Dreaming – 15th Day

At meditation at the zen retreat, it occurred to me that maybe I should turn some of these recent questions around and see what they look like:
Who does not let go of the self?
Who does not let go of things (possessions)?
Who lets emotions get in the way?
Who allows “self” to get in the way of living compassionately

27. BrM. Seeing. Compassion. Self. Suffering. …just seeing these here together for some unrelated reason is recalling “Faith, Hope and Love but the greatest  of these is Love”   Compassion/Love

26. BrM. Am I NOT seeing WHAT I need to let go of The self? things?

25. Focusing Am I NOT seeing how my emotions are getting in the way?

24. BrM. Am I NOT seeing how my mind is not letting go?

23. BrM. The self gets in the way of living compassionately

22. BrM. What am I NOT seeing?

21. Focusing. nothing now. just getting back

[break for 1 pm session and RL activities; discussion with Stim]

20. Focusing. what am I not seeing?

19. Focusing. The happy birds are gone and in their place waves of colro. This may just be a sign that I am very tired.

18. Focusing. I see happy birds singing….are they from the Cinderella movie? Maybe I need help with the multitasking

17. BrM. Multitasking in RL. Just a pause-not thoughts

16. Focusing. PaB and SL are more interesting than the things I am putting off in RL right now

15. Focusing. What am I not seeing?

14. Focusing. ? not seeing ? I do not see the blood flowing in my veins. I do not see the thoughts in my head. I do not see my life line on earth…only what has happened so far. Death. There is a Clancy Brothers song, which is sung about a funeral and notes that with every passing, we are moving closer to the front of the line. I do not see where I am in the line. But I do know that I am alive this day. I have been forgetting that thought in the morning for the past few days. I do not see what will be after my death.

13. Focusing. Feeling the breath gently leave my body

12. Focusing. I am not seeing where this is all taking me

11. Focusing. time passing very quickly today

10. BrM. The breathing meditation routine always takes a bit more concentration on the routine itself. The mind has less chance to be active. What am I NOT seeing that is between me and my original goals?

9. BrM. The purpose of all this effort really comes down to being a better person and to reduce one’s own unhappiness and discontent. These two goals overlap but are different too.

8. Focusing. Finished reading through the newly posted logs. I am thinking that my mind is being a little lazy or that it is not staying focused on what I have learned so far. It forgets that I am part of a larger entity. Is it possible to live life just thinking of ourselves as a part of the whole rather than individuals? Does this larger entity have anything to do with Being? Is that part of dropping the “I”?

7. Focusing. catching up on the logs. this is a break from that. no thoughts.

6. Focusing. my mind still seems to be at rest

5. BrM. What am I still NOT seeing? Is the dream relevant to the question?

[break for 7 am PaB session where we discussed my dream. I wasn't prepared to say what I thought about it]

4. Focusing. nothing

3. Focusing. nothing

2. Focusing. nothing…mind resting

1. BrM. Always easier to start out with the breathing.

* * * * *

There were a good number of hits yesterday and I am a bit concerned because I feel as if I was very muddled in my thinking yesterday. It is too bad because I began being more mindful of the larger entity.

In some ways I feel as if I have been on a wonderful, two and a half week retreat and need to get back to life–I have things that need tending– but I am having trouble leaving. There may be two reasons. 1) I think I have an unresolved question that I must answer first. 2) I may be afraid of losing what I have learned if I do not stay engaged. Still it has been pointed out to me that this is a long process and I must find some kind of sustainability.

The Dream

It has been a very long time since I last remember dreaming and even longer since I remembered a dream vividly enough to write it down. It is rare when I am awakened suddenly from an interesting dream. This one takes place in Second Life and in PaB. I remember sitting around in a big circle with many other AVs, much like the area in front of the Zen Retreat tea house. I do not remember what was said, if anything.

The meeting ended and I was wandering around. In a clearing surrounded by trees were two gods who were powerful magicians. In appearance they looked like guardians or kings from a Buddhist Pentad or Septat. Although frightening in appearance and very powerful, these gods were very gentle and I felt very safe in their presence. I remember feeling a sense of belonging.

The gods were engaged in a friendly contest to see which was the most powerful. They asked me if I would be the judge. The first test was American baseball: the one god chose to be a pitcher and the other the batter. They wrote scripts to make a batter and pitcher, modeled after real life professional players. The one god, who had the pitcher, was dominating. I began to think this was unfair because, if all is equal, a good pitcher always has an advantage over a good batter because the pitcher knows what he is throwing. So I began to feel sorry for the god who had the batter and told the pitcher god that this was not a fair contest. This created a bit of a bond between that batting god (who had been losing) and myself.

They began a new contest to build a complex of structures. Like a 19c Beaux-Arts competition, there was a list of items to include in the complex. I only remember two – a bathroom and a temple. They set out to build their complexes inside big boxes and I set there, watching their movement, just as we see in SL sometimes when we are to far away to rezz a person. I get a little confused here but I think there was a first version and then a correction to a second version for the beginning of the next part. [This often happens to me in dreams, almost like my sub-conscious is working out something]. In the first version I needed to go to the bathroom and asked the batter god if I could use his. In the second version, the god, who had been the batter in the first contest, wanted to show off his temple to me. I entered the door of the box and saw the temple. As I was about to enter the temple, the god’s female consort, who happened to be passing by, saw me, got jealous, and rudely ejected me high into the air to a spot about 15 yards away. I remember sitting there… with sticks and leaves in my hair, my clothes torn, sitting in an undignified position, and thinking “she didn’t have to do that. I was no threat to her. I just wanted to look at the temple”. I began plotting revenge on the goddess but then I was awakened from the dream.