2009.04.17 07:00 - Projection screen saving

The Guardian for this meeting was quen Oh. The comments are by quen Oh.

quen Oh: hi Pema!
Pema Pera: dag Quen!
Pema Pera: Goeiemidag!
quen Oh: hi Sophia
quen Oh: nice to see you again!'
Pema Pera: Hi Sophia!
Pema Pera: How are you, Sophia?
SophiaSharon Larnia: really good, how are you?
Pema Pera: glad to hear that!
Pema Pera: I'm still a bit sleepy -- it's 7 am here
Pema Pera: I'm in SLT land :)
quen Oh: gosh hehe, that is early indeed
quen Oh: well, hope everyone will excuse me, I have to tend to a little emergency at MICA, will be back asap
Pema Pera: okay, good luck, Quen!

Left the discussion for a while...

SophiaSharon Larnia: you seem to be very busy Pema, how do you make time for PaB? :)
Pema Pera: haha, yes, good question!
Pema Pera: somehow I'm trying to weave it in with my other activities
SophiaSharon Larnia: weave is a good word for it
SophiaSharon Larnia: I loved your email, I want to forward it to other people, those not in SL :)
Pema Pera: oh, feel free to do so
SophiaSharon Larnia: HI Eos
Pema Pera: but an email like this is fine, to forward
Pema Pera: We do not put all the email of the group on our web site
Pema Pera: (my sentences came out out of order)
SophiaSharon Larnia: :)
Pema Pera: (slow connection today)
Pema Pera: Hi Eos and hi Eliza!
SophiaSharon Larnia: Hi Eliza
Eliza Madrigal: Morning everyone :)
Eos Amaterasu: G'morn!
Pema Pera: Eos, thank you for your comment on my lengthy email, yesterday (hope my email itself was not too long)
Eos Amaterasu: Playing at play :-)
Pema Pera: :)
Pema Pera: sometimes when you want to express ideas that seem really simple, it can take some time . . . .

When I came back Eos and Eliza had joined.

