28-31 - belle belle vie

Eliza's Scribe in Progress

Wol Euler: and found this quote "Have you ever considered any real freedoms? Freedoms from the opinion of others... even the opinions of yourself?"
Wol Euler: a precursor to PaB :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: i was thinking about singularity before, so the state when technologie is faster then humand development, but then came the question to my mind that it´s worthless thinking about it since humanity never really understood humanity itself so the singularity happened at our creation
Yakuzza Lethecus: kinda weired thought in the morning :)
Wol Euler: heavy ;)

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Fael Illyar: It is kind of a magical feeling, staring at the sun at midnight :)

Fay Yedmore: i love the morning too more
Fay Yedmore: maybe its because it makes me aware of a fresh start of a new day
Susi Alcott: 'they say' that there's 'morning people' and 'evening people'
Fay Yedmore: and in mornings the feeling of the sky temp is more intens
Bleu Oleander: morning light is a feeling of renewal
Bertram Jacobus: ma associations with that go into the directions of light and darkness ... hm ...
Fay Yedmore: more soft and smooth
Bleu Oleander: opening of day
Fay Yedmore: yes bleu
Bertram Jacobus: yes. but do you think also, that more people prefere sunsets and if so - why ? (sry for askin again)
Bleu Oleander: gently unpacks the space we inhabit
Bleu Oleander: sunsets can be more dramatic in some ways
Bleu Oleander: perhaps that is why

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Fael Illyar: you know, that everyone trying to stand on top of it kind of reminds me of the question of how many angels can stand on the tip of a pin :P
Agatha Macbeth: Thanks for standing on my head Yaku :)
Zen Arado: angels on the head of a pin?
Eliza Madrigal: hahaha, got bumped and now balanced on Bleu's shoulder ever so slightly.... haha.... then someone could stand on my shoulder....
Zen Arado: snap
Yakuzza Lethecus: hehe, i stand on ur knee´s by the way :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: is it possible to stand on me and eliza ?
Agatha Macbeth: Somebody take a picture!
Bleu Oleander: wow, i feel it starting to sway
Eliza Madrigal has been taking pictures but isn't quite sure they are saving... new viewer and don't see them in file...
Fael Illyar: now would be an excellent moment for zen to make it physical :P
Eliza Madrigal: shhhhhh
Eliza Madrigal: hehehe
Eden Haiku: hey Qt, I was flying to see the art piece floating then realized it is you?
Qt Core: yes, life imitatimg art, right ?

Pema Pera: from an amusement park to an amazement park . . . .

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Agatha Macbeth: I quite enjoyed the little session in the Village square earlier on
Wol Euler: ah, the primmery :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: sorry I missed it
Wol Euler: what happened?
Agatha Macbeth: Hm
Yakuzza Lethecus: we played with the art a little :)
Agatha Macbeth: Oh we were climbing all over the sculptures and generally behaving like idiots :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: hehe
Wol Euler: business as usual, then.
Agatha Macbeth: (Nothing new there)
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Pila Mulligan: it was interesting to read that the organic material our bodies are made of are in large part micorganism that change completely at a failry quick rate
Calvino Rabeni: Yes I am mostly non-human DNA
Pila Mulligan: and water :)
Pila Mulligan: so we really may have had several bodily changes over the decades
Paradise Tennant: smiles

Pila Mulligan: wiki: water 'may be as high as 75 percent of the body weight'
Susi Alcott: one of my friends told him to be stardust :)
Pila Mulligan: travelling light :)
Susi Alcott: _/!\_
Paradise Tennant: smiles we all have stardust ! ..there has to be magic in that :)
Pila Mulligan: for sure

Storm Nordwind: But it is certainly important for a healer to be able to tell whether they should attempt a healing treatment or whether they should leave alone
Pila Mulligan: this healer's son was nealry killed in a car accident on the mainland, and the doctors called to say they felt life support would not be worthwhile -- the healer flew to the hospital (by airplane) and after his arrival at the hospital he spent an hour that reuslted in son becoming conscious and obviously not near death -- the doctors kept the healer there for several weeks in meetings and seminars
Paradise Tennant: interesting
Susi Alcott: sure it's also so, that for example when one is hungry and cannot get food, nothing else helps...
Storm Nordwind: That's an interesting case - thank you Pila. It reminds me though that as well as occasional non-action, one sometimes has to heal, not just for the patient to live, but for them to die

