08.25.2011 - Structure and Stillness

Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Someone please talk to us about "structure."
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Hi Zen :)
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): yeah, that's it, Aph.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Hey, Zen.
FcSeeker: Hi Zen
Aphrodite Macbain: Hello Zen.
Aphrodite Macbain: Can youanswer my question: How does everyone else keep their thoughts silent?
Zen (zen.arado): Hi all sorry for lateness
FcSeeker: you dont hear me to think :))))(?)
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): I don't -- nor do I try to.
Aphrodite Macbain: what do you do to stop the chatter?
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Give a seat to all the speakers.
Aphrodite Macbain: But they will take over!
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): William Burroughs had a little aphorism...."Wipe away the words and look" or something like that
Aphrodite Macbain: drop the words?
Aphrodite Macbain: easy to say
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): If I notice everything around me, and participate in what's going on, then my internal monologue usually shuts up :)
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): There is stilla part of you that is silent --- and can watch the chatter from that meta-position.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): There is no attempt to shut the voices up -- just to observe them.
Zen (zen.arado): yeh aagree with Bruce
Aphrodite Macbain: Then I can never get a silence in edgeways
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): No matter how "crazy" I become, there is still part of me that is sane and can watch all the craziness.
Zen (zen.arado): anyone look at my report?
Aphrodite Macbain: which one Zen?
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): direct us to iut, please, Zen.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): it*
Aphrodite Macbain: where is it?
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): http://waysofknowing.kira.org/3Reports/Zen_Arado/Report_103
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): This is it :)
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): TY!
Samúð (oo0oo): ty
Zen (zen.arado): I put some Eckhart Tolle quotes on stillness
Zen (zen.arado): you can that entire book free on the web
Aphrodite Macbain: Thanks Zen.
Aphrodite Macbain: So what I am searching for is that inner stillness. How can I find it if I allow all that chatter?
Zen (zen.arado): the first one reminds me of pab 9 sec practice
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Bruce loves: "You are that awareness, disguised as a person."
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Watch things...and participate in what you see
Zen (zen.arado): lok for it underneath the chatter Aph?
FcSeeker: the inner stillness exist if it exist no matter if chatter or not
Zen (zen.arado): yes Fc
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): good point, Fc.
Zen (zen.arado): we cover it up
Zen (zen.arado): it's always there
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): and we identify with it.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): I mean the chatter -- not the silence.
Aphrodite Macbain: Aphrodite Macbain wonders whether stillness IS my essential nature. I never stop moving
Zen (zen.arado): your outer self keeps moving
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Yes, stillness is your essential nature.
FcSeeker: it has nothing to do either with if you move or not...
Zen (zen.arado): it stays the same
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): No need to fight the moving, though.
Aphrodite Macbain: mentally as well as physically
Aphrodite Macbain: those busy thoughts
Zen (zen.arado): the same impermanence
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Sure.
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Well...I think this kind of silence doesn't have to be completely quiet; and this kind of stillness comes easily for me when I'm engaged in doing something without feeling the need to do anything
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): ;-)
Aphrodite Macbain: Yes, I recognize that Ataraxia
Aphrodite Macbain: when I'm in the garden or writing
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): I think maybe it's closer to not feeling a need to say anything; not feeling a need to do anything. Just allowing everything to be, and doing what feels genuine
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): :)
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): great point, Aph.
Aphrodite Macbain: or walking
Arisia Vita: Maybe the best kind of friend is the kind you can sit on a porch and swing with, never say a word, and then walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you've ever had.
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Yes :)
Zen (zen.arado): yes Ari
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Yes, Atari, and isn't that a lot easier if one breathes through the heart -- or perhaps just through the entire body - rather than running all of it through the mental processes?
Aphrodite Macbain: I find inner stillness when I am in nature
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Oh yes.
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Yes, Bruce
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Me too, Aph.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): But nature can be very noisy and violence, you know.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): violent*
Zen (zen.arado): is complete stillness scary?
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): You are ALWAYS in nature, Aph.
Aphrodite Macbain: Yes. But the stillness is within me
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Complete stillness?
Zen (zen.arado): we don't seem naturally to like it
Aphrodite Macbain: complete stillness = death for me
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Bruce wonder hows he would know "complete stillness" if he qwere to encounter it.
Zen (zen.arado): we always seem to want action and noise
Zen (zen.arado): yes
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): I feel that way, too, Aph...but I think it can be good to slow down, too
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Before you arrived, Zen, I said that modern society is so over-stimulated that we're approaching mass insanity.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): action and noise.
Zen (zen.arado): I have been experimenting sitting quietly in the sun thsi week
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): :)
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Please say more.
