About my teachers, my practice and early life

 

My first memory in life was when I was in a crib. I felt bewildered because I came from a place  where my mind was fluid, clear, pointed, being able to move from one thing to the next and grasping the whole to the innermost part of everything truly seeing into the moment. I felt as though someone had shoved me into this tiny body that I did not understand how to work. It was such a contrast to what I had previously known. I was in fact an infant trying to figure out how to use my body. I threw a temper tantrum at the end of the memory being frustrated by my circumstances. My early years were guided and as I opened up, the spirits would guide me with simple gestures, images, words and visions. The most important thing of all they guided me through a state of mind I call play. Always accompanied by beauty, effortless thought, luminous light and clear sound. I was never frightened or felt uncomfortable; everything seemed effortless and natural. There was no fear. The spirits guided me gently sometimes through visions sometimes through simply placed words. For example, one of my first visions was somewhere between two and three.  I was standing in a hall and suddenly I saw letters of light floating on the wall; they were beautiful, luminous and glowing; dancing on the wall.  I felt light and energy was flowing freely throughout my body. From this I knew I was meant to do something with the beautiful letters.  On another occasion I must have been five. My parents left me along with my three brothers and sister in the car while they shopped at the grocery store.  I remember being angry at being left.  I could see the anger building in my stomach. I focused upon it and watched it build.  I was thinking I was going to build the anger up to explode in an outburst.  So as I watched the anger build and I was just about to explode; suddenly a voice from out of nowhere said “quiet”.  So I let it go and I popped up in a higher state of consciousness.  I was shocked. I looked around wondering where the voice came from.  I knew I hadn’t imagined it, left puzzled and I sat quietly, enjoying the beauty of the moment. As a contrast to all this my family was abusive. Not understanding what was going on with me I paid dearly if caught in those heightened states of awareness. Luckily for me I was guided by a  series of spirits and teachers, each in their own way helped me.  

I first started in my early twenties with a psychic named Marvine Lindberg an amazing woman who has worked with police departments and has had a TV show in Canada. At that time she was giving classes which she allowed me to attend for free. She showed me I was not crazy  and my experiences were quite natural. I feel without her help I would have been lost in my own inadequacy. She is now retired.

When it was time for me to move on I found the ever popular EST at its time, it was self improvement seminars in the 1970 & 80s. Being haunted by my abusive background made it almost impossible to allow myself to be seen. Werner Erhard spoke of cycles that your life centered around. He stated you can be free from the cycles by re-experiencing them. I could clearly see the cycles but simply re-experiencing them wasn’t enough.

 I started school at a Junior College where I met Pierre Grimes, founder of the Noetic Society. Pierre's main focus was teaching students how to read books like Plato. Pierre was not into interpreting the text but instead he used the author's own words to see what they are saying without interpreting them. As I sat in the classroom on Buddhism exploring a heightened state of awareness a person was experiencing in the book; Pierre started sketching out a circle and every time there was a mood switch he would describe it in a box on the circle. The person in the  book also related that there was a reflection of a past scene where he sketched out the cycle  amazingly they were similar. He had my attention now. This is similar to EST. Then he said you need to understand what was learned from the past. That they are now bringing it into the present and are acting it out. This was different. I was hooked and I became a member of the  Noetic Society. I spent 15 years studying with Pierre and in conjunction with working on my personal cycles using what he called philosophical midwifery. Through philosophical midwifery I came to see people cannot help who and what they are. Even if they see what they are doing cannot change it due to their endless cycles. But by understanding why you are acting out the cycles allows you to let them go. And I had many breakthroughs and lists of insights from my studies in Plato, Plotinus and other platonism writings. One day while reading Plotinus I came across a quote that stated if you do not see yourself as beautiful stop you can go no further. I started crying uncontrollably. Not wanting to be stopped I read the quote every day each time I read it I would again start crying uncontrollably. I kept at it. Why is this happening?  After a month or so I suddenly realized I do not see myself as beautiful.  This opened up the quote as well as a whole new way of experiencing the universe. I turned to Plotinus  when I had a vision. The Noetic Society was starting a new book on Plotinus. One afternoon I was feeling extraordinary, I walked to my room where the warm afternoon sun was streaming through the window. I lay down on my bed where the sun caressed my body, I felt warm and relaxed. I looked at the wall and I could see  luminous light letters floating on the wall and they were beautiful. Then I felt a presence  standing next to my bed, he put his hand on my shoulder and smiled. I felt his warmth pulsing through my body. As I rose from this vision I walked out of my room and looked at the table by the door. On the table was a book called The Essential Plotinus. Looking at the picture, I gasped that it was him, the man in my vision. As time went on my expertise became Plotinus which is where I spent most of my time. Even though  Pierre Grimes has recently passed, the Noetic Society is still functioning. They have many tapes that can be accessed through the internet. The link is as follows:

