Sipirtual evolution

[scott snedeker]

I recently enjoyed a spiritual evolution the nature of which required changing my faerie name from Ash Phoenix to Forrester Tongpa Nyi.

The former represented the death and rebirth of a tired spirit long overdue for transition.

Forrester represents my sylvan mature Buck Satyr nature while the Tongpa Nyi is from Tibetan meaning "ethereal ephemeral ubiqutitous uncluttered infinite spaciousness nature of awareness" or more simply and inaccurrrately put ..."emptiness"

I have come to understand that tongpa nyi applies to many aspects of life. Letting go of past moments to experience the present. and as the present moment becomes the past letting go of it empying my atttachment to let in the next present moment.

It also means staying hungry, not eating to end hunger but rather eating to live, because hunger never goes away or ends by eating. To attempt such only causes obesity and suffering by myself and the others who are denied basic need for food because of my excess.


I recognize the various personalities that inhabit my awareness. These compete for dominance

These may more properly may be thought of as sections of a river. There are calm sections, rapids waterfalls etc The river exists and yet it is intangiable and never the same from moment to moment.

In my life I am aware of personas. It is through my awareness that I can end the competiton and resultant attachment and suffering.

As an adolescent I would run naked throught the forest. I felt safe and aware of the forest spirit protecting me within its sanctuary. Even as a young child of seven, I would wander miles through dense forest without getting lost. I call this spirit the Forest Faun.

As a teen-ager through my mid 20's I was in the closet and generally false, I call this one Sneaker.

As a mature adult I came out and was a physician and Gay rights activist. who sacrificed his joy. I call this one Dr Snedeker, the abused martyr-mind.

After my first experience living in a radical faerie commune, I killed the last two within by spiritual immolation and became Ash. Ash was starting over with no past to attach to. Looking back this was my first experience with the concept of Tongpa-Nyi ( Even though I had never heard of the term).

Forrester Tongpa-nyi represents my evolution toward Moment to moment awareness and joy. I feel a stronger sense of self and yet much more aware of no-self more specifically I don't see defining boundaries illustrating my beginning and my end as my awareness is focussed elsewhere.

[Victoria]

As a multiplicity, I enjoy your awareness of selves... We wonder, however, what you mean by Killed? We can see, in the context you use it, as a transformation... however, too often people use the word "kill" as if it meant "destroy"... When that which has been made cannot be un-made... only changed -> transformed...

Mostly... I guess that outside of that one word, we would have seen the rest as Beautiful, the first time through ~smiles~

It's just a concept that many people with Dissociative Identity Disorder have, and most therapists, etc, don't really have a base to work from, in understanding that, if someone with DID want's to be a "single person", they have to ~transform~ parts, and adding them into the "whole", in order to "be like normal people"... too many shrinks and stuff tell them to "get rid of" their alters, which causes them too much suffering to even ~imagine~ such an impossible chore (except where I've noticed some lie to themselves, saying they "got rid of that part" only to have it resurface again later, angry)...

Sorry to disrupt anything, It's just something I've been trying to explain to my mother, because she told me I have to "get rid of" my dragon... just so she can feel "safe"... as if he would ever hurt anyone, anyways... and as if I actually could do what she was asking ~lol~

[Victoria]

Now I recall why... Often the word "kill" is used to describe an act of violence, an ~end~... where in place of how you said it, I'd have said "rebirth", another ~beginning~ =)

[Gennee]

Sounds like you had a very interesting and life changing experience. You tocuched on something that still resonates with me to this day. As a child I wondered through the forest. I wasn't afraid because I always knew where i came from. I stayed out for hours. It was a liberating experience being one with nature.

Gennee

[scott snedeker]

Genee, The spirit of the forest was my first perception of the awareness of life energy. I can never characterize it but I sense, as you did, that it indeed is there.


Victoria, By "Killing" The Sneaker and Dr Snedeker personas using spiritual immolation I was not employing violence but a compassionate euthanasia.

These personas were not fearful of dying, in fact each had a very strong death wish. Their fear was also ameliorated by the Knowledge that some part of their awareness that survived the first series of immolations would be put to rest by subsequent exercises and overwritten with new experiences.

This "emptying" and "No-self" frees the awareness to experience fresh new moments without the attachment to lingering mortal psychological wounds.

Victoria, Your question is too valuable IMO to keep in my private message, so I am posting it to the thread from which it was provoked.

Originally Posted by Victoria

Have you ever been diagnosed with DID/MPD? Or did you come to your understanding of selves apart from Psychology?

Because it could be really awe inspiring for people ~with~ DID, who are trapped in a system of psychiatry and drugs that suppresses wounded selves, rather than assist them towards healing transformations, to see how a ~healthy~ system functions...

It just goes with an idea I've been working on...

I have never been diagnosed with DID or MPD.

Contemporary psychology is helpful in establishing self identity perhaps but it lacks any method of mental exercise through daily practice, guide, or training of the conscious mind.

The conscious mind is an astonishingly potent resource for freeing other levels of awareness from the suffering that resulted from past abusive operant conditioning. IMO.

DID and MPD are labels. Labels can be used constructively or they can indulge self-injury.

My best use of contemporary psychology is to connect my western manner of thinking to the vastly advaned, thoroughly developed science of the mind that is Buddhism.


Practicing Buddhism is like Picking up Piano. You must have a strong pursuing tenacious desire in order for the discipline to cultivate your conscious mind effectively.

