BG2013 - The Boulder Conference Discussion

Jeweled self-dribbling basketballs may be spotted by the careful observer.


Russell, Mike, Daniel Ingram


Mike and Laurel


Everyone took cell photos of everyone else taking cell phone photos.


Yay!


Typical hallway hang.

Wonderful, thank you!

p.s. found some reference to machinery elfs and self dribbling basketballs...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_elf

It was wonderful spending time with every one of you who attended the conference. And thanks to the subset of you with whom I shared the rental house: you guys were the best housemates I've ever lived with.

My experience of conferences has always been that the best parts occur in-between presentations and afterward, speaking with people in small groups or individually. This conference was no different. Except that the conversations were even deeper and more wide-ranging this time. And included among these was the brief conversation I managed to have with Gary Weber over lunch. He's always in demand, so it's not easy to wrangle a few minutes of his time. That was very precious.

Now I'll do a few photo postings, beginning this with one: Nadav and Dan Ingram in our favorite restaurant (because it's large and close to UC Boulder) The Sink. And yes, the writing on the wall does say in full ANXIETY CHAMBER.

Dan Ingram prepares to eat a dessert that's nearly bigger than his head. We helped him deal with the excess.

Russell prepares his camera in the foreground. Rod checks his in the back. Colleen and Laurel try to stay out of harm's way.

The battle of the camera phone begins!

My buddy from the intersecting communities of Buddhism and Transhumanism, James Hughes on the left, Abre on the right, and yours truly in the middle. The place, by the way, is a restaurant called Sherpa, the only Tibetan restaurant I've ever been too. (We ate there last year as well.)

More battle of the cameras!

Rod, Russell and Chris in the kitchen of our rental house, dealing with cell phone map (or something). And my selfie shot, showing that my hand is not as steady as I thought.

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT! In complete disregard for the Buddhist precept to Do No Harm, I brazenly blind people with the flash of my cell camera as we all sat amidst the greenery of the backyard drinking beer after a long day of Buddhist Geekery.

Colleen smiles through the painful flash.



Abre smiles while Rod shoulders his burden.



Tom develops laser eyes while Chris sinks into the beer jhana.

A rare serious moment in the anxiety chamber . . .




And more shots at the Tibetan restaurant, with Justin Chapweske (Orasis on KFD) in the red hat.

Shinzen presenting on his favourite subject.

And Russel relaxing...

Gary Weber talks to small groups. Gary's non-dualism resonated with me like a tuning fork. We should discuss his teachings on a separate thread here. I need to compose my thoughts in a separate document first, as there's so much I need to ponder and record before jumping into a discussion that could run rather deep. Let me just say that I give him the highest marks for Realization.

Oops didn't need this post, sorry

Mike, Leigh Braisington didn't talk to us about the beer jhana. I need access to that one!! Chris really seems to have it down in that picture.

By the way. This view accompanied us the entire time.

One of Tom's famous readings.

The phenomenology of the beer jhana includes the spilling of drinks, and the jumping in laps.

Hah. What about #nofilter ? Abre was deep in #nofilter samadhi

How wonderful to be able to see moments of you all bonding at the conference!

Thank You to everyone for posting the pics

Looks like an outstanding experience! I hope to be able to attend in the future. Looking at these pictures and postings, I'm struck by the desire to be more involved in this online community, I just don't often feel like I have much to say. I am curious about how the discussion veered into descriptions of the DMT experience, and it would be great to see a separate Gary Weber thread. I love his blog, (I'm particularly fond of the elephant and rider analogy), and am curious to hear others' thoughts about him.

Christopher Adams wrote: I am curious about how the discussion veered into descriptions of the DMT experience,

The people who we rented the house from were both authors and had 1000's of very odd books around. One of them was on the subject of DMT, so we started talking about it. It turned into a very interesting conversation, although I do not believe anyone there had ever tried it.

Christopher Adams wrote: and it would be great to see a separate Gary Weber thread. I love his blog, (I'm particularly fond of the elephant and rider analogy), and am curious to hear others' thoughts about him.

He was interesting for sure. Most of my longer conversations with him were about business related stuff. However, experientially from what he describes, he does seem to be a bit of an outlier with his current state of what he says is no thought or emotions. Abre and Mike may be able to chime in, because I know they spent a fair bit of time talking about his practice and experiences with them.