Cesar Zapata

[Elad]

This sounds good to me Cesar...

Let's just continue to let this unfold and also keep gently looking sometimes what/where is this seeming someone who is watching and feeling the life... What/where is that more then a tought or a taking something that is just what it is, and believing it equals the I-thought/word. If the looking/inquiring feels forced or rigid, leave it... Let it just happen when it feels curious or genuine or spontaneous etc.

It's been a while Cesar. How are things unfolding?

[cesarzapata]

Hi Elad.

THanks for checking in, I have been meaning to write to you.

In terms of insights, I'm not sure much has changed, maybe something subtle, but I can't be sure.

I think this might be a bit of a long story but might be worth mentioning though.

After Christmas I got sick with a cold, but it really took me down, and I listened to my body and ended up 5 days in bed just resting and doing nothing. That openned an opportunity for me to just do nothing, really nothing, no practice, no trying to investigate awareness, no trying to get anywhere, I really gave myself the change to experience absolutly no agenda and no seeking.

After I got a bit better, I started to experience a lot of emotion, not sure if grief, but just some old memories coming up, a lot of feeling like I needed love and care, and crying. For quite a few days that was my experience. Then once I started to feel a bit better from the cold, I started to have some mood swings, really strong reactivity and disconfort, like I was really always looking forwards to something in the future but didnt know what. I just noticed a lot of impacience, anger and frustration coming up.
I had some tough times with family, and then on the 2nd when I went back to work I was so emotionally drained that I had zero interest in work, I just couldn't bother and seemed completly pointless. Then another wave of emotion started to creep in, but this time a lot of fear. Mind went crazy with stories of fear that I have experienced in the past and I already knew them, but the fear was intense. Fear of losing interest in my job completly and be so averse to it that I might have to quit or just love my job, lose the house, and all those catastrophic thinking.
I think the fear was so big, that the only thing I could do was to inquire into each fear at a time. "Is this true? Do I really know this is gonna happen". In the end after all this struggle, to some degree I started to be able to be a piece with the fact that my life could be falling apart and just let myself feel like I was losing everything.

For the next few days, these feelings were still bubbling up in the background, sometimes the fear would come back but less intense, and I would make room to experience it.

So what I have been doing is focussing more on resting. I started to do some practice and investigation again, but if I could summarise all that I have experienced, I would say what is happening is my capacity to open to more unconfortable emotions and orienting more towards relaxation and being ok with unconfortable feelings.

But before these states started to come back, there were these pretty intense, stressful times.

I notice I am still feeling quite ungarded and vulnerable, today there was an episode of deep crying with feelings of loss coming up.

The practices I have beem doing are more trying to observe and notice the narratives when I see this reactivity coming up.
And usually at the end of my days, just sitting and letting attention and curiosity just investigate experience in whatever way it happens.

Hope this gives a good picture and please let me know how you think we should continue.

Regards,

Cesar.

[Elad]

Hi Cesar,

Maybe just write me a little how things are moving every day? Just "report" as is. I think it might be good for the process.

And maybe look into: Is there anything here that I am controlling or choosing?

Just when you feel available for it...

Regarding the fear, you might look: is there anything that should change in this moment?

And look only in the field of direct experience... And then see what happens by itself... What is seen and what happens in terms of actions, emotion, insight, etc...

[Elad]

Ps. Sending love for the strong waves, I get it...

[cesarzapata]

Hi Elad.

Yesterday I had another of those days. Struggle at work, a bit of anxiety, and I feel I got very caught in narrative, it seems that when fear is present, the narratives are believed more deeply, they feel completly true.

On Thursdays I do sessions with a friend, something more on the therapy side, not sure if you are familiar with IFS or Scott Kiloby KI inquiries. Somehing of that sort.

We did a lot of resting with the contractions and sensations, and what started to become more clear to me is what I mentioned above, that I was believing a lot of narratives of what I think it's going to happen and was sure my interpretations of the sensations were accurate without seeing it was just contractions in the body and I was making stories out of them.

I feel like this has been a really important recognition here, because it showed me how sneaky the beliefs are, especially the ones that feel completly true.

Today I am off work, and I will spend most of my day just doing natural meditation.

I forgot to mention this, Saturday and Sunday I have booked an online weekend retreat with Todd and Pernilla, it's a retreat on 4th and 5th fetter, I hope that's not a problem for the work we have been doing together.

I'll keep you posted of how things have been unfolding.

Cesar.

[Elad]

Yes that is an important recognition. And yes I know all these methods and Todd and Pernille. All good stuff. Only thing is don't forget returning to look at the foundation (fetter 1) until it is clearly seen through. That boils down to:


1) What does "I" refer to, is there anything at all in direct experience?

2) Is there anything at all that is not spontaneously unfolding, even whatever is wanted, believed, efforted, contracted, habitual, etc?

3) Are there any fears/resistances to the nonexistence of self or expectations to how it should be like to realize it, that get in the way of simple attention to and aknowedgement of what is there? Is there a willingness to let these go?

[cesarzapata]

Hi Elad.

I'm certainly not going to stop looking at fetter 1. Todd and Pernilla also always incourage people to go back even after further shifts like 6th and 7th fetters if selfing is happening.