Zen (zen.arado): yes Bruce :)
Aphrodite Macbain: how has it been Zen. this enforced rest?
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Bruce listens.
Zen (zen.arado): felt like I wasted an afternoon :)
Zen (zen.arado): didn't get anything accomplished
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Sometimes that's a good feeling! :)
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): doing doing doing doing doing doing doing
Zen (zen.arado): it is so unnatural for me
Zen (zen.arado): yes
Zen (zen.arado): same as Aph
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): being being being being being being
Zen (zen.arado): I usually at least read something
Zen (zen.arado): is it our conditioning?
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Bruce tries to listen better.
Zen (zen.arado): or our fear?
Zen (zen.arado): or what?
Aphrodite Macbain: something about accomplishing something
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): I enjoy just lying down, sometimes...but it doesn't usually occur to me as an option, not doing
Zen (zen.arado): society frowns on idleness
Aphrodite Macbain: work work work
Zen (zen.arado): what's that saying about the devil and idleness?
Aphrodite Macbain: bwe be be
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): produce produce produce produce produce
Aphrodite Macbain: idle hands...
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): The devil works through idle hands?
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): (insanity)
Zen (zen.arado): make mischief?
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): ;-)
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): YES!~
Aphrodite Macbain: something like that
Zen (zen.arado): something like that :)
Zen (zen.arado): snap
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Ah; The devil finds work for idle hands :)
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): ;-)
Zen (zen.arado): yeh that's it Vilet
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): The devile is a projection of our own sense of gvuilt.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): devil*
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): guilt*
Zen (zen.arado): achievers are revered too
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): ;-)
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): I'm still thinking about "structure."
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): and wondering about Aph's questions.
Aphrodite Macbain: hu?
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): yu.
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Bertrand Russell wrote an essay encouraging idleness...but it hasn't quite caught on yet
Zen (zen.arado): Violet introduced structure
Zen (zen.arado): what did you mean by that Vi?
Zen (zen.arado): he he
Aphrodite Macbain: structure can allow for group silence
Zen (zen.arado): we build false structures
Aphrodite Macbain: sitting in a meditative postue can be a structure for personal silence
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Yes, there are a few ways they overlap...that's one of them
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): I think silence can free us from structure, too
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): listening to a bell can be a structure.
Zen (zen.arado): mental structures
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): doing a mantra can also be a structure.
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Yes
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): devotion to a guru can be a structure.
Zen (zen.arado): silence is unstructured?
Aphrodite Macbain: not necessarily
Zen (zen.arado): just naked unadorned awareness?
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): It's not for me, Zen.
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): I think silence is open...
FcSeeker: agrees
Zen (zen.arado): we use a structure to get to it?
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Not chaotic, but not bound to any form
Samúð (oo0oo): Samúð nods
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): "open"
Aphrodite Macbain: to protect us from noise?
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): "winde open"
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): "wide"*
Zen (zen.arado): it is golden too :)
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): :)
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): ;-)
FcSeeker: living peace which responds when something activates it
FcSeeker: what ever
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): anything can activate it.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): if we are ready and receptive.
FcSeeker: think not...
Zen (zen.arado): what's left after we drop everything else?
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): and open.
Samúð (oo0oo): neither 'this' nor 'that'
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Everything else :)
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): oh yes.
Zen (zen.arado): yes indefinable
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): neither preference nor prejudice.
Zen (zen.arado): that's us creating structure
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Mm
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): (nice ideas -- but they require internalization)
FcSeeker: depends on the strength of the stillness...
FcSeeker: the more strong, the more there's needed to be purpose that 'it' responds
Zen (zen.arado): what do you think of ET's quote "Do you need more knowledge? Is more information going to save the world, or
 faster computers, more scientific or intellectual analysis? Is it not wisdom that
 humanity needs most at this time?"
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): My "strengths" are still uinder construction.
Aphrodite Macbain: how do we gain wisdom Zen?
Zen (zen.arado): should we stop gathering knowledge?
FcSeeker: why ?
Aphrodite Macbain: we should never stop asking why and how and who and where?
Zen (zen.arado): he says it in the next quote
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): We shouldn't stop gathering knowledge, but we should make sure we're seeking understanding
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): impossible for either individual or society to stop gathering knowledge. . . but wisdom is needed to know what to do with it -- and HOW to live with it.
Zen (zen.arado): "But what is wisdom and where is it to be found? Wisdom comes with the ability to
 be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and
 listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct
 your words and actions."
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Mm, Bruce
FcSeeker: maybe 'who' and 'where' are not always important, but imo 'why' is always important
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): how do I live with the information that millions of people are starving in Somalia?
Zen (zen.arado): so we attain wisdom by doing nothng basically?
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): This upsets my "stillness."
