Mastery Through Accomplishment: Transformation of Desire

It has been an interesting week. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet someone with the just right stuff to bring me to my own just right moment/self/clarity. There are times when people, places, things or situations apply the right filter for ideas and experiences or memories that brings resolution into your life.

In this instance I made a prayer for a new partner for tantra. Also in this instance, I’ve picked a man who has a personality and an experience with so many key elements that work for me. I feel so safe. It seems that there’s really no factors in this fledging relationship with any cause for turmoil or fear. Its just utterly absent. And one might think that in itself is cause for bolting.

I’ve changed though *grins with dimples*. I don’t feel any overwhelming urge to bolt just because I’m feeling safe. Yay for me!

The result of this situation is that I’ve had time to bring strands of understanding together…

One strand is the understanding that the biggest barrier in my life is a lack of self discipline and a tendency to divert my attention from my goals through investigation of desire.

Now before I go further, I want to make it crystal clear about my viewpoint of discipline and desire is. That’s for me…and its for you as a reader, because understanding these things as I view them is a factor in really getting me about the lessons I’m sharing here.

Discipline, for me, has always been an experience of harshness. Its always with high expectations, ones that are nearly or completely out of my reach. It is always rigid and judgmental and often humiliating….leaving shame in its wake.

Now there is a period of time in adolescence when the external supports for protection, balanced choices and lifestyle and discipline are internalized. Its a natural process…in part a result of puberty being an internal force that drives and brings consequences to a child. They are at an age, when relaxing the rules just enough to let them feel more independant is totally necessary because it gives them the room to make mistakes and learn from them at an age when its relatively harmless outcomes, but carry a painful enough sting that the discipline becomes internalized as a natural result.

Dr Phil’s voice saying dryly, “How’s the working for you…?” to a person doing unruly, foolish things with very poor outcomes…sorta brings the point to bear in a good way. *smiles*

At this time in my life there was a very harsh experience of discipline that turned into a rape.

And was later followed by further sexual abuse.

The outcome of that was that I began to rebel against discipline, no matter where it came from. I learned to curb that, but its always been there inside me. I have struggled with self discipline for my whole life as a result.

Another outcome was that I felt desire during some of those experiences of sex. That is something that most sexual abuse survivors do not speak of freely in general…but the fact is, the body is built to respond to certain types of stimuli and sometimes it does even in horrid circumstances. Its a matter of the nerves doing their job….so I felt intensely humiliated and ashamed of me at a very basic level of my being. I also felt that something beautiful and splendid was stolen from me and my response to that was to seek to claim my feelings of desire and revel in them. But the pendulum swung too far and I frequently felt hurt and dissatisfied…alone and even sometimes further humiliated and disappointed in myself.

The years have passed and like the discipline thing, I learned to deal with myself about it and to make good choices about sex. And I learned to view desire and sex as a holy thing…and expression of heart…which I believe is an expression of soul. So sex is never dirty to me. It is the most holy experience that anyone can share. That it was ever perverted was a crime against me….and any messages that arose from that moment that were filtered through humiliation or shame are simply not true.

Still, these two factors of desire and discipline combined to create a history of under achievement in my life when it comes to some things, such as accomplishing my goals as a writer, which is so very important to me. I am not sure why that is. In other facets of my life, I am incredibly accomplished. I have become an effective healer, a wise spiritual guide, a minister, I have raised three children despite all seemingly insurmountable challenges and they’ve all turned out to be incredible people, I have also learned unconditionally and without fear. That last is the biggest accomplishment of my life except for the legacy of my children.

But in this area of writing and making an abundant living, I have been stifled by this twist of lack of discipline and wildishly indulged desire.

But the strands are coming together thanks to this new tantric partner that I’ve met….and I’ve told you about most of the strands so far.

I mentioned Tantra. Tantra is a spiritual practice that specifically focuses on desire as a path to profound spiritual awareness and wisdom. Desire is considered holy in its light aspect and dissatisfying in its dark aspect. As with so many things in life, it is a rainbow bridge toward wholeness. Sexuality, as an expression of love and life and all that is holy is considered the fast track to getting to spiritual awareness and wisdom….and that the key to this is to add Divine Light to the desire and let the practice unfold…let the experience of deep and fulfilled pleasure, catalyzed by the Divine take one into splendor and grace.

So I have been reading alot of the transformation of desire through Tantric practice. I’m taking the reading very slowly and watching my life unfold…I am watching this new relationship unfold and watching its impacts on me.