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Calvino Rabeni: One unexpectedly nice thing was, I had through pure random circumstance, a cabin that was designed by an artist as a complete work of art
Calvino Rabeni: so it was like sleeping inside a painting
Calvino Rabeni: Which gave me impressions and some dream influences
Calvino Rabeni: Many stories were told. :)

Tarmel Udimo: it is difficult... the place i stayed at when i went on my writing retreat was lovely, but also shanga 'owned' and so there had been much discussion around allowing me to be there etc... sometimes groups can blow things out of proportion
Tarmel Udimo: or should i say the interaction between individuals in a group;)
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, I felt like there was some of that going on
Calvino Rabeni: But the effort was to get past "you have your opinion and I have mine" to a more group "knowing" - not easy to explain, but consensus is more than voting or everyone having their "say"

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Eden Haiku: What is this dream circle Lucinda?
Lucinda Lavender: In dream circle we open the four directions listening for the messages of the dream.
Lucinda Lavender: We use a stone which gives us our turn to speak.
Eden Haiku: Inspired of Native Indians traditions it seems, wow. And now we have the shaman coming in. (Susi had put on a nice shamanic attire with feathers and furs) To you I call...
Lucinda Lavender: The stone spirals around and each dream is read.
Susi Alcott: Hi Lucinda
Susi Alcott: ty
Lucinda Lavender: After each dream is read we go back to the first dream. and give it a longer turn.
Lucinda Lavender: When the stone is in our hands we check to see if there is something to share.

Lucinda Lavender: And at the end or sometimes in the middle. we weave them together.

Eden Haiku: Thanks Zen. I think all this underground knowledge is connected somehow, don't you Susi?
Eliza Madrigal: the corridors of the unconscious, Eden?

Lucinda Lavender: sometimes we dream each others stories too.
Eden Haiku: During the pause, a memory came back. I was maybe one year old, in my stroller, in the village where I lived. My mother pushing my stroller on the country road. We were going to her mother's house I think. She was carrying a bunch of lilacs as a gift. She caressed my face with the tiny lilac flowers and said: "You are going to have a wonderful life" : Une "belle belle vie"in French. This memory is always helping whenever I feel anxious.
Lucinda Lavender: What a lovely memory!
Lucinda Lavender: So rich in many ways.

Eden Haiku: We are trying to discuss deep subjects and keep it light too. That is why it is called Play as Being.
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Zen Arado: I can talk to myself now
Susi Alcott: smiles
Eliza Madrigal: and go dancing
Agatha Macbeth: Don't you anyway?

Storm Nordwind: Perhaps everyone here except you and me is also really me ;)
Eden Haiku: Who is the second 'me' Storm?

Eden Haiku: I have my twin sister alt. She has not come for a while. Let me invite her (she lives in my laptop),
Zen Arado: interesting to try life as a woman
Zen Arado: or a man
Qt Core: mmm, i may make the trek officer and the borg cube argue...
Eliza Madrigal: yes I thought so

Eliza Madrigal: when one has a no self sighting.... is that a kensho...?
No Self: Pema stumbled upon me, I guess, Eden

No Self: no self no haiku / no path and yet a few words /just to please Eden

Eden Haiku: I think Rrose has to find the wireless mouse if she wants to sit...
Rrose Millar: I found the wireless mouse!
Agatha Macbeth: With the wireless cat?

Zen Arado: wondes how much of our masculine/feminine traits are learned
Zen Arado: threatens sense of self maybe
Agatha Macbeth: What does?
Zen Arado: a gender identity
Agatha Macbeth: Oh
Storm Nordwind: Or liberates it perhaps
Zen Arado: sorry if this is offending anyone
No Self: No doesn't feel threatened at all
Qt Core: are some alts... "droppings"
No Self: what identity?
No Self looking around