https://archive.org/details/noeticsociety?sort=-publicdate

I also practiced Zen Buddhism and studied with Mazumi Roshi, founder of the Zen Center of  Los Angeles and was one of his monks. When I was ordained Roshi gave me the drama name of Shiin translated as purplesound. He further explained that the characters used to spell my name came from Avalokiteshvara, the one who hears the pain of the world. While studying Plotinus for many years I found he often would speak of a state of mind called quietude. In Zen there is a practice of just setting Shikantaza. This became my practice. I would go to a sesshin each year, then I moved to the Zen center full time to study with Maezumi Roshi and became a  monk. Feeling Plotinus passed well over a thousand years ago and Roshi was a live teacher. While I was living and working at ZCLA, at first I worked in accounting then I was a membership director. For myself while working as membership director if someone upset me or if I found issues with them.  I would put them on my membership committee.  And why because it was my problem and my issue. In order to grow I needed to work through my own issues so I claimed all of them.  I focused only on the good in each person and brought out their strengths. Through this process I found each and every time I would come to see the beauty in each person and found this in and of itself to be extraordinary. Example there was a member when he came to the meetings he would always point out the problem with whatever they would bring up.  Of course everyone was upset every time he spoke because they didn’t want to hear it.  So after a new idea was brought up I would simply ask him what are the problems with this idea?  So he would point them out.  Everyone’s opinion of him changed, members would seek him out for his input where before they saw him as a pain. Also while I was practicing at the Zen center I made it my practice to never walk away from an encounter with anything unsaid or with any emotions.  I dealt with each one in the moment at the time. Because if I did not, I would take it to the cushion and would not be practicing but looking back at what had transpired instead of just setting. So my mind was clear and could continue to be in the moment.  Because your mind grabs onto those things and brings you down not being able to focus upon the moment.    Link to The Zen Center of Los Angeles is as follows: 

https://zcla.org/ 

After Mazumi's death I moved to Washington State and decided to live a simple life. I met and married my husband Peter Coffey Jr. a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes and moved to North Dakota. My husband's teacher was Floyd Hand. We are both spiritual in nature and respect and encourage each other's practice in our own way. I was going to attend a sun dance so I spent a year in preparation. I needed a pipe which my husband lovingly made for me. I also needed an Indian name so Floyd sent me to fast on top of Bear Butte in South Dakota for four days so the spirits could give me one. My husband helped me gather the materials and showed me how to make the tobacco ties. When I was ready I went into the sweat lodge then was taken up Bear Butt, after that I would have no food or water till I came down from the mountain. Floyd’s helpers and my husband set out my tobacco ties around my area and showed me what I needed to do while on top of the mountain and then left. That night the thunders came and it rained like hell. Luckily I had a wool blanket which I hid under and was kept dry till the morning. It was beautiful with the morning sun. I had to sit there until the spirits spoke to me by giving me a name. I was told to pay attention to everything. So there I was every once in a while I would find a tick on me and I would throw it off and thought to myself damn what if my name is tick woman. As I sat about mid day suddenly I heard a voice calling “Spirit Woman” then I heard it  again “Spirit Woman” I asked out loud "are you talking to me”? " Yes Spirit Woman” you are to go now don’t wait just go. So I started to leave then there were certain things I needed to do when leaving so I quickly did them and left. As I reached the top of the saddle at Bear Butte there was a loud thunder clap. Then again as I entered the sweat again there was a loud thunder clap. I felt honored. Floyd sanctioned my name. My husband and I are older now and retired living out in the country on our little piece of heaven near White Shield North Dakota. 

