28- Self Doubt & Devotion

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    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
    Adams Rubble: self-doubt : I have been struggling to see past self doubt this week too
    Maxine Walden: thanks, adams, defanging the excoriations of self doubt can be a gift from our PaB experience
    Eliza Madrigal nods. wonderfully expressed Maxine... a snapshot of a venture which is part of a larger one ... thank you
    Adams Rubble: seeing where we might be seeing things wrongly while keeping the tools we need to correct them can be difficult
    Maxine Walden: indeed, adams
    Maxine Walden: gently compassionately correcting our 'seeings' or allowing the wider view without collapse into the rut of self doubt for the 'error'
    Maxine Walden: combatting the rut of self-doubt with compassion
    Pema Pera: yes, real seeing is enough . . . . a recurring theme in PaB !
    Eos Amaterasu: How did that moment happen ,Maxine? : Being able
    [08:31] Maxine Walden: to step back and regard that whole situation
    Eos Amaterasu: Being in-the-rut, and then somehow stepping-back (out)?
    Maxine Walden: Eos, I had to take myself in hand, actually, to wrap my doubt-filled self in a Pa
    Maxine Walden: PaB moment as it were
    Maxine Walden: and thus be amidst my inner company of PaB experience
    Adams Rubble smiles
    Eos Amaterasu: Beautifully said
    Pema Pera smiles too
    Maxine Walden: That was what allowed me to emerge, but it took some discipline to not collapse into the doubt or let the dogs of doubt re-consume me
    Pema Pera: :)
    Adams Rubble: PaB dog food
    Pema Pera: feeding yourself to the dogs of doubt . . . . quite an image!
    Riddle Sideways: your meta-self / being seeing you in the rut and reaching into that reality to nudge/knock you
    Pema Pera: the fangs of the cats of criticism . . . .
    Maxine Walden: PaB to the rescue amidst the jungle of our doubt/criticism, etc
    Eos Amaterasu is engulfed in vivid imagery of dogs of doubt, fangs of criticism
    Maxine Walden: vivid stuff!
    Adams Rubble: :)
    Pema Pera: leaving the dogs and cats to fight with each other, while stepping out of the ruts :-)
    Maxine Walden: indeed, Pema
    Pema Pera: and yes, riddle, just dropping is hard, seeing something reaching in to rescue you is easier, a kind of move of devotion

    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 way

    Riddle 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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