal: Oh yes QT, a great animation would be one where we could switch cushions... throw them around :)
Agatha Macbeth: Musical cushions?
Eliza Madrigal: not that I'm dissing oni.. you know
Darren Islar: great
Qt Core: don't startle the scripters around or log reading!@
Agatha Macbeth: Course not
Eliza Madrigal: heheh
Agatha Macbeth: Yowww

Lucinda Lavender: I have danced to Walter the Waltzing Worm already today ...
Wol Euler: my life is incomplete.
Eliza Madrigal: Not too many people can say that Lucinda

And occasionally other kinds of excercize...

2010.04.09 19:00 - Standing, Pondering a Sky with Happy Feet

Eliza Madrigal: Must be the chi insisting to add more subtle physical things into practice :)
Pila Mulligan: it wants to *wake* up too may sound more appropriate in the PaB context, but I was thinking of how the chi finds its way through the spine by practice and that kind of growth
Pila Mulligan: yes, exactly Eliza
Pila Mulligan: it can only insist so much though, you have to help it guide you
Eliza Madrigal: even in the pauses at times... stretching... checking posture... though I've often done that
Pila Mulligan: yep :)
Calvino Rabeni: There is a certain lengthening of the spine that I feel, has to arise from within it
Pila Mulligan: to me that is the actual value of the 9 second pause
Pila Mulligan: like a yoga
Pila Mulligan: not the only value, but most actual to me
Eliza Madrigal: makes sense
Pila Mulligan: yes, Cal, it really does feel like the spine lengthens , doesnt it
Eliza Madrigal: lenthening of the spine, Cal?
Calvino Rabeni: Yes
Pila Mulligan: stretching kind of
Calvino Rabeni: from within
Pila Mulligan: :) yep

Calvino Rabeni: There is an element to it that's important - to trust one's own process and its emergence (rather than imposing it to match a mental image)
Pila Mulligan: modesty is the most auspicious of all the essential images int he I Ching, by the way
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Calvino Rabeni: We are not trying to conform to a pattern
Pila Mulligan: it is the only gua with no negative connotations
Calvino Rabeni: that we know in advance
Eliza Madrigal: Ahhhh...rare then
Pila Mulligan: occasional :)
Eliza Madrigal: Calvino I appreciate that distinction very much....
Eliza Madrigal: like standing this morning... there was room enough in my practice to do so
Eliza Madrigal: but I'd guess like many things, one can become strict about it
Calvino Rabeni: Many people don't get "into" the practice because they fear not knowing how to do it "right"
Pila Mulligan: as opposed to simply doing it :)
Eliza Madrigal: with happy feet
Pila Mulligan: :)
Eliza Madrigal: :)

Calvino Rabeni: Yes - "right" is simply doing it :)