J E B:
They seem to be distancing the belief from self(ego), permanence(mind state), and satisfying(ego-trip-seeking). In other words dissociating the brain from the thinking patterns that would facilitate the belief in a dual self. In other words, the brain itself dissociates from the psychological self.
In my experience what transforms is not any sort of dissociation, but a waking up, an insight into what is always already the case. For example a young child may suddenly realize one day that santa claus was never real. From that point on he stops chasing after santa claus or believing that on Christmas day he will receive some present from santa claus. This is just an example.
You do not intentionally distance from the belief, the belief simply ends right there in insight. Also there is no self or mind apart from mental activities, so there is no self to distance from any arising. Dharmas arise according to conditions and subsides due to the cessation of conditions. You cannot force yourself to stop ignorance, you can only investigate, contemplate, one's direct experience and its nature and when realization arises, false beliefs and views naturally drop in the presence of wisdom. Each moment is either the total exertion of ignorance in which ignorance (seeing self and things as truly existing or inherently existing) shapes and is totally exerted as a moment of deluded experience, or as the total exertion of wisdom in which an experience is totally exerted or is actualized as a moment of wisdom experience.
As my friend Kyle Dixon quoted before,
"…The process of eradicating avidyā is conceived… not as a mere stopping of thought, but as the active realization of the opposite of what ignorance misconceives. Avidyā is not a mere absence of knowledge, but a specific misconception, and it must be removed by realization of its opposite. In this vein, Tsongkhapa says that one cannot get rid of the misconception of 'inherent existence' merely by stopping conceptuality any more than one can get rid of the idea that there is a demon in a darkened cave merely by trying not to think about it. Just as one must hold a lamp and see that there is no demon there, so the illumination of wisdom is needed to clear away the darkness of ignorance."
Napper, Elizabeth, 2003, p. 103
J E B:
But that is exactly what seems to be what is being done with mindfulness practice where one concentrates over and over again on the three characteristics of not self, not lasting, and not satisfying prior to that non-dual non-Self awareness is it not?
First of all just to clarify and make sure we're on the same page: non-dual non-Self awareness is not a state of experience achieved at some point in one's practice, but what is always already the case - experience is always already self-aware and non-dual, never was there a subject/object, or perceiver/perceived dichotomy (other than as conceived delusions), and this is always already the nature of experience. Being the nature of what is always already so, we do not achieve it as a stage, but we realize what it is and what its nature is.
Your statement "three characteristics of not-self, not lasting and not satisfying prior to that non-dual non-Self awareness" may give some the impression that by dissociating from the not-self, you discover Awareness that transcends the not-self, or that non-dual Awareness is somehow changeless and transcending transiency. By investigating according to the three dharma seals, by penetrating into the truth of Anatta, there is both correct experience and correct discernment of non-dual awareness and its nature (as an insight into anatta will deconstruct the dualistic views of seer-seeing-seen), but not self/not lasting/not satisfying is not to be seen as a method or means to get somewhere more ultimate but are simply the nature of this very manifest naked awareness/experience. Being so, you realize the three dharma seals and emptiness of this very naked manifest awareness, you realize the three seals to be the nature of non-dual awareness itself and actualize the wisdom of three seals and emptiness so that experience is intimately/gaplessly and lucidly experienced yet self-liberating (rather than skewing towards vivid non-dual luminosity and leaving subtle traces by resting in that clarity either as one mind/a subject or a subtle grounding to a here/now/objective-universe) - you do not dissociate from experience that manifest the three dharma seals, you simply realize and actualize that wisdom (of the nature and essence of everything that is always already so) so that experience self-releases.
