The Nobody Who Could Become Anybody: atribute to Tom Hammond

In September of 1992, Tom Hammond came to the Oregon coast to attend the Lava Rock Clinic. He arrived a few days late; it had been a long journey for him travelling from Seattle. Though he was suffering from various symptoms related to his AIDS, he was also radiant, displaying a natural ease in just being himself. He said that he had made the journey to the clinic to say good-bye. About 100 people were present when Tom said good-bye. We were sad but glowed in the warmth of his love as he wrapped his spirit around us. We sat huddled together, awestruck students hanging on his every word while he drew us into the other world where eternal love connects us all. About a week later, Tom died.

I first met Tom in the winter of 1989 when he attended an intensive Process Work course in Zurich, Switzerland. I was so deeply moved and inspired by his work with Amy Mindell on some of his physical symptoms that I wrote a chapter about his work for my dissertation. Unfortunately, during the editing process, that chapter didn't fit well with the whole of the work and was cut.

After arriving home from the Lava Rock Clinic, I thought about Tom and remembered this chapter. I found it filed away and sent him a copy. I don't know if he ever received it.

I feel blessed to have known Tom and to have seen him work publicly on his AIDS many times. His experiences have always been meaningful for the group. I personally have experienced him as a teacher; a brazen warrior leading the way down the path of discovery and transformation. I have rewrit-

ten this chapter about Tom, wanting to keep his spirit alive and to share some of his experiences that have enriched many of us. The following is a shortened version of the videotape transcript from the Zurich intensive course and a summary with comments. The transcript of the videotape remains in the present tense, to preserve the feeling of the work and to provide the reader with a sense of immediacy. Comments directly about the transcript are also in the present tense. This was one of the earlier pieces of public work that Tom did in the Process Work community.

Zurich, 1989

It is a wintery Friday afternoon in 1989 at the Hotel Zurichberg, a simple hotel in Zurich where numerous intensive courses have taken place. Amy taught each Friday and his courses were open to both intensive course participants and the general public. A group of about 150 people has gathered this afternoon to attend one of his classes.

Before Amy begins to work individually with Tom, they sit with two other men in the middle of the circle. One man has leukemia and the other, like Tom, is diagnosed HIV positive. The three men are deciding who will work first with Amy. Through the decision making process they form a kind of brotherhood. They speak about being in the same boat; all of them are in life and death situations. Continuing with the image of a boat, they talk about drifting downstream to where the stream meets the ocean. They speak about being at different places in the stream; Tom says that he is at the

end of the stream where it empties out into the ocean. This information will be useful later in the work. Amy begins focusing on Tom.

Amy: Do you have symptoms that are troubling you?

Tom: The most dramatic symptom I had was in April of '87 when I had a case of shingles. It went from here to around there [he uses his hands to trace the path from the middle of his chest to his back]. Other than that my only symptoms have been skin rashes, redness in my face and fatigue.

Arny: If you could feel free to get whatever you needed, or at least felt free to ask for it... I don't know if we could do it, but what would it be?

Tom: I want to live a longer life and still hold on to this feeling of being able to die at any moment There is something about not knowing when I am going to die, and the possibility of it being sooner than later, that fills me with a certain amount of awareness of being alive and deciding what I want to do with my day and whom I want to be with. This is directing and focusing for me, and I like that But I don't want to die. I want to live a long and happy life. So I want to have my cake and eat it too.

Arny: When you say you want to live a long and happy life, do you have the sense that you are not going to have die opportunity?

Tom: It's a possibility. I don't know how much control I have over it. I think I have some and there is some I don't have.

Tom says that he was diagnosed with the HIV virus in 1985. Amy and Tom discuss medical statistics about AIDS.

Tom: I don't want to measure it by statistics, to take an outside reality and apply it to what is happening inside of me and say what it is going to do; that it is going to lead me and say okay and surrender to that outside vision which so many people do,

and me too, sometimes [he puts his hand on his chest and moves it outward].

