That night, at 1 am, I met Gaya at the pavilion.
Gaya Ethaniel: Good morning Pema
Gaya Ethaniel: _/!\_
Pema Pera: Ho are you?
Gaya Ethaniel: A little tired u?
Pema Pera: oh sure :)
Pema Pera: Good morning, Gaya!
Pema Pera: ah, my lines appear out of order, severe lag . . .
Gaya Ethaniel: :(
Pema Pera: It is very peaceful here, around this time of the day, isn’t it?
Gaya Ethaniel: indeed Pema
Gaya Ethaniel: Do you have anything you want to discuss?
Pema Pera: no particular thing :) although there are always many possibilities for topics
Pema Pera: and how about you?
Gaya Ethaniel: nothing comes to me at the mo
Pema Pera: :-)
Pema Pera: I have enjoyed visiting guardian’s homes, the last couple days
Pema Pera: Saturday visiting Adams’ house, Sunday visiting Solobill’s house
Pema Pera: You will get your own place soon, too, I believe — have you choosen a spot yet?
Gaya Ethaniel: no not yet caught up creating a blog…
Gaya Ethaniel: sent an email out to the group btw
Pema Pera: ah, how nice!
Libby Sohl: hello both
Gaya Ethaniel: how are you Libby?
Libby Sohl: im fine thank you Gaya
Pema Pera: Hi Libby!
Libby joined us.
Pema Pera: Good seeing you again!
Gaya Ethaniel: brb
Libby Sohl: just back from a lovely peaceful holiday
Libby Sohl: thank you Pema
Pema Pera: wonderful!
Pema Pera: Did you travel?
Libby Sohl: yes we went to France out in the countryside
Pema Pera: oh, how nice!
Pema Pera: in the South?
Libby Sohl: mid France
Pema Pera: how was the temperature?
Pema Pera: not too hot?
Libby Sohl: no it was really warm but a nice dry heat not too humid
Pema Pera: great!
Gaya Ethaniel: back
Pema Pera: wb!
Gaya Ethaniel smiles
Libby Sohl: I spent a lot of my time sitting by a lake watching dragonflys
Libby Sohl: wb gaya
Gaya Ethaniel: thank you Libby
Pema Pera: nice way to decompress, I guess?
Libby Sohl: yes
Libby Sohl: its quiet this morning
Gaya Ethaniel: yes
Pema Pera: 1 am times are generally quiet, I have often been here just by myself
Libby Sohl: has anything particular interesting come up in any of the meetings
Pema Pera: or with one other person — but there are fluctuations
Pema Pera: in the last week or so?
Libby Sohl: in the last two weeks really
Pema Pera: I guess the largest change was a new suggestion for the 9-sec exploration
Pema Pera: called “You seeing Being Seeing”
Pema Pera: or YSBS for short :-)
A short summary of YSBS.
Libby Sohl: ok and what does it involve?
Pema Pera: The idea is to spend a short time becoming more aware of the way you are normally seeing the world
Pema Pera: visually, using your eyes, in the normal way
Pema Pera: looking at objects in front of you, being aware of the cone of your field of vision
Pema Pera: and then, in the second half, you switch to “Being seeing”
Pema Pera: where you let Being see, but not in a physical way
Pema Pera: You let Being see everything, outer and inner
Pema Pera: things and thoughts and feelings and memories, anything at all
Pema Pera: At first it probably takes more than 9 sec intotal
Pema Pera: perhaps one minute you seeing
Libby Sohl: lol i was just going to say that
Pema Pera: and one minute Being seeing
Pema Pera: haha, yes
Pema Pera: but after a while, with practice, you can do it, say three or four seconds each — or longer, whatever you prefer
Pema Pera: Several of us have written about it in our blogs, Storm for example
Pema Pera: http://stormerne.blogspot.com/
Pema Pera: Gaya, you have tried it too, haven’t you?
Gaya Ethaniel: well.. i do it without trying if that makes sense
Gaya Ethaniel: well before you came up with the suggestion
Gaya Ethaniel: do you remember Pema
Pema Pera: sure, many ways to approach it
Gaya Ethaniel: the session with Adele?
Pema Pera: yes
Gaya Ethaniel: i asked ‘who is seeing Being’?
Gaya Ethaniel: she explained using seeing my hand
Gaya Ethaniel: _/!\_
Pema Pera: hi Rajah!
Pema Pera: yes, Being seeing Being?
Gaya Ethaniel: yes at the time, i felt Being seeing me and everything
Rajah Yalin: hi Pema, Gaya, Libby
Gaya Ethaniel: so i wondered and put the question in the session there and then
Libby Sohl: hello
Pema Pera: Rajah, we are summarizing YSBS for Libby, you seeing Being seeing
Rajah Yalin: ah right
Gaya Ethaniel: have to admit though now experiencing Being is changing all the time for me
Libby Sohl: thank you very much for explaining
Pema Pera: If you’d like to try, we would be very interested to hear how it will go for you, Libby
Libby Sohl: i really must go i couldnt spend long here today im trying to fit a lot in but i wanted to check in
After Rajah entered, Libby had to take off, and Gaya asked me about my own experiences with YSBS.
