2009.07.17 19:00 - Plumbing the depths of "the bad"

 The Guardian for this meeting was Dakini Rhode. The comments are by Dakini Rhode.

Dakini Rhode: hi Pila
Pila Mulligan: hi Dakini
Pila Mulligan: how are you?
Dakini Rhode: very good... you?
Pila Mulligan: I'm fine, thanks
Pila Mulligan: hi Resting
Resting Thor: hi!
Dakini Rhode: hi RT :-)
Pila Mulligan: hi Eos
Dakini Rhode: good evening eos
Resting Thor: hi eos
Eos Amaterasu: Hello Resting Dakini Pila
Dakini Rhode: we had an interesting topic last week
Pila Mulligan: so those are the fish I've read about in chat logs, in the pond -- cute :)
Pila Mulligan: what was it Dakini?
Dakini Rhode: haha yes the fish
Pila Mulligan: the topic?
Dakini Rhode: we were chatting about the appreciation of "bad" things
Pila Mulligan: ahh, yes
Dakini Rhode: Pema was especially concerned about how to explain it to others
Pila Mulligan: how to explain bad?
--BELL--
Pila Mulligan: oir the appreciation of bad?
Dakini Rhode: how to explain appreciation, as i understand it
Dakini Rhode: :-)
Eos Amaterasu: In appreciating the presence of appearance both phenomena labelled as good and phenomena labelled as bad arise
Resting Thor: perhaps could re-state it as "how to see the good in bad things"
Dakini Rhode: I'm wondering whether people have a topic they'd like to discuss or would like to continue with that one...
Dakini Rhode: :-)
Pila Mulligan: I'm game for wahtevers
Eos Amaterasu: appreaciating the bad is probably more powerful
Eos Amaterasu: as a practice
Eos Amaterasu: because you're probably holding on more tightly
Pila Mulligan: should we define or characterize 'bad' or let it be anyhitng on a subjective basis?
Eos Amaterasu: and so maybe that becomes more obvious
Eos Amaterasu: which can be kind of embarrassing
Resting Thor: its an interesting question why it would be a more powerful practice
Eos Amaterasu: bad could just be what we don't want to experience
Pila Mulligan: last week: Pema Pera: lately I've had several conversations with different people about how to appreciate "bad" things, unpleasant or worse [19:18] Pema Pera: it's so hard to find the right angle there
Dakini Rhode: i'm kind of wondering what else it could be...
Pila Mulligan: ... ' how do you start a conversation on that topic with someone without such a tradition?'
Dakini Rhode: "bad" as that which we dislike
Resting Thor: bad is whatever we experience as unpleasant
Pila Mulligan: [19:20] Pema Pera: when I see people suffering and complaining, it would be nice to share with them the simple trick of appreciating everything as is
Pila Mulligan: so it sounds a smuch like counselling as anyhting, in Pema's context
Eos Amaterasu: you can share your moment of appreciating
Eos Amaterasu: which might put more space around their suffering, (they do that arouind their suffering)
Eos Amaterasu: and around themselves in there as well
Dakini Rhode: If i may, for a moment
Dakini Rhode: I want to mention that a friend is here with me
Dakini Rhode: who has no avatar
Resting Thor: unless they have a value system that shares your value of why you would appreciate the bad ..it would be a weak conversation
Pila Mulligan: sometimes I tell people expereincing a close freind's death, and not having had similar expereince, to appreciate the profundity of their feelings
Dakini Rhode: and would like to read and perhaps participate in our discussion
Pila Mulligan: it is one fo the most profound of feelings
Dakini Rhode: is that alright?
Dakini Rhode: wanting to be sensitive to peoples feelings of privacey
Resting Thor: of course ok with me
Pila Mulligan: hi Freind :)
Pila Mulligan: Hey!
Eos Amaterasu: Resting, anybody has to find that experience themselves, otherwise it's just words
Dakini Rhode: hi :-)
Resting Thor: hi "friend of dakini who appears on dakini night "
Dakini Rhode: is it dakini night???
Resting Thor: yes :)
Dakini Rhode: :-)
Dakini Rhode: so.... to return to our discussion...