There is not any Awareness other than manifestation (the sensate universe, this immediate moment of experience) as they are - already self-luminous and self-aware without any observer or any separate 'awareness' that is aware of that manifestation. It could be said to be a 'quality' of experience - that without the quality of awareness of all manifestation, nothing could be cognized, felt, experienced. It could be conceptualized as something like the 'wetness' of water - awareness is a quality seen in every manifestation just as wetness is a quality that is seen in every drop of water. But it should not be mis-conceptualized as some metaphysical essence that "pervades but transcends" everything (as many people with the Atman-Brahman/Advaitic leaning view would conceive of Awareness in such manner) - because although all drops of water is wet, it also goes the other way round - there is also no wetness to be spoken apart from the drop - or from drops of water. There is no wetness apart from drops of water, no heat apart from the manifestation of burning fire, etc etc, likewise no awareness apart from "in seen only the seen, in heard only the heard, in cognized only the cognized". It is not the case that Awareness pervades drops of water but transcends those drops of water - if there were no drops of water there is no wetness, if there were no burning fire there is no heat, if there were no sugar then there is no sweetness - they (wetness/heat/sweetness/etc) are simply characteristics and experiential-descriptions of manifestation and likewise for 'awareness' and 'manifest experience' (which can then be categorized in many arbitrary schemes like five aggregates, twelve ayatanas, eighteen dhatus or just one dhatu - all also conventional designations). Incoherent as it seem, substantialists reify Awareness much like conceiving there to be a changeless and truly existing 'sweetness' that pervades but remains unchanged throughout the presence and absence of sugar. But the realization of "in seeing just the seen, no seer" is not by logical inferences or analogies or intellectual exercises but by direct experiential contemplation (for me, I was contemplating and challenging the seer-seeing-seen framework of viewing things with pointers of Bahiya Sutta, when the realization arose) which leads to a moment of direct gnosis/realization/insight/wisdom/awakening and lasting transformation thereafter.
This is why this kind of pervade-but-transcend metaphor is flawed (although perfect for Advaita) and people have mistaken Daniel Ingram's "True Self/No-Self" chapter (which I think has potential to be very beneficial especially to those with an Advaitic/Awareness-teaching sort of background, but the contents need to be thoroughly clarified) to be implying that he holds Advaitic sort of true-self teaching, although I'm sure Daniel does not hold that kind of view but it is easy to pick on one particular part of the chapter that one likes and be blind to the whole context and overall point or message that the article is trying to deliver, which is that other than the five aggregates there is no 'awareness' whatsoever to be spoken of. When direct insight into Anatta arise, the view of pervade-and-transcend is made irrelevant and incompatible, there is just manifestation and nothing else pervading manifestation nor transcending manifestation, there is no true-self of any sort in a definitive sense, only a provisional, skillful-means teaching of true self to guide those non-Buddhist ascetics that fear the teaching of anatta and emptiness (Lankavatara Sutra: "O Mahāmati, the tathāgatas thus teach the garbha in so far as they teach the tathāgatagarbha in order to attract those who are attached to the heterodox ātmavāda. How can people whose minds fall into the conceptual theory bearing on an unreal self (abhūtātmavikalpa) attain quickly the complete awakening in the supreme and exact sambodhi, possessing a mind comprised in the domain of the three gateways of emancipation? O Mahāmati, it is because of this that the tathāgatas teach the tathāgatagarbha... ...O Mahāmati, with a view to casting aside the heterodox theory, you must treat the tathāgatagarbha as not self (anātman)."). Many Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhists however have a very Advaitic sort of view on 'Awareness' (though there are also many who don't).