Process structure

At this moment Tom's primary process seems to be his desire to learn more about himself and his symptoms. He would also like to live a long and happy life. He says that he doesn't have much control, meaning the one who controls is less known, or secondary, to him. This goes along with his description of the medical world, an entity which is outside of him with the potential to lead and direct him. The controlling and leading is something that will probably come up in this work.

I remember being drawn in as a group member when Tom spoke about the feeling of being able to die at any moment and the special kind of awareness that it brings to his life. This is also something that happens to him; a new kind of focus or direction wants to emerge. Based on Tom's signals, we could guess that this new focus will happen in both proprioceptive and movement channels. He describes his focus as a feeling. His description of his shingles, rashes and fatigue are things he feels and he uses hand motions to describe them as well.

The channels that his momentary perception is occupying seem to be visual, because he looks upward when he speaks about himself, and auditory, because he is very related to the verbal conversation.1 Amy picks up on the last movements that Tom was making.

Arny: When you talk about it you put your hand here [Amy touches Tom's chest] and talk about what it is doing to you. Do you experience AIDS, or death or your symptom creator as being in your chest somehow?

Tom: I don't have a direct experience of this bugger vims in me except in what it does on the surface of my skin. I am making a causal connection that is also externally biased.

Arnold Mindell in River's Way: The Process Science of the Dreambody (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985) 16-17, mentions how eye cues are helpful in determining occupied and unoccupied channels. Also see Joseph Goodbread, The Dreambody Toolkit (London: Roudedge and Kegan Paul, 1987) 185-186. Goodbread also refers to Bandler and Grinder, The Structure of Magic (Palo Alto: Science and Behavior Books, 1975) 25.

Arny: When you say that you don't have an experience of this bugger virus, I know that one of the most complex things about AIDS and some types of cancer is that there is very little experience involved. But, the concept of it being a bugger...

Tom: An ornery little critter... [here Tom sounds excited. He sticks his tongue out of his mouth slightly, flicking it like a snake].

Arny: You make a certain face when you say that

Tom: An ornery little critter is not a mean and rotten son of a bitch. He is somewhere in between.

Arny: Yeah, well, this is your experience of AIDS. It is a very interesting thing, an omery little critter who makes faces like that

Tom: Yeah, and he is sitting in the bloodstream going like that [he twiddles his thumbs as if he is waiting and the tongue motions repeat themselves].

Arny: He sits in the bloodstream going like this [Amy mirrors Tom's movements] and what is he thinking? [they are both twiddling their thumbs, making faces and clicking their tongues, looking as if they have something up their sleeves].

Tom: Yeah, he is thinking uhhhhh...

Arny: Yeah, he is thinking yum yum...

Tom: [Laughs] Yeah [the tongue comes out of his mouth again and he pauses]. Yum yum was a little scary. A little more than omery. I am blushing.

Amy is trying to access the symptom maker, to connect Tom with the dreaming process or spirit behind his symptoms. It appears surprisingly in his language as a "bugger;" the way it just slipped out reveals that they are in unknown territory and that the bugger is something they will want to investigate. Tom gives immediate positive feedback to Amy's repetition of the word bugger, associating to it further, and making the faces and tongue and thumb motions which belong to this omery figure. Amy unravels the vims process on its own terms by following the modes of communication which it presents. Within a few minutes an omery critter, the spirit behind the vims, is sitting there.

Arny: Are you noticing something?

Tom: Yeah, I am thinking about how omery I am. I can be kind of omery sometimes.

Arny: Sometimes, not as a general rule?

Tom: No, sometimes. I think I shouldn't be so ornery. I would lose friends if I was omery so I keep it back here someplace [he points to his back left side].

Arny: [looking back there] How far back is it?

Tom: It is like on my shoulder, hanging on my shoulder a little bit

Amy moves to the back of Tom's shoulder and plays this omery critter. He uses a higher voice which sounds half menacing and half teasing.

Arny: Well, well, yeah, it is me back here, the ornery critter. It is me, yum. Your old friend who you keep putting back here because you think if you let me forwards in relationship then you are going to, hee hee hee... but I am still back here.

Tom: Yeah, I know, and I let you out sometimes.

