Piet Hut describes Storm Nordwind as the “main builder and landscaper” for Play-as-Being. Mr. Nordwind manages what are presently large holdings in Second Life including pavilions, buildings, rivers, coastlines, a swamp, a sandbox, a lighthouse in progress, and balloon rides. Storm was one of those present when Play-as-Being started on April 1, 2008. I asked Storm how he heard about the group.
Storm Nordwind: Directly from Piet. I met him at the end of March. I
think Dakini Rhode introduced me. I took him on a tour of my gardens
and temples and he told me about the project.
Adams Rubble: That was in SL then
Storm Nordwind: Yes. Everything has been in SL for me
Adams Rubble: (I remember a chat log refering to him visiting your garden)
Storm Nordwind: Yes. Dakini and I are neighbours across a sim boundary
Adams Rubble: What were your thoughts about PaB at the time (you can rephrase the question if you like)
Storm Nordwind: Sounded like an exciting project. It was coincidental in many ways and I saw that as fortuitous.
Adams Rubble: coincidental?
Storm Nordwind: Yes. I was in the US - in fact it was my last journey
to the US to visit my fiancee before we petitioned for my visa…
Storm Nordwind: … and I had just returned from a Buddhist retreat on an island in the middle of Loch Lomond in Scotland
Storm Nordwind: and flown directly to Denver…
Storm Nordwind: And I met Piet shortly afterwards in SL.
Adams Rubble: That was in SL then
Storm Nordwind: Yes. Everything has been in SL for me. We’ve yet to meet in RL! But…
Storm Nordwind: the experience that I’d had on retreat far outreached my expectations…
Storm Nordwind: and seemed to tie into the idea of Being and, in particular, playing as being Being.
Adams Rubble: Was the idea that the group met in SL part of the appeal?
Storm Nordwind: Hmmm…
Storm Nordwind: Yes and no…
Storm Nordwind: I used SL several hours every day and see no difference between one world and the other. However…
Storm Nordwind: the *convenience* of SL made it possible, rather than
appealing. It wasn’t part of the appeal. SL simply made it possible. I
suspect I would never have bothered to commute to a real world meeting
on a daily - or more than daily - basis.
Adams Rubble: Yes, that is what I was getting at
Adams Rubble: Before we go on, would you care to say anything else about how the retreat and PaB tied together?
Storm Nordwind: Sure…
Storm Nordwind: The retreat including teachings and meditations…
Storm Nordwind: The theme of the long weekend was “Understanding the Mind” …
Storm Nordwind: The last session that we did focussed on “Emptiness”.
Storm Nordwind: Emptiness is an idea common to some Eastern thought systems…
Storm Nordwind: and basically means that everything is empty of existence from its own side…
Storm Nordwind: It does not mean that there is a void and nothing exists…
Storm Nordwind: but rather that we tend to see things in an incorrect way that causes us suffering …
Storm Nordwind: and that there is another way of seeing what exists
that leads us to eschew suffering and escape from it. Anyway…
Storm Nordwind: During the last meditation…
Storm Nordwind: I was blessed with a life-changing experience…
Storm Nordwind: whereby I had a direct experience of Emptiness…
Storm Nordwind: something that I’d thought about for years and sudden;y, from my own experience, knew to be true…
Storm Nordwind: that there was no separation … well, words get kind of useless at this point! …
Adams Rubble: yes
Storm Nordwind: And this experience, fresh in my personal memory…
Storm Nordwind: resonated with what Piet said…
Storm Nordwind: perhaps without that experience I would not have
recognised what Piet was aiming for and may not have thrown myself so
whole heartedly into it!
Adams Rubble: Wow. A spectacular beginning. Has PaB changed or developed your thoughts about emptiness?
Storm Nordwind: Considerably. Although, I have been developing in my
Buddhist practice alongside, so sometimes - often - it is impossible to
determine a causal relationship and I don’t bother except to
acknowledge both. Shall I expand on that?
Adams Rubble: Yes, it would be useful to hear more, thanks
Storm Nordwind: When I started doing PaB, I went straight to Playing as
being Being. Immediately. I’m not sure that was whta Piet meant but I
did. And I found considerable success, but …
Storm Nordwind: it was only three months later, in July, when Piet
introduced the exercise of YSBS that I realised the two things could
lead to the same place…
Storm Nordwind: Seeing as Being took me to a place that was unimaginable - IS unimaginable! …
Adams Rubble: Your reports were inspiring
Storm Nordwind: But essentially it showed true existence for me.
Storm Nordwind: Thank you! 
…
Storm Nordwind: But there was something missing for me.
Storm Nordwind: I do what I do for a purpose
Storm Nordwind: And the no-separation, all is Being experience did not fulfil that purpose.
Storm Nordwind: But the next PaB exercise did …
Storm Nordwind: and that was Seeing as an Enlightened Being …
Storm Nordwind: someone who had a direct connection to that experience …
Storm Nordwind: but who toiled in the world to help remove or alleviate the suffering of all living beings.
Storm Nordwind: That was a major insight …
Storm Nordwind: because …
Storm Nordwind: I could see that my religious practice was taking me there …
Storm Nordwind: and I was given a hint - a teaser almost - that it was possible to achieve that state …
Storm Nordwind: for the benefit of others …
Storm Nordwind: and at that point …
Storm Nordwind: I stopped writing my blog …
Storm Nordwind: because I knew I had found what I was looking for.