Aphrodite Macbain: I need the information to find out how I can act appropriately
Aphrodite Macbain: togive what is truly needed
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): I don't read that as doing nothing, so much as watching everything
FcSeeker: giving what we can give
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): being what we can be.
Aphrodite Macbain: learning what we can learn
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): I AM a starving child.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): There is no separation. . .
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): That's what meditating can tell us.
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Mm.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Separation is a mental process ---
Zen (zen.arado): maybe he is saying we worship knowledge too much
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): but perhaps a necessary one.
Aphrodite Macbain: I can sort of identify with a starving child but I cant be her
Zen (zen.arado): should step back and develop wisdom in how to use it more
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): "Call Me By My True Names" -- Thich Naht Hanh.
Zen (zen.arado): yes
Zen (zen.arado): remember the zen story about professor who visits a zen master?
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): please tell us, Zen.
Aphrodite Macbain: which one?
Zen (zen.arado): the Zen master pours tea but keeps on until cup overflows
Zen (zen.arado): he tell the professor 'yu too are too full of your own ideas'
Zen (zen.arado): you have to empty yourself first
Aphrodite Macbain: nods.
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): :)
FcSeeker: ...was a starving being...some times that exepriencing rises 'back' for me to experience it again...have been thinking it that's also something that never goes away for good...
Aphrodite Macbain: we cant truly learn until we admit we know nothing?
Aphrodite Macbain: I'll bet Fc
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Or at least, not until we stop deciding we already know
Zen (zen.arado): or we at least make space for new wisdom
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): no full cups.
Zen (zen.arado): 'knowledge puffs up, love builds up' it says in the bible
Aphrodite Macbain: all of the above
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Corinthians 13.
Zen (zen.arado): yep
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): ;-)
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): :)
Aphrodite Macbain: charity...
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Does anyone wish to share how you bring "stillness" into your life/
Aphrodite Macbain: Aphrodite Macbain listens
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Aph spoke of the garden and nature.
FcSeeker: it just comes ...or not
Zen (zen.arado): or allow it happen
Samúð (oo0oo): it's already there
Zen (zen.arado): meditation primarily
Aphrodite Macbain: where sam?
Zen (zen.arado): yes
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Small chores help me be still...the important thing is just beginning to notice what's going on in the moment
Zen (zen.arado): allow ourselves to experience ?
Samúð (oo0oo): before the where and after the drop Aph
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Being curious
FcSeeker: smiles
Aphrodite Macbain: Aphrodite Macbain looks around
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): :)
FcSeeker: to be curious ...little panda got delight of that though :))))))
Zen (zen.arado): pab 9 sec practice is for that ?
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): :) Fc
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): perhaps the sitllness is the same, but the methods of finding it seems to vary.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): seem*
Zen (zen.arado): coming back to our inner stillness
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): stillness*
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Yes, Bruce
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): yes, Zen.
Zen (zen.arado): inner silliness :)
Aphrodite Macbain: yes Bruce. We each have our ways
FcSeeker: takes a humble bow
FcSeeker: namaste
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Bruce feels his ways of being still are still under construction.
Zen (zen.arado): why do we look for stillness outsied ourselves?
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): :)
Aphrodite Macbain: Aphrodite Macbain hands bruce a hammer
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): ;-)
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Everyone's a work in progress :)
Zen (zen.arado): stillnes construction
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): oh yes.
Aphrodite Macbain: Aphrodite Macbain whispers "hammer quietly"
Zen (zen.arado): tower of stillness
Zen (zen.arado): no it was a tower of babel
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): /mes loves Aph's images of constructing stillness.
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): :)
Aphrodite Macbain: tower of song+ Leonard Cohen song
Zen (zen.arado): is still
Aphrodite Macbain: perhaps, like spiders, we weave webs that contain out quietude
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): I like that, Aph :)
Aphrodite Macbain: silently spinning
Zen (zen.arado): 'at the still point of the turning world'
Aphrodite Macbain: Aphrodite Macbain wonders whether spiders have more personal insight than humans
Zen (zen.arado): watched a sela sitting on a rock testerday
Samúð (oo0oo): discursiveness bounds gleefully toward the borderless, always seeing a destination.. occasionally gone
Zen (zen.arado): it isn't woried about Gadaffi
Zen (zen.arado): seal*
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): or the hurricanes.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): You saw a seal in Northern Ireland?
Zen (zen.arado): oh yes
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): wow!
Zen (zen.arado): there all the time where I live
Zen (zen.arado): the bask on rocks
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): That reminds me of Lanark...
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): ahhhh!
