One might think that in just one day there would not be very much to point to.
That is not true of this day. -Eliza
2010.02.28 07:00 - Non-Verbal Communication
Agatha Macbeth: There is no real way to convey many sounds on the printed page, unfortunately
Fael Illyar: sometimes people get fed up with me using non-verbal sounds and say something about it :)
Fael Illyar: usually something like "you know words, use them"
Agatha Macbeth: What sort of sounds do you use?
Fael Illyar: I wonder how to describe it... I guess one of the most common could be approximated as mmm
Fael Illyar: with different changes in tone and pitch depending on what I want to express
Agatha Macbeth: When agreeing with someone?
Agatha Macbeth: Chinese dialects use tone a lot....
Fael Illyar: Yes, agreeing and disagreeing are common ways to use that
Agatha Macbeth: And as a question: mmm?
Fael Illyar: yep
The following guardian session came as a surprise to me... sitting there as it unfolded but still somehow startled ...
2010.02.28 08:00 - Guardian Session: Everything Totally Without Reservations
Maxine Walden: daring to venture into uncertainty without grasping for the security of the rut/known has been a tweet for me this week I suppose
Maxine Walden: presenting a paper amidst colleagues who then in their discussion and questioning triggered doubt in my mind about a portion of my presentation; and that doubt for a bit became debilitating, as if defining my work as very flawed, with no value; Being able
Maxine Walden: to step back and regard that whole situation as an example of what I was wriring about, how doubt can be so debilitating, being able to step back and walk through my experience exposed to the group of questioners became a venture for me
Maxine Walden: venture of trusting in the value of the venture, and stepping out the the rut of doubt even amidst the external questioners/doubters...
Maxine Walden: 'twas a meaningful navigation for me; grateful when my PaB practice, as it were, served well in that self-rescue
Adams Rubble: thank you for sharing that Maxine. Doubt can keep us way down in the rut. It is wonderful you could see that in the midst of the crisis
Pema Pera: I've been thinking about devotion a lot, and it's role in PaB, after Malta
Maxine Walden: please, Pema
Pema Pera: btw, the little bird I brought today was also from yesterday afternoon's session, with Wol's open and honest discussion of her steep and deep depression upon returning home
Pema Pera: it is so easy to tell each other and ourselves "just drop it all" but that does carry the danger that we find ourselves with a kind of hopeless gaping gap . . . .
Pema Pera: so "play" and a sense of "Being" are kinds of antidotes to a more nihilistic "dropping"Maxine Walden: nicely said
Pema Pera: a sense that "what IS" really can be a resource
Eos Amaterasu: is that devotion?
Pema Pera: that we can directly SEE, that we can look into what presents itself
Pema Pera: the courage to do that requires something that for me at least has a flavor of devotion
Pema Pera: or let me say "devotion to the examples given by those who have gone before us" helps me to live in hopelessness, without hope and fear
Pema Pera: devotion to an exploration that makes no sense within the context of our daily life, our ordinary logic
Pema Pera: devotion to the ideal of dropping all ideals . . . .
Pema Pera: Here is a quote, from one of Trungpa's talks, that for me has a strongly devotional flavor:
Since all things are naked, clear
and free from obscurations, there
is nothing to attain or realize.The everyday practice is simply to
develop a complete acceptance and
openness to all situations and emotions.And to all people -- experiencing
everything totally without reservations
and blockages, so that one never
withdraws or centralises onto oneself.
Riddle Sideways: thank you, did not think the word "devotion" carried all that
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Pema Pera: devotion to Being, rather than acquiring or searching or fighting or giving up
Pema Pera: way beyond fight AND flight
Maxine Walden: and way beyond all doubt: being open to all views without reservation
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: embracing what appears, as it appears
Eos Amaterasu: Pema, what is the "personal" quality of that devotion?
Eos Amaterasu: What makes you call it "devotion"?
Pema Pera: devotion for me has the quality of daring to proceed without knowing what will happen, a quality of trust
Pema Pera: trusting the universe, or Being
Pema Pera: distrusting anything that tells me that I'm too small, too weak, too insignificant
Pema Pera: claiming my birth right
Pema Pera: not based on what I have, or have accomplished, but what I really am
Pema Pera: what we all are
Riddle Sideways: does devotion = belief ?
Pema Pera: not necessarily
Pema Pera: I prefer the notion of a hypothesis
Riddle Sideways: ok
Adams Rubble: one can be devoted to the belief
Pema Pera: in a hypothesis you suspend belief and disbelief both
Eos Amaterasu: maybe also confidence that in the gap, in the unknown, there is living awake
Pema Pera: and I feel devoted to persuing the hypothesis of Being
Adams Rubble: (meant that hypothetically)
Pema Pera: yes, Adams!
Pema Pera: the words are not so important, it all depends how devotion is carried out -- really carried WITH you in daily life
Pema Pera: so it can start with belief, but as T.S. Eliot said: it will be belief in the wrong thing
Eos Amaterasu: I think a living belief will constantly put you on the spot: not necessarily comfortable
Pema Pera: so then you shed that belief, like skins of a growing insect, time and again
Pema Pera: yes, Eos, beyond comfortable, for sure!
Maxine Walden: shedding defensive beliefs and theories to remain open to the new and uncertain in a trusting wayRiddle Sideways: a disproved hypothesis is easily shed. a not 'proved' hypothesis is always in progress?
Eliza Madrigal: Thank you Pema, very moving. An extraordinary session ... Appreciate you all and have another meeting so must slip away.
Pema Pera: (oops, I misremembered T.S. Eliot's quote: it was not about belief, but it could have been!
He wrote
"I said to my soul be still, and wait without hope; for hope would be hope of the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith.
But the faith, and the love, and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: so the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing."
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