Pema Pera: Hi Joseph!
Pema Pera: I’m going to the tea house now
Pema Pera: Would you like to come along?
joseph Ruhig: yes
joseph Ruhig: so. How are you, Pema?
Pema Pera: I’m fine, thanks, and how about you?
joseph Ruhig: so, I´m fine, but the last days were very busy
joseph Ruhig: i´m studying very much
joseph Ruhig: In medium stat virtus
Pema Pera: what is “medium stat virtus”?
joseph Ruhig: Die klugigkeit ist in der mittel
joseph Ruhig: etwas so…
joseph Ruhig: bleibt, besser
Pema Pera: ah! virtue stands in the middle
Pema Pera: okay, yes, a sense of balance
joseph Ruhig: exactly
Pema Pera: always most important and very difficult!
Pema Pera: I learned Latin in school
Pema Pera: I just did not expect you to switch to Latin suddenly, lol !
joseph Ruhig: yes. Yesterday I had a hard lesson in my Iaido class
joseph Ruhig: :-)
Pema Pera: wha was the lesson about?
joseph Ruhig: so… I was doing extra movements
joseph Ruhig: and the teacher said me:
joseph Ruhig: The way of Zen is simple. Because of this, it´s so complicated
Pema Pera: yes.
joseph Ruhig: but I had experimented! This is really true!
joseph Ruhig: We have a tendence to do extra things, to think and create what doesn´t exist…
Pema Pera: yes, indeed
Pema Pera: wo do that all the time
Pema Pera: very hard to stop
We had arrived in the tea house.
joseph Ruhig: yes. The things are changing here in Rieul, aren´t?
Pema Pera: yes, have you noticed some changes?
joseph Ruhig: Where is the house between yours and this garden?
Pema Pera: gone
Pema Pera: we bought the land
joseph Ruhig: wow! This is cool!
Pema Pera: it was never used
Pema Pera: actually, we have bought quite a number of pieces of land which had not been used for a while
Pema Pera: and we are now thinking about what to build on it.
Pema Pera: You meant the building with the Turkish flag, right?
joseph Ruhig: yes
joseph Ruhig: This is very interesting, and you study this event (I mean SL), don´t you?
Pema Pera: what do you mean with “study SL”?
joseph Ruhig: How do you see the SL? I remember that I was with Vera, when you said soething about experiment…
Pema Pera: oh, my whole life is an experiment
Pema Pera: everything I do in RL and SL
joseph Ruhig: :-)
Pema Pera: waking and dreaming
Pema Pera: In an experiment you always make mistakes, and then you learn from your mistakes
joseph Ruhig: I will adopt this POW
Pema Pera: scientific research is like that
Pema Pera: sometimes when people ask me what I do for a living I answer: I make mistakes and get paid for that
joseph Ruhig: cause and effect
Pema Pera: more precisely: I get paid for the combination of making them and learning from them
joseph Ruhig: Lotus´s sutra
Pema Pera: In research, 99% of the time you’re making mistakes, 1% of the time you’re getting it somewhat right.
We talked more about mistakes and follow-up
joseph Ruhig: This is the Way… Do, in Japanese.
joseph Ruhig: Very interesting what you said, about pay to the lesson
joseph Ruhig: All the lessons have a price, the price that we pay with the mistakes
joseph Ruhig: a singular view
Pema Pera: yes, and no solution is final
Pema Pera: Whatever we do, we have to follow up.
Pema Pera: When you make a mistake, you follow up and try to correct
Pema Pera: When you do something right, if you could ever draw that conclusion, then you still have to follow up and do the best next step
Pema Pera: No difference between doing it right or wrong, as far as the next step goes
Pema Pera: Next step best step — that is all you can do
Pema Pera: one step at a time
Pema Pera: and leaving the rest to the Universe
Some technicalities about SL.
joseph Ruhig: Butterfly Effect
joseph Ruhig: Did you watch a film… oh… momento…
Pema Pera: no, dont’ think so.
joseph Ruhig: who we are, I think.
joseph Ruhig: Did you speak something? I was out…
Pema Pera: Do you know that you can read everything we say in the “local chat” window?
joseph Ruhig: really?
joseph Ruhig: haha
Pema Pera: The balloons above our head disappear quickly, but the text remains in the window
Pema Pera: You can click on “communicate”, the large button in the bottom left of your screen
joseph Ruhig: I saw
joseph Ruhig: hahaha
joseph Ruhig: now I can read slowly
Pema Pera: yes, much more relaxing that way :-)
Joseph talked about his forms of meditation.
joseph Ruhig: Do you like the sound of Shakuhachi?
Pema Pera: sure
joseph Ruhig: I have a meditation with live shakuhachi in the next montag
Pema Pera: not very quiet mediation :-)
joseph Ruhig: more or less…
joseph Ruhig: 20 minutes in complete silence zazen
joseph Ruhig: 15 minutes with meditation walking
joseph Ruhig: more 20 minutes zazen, and more 15 minutes whith meditation walking
joseph Ruhig: than comes the shakuhachi
joseph Ruhig: :-)
Pema Pera: nice combination!
joseph Ruhig: yes!
joseph Ruhig: My teacher of Iaido plays shakuhachi
joseph Ruhig: he said me that, to play, is necessary the same spirit of Iaido
joseph Ruhig: no mind
Pema Pera: do you play shakuhachi?
joseph Ruhig: not yet
joseph Ruhig: :-)
And for me it became time to go back to work.
Pema Pera: well, I will have to leave soon
Pema Pera: lots of work to do in RL . . . .
joseph Ruhig: I´m going too!
Pema Pera: thanks for stopping by!
joseph Ruhig: I have to cook!
joseph Ruhig: I thank you, friend!
Pema Pera: enjoy!
joseph Ruhig: tks!!!
Pema Pera: see you next time!
joseph Ruhig: ok!
joseph Ruhig: Bis bald!
Pema Pera: Tschuess!