Padma wants to pass through (request for Perrym or Jowate)

[perrym]

Hi Padma,

I realise you've got a really busy week, but I can't resist asking - anything more to report?

What's your perspective now on the fear of the last few weeks?

Can you say anything about the 'mistake' was, and how you see things differently now?

x
Perry

[stephanie padma]

Dear Perry,
Many thanks for your messages! No hacking in my account, just that old habit of getting stuck in mud and then snaping out of it!!
Today has been very full, with very little sleep. Some tension arose in the body related to the tiredness, but on the whole lightness of spirit dominated my day.
The fear was related to losing something or it being destroyed. But nothing has been destroyed, nothing has really changed, or not yet anyway! There’s more to day about fear and control, but it’ll have to wait.
Overall a sense that ‘the penny dropped’, and could do with dropping a little more. Looking forward to the second part of this week being quieter so I can look more, write more, go for walks and relax, enjoy putting down the burden of striving as you said.
Right now, writing this: Peace, smile. X
With much much gratitude, Padma xxx

[stephanie padma]

Hi Perry,
Finally managed to have the time to meditate this afternoon. Which was incredibly lovely, initially my heart went like a volcano, which was lovely of course but a bit much. Then I went into a lot of happiness, which was very unexpected and unusual for me. Especially as I am still feeling rather tense and stress from the last few weeks with all the fear and a lot of work on. So today, rather a lot of tension in the body still, but also a growing ‘post-retreat’ feeling of opening and letting go.
‘Looking’ is a bit weird, because I am not doing my head in trying to see. It’s just very quiet, peaceful and heart connected. This shift is very subtle as I go about day to day activities and I get little bubbles of doubt popping up. I know the truth much more in my heart than my head. Yes, the heart knows and smiles and bursts out with love and joy. The head feels a bit puzzled, okay, but going on observing and commenting in the usual way (maybe a bit less?) as if nothing happened (I think also part of that is that I am rather overworked, and wired).
I’m going to be reading over our conversations tonight to see what things draw me and how they feel now. So, I may post later tonight.
Padma xxx

[stephanie padma]

Hi Perry,
I hope you are okay?
I'm still exhausted, but it’s now the end of my working week, yipee! I also have not been getting so afraid of being exhausted, more trusting that I’ll cope and will get the rest and balance that I need. So, that is actually quite a big thing.
I’ve noticed it is getting harder to get lost in future and past fantasies – because they seem more and more like a waste of time and definitively empty. That's a big thing too, though less easy.
I don’t know how I know that I know. It’s just that my heart expresses Joy and love when I look and there is nothing fixed, there is space and freedom. I’ve also notice that I feel more connected with my friends when they send me an email or a text (and less ‘suspicious’ that they may not like me, if that makes sense).
Having said that, there has been fear over the last couple of days. I get a sense of infinity in my heart, the universe within right here, right now. But then a sense of falling into that, it’s kind of frightening and I’m holding on, but there is nothing to hold on, errr... I’m just trying to be present to it all. I did some looking tonight: “am I creating this fear?” the question doesn’t add up. Doh, no ‘I’ doing it. Still fear is there and hasn’t as yet reveal its story, maybe something about letting go of the ‘deep and meaningful’ myth of ‘my life story’.
I hope this finds you well, sending love, Padma xx

[perrym]

Hi,

I'm back - I should be able to reply properly tonight, many apologies for the disappearance! I'll explain later....

Perry

[stephanie padma]

Glad to hear you're back :) :)
Was going to write more tonight about things settling down and not reacting to reactivity - no 2nd arrow, weyhey! Not sure what that fear was about a couple of days ago, but stress is unraveling, patterns are presenting themselves, they are seen - so much more clearly seen as being empty, impermament and unsatisfactory. Letting them be. Wow, insight meditation taking another step up.
So, that's the short version.
Hope you are well xx

[stephanie padma]

I feel ready for those 6 questions by the way - let me know what you think x

[perrym]

Hi Padma,

First: apologies for disappearing!

I run my own business, and sometimes (thankfully, very rarely nowadays) I have to rise the challenge of a near-impossible deadline. This time it was really freaky - out of the blue, TWO clients EACH dumped an impossible deadline onto me for the SAME week! So for the last week I have been arriving at work at 8am, and leaving somewhere between midnight and 1am, just popping home for an hour or two for dinner. Now it is (virtually) over, I am emerging, blinking, into the light, and noticing some of the really important things I've pushed aside for a week ... like LU!

I don’t know how I know that I know. It’s just that my heart expresses Joy and love when I look and there is nothing fixed, there is space and freedom.

Yes! When I see this change, when no-self starts to evoke joy and relief rather than fear, then I believe a significant shift has happened

“am I creating this fear?” the question doesn’t add up. Doh, no ‘I’ doing it.

Lovely, yes! And in this way, whole rafts of unhelpful habits start to unravel, and life becomes so much simpler .... putting down the burden of delusion is such a relief :-)

Still fear is there and hasn’t as yet reveal its story, maybe something about letting go of the ‘deep and meaningful’ myth of ‘my life story’.

Aye, habitual mental states don't usually vanish overnight ... but you may find that the ability to 'see through' stories and to come back to direct experience makes them less of a burden?

So... just to be completely explicit, would you say now that you've seen through the illusion of self? What was the 'mistake'? What changed?

x
Perry

[perrym]

Oops, messages crossed in the post!

Was going to write more tonight about things settling down and not reacting to reactivity - no 2nd arrow, weyhey! Not sure what that fear was about a couple of days ago, but stress is unraveling, patterns are presenting themselves, they are seen - so much more clearly seen as being empty, impermament and unsatisfactory. Letting them be. Wow, insight meditation taking another step up.

you have no idea how big a smile you've created over here :-)

I nearly asked about the 6 questions, but since you brought them up, here they are! Don't feel you need to respond to all of them in one post, it may be easier to dribble the answers out in bits....

x
Perry

_______________________________________________________________________

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience. Describe it fully as you see it now.

3) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

5) Do you decide, intend, choose, control events in Life? Do you make anything happen? Give examples from your experience.

6) Anything to add?

[stephanie padma]

Hi Perry,
Good to have you back and good to hear your disapearance was only work related!
Many thanks too for your sympathetic joy!!! :)
I was thinking about that question: "What was the mistake", I came up with various clever answers, but basically it all boils down to: the mistake was in believing that the content of thoughts is real and true, especially the "I did that" appropriation thoughts.
I will be looking at the six questions over the week,
Many thanks, Padma

[stephanie padma]

Dear Perry,

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?
No! Thoughts, sensations, the skandas, all arise spontaneously, with no-one doing it and no-one managing it. These experiences are constantly coming in and out of existence. No doer, no thinker, no manager, or co-ordinator in any shape or form. And nothing has been lost in seeing this because there never was a ‘me’, ‘I’ or ‘Self’.

2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience. Describe it fully as you see it now.
When any experience is perceived, thoughts come immediately following and ‘appropriate’ this experience by saying “I did this” or “this is me” or just “me, me, me”. They build up a picture of ‘me-ness’ which is moving, so that makes it a moving picture, a movie projected on a screen inside my head.
There is a bundle of habits we call characters, there are moods and actions that are habitual, sense of memory or projection in the future, these too are referred as ‘me’ and are the main character in the movie. But they are empty, not tangible, not a thing, and labelled incorrectly as a thing by the mind.
The labelling and commentating thoughts are pretty constant and taken at face value, we ‘go along with it’ without questioning the belief they create.

3) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.
In some respect nothing has changed, in other ways everything is slightly different! Stuff gets done, like admin, I notice the resistance, but it’s light, not so much in my face and not mine. Just some resistance arising, then I move on. Jogging is not so effective as I keep stopping to look at stuff, fascinated by plants and birds. Bad mood arose on Saturday, I found it kind of funny rather than being miserable about it. So, in other words, less aversion to aversion, less reaction to reactivity, a lot less second arrow: I can see the patterns of my habits for what they are so so much more clearly: habits, not me, not mine, not fixed and not that important (unsatisfactory). Actually, the response to my own experience is mostly compassion, much more curiosity and interest and laughter sometimes! The outside world and people also seem more interesting and colourful.
Even when my ‘big issue’ came up on Monday, it didn’t blind me for very long, when I remembered to ask myself the question: what is this? I saw the pattern very clearly, and accepted the feelings associated with it. So, it moved on and I can accept it as a story that will continue to come up and play itself out, but I can sense dis-attachment, disenchantment arising too.
Aaah yes, and the seeking has dropped, the striving for truth. I know that all I have to do is stop and listen, look, feel. Yet, it is not the end, but the beginning of discovering more truth and opening of the heart more.

Sorry if this is not very articulate!

Thank you, Padma xx

[perrym]

Padma, really - it is very, very articulate!

x
Perry

[stephanie padma]

Hi Perry,
I hope you are enjoying some of that sunshine.

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

mmh, not sure there was a last bit, just the constant drip drip of looking and writing every day. Your questions and pointing have been immensely helpful, to say the least, and grounding. ‘Guide’ is an appropriate word! (it is another word for angel actually!)The guiding being so personal, specific to what I’m coming up with. And your sense of humour and encouragement have all been helpful when getting too serious about it all.
For me a lot of the process has been about accepting the way things are and not trying to change them. Not trying to change my experience, but being with it, then I realise, there is really nothing to do, nowhere to run to, no better self to become. I remembered my QiGong teacher, after three days of having us standing up holding the Qi ball without moving, he said “there really is nowhere to go!”, that came to my mind and I laughed and cried! I understood. No ‘me’ going anywhere, here, now, this, is all there is. No 'I' to go over there, no 'I' over here.

Sending much love, Padma x

[stephanie padma]

Dear Perry,

5) Do you decide, intend, choose, control events in Life? Do you make anything happen? Give examples from your experience.
This is still sinking in. It is a quite baffling. I mean, I’d still like to think that the big decisions of my life direction were made for some deep and meaningful reason (the old romantic view!). But then...urm, by whom? When I look at the details, paths, directions, choices, emerge in dependence upon conditions, including the natural movement of the heart toward truth.
e.g. The other night I said I was going to chill and watch some TV instead of doing the LU questions, but then found myself switching the TV off and getting the laptop out and writing until late at night.
Today I thought to swim 20 lengths in one go instead of 10 x2, it just happened, then the thought follows “that was my idea”. Ideas, intention arise in awareness, but no-one created that, there is no ‘I’ that produces ideas. The action may or may not follow, depending on the conditions present.
The thoughts appropriate the decision, choices, intentions to the imaginary character after the fact, but they just happened, arising and passing all the time – more or less consciously, more or less thought through. But no Control Centre there. Praitya Samutpada. Constant movement with no centre.

6) Anything to add?
This is a weird process isn’t it! Sometimes absolutely nothing seem different at all, other times I feel sad, more of that Accepting sinking in. Other times Big Love arises and with it Clarity and Peace, my heart stretches and stretches and so much Joy and Beauty around!
I am so grateful for your guiding Perry, your patience and kindness and your humour too. I am also very very grateful to Iliona, I have often had her in my mind and heart over the last couple of months, I feel blessed to have met her and hope I’ll meet her again.

Thank you, Padma xxx

[perrym]

Hi Padma,

A lovely read, and thanks for your kind words :-)

Let's see if any of the other guides have anything to add or ask!

x
Perry