Arny: Well, if you let me out once in a while I'll give you a little freedom too. I have given you a few years. You think you are giving me freedom and I feel like I have got the controls. Hee hee.

Tom: Well, I probably have a lot more control than you do [he turns around and faces Amy, who is playing the omery critter]. You want to eat me up?

Until this point, the primary process has understood the vims as a bugger. However, this description comes from the perception of Tom's identity. It is not the perception of the bugger itself. The work will be geared to accessing the perception and awareness of this bugger, which would be the new awareness that Tom is seeking. Tom has done a tremendous thing in facing the omery critter. He has begun to take over the controlling energy of that figure just by facing the bugger and frankly asking him if he wants to eat him up. This is a strong moment. Tom's state is different and more active now. It looks almost like the critter's state.

Tom initially described his shingles as "dramatic." This omery critter is one of the great dramatic figures in Tom's repertoire.

Arny: Eat me up?

Tom: Yeah, I want to find some way of bringing you in.

Amy: [Still with the voice of the omery critter] Yeah, you want to bring me in, haaaa yaaaa. Smart guy, yeah, you want to bring me in. That is just what I have been hoping for [they embrace]. Now I am wondering how you can bring me in and befriend me. I am already feeling a lot better about you, but I'd like you to be a little more like me.

Tom: Well, could you teach me?

Arny: You want me to be your teacher? Haaa, yaa yaaa ha [rubbing his hands together mischievously], The teacher, yes. I could teach you.

Tom: Without losing any friends in the process.

Arny: Well, I am not interested in being the same kind of related that you are. I have other forms of relationship.

Tom: Like what?

Arny: Like, well, you know, other things. [Amy is purposefully keeping the form blank and waiting for Tom to fill in what these other forms might be. Amy is still playing the omery critter, rubbing his hands and waiting]. Did you do something?

Tom: Did I do something?

Arny: Yeah, with your lips? [Tom licks his lips again]. Yes, that is one of the forms of relationship that interests me.

Tom: Yeah, yum, yum [Tom hangs his tongue out, moves it around and laughs].

The tongue signal has repeated since the beginning of the work, and the sender of this signal seems to be this omery critter. While Tom wonders what the other kinds of relationship might be, Amy waits for the answer. Tom is not the one who will be able to give an answer, because it is not really Tom who is requesting a change. It is the omery critter. We have to look for other signals and ways that the omery critter will make his desires known to us. The tongue gives us the answer.

Arny: That is an interesting and wise looking tongue, and that tongue wants activity.

Tom: It is a yum yum tongue [Tom is looking around the room at the people].

Arny: Well, since this all has to do with relationships [they both look out to the people now], maybe you can be a little bit omery. You seem like

you are beginning to pick me up. How about making some omery movements.

Tom: Can I practice on you?

Arny: Why not Make some omery movements to me or in relationship to me.

Tom's tongue is hanging out. Grinning, he approaches Amy and embraces him. They hold on to each other, moving slightly. Tom pats Amy's head and tries to look at his face.

Arny: I notice our tummies and pelvises are in contact

Tom: Yeah.

Tom gets uncomfortable here and wants to look at Amy. Looking at people is his primary way of relating. Looking is not the way of the omery critter. The unintended information is the body contact they have. Tom is now at an edge to go further with this. Amy tries to return to the difficult point

Arny: I would like to go back to where we were before. [Amy brings him back to their embrace]. I want to go on with this part a little bit. [Tom is stiff]. Are you there?

Tom: Uh, no. I was there [laughter],

Arny: Where are you?

Tom: I don't know. Well, I feel our stomachs together.

Arny: What is happening right here? [Amy touches his chest and shoulder area].

Tom: As little as possible. [Everyone laughs, enjoying Tom's good humor. His tongue also pops out again].

Arny: Your honesty is heartwarming.

Tom: There is nothing happening.

Arny: What is the nothing that is happening?

Tom feels internally and says that he feels a little warmth. He makes pulsing motions with his hands coming outward from his chest. The experience in his chest is one of proprioception and movement; it is warm and it pulses. Tom has reached an edge in the body contact. Amy works gently at the edge, not pushing Tom. Dropping the body contact

between them, he follows the signals around the chest.