Agatha Macbeth: If truth be known there are probably only about 100 people in SL
Wol Euler grins
Agatha Macbeth: The rest are all Alts
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Wester Kiranov: So you want to know what PaB means to me? Why it's important to me?
Archmage Atlantis: That would be a good start......I often wonder why I continue to return
Wester Kiranov: It is hard to explain. There is openness here, a willingness to talk about anything including sensitive subjects, and a willingness to really listen.
Wester Kiranov: I'm not saying we always succeed, but we are all willing to try and to listen if people think it's not going right.
Wester Kiranov: And there is the base of the 9-second practice, which I think touches on a truth I don't have words for.
Archmage Atlantis: If I say to you, there is no "right", what would you say
--BELL--
Wester Kiranov: I do agree there is no absolute right, completely separated from wrong. However, some of these sessions go better than others, in some sessions we opening up more, going deeper, listening better.
Wester Kiranov: And in that sense correction is possible.
Archmage Atlantis: ok
Archmage Atlantis: I welcome that deep thought
Wester Kiranov: ty
Wester Kiranov: Another reason I come here is that I feel there's a real sense of community
Archmage Atlantis: Yes, somehow there is community in dfference'
Wester Kiranov: I also like having a place where I can be silent together with others
Archmage Atlantis: Pema and Storm have done much in philosophy, tho neither is a philosopher
Wester Kiranov: yes
Wester Kiranov: I think many 'real' philosophers get lost in all the words and details and forget what's behind it
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Riddle Sideways: last night I celebrate Pesach / Passover
Liza Deischer: ah
Riddle Sideways: only 11 people in the house this year
Riddle Sideways: nice to have it smaller
Liza Deischer: only 11
Liza Deischer: to me that is an invasion
Riddle Sideways: we have had 28 some years
Liza Deischer: wow
Riddle Sideways: that is an invasion
Liza Deischer: :-)

Riddle Sideways: we tell an ancient story in first person
Riddle Sideways: that is so amazing
Riddle Sideways: all around the world there are people telling the same story
Riddle Sideways: and they have for 2500+ years
Riddle Sideways: and it is told in first person
Riddle Sideways: I was there
Liza Deischer: :-)
Riddle Sideways: that is more then my reincarnation
Liza Deischer: counting in past lives?
Riddle Sideways: that is me connecting with an endless stream of conscienceness
Riddle Sideways: not really full past lives
Riddle Sideways: a continual slice of time.

Liza Deischer: what do you think Bleu?
Bleu Oleander: about art?
Bleu Oleander: curiosity
Bleu Oleander: drives me
Liza Deischer: about having this passion
Bleu Oleander: to experiment with art, music
Bleu Oleander: passion drives my curiosity
Bleu Oleander: which in turn increases my passion
Liza Deischer: or the other way around ?
Liza Deischer: ah
Bleu Oleander: yes
Bleu Oleander: circular
Bleu Oleander: hard to know which came first
Riddle Sideways: who cares
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Bertram Jacobus: but i have a question in my mind : would this practise also be fine for somebody who didn´t do any meditation before ? sry - am very unsure about that ... hm - because my own access to it was and is quite different ...
Storm Nordwind: I would say yes
Bleu Oleander: I would agree
Storm Nordwind: Especially as experienced meditators might not call it meditation! ;)
Bertram Jacobus: ah - the naming it "micro meditation" is a quite smart way to help accept it as such ;o)
Storm Nordwind: But the important thing is it's very accessible
Calvino Rabeni: I think of it as "awareness" but not "meditation"
Calvino Rabeni: There's no wrong way to do it
Storm Nordwind: Cal's right - awareness is a better word, although it can sound wishy-washy to some people :)
Bertram Jacobus: i find "micro meditation" quite clever as words for it :o)
Bertram Jacobus: didn´t find that my self for sure
Bertram Jacobus: heard it here
Calvino Rabeni: But, when you "get" awareness, then it is possible to do with it various things, if you know meditation or other practices that can be done in a short time.
Calvino Rabeni: I think of as "a meeting with myself" with an open agenda
Calvino Rabeni: Whatever the things I do within that time, are not the definition of the practice

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Pila Mulligan: rather than being a skirmish that distracted from other issues, the civil rights movement was the culmination of the most fndamental controverysies in American history
Calvino Rabeni: I don't see it as a specifically american issue
Pila Mulligan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964
Pila Mulligan: in most of the rest of the Western world, legalized discrimination was not as bad as in the US
Pila Mulligan: it was brutal in the US
Pila Mulligan: by dealing with the issue, in law, the Us opened the door to social justice issues such as those you are concerned with, througout the world
Calvino Rabeni: I guess I see american slavery as particular form of a more general issue of economic power and oppression, not specifically defined by race
Pila Mulligan: that is true, but in the US it all fell on the slavery issue
PiCalvino Rabeni: And the social justice issues are still too much (in my opinion) defined by social identity factors (race, gender, etc.) rather than class and power
Pila Mulligan: it takes time to undo the tribal structure of genetic memory
Calvino Rabeni: True, and that is important too
Pila Mulligan: most violent oppression arises in conflicts between groups, overshadowing the oippression within groups
Calvino Rabeni: That is something worth looking at carefully