Pila Mulligan: one thing I've seen is how people emerge from a close frined's death expereince with a slightly new persepctive
Pila Mulligan: they are changed
Pila Mulligan: the first few times
Pila Mulligan: at least
Dakini Rhode: as I've thought about this, it occurs to me also that a person has to find his own appreciation from within
Pila Mulligan: so they really do need to appreciate it, woihtout being led astray from their senses
Pila Mulligan: old chinese sayng: 'be one wth your grief'
Eos Amaterasu: that's the thing, witht he bad you're more likely to want to recede from your sense
Eos Amaterasu: *senses
Pila Mulligan: so we are considering doing [good/bad/mundane] things consciously
Eos Amaterasu: not running away from the bad as it is experienced, owning up to the experience, owning it
Pila Mulligan: and Pema's question seems to be how to help someone in the muck see it
Eos Amaterasu: which means _you_ can let it go: it doesn't own you (as grief can do)
Eos Amaterasu: or trying to absent yourself from grief
Eos Amaterasu: Yes - be one with your grief
Eos Amaterasu: and that oneness might be pretty raw and open
--BELL--
Eos Amaterasu: you can't edit the presentation of being
Eos Amaterasu: (you can try :-)
Dakini Rhode: Grief is an interesting example of something "bad", because I think what I'm getting from the conversation is that it's something to embrace, not something to get out of
Eos Amaterasu: you can celebrate it, but that means going along with it, or even from it
Eos Amaterasu: a wake
Resting Thor: by grief we mean the perception of a feeling we have
Resting Thor: we don't mean the actual event that caused the grief, ie the death of someone
Pila Mulligan: yes
Pila Mulligan: but they are hand in hand as expereinces
Resting Thor: so which is the bad thing
Dakini Rhode: yet when someone close to us dies, grief is a natural thing
Eos Amaterasu: grief can come from a very deep place
Pila Mulligan: :)
Resting Thor: that you are celebrating?
Pila Mulligan: subjective :)
Eos Amaterasu: as deep as "we are"
Dakini Rhode: in death and grief, i can't say i see a bad thing
Pila Mulligan: death is profound, greif is part of it, but to varying degrees according to the situation
Resting Thor: always depends on the perceiver of course
Dakini Rhode: i almost feel i need more understanding of what sort of suffering Pema is trying to help people out of, why he wants to see them out of it, and whose problem is that really
Dakini Rhode: yes, Pila
Resting Thor: any specific individual's death could be a good, a bad, or neutral thing depending on the perceiver
Resting Thor: grief seems less subjective as a bad feeling
Pila Mulligan: dealing with sad people is a lot easier for me than dealing with obnoxious people :)
Dakini Rhode: :-)
Pila Mulligan: maybe we can shift over to dealing with bad peoiple :)
Resting Thor: might be more productive...if we could define one
Resting Thor: what is a bad person/
Resting Thor: ?
Pila Mulligan: well, a weed has been defined as aplant growing where it is ont wanted
Pila Mulligan: we are probably close to that level of subjectivity
Pila Mulligan: in defining a 'bad' person
Resting Thor: so any person that "pila" does not want?
Resting Thor: makes it easier
Resting Thor: :)
Pila Mulligan: works for me
Resting Thor: haha
Dakini Rhode: haha the whole concept of bad is problematic
Resting Thor: so pick one and we'll decide how to deal with her then ;)
Eos Amaterasu: We could also say a bad person produces bad effects
Resting Thor: haha
Eos Amaterasu: Or that a bad person has bad intention(s)
Resting Thor: for the perceiver... not for all people
Pila Mulligan: I never like Richard Nixon, for example
Dakini Rhode: say someone has the intention to harm others
Resting Thor: tricky dick?
Pila Mulligan: I bet his dog loved him
Resting Thor: and his mother
Pila Mulligan: but I never met either him or his dog
Resting Thor: and all republicans :)
Eos Amaterasu: & he loved his wife and kid (as much as onyone else)
Pila Mulligan: yep
Pila Mulligan: but I just did ont like him
Resting Thor: apparently a really intelligent man
Resting Thor: so how did you deal with him then?
Dakini Rhode: not someone i really know, and I can't say what his intentions were, so it would be hard for me to label him bad
Eos Amaterasu: a "tortured intelligent demon", to use Gary Snyder's phrase
Pila Mulligan: I ignored him and voted Democrat
Resting Thor: there u have it then
Pila Mulligan: :)
Resting Thor: tell Pema to tell his friends to ignore their bad events and vote democrat :)
Pila Mulligan: well, that was easy, back to greif :) ?
Dakini Rhode: haha
Dakini Rhode: why is grief bad?
Resting Thor: it hurts
Dakini Rhode: wouldn't it rather be bad not to grieve?