Arny: Let's pretend that there is warmth in there and that it could also come out in movement, not just a feeling, but a movement that could express itself . What would it be?

Tom looks around at the group and then walks out towards the people surrounding him.

Tom: I am directly looking at many people here, and [he moves arms outward from his chest] I am showing myself, opening up who I am.

Arny: Yes, it looks like it makes more relationship, not less.

This is a fascinating point; the identity and its way of perceiving the world is always limited. Because the identity is so afraid of what it does not know, it sometimes makes incorrect assumptions about secondary processes. Tom's primary process thought that he would have less relationship, but paradoxically he discovers the richness in the kind of relationship that his "ornery" secondary process is trying to bring him.

I think Tom was a great relationship teacher. I can see him in groups in the Process Work community bringing out unusual and less conventional modes of relationship. I also remember Tom as a gay activist, often standing alone as a gay man in large groups and teaching people about love between men.

As Tom continues to look at the people, Amy encourages him also to feel the feelings he has as he does this.

Arny: Let's say that feeling could be a stream and that you can describe your feelings in terms of the image of a stream. What kind of a stream would be coming out to these people?

Arny uses the image of a stream because Tom's usual way of perceiving is through visualization and he is having some trouble perceiving his feelings. Using an image to describe feelings will help him access this information. In the beginning, the three men were speaking about life as a stream. Amy is simply using the images which are already present.

Tom: It is like a multi-levelled stream that has a deep part that winds around and then there are shallower parts, little pools on the sides. The water continues down and [he is walking around describing the stream] sometimes it stays in a little pool and sits there for a while. Other times it goes off way deep. [He makes a large sweeping motion swinging his arms outward towards the group].

There is now a silence and he looks out towards the sea of about 150 people.

Tom: I just got this image of this being the ocean [he points to where people are sitting and beyond], and how sad and scary it might be to get to the end of the stream. Because when I said we were close it felt like I was right here [walks to the edge of where the ocean begins, where the people are sitting] at the end of this exciting stream and not knowing what the hell this ocean was. It is so big, like with waves and darker parts and lighter parts and depths and it has a fuzziness to it. It is not so sharp, so I don't know what I am getting myself into.

Arny: I don't know either, but maybe if we get into it, it will answer us. [Getting into die ocean is the next step, the next piece of information that needs unfolding].

Tom: I don't know how to get in. Maybe I can just walk into it.

Tom walks forward and Amy encourages him with a gentle tap on the back. Tom stands at the edge of the ocean and then walks in through the people. He is very agile, climbing over people and chairs in the crowded room, and then stopping and looking around. The atmosphere is quiet, full of respect and anticipation. Tom moves towards the back and takes a seat in the sea of people. He looks around. He looks very still and contemplative; the mood around him is different than before. After a while he gets up and speaks.

Tom: I got here and I wanted to sit down and become part of the ocean, just undifferentiated from the rest of the ocean. It happens a little, but I mostly feel like the stream.

Arny: It happens just a little because something else happens too.

Tom: Yeah, memories of the good ole stream, for example.

Arny: Which ones?

Tom: Which stream?

Arny: I don't know what I mean.

Tom: Huh?

Arny: What?

Tom is in the middle of a change of world view and at this point things become very confusing. While he is having new experiences which do not fit with his primary way of understanding the world, he is organizing the new information from the perspective of his governing philosophical beliefs. His primary belief is that when he goes into the ocean he will become an undifferentiated part of it. Apiece of new information wfyich does not fit into his belief system is holding him back from becoming totally identified with the ocean and losing his sense of self. He has an edge to it, meaning that he stops at this point and cannot go any further with his perception. Arny tries to discover what stops him, and at this point Tom suddenly cannot follow the conversation anymore. This is what happens to all of us at perceptual edges; something new and mysterious comes up and we blank out or feel confused. Confusion means that the normal mode of organizing perception and understanding the world is not able to comprehend that which is outside its parameters.