My main focus has been fetter one, it's just that this opportunity came up right when I was in misdst of all that caos hahahaha so I though it was perfect timing and maybe could help me since there's so much alive for me right now in terms or reactivity.

1) What does "I" refer to, is there anything at all in direct experience?

2) Is there anything at all that is not spontaneously unfolding, even whatever is wanted, believed, efforted, contracted, habitual, etc?

3) Are there any fears/resistances to the nonexistence of self or expectations to how it should be like to realize it, that get in the way of simple attention to and aknowedgement of what is there? Is there a willingness to let these go?

Thank you for these great reminders.

Cesar.

[Elad]

Perfect, sounds wise to me. I am with you and look forward to hear how things continue to unfold.

[cesarzapata]

Hi Elad.

The retreat was really helpful. As there were a lot of meditations focussed on observing sensations and thoughts, niticing how thoughts don't really represent/mean anything about the sensations I feel different aspects started to clarify and losen up some sticky narratives.

I started to notice and learn how to re-guide myself back to this more direct experience of the senses. This seems to have brough more curiosity and those natural inquiries, especially about moments that seem to be compartimentalised in time, like when I'm working, when I'm talking to someone, when this and that, so I notice a curiosity to look in those moments what make them feel different and if that "wider" perspective more direct is present in those moments as well. Then I start noticing more little bodily sensations, and other things that seem to give the mind feedback to give reality to some experiences.

Write now as I write to you, I can notice and get curious about that very thing, almost like taking a step back to explore the moment with more curiosity.

Regards,

Cesar.

[Elad]

Sounds great Cesar!

So how does that affect the belief that you are/have a self?

Tell me all there is to say about that at this point.

[cesarzapata]

Hi Elad.

So how does that affect the belief that you are/have a self?

I'm not sure how this new experience/insight has affected the belief in a self, seems like it affected things in a subtle way, and I can see that there is still a process/something trying to collect experiences, or thoughts referencing something that is not found in experience. But it feels like the sense of self, especially the seeking energy continues to dissipate, almost to not existing at all anymore. Sometimes the thoughts are more sticky, but there is an underlying understanding that whatever is appearing is just an aspect of what this is. So there's no more or very litle going to future, and expecting to find something. Usually when a narrative is noticed there's a natural curiosity to look closer at it and understand what is making it look what it seems to be, and a knowing that there isn't a self, there's just this aparison in experience, more like, as if an energetic manifestation was here and curiosity to see how it's formed or what story it's telling or feel in the body the energitic weight of it, usually the more unconfortable the thought narrative is, the more prevalent I can see it, and the more sticky or harder to snap out of it it feel like it is. Almost like it has a magnetic pull to it.

This is not to say that no selfing is hapening or that some narratives do not get me caught up in it, it seems like there's a bit more clarity and it's slowly integrating and expanding to more and more areas of life.

But I sense there is still an underlying lack of clarity of what this belief in a self actually is, I don't know if the sense of self has moved or re-identified to this "radiance/awareness". I don't feel like there is no self at all, it just feels like it's not the story. Sometimes I notice thoughts about "me" and the image of this body, and Cesar's story, and then the inquiry naturally came to me "is that who I am" and I can see that I'm not that story, history, past, this body, but I feel there's still a sense of something or someone observing. But this time it feels a bit different, not like someone behind the eyes looking, it feels closer to experience, like integrated, or just knowing. That sense of subject/object seems to be changing, and getting less convincing. Especially when in deep meditation feeling sensations in the body, I notice that almost completly disappears, and there's just knowing of the sensations. Even the sense of moving attention seems to change, almost like, just changing fenomenon within this knowing space that can't be defined into a specific shape.

Let me know where we should go from here.

I started to do more basic self inquiry for now, "who is this voice talking to?", "Who is this thought about?" and things like that.
As well as just resting and relaxing into the sense fields.

[Elad]

I started to do more basic self inquiry for now, "who is this voice talking to?", "Who is this thought about?" and things like that.
As well as just resting and relaxing into the sense fields

.


That is good. However ask What am I instead of Who. By saying Who you are indirectly reinforcing the belief in self.
Ask What is initiating and controlling movement? What is initiating and controling thought?

Is thought talking to anything?

Not who.

Do this exercise the more the merrier:

[Elad]

Shikantaza and inquiry


Sit comfortably, straigt back, facing a bare wall, eyes open and relaxed. Set a time for 10 minutes or more. During this time notice thoughts coming and going and body movements happening. Stay focused on:

What is making the thoughts come and go and the body move?

Is there a thinker initiating and ending the thoughts, an agent initiating and stopping the movements? Or is the thinker/agent just a thought/belief?

[Elad]

Ps. Some people need to ask Who. They need to hold on to the feeling that this is about who they are, since they are, rather then if they are, to keep the motivation alive. In that case so be it. And, it is helpful to be aware of the potential trap in it.

[cesarzapata]

Thanks Elad.

I'll try out the exercises and inquiries you suggested and report back.

I wrote who for some reason but generally I use "what" as who seems to be very tied to a human identity and it's become clear to me that whatever this is, it isn't human as in the conventional sense people talk about.

Regards,

Cesar