Pila Mulligan: it isn't, if it is real and balanced
--BELL--
Pila Mulligan: grief can be very natural
Resting Thor: and there are of course no natural bad things :)
Resting Thor: the bad thing is that i feel the loss of a loved one because it hurts...and pema wants to tell someone that it hurts but there is good in that hurting
Resting Thor: so how does he do thtt
Resting Thor: that
Resting Thor: ?
Eos Amaterasu: I'm not so sure it's that there is good in the hurting, or that bad is really good
Resting Thor: the dude is crying...what do you tell them?
Eos Amaterasu: both good and bad are part of the juicy phenomenality
Pila Mulligan: encourage them to cry
Eos Amaterasu: which you can appreciate
Pila Mulligan: cry with them
Pila Mulligan: it is cleansing
Eos Amaterasu: Yes, be with the crying
Dakini Rhode: yes, let them cry and don't try to fix that
Pila Mulligan: the hurt relates to nostalgia, it takes time
Pila Mulligan: crying is part of healing
Resting Thor: so maybe Pema doesnt' need to focus on appreciation at that moment?
Pila Mulligan: maybe not at the crying time
Pila Mulligan: but afterwards, mayeb so
Dakini Rhode: maybe it's always our own appreciation we need to focus on?
Resting Thor: so maybe use your example Pila of a less intense suffering.. sitting in a traffic jam?
Pila Mulligan: I suggest to people to make notes to themselves during that time, so they can read them years later
Pila Mulligan: traffic jam = breathing
Pila Mulligan: :)
Resting Thor: probably dealing with emotions like anger in traffic jams
Dakini Rhode: ok so i'm trying to work with this....
Dakini Rhode: say i have a friend who suffers in traffic jams...
Dakini Rhode: what do i say to be helpful?
Resting Thor: appreciate it because.....?
Dakini Rhode: actually... i say something outrageous
Resting Thor: you shoudl appreciate traffic jams because......?
Dakini Rhode: well if someone cuts me off in traffic for example, what do i say?
Eos Amaterasu: no should, no because
Pila Mulligan: it may depend on what they are suffering -- anger, bladder overload, missed appointment
Dakini Rhode: haha that bladder overload is suffering
Pila Mulligan: really :)
Dakini Rhode: i experienced that thru NY traffic and then when i thought i was through it... i saw a sign "delay next 17 miles"
Pila Mulligan: :|
Eos Amaterasu: I drove thru 11 construction sites the other day, on the way to an appointment
Eos Amaterasu: "stimulus package"
Pila Mulligan: Eos, demon is a comonly used term (as from your earlier quote) -- what do you suppose it means?
Pila Mulligan: speaking of bad
Pila Mulligan: one of those common but diificult to explain terms
Eos Amaterasu: What earlier quote?
Pila Mulligan: [19:43] Eos Amaterasu: a "tortured intelligent demon", to use Gary Snyder's phrase -- Nixoon
Pila Mulligan: -- re Nixon*
Eos Amaterasu: oh yes
Pila Mulligan: or, for that mater, gods and demons -- how to define the concept
Pila Mulligan: god and bad
Pila Mulligan: good and evil
Eos Amaterasu: well, Hannah Arendt said ti best, that she had found that actually there is no radical evil
Pila Mulligan: god and d'evil
Eos Amaterasu: there is radical good
Pila Mulligan: :)
Eos Amaterasu: evil comes fro superficiality
Eos Amaterasu: *from
Pila Mulligan: anothe rold chinese saying: 'indifference is the root of all evil'
Eos Amaterasu: from not "appreciating presence" (my interpretation of her words)
--BELL--
Dakini Rhode: Friends, thank you for participating in this discussion
Pila Mulligan: thank you Dakini
Resting Thor: :)
Dakini Rhode: I'm going to leave now, but please feel free to continue
Resting Thor: enjoy your evening :)
Pila Mulligan: ok, bye and bye to your freind sana vaatar
Dakini Rhode: and you :-)
Pila Mulligan: sans*
Pila Mulligan: avatar*
Dakini Rhode: :-)
Dakini Rhode: thank you
Eos Amaterasu: Ciao Dakini, happy sky dancing
Dakini Rhode: namaste
Resting Thor: namaste!
