Day 10

 Day 10 05/03/10 -

Hi All,

Today is day 10, in the 100 day period between the San Francisco
and Nova Scotia retreats. Thank you, Maxine, Eliza, Adams, for
your responses to my earlier email. I'm encouraged by some of you
independently picking up on what I wrote about "our presence is the
expression of the infinite possibilities of Being."

We normally consider the world to be given, a fixed external reality.
And we also tend to overlook our many presuppositions which leave us
with an equally fixed internal reality that let us then react in
predictable ways.

However, as soon as we view our ways of dealing with all of reality,
internally as well as externally, as a kind of play, immediately much
of that givenness dissolves.

It may seem escapist to "play as Being" but in fact we are always
already playing, "playing as miserable" sometimes; often "playing
as limited" in this or that way. Each moment we are playing as
something. And the fun thing is: we can combine each play we are
already engaged in with playing as Being. It's almost too simple:
instead of me feeling disappointed about something, I can play as
Being playing me feeling disappointed. Quickly, that gives a whole
different feel to the situation! Quite likely, that will immediately
begin to bring out some of those "infinite possibilities of Being"
that we normally overlook.

When we feel stuck in this world, stuck in the roles we are playing,
we may feel we have no way out. But we may discover that we do have
a way in. A way into playing as Being playing having no way out. :-)

Cheers,
Pema