Pema Pera: wb Quen!
Eliza Madrigal: quen, Hello :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: wb Quen
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Quen!
quen Oh: `hi all
Eos Amaterasu: highlighting all the details that triangulate a still point
Pema Pera: yes, and trying to apply it to daily life
Eos Amaterasu: altho the still point isn't just still, it's in play :-)
quen Oh: the more simple the more difficult to express, as you want to express it simple to do it justice?
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Eliza Madrigal: Stillness In Play...nice
Pema Pera: yes, and the daily life prescription is so simple too: just be with all that presents itself . . . .
Eos Amaterasu: from the 1% to the 99%?
Pema Pera: :-)
Pema Pera: for me, the idea of "no gain", of not reaching, not trying to "get" anything out of a situation is something that I'm still learning . . . . .
quen Oh: not always so simple, as a busy mind sometimes tends to add dozens of things too
SophiaSharon Larnia: really Pema?
Pema Pera: each time I think "aha, of course, I get it" I see myself indeed getting it more
Pema Pera: but then a bit later I see subtle ways in which I was still trying to reach
SophiaSharon Larnia: I meant I have never consider just not reaching I feel that I do that all of the time
SophiaSharon Larnia considers
Pema Pera: of course, in daily life, if you want to switch on a light, you have to reach for the light switch :)
Pema Pera: but if you are with a friend, say, the best way to be with someone is not to expect anything, but just to be together
SophiaSharon Larnia: yes
Eliza Madrigal nods...just notice and listen
Eos Amaterasu: and finding that in activities, like lighting/dimming light
Pema Pera: yes!
Eos Amaterasu: another form of attending?
Pema Pera: doing by not-doing, wu-wei, which we've often spoken about here
Pema Pera: yes, attending, not accumulating
Eliza Madrigal: For me, it isn't reaching brain...maybe teaching brain...like I'm wanting to encapsulate into some sort of easily transferable thing...and have to pull mysef away from that mindset. Just enjoy. :)
quen Oh: it is difficult not to expect things, even if not for yourself, unconsciously you do, otherwise you wouldn't be surprised anaymore with things...
SophiaSharon Larnia: to just be
SophiaSharon Larnia: ok
quen Oh: perhaps it is the conditional expecting, where you feel disappointed when expectations are not met
Pema Pera: reaching out is typically done to add something, to add something to what we have. To see what we are, we have to drop something, to subtract, yes, to learn to just be -- in the middle of activities too
quen Oh: how would you learn that?
Pema Pera: by stopping frequently, for example :-)
Eos Amaterasu: and then you're caught in the act, so to speack :-)
Eliza Madrigal: when one is a portal, everyting is a portal
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Pema Pera: or any path of exploration, spiritual, philosophical, . . . depending on your temperament and background
Pema Pera: yes, Eliza
Pema Pera: and yes, conditional expecting narrows our seeing and being in a situation
Pema Pera: caught in the act, nice wait of expressing it!
quen Oh: can also make you question the purpose and sense in the activities around you or worse where you are involved... so you have to motivate yourself to participate again
Eos Amaterasu: at the same time this isn't "quietism", I think there can be a kind of expectation that is more like pregnancy, allowing to give rise to something
Eliza Madrigal: great point I think Eos
quen Oh: would that be hope Eos?
Pema Pera: yes, that is so hard to emphasize, that aspect of allowing
quen Oh: or open, unconditional expectation?
Eos Amaterasu: Ah, yes, we were taling about that a few PaB's ago
Pema Pera: (PaB bell)
Eliza Madrigal: :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: hard to drop when in a very busy environment, when I have managed to do that, it feels like being in 2 places at once, for an instant..
Pema Pera: yes, Eos, what did you conclude?
Pema Pera: great, Sophia!!
Pema Pera: hovering...
SophiaSharon Larnia: yes, but almost ;ike being in a ball
Eos Amaterasu: which is the real place you're coming from?
SophiaSharon Larnia: everywhere :)
Pema Pera: asking that question can give a strong physical change in awareness!
Pema Pera: and help you to drop all kinds of identifications
Pema Pera: how did you discuss it?
Eos Amaterasu: Hope? Whether there was kind of a non-greedy hope...
Eos Amaterasu: I think Aurel Miles brought it up
Eliza Madrigal: During painful transitions, or awful "in between" clarity sorts of moments, I try to remind myself that it is just "sitting on an egg"..."slow down, you can't make anything happen and don't want it to before its time." :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: yes Eliza, it is easy to want to grab a jackhammer
Eliza Madrigal: haha...seems to help :)
Pema Pera: :)
Eliza Madrigal: During transition when I had my children, I wanted to get up and leave right in the middle "Okay..changed my mind" :)
Eos Amaterasu: Sitting on an egg.... being in a ball?
SophiaSharon Larnia: aww yes that is stressful
SophiaSharon Larnia: :)
quen Oh: remembers an architect, Aldo van Eyck, who called the 'inbetween' something to try to get, as the fragile balance between opposed things like big and small, one and many, public and private , permanence and change, and so on
Eliza Madrigal: brb
Pema Pera: thank you, Eliza, that's a beautiful description
SophiaSharon Larnia: we reach for that place but can't live there, at least I can't
quen Oh: interesting to call it inbetween Eliza
Pema Pera: but when it comes, we can try to just be there . . . . even when it's hard
Pema Pera: allowing . . . .
Eliza Madrigal: we can all be each other's midwives :)
Pema Pera: talking about transitions: I have to leave my hotel now, off to the airport -- flying back to New York City later this morning
SophiaSharon Larnia smiles
Eliza Madrigal: Bye Pema. Travel well :)

Pema makes a nice salto before he leaves!