Pila Mulligan: aloha
Dakini Rhode: good night and be well
Resting Thor: i will be leaving as well...thanks for the chat :)
Pila Mulligan: thank you Resting
Pila Mulligan: bye bye
Eos Amaterasu: Bye, Resting
Pila Mulligan: I can see the idea that evil comes fro superficiality, or lack of consciousness
Pila Mulligan: especially given the idea of entropy
Pila Mulligan: we need to be consious enuf to make an effort to mantain
Pila Mulligan: or we decay
Pila Mulligan: so those doing the ffort are the radical good
Pila Mulligan: effort*
Pila Mulligan: socially
Eos Amaterasu: Or, the light is too bright, direct experience is too intense, and so we separate from it, and actively ignore
Pila Mulligan: like Gandhi and King in recent history
Pila Mulligan: verily
Eos Amaterasu: Yes, they did n ot ignore
Pila Mulligan: and in ignoring it we naturally decay
Pila Mulligan: stuck in ruts
Pila Mulligan: how did your Skype/SL/rl conference go, Eos?
Pila Mulligan: we talked about that in June I think
Pila Mulligan: for your wife's Shambala event
Eos Amaterasu: It was an interesting experiment - there may be more - but you have to get ood at tdoing in in one medium
Pila Mulligan: so three at once was too much?
Eos Amaterasu: Just doing it in SL takes some, um, doing
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: learning curves
Eos Amaterasu: there were some interesections
Eos Amaterasu: long term experimentation here
Pila Mulligan: did you try to integrate every person into all three media?
Pila Mulligan: at once
Pila Mulligan: it is an intriguing idea
Eos Amaterasu: perhaps in social forms for sharing and presenting personal and co-being
Eos Amaterasu: I was in a ll three worlds myself, though not all the time
Pila Mulligan: let's imagine ...
Eos Amaterasu: mostly in RL and SL, with a bit of feedback from Skype land
Pila Mulligan: you have people at a ocnference and also peorple scattered around the world
Pila Mulligan: you have a big screen at the conference shoing PaB Pavillion
Pila Mulligan: people form around the world are at the pavillion
Pila Mulligan: as are prople at the event
Pila Mulligan: skype is active in each person's place
Pila Mulligan: they type, they talk, they get lost :) I see :)
Eos Amaterasu: Yes, with Cafe, when it works the participants create "the intelligence in the middle"
Eos Amaterasu: it's a kind of orderly chaos process
--BELL--
Pila Mulligan: would you try any screeing of filtering techniques?
Pila Mulligan: screening or filtering*
Eos Amaterasu: The world cafe form itself provides some of that
Eos Amaterasu: as does PaB form here
Eos Amaterasu: With cafe, you talk in small circles of 4 people, each time, several times (you do 20 minutes at one table, the go to another, with new set of participants)
Eos Amaterasu: playing with scaling conversation
Eos Amaterasu: the "harvest" period at the end attempts to share strands that emerge
Pila Mulligan: we did that in a process called Ecologue in the 70's :)
Pila Mulligan: quite nice
Eos Amaterasu: For numbers below a dozen, though, a single conversation circle works better
Pila Mulligan: yes
Pila Mulligan: Ecologue did it thru as series of smaller events, building a pyramid of partcipants to the grand finale
Pila Mulligan: the cafe process at each event where there were enuf people
Pila Mulligan: cirles at smaller one
Eos Amaterasu: a polis process
Pila Mulligan: polis?
Eos Amaterasu: as in politics
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: yes, we did it to define neighborhood likes and dislikes
Pila Mulligan: then worte it up for local governments, but ont form within government
Pila Mulligan: people could congeal around thier common perceptions
Eos Amaterasu: part of the process I think is "educating" perception, starting with personal perception
Pila Mulligan: yes, I agree
Eos Amaterasu: APA, and APAAPoB is about that
Eos Amaterasu: and then, imagine a society where that is part of the pattern
Pila Mulligan: having people draw sketches of what they like/dislike abot a place helps that effort
Eos Amaterasu: it's like the Truth and Reconciliation commissions
Eos Amaterasu: before you can have truth, starting with experiencing your own truth, let alone being able to listen to that of others,
Eos Amaterasu: you need openness
Eos Amaterasu: to yourself (both good and bad)
--BELL--
Eos Amaterasu: and to others (so you are not threatened by them "entereing" you)
Pila Mulligan: in the process we did, the political threats to truth (actually, the people feelng threatened) were usually narrow and higher up in the structure, so we built a nice groundswell below, before we got to that level
Eos Amaterasu: I think there's a circulation, from the ground level and up and around and back down, in a healthy system
