2009.09.28 - Engagement

Here is the text of a dialogue held by Piet Hut (in SL: Pema Pera) and Steven Tainer (in SL: Stim Morane), in Second Life on September 28, 2009.

 

P: At some point you described the TSK approach by saying "it did not
   come from practice, but from intense engagement"
S: I don't recall ...
P: I found that a very inspiring notion, and very much in the spirit
   of both scientific research and of what we are trying to do in Play as
   Being
S: the same point was emphasized in other things we've discussed, like
   the working hypothesis
S: the main thing is to follow through
P: yes, the working hypothesis, which we discussed in different
   versions:
P: such as "all is complete" for example
S: when I teach this point in my regular groups, it comes after and
   during a lot of practice of various sorts
S: we tried to do it as a stand-alone, but I don't think that approach
   has been proven yet
P: yes, two years ago exactly, during the fall of 2007, we spent
   several months working with the working hypothesis in Qwaq, the
   virtual world in which we met daily before moving to Second Life to
   start Play as Being
P: in contrast, PaB could be seeing as more of a "playing hypothesis"
S: yes
P: The hypothesis then is: it actually makes sense to play as Being --
   to enact Being in your own life, to the best of your ability at any
   given point
P: or more accurately, to let Being be in/as your own life
P: the notion of play ranges widely, from having fun to being
   intensely engaged, and PaB ideally invites both
S: :)
P: it will be interesting to go through the TSK book, the coming half
   year, in the Time workshop in Kira
P: starting in two days
S: so it's on Wednesdays?
P: for now at least, 11 am SLT on Wednesdays
P: the time it used to be -- it will have to shift in December, at
   least if I were to continue participating when I am in Japan (11 am
   then is 1 am for me in Japan)
P: it will be interesting to see how those TSK discussions may further
   clarify the notion of "Being"
S: I would expect many different notions to emerge, not one ...
P: probably, and then the invitation will be to see whether there is
   something recognizable that all of those may point to . . .
S: yes ... the idea of that teaching was not that the divergence
   persists forever ... it's just a matter of practice
P: can you say a bit more?
S: people are different
S: at any point during their "practice" stage, they will see and
   understand different things.
S: The specific practices involved in the teaching you mention are
   intended to focus that understanding and bring it to "Being" ... but
   that's a very long-term goal.
S: Meanwhile, there will be substantial differences, depending on how
   the individual exercises affect people
P: yes.  I see PaB as starting with a very simple shared idea:
   "dropping what you have in order to see what you Are"
P: and then that idea can act as a kind of magnifying lense, letting
   many different rays move through it
P: but perhaps in the end all focusing on Being, from different
   directions
S: yes
S: it's possible
S: you will have to discover new models of interaction in order to
   facilitate that convergence
P: probably a mix of SL and RL based interactions
S: perhaps, yes
P: I was very much encouraged by the RL retreat
P: it will be fun to see whether we can create a kind of SL retreat
   village for PaB
P: and we will continue the RL retreats four times a year
P: and who knows, we may start local groups in RL for those who want
   to get together more frequently, say once a week.
P: That would give a nice set of time scales:
P: RL retreat four times a year
P: RL meetings for times a month
P: SL meetings four times a day
P: individual 9-sec breaks four times an hour
S: :)
P: coming back to the PaB practice: I think the start and the end can
   be similar, even with all the diversity in between, reflecting
   everyone's own interests and abilities and tendencies
P: the starting practice can be "drop what you have in order to see
   what you are" with "dropping" understood in a gentle way, really more
   a "wearing lightly" and certainly not a repressing or denying -- more
   a freedom from identification
P: the ending practice can be "play as Being" itself, really living
   each moment in that way
P: "end" here is a funny term; I could also say the most complete form
   of exploration within PaB
P: and to engage in that exploration, the key point is to let Being
   play as you . . . .
P: to be open to that, to allow that, to appreciate and celebrate that
P: to see everything in that light, beyond an overly tight and myopic
   focus on the elements in the stories of our daily life; setting all
   those elements free, even the notions of "time" and "life"
P: as we discussed during the retreat.
P: How feasible do you think such a form of exploration is?
S: coming to terms with "time" and "life", ideas drawn from an
   ideosyncratic rendering of mine of a Buddhist sutra, requires a
   lot. But the earlier parts of the sequence I mentioned to you and then
   used in the retreat, are not so hard.
P: yes, and the "dropping what you have" part is easy to get into too,
   in some way or another, and with sufficient motivation anyone can then
   explore deeper, for quite a while
P: the "end" part is what is the most radical, and what gives the name
   to the whole enterprise, to really play as Being