A. Month of September

 

In September the groups meeting in the pavilion started to get smaller than those of the summer months; people's real lives sems to get busier. There seemed to be a feeling that there was less depth. The perception also may have been the slow down from all of the YSBS, ESBS and APAPB exercies of the previous few weeks. In early September people shared much more information about themselves and asked questions of each other. There was a definite increase in the number of sessions when no one was there except for the guardian. We discussed it at the guardian meeting on September 14:

genesis Zhangsun: Perhaps its just me but felt like things have slowed down a bit in Pab?
genesis Zhangsun: I don't know if that is just me?
Sylectra Darwin: I noticed it too, Genesis.
Sylectra Darwin: We might want to experiment with ways to spread the word.
Pia Iger: yes, the attendance and zest is down. but the talk is more integrated with real issues. More grounded talk, if I may say.

Pia Iger: my observation is that few people come to meeting very frequently as before, but their talk are more meaningful. (a bit judgemental here) Feel PaB is growing naturally.
doug Sosa: But I've noticed that those who come are building real intimacy, but the number is few.
Adams Rubble: Might attendance have something to do with summer being over?
Pema Pera: it may be natural waves too; some weeks are more intense, some less; and in September many connected to academia get more outside things to keep busy with

Our worries proved to be unfounded. There was a complete change in the second half of the month. There seemed to be a new energy. Activity picked up again with many lively and provocative sessions.

September News:

Genesis Zhangsun and Adams Rubble drew up a list of guidelines for the guardians while Pia and others drew up a notecard to be given to new attendees.

Moon Fargis began a PaB library.

The Sunday morning guardian meetings became less about business and more about discussing our practices. 

Gaya Ethaniel added detailed and illustrated explanation of the names of our sims to the Wiki.

Storm Nordwind built a new pavilion in Bieup. The impetus was the autologging. The pavilion in Rieul was too near the property of others and might have picked up their conversation. The autologging group was discovering many obstacles due to some of the restrictions of Second Life and the fact the log had to be sent to an external database. The group was experimenting with sending "packets" of information at a time to get around restraints.

Kira Cafe

In September Storm was busily working on the Kira buildings. In mid (September 13 13:00) Storm took Pema and I see the progress. Pema explained that PaB was not for everyone. Pema described how things have grown:

Pema Pera: It is funny how everything has grown so organically -- Kira giving rise to WoK, ways of Knowing, with WoK moving into the virtual world of Qwaq, and after a year there me moving on to SL to start PaB, and then needing money to pay for the PaB land and looking at Kira as the umbrella organization for non-profit grant receiving, and then realizing that in fact it would be good to have Kira be represented here in SL on PaB land, turning the tables so to speak -- and finally realizing that we can represent the historical and temporal way of PaB formation here spatially by having the PaB land be in fact part of the wider Kira land with wider Kira activities.

Rowan made us all PaB tee-shirts. 

At some point Adelene had coined the word "nines" or "9s" to express the practice of stopping for nine seconds. In September it seeme dto be starting to stick. 

APAPB

We continued to ponder this new formula in September. On September 25 01:00 Gaya asked Pema about "presentation"

Gaya Ethaniel: Presentation is something that I don't quite get Pema
Pema Pera: The sentence is meant as an open invitation, and indeed, I have not defined or specified each word in the sentence very well.
Pema Pera: The best way to use the sentence, I think, is to taste it, to repeat it quietly a number of times, for example during the 9-sec intervals, and if you like, more frequently or at other times.
Pema Pera: Chances are that the sentence will begin to make more sense, over time. Perhaps the sentence will talk to you, so to speak, in some way :-)
Gaya Ethaniel smiles. ah ok
Pema Pera: but that is just in general
Pema Pera: I'm happy to talk about each element, as much as you are interested :>)
Gaya Ethaniel: Please
Pema Pera: So as for presenting, we can start with the fact that there is appearance
Pema Pera: something appears, we don't know what it is, where it comes from, etc, we only know that appearance appears
Pema Pera: Stating it that way is the negative form: anything more than saying "appearance" is speculation, to some extent -- and leaving out speculation means stripping off any element besides appearance; a negative approach (and a very useful one!)

 Pema spoke again about APAPB on Septmber 21 08:00 in terms of how it would set the tone for our future explorations:

Pema Pera: I think for many people, perhaps everyone here, the PaB explorations in general have been liberating in one way or another. Speaking just for myself, a specific focus on appearance (as in APAPB) has enhanced that sense of liberation quite a bit -- one thing I'd be happy to talk about, now or later; but perhaps there are other things we'd like to discuss?
Caledonia Heron: I'd be interesed to hear what you have to say on that Pema :)
Pia Iger: Pema, please continue abou the specific focus.
Adams Rubble: Yes, please Pema
Pema Pera: The first half year of PaB, we have used the 9 sec mostly as an opening, dropping stuff, letting a new wind blow in
Pema Pera: letting go, stepping aside
Pema Pera: but there is another side to all this, letting Being be an active resource
Pema Pera: a kind of "addition" or more "recognition"
Pema Pera: of how to live, act, be much much more efficiently and directly
Pema Pera: a focus on appearance for me has been the most immediate way of doing that
Pema Pera: and it is related to dropping time, using a fourth time
Pema Pera: not past or future
Pema Pera: not even present
Pema Pera: more a kind of actual eternity
Pema Pera: it might be fun to try to play with that, as a group, to see how far we get :-)

Fourth Time

Pema challenged the group with the idea of fourth time, i.e. the time that is not past, present and future. He sent the following in an email to the guardians:

One observation we have talked about is that when we consider time, we think we are dealing with time having a past-present-future structure. It seems that way. We can remember the past. We can anticipate the future. We clearly seem to be in the present. This is comparable to "the sun seems to revolve around the Earth." Now entertain the working hypothesis that the three times are an illusion. Imagine that there is only a fourth time. And within that fourth time the other three would seem to arise. What could that mean? What would that feel like? What observations would that give rise to? Would such predicted observations fit our experience equally well as our observations of past-present-future?