Tom does something else typical of what we all do when confronted with something that does not fit our world view: he thinks that he has done something wrong and his perception is not accurate. He does not take the disturbance as new information, but complains because he is not able to accomplish the experience he had anticipated. Going into the ocean is a secondary process and a new experience for Tom. Since he takes his primary orientation with him, he is unable to value the new experiences which occur in that ocean because they do not fit into his awareness. The task now will be to connect

Tom with the awareness process of being in the ocean. Discovering how he perceives in this ocean and who he is when he perceives this way will be the next step.

Tom: It is hard to become part of the ocean.

Arny: I understand. How do you know you are not part of the ocean?

Tom: I still feel separate. I still feel like everyone's eyes are on me and I can see my picture on the TV [the seminar is being video-taped], and I still have these internal sensations and feelings. I feel my face getting red.

Arny: Yes, you still have an awareness of yourself even though you are in the ocean. It sounds right That is great

Tom: I want to let go a little more, or maybe I don't. I don't know. I thought that when I became part of the ocean that I just let go of all that

Arny: That is what you thought But your awareness stays with you.

Tom: Yes.

Arny: Well, that sounds like what happens.

Tom: Yeah, that is what is happening.

Arny: So go ahead and follow that happening for another couple of minutes. Maybe you can give me a report of what's happening while it is happening.

Tom: [Tom is quiet for a while experiencing this new awareness of being in the ocean]. Well, at the moment, I don't feel like anybody special.

Arny: Yeah, me either. Isn't it great not to be anybody special?

Tom: Yeah [with laughter and amusement].

Arny: Let's pretend that you are nobody special in the moment Like you are nobody special.

Tom: Nobody special. Humm. I am part of this whole ocean here, another drop in the sea.

Editor's Note: During his work at his last Lava Rock Clinic, Tom was asked what would happen to him when he died. He said that he would first come and visit people here in this world, then he would enter and become a part of everyone and everything, thereby becoming nothing.

Amy: Another drop in the sea. We're nobody special. I'm another drop over here. Hi drop.

Tom: Hi.

Amy: We are nobody special. There is a certain freedom in that. And not being anybody special we can be anybody, not special.

Tom: Yeah, that's true. There is a certain fluidity in that

Amy: Yeah, we are just drops in the sea, now we can be fluid. Now, since we don't have to be anybody special, we can be anybody. [Tom licks his lips]. What do you want to be?

Tom's awareness in the ocean is to be nobody special and in that he can be anybody. I am reminded of how the Yaqui Indian shaman, Don Juan Matus, one day surprises his apprentice, Castaneda, by wearing an exquisite suit. Having lost all of his personal history, Don Juan was nobody special. Being nobody special, without a set identity, he could be anybody and even look like a conservative gentleman.

Amy's interventions are geared towards keeping Tom in this new form of awareness and deepening it Talking about the experience would be a step removed from actually experiencing it Therefore, he jumps into the system with Tom. Together, as two drops, they can discover this new world. The two drops talk to one another and decide that since they are nobody, they really can be anybody. Tom says he wants to be an adventurer, like Lewis and Clark. He wants to have new adventures and go on quests. As Tom says this he again looks around at the people, and his tongue occasionally licks his lips. The looking is indicative of the adventurer who is already investigating, but Tom is not identified with it at this point.

Remember that Tom reached an edge in relationship with Amy earlier in the work? We are now returning to it. The strong repetitive tongue signals and frequent looks outward toward the people in the group indicate that the work will have to come back to the relationship channel.

Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power (New York: Simon and

Arny: Let's start looking right now for something.

Tom: This is hard for me.

Arny: You got your eyes on people?

Tom: Yeah, I do.

Arny: Well, let's check them out Some of them look pretty juicy.

Tom: [Tom appears nervous and fidgety, but he smiles and looks around the room, licking his lips]. Yeah, there are some pretty juicy ones in here.

Arny: Which one looks juicy right now? [Tom shrieks with delight and laughter, as does everyone in the room]. Come on, you be Lewis and I'll be Clark. Come on Lewis, let's do our investigating. We are just anybody. We are nobody investigating anybody special. Nobody special is investigating the juicy things.

