Day 4

Day 4 Apr 04/27/10

Dear fellow guardians,

While the San Francisco retreat has just finished, I'm already
looking forward to the Nova Scotia retreat that Eos is organizing
(http://playasbeing.wik.is/PaB_Retrea...07_Nova_Scotia).
And I just noticed that there are exactly 100 days between the
last full day of the SF retreat, April 23, and the first full day
of the NS retreat, August 2.

    A year ago, in preparation for the very first PaB retreat,
I spent the hundred days leading up to that retreat to focus on
appreciation, with some others to whom that topic appealed.

    This year, I would like to make a similar gesture.
My focus will be the challenge to play as Being, to really do
that, each moment of my life. For those interested in joining
me, independent of whether or not you will attend the actual NS
retreat, we can inspire each other by occasionally bringing up
the topic here in email or in some of the PaB sessions.

    It may be a bit confusing to view "play as Being" as a
form of exploration (experimentation, exercise, practice),
given that it is also the title of our group, the name of our
community, our wiki, our T shirts, you name it. Exactly for
that reason, it may be a good exercise to step back and look
at what it means to play "as Being".

    This question was one of the topics in our SF workshop,
and we will address it from various angles during our theme
session on Sunday, May 2, 1 pm SLT. In San Francisco, Eos put
it into perspective during the morning of the last full day,
Friday. He contrasted "playing as Being" with what each of us
normally does, namely playing as yourself, playing as what you
think you are, as a resident in your (particular understanding
of your) world.

    Let's say that we consider the world we live in as made up
out of matter and energy in space and time. That may sound like
a particular world view, but how do we view space, how do we
view matter, how do we view time or energy and our relation to
those ingredients? Even if it were not too limited to view the
world as given by matter/energy in space/time, for sure our own
limited views of what those aspects can possibly be will limit our
understanding of the potential and freedom we have in such a world.

     So how about trying to let go of all those limits within
limits, how about not making any assumptions about what reality
has to offer us, and simply play as if there is only Being, and
our presence is an expression of the infinite possibilities of
Being?

    Some of the early explorations, during the first few months
of PaB, such as You Seeing Being Seeing (YSBS), and Appreciate
the Presence of Appearance as a Presentation by Being (APAPB),
are only limited versions of Play as Being. In fully playing as
Being, we can not only let Being See, but let Being do all of
the perceiving and acting in a non-doing, non-perceiving and
non-acting way. In short we let Being Be in all that appears.

    Today is day 4 of the hundred days leading up to the Nova
Scotia retreat. I'm looking forward to explore what it means
to let Being play, during the remaining 96 days and then during
the retreat itself.

Cheers,
Pema