A. March 2010

The month of March… in like a Lamb, out like a Lion? Testing the air, there is warmth just ahead, with winter weather highlighting it that much more. As always, I'm captivated by the theme sessions and found much to enjoy in reading them -- vicariously, as I was unable to attend many this month. We started by discussing the scribe project, and moved onto 'Be Decisive, Know What Is See Clearly'. Blowing the dust off my Time, Space and Knowledge book, I opened it to contemplate this topic, going back over the theme session on TSK again for further clarification.  A wonderful new addition to Play as Being this month has been the Art of Being project, initiated by Bleu Oleander... it's wonderful to see the art work of the guardians in this creative endeavor arising so organically within the group!! The working group has had a major shift during this month as well, with a change in hands and responsibilities... as well as a get-together in real life.  This month Play as Being even made into a SL blog. Quite a full month, as you can see!   ~ SSL

Theme Sessions - with some of the highlights.... see the session for a full read -

2010.03.06 13:00 - Scribe Session: all current scribes.

Eliza Madrigal: I know that when I signed on as a guardian, I got a real taste of things by reading the scribes...
Eliza Madrigal: and also a sense of the view of the scribers themselves
Eliza Madrigal: So to me it seems a very worthwhile endeavor
SophiaSharon Larnia: as a tourist view, what the scribe chooses is individual
Eliza Madrigal: right... what resonates to them

2010.03.30 19:00 - Be Decisive, Know What Is, See Clearly : Eliza/Eos

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
Eliza Madrigal: yes, right
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
Eliza Madrigal: flying without taking off?
Eos Amaterasu: within which and around which everything happens
Eos Amaterasu: and so things can just appear as they are
Eos Amaterasu: "know what is"
Eos Amaterasu: you can see things as they are

Eos Amaterasu: you let it all happen, neither pushing away nor pulling it in, and not ignoring it either
Eos Amaterasu: that's a state of being
Eos Amaterasu: being like a mountain
Eos Amaterasu: on which are grasses, and trees, and rocks, and clouds, and goats, and rain
Eos Amaterasu: 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"
Eliza Madrigal: Is this a kind of deciseiveness?
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, yes
Eos Amaterasu: it's not "be discursive", or mull over this and that, but remain in the space of your awareness

Eos Amaterasu: I'll shift a bit to the opposite of solidity
Eos Amaterasu: which is space

Eos Amaterasu: which is also a way to talk about the space within which dropping happens
Eos Amaterasu: space cannot be touched
Eos Amaterasu: it you try touching it, or labelling it, or describing it, you put up or reflect some form, some solidiity
Eos Amaterasu: but that very intangible quality of space is its indestructibility
Eos Amaterasu: you can't manipulate it
Eos Amaterasu: and it doesn't manipulate what it contains

Eos Amaterasu: so it itself has an unmoveable quality
Eos Amaterasu: which is paradoxical
Eos Amaterasu: re "be decisive", it is already all there
Eos Amaterasu: you can't add anything to it, or subtract from it
Eos Amaterasu: if you try to fix it it slips away
Eos Amaterasu: if you can't find it you find you're not grasping anything
Eden Haiku: unmovable indesctructible and yet not there, empty?
Eos Amaterasu: and so maybe you are holding space
Eos Amaterasu: you can't mess with it, no matter how hard you try
Eos Amaterasu: it's the flip side of the frustrating impossibility of dropping everything
Eos Amaterasu: so that has a sense of being already victorious
Eos Amaterasu: you don't have to manipulate anything

2010.03.31 07:00 - Theme session #1: TSK : Maxine/Pema

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: Maybe I could say, and then I might pause, that about 3 months into the reading I did have a kind of epiphany experience:

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.

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: As for me sharing my experiences . . . hard to know where to begin, there have been so many :-)
Pema Pera: more interesting may be to sketch what happened over time, and how I feel about TSK now
Maxine Walden: yes that would be very interesting
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 . . . .

Art as Being Project - This addtion to Play as Being is exciting, and has had a very active response this month. I would love to include all the pictures of the scultures we have made, but this is not practical, or I'd fill up this whole page!

Working Group -

From March 17-19, the Working Group met in RL, in Princeton, NJ for two days. The working group comprised of Pema Pera, Maxine Walden, Storm Nordwind, Eliza Madrigal, Eos Amaterasu, and Genesis Zhangsun. On Friday, March 19th, the group met other PaB guardians for dinner at a restaurant in Princeton, which was attended by Storm, Eliza, Eos, Pema, Genesis, Stevenaia, Sylectra and Hana.

Also in March, the working group changed hands. Eliza Madrigal now sits as Chair, and continues as Regular Activites Coordinator, Storm Nordwind and Eos Amaterasu continue as Inworld Coordinator and RL/SL Retreat Coordinator, respectively. New to the working group is Calvino Rabeni as Platform Coordinator (and is setting up the new PaB website), Bleu Oleander as Community Coordinator, and SophiaSharon Larnia as Chronicles Coordinator. Leaving the working group was Pema Pera, Maxine Walden and Genesis Zhangsun.

We are very grateful for the work you have all done!!!

Minutes -

2010.03.02 - Working group meeting minutes
2010.03.09 -Minutes of Working group meeting
2010.03.30 14:00 - Working group meeting Minutes

Play as Being in the News -

On March 25th, Play as Being was featured in the New World Notes blog by Hamlet Au, titled ‘Play as Being: Can 9 Seconds of Communal Focus in Second Life Change Your Real Life?’

Yeah!! Check it out: http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2010/03/pla...cond-life.html

Weekly Guardian sessions - Very lively, engaged discussions...

2010.03.07 08:00 - Guardian Session: village square
2010.03.14 08:00 - Guardian Session: Time & Space
2010.03.21 08:00 - Gathering Guardians for the Village
2010.03.28 08:00 - Guardian Session: Lightness of Art

March Guardians - There were no new guardians for the month of March.

March Scribes

The scribes for March were Eliza Madrigal (who did 4!!), Calvino Rabeni, Arisia Vita, SophiaSharon Larnia, and Eos Amaterasu.