Recently we began to express the intense desire we are feeling for each other. And as we have talked, I have gradually become aware of the great mastery he has of his own discipline and of his experience with Tantra and I have been feeling so drawn to studying Tantra with the need to transform this desire that runs me into an inner discipline.

I’ve started talking to him about it and to myself about it. I’ve been writing to myself about it.

Last night I fell asleep and dreamed dreams that brought all these strands together. I feel a deep sense of peace about it all now. I know that the discipline about desire is internalizing for the first time in my life. I realized also that I need the experience of it internalizing to be very gentle…very full of kindness, affirmation and loving. I need it to be internalized with humor and fun and passion. The way it originally should have been internalized.

I had thought that maybe I should force myself to deal with this desire in a very difficult way and that it should come with lots of self denial and all that. I woke today with the knowledge that it should not be done in such a way…and then I went back to sleep again after doing some writing to get the feelings and thoughts out of me where I could look at them.

While I was asleep, I heard a child’s voice wailing in the way that a child does when its heart is utterly broken…I reached out to her and soothed her for the first time and helped her feel safe inside me…that there would be no more hurt about any of this. It would be okay. *smiles* I woke again and this post is what has poured out of me.

 

Mastery Through Accomplishment: Desire

I started to write a post here about desire and include some historical stuff. I thought the better of the history part. The history about this issue in my life is not important to now. The desire I feel in this moment and how its impacting me is. That’s all I need to deal with.

Desire frequently obscures the truth about relationships in my life….whether I desire a chance to have a friendship with someone or want sex or want abundance, I find myself distracted from what’s most important to me to be doing. The most intense type of desire is the kind we usually think of when we use that word…sexual desire, but I just want to point out that sometimes it effects me in other forms too…just not as frequently and it doesn’t do so in a way that diverts my attention from my goals being accomplished.

I have grown exceedingly frustrated with this pattern in my life. I had enough of it and as usual when I’m fed up with myself about something, I start doing things that I wasn’t willing to do before, like let others in on my failures about achieving something and why that is.

One of the things that I’ve been doing about it is to read a book called Introduction to Tantra: The Transformation of Desire by Lama Yeshe. Here’s what Lama Yeshe has to say about transforming desire:

“In Tantric practice the idea is unification of our desires with the Light.”

I could have included a whole chapter on how desire effects us and manifests problems. Yada, yada. It is a good read, but I’m at the cut to the chase level with this, so what you are getting here is the 500 word essay version. Desire distracts me. I can’t think. I can’t seem to resist it.

Well I couldn’t in the past. That’s changing. I have gradually, stopped accepting anything less than what i want from relationships. Not because I’m selfish, but simply because no matter what I do, I cannot make a bad relationship that’s all full of deal breakers that cannot be surmounted okay. I just can’t. I’m not a miracle worker. And what’s more, I dont’ want to be. I just don’t have the energy to make it right. I can’t fix what isn’t going to fit together to begin with, never mind what gets broken through bad behavior and poor choices.

I remember nearly ten years ago now that I was listening to this man who ran a closed spiritual group. He was talking about how he had learned over the years, that the very first time he has a gut clenching moment in the onset of a relationship, he cuts to the chase and walks away. I thought that was damned cold.

Years later, after lots of loss, heart ache and strife in my life…dear God I get his point and I know how he got there too. I’m there. I just don’t want to play games any more with myself. I don’t want to pretend something is okay or that it will work when its not going to…so I just don’t any more.

And I am distracting myself with stuff that’s beside the point. The point is, that my desire to have loving connection in my life has been an important desire to follow. Its led me to wholeness and strength. Its led me to my Buddha nature. it is the single most important thing I could do if I ever want to have my step daughter back in my life. Its the most important thing I can do for myself…to follow my desire.

But it is also not serving me well as a lead in other ways.

Its seriously distracting me. Geez….enough of that already.

So…it says to mix this desire for pleasure with light. Okay…I’m game. Bring it on.

I’ve been doing Creative Visualization and Divine Light Invocation as a part of my regular spiritual preparation for settling in to work on my goals each day. Its helping. I’m making slow progress but I’m doing it at a better rate than before.

The other suggestion is to go at a rate that does not add so much desire it engulfs me….to proceed slowly with it. I’m not sure how I do that, but I have much more to read. *winks*

And there seems to be some new folk showing up in my life who are making pointed suggestions that are helping also. A reader on one of my other blogs has befriended me in the last year and he’s made lots of suggestions about how I can better manage my sexual energy with certain meditations. Yup. That helped tremendously. I’ve gained alot more control of the desire as a result.

