13 - 15 Alert Waiting

(Eliza in progress).

Zen Arado: "The majority of those who have entered wu wei have no fore-knowledge of the event and only know that something extraordinary happened that they couldn't put into words."
Zen Arado: from Wiki again
Pema Pera: I'm not sure about majority, but yes, you can fall into it, and then call it an experience, and remember it as an experience -- which pretty much prevents you from "getting back to it"
Pema Pera: the way I understand it, is that you have theory and experiment, roughly speaking
Pema Pera: the "experience" which is not an experience, can happen spontaneously and also after long training, but not predictably
Zen Arado: maybe as self diminishes we are more open to it as a natural ...way to be
Pema Pera: and the "theory" then helps you to understand what happened and how to not lose it
Wol Euler: "experience" doesn't feel quite right to me, because that is something that happens to me, whereas wu wei seems to happen *near* me (hard to explain)
Pema Pera: it just happens :-)
Wol Euler: mmhmm
Pema Pera: there is no separation between experiencer and what is experienced

---
Storm Nordwind: Intuiting a recipe is wonderful. Just letting go and trusting. Very much like playing as being :)
--BELL--
SophiaSharon Larnia is a recipe by the numbers person ^^
Storm Nordwind: I'd have gone with someone else's numbers, but I couldn't find any! So I had to make them myself :)
Lucinda Lavender: I have heard of intuiting a recipe...It reminds of something I read where it was suggested that the cook "listen to what the food sugggests be done"
SophiaSharon Larnia: :)
Storm Nordwind is incorrigibly lazy
SophiaSharon Larnia: I would, if I didnt want to eat it
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Lucinda Lavender: "What is it asking for?".
Lucinda Lavender: :)

---
Calvino Rabeni: Well, I need an "ego" too :) I keep hearing about those - but don't know where to buy one
Agatha Macbeth: Aren't you supposed to have dropped it Cal?
Darren Islar: and 'ego' you get or free, don't ask me why

Calvino Rabeni: although I'm not one to grope around the limits :)
Wol Euler grins.
Wol Euler: oh, but the fringe-y bits are where the fun is

Agatha Macbeth: Do we have a topic?
arabella Ella: yes
Wol Euler: ah :)
arabella Ella: dropping egos and finding them again
Mickorod Renard: what is it?
Bertram Jacobus: topic is "being" i would say
Bertram Jacobus: for example
Agatha Macbeth: Yep, Being
Bertram Jacobus: that is which we investigate
Mickorod Renard: there is a danger I think,,that we may drop one and pick up another just as silly

---
stevenaia Michinaga: love the fluid nature of these conversations
Paradise Tennant: yes they are like ambling walks
Paradise Tennant: smiles
stevenaia Michinaga: yet they alway find something personal that speaks to you
stevenaia Michinaga: or... me
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Bleu Oleander: or me
Paradise Tennant: well always goes back to the we are one thing .. I think :)

---

Wol Euler: the point is not so much looking up to, as the question of who leads the conversation. He is one
of the few who actively leads, most (including myself, alas) let it go where it wants
Darren Islar: true, but if you look up to someone it is easier to let him or her lead
Darren Islar: and looking up is probably not exactly the right word here
Darren Islar: or we are too lazy :-)
Wol Euler: :)
Wol Euler: comfortable
Darren Islar: no longer prepare ourselves for a meeting
Darren Islar: yes making it comfortable on ourselves
Darren Islar: instead of asking the hard questions
Darren Islar: (I have a feeling Pema likes where this conversation is going :-))
Wol Euler grins
Darren Islar: but I think it is both
Yakuzza Lethecus: i don't believe that there are "hard" questions, we have to drop the hard and ask the questions
 no matter what
--BELL--
Darren Islar: : )
Darren Islar: even the bell is not cooperative today, belling at the wrong times :-)
Darren Islar: but you can discuss 'hard'
Wol Euler muses. What to do?
Darren Islar: good question
Darren Islar: if we don't do anything we probably go back to the 'comfortable place'
Wol Euler: I suppose what we need is to address our demons and inner desires :)
--

Pema Pera: I'm working with time, lately, and during the break I felt how time is cradling us,
how we are part of the weave of time, hard to put into words; what seems so concrete is ineffably so

Eliza Madrigal: Pema, it may sound funny to ask, but how does one see everything 'directly', as time?
Pema Pera: I don't know about that "one", Eliza, but . . .
Pema Pera: for me it has a kind of shimmering quality, you could say, or liquid -- not as "empty" as space, but yet
more "empty" also in a way
Pema Pera: in the sense that space is presented anew at every moment
Pema Pera: so out of the "emptiness" of time the "emptiness" of space arises in a way . . . .
Pema Pera: making time doubly empty
Pema Pera: and yet
Pema Pera: time has this energy quality, this dynamic, making it less "just empty"
Pema Pera: ah, words . . . . .
Eliza Madrigal: as lucidity ...?
Pema Pera: that too, yes
Pema Pera: Tibetans like to talk about "emptiness and clarity"
Eliza Madrigal: yes
Pema Pera: the clarity feels more like the time aspect
--

