Pema Pera: Hi there!
Pema Pera: welcome back!
Moon Fargis: ah hi pema
Pema Pera: Sorry you had nobody to talk with earlier
Pema Pera: Hi Siddhartha!
Pema Pera: welcome!
Moon Fargis: dont worry i enjoy silece and the birds
Siddhartha Gausman: ty
Siddhartha Gausman: this is lovely
Pema Pera: your first time here, Sid?
Siddhartha Gausman: indeed
Pema Pera: I’m very lucky that I can use this tea house
Siddhartha Gausman: if you mean in rieul
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: Dakini Rhode built it
Siddhartha Gausman: are we far from Itsari?
Pema Pera: I think so
Moon Fargis: yes very far:)
Siddhartha Gausman: lol
Pema Pera: haha
Moon Fargis: and verry close
Pema Pera: but to the extent that space and time are illusions . . . .
Pema Pera: exactly
Siddhartha Gausman: sum ting wong with my outfit
Siddhartha Gausman: excuse me
Sid left the room to straighten out his clothes.
Pema Pera: how often do you have your meetings, Moon?
Moon Fargis: just one time a week at sunday 1 PM
Pema Pera: meditation and/or talks?
Moon Fargis: yes meditation and talk
Moon Fargis: mostly deigned for newbies in buddhism
Pema Pera: those are the best talks
Moon Fargis: but sometimes the discussion gets verry detailed and advanced
Pema Pera: for beginners
Pema Pera: beginner’s mind
Moon Fargis: depending on that what the people ask
Pema Pera: yes, I enjoyed reading your dialogues
Pema Pera: the three you gave me
Moon Fargis: thanks
Pema Pera: always interesting to see the different points of view
Pema Pera: like here too
Pema Pera: I’ve had about a hundred people visiting in 40 days
Pema Pera: great variations of attitudes and approaches
Moon Fargis: hehe “the christ says: this is blue .. the moslim say: this is black … and the buddhist said: hmmm (everone looks at the same thing….nothing)”
Siddhartha returned to the room.
Siddhartha Gausman: Namaste
Pema Pera: namaste!
Pema Pera: yes, Buddhist do seem to be more flexible in their cosmology :>)
Moon Fargis: well i think you know the cosmos verry well.. hehe
Pema Pera: the material part, yes :-)
Pema Pera: get paid for doing that as my hobby
Moon Fargis: hehe
Pema Pera: good deal
Pema Pera: but what really interests me is the totality of reality
Pema Pera: beyond just matter or mind
Moon Fargis: so pema i didn’t tell sid about play as being yet
Pema Pera: please do!
Moon Fargis: because i wanted to leave you about this thing before i babble nonsense
Pema Pera: hahaha
Pema Pera: Sid, what we are doing here is a kind of minimalist art
Pema Pera: meditation for 9 seconds only
Pema Pera: hehe
Pema Pera: see http://playasbeing.wordpress.com/
Pema Pera: but we do it every fifteen minutes
Pema Pera: four times an hour
Pema Pera: 1% of the time
Pema Pera: but persistenty
Pema Pera: somehow it seems to work
Pema Pera: in that many people report that surprisingly something happens
Pema Pera: when there is no expectation . . . .
Siddhartha Gausman: that sounds very practical
Pema Pera: yup
Pema Pera: that was the idea
Pema Pera: after having been engaged in many meditation forms myself
Pema Pera: for a few decades
Pema Pera: mostly zen and Tibetan Buddhism
Pema Pera: I decided to try something topsy turvy
Pema Pera: upside
Pema Pera: down
Siddhartha Gausman: upside
Siddhartha Gausman: down
Siddhartha Gausman: or
Siddhartha Gausman: down
Siddhartha Gausman: upside
Pema Pera: normally the problem is integration . . . . after meditation how to integrate into daily life
Moon Fargis: dubside uown
Siddhartha Gausman: lol
Pema Pera: hehehe
Pema Pera: so we start with integration
Pema Pera: very little at first to integrate
Pema Pera: but we dig a canal so to speak
Pema Pera: for a stream to flow
Pema Pera: first a trickle
Pema Pera: but at least it flows
Pema Pera: and then we intensify
It took a while for me to understand microsoft based abbreviations, such as Internet Explorer, something I’ve never used yet :-)
Siddhartha Gausman: is there a way to save weblinks SL without creating bookmarks in IE?
Moon Fargis: hmmm
Moon Fargis: do a notecard:)
Pema Pera: what is IE?