I’ve also begun to detach from people who deliberately inflame me. I have begun to detach from situations and reading that make things for difficult for me. That’s helping.

Recently I am befriending someone who will be teaching me more about tantra and I think this is one of the things that we’ll share knowledge about. I am looking forward to his influence in my life. I think that he’ll make me think and that he’ll teach me some discipline through example and loving exchange with me. Those are perfect avenues for me to learn.

Now…I’ve met part of a goal by completing this post tonight. Now I have one more to write and I can go to sleep. *smiles*

 

Mastery Thru Accomplishment: Arnold

“Strength does not come from winning.Your
struggles develop your strength. When
you go through hardship and decide
not to surrender, that is strength.”
- Arnold Schwarzenegger

I’ve been struggling a bit with the getting diverted the past few days. It has proven true that I am stronger for other struggles. I hope that it proves true with this challenge also.

 

Walking the Pipe into No Mind

Yesterday, I republished one of the last two posts from my former blog Defining Spiritual Presence, which was deleted a few months ago. This is the last one. It is the product of meditation time with my pipe and it directly speaks to the struggles I’ve had with the topic of Diverting and the long period of time that I’ve prayed about this issue.

I think now that I needed to get some big self hate/love issues out of the way. Now I have and lack of focus is still in the way, so is a big fear or two….but mostly its the bad habits of too much time on my hands from being ill for so long and the residual habits of self sabotage that were the side effect of a twisted self viewpoint. These things will take forming new habits…but these are the thoughts I once had about it and its a step along the process in which I’ve made relationship with my pipe in the past year….the first year that I’ve carried a pipe. Its a responsibility that I hope I’ve carried with grace.

I have had some moments of power with my pipe and this is one. I did not make note of when this was published originally:

I started my day today in the center of song and pipe smoke…It was my first time filling and smoking a pipe.

I discovered some things today. I discovered that it is hard to smoke the pipe alone. That is a lot of material. I hadn’t expected that.

I discovered that in the center of the smoke is the place of no mind.

Lately my prayer has been to step into the flow, to surrender to it and trust that in that place all that needs to be done, experienced, learned, accomplished, will be.

I am not so good at this. I instinctively seek to control…so that I need not be afraid, so that I won’t miss anything or loose anyone.

The truth is that I loose much in trying to control. Things constantly slip through my grasp.

I have experienced no mind before. I recognised it for brief seconds in the smoke. I felt it’s powerful presence. It felt like a huge relief to achieve those moments…to feel freed of the need for control, the sense of loss and disappointment that I’ve felt at not accomplishing important things in my life in a timely manner….because I procrastinate, because I micromanage things that shouldn’t be, because I obsess on stuff that distracts me from accomplishment.

Today, I humbly admitted in my prayers that I cannot stay focused; that I am incapable of it. I prayed for assistance.

Later, as I walked, I thought about what was next. I didn’t think about being where I was. I wasn’t mentally with my feet. I wasn’t noticing them moving under me, the sunshine, the wispy clouds. I only thought about what I would do after the walk.

I could only shake my head when I realized this, but I continued my walk, continued to try. I followed the flow where I needed to walk. I went up this steep hill which is a challenge for me if I haven’t walked much in a few weeks. Well I haven’t walked much the last two months. I’ve even been gaining a little weight. So I forced my feet up this hill, a hill that was easy for me in September and as I gasped for air as I did last spring when I first started walking up this little steep hill, I felt this great sadness rise up in me. I felt such sadness that my body hadn’t been exercising. It makes me feel so good. So happy. I felt tears welling in response to how sad I felt. I paused in the sunshine, facing it over the tops of the trees and let the glow of it cleanse me.

I am still trying to follow the flow. I will continue to lean into the guidance it brings to me…and to follow it into no mind…

 

The Power of Intention

I had a blog on Blogger until recently. It was called Defining Spiritual Presence. I deleted it finally a couple months ago. I exported a good many posts from that blog. Not all of them, but many that felt like important wise posts. Some things I merely linked back to. I forgot when I deleted the blog that I had linked to the original Candle Moments posts and such. *sighs…* Ah well. Those are prayers already heard and I need not keep them. Had I needed to, I’d have had a bad feeling about deleting the blog. In any case, I did save two more posts. Both of them were about my pipe. These two posts have sat here in my drafts box for months now. There just didn’t seem a moment when it felt right to re-publish them. For some reason now seems the time, so here you go…this post was written when I was working on creating and making a relationship with my pipe. This post was originally published in April of 2007:

I‘m just thinking…I tend to do that allot. *smiles*

What’s been on my mind of late? Well my process with my pipe first and foremost. This is indeed a process, not an event. It requires that I cultivate a certain attitude of willingness and self discipline. Not qualities I always have in abundance. There are times when I am like a train on its track though. I have momentum and the heavy power of intention behind me and it’s not going to be the least easy to get me side tracked. I have a look about me then. Determined. Preoccupied. *grins*

Anyhoo, it feels like it’s taking forever to do this pipe. I am remembering allot about gathering spiritual power as I do this. I know deep inside that this stone might have cracked any number of times so far in this process…but did not, because I did my meditation work properly….despite all my damned procrastination.

That likely sounds very strange…I’m sure. But it feels very true to me. So far, so good with what’s been accomplished so far. I am getting very excited about this process….mostly because the fear of the pipes cracking is starting to pass and it seems likely that two beautiful pipes will be taken from this one very ancient stone…and made into something to pray with….A beautiful gift from the Earth.

My husband’s pipe bowl will be completed by next Wednesday. My pipe bowl will hopefully be mostly done by the following Tuesday, provided my hands hold out for the carving process. We will have to wait a number of weeks for our stems to finish curing before they are shaped to fit in the bowls. We thought our friend had some dried ash ready, but he’d used or given it all away, so we had to cut some green sappy branches for the stems and so we’ll have to wait for them to cure. The good news for my hands is that I’ll get to go much slower at using them than I thought I would, so I’ve been able to continue blogging normally…though I haven’t had the extra strength in my hands to do lots of other writing.

But as I was saying…neither the willing nor the self discipline is always available to me. I’ve been struggling against some old feelings of self sabotage lately. It feels like walking through water to get myself moving on many sorts of tasks. Like I’m walking up hill through a wall of water.

It’s been getting easier in the last two days. I got out a spiritual tool that I haven’t availed myself of much in a long time. I was giddy yesterday from working with it. It definitely builds power in my being….and makes me giddy happy. All I could do was grin yesterday. It seemed easy to do anything I wanted to do. Things are shifting….*smiles*

Love has been on my mind allot lately too. I’ve been thinking about giving. I’m definitely a giver. Except when I’m in a spiritual process of my own or in relapse. Then I cocoon. It’s tough to get me out of my safe place and get anything out of me then. I resist being drawn out, because I don’t want to be drawn on…or because I am not well enough to be a battery for anyone else…and frankly most people who know me expect me to not only be a battery for them, to recharge them…but they expect that I’ll be able to pull a wealth of wisdom and compassion out from the “always full well” they figure I’ve got. Fact is I’m human and I reach the end of my rope and I refuse to be hung.

That hurts people’s feelings….this fact. I’ve never been able to figure out what to do about it. I’ve tried just telling the truth. What happens then is they want to fix me…so they can have their battery again. It’s true. They poke around, do something wonderful. I feel a bit more chipper and then the drag on the battery begins.

When I’m feeling good, I don’t mind this at all. It’s a part of being so full of vital energy. I have way more than my body can use at any given time…and many people are not healthy or happy and need what I don’t, but have lots of….I’m a source of healing, just by walking in the room really. But I can’t do that for others when I only have what I need and no more….and I’m too tired to draw up any more. Frankly, most people don’t even remotely get it. I can explain it…but they don’t really understand that they are feeding off me….or why the snack bar is closed. It’s hard for them not to be offended by that.

Those who don’t do this to me are the only people who see me when I’m in the state of been in for much of the last year…a time of initiation and deconstruction.

The only way I can give to these people is to love them from afar…to ask the spirits to take a look at them…in short to put them in my Candle Moments. I wish that could be enough love for them. Usually it is not…and I have to accept that.

I was reading some stuff at the Reiki Artist Blog. Some of what was shared there in a post really struck home….I was especially struck my the parts I highlighted in red.

Reiki Artist Blog » The Power of Intention: “The Seven Faces of Intention by Dr. Wayne Dyer

Creativity
Kindness
Love
Beauty
Expansion
Unlimited Abundance
Receptivity

An Ancient Hasidic Saying:

“When you walk across the fields with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their soul come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you.”

I never thought of unlimited abundance as a face of intention. It is. I know that logically…but for some reason, there’s been a shift and now my belly believes it. Hallelujah. Might actually see some change now. LOL! And jeez. After my last few years…this stuff about mental purification and the Earth responding to me and feeling like a holy fire in me…

Yup. That’s how it feels. Many things feel that way to me in the past few years. It feels to me that people respond to my physical presence like that quite often. It is a bit strange. It scared me a lot at first. I think I am starting to feel comfortable with that now….like it’s okay for me to be a battery…and to be a well…and that this interaction only lights me afire further….makes me even more abundant than I was.