Tom is shy. He is at a big edge to reach out to people with his new adventurous personality. Amy is again joining the system, being an adventurer with him. This encourages Tom. For him, it is lonely to do something so new with everyone else on the outside watching. Amy is not only being the adventurer; he is also helping Tom keep his access to the new world view of being nobody. Tom needs to be nobody in order to be anybody. In order to go over this edge, he needs a new perception of the world.

Tom approaches a man, tells him he looks juicy and asks his name. They shake hands. Amy and Tom go through the room, approaching a few different men, greeting them and explaining that they are investigating unknown territory. Amy is right with Tom in this new adventure.

Arny: Hi. We want to be just anybody getting into an adventure.

Tom: Yeah, just anybody, not somebody.

Arny: Yeah, we are going to leave the old somebody behind. Let him die and let's live.

A man asks Tom what he finds so juicy or interesting about him. Tom talks about his face and hair, making slight movements with his arms and pelvis

;huster, 1974) 103.

as he speaks. Amplifying this movement brings out a strong thrust and a loud "Yahoo!" Both men thrust themselves forward and shriek ecstatically. This way of relating was trying to happen earlier, but could not emerge without a pattern, a new belief to pave the way.

Tom has now had a tremendous breakthrough, but integrating this into his everyday life will be a challenge and he wants help with this.

Tom: How can I stay with being nobody special? It

is so easy to get back into thinking "this is who I

Amy helps Tom integrate the experience by trying to bring it into his normally occupied perceptual channel, which is vision. Amy suggests that Tom watch Amy interacting with another man.

Amy: As long as I am somebody I have to meet people like this. [He approaches someone and very politely says hello and shakes his hand.] Now, if I am really nobody special, with awareness, and I am not just everybody, then I can meet him like this. [Full of movement and excitement, Amy approaches the man, slaps him on the back and grabs him into an embrace.] I can just be there and experiment. It is an adventure.

Tom: Yeah, that helps. He is an adventure. Yes, I got it Now I just want to lode at the group as if I was nobody special. [He squats down and stares out into the group with the same contemplative and centered look he had had before in the ocean. He nods to himself]. This is great I don't feel self conscious and that is so great Thank you.

Tom embraces Amy and finds his seat in the larger group.

Erasing personal history4

Erasing personal history seems to be one of the essential human challenges. The last time I saw Tom at the Lava Rock Clinic, he had an awesome qual-

ity, like a mist around him. I couldn't tell you who he was anymore. He danced over edges with the grace of a deer. Nothing bothered him, and he seemed truly open to whatever fate was to bring him.

In the work in Ziirich, Tom was beginning his work in this direction. He was clearly identified with having to be somebody, having an identity to which he was bound, and then being self conscious about it. In Journey to Ixtlan, Carlos Castaneda straggles with the same problem. Don Juan introduces a new view which totally baffles poor Carlos. Don Juan says that he himself has no personal history and urges Carlos to erase his. They argue philosophically, and Don Juan tries to explain to Carlos that having no personal history means being free, not being tied down by the thoughts of ourselves and others. Carlos argues back and insists that Don Juan knows who he is. Don Juan asserts that he does not know who he is. Staring out to the mountains, he says: "How can I know who I am, when I am all this? It seems that nature often brings us this experience, allowing us the relativity to lose our sense of being confined to a specific identity.

You see, we only have two alternatives: we either take everything for sure and real, or we don't If we follow the first, we end up bored to death with ourselves and with the world. If we follow the second and erase personal history, we create a fog around us, a very exciting and mysterious state in which nobody knows where the rabbit will pop out, not even ourselves.6

Both Tom and Don Juan stress the adventure of being nobody, the mystery and excitement of looking at the world as an adventure. In this world, as Don Juan says, nothing is sure or real. In other words, nothing is set or fixed or predictable. Being somebody furthers a view which confines us and creates boundaries of what we are and what we are not The fog that Don Juan mentions is analogous to the fuzziness and lack of definition Tom experienced when he went into the ocean and discovered what

See Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972) Chapters 2 & 3, for a discussion on erasing personal history. Also see Arnold MindelTs The Shaman's Body: A New Shamanism for Transforming Health, Relationships and Community (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993) for further discussion on the topic. Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972) 14. Castaneda, Ixtlan 17.

life was like without being somebody, or having personal history.