But like an talented pianist can move crowds with his/her muse, A person pracicing Buddhism can potently evolve his/her conscious mnd out of suffering.

The only belief required is that:

1) your mind exists as an awareness.

2) that this awareness can be developed to evolve by following study of
the Eight-fold path, with meditation and action.

The rest is learning by doing

[Gennee]

I have Native-American ancestry (Choctaw). Perhaps that is why I'm home with nature the way that I am.


Gennee

[Victoria]

Originally Posted by scott snedeker

Contemporary psychology is helpful in establishing self identity perhaps but it lacks any method of mental exercise through daily practice, guide, or training of the conscious mind.

The conscious mind is an astonishingly potent resource for freeing other levels of awareness from the suffering that resulted from past abusive operant conditioning. IMO.

DID and MPD are labels. Labels can be used constructively or they can indulge self-injury.

Thank you =)

When I tried explaining that, although using my own wording, and in a different way, to the psychiatrist that blue papered me recently ("committed")... he chose not to understand me, and to view that as proof of the "psychosis" I supposedly have, that my abusive ex-wife invented during my divorce, and my brother jumped on the bandwagon with, when I came out about my transgendered identity to him.

I also, long ago, came to the conclusion that the DID/MPD model listed in the DSM was faulty, that being Multiple is Healthy... but not everyone can really see it in themselves as clearly as others... Nor do they ~need~ to, in order to live a happy, healthy, fulfilling life... Especially since, for me, it was the extreme abuse I suffered that separated... ~tore apart~... my "selves" so definitively in the past... but now we have a very loving, sharing, relationship that just keeps growing stronger and more loving, and, day to day, no one outside my head can even tell the difference anymore unless I ~show~ them ;-)

It's nice to have outside verification of what I already know and understand, in a wide variety of ways... I gain the confidence in my own self that I lost along the way... and now need to protect myself and my daughter ~smiles~

[scott snedeker]

If you meditate regularly you can use your conscious mind to explore other levels of awareness that are suffering. This is not a "fixing myself" expedition but connecting your conscious thought to many subconscious feelings and integrating them until their power is disipated.

Don't resist the value judgements with aversion or assention but acknowledge them. Name each one softly over and over until it morphs into something else, then name that too. Give each one a number like the top ten tunes and then acknowledge "Oh here is # 3 on my value judgement hit parade again." Bow to it. Acknowledge it. Name it. remember the origin from where it developed and then feel compassion for the little boy or teen or young adult self that developed this "Sankara" (Sanskrit defining the above).

Expand your awareness around the feelings. You may find strong aversion and fear to performing this awareness expansion. Let them permeate you and flow through you and over you. Then expand your consciousness further by toying with feelings that may not obviously fit. Compassion, anger, superiority, appreciation, death wish, vertigo, fear etc. Observe which of these stirs the mind.

Then connect these feelings to the concept of Tongpa Nyi. The ethereal connectedness to all matter/energy substance as your soul is part of this fabric without distinct boundaries. You soul is immiscible and properly part of this boundless substance focussed through this lens that is your sankara.

Appreciate your awareness of such and the clearing off the mud off your lens by exercising your capacity to perform this awarness medtation and smile. This is the Buddha Nature!

[scott snedeker]

You wouldn't happen to be a Julie Andrews fan?

[scott snedeker]

Originally Posted by Gennee

I have Native-American ancestry (Choctaw). Perhaps that is why I'm home with nature the way that I am.


Gennee

Strange how I envy those with Native American Blood by their connection to The spirit of the forest. I have a friend Timothy White Eagle with whom I have shared a physical and spiritual relationship. He takes this connection a bit for granted, (I Guess it is a given) While I bathe in it's wonder.

Another is a young Latino fella we are entering into our love circle. He is 100% California "dude" with little spiritual

[josey]

Your post is so interesting Scott.

I also am a Tibetan Buddhist.

I have always wanted that feeling with oneness in nature. One day my guru explained my transcendental experience to me, which no other teacher had, and it rather put me on a high. I was out in my garden getting ready to weed, and I loved everything so much that I had a hard time desiring to even kill a weed by pulling it. And then I told myself to snap out of it. That may have been the wrong thing to do. But I don't know if you could call it oneness with nature, just a deep love for it.

I haven't used meditation enough to explore like you have. I wouldn't know how to explore other levels. Sometimes I have used meditation to get answers to things that are bothering me, and that is helpful.

[Victoria]

Scott... do you have any Gaelic ancestry? They, too, have a close connection with Nature, before Christianity came their way... and even after, for awhile...

Go back far and enough, and we ~all~ do. It's in our Roots =)

Rather than long for something someone else has, but tell yourself that you don't... Maybe you just have to ~believe~ it, to notice it... ;-)

[BrianB]

Originally Posted by Victoria

Scott... do you have any Gaelic ancestry? They, too, have a close connection with Nature, before Christianity came their way... and even after, for awhile...

Go back far and enough, and we ~all~ do. It's in our Roots =)

Rather than long for something someone else has, but tell yourself that you don't... Maybe you just have to ~believe~ it, to notice it... ;-)

What you said struck me in a new way. You could say that it's in our DNA. All life as we know it has DNA. As I understand it all the diversity of life occurs in about ten percent of the DNA. Which means ninety percent is the same. That is a very close connection with nature if you ask me. Most people just don't take the time to feel the connection.