In other words, there is no awareness whatsoever to be spoken apart from 'in the seen just the seen, in the heard just the heard, in the cognized just the cognized' - awareness is not an Observer, not something apart or transcending vivid and self-luminous manifestation but is simply that self-luminous, self-aware quality of manifestation, and apart from manifestation there is no awareness to be found whatsoever. There is ONLY manifestation, and it is of that manifestation with a lucidly clear, vivid, cognizant, conscious, sentient and alive quality that one may then impute labels like 'awareness'. In the end, the term 'awareness' is seen to be quite extraneous. We often talk in terms of subject-object predicates, such as, "I am seeing the tree over there", implying a seer seeing an object seen, but in actuality there is only just that self-luminous single activity of 'seen', and even the 'seen' is ultimately empty since 'seen' is only spoken in reference and context of seeing/seer etc, i.e. all (seer/seeing/seen) are just conventions collating a single self-luminous manifestation or activity, to conceive them as distinct inherent realities or entities is to fall into delusions. To speak of "I am seeing the tree" is extraneous - there is no inherent "I" or "seer" apart from the seeing/seen happening, to speak of "seeing the tree" or even "seeing" is extraneous, to speak of "awareness" is also extraneous, just "the seen" is enough as that already implies seeing, and seeing is only ever just the seen. Or as Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh says, "We can say, 'Wind,' and that is enough. The presence of wind indicates the presence of knowing, and the presence of the action of blowing'" - http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2008/10/sun-of-awareness-and-river-of.html
Now, awareness being mere manifestation or quality of manifestation or some people call it the nature or essence (or characteristic) of mind/mental activities/six senses activities/etc, and not a Self or a thing-in-and-of-itself, being mere conditioned manifestation luminous clarity cannot be pinned down as a Self, and as manifestation there is only transiency.
Awareness is the transience field of manifestation, luminous-mind itself is not-self, is impermanent, and all manifestations being impermanent and not-self, cannot satisfy one's attachments and craving (only permanent, graspable, abiding, stable subjects/objects can satisfy one's attachments and cravings - which is desire to obtain things and hold on to them indefinitely).
This is why one must let go non-dual luminosity, but not by dualistically separating 'oneself' from 'it' which would again be the deluded, false, dualistic situation in which there is a conceived observer and object observed. Instead, it is still very important to have direct insight into non-dual luminosity and this becomes naturally obvious by penetrating through the 2nd stanza of anatta (http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html), but further insights will reveal the disjointed, groundless, empty and self-liberating nature of whatever arises and non-dual luminosity is no longer grasped, subjectified or objectified in any way but simply releases upon inception without leaving traces like painting on water.
In other words, we must have insight into the three characteristics (anicca, dukkha, anatta) OF that non-dual luminosity, it is not that we arrive at non-dual luminosity (as if it is something ultimate and absolute transcending the three dharma seals) after contemplating on the three dharma seals.
Of course you don't seem to be implying non-dual Awareness is Self or some ultimate metaphysical essence (as you clearly stated Awareness as 'non-Self'), but just pointing out that the 'non-dual luminosity' and the three characteristics and emptiness should be seen as talking about the (empty) nature and (luminous/clarity) essence of a single moment of arising, rather than one leading up to another, or as pointing to two different realities.
Just as Thusness wrote last year:
6/3/2012 9:23 PM: John: U cannot talk about emptiness and liberation without talking about awareness
6/3/2012 9:25 PM: John: Instead understand the empty nature of awareness and see awareness as this single activity of manifestation
6/3/2012 9:27 PM: John: I do not see practice apart from realizing the essence and nature of awareness
6/3/2012 9:30 PM: John: The only difference is seeing Awareness as an ultimate essence or realizing awareness as this Seamless activity that fills the entire Universe.
6/3/2012 9:32 PM: John: When we say there is no scent of a flower, the scent is the flower....that is becoz the mind, body, universe are all together deconstructed into this single flow, this scent and only this... Nothing else.
6/3/2012 9:33 PM: John: That is the Mind that is no mind.
6/3/2012 9:38 PM: John: There is no an Ultimate Mind that transcends anything in the Buddhist enlightenment. The mind Is this very manifestation of total exertion...wholly thus.
6/3/2012 9:42 PM: John: Therefore there is always no mind, always only this vibration of moving train, this cooling air of the aircon, this breath...
6/3/2012 9:47 PM: John: The question is after the 7 phases of insights can this be realized and experience and becomes the ongoing activity of practice in enlightenment and enlightenment in practice -- practice-enlightenment.