The Roshi Gets Possessed

 So it was a normal day at the office for the Roshi.  So many Zen students who come in an bow before him/her and tell them about this or that, how they have figured this or that out, what the buddha is and how proud they are to have figured it all out.  And for each one, the Roshi smiles, and rings his/her little bell and politely reminds them about its sort of not about figuring it out or explaining, or understanding, but its really difficult to convey that, so sometimes he/her get a little short with the students.  But they don't mind, they are good little students and this is all part of the training.  Or so I'm told.  

Anyway, one one day there was a humming in his/her ear and as he started to move his/her body was captured in a weird contortion, staining up with his/her neck at an almost uncomfortable angle that soon felt comfortable.  Staining up to reach, respond and make sense for some sort of something he/her realized that there was a voice in his head, and it had probably always been in his/her head.  And the voice was not really him, not really separate from her either.  But it felt strangely comforting, like it was always going to take care of him.  And he felt her body relax.  It was definitely a female voice though.  And although he could not articulate the reason why, it was a very ancient voice.  And it was no different that the voices that guide everything in the world.  And its sort of what he was here for.  What everything was here for.  So many voices. Especially in the early morning.  Especially at night.

And the voice told her alot of things.  About how Western humans have multitudes of these voices in their heads and around them.  And how ancient humans only had a few so it was much easier to deal with.  And how the voices will proliferate into an alchemical crescendo that will collapse in only a few voices.  Never one voice, though, because nature is not really like that.  And those one voice people are kinda boring, or so the spirit told him.  

Then there was another voice and he felt sad she had left. But as he tells his Zen students, its a gift, its not really about your intention.  But intention helps I guess, so that's why we are sitting around here all the time.  

Chronicity and the Sink with the Reverse also being a Thing

 So this synchronicity thing is kinda interesting except when taken to an extreme.  And of course, I remember the extreme being rummaging though strangers cars in Florida and ringing random doorbells in the middle of the night because the people inside had clues to salvation or deliverance from this terrestrial sphere.  Or something like that.  Mother Ayahuasca told me.  And in a way, in a very strange way, if everything is interconnected and related, there is/was something in strangers cars that would be of interest, and "YES" random people could convey interesting information to you\--even in the middle of the night.

This kind of goes along with that book I've been reading Beyond Ayahuasca by Roman Hanis.  In that book there is an interesting story about the author being bitten by all sorts of Amazonian insects while the shaman he was with was seemingly immune from the insects attacks.  The shaman commented that the insects were biting the author because the insects were a part of his education--an education that the shaman did not need.  But it was not so much as an education of the authors mind that was taking place, it was an energetic exchange in much the same way that the plant naturally lifts up to find the sunlight.  The bugs were drawn to the author as part of the irresistible natural force that pervades and governs everything.

So i'm listening to a different podcast on synchronicity.  The "science" of meaningful coincidence.  And there are resonances with my stories above.  Not about a science.  No, its not cause and effect.  But interconnection.  And when one thing happens to you that stays with you, it might be wise to take a step back and explore it, maybe you are being diverted in a different direction.  But this is an art, not a science.  And I'm no artist.  I do have a bit of anxiety which would keep me from taking that step back and exploring though.  

So this author of synchronicities name is Sky Nelson Issacs are something like that.  And he recounts a story of being nervous for a presentation, car breaking down, and through a series of interconnected events, doing the presentation with a friendly audience that he had picked up along the way.  And I get what he is saying, we are constantly being pointed in a direction from our growth, much like the plant reaching for the sun.  And everything, everything, even the shit is random cars is related to that at some level.  But really Mike, you need to reel it all in just a bit every now and then.  :-)

Parts is Parts

 So I'm wondering about Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy.  And I get how Robert Falconer or his father figure Dick Schwartz likes to engage the parts which supposedly comprise a "self".  And I get how he believes this was a break from traditional therapy where the client was not asked to interact with the so called "voices" in his or her head because they were fictitious or something.  I get all of  that.  And I get how they deal with so called "unattached" burdens, or voices which apparently originate outside the self by moving the voices to elemental energies, fire, water, air, etc.

But there is something not quite right with this.  I think it goes back to my experience a couple of weeks ago that the energy or sensation behind so called "dreams" is the same kind of energy behind our so called "thoughts".  And how, as a mediation practice, I sought to experience reality not from this dream/thought  energy world, but something from the outside in, a phenomenological experience.  And experience from the the "outside" in so to speak as opposed to the inside out (or dreams/thoughts) becoming our reality.

I am not convinced that these parts or voices are the same type of energy as the dream/thought world that for better or worse I'm not focusing on because of their ephemeral nature.  I suppose this puts me on the side of traditional therapy that poo poos the voices inside your head if Falconer's version of "traditional" therapy is accurate.  

What is interesting though is this elemental energy business that the unattached burdens are directed to.  There is some resonance I feel in my focus on the outside-in or real would phenomena and these elemental beings or energies.  In some ways, that is what my practice is focused on or trying to interact with.  This is the real outside in so to speak.

One part elemental, one part energy.  Both making their way through the portal.