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Eos Amaterasu: These three phrases are also described as "the three types of confidence"
Eos Amaterasu: What's puzzled me is that in a way they seem backwards
Eos Amaterasu: You would think that first you can see clearly
Eos Amaterasu: then you can see what is, how things are
Eos Amaterasu: and then you can make decisions based on that.
Eos Amaterasu: However, this can also describe a kind of PaB approach.
Eos Amaterasu: Which is to drop everything, and let everything be, and start with where you are
Eos Amaterasu: Not even start, since that implies going somewhere, but just be
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Eos Amaterasu: So you have sense of appreciation, or presence
Eos Amaterasu: within which and around which everything happens
Eos Amaterasu: It's "The Eos Amaterasu Experience", playing live
SophiaSharon Larnia: :)
Eliza Madrigal: :))
Eos Amaterasu: It's good and bad, happy and sad
Agatha Macbeth: Wow
Eos Amaterasu: sunny weather and rainy weather 
you let it all happen, neither pushing away nor pulling it in, and not ignoring it either
that's a state of being
being like a mountain
on which are grasses, and trees, and rocks, and clouds, and goats, and rain 
but the mountain is there
Eliza Madrigal: What a beautiful image
Eliza Madrigal: a strong image
Eos Amaterasu: be-ing there, so things come and go, but the appreciation, the allowance, the presence is there no matter what happens
Eos Amaterasu: that's one sense I get of "be decisive"
it's not "be discursive", or mull over this and that, but remain in the space of your awareness in which everything happens

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Maxine Walden: This was my first reading of the book and I did have a few first impressions:
--that in reading it I was in the presence of a very wise man, in the language, candence, pacing of the author'
and that sense of wisdom in itself brought a sense of calm.
Maxine Walden: --also that the writing was so packed with things to think about, or that I could not get my mind around, that I was rather constantly feeling 'oh, I am not getting it all...I am missing things...'

Maxine Walden: And I soon had to realize that I was grasping and anxious in that approach to the reading
Maxine Walden: So I soon realized I had to relax and take in what I could, that there would likely be more readings of the book, and more to take in

Maxine Walden: --Then the opening to space: the sense of realizing that 'things' are surfaces to open to as are thoughts, and even experiences; these were some of the realizations from the first part of the book

Maxine Walden: I had been reading and trying the exercises included in the book
Maxine Walden: and one night I awoke in the middle of the night and felt a quiet calm sense
Maxine Walden: a sense that I could feel that all Time was right 'here' within my glimpse, that past, present and future were all right 'here'.

Maxine Walden: For me there was in that glimpse a great calm, a spacious calm in which everything just was quietly present, without hurry, without movement really.

Maxine Walden: And it felt possible to look at more and more , almost it felt an infinite degree, of detail at any one moment. It was one of those moments I will probably remember for the rest of my life.

--BELL--
Maxine Walden: I suppose it lasted maybe half an hour...and I felt I wanted to come back and visit all there was to see and note and appreciate, hoping to have a recallable moment for the rest of my life
Maxine Walden: So I have held the memory of that experience and feel it as a guide in the rest of the reading

Maxine Walden: I suppose one more thing:

The Great Knowledge for me seems to be a kind of knowingness (which the author mentions), not an active striving sense at all, but a calm presence, always been here, always accessible as I can open myself to it, come quietly perhaps, without rush or reaching; also I am aware that much of the time I do not have access to these higher forms of Time, Space and Knowledge, that I am in the pressure of the everyday world with my petty concerns

Maxine Walden: But it does feel that there is a background awareness abiding, and that as I can settle my daily concerns, I have more option to then open and appreciate these higher levels of Time Space and Knowledge.