Siddhartha Gausman: good idea
Siddhartha Gausman: Internet exp
Moon Fargis: also called “iiehhhhh”
Pema Pera: exp?
Siddhartha Gausman: lorer
Pema Pera: iie = no in Japanese?
Pema Pera: ah!
Pema Pera: got it now
Pema Pera: http://playasbeing.wordpress.com/
Moon Fargis gave you green tea Bizen.
green tea Bizen whispers: Thank you
green tea Bizen: Script trying to stop animations but PERMISSION_TRIGGER_ANIMATION permission not set
green tea Bizen whispers: Thank you
Pema Pera: I should probably create note cards to hand out
Pema Pera: but at the same time I am a bit reluctant to define our whole approach in one card
Moon Fargis: jut write doen ” “
Moon Fargis: +w
Siddhartha Gausman: ty, ill check that out in more detail later, but it looks like a cool website
Pema Pera: I actually enjoy re-explaining every time
Pema Pera: each time different
Pema Pera: thank you!
Pema Pera: you will find on the blog many conversations — probably far too much material ;>)
Pema Pera: but maybe fun to see how different people react
I asked Sid about his practice.
Pema Pera: what kind of practice do you do, if I may ask?
Siddhartha Gausman: i have not gone so far as to destinguish any particular school of thought yet.
Pema Pera: may not be necessary
Siddhartha Gausman: i basically just use basic buddhist principles in my life. i stay mindful, do no harm, etc
Pema Pera: that is great, all by itself!
Pema Pera: as for meditation, generally there is a tendency to view it as far more complex than it actually has to be
Moon Fargis: yes
Siddhartha Gausman: i could not agree more
Pema Pera: the problem is: people want to “learn” to meditate
Pema Pera: acquire a skill
Pema Pera: but that’s totally the wrong attitude
Pema Pera: meditation is subtraction not addition
Siddhartha Gausman: so many people try to think too much, or jump from normal thought to no thought in a fell swoop
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: too forced
Siddhartha Gausman: i was attending a meditation class at the Skeptical Buddhists Sky Sangha, and…
Pema Pera: what a fun name!!
Siddhartha Gausman: a young lady was trying to meditate…
Siddhartha Gausman: (well, it’s in the sky, so it makes sense, lol)
Pema Pera: what is the skeptical part?
Siddhartha Gausman: she was constantly distracted by her cats playing, somewhat loudly,
Siddhartha Gausman: (name of the group. its in my profile)
Siddhartha Gausman: i just told her that while meditating, if you are distracted by something that will not subside,
Siddhartha Gausman: simply shift your mindful focus to the event, and it is no longer a distraction
Siddhartha Gausman: merely a stimulus
Siddhartha Gausman: understand why it is happening, and embrace it
Pema Pera: that makes sense
Pema Pera: not denial but integration
Siddhartha Gausman: it may, at that point, no longer distract you at all.
Siddhartha Gausman: she later told me that it worked.
Pema Pera: great!
Moon Fargis: hehe this reminds me on my table.. its selfbuild and made out of wood… when i do zazen mostly before going to bed the wood resize because my arm left ,,, and mostly in the middle of my zazen it maked “KNARK!!!!!”
Pema Pera: It’s amazing that SL can actually be a vehicle for such transformations . . ..
Siddhartha Gausman: in fact, after her cats noticed her watching them, and saying/doing nothing, they left her alone, to continue meditation
Pema Pera: what fun!
Moon Fargis: hehe cats are intlelligent
Siddhartha Gausman: indeed
Pema Pera: yup
Sid took off
Siddhartha Gausman: it was a pleasure to meet you both, i hope to see you soon. i must be off.
Pema Pera: nice to meet you too, Sid!
Pema Pera: I had just read about you
Siddhartha Gausman: thank you for the tea
Pema Pera: in the dialogues that Moon gave me
Pema Pera: so nice to connect the avatar with the text!
Siddhartha Gausman: Namaste
Pema Pera: take care
Pema Pera: and drop by whenever you like
Pema Pera: we are here four times a day
Pema Pera: 1 and 7
Siddhartha Gausman: ty i will.
Pema Pera: am and pm
Siddhartha Gausman: lovely sim
Pema Pera: every 6 hours
Pema Pera: thank you!
At that time, Moon also had disappeared, so I left as well. Later it turned out that his internet connection had been interrupted, but when we exchanged IMs after he came back online, we decided to wait till next time to meet.