19. APAPB. A rephrasing from this afternoon’s PaB session: Appreciate the presence of clutter as a hug from Being. Now there is something to help me live a better life 
18. F. pause. Look deeply and the smile is still there
17. F. Feeling some fatigue now. Off to a very good start with this phase. Count some breaths
16. F. pause after intense session. hated to stop..was skimming along. Just looking
15. F. Too much smiling out the window, it’s time to stop again
14. F. pause. First notice I am tired and a little sore from stretching over two computers. When I think about it I realize I have been working more intensely than I was this morning when one part was looking at the images with appreciation.
13. APAPB. I appreciate myself as an appearance of the presentation of Being
12. F. pause. Try to remember!
11. F. pause. I stop and think about Patrul Rinpoche.
10. F. pause. Progress interrupted by construction. (They are working in our space today and tomorrow). Martha is very annoyed but Mary is still calm.
9. F. stop. What fun that was. Looking at Mayan stairways and platforms. To London and to Istanbul…looking at images of architecture and listening to Russian liturgical music. Martha and Mary together. Martha working. Mary smiling. Martha looking and appreciating Mary smiling. Mary smiling while appreciating Martha working. Can this last?
8. F. Time to stop. In RL starting on the last big task of the current project. Funny, since getting to this stage I have felt immensely tired. Of course, it has been a rich morning and I would rather be sitting smiling than working. It is good to remember I can still sit smiling while working. I turn on the mindfulness clock and tighten my seat belt. Here we go, Martha driving and Mary looking out the window smiling. (Crimey, that’s why we look back at the golden days of childhood, isn’t it. We could be Mary all day)
7. Pema also sent me this http://www.sealevel.ns.ca/patrul/ which he compared to a blog:
“Your mind is spinning around
About carrying out a lot of useless projects:
It’s a waste! Give it up!
Thinking about the hundred plans you want to accomplish,
With never enough time to finish them,
Just weighs down your mind.
You’re completely distracted
By all these projects, which never come to an end,
But keep spreading out more, like ripples in water.
Don’t be a fool: for once, just sit tight.”
—Patrul Rinpoche (1808-1887)
6. Gr. Yes, very much so. and I am grateful I get the chance to be Mary and Martha too. Here I must add a quote from Pema from an email he sent in response to me sending what I had written below. If we can only hold to the picture of Mary smiling while we are being Martha.
“We all are both Martha and Mary, not only at different times in our
life, but in fact every day, and if we observe really carefully,
every moment! Can you try to see that? In the middle of Martha
slaving away at a tasks, Mary is sitting next to her, smiling,
silently keeping in mind the lesson learned. And in the middle
of Mary enjoying the relaxation of a stroll or a drink or a PaB
session or some good music, Martha is sitting next to her, inspired
by Mary, spontaneously doing just what needs to be done at that
moment, in a minimal way. “ – Pema Pera
5. This morning I was chatting with Eliza about the path analogy. I mentioned the fact that I had passed a “point of no return” and that I had changed a good bit in the past year. yet I was living the same life, dealing with the same issues. then Pema’s movie analogy popped into my head and I understood a bit of what was happening.
Adams Rubble: We are actors who are in the same play but we know more about our lines (what they mean)
3. TGT. I have the luxury this morning of blogging before I set off on my way. It is a warm, muggy morning an d I am hardly noticing the elements. It is enough to be alive. Strangely I remember being in my parents house after they died and how the life was gone from the house. I am sitting here on my stage; while I live these are my props. The life of the play is never in the props but in the words and actions on the stage. The same play can be held with an elaborate set or a simple set. The play is still the play. I think of watching the first act of the Twelth Night in Second Life; the play was there shining through. I diverge from my point. The thought about how I am part of the life of this house made me smile when I wrote it. While I am alive I touch others. I can do a much better a.t that but at my worst I am still touching. Wow, this is similar to Pema’s movie metaphor and maybe one that speaks to me in a personal way.
2. Last fall when I was working on my very big project and also getting things ready for the fall semester, I pulled out what I recognized as a former self who took charge and got the work done at the cost of me going backwards in my “practice”. Looking back that seems like a story to me now and I am able to take it lightly. However, much the same thing is happening to me except I am doing the tasks in a different order and have another one on top of that. I do not feel that a former self has emerged but the effect is the same. Did I self-diagnose completely wrong last fall? Is this related to the dream which seems pretty meaningless right at the moment?
Last fall I was very much worried about falling backwards. Earlier this year I crossed some point of no return. The voice in me has been stilled and is not standing in my way. Yet I have stagnated some. I believe I have drawn the lessons I can from my explorations. I am not sure there are too many more angles to look at myself. Somewhere deep I know that I need to look more away from myself. I need to oipen my heart and look at the world. What am I waiting for?
I have been thinking a great deal about the upcoming retreat. This morning I thought of it terms of Mary and Martha and Christ’s visit to their house. At the recent PaB session where this was discussed I said “when the master speaks, we need to listen”. I am Martha in that I am in the kitchen keeping things going while the good little Marys are going to the retreat. I am envious of Mary. I am feeling guilty about not going and feelings of envy; I feel I am being left behind. Is it possible there a time to be Mary and a time to be Martha? Someone has to be Martha; might it be better to take turns? That would be Love.
1. Last night I dreamed many things which I am a bit embarrassed about because there are things I am opposed to. Some of things were suggested by things I read yesterday.
I was an very wealthy archaeologist who was working in Africa. I belived that the Egyptians or related cultures had existed in the jungles of Africa and so I was digging around in the area of the upper Nile. I was rich and so I had many camps and went from camp to camp. There were slaves taking care of my every whim. For some reason I was transfered to the Americas. I protested because I didn’t know anything about archaeolgy there. There were forests with very big trees and there were twelve camps. There was a Native American girl who served all the camps. I arrived and deliberately went to a different camp than the one I knew she was watching. I was cleaning my gun and shot myself in the gut. Somehow someone found me and called the Indian girl and she nursed me carefully bacck to health.
