A. Month of July

In July there was a big jump in the number of guardians. Adelene Dawner, Avastu Maruti, Delani Gabardini, doug Sosa, Gaya Ethaniel,  Meesha Cuttita, Neela Blaisdale, Prosper Telling, Quilty Bookmite, and Wol Euler joined the troop. There were 32 guardians by the end of July.

The group settled into the new pavilion. A logo was created by Moon and re-made as a forehead tatoo. A crisis, which began in late June, carried into early July forced the group to consider how far it should go in tolerating distractions to the sessions. People naturally were divided in their opinions and there were some intense discussions but the group survived and became stronger for the experience.Sylectra started up the PaB Flickr page on July 20 and also made a video of Stevenaia and the nine-second experience.

The group faced a big challenge as it tried to arrive at a consensus on what constituted disruption. The group faced an incident in which someone was repeatedly argumentative and dominated the chat log by pasting in large sections of text. The group explored numerous avenues to try to rectify the situation and finally laid down some ground rules for the person who accepted them and then drifted away.

YSBS and ESBS exercises. The first is You See Being Sees and the second is Enlightened you Sees Being Sees.YSBS first came up in the July 19 01:00 session and then Pema sent the following message to the guardians:

What bubbled up today is the following experiment,consisting of two parts.  Each part can be done injust a few seconds, or you can take a minute or longer,as you wish.

1. Relax and become aware of your visual field.  Just  watch your normal, ordinary way of looking at what  you can see in front of you.  Nothing special.  There is a cone shaped space in front of you within  which you can see objects.  Just become aware of you  seeing whatever you see in your field of vision.

2. Now instead of you seeing objects, switch to letting  Being "see".  This is not a physical seeing based on  the use of eyes.  Being doesn't have eyes the way we  do.  Just let Being "see" you and everything, from  outside you as well as from inside you, all your  thoughts, feelings, memories, your body and mind,  as well as the whole world around you.

 ESBS, the more radical form, was introduced on July 31 01:00:

Pema Pera: you can imagine how it would be to do the YS part if you were fully enlightened
Pema Pera: imagine that you had practiced for many lifetimes
Gaya Ethaniel: if fully enlightened, surely there is no distinction between YS & BS?
Pema Pera: and you had reached the best possible way of seeing, living, being as a person, but still as a person, with a you who would be a super-realized you
Pema Pera: how would it be to see as that you, in YS?
Pema Pera: And then you can contrast that with BS
Pema Pera: letting Being see
Pema Pera: most likely, initially, there is no difference
Sky Szimmer: i agree with Gaya. Wouldn't that be the same, an enlightened one and Being
Pema Pera: but after some practice, you might see some difference

While some of us were a bit confused by the exercises many of us experiemented with the exercises during these few weeks. Storm reported his experiences on his blog. Here is one example: http://stormerne.blogspot.com/2008/08/esbs-1.html

Avastu brought a taste of  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and Hindu philosophy into the sessions and for a while perplexed many of us with his insistence that we already ARE and nothing else was needed. Avastu was to remain with us until September.

LOA and LOR: Pema introduced the language of the absolute and the language of the relative to the group:

Pema Pera: there are two languages, two ways of dealing with the world
Bertrum Quan: Inherent part of Being
Pema Pera: the language of the relative and the language of the absolute
Pema Pera: within the language of the relative (lor) there is no Being
Pema Pera: there are only beings
Pema Pera: within the language of the absolute (loa) there are no beings
Pema Pera: there is only Being
Pema Pera: so a sentence “we are all inherently part of Being” is almost correct
Pema Pera: but perhaps better “we are all Being” or “each of us is all of Being”

Taste of July:

 Steve described an experience about Being on July 17 19:00

Pia Iger: what is your defining moment? Curious...
stevenaia Michinaga: in this moment I was underwater which represented Self to me

stevenaia Michinaga: the I emerged above the surface , springing out of the water straight up... which represented Being
stevenaia Michinaga: not flying, just head above water
stevenaia Michinaga: an interested contrast

Pia Iger: then how do you feel, in each case, under and above the water?
stevenaia Michinaga: fresh air, clear sight of distance
stevenaia Michinaga: under water was self reflective and somewhat contained.. defining self as somewhat introspective and contained
stevenaia Michinaga: but head above water was externally focused
stevenaia Michinaga: refreshing
Adams Rubble: that sounds great Steve
stevenaia Michinaga: worth the wait of not doing 9 second moments for that one