A good friend of mine Abraham Chaim Apatow who has encouraged me to be a teacher in the past. Helped me set up a blog to post my papers. I do not think  without his encouragement and help I would have posted them. I have to admit I truly am in his debt for all his hard work and encouragement. I posted my first blog post in June of 2022. 

As you can see from reading my work my experiences have taken me from my everyday experiences to heightened states of awareness.  This has always been my way of viewing the world. I have recently found Dr. David Clements. I watched a YouTube video:

https://youtu.be/t4V5dSU5s6U?si=F3ZLGPzNO7WXD_AM. 

I have to admit I was impressed. I went to his site and started viewing his info and practicing his meditations. They are quite impressive and before I knew it I had watched each one. Everything I have encountered in the  meditations is similar to everything it took me a lifetime to find out on my own through my many teachers. I am now using his visualizations every day. Rather than trying to explain his background I copied his own words from his web sight as follows:

“Dr. David Clements MMath, MASt, DPhil

In my early days, I began as an artist, spending most of my time dreaming and imagining beyond the reality I was living in. Which later, after a door

inside me opened, allowed me to develop a deep intuitive insight into the conscious quantum nature of reality. 

But before this fully opened, I was propelled into, and became, a professional theoretical physicist, working in string theory (a theory of subatomic

particles and multi-dimensional spaces) as well as advanced theories of electromagnetism in some of the world’s leading and prestigious academic

institutions such as Cambridge and Oxford Universities.

I left this profession because the opening within had revealed to me a very different view of the living conscious nature of quantum reality, a far distance

from the mathematical and structured world I had learnt to work in.

My conscious awakening, and connection with the higher aspects of myself began just after the year 2000, when I learned to view remotely.  From here,

my intuition and energetic senses came alive in ways I never before imagined possible. 

From here, I began a deep journey, moving into, and becoming more heart centered. Unravelling the many layers of past and current life aspects within

myself to gain more connection to the Creative Source field consciousness of love and my whole Self.  In doing so, I was given deeper insights into the

workings of realities, as well as inspirations for innovations and ideas, that it is my heart felt joy to share with others.”

David Clements visualizations connect the physical body to the higher realms and completes the cycle through this connection to the body.  Prior to this I have always seen my body lifting up into those higher realms by letting go of the physical body inorder to participate in those higher realms.  Although this is true I never considered being able to bring those higher states into my body intentionally and living from here instead of getting back to those higher realms and staying there. Although when you do reach those higher states and come back down to the physical body there are residual effects and your body mimics those effects of what you had experienced in those higher realms.  But at last at some point the experiences fade away; they may last days or even weeks but they do fade away.  Which leads over time a yearning to go back to those higher states of mind and stay there leaving the body completely.  Even Plato speaks of this in the Republic book Vll.  The philosopher should be urged to come back down to the cave to educate others. I assure you this coming back down is done reluctantly. Up there everything is beautiful and at a state of rest, not being pulled in one direction or another just resting quietly, giving one’s self up to that ineffable beauty.  David Clements visualizations give a seeker an option of bringing those experiences and ways of living back down to the body and living here instead of wanting so badly to return to above and stay there. I have not as of yet reached my goal of bringing my higher self into my body full time but I am working on it and seeing the possibilities.  I at least can visit my higher states once a day while meditating.  Which is more focused and clearer than I achieved on my own in my everyday practice. And yes these higher realms can be reached through my own visualization but again it’s like grasping the tip of an iceberg, higher states admit many degrees but in each part you can grasp the whole of it. You only have the corner of it but in order to see the whole you have to focus and concentrate to maintain a one pointed focus. It's hard work to maintain a state of quietude for long periods of time which is how I achieved the higher states before, simply life comes in and always focusing on some particular thought, bringing you back to discursive thoughts and feelings, the joys and sorrows of life. The fact that David uses visualizations makes it easier for the crazy monkey mind to focus. At least that is how it feels when my mind is tired or over stimulated, not even the visualizations work and so I come back another time. In my younger years I would have simply powered through sometimes successfully sometimes not and life goes on. I am seeing for myself that it is getting much easier both to maintain and reach those higher realms and bring them back down to the body little by little. In time I will see where it leads and for now I am experiencing progress and am hopeful for the future. I am so grateful to David Clements and his team for giving me this possibility. Infinite Source Creations web sight is as follows:

https://infinitesourcecreations.com/isc_ls-channel.htm