Pema Pera: we all have different ways to work with it
Libby Sohl: thank you Pema i will let you know
Pema Pera: thanks for stopping by, Libby!
Gaya Ethaniel: _/!\_
Gaya Ethaniel: so i’d very much like to hear your personal experience Pema
Gaya Ethaniel: of YSBS
Pema Pera: there are many ways in which this practice plays out for me
Gaya Ethaniel: when did it happen first time? was there any triggers?
Pema Pera: and in some form or other I have been doing this for the last three years or so
Pema Pera: the notion of Being, as a word/pointer/name is something I came across 28 years ago
Pema Pera: and I have been exploring it since then
Pema Pera: that was from the book Space, Time, Knoweledge
Pema Pera: and in the last three years I stumbled upon ways to shift more directly from me doing a kind of practice to letting Being do the practice
Pema Pera: it is very very difficult to talk about this clearly
Pema Pera: since the shift is at the same time very subtle and very big
Gaya Ethaniel: yes but we have no choice but to use words
Pema Pera: very big in changing the experience enormously
Pema Pera: but subjle in that the description in words is almost the same, between before and after
Pema Pera: perhaps the best way for me to describe it is to say that I learned to step out of the way
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: which sounds like a kind of devotion
Pema Pera: trust
Gaya Ethaniel: know what you mean
Gaya Ethaniel: i do that a lot too these day, i phrase it as ‘listening to my heart’
Pema Pera: letting Being be/work/do
Pema Pera: yes, there is that devotional side, heart connection
Gaya Ethaniel: my teacher calls me ‘innate wisdom’
Gaya Ethaniel: calls it*
Pema Pera: :-)
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: what I can describe are only side effects
Pema Pera: like finding a lot of energy, clarity
Pema Pera: peace in the middle of busy action
Pema Pera: silence and openness
Gaya Ethaniel thinks that she’s not quite there yet ‘peace in the middle of busy action…’
Pema Pera: all that grows, and changes from moment to moment
Pema Pera: for me, too, for a short while I feel I can really let Being Be, and then for a while I feel back into the role of a doer
Pema Pera: one change over time is that the periods have become shorter for me
Pema Pera: shorter and shorter
Pema Pera: and the transitions lighter and easier
Gaya Ethaniel: do you find PaB useful for you even now? Or you are here for your interests only, forming virtual communitiy?
Pema Pera: well, I hope all that begins to answer your question a bit :)
Gaya Ethaniel: yes i’m going through same thing
Pema Pera: oh, I find it extremely useful, for myself as well as for others
Pema Pera: and sharing it, with all of us doing a similar exploration, adds a whole special dimension
Pema Pera: you might say that all of PaB is one great exploration of Being, using Being to see Being, collectively
Gaya Ethaniel: i see
A metaphor of an orchestra.
Pema Pera: PaB is conducted by Being, and we all are like individual instruments in one great symphony
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Gaya Ethaniel: as Pia pointed out yesterday, we are somehow connected it seems
Pema Pera: yes, you could even say, more than connected
Pema Pera: already one
Gaya Ethaniel: yes, one
Gaya Ethaniel: :) typed same thing at the same time
Pema Pera: :-)
Pema Pera: at and the same time also different
Pema Pera: Being goes beyond polarities, dichotomies
Gaya Ethaniel: what did you think i meant by ‘one’ then?
Pema Pera: I don’t know, what did you mean?
Gaya Ethaniel: hm… just everything seems to be joined with each other - no separateness, this is how i sense Being
Pema Pera: no separateness, for sure, yet also room for distinctions
Pema Pera: paradoxical when we put it into words
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: but natural for Being
Gaya Ethaniel: could you expand a litte on room for distinctions?
Gaya Ethaniel: is it like when an orchestra plays?
Pema Pera: from a relative point of view, we are all different
Pema Pera: yes, like different instruments
Gaya Ethaniel: so we were on the same thing then when we typed ‘one’ :)
Pema Pera: but from an absolute point of view, everything is “of the one taste”
Pema Pera: I think so, yes, why did you think there was a difference?
Gaya Ethaniel: just thought that you meant we were on different pages when i saw ‘at and the same time also different’
Pema Pera: oh no, that was not a comment on what you wrote
Pema Pera: I tried to say “one and yet also many”
Pema Pera: at the same time
Gaya Ethaniel: i’m glad i’m on more or less good path
Gaya Ethaniel: i see
Pema Pera: “allowing differences yet no real separation”
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: oh, I think we are all on a good path :-)
Gaya Ethaniel smiles
Following the YSBS exploration, I try to point out how YS and BS is so very different, with the “you doing” versus “Being seeing.”