At the Lava Rock Clinic erasing personal history becomes a daily occurrence as individuals who are in pain, feel physically limited or are near death suddenly feel free. These are awesome moments and great teachings for those of us present. Last year around the time of Tom's work, I came across an article about Anne Frank in the Portland newspaper. I was deeply moved by how this 13 year old was able to erase her personal history. From the horror of Bergen Belsen she writes:7

I have found that there is always some beauty left—in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you. Look at these things, then you find yourself again,...

I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me....

Historical background of being nobody

In Western culture becoming somebody is a high goal. Much of our ambition is channeled into creating an identity in which we feel at home. In psychological circles there is often a goal of strengthening the ego. Self-help books have titles like "gaining self confidence," "how to be assertive," "empowerment for women," etc. All of these books feed our desire to build up those parts of our personalities which concern self-image and identification.

Judeo-Christian belief supports this strong sense of self and ego. In Genesis, "God said: Let (man) have dominion.. .over all the earth; And behold it was very good." 8 Man is created with power and a strong sense of self, able to control nature's unpredictable temperament Additionally, God made a convenant with man, stating that nature is perma-

nent and that God created a permanent world. Thus we are warned that if social and moral attitudes are not upheld, nature will be disturbed and God will break his convenant.9 Therefore, humans have the personal responsibility to uphold the status quo and thus live in a permanent and static world. From this perspective being somebody is essential. Tom's new experience is the opposite of this world view, but finds an echo in the Eastern part of our planet

In the Far East, especially in Buddhism, the highest goals are the extinguishing of self and the dying out of separate individuality. The motivation behind these goals is the cessation of suffering. Suffering and anguish exist because of our attachment to self, meaning our attachment to sense experience, our attachment to the material world, and our desire for

11 permanence. By giving up sense perceptions and

impressions and the cravings that are attached to them, one experiences the death of self and individuality. One gives up self by surrendering all that one thinks of as one's self. Then, paradoxically, self is found.12

In Buddhism the senses are not perceived by "I." They are not "mind" and they are not "self." In Sid-dha Yoga, sense experience is understood to be Shakti and the perceiver is Shiva. There is no individual or personal perception or perceiver. Shiva perceives Shakti; what Muktananda called "the divine play of consciousness." The tendency to identify with our perception is a search for permanence, which the Buddhists say is impermanent The impossible attachment to permanence creates suffering. We all have the experience of wanting to hold on to particular states forever and becoming depressed and disappointed when we cannot. The Buddhists say that realizing the non-permanence of self is the only thing that is permanent Eternal freedom is the state where one no longer strives for permanence or suffers from the impermanence of

7 Anne Frank, Diary of Anne Frank, (New York: Doubleday, 1989) entry: Tuesday April 4,1944.

8H. Smith, The Religions of Man (New York: Harper and Row, 1958) 232.

R.C. Zaehner (Ed.) The Concise Encyclopedia of Living Faiths (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967) 30.

Zaehner, Living Faiths 308. 11

Zaehner, Living Faiths 287. 12

Zahener, Living Faiths 281. 13

Swami Muktananda, The Play of Consciousness (Camp Meeker, California: SYDA Foundation, 1974).

human life.14 Smith expresses this well in his definition of nirvana.

Nirvana is the highest destiny of the human spirit and its literal meaning is extinction. But we must be precise as to what is to be extinguished; it is the boundary of the finite self.

What Tom extinguished was his finite idea about being somebody. This state of impermanence or nirvana is also characterized as emptiness, nothing or no self. We usually suffer from our inability to be fluid and our tendency to identify with one state, one somebody.

Beyond Buddhism?