Aphrodite Macbain: Aphrodite Macbain smiles at O
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): "I wish I was a duck on Alexandra Park pond. I could swim, and fly, and walk, and have three wives, and everything I wanted. But I'm a man. I have a mind, and three library tickets, and everything I want is impossible."
Zen (zen.arado): :)
Zen (zen.arado): 'they toil not neither do they spin'
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Bruce is a duck wishing he were a man with three library tickets.
Aphrodite Macbain: we're full of quotes today!
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): :)
Zen (zen.arado): soryy Aph...quotitis
Samúð (oo0oo): overflowing
Zen (zen.arado): serious illness
Zen (zen.arado): :)
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): I'm glad for the quotitis :)
Aphrodite Macbain: me too. They are well selected
Zen (zen.arado): ( have to get them out)
Zen (zen.arado): :)
Samúð (oo0oo): let them flow through
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): :)
Aphrodite Macbain: maybe you can keep a pocket especially to store your quotes Zen
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): We talk about stillness as if it were some sort of ideal state, but I'm sure most of us wouldn't be able to handle severe sensory deprivation fpr very long.
Zen (zen.arado): lke the professor
Aphrodite Macbain: and unbutton it when you need it
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): I keep a huge file full of quotes...I'm always adding to it :)
Zen (zen.arado): need emptied out
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Bruce notes his coffee cup is empty.
Zen (zen.arado): good Bruce
Zen (zen.arado): ready for wisdom:)
Aphrodite Macbain: Yes empty can be a good or a bad thing.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): ;-)
Samúð (oo0oo): anything can have extra added
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): :)
Zen (zen.arado): yes bruce
Aphrodite Macbain: extra can have anything added
Zen (zen.arado): people go mad if they get sensory deprivation
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Folks at the retreat in Halifax noticed that their mosquito bites did not itch when they were meditating....
Zen (zen.arado): they hallucinate
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): (something added when not meditating)
Aphrodite Macbain: before or after they get it back Zen?
Zen (zen.arado): during
Aphrodite Macbain: I suppose the brain needs to be stimulated to stay functioning so it invents its own entertainment
Zen (zen.arado): I rewad that somewhere ..they put people in a water tank at body temperature
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): yes, during, folk seem to need to fill in the emptiness with hallucinations.
Zen (zen.arado): yes
Aphrodite Macbain: the Nazis I think
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Yes, John Lilly's floatation tank
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Before that, "sensory deprivation" was sensory overload...bombardment of sound
Zen (zen.arado): so could we survive stillness?
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080360/
Aphrodite Macbain: for short periods of time. all in moderation
Zen (zen.arado): some people go to slepp when they get too close to stillness during meditation
Samúð (oo0oo): *
Zen (zen.arado): a shutdowm safety mechanism
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Bruce :)
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): isolation chamber = sensory deprivation.
Aphrodite Macbain: Fear of stillness?
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Bruce feels that meditation is NOT an isolation shamber -- just the opposite, in fact.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): chamber*
Aphrodite Macbain: well we have control over how long we meditate
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): People have had similar experiences in floatation tanks...but they have the benefit of controlling the experience, too
Zen (zen.arado): I read somewhere that when you eventually do start to achieve stillness your brain panics and sends you to sleep
Aphrodite Macbain: I must go outside now and buy some plants and wake up
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Forced isolation is just cruel
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): or else you begin to hallucinate.
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): :)
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Be well, Aph
Zen (zen.arado): good Aph :)
Arisia Vita: I must fly too
Aphrodite Macbain: wonder if people in solitary confinement hallucinate
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Did anyone have any thoughts for next week?
Samúð (oo0oo): bye Aph
Arisia Vita: it's been great to be with you all
Aphrodite Macbain: Bye
Aphrodite Macbain: Bye!
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): Be well, Ari :)
Aphrodite Macbain: nice to be with you all
Zen (zen.arado): I was thinking about denial
Zen (zen.arado): denial, acceptance
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): Bye, Aph!
Samúð (oo0oo): i didn't hear that Zen
Zen (zen.arado): and the poem 'The Guesthouse'
Zen (zen.arado): he he
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): I'm going to have to miss next week...but that sounds good, Zen
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): hehe Sam :p
Aphrodite Macbain: Denial would be a good topic for next week
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): http://allpoetry.com/poem/8534703-Th...alaluddin_Rumi
Aphrodite Macbain: 322I'm not sure if I want to be part of it though
Zen (zen.arado): ty Bruce
Zen (zen.arado): :)
Samúð (oo0oo): Samúð waves and thanks everyone for the discussion
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): How about "denial" as next week's topic, then?
Aphrodite Macbain: yes let's
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): cool.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): May all find their own stillness.
Bruce (bruce.mowbray): and be happy with it.
Violet (ataraxia.azemus): :)