Steph S:
Could you please explain further what I put in bold?
I've never used the "Who am I?" question and I basically agree with what Jill says here for why I'm not sure it would work.
one practice that does sound different to me is the "who am i" question, because it seems to assume that there is a certain 'i' somewhere that needs to be figured out and matched with a yet to be found 'who'.
There can be utter certainty in the absence of all conceptual thoughts, pure certainty arises in directness, and has nothing to do with the mind figuring things out conceptually by comparison, matching and so on. No inference can touch that realm. Every koan, hua tou, or inquiry must be designed to lead to that direct realization, but different koans or hua tou can lead to a particular or different insight/realization such as Tozan's five ranks. "Who am I?" is likened by Ramana Maharshi to a stick that when burnt leaves nothing behind - not including the flame or the stick, i.e. self-inquiry leads to a realization where not even the question or the 'I' thought remains. So when the I-thought is traced to its source by inquiring "Who am I?" What remains is no (conceptual) thought, only Presence, a pure conceptual-less sense of existence which is utterly doubtless and certain. In other words, it is Presence as a non-conceptual thought. There is nothing to be figured out as it is only in the absence of all conceptual thoughts, in direct presence, that there is self-realization. But it is true that "Who am I?" already presumes a pure identity, so what is realized is reified into a pure identity and one will be inclined to always seek to abide in that purest realm of presence. It is a non-dual, non-conceptual, direct and immediate mode of perception but only pertains to the pure thought realm. Such practitioner may not be able to see the one taste of luminosity in all 18 dhatus but cling to a purest state of presence which is seen as the background source of everything.
As for HAIETMOBA, it leads to similar experience but instead of seeking the realm of pure, the mind realm, rather the inquiry is directed to the immediate experience of aliveness in the foreground, in the senses, which is very important and essential. But even when all sense of self/Self goes into abeyance in the experience of PCE, one can be led (due to faulty view) to attach to an ultimate ground, to being "actual", to an objective universe. When it is seen that there is something "actual" and "objective", one will seek to ground oneself/be grounded in the here and now, the objective, the actual. The PCE becomes treated as ultimate like in the previous case, but now it is being "actual, objective, here/now" while the "I AM" is reifying a subjective self. Both are a form of self-view, one subject the other object. Also, PCE will not be effortless until some insight arise. And depending on one's practice and insight, even if insight into anatta arises one may be skewed to the second stanza and overlook the first stanza and the aspect of emptiness, i.e. http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html - in this case it is very much like those trying to ground themselves in the actual, direct experience of aliveness all day. Aliveness is important but should be complemented with the insight into emptiness, for if one does not go through two fold emptiness (of self and emptiness), how is a dual and inherent view going to lead one to that uncontrived awareness as this moment of suchness and which self-releases? There will always be contrivance and grasping instead of naturalness and release owing to faulty view.
When one penetrates first stanza and emptiness, then nothing is clung to as ultimate, whether subject or object, all are thoroughly deconstructed and emptied, one experientially realizes the insubstantial, unsupported, disjoint, self-releasing, coreless nature of everything, and also one understands that everything is "merely imputed" - from self, to awareness, to universe, everything is a mere imputation, convention, label in the same way that "weather" is a convention or imputation on a process of everchanging forming and departing clouds, rain, wind, etc. One has a better understanding of the implication of view, and one does not cling to anything subjective or objective (both are views, mere imputation). Whatever manifest is vividly luminous and present but nothing to cling as there isn't anything truly 'there' or 'here' - empty. Luminosity and emptiness are without hierarchy in terms of importance - there is no true understanding of emptiness without direct realization of luminosity (one can study madyamika teachings but without true experience of luminous presence whatever understood is merely intellectual views), no true understanding of luminosity without realizing its empty nature (despite having had direct experience of it).