Voices of September:

Caledonia on YSBS on September 4 07:00

Caledonia Heron: re ys/bs... I was flying back from work and looking out the window
Caledonia Heron: I started placing being on the clouds outside, hopping forward with me, along side
Wol Euler smiles
Caledonia Heron: then being seeing the plane with the people inside looking out
Caledonia Heron: a funny kind of daydream but not really
B: :-)
Caledonia Heron: with being seeing me looking out the window
B: Ah
Caledonia Heron: a daydream? imagination? seemed far more in depth than than that.... funny to remember so vividly

A little later in the same session on devil's advocate:

Wol Euler: !"Formerly, during the canonization process of the Roman Catholic Church, the Promoter of the Faith (Latin Promotor Fidei), popularly known as the Devil's Advocate (Latin advocatus diaboli), was a canon lawyer appointed by the Church to argue against the canonization of the candidate."
Wol Euler: aaaah
Caledonia Heron: I had a picture of the devil's attorney as an advocate .... big cave, guy with horns and trident and alongside a guy in a suit and wingtips

A small extract from a larger discussion in simplicity on Deptember 4 13:00:

Storm Nordwind: I think the main thing I have been experiencing over the last week could be encapsulated in the word 'simplicity'
Quilty Bookmite: Care to elaborate? :-)
Wol Euler chuckles at Quilty.

doug Sosa: simplicity to me is like freedom.. as soon as we have it we give it away to ..
Storm Nordwind: We give it away - in the sense that we share it?
doug Sosa: well, fill up the time with tasks, fill up the simplicity with more things, connections..
Storm Nordwind: Ah. You mean instead that you lose it.
doug Sosa: freedom is an opportunity to be unfree. Freedom unused is really a wasteland.
Wol Euler: we do seem programmed to like More.
doug Sosa: well, with more, we like less... :)

PaB and involvement (Septmeber 4 19:00)

Pia Iger: before HL comes back. 3D, I want to go back to the first question you brought us, the comparison of PaB with other activities in SL. I feel the regular presence of PaB, 4 times a day, is something quite special in SL.
Threedee Shepherd: yes, it is
Pia Iger: and we have been blogging every session we had. The sense of group is so solid.
Threedee Shepherd: yes, and it is evolving
Threedee Shepherd: My sense is that not all in the group are still strongly involved, which will lead to a reintegration of those who are, and new experiences.
Pia Iger: Yes, there is difference among us in the level of involvement.
Pia Iger: *among all members.
Threedee Shepherd: That will be true of any and every group, and is natural.
Pia Iger: but by avarage, the involvement of this group would be higher than most SL group. I assume.
Threedee Shepherd: true, given its intensity and probably a strong filtering effect at the outset

Doug had challenged us a number of times about global problems and what we should be doing about it. Threedee gave this anser on Spetmber 11 19:00:

Threedee Shepherd: I was pondering the agony of knowing how little one person can accomplish when considering broad, global needs. I guess think globally, act locally is a good answer.

Nine seconds from September 14 01:00:

Selena Heslop: 9 seconds?
Fael Illyar: spiritual chat comes close, although some of the participants are averse to calling it that.
Selena Heslop: i see
Moon Fargis: yes its a meditation you can do all time becasue it only costs you 9 seconds of your time so even while working you can do it
Fael Illyar: point? it's a pause, during which you let go any tunnel vision you're developing.

PaB Directives?Septmeber 15 13:00 session

Stim raised an interesting question in a spirited discussion of love and anger: does PaB have a directive?

Stim Morane: In fact, cultivation of things like sympathetic joy in others' good fortune, kindness etc., were not emphasized by some of the early traditions.
Stim Morane: It's a matter of emphasis and orientation. I don't know where PaB would come down on this ...
Quilty Bookmite: Does PaB have an opinion on it?

Pema always said Play as Being had no dogma but will there be some concensus about things in the future months?

Being. September 28 08:00

genesis Zhangsun: Everything I have learned in PaB suggests that there is no right way to define Being
genesis Zhangsun: have you noticed that when Pema defines Being
Riddle Sideways: ahhh, Gen hits the target
genesis Zhangsun: he adjusts it to the capacity to understand of each listener
genesis Zhangsun: he speaks in the language of Christiantiy, or Buddhism
genesis Zhangsun: or Science
genesis Zhangsun: but its not about the framework of the vocab
genesis Zhangsun: but what it points to

Larger Perspective (September 30 07:00

Riddle Sideways: to stand in a place saying the same words that hundreds of generations have already said
Riddle Sideways: and will say for generations to come
Riddle Sideways: being just a link in that chain
Riddle Sideways: celebrating/rejoicing with parents over the birth of a child
Riddle Sideways: celebrating with bride and groom
Riddle Sideways: rejoicing/remembering all those that were parts of our lives once
Riddle Sideways: being joyious that the wheel of time has rounded another week
Avastu Maruti smiles
Avastu Maruti: this larger perspective, one in which the small sense of self is lost as a wave in the vast ocean
Avastu Maruti: joy is found in the absence of the self-contraction
Avastu Maruti: it is wonderful that you recognize that joy

New Guardians:

Artemisia Svoboda, Corvuscorva Nightfire and quen Oh joined the guardian group. Sadly, Avastu Maruti, Hotaru Myoo and Trevor Berensohn dropped out. The guardian total was at 33 at the end of the month.