Many traditions have ways of bringing all of us into transformative processes.
In Tibetan Buddhism, it is done - among other ways - through visualizing all beings taking refuge with us, during the first of the four ngondro practices, each done a hundred thousand times. In Shamanic traditions, by inviting in the protectors from the six directions. In Christianity, through the Christ meditation where Christ is visualized in the six directions and the heart. In many traditions, through prayer or well-wishing for all beings, including our enemies and those in the hell realms. And so on.
In each of these apart from the Christ meditation, there is an intention and visualization of all beings aligned… in taking refuge in Buddha nature, in participating in sacred space, being included in healing and awakening. And even the Christ meditation has a sense of completeness and absolute inclusion in it, by visualizing Christ in all directions and in the heart.
And each of these is a way of inviting all of us to participate, and to align all parts of us. Using voice dialog language, each subpersonality or voice is invited to join and align in the same overall purpose of healing and awakening of the mind and heart.
In addition, it helps us see all beings in the same boat in different ways. All beings are taking part in this sacred process of life. All have the potential for awakening, and all have Buddha nature. We can learn to see beyond the surface ripples of contraction, and see how we each seek happiness and freedom from suffering, and all are awakeness.
I recently watched a movie with a shapeshifter in it, and it brought attention again to shapeshifting in our own lives.
For myself, I notice it in how different qualities (voices, subpersonalities) comes into the foreground at different times and in different situations.
Some may shift into the foreground more frequently and be more familiar to me, others less so. There may be more or less fluidity among them, and resistance to the shifts and certain qualities.
I can relate to them with easy acceptance and comfort, with attraction (when there is identification with them, and they fit into my shoulds), or aversion (when they don’t match the preferred identities and the shoulds.)
And there is really no limit to the number and variety of qualities or subpersonalities.
I notice it in how I, as this human self, change over time.
My interests, attractions/aversions, passions, activities in the world, the food I eat, the clothes I wear… none of that stay the same. It changes over days, weeks, seasons, years, decades.
Even if it appears to be the same, it is still different. It is experienced and expressed differently, it exists in a different context.
Who I was some time ago doesn’t exist anymore, apart from as a memory in me and some others. It is often a strange experience for me to talk with someone I haven’t seen for a while, and they assume - innocently - that my interests, diet, or whatever else it may be, has stayed the same.
My identifications may change over time as well.
They may shift from one identity to another, and they may be released from a particular identity to allow for more fluidity between and among a set of identities, and there may be a more thorough release from identification allowing for even more - potential - fluidity.
And then how everything changes here now, in awareness.
If I use the filter of memory, I see how there is a continuous flow and nothing to hold onto. Even a thought with an apparent identical content as a previous thought is new.
(Here, thoughts compare the “present”, which is really what just left and thoughts tries to grasp, with what my thoughts tells me was some time ago. To say that anything changes, or is fresh, or something similar, we need the filter of thought. Without it, nothing can be said.)
I can also work more deliberately with shapeshifting, in different ways.
Through The Work, I explore my habitual beliefs and identities. For instance, identify a belief about Other, find the truths in its turnarounds, find in or as myself what I previously saw as Other, and how I can live the truth in that turnaround more in daily life. I also find a release from identifications in general, which is another shift.
Through Process Work, I can notice a symptom or movement or impulse here now, follow it, allowing it to unfold and amplify, and shift into something else, and then something else. I can take on the role of and become whatever it shifts into. See see how it relates to my usual identity, what it has to tell me, what it asks of me, and how it can bring something new into my daily life. And then how it can be lived more actively, and brought more consciously, into daily life.
I can explore the different voices through voice dialog or the Big Mind process, shift into different ones, see what they have to say, how my usual identity relates to them, and how they can more easily and effectively help this human self in daily life.
I can choose to do something in daily life that goes outside of my normal identity, find more comfort with it, expand my active repertoire, and find more fluidity among a wider range of identities, roles, qualities, voices and subpersonalities.
I can use any other form of shadow work to find in myself what I have attraction or aversion to out there in the world, using attraction/aversion as a pointer to what is really here, but not actively embraced, owned and lived yet. (The living part unfolds over time, as I become more familiar with it, what it asks of me, and what it can bring into my life.)
To continue the exploration of the difference between allowing and actively embrace…
When there is a disidentification with stories and identities, there is also an allowing of what is, as it is. So if there is a disidentification with all stories and identities, there is also a full allowing of anything happening here and now, including this human self and the wider world. It is all recognized as awakeness manifesting as form. And this is the traditional awakening, it is Big Mind awakening to itself.
Beyond this, it is possible for this human self to actively explore itself and embrace itself in its evolving fullness. It can actively explore and own its different voices and subpersonalities, become familiar with and live from a wider repertoire of qualities and ways of being in the world, and find a new fluidity among a wide and unlimited range of identities and roles in the world. All of this allows this human self to heal, mature and develop in a more active way, beyond what it would do (or not) if there was not this active exploration and familiarization.
It is a different way of participating in the development of this human self, and through this and in a small way to actively participate in the evolution of our culture and the even wider whole.
And it is also a way to develop skillful means. If Big Mind is awake to itself, then the human self it functions through is its main - and really only - skillful means. So actively engage in its healing, maturing and development only makes sense.
I live in an intentional community with several Breema practitioners, and am enjoying the nourishing, warm and human connections there. At the same time, I am about to go on a journey that I know will involve my death, and there is a sense of equanimity about it, an alignment with it, and also a knowing that there is no other option.
Arvo Part, Bach and several others of my most favorite composers come to our house in the form of one person. It seems that he is coming to stay for good. He has an instrument, acoustic and with several organic looking pipes sticking up form it. It can create the sound of any instrument, and the sounds of individual instruments and groups of instruments, including a whole orchestra. The sounds are not only similar to these other instruments, but somehow the actual sounds of the instruments.
The death theme of the initial dream fragment is typical these days, with a sense of death and rebirth at several levels and in several ways.
The composer who is a composite of my favorite composers (and all other composers it seemed), is similar to his instrument which is able to reproduce all other instruments. There is one which contains many, and the individuality of each is maintained, along with the infinite variety that emerges from the access to and interactions of all of these individuals.
It is also similar to a dream some months back of someone playing computer role games shifting into having access to innumerable characters at once, either as pure or as freely chosen composites with characteristics from many.
This is what happens when we explore and become familiar with more of our many subpersonalities and identities, release some of the blind and fixed identification with some, allow some that have been disowned, and find that they are each available in a more fluid and free way.
From being chronically attached to some, and equally persistently pushing others away, there is more of a free access to many of them… in their individual form, or as a combination of qualities from several. (I can’t really say that my life is a good example of this, but the possibility may be awakening in me.)
