Gaya - Life

I've been reading Gellner and something he says about life stayed with me as I left for the retreat. How it would be a betrayal to try working things out in advance rather than living life.

I haven't rewound the tape yet so to speak. I want to save some of them for later too. At a PaB session today, someone asked for highlights and found myself somewhat speechless ... all very precious.

Personally, the setting and food were quite challenging. At the same time, these didn't matter much. It was a pleasure to get to know Eos and Lia more as I haven't had much opportunities to interact with them in SL. And I got to meet Eliza, Pema and Stim in person also.

We had short practices punctuated by discussions or silences. Despite the relaxed structure compared to conventional retreats that I know, at times it felt quite intensive. There were lots of joyful moments in and out of sessions. In some ways, I continued to practise during the periods outside the sessions. Alone, one to one, in smaller groups or as one group, I shared and learnt in many different ways from everyone.

We started with Pema's suggestion 'Being Seeing' and after discussing it with the group, I settled on 'Not Trying'. In one afternoon session, I felt like getting up so this was OK too. I appreciate the open and sincere discussion on how we frame practices. Pema may start by suggesting something. Well, often a lot of us look at him, expecting him to say something. In fact, everyone can take part in shaping or opening up those suggestions whether as a group or alone. Perhaps I just needed to give myself a permission to do that ... do my thing based on own understanding even when I'm at PaB. Towards the end of the week, I also began to understand Pema a little better.

To some, it won't come as a surprise that I fell out with Pema live. I guess I wanted to talk to him in person regarding past interactions and misunderstandings between us. I am grateful for how the group held the space while the interaction was going on. I'm also grateful for Stim being there because I started to wake up on hearing him. And thank you Pema. I feel that I was able to put something down.

I laughed a lot and I cried a lot. I talked a lot and I pondered a lot. Maybe sometimes just being. This sounds somewhat familiar ... :)