Pema Pera: I do not want to make any judgments there
Pema Pera: the main judgment
Pema Pera: the single judgment
Pema Pera: that I like to make
Pema Pera: concerns the difference between “me doing something”
Pema Pera: and letting Being see/do/be
Pema Pera: and that is not a judgment on your way or my way
Pema Pera: or anyone’s way
Gaya Ethaniel: not sure what you mean. is there a need to make any judgement?
Gaya Ethaniel: you said you trust
Pema Pera: I notice myself that one moment I see myself as the doer, the center, the self
Pema Pera: and the next moment I can let Being be/see
Pema Pera: that distinction is crucial
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: the judgment that allows you to see the difference is crucial
Gaya Ethaniel: do you make that judgement consciously?
Pema Pera: it is a matter of learning to see/sense/know that difference
Pema Pera: that is difficult to answer in that form
Pema Pera: it is not me
Gaya Ethaniel: so it does come ‘naturally’
Pema Pera: and yet it is me
Pema Pera: it is me who seems to “lose it”
Gaya Ethaniel: i’m not asking ‘who’ is making the judgement, i’m asking ‘how’
Pema Pera: and the next moment I see through the mistaken sense of losing it — or more accurately, It sees that
Pema Pera: how is also difficult the answer
Pema Pera: but the experience is totally different
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Gaya Ethaniel: sometimes i wonder we are trying something we can accomplish in PaB, if our main purpose is to discuss in words
Pema Pera: when “I” see it is like walking around with a heavy backpack, while if Being sees, there is a lightness that is amazing, very different
Pema Pera: the central point is that we cannot accomplish anything :)
Pema Pera: yet we keep trying
Pema Pera: I kept trying not to try for many decades :>)
Gaya Ethaniel: do you believe ‘trying’ is good thing to do?
Pema Pera: yes and no
Pema Pera: recently a phrase cam e up in these sessons “effort without desire”
Pema Pera: that was a very nice expression
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: we have to use effort in some sense
Pema Pera: we have to stay with it, be galvanized as Stim likes to say
Gaya Ethaniel: sincere interests i guess
Pema Pera: yet as long as there is an “I” doing the effort we are cut off, or seem to be cut off, from Being
Pema Pera: Being is centerless
Gaya Ethaniel: that is something i haven’t experience yet i think
Another metaphor, that of an airplane.
Pema Pera: going from YS to BS is like flying an airplane, and going from being the pilot to being a passenger
Gaya Ethaniel: seems to expand from me as a centre at times
Pema Pera: in the BS part there is no center
Gaya Ethaniel: oh i see…
Pema Pera: at first it may seem that way
Pema Pera: switching from you as a center in YS
Pema Pera: to Being as a center in BS
Gaya Ethaniel: do you see distiction during BS part?
Pema Pera: but that implies that you have created a subtle version of you
Pema Pera: as a kind of super-you
Pema Pera: a kind of God image perhaps
Gaya Ethaniel: at times yes like something above me
Pema Pera: yes
Gaya Ethaniel: but at times no
Pema Pera: and that is not wrong
Pema Pera: that may well be a good way to start
Pema Pera: to begin to feel your way out of your usual perspective
Pema Pera: but that is not yet Being seeing
Pema Pera: it is more like “you seeing You seeing” :)
Pema Pera: stepping aside means giving up
Pema Pera: even giving up any notion of center
Pema Pera: no center means no separation
Pema Pera: the greatest intimacy possibly
Pema Pera: the intimacy of Love
Gaya Ethaniel: i see myself seeing myself seeing myself and so on once in a while only when i’m making ‘judgements’
Pema Pera: yes
Gaya Ethaniel: oh i c
Gaya Ethaniel: so for me it’s on and off with BS
Pema Pera: for all of us :)
Gaya Ethaniel smiles
Pema Pera: unless we are fully enlightened Buddhas or the like . . . .
Pema Pera: I do not want to make judgments between different people, let alone avatars :)
Pema Pera: the only judgment is between the YS and the BS
Gaya Ethaniel: here you are using ‘judgement’ in different sense i feel from what we discussed before in regards to Being making ‘judgement’ - am i right?
Pema Pera: I am talking on the relative level
Gaya Ethaniel: i c
Pema Pera: the way we are talking right now
Gaya Ethaniel wonders when Pema sleeps
Pema Pera: anyway, it is 1:40, I think I’ll go back to bed now, to get a bit more sleep . . . .
Pema Pera: hahaha
Pema Pera: we typed at the same time
Pema Pera: you read my thougths
Gaya Ethaniel: I know its’ strange
Gaya Ethaniel: Good night Pema
Pema Pera: In five hours I’ll be here again
Gaya Ethaniel: _/!\_
Pema Pera: but I got three hours of sleep before, so I’ll be okay :-)
Pema Pera: nice talking with you, Gaya, Rajah