When we are selfless we are free but that is precisely the difficulty, to maintain that state. Tanha is the force that ruptures it, the will to private fulfillment, the ego oozing like a secret sore. It consists of all those inclinations which tend to continue or increase separateness, the separate existence of the subject of desire.1

These statements describe Tom's conflict. He went into the ocean and left his separate self behind. Tom, too, wanted to attain this selfless state. However, once in the ocean he began to perceive himself as a separate entity, a self, part of the stream. His desire to maintain a state of selflessness and merge with the ocean was changing. Since Process Work has no goals as to what state Tom should achieve, Amy was free to follow the unfolding of Tom's unique process and see that as valuable. Tom could then follow his individual awareness within the ocean. This awareness developed into perceiving himself as a drop, and then as nobody special. Could it be that Tom's experience adds something to the Buddhist belief? Nirvana too, seems to be a state which changes. Whereas Buddhist belief might detach from the everyday world, Tom's process brought him more strongly into it Being nobody gave him the fluidity to be anybody; he was then free to relate as passionately, physically and

unconventionally as he felt. Tom's work demonstrates a kind of fluid ego that is free to identify with whatever it perceives in the moment

The spirit behind the symptom

Returning to Tom's AIDS, we could conclude that his body is using the virus to speed along this nobody process. The ornery character was the beginning of nobody. He had the controls and could do what he wanted. He was fluid. The ornery critter, or symptom maker, was trying to live this state of being nobody. People in altered states, dying states and other fatigued and flu-like states are often trying to contact this state of being nobody. In this state, all of the energy from the primary identity is reduced and we are free to be anybody.

Mindell has found that people with life threatening illnesses have a powerful individuation process ahead. Something very strong wants to emerge and it will not wait for the individual to make organic changes. The primary process has to die; the individual is pressed to identify as another kind of person.18

Crossing cultural borders

Tom's work shakes him out of a common Western world view and drops him into the domains of another culture. It seems that part of our individual growth is often in the direction of learning about other cultural beliefs in a very personal and intimate way. This frequent occurrence indicates that our personal growth also furthers our collective growth.

Concluding thoughts

I know that for the many people who knew him, Tom's spirit is very much alive. In this work and other times throughout the years when he worked publicly on his AIDS, he was a role model inspiring us with his courage and his openness to change. At

16 17 18

R.C. Zaehner, Living Faiths 287.

H. Smith, The Religions of Man (New York: Harper and Row, 1958) 111.

Smith, Religions 101.

Mindell made this comment in a discussion concluding this work.

Mindell has made this comment in numerous public courses from his work with symptoms and people who are

dying. Also see Arnold Mindell, Coma: Key to Awakening (Boulder: Shambhala, 1989) Chapter 6.

the Lava Rock Clinic while he lay on the ground surrounded by a sea of people, we were all held together by the strength of his love and knew this was only the beginning.

Dawn Menken Ph.D., is a process worker who lives in Portland. She teaches locally and throughout the world. She is thankful to Tom and the many incredible individuals who have come forward and shared so much of themselves at the Lava Rock Clinics.

Bibliography

1. References
2. Bandler and Grinder. The Structure of Magic. Palo Alto:
3. Science and Behavior Books, 1975. Castaneda, Carlos. Tales of Power. New York: Simon and
4. Schuster, 1974. Castaneda, Carlos. Journey to Ixtlan. New York: Simon and
5. Schuster, 1972. Frank, Anne. Diary of Anne Frank. New York: Doubleday,
6. 1989. Goodbread, Joseph. The Dreambody Toolkit. London:
7. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987. Mindell, Arnold. River's Way: The Process Science of the
8. Dreambody. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985.
9. Mindell, Arnold. Coma: Key to Awakening. Boulder: Shambhala, 1989.
10. . The Shaman's Body: A New Shamanism for Transforming Health, Relationships and the Community. SanFrancisco: HarperCollins, 1993.
11. Muktananda, Swami. The Play of Consciousness. Camp Meeker CA: SYDA Foundation, 1974.
12. Smith, H. The Religions of Man. New York: Harper and Row, 1958.
13. Zaehner, R.C. (Ed.). The Concise Encyclopedia of Living Faiths. Boston: Beacon Press, 1967.