quen Oh: nice gymnastics Pema!
Eos Amaterasu: Bye!
Eliza Madrigal: got style
Eos Amaterasu: Ha ha!
quen Oh: have a nice flight Pema!
Pema Pera: yes, Eliza, very Socratic that, too :-)
SophiaSharon Larnia: bye Pema :)
Pema Pera: see y'all soon again!
quen Oh: see you soon Pema!
Eliza Madrigal: quen...just read what you wrote about the architect...
SophiaSharon Larnia: Ive been trying to 'stop' before I go to sleep, to see if it makes any difference
Eliza Madrigal: yes, that is what it is...the gap between those glimpses of presence and daily life closing...and everything opening, as it were
quen Oh: even the idea to take distance and contemplate to "leave right in the middle "Okay..changed my mind" can be useful and freeing, isn't it Eliza?
Eos Amaterasu: double take
Eliza Madrigal: :) Well...at the time, during labor, is hard. It feels like you aren't going to be able to stick it out...want to escape it. :)
quen Oh: it is a very short description of his theories, but I understood it is about trying to balance opposed phenomena, as the are part of one, and to relate to them in a balanced and good way
Eliza Madrigal: Ah...nice.
quen Oh: (they* are part of)
SophiaSharon Larnia: have to go have a great day everyone :))
quen Oh: but even the mental picture of escape, which in reality is not an option seems helpful
quen Oh: bye Sophia
Eos Amaterasu: Ciao!
Eliza Madrigal: Sophia, yes, it makes perfect sense...good way to enter dreams
Eliza Madrigal: Bye Sophia :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: bye :))
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Eliza Madrigal: I'm still turning over the illusion of the illusion idea...don't know if it has dawned quite yet
Eos Amaterasu: I think there's some kind of play between seeing as illusory, permeated by space
Eos Amaterasu: and who is seeing that.... that who also being permeated by space
Eos Amaterasu: who's zoomin' who
Eliza Madrigal: !!
Eliza Madrigal: The portal analogy works well there too then, hah
Eliza Madrigal: We as a portal for Being
Eos Amaterasu: Ah, nice!
Eos Amaterasu: there's that forest clearing quality
Eos Amaterasu: people often have these experiences entering forest clearings
Eliza Madrigal: go on?
Eos Amaterasu: still and full, suddenly empty but rich in that stillness

The portal analogy of Eos initiated some thinking: are things passing through us? And what about the difficulty to express Pema was talking about earlier? We can experience and think so much, but to think we need 'forms' which we constantly inaptly (re)create... We are perhaps imperfect projection screens... Too often mistake the projection for reality... And to describe and express what you see on your inner projection screen in a precise way seems even more difficult. Also isn't 'expecting' or 'reaching' also not some form of projecting your own ideas?

quen Oh: or we as a (limited) projection screen for Being?
Eos Amaterasu: Albert Hoffman had that as a kid, several times
Eliza Madrigal: "Alive vastness"
Eos Amaterasu: Ah, another viewpoint, yes Quen
Eliza Madrigal: And the details becomming more and more illuminated
Eliza Madrigal: Finer
Eos Amaterasu: that vastness could be visible in every detail of your life, your house....
quen Oh: or we project it distorted, diffuse, vague...
Eos Amaterasu: we lose it, we panic
Eos Amaterasu: that little gap can be panicky
Eliza Madrigal: we "change our minds" and turn away...yes
quen Oh: some things can be burnt in too much, as we have no screensaver, so they shine through other things constantly
Eos Amaterasu: lose our most basic mind
Eos Amaterasu: yes, perhaps it's a good thing that "nothing lasts"
Eliza Madrigal: quen, neat analogy....very uncomfortable
quen Oh: ;-) maybe the PaB is like putting on the screensaver now and then?
Eliza Madrigal: Soothing the eyes
quen Oh: well in any projection you loose a lot..
Eliza Madrigal: Ah quen, yes...the substance gets lost...steps removed
quen Oh: how real a projection screen can make things appear, they are clearly not the real thing, even though in a very good movie we seem to forget ;-)
Eos Amaterasu: the play's the thing....
Eliza Madrigal: Easy to get lost there...so the stops are like cool water splashed to wake up
Eos Amaterasu: yes.... maybe "Earth Hour" is or could be something like that
quen Oh: ? Earth Hour
Eos Amaterasu: Happened a few weeks ago, stop energy for one hour
Eliza Madrigal: My meditation practices have changed a bit since I started really paying attention to the 15 minutes on a consistent basis. When I sit, intending for at least 30 minutes, I seem to emerge from it after 15 minutes...mid-way. At first this bothered me but I realized I'm just as "refreshed"
Eos Amaterasu: Hmm
Eos Amaterasu: I will try to actually do this, every 15 min; kind of complements what I already do, and "refreshes" it
Eliza Madrigal: So I still sit 30, but like clockwork I have an outward dip in the middle.
Eos Amaterasu: I have to go back to RL.... the 9 secs will continue tho
Eos Amaterasu: Thnk you Quen and Eliza
Eliza Madrigal: Bye Eos. :) Nice to talk with you this morning
Eliza Madrigal: quen, do you meditate as a practice outside of PaB?
Eliza Madrigal: Oh...away. :)
Eliza Madrigal: Have to go quen! Talk soon :)
quen Oh: bye Eliza!
quen Oh: bye Eos!