Pema Pera: the bottom line is a kind of unconditional trust, confidence
Pema Pera: trust in Being and its aspect of Great Knowledge, as much as I trust in there being space to step in when I open a door -- even without knowing what is outside a new door, I trust there to be space to step in, and time in which to take a step -- similarly with knowledge
Pema Pera: viewing Knowledge on a par with Space and Time is a very powerful kind of reorientation of your whole life
Pema Pera: viewing Knowledge, or knowingness, not as some scarce resource, not as something locked up in special places like heads or books . . .
Pema Pera: breathing knowledge like air is even too weak a metaphor; space is better, since air can still be in short supply :)

Pema Pera: What I have learned through relying on Knowledge is, I guess, similar to what many practitioners have learned in their various traditions, when calling that source of Knowledge God, or Emptiness, or Tao, or Muses, etc

Pema Pera: Last point:
Pema Pera: when reading TSK, it may seem abstract at first, hard to grasp and even harder to imagine what you can possibly do with it.
Pema Pera: But by now, I see TSK as the most concrete, and Being as what TSK are aspects of in some way as most concrete
Pema Pera: in comparison everything else has become abstract!
Pema Pera: concepts, a house of cards, all designations leaning on each other . . . .

Maxine Walden: and for me it has felt that to pursue these explorations authentically, which I think is important, it so be authentic with oneself at least to start with, otherwise one tries to mimic or do it according to someone else

Eliza Madrigal: TSK seems to me unique in that it gives a challenge ... One can't really explore it without letting down some guards along the way... relaxing the grasping to understand in traditional ways, as Maxine describes...
Zen Arado: he gives practical exercises too which I like
Pema Pera: yes, Eliza, TSK is very radical in that sense
Pema Pera: TSK is a trickster
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Maxine Walden: ??
Pema Pera: the prose suggest that each sentence should be understandable
Pema Pera: and yet each sentence is like a koan
Maxine Walden: ah yes

Pema Pera: it is very much Stim : trying hard to look ordinary, while saying something very extraordinary :-)
Eliza Madrigal smiles
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Maxine Walden: smiles as well
Pema Pera: almost succeeding . . .
Maxine Walden: indeed so
Eliza Madrigal: hehehe
Pema Pera: (Steven Tainer wrote the text on behalf of Tarthang Tulku, based on very many lenghty interviews)
Pema Pera: in Zen, they talk about standing on a 100 feet pole
Pema Pera: and then stepping forward
Maxine Walden: !
Pema Pera: I guess Stim lets us stand on what looks like a half foot pole
Zen Arado: yep:)
Pema Pera: inviting us to step forewards
Pema Pera: only to find there is no ground there :)

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    Susi Alcott: well...how is that Navi world Fay and Bert ?
    Bertram Jacobus: whaow - that you actual ask it susi ! i just thought : too intense, these avatars, lemme / lets   change it perhaps     ... ;-)
    Susi Alcott: _/!\_
    Bertram Jacobus: and it's a very ideal world as i experience it
    Bertram Jacobus: very close to nature and such
    Bertram Jacobus: living in harmony
    Bertram Jacobus: even being wise ...
    Susi Alcott: _/!\_
    Bertram Jacobus: for all that i love it so much
    Bertram Jacobus: a possibility to bring peace to some masses

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Lucinda Lavender: randomly speaking...if we were to consider something we saw today...I curious how different those things would be...
--BELL--
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, interesting idea Lucinda (framing the pause)
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Calvino Rabeni: I liked that question - I visualized going the place I usually go during the day, then scanned over it to see if there was anything unusual that I saw along the familiar round - what would stand out?
Eliza Madrigal: And? What did you find?
Calvino Rabeni: And what it was, a huge, immense, large tree, that I'd never seen before in the neighborhood
Eliza Madrigal: where you've lived a long while?
Calvino Rabeni: And I actually after passing it, did a U turn to go back to look at it more
Calvino Rabeni: Yes
Eliza Madrigal: :)

Eliza Madrigal: maybe that's the concentrated aspect I often try to describe... that in SL it seems often a distillation... shot of whiskey, as it were
Reflection Freenote: a reflexive response is a conditioned habitual response or a neurologically simple response (like a knee jerk)
Calvino Rabeni: I see, I thought it was "reflection" in the sense of introspection about experience
Reflection Freenote: yes, eliza, about distillate, although, I think of it as a haiku, as opposed to RL being an epic poem
Eliza Madrigal: an interesting comparison!
Reflection Freenote: it seems the dominance of symbolism here allows for a laser-like specificity of meaning and response
Eliza Madrigal: a haiku seems little more than a sketch, and yet conjurs beyond its means
Reflection Freenote: less is more