Just thoughts…deep thoughts. We shall see, what we shall see.

Here’s something else that hit me between the eyes. Now, after this conversation, it hits me a whole other way…but in the moment I read it, I was thinking about how little I’ve accepted myself in years past and that made me self neglectful. And I’ve been thinking of how I feel a need for a certain type of intimacy in my life…There are times when my self comfort measures are so very enough…and other times when I am not enough….and don’t feel I’ll ever be enough. This is why I have such incredible sympathy for those who wish me to be their well and battery. I know how that feels…to need so much and not have a known source for nourishment or the right kind of nourishment.

Living Life Inside Out » Blog Archive » Self-care is a Must: ““I define comfort as self-acceptance. When we finally learn that self-care begins and ends with ourselves, we no longer demand sustenance and happiness from others.”
—Jennifer Louden”

I am going to be going on vision quest next week…hence all this annoying deep thought the last couple weeks. *giggles* I’ve asked Meredith over at Reiki4life (Note from me in 2008: This is now a defunct blog) to moderate here (Defining Spiritual Presence). She’ll throw up a few posts to keep you all feeling entertained. If she’s in the mood, she might even put up a guest post, so feel free to be chatty with her. I’m sure she’ll love being chatty with you. I’ll be off line from Wednesday evening April 18 until the following Tuesday sometime.

Here’s a meditation for us all to share…If you have time, please take a moment to put yourself into this picture and if you like, share your thoughts with others here:

 

Bibliomancy

Thich Nhat Hanh is my favorite Buddhist author. There is a quality of being that I really resonate with. I find his voice restful even. There are times when I feel troubled that I just get out one of his books and do some bibliomancy; that is I hold the book closed and let my finger glide along the edges of the clustered pages until I feel my energy spring and sink at once, indicating that my fingernail has a met a page with a right message for now.

This is a good spiritual practice. It is usually very useful to finding some instant teachings and comfort. I have done this for many years and always found it the right thing to do.

Today I grabbed three books. One was a book of meditations by Melody Beattie called Journey to the Heart. I opened a passage about saying good bye. That has certainly been the theme of my life in the past year or so. I’m a bit tired of that theme. Truly I am. I just sighed with this one and thought, yup. That’s where I am.

I took up the next book. Its a Sufi publication that is only available to initiates in general. Its called Nature Meditations. Murshid (master teacher) Inayat Khan write it. I opened this book to a passage about orange a color usually associated with the solar plexus. I thought…yup. That’s the crux of some other things going on in my life. I’m having some difficulty directing my life and in utilizing and controlling my focus and my energy toward accomplishment and good health.

I’m starting to feel irritated when I pick up Hanh’s book The Heart Of The Buddha’s Teachings. I don’t want to talk about where I am. I’m irritated and frustrated about where I am. I’m restless about it. I have struggled long and long in the same place and I cannot seem to get myself to stop…there’s a deep fear there. I know that. I don’t even want to voice it; its so big. I am struggling with it…I am facing it. I’m still managing to overcome the fear and move forward in the past couple weeks. Agonizingly incremental, nevertheless progress.

So, the book shows me a passage that says this:

The Twelve Turnings of the Wheel:

Suffering:

Recognition: This is suffering

Encouragement: Suffering should be understood.

Realization: Suffering is understood

Arising of Suffering:

Recognition: There is an ignoble way that has led to suffering.

Encouragement: Well-being should be obtained.

Realization: Wellbeing is obtained.

Cessation of Suffering:

Recognition: Well-being is possible.

Encouragement: Well-being should be obtained.

Realization: Well-being is obtained.

How Well-being Arises:

Recognition: There is a noble path that leads to well-being.

Encouragement: The noble path has to be lived.

Realization: This noble is being lived.

I can’t decide if I’m still irritated or not. The fact is, that it depends on which point/hurdle we’re discussing as to where I am on this list. In some areas of my life, I am at the final stage. I get it and I live it. Simple as that. With other things, I’m only just understanding some of the reasons I am where I am…that fear I’ve only recently identified for example. With still other things I am somewhere in the middle of the two. I am both encouraged that I’ve got more on the ball that I often fear and disappointed in myself that I’m not doing a whole lot better than I am. The truth is, I’m not living up to my potential.