stevenaia Michinaga: my cat seems to be joining me more often at these sessions, relaxing between me and
my laptop with his head on my arm
Calvino Rabeni: Sounds cosy!
stevenaia Michinaga: wonders if he senses how relaxing all this is
Calvino Rabeni: I think, animals sense that - relaxation, or sometimes, expectation - where the interest is
Calvino Rabeni: where something might happen if you wait for it
Calvino Rabeni: I think cats tune into that
Calvino Rabeni: instinctually - maybe - something tasty could show up :)
Calvino Rabeni: My last cat would catch bats somehow - mostly by knowing where to wait I think
stevenaia Michinaga: yes, licking his fur and my arm
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
stevenaia Michinaga: cats are a good example of doing by not doing
stevenaia Michinaga: have bats come to them
Calvino Rabeni: It works with people too - if one waits around by a lake, after a while, things come
Calvino Rabeni: Today it was fish and a bird that swims underwater
Calvino Rabeni: The animals know us, better than we know ourselves - except maybe in a scientific sense
stevenaia Michinaga: much to be learned by waiting
stevenaia Michinaga: speaks to patience
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, waiting, watching, with a feeling of what happens
stevenaia Michinaga: or without any anticipation
Calvino Rabeni: I think- "expect the unexpected" is an apt slogan
Calvino Rabeni: Alertness
Calvino Rabeni: Just don't know or expect what manner of thing may appear
stevenaia Michinaga: the cat sleeps
Calvino Rabeni: but a kind of "soft gaze" of awareness
Calvino Rabeni: Even if the cat appears to be asleep, it is likely registering a lot of its environment
--

Bertrum Quan: How does your practice fare in the context of all of the world's difficulties?
Scathach Rhiadra: mmmm, there are always difficulties
Scathach Rhiadra: or they can always be seen as difficuties
Bertrum Quan: Yes, but do you ever find yourself distracted from your practice by the upheavals?
Scathach Rhiadra: sure, sometimes even wonder why I bother, what can it matter
--BELL--
Darren Islar: :-)
Bertrum Quan: Sometimes it seems a bit like the Yeats poem--"the center cannot hold"
Scathach Rhiadra nods
Scathach Rhiadra: groundless
Bertrum Quan: It's hard to be grounded.
Scathach Rhiadra: yes, and particularly hard to be grounded in reality, not just our concepts and desires
Scathach Rhiadra: I suppose that is why we need to practice:)
Bertrum Quan: Yes, it is important to be centered. But don't you feel a strong tug toward activism as well?
Scathach Rhiadra: yes, it can be eay to fall into wanting a 'quietude', if that is the correct word, forgetting that real practice
must involve body, speech or energy, and mind

---
arabella Ella: one simple question ... are we as humans geared to go in to life long monogamous relationships based on the 'ideal' which is ingrained in us when young?
Calvino Rabeni: That's a good one
arabella Ella: (feels very sceptical there)
Calvino Rabeni: History says, mostly "no"
Mickorod Renard: I think a fair proportion of the probs occur when the ideal isnt lived up to
arabella Ella: and living in a country where there is no divorce makes that question even more difficult somehow to deal with
Hokon Cazalet: id say not life-long monogamy, serial monogamy seems more natural
Darren Islar: I don't feel monogamous
arabella Ella: :)
Calvino Rabeni: The funny nature of an "ideal" is that it is usually an idea that holds a corrective role, that doesn't describe an ideal reality, but a way to change from current conditions
Hokon Cazalet: i dont, but cuz i choose not to
arabella Ella: well monogamy i am told is a form of social control by the state
Calvino Rabeni: In other words, "ideals" by nature, don't point to truth / reality
Darren Islar: right Cal, so we use the word ideal wrong here :-)
Hokon Cazalet: whoa
Hokon Cazalet: not really, true love began as a revolt against the catholic church in the 13th century
Calvino Rabeni: That is "is" vs "ought" again.
Calvino Rabeni: Yes Hokon
Mickorod Renard: corrective roles are quite handy for holding societies together
Hokon Cazalet: and against the pre-arranged marriage system
Calvino Rabeni: Romanticism and chivalry became wedded then
Hokon Cazalet: yup
arabella Ella: it is in the interest of every state to encourage its citizens to have a family and to remain monogamous for the good of the economy ... so i am told
Darren Islar: but still based on monogamy Hokon?
Calvino Rabeni: It was an "ought-ideal"
---

Pema Pera: Another neuroscientist at Columbia whom you *have* to see next time is Stuart Firestein -- or did you visit him already?
Bleu Oleander: no we haven't
Pema Pera: He has been teaching a class on "Ignorance" for several years now
Bleu Oleander: oh sounds great
Pema Pera: though "teaching" is not quite the right word :-)
Pema Pera: rather, most of his weekly classes feature a guest lecturer
Pema Pera: I was one of them, in February
Bleu Oleander: great
Bleu Oleander: that must have been fun
Pema Pera: every year he has been teaching it, attendence has doubled -- a hundred now; not sure what he will do next year
Bleu Oleander: what is his draw?
Pema Pera: http://firestein.bio.columbia.edu/ignorance/
Pema Pera: his main idea is: for every little thing we gain in knowledge, we can ask many new questions, so we become aware in much more detail how ignorant we are
Pema Pera: so ignorance grows faster than knowledge
Bleu Oleander: looks great .... yes Rudolfo talked about that also
Pema Pera: so with all of our classes on various bits of knowledge, it's time to teach on ignorance :)