bruce's blog

Sitting - recognising bare attention. It lights up. (Samadhi is prajna). Asking, who - not so much to get an answer, but to cut off the possibility of getting lost in identity with passing thoughts. Tung- Shan says "Just avoid seeking from others, Or you will be estranged from yourself. I now go on alone; I meet Him everywhere - I am not it, but it is all of me. One must understand this way In order to unite with thusness"   The freedom of not taking thoughts - or any of the machinery of consciousness - not to be self - is the doorway to being at large.      

To the degree that struggle and tension exist in a personality, the various aspects of consciousness will be at odds with one another. You who are unaware of the meaning of the struggle are trying to identify with one or several of these aspects of consciousness without knowing what the true self is, where it is located, or how it can be found in this maze of discord. You wonder if you are your best qualities, or if you are your over-severe conscience which annihilates you for your negative traits. Or are you perhaps the destructive demon within you? Which is your best self? Is it your rage at the demon in you or your total negation of its existence? Whether individuals know it or not, this inner struggle and search is ongoing, and the more conscious the struggle is, the better. Any path of self-development must sooner or later come to terms with these questions — with the deep problem of self-identity.

IFS seems to be expanding now, lots of practitioners and trainings and a certain "hey this works" buzz gathering around it. I can't remember how I heard about it, but I'm very glad I did. I've always been interested in therapies which employ the concept of "parts", "subpersonalities", "ego states", but have never felt I got beyond a certain point with the concept. IFS has, so far, proven to be the missing key I needed. It takes parts therapy past anything else I've tried for dynamic psychological self discovery and healing.

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  Gustato spiritu, desipit omnis caro.  A quote from St John of the Cross (Once I taste of the spirit, all carnal things become meaningless.)

And none contented: sometimes am I king;
    Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,
    And so I am: then crushing penury
    Persuades me I was better when a king;
    Then am I king'd again: and by and by
    Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
    And straight am nothing: but whate'er I be,
    Nor I nor any man that but man is
    With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased
    With being nothing.

  

Richard 11 Act 5 Scene 5

  

When you cant allow things to be the way they are, you cant be response-able for the way things are, When you cant be response-able for the way things are, you have no space When you have no space you destroy the capacity to be creative It is in creating that true independence lies (after Werner Erhard)