Week 4

While the beginning of the fourth week began to fell almost routine, after having had some seventy sessions now in total, toward the end of the week real sparks began to fly, especially on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning and afternoon, followed by further reflections on Sunday afternoon.

2008, April 21, Monday
How different each day here is! It was nice to see Riddle again, that morning, after a lengthy absence due to duties in RL. Sky dropped by twice, and in the middle of all of our serious conversations, she also mentions that she is now learning to enjoy shopping for clothes in RL more than she used to: viewing herself as an avatar that needs to be dressed did the trick for her. And then in the evening we had more than a full house: eight visitors simultaneously, to the point that we no longer could fit inside. Instead we enjoyed the evening setting in while seated outside.

2008, April 22, Tuesday
The day started calmly, with Maxine and I talking about the nature of our playful practice and the similarities with scientific research. Then during the afternoon, an initially quiet chat grew into a larger and larger group talk followed by a trip to Autumn’s place. The evening, in turn, was quieter, with one man, two ladies, and a wandering bug.

2008, April 23, Wednesday
What a rich day it was! A brand new visitor in the morning, and another one in the evening, and each of them clearly tuning in to and contributing to the quest we are in together as a community. Added to that some marathon sessions with Storm and Tara, lessons about how to let it rain in Rieul, and ways to provide roaming bugs.

2008, April 24, Thursday
The morning session was unusually populated and energetic, with no less than five of us gathered around the tea kettle hanging from the ceiling in the tea house. The conversation, too, was unusually broad, ranging from what Being is to aspects of texting culture. The afternoon was quiet, with a single German visitor dropping by. I could tell him that the German translation of the two introductory web pages would soon be up on this blog, and indeed, the next day they would appear. The evening session was relatively quiet, with just three of us chatting.

2008, April 25, Friday
That morning we had successive restarts of the regions we were in, and then SL was down in the afternoon at first, but when we finally got in, we had a great conversation. Dakini gently needled me to talk about my understanding of Being, and I was happy to do so, in both a very short and a somewhat longer version.

2008, April 26, Saturday
That morning, we talked about insecurity and living with open hands, and hitting rock bottom. I mentioned my approach to Being as one of logical devotion, or devotional logic. Prodded again by Dakini, I talked more about my own practice background, and so did several others in our group. That afternoon, I had a profound conversation with Maxine, in Ryoanji, which we then decided to add to the blog as well. The topics were Being and stopping. That evening the discussion touched upon barriers to doing the 9-sec practice.

2008, April 27, Sunday
That afternoon was one of the first times that I could not attend a PaB session, since I was in an airplane, out of internet contact. It was fascinating for me to later read the blog entry that Storm had kept and commented. In it I read how he and others discussed the conversation that Maxine and I had had, the previous day. Seeing this community circle closing that way touched me deeply. Caledonia at the end made some great remarks about freedom of choice in the face of habits, and about replace the notion of journey by being in the moment. Finally, during the evening session, nobody came, and so I took the time to reflect on how I got here to Rieul, copying some of the conversations I had with Dakini, the first day we met.