Adams Rubble: That is a good place to end it
Storm Nordwind smiles
This was clearly wonderful background for the first half of PaB. I wanted to ask a couple of more mundane questions. The first was whether Storm has seen changes in PaB as it grew over the first months.
Storm Nordwind: If you mean the people involved in it, then sure.
Adams Rubble: the group
Adams Rubble: yes
Storm Nordwind: Yes. I have.
Storm Nordwind: However,
Storm Nordwind: what I see is a reflection of human habit and personality
Adams Rubble: Hmm. To rephrase that a little, as an historian, I am
looking for some essence that was there that might be useful for people
now to know about
Adams Rubble: and in the future
Storm Nordwind: Right. My answer may disappoint you in a way! …
Adams Rubble: I’ll be brave
Storm Nordwind smiles and takes a breath
Storm Nordwind: Take a group of people who are involved in a new
project, with partially new ideas and some new and fairly easy to grasp
techniques …
Storm Nordwind: Any new project…
Storm Nordwind: And if they are an average group of people…
Storm Nordwind: you will get a suite of responses…
Storm Nordwind: and those responses one can see being played out in PaB …
Storm Nordwind: although …
Storm Nordwind: there is the added dimension, as you would hear Piet say I’m sure, ….
Storm Nordwind: that Being itself takes care of the project to some extent! … On the other hand, …
Storm Nordwind: you can still see classic group reactions. For example, …
Storm Nordwind: a bunch of people who look to leader(s) …
Storm Nordwind: and need permission at first to do anything on their own initiative…
Storm Nordwind: but who gradually learn…
Storm Nordwind: and bond as a group …
Storm Nordwind: with all the opportunities and dangers therein …
Storm Nordwind: such as fabulous catalytic discussion at one extreme …
Storm Nordwind: and cliquiness at the other …
Storm Nordwind: all things that we’ve seen happen…
Storm Nordwind: But sometimes, and I’ve seen this too, …
Storm Nordwind: the original thrust is lost with some people …
Storm Nordwind: the project of exploration is replaced with the social aspect …
Storm Nordwind: and PaB is no exception to this
Storm Nordwind: Which is why, as with anything, it helps to keep coming back to the focus.
Storm Nordwind: Just like in any meditation really, but played out in a group.
Storm Nordwind: So in that respect PaB group dynamics have been typical…
Storm Nordwind: apart from, as Piet would say, the self-healing nature of the project!
Adams Rubble: Good advice for us there.
When I first stumbled upon PaB, I did not meet Piet for a more than a week and Storm provided me with the inspiration and warmth that kept engaged for that week. Storm is skilled as a guardian; he makes sure everyone has a chance to speak and that he listens carefully to what they are trying to say. Piet had introduced the guardian concept on late April 28 to expand to four sessions a day and also to cover the afternoon sessions while he was in Japan ( the initial guardians were Sky Szimmer, Genesis Zhangsun, Caledonia Heron, Storm Nordwind, Solobill Laville, Dakini Rhode and Maxine Walden). I wondered what it felt like at the beginning? Were the new guardians all surprised when Piet announced it? Apprehensive? Eager to try it?
Storm Nordwind: It was something we had discussed at the original meeting place, the Tea House at the Dakini’s Zen Retreat
Storm Nordwind: It seemed like a natural progression. In a way, it is a consequence of using SL as the main enabling platform …
Storm Nordwind: and because of that we really had no option but to do this …
Storm Nordwind: If part of the PaB idea was to discuss, as well as practise and record, …
Storm Nordwind: then we had to meet in SL, …
Storm Nordwind: and we had to provide the opportunity for the plethora of time zones to be accomodated …
Storm Nordwind: And of coursem at project beginning, …
Storm Nordwind: developments are frequent and exciting, …
Storm Nordwind: so the 6 hourly meetings had to ‘manned’ by a facilitator of some kind …
Storm Nordwind: And we found that we had newcomers wandering in ….
Storm Nordwind: and we needed someone there who could both help those newcomers …
Storm Nordwind: and act to oust them, at a last resort, if they cause persistent trouble. …
Adams Rubble:
Storm Nordwind: In fact I remember doing a little workshop by the tea house in ejecting folk! …
Storm Nordwind: Great fun!
Adams Rubble:
Storm Nordwind: It was what the project needed and why would we not want this amazing project to have every chance of success?
Storm Nordwind: Piet could not do all the work himself
Adams Rubble: Well, I am a witness to how well it worked
Storm later told me that “there is another Buddhist practice that links in very strongly with PaB for me”… “It’s called Mahamudra (or more fully: vajrayana mahamudra tantra!). I went on a Mahamudra retreat at the Manjushri Kadampa Meditation Centre towards the end of October (just 3 weeks ago). Certainly I could see parts of one in the other though, as I intimated during the interview, I can no longer tease out the causal relationship! When I got back from retreat, Piet asked me how it had gone, because, as he said, ‘Mahamudra is about as close as dealing with Being as anything . . .’”
Finally, in summation (from Storm):
“Looking back at the start of PaB, the thing that has struck me most (in addition to the odd life changing experience!) is the people, and one or two people in particular. I realise that if, when I met Piet for the first time, he had wanted us to start a project to divine the philosophy of the stars, or some other esoteric project instead, I would have done it. There are some people that you know you HAVE to work with, no matter what. Their presence resonates across an age and a lifetime. Their enthusiasm, humour and wisdom brings out the best in you. These chances may only come once, and you know they will attract others like them, until there is constellation of bright stars dancing around each other, and you get to be a breathless part of that dance.”