Pila Mulligan: yes, however, my sense is that just a few narrow minded folks in the wrong places can wreak social havoc
Eos Amaterasu: we can all be top and bottom, master or servant, at different times
Eos Amaterasu: that's quite true
Eos Amaterasu: and a few open minded folkds in the right place can stimulate growth, flourishing
Pila Mulligan: yep. tank goodness
Pila Mulligan: thank*
Eos Amaterasu: very freudian slip :-)
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: Tienamin
Eos Amaterasu: Dep't of defense: tank goodness
Pila Mulligan: Tiananmen tanks
Pila Mulligan: http://beyondasiaphilia.files.wordpr...6/tank-man.jpg
Pila Mulligan: what an image :)
Eos Amaterasu: One of the most famous in the world, now
Eos Amaterasu: especially the shopping bag, or satchel, he was carrying :-)
Eos Amaterasu: very ordinary
Pila Mulligan: yep -- like the young woman kneeling at Kent State 40 years ago
Pila Mulligan: http://www.maniacworld.com/kent-state-shooting.jpg
Pila Mulligan: less uplifting image but still iconic
Pila Mulligan: 'May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others'
Pila Mulligan: now that would qualify as bad, I'd say
Eos Amaterasu: that is grief that nevertheless has a quality of "suchness", authenticity, true voice
Pila Mulligan: yes, it was an image seen round the world, like the tank man
Eos Amaterasu: (the girl in the image)
Pila Mulligan: yes
Pila Mulligan: real
Pila Mulligan: it led to a student strike of eight million students
Eos Amaterasu: or the police captain shooting the prisoner in the head in Saigon
Pila Mulligan: yes, that one for sure
Pila Mulligan: "President Nixon and his administration's public reaction to the shootings was perceived by many in the anti-war movement as callous." (re kent State - wiki)
Eos Amaterasu: the image was speaking truth to power
Eos Amaterasu: which power doesn't want to hear
Pila Mulligan: :)
Eos Amaterasu: because hearing it is opening to depth it wants to ignore
Eos Amaterasu: "I might be wrong!"
Pila Mulligan: yep, kind of an inverse pyramid -- the higher the tribal power, the lower the turh qunatity
Pila Mulligan: truth*
--BELL--
Pila Mulligan: or, to be more consistent with the image, the higher the tribal power position is, the greater is the indulgence in illusions
Pila Mulligan: for those so inclined :)
Pila Mulligan: I think Obama is finding himself hindered by a lot of residual illusions
Eos Amaterasu: the desire for protection at the top leads to echo-chamber of hearing just what you want to hear
Pila Mulligan: yep, and saying what wants to be heard
Pila Mulligan: to the boss
Pila Mulligan: I'd sure like atruth and rconcilliation commission on some of the issues form the past 8 years
Pila Mulligan: lot of festering infection there
Eos Amaterasu: yes.... if it's not aired out, in the open, it will continue
Pila Mulligan: that's my concern also
Pila Mulligan: like deciding to cancel Nueremberg to avoid embarassment
Eos Amaterasu: the system becomes unable to be simple, to see straight, to act directly
Pila Mulligan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuremberg-1-.jpg
Eos Amaterasu: "there's a might judgement coming, but I might be wrong" - Leonard Cohen :-)
Eos Amaterasu: *mighty
Eos Amaterasu: ordinary people whose ignorance is amplified by technology + bureaucracy
Eos Amaterasu: we don't want to see the target below
Pila Mulligan: "The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."
Pila Mulligan: Nuremberg Principle IV
Pila Mulligan: torture comes to mind
Eos Amaterasu: That's the "superficiality " aspect - you go along and go along, till you buy into the echo chamber all around you re what's going on
Pila Mulligan: yep
Eos Amaterasu: It takes a strong imagination to go against that
Pila Mulligan: indifference also
Pila Mulligan: yes, it is hard to resist the current
Eos Amaterasu: http://memer.com/blog/?p=4
Pila Mulligan: but torture is plainly prohibited by several international laws/treaties, in addition to being self-eivdently wrong
Pila Mulligan: yep -- your link: "much of the dirty work was done by people who weren’t fanatical ideologues. They were people who were brought into and adapted to an environment in which some kind of wrong was the norm'
Pila Mulligan: itslike the first time you smoke a cigarette it is disgusting
Pila Mulligan: but try a few more times and it is addicitve
--BELL--
Pila Mulligan: so maybe a demon is an enitiy addicted to superficiality
Pila Mulligan: relating back to the earlier chat
Eos Amaterasu: I think so, from that perspective
Eos Amaterasu: It's also our projection onto other of potential for evil we're not willing to admit in ourselves
Pila Mulligan: very true
Pila Mulligan: well, we've plumbeed the depths of the topic 'bad' it seems
Eos Amaterasu: PIla, appreciate conversing with you, now good night!
Pila Mulligan: yes, me too Eos, aloha