Riding The Bull Home

[Julie York]

There is a famous Zen illustrated tale of a person finding Samsara(?) The state of being whereby you are at One With The Universe ......type thing called Riding The Bull.

I think there is something similar that we are all going through in some form or other. I haven't got all the stages yet so feel free to contribute, agree, disagree etc.

I think the progression is this...given the right conditions.....(but this is for Cd rather than TS. Maybe..I dunno.) This is work in progress. I haven't thought it out fully.



ok.....

An inner urge without expression when very young (you want to play with girls and wear nice dresses).
An attempt to express that inner urge. (you play house as a girl etc etc)
A burial of that inner urge (boys don't Do THAT!)
Sneaky ways to fullfill that urge. (we've all been in those drawers)
Sexual connection to that urge accompanied by guilt. (puberty)
Ability to express freely your urges but yet still mostly sexual with guilt. (leave home, hiding it from girlfriends/wives etc)
Ability to express those feelings but with more self acceptance.
A calming or expansion of the feelings to express emotions other than sexual feelings.
A further stage of personal growth where you are back to being the young boy who just wants to wear something pretty because....You just DO! Only you are now an adult who accepts who you are...regardless of any logic that makes sense of it. (No-one knows WHY we do it)




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[TGMarla]

Life itself is a progression of the soul. The things that we do in our lives each have a part in that progression, and when we do them often, they take on progressions of their own, a maturity, if you will. Some souls embrace this growth, while others fail to recognize it. But we each walk along a singular path towards our separate ends, at which time we are all one.

[Julie Avery]

Great distillation of a lot of experience!

If you could go back to the moment of your conception, and somehow guarantee that you wouldn't have been a CD, would you do it?

The whole process has been at times humiliating, filled with shame and self-loathing, and at times exhilarating, some of the finest moments and insights of my life. At the moment I feel as though, given the imaginary choice, I'd take the lows with the highs, and go through the whole CD metamorphosis again.

Being only a man as our culture defines "man" is just not something I could choose today. I tried real hard for a very long time, because I was so ashamed of the rest of me.

[Wendy me]

Julie i have done that mindfull meditation and yes cool stuff ...

a book you might want to check up on are .... were ever you go there you are by Jon Kabat-Zinn....i got more if your intrested let me know,......

[Kimberley]

Hi Julie.
I'd say it is generally true. For the TG/TS among us, the return is to find the girl inside and let her grow up because she is suppressed from very early on. (At least for most of us)

A few will have supportive families but most of us did/do not so the awakening can be very very traumatic. It usually causes us a lot of problems. I'm sure you've read about us "hitting the wall" That is pretty much how it feels mentally. Kind of like being in a gender straight jacket.

Great observations. Thanks.

Kimberley.

[sherri]

There is a famous Zen illustrated tale of a person finding Samsara(?) The state of being whereby you are at One With The Universe ......type thing called Riding The Bull.

I'm still trying to get my head around this part. One with universe = riding the bull. Hmmm. Living in rodeo country definitely conjures some images ...

... either the bull is much more mellow than we're used to here in Texas, or universal oneness is a much rowdier experience than I would have anticipated. Right now I'm looking at buddhists in a whole new light.

Yee-haw.

[Julie Avery]

A calming or expansion of the feelings to express emotions other than sexual feelings.

A further stage of personal growth where you are back to being the young boy who just wants to wear something pretty because....You just DO! Only you are now an adult who accepts who you are...regardless of any logic that makes sense of it. (No-one knows WHY we do it)


Just with regard to these last two points, I'm not sure they're stages in a sequence like the earlier points were, I wonder if they're not aspects of a many-faceted outlook. But maybe I'm in the "calming/expansion" thing and haven't experienced the last stage you enumerate.

I'm reminded of Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of "stages of moral development" (http://www.nd.edu/~rbarger/kohlberg.html), which if you've never read about it might inspire you to keep after this business you're articulating.

[DonnaT]

Riding The Bull Home
Is that called Bull Sitting?