fivebells .:
I seem to be getting a lot of mileage out of the
Bahiya sutta since I came across it here a couple of days ago. I started with the Buddha's instruction "Only the seen in reference to the seen," etc., cycling through the six senses, and it has collapsed down to "In sensing, only the sensation." This leads to awareness of the self constructed in relation to the sensation, and holding it in awareness cuts it. Does this sound right? I think a new self is evolving in reference to the selves being elucidated by this practice, which may be problematic. Also, this practice demands very stable attention and if the sensation is disturbing enough it gets very tricky. In that case I go back to metta/tonglen.
Also, I find the Buddha's claim that Bahiya "did not pester with issues related to the Dhamma" a bit mysterious.
Just sharing from my personal experiences... Personally, Bahiya Sutta leads to the NDNCDIMOP (non-dual, non-conceptual, direct, immediate, mode of perception) of "seeing" "sensing" etc.
But more important than that, it led to the deconstruction of "Self", "Awareness", and the likes by direct realization of the right view.
Prior to this insight, I had NDNCDIMOP where all sense of an observer, subject, self, etc completely dissolves into "just the hearing", "just the seeing"... the vivid, direct, luminous perception of the senses as it is.
It should be noted that as an experience, without any insight, this NDNCDIMOP is very intermittent and appears to require a lot of effort, like you say "very stable attention". In fact it is always (prior to the arising of penetrative insights) the result of concentrative effort or very strong mindfulness such that one is able to breakthrough the layers of bonds that condition us into a subject-object mode of perceiving/contraction, and the mind/body construct, so that when we can temporarily dissolve or disable these bonds, a peak experience can occur. This need not happen in a particular meditative setting - the first time as I recall it happened to me when I was 16 years old, was when I was just appreciating the sceneries, the trees and the leafs moving and swaying from my window, when the sense of a self and observer dissolved and instead of perceiving as if "I am an observer seeing the tree", there is for a brief period of time JUST the seeing/the tree in all its vivid colours and shapes and movements... there was a very wonderful and amazing quality to it, and because this seems so different from the ordinary way we see things (dualistically), there is a "wow" quality to it, like it is something very special and extraordinary. (now it's still wonderful, but more ordinary, due to the lack of big contrasts as this mode becomes kind of effortless, ongoing/perpetual)
Yet the key to the effortless and seamless NDNCDIMOP lies in dissolving these bonds are through penetrative
insights (though some concentration is also helpful and required especially at first). Penetrative insights see into the
nature of what reality has always been and is - e.g. always already, in seeing only the seen, no seer! Not as a temporary experience but always so.
So anyway, as I had some insights back in August/September 2010 into the non-dual nature of Awareness, this NDNCDIMOP was becoming more frequent and seems to be rather ongoing rather than brief episodes, yet not fully effortless or stable. There is still something preventing complete effortlessness and seamlessness.
What I did not realize then, is that I was still having some constructs or view of an Awareness, a view of a subject, as something inherent. So much so that when the experience was expressed, the view, the construct immediately influence my expression into something crude like "everything is just the expression of Aliveness" "everything is the expression of Awareness". The mind still has this view of a truly existing essence, an Awareness, in which everything is an expression of. I see Awareness as completely non-dual, without any subject or object division, but still the view of a source, an inherent essence, a subject, is still causing this desync of view and experience.
What Bahiya Sutta led to is the deconstruction of the subjective pole by realizing that "awareness", perceiving, self are all imputed on just the ever-changing, arising and subsiding sights and sounds, that there is truly no inherently existing essence that can be pinned down whatsoever. Instead of seeing everything as the expression of one truly existing awareness, "Awareness", "self", "perceiving", "hearing" is simply realized to be JUST the transient sensations, sights, sounds, smells, taste, touch, thoughts. There is nothing whatsoever that can be pinned down as I, me, mine.
A person at the ordinary dualistic level of experience/view sees "subject, perceiver" as separate and distinct from the "objective world outside", leading to a sense of alienation, distance, separation, as if there is an inner person looking out at the world from the center of the head. As an analogy: one sees that the waves and the oceans are two things.
A person who has realized non-dual awareness and has direct experience of the NDNCDIMOP, BUT still holds on to the view of an inherent "self" may formulate his experience in terms of inherent view and construct, such as "everything is all One, as the entire ocean and all the waves are only the one substance of water". In this case, it is One Mind. Everything is Mind, everything is Self, everything is Awareness/the expression of Awareness. One is still seeing in terms of a self and a source despite the background being inseparable or non-dual from the foreground, it is not seeing through the falseness of any truly existing background or subjective essence. Therefore, experience is non-dual yet view of inherency remains.
But someone who realizes Bahiya sutta actually deconstructing "Awareness" and "self", in the same way as deconstructing "water" by seeing that "water" is simply a label imputed on two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atoms co-dependently arising (see this: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.sg/2012/05/is-there-you.html ). It does not subsume everything to an essence but it is a way of deconstructing the "Essence", a self, an agent, a perceiver, in whatsoever form... by seeing that "self/Self", "Awareness", and the likes are simply
imputation constructed on a conglomerate of self-luminous phenomena. In seeing, just the seen, "seeing" is just a convention imputed on phenomena "seen". Same goes for hearing, smelling, etc... and there is no "You" (as an agent, perceiver, controller, etc) whatsoever "in terms of that". Nothing can be pinned down. Now it is seen that all sensations/phenomena/dharmas are implicitly non-dual and nothing inherent. The effort to reconfirm something unchanging (a source, a self, an awareness), along with any sense of agency or self is dissolved in effortless No-Mind. Contemplating on Bahiya Sutta was what led to my insight into anatta.
The result of this is that NDNCDIMOP becomes effortless and seamless rather than remaining an intermittent experience.
This is not the end, but only pertains to the very first point in Thusness's 9 points to Taiyaki:
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/
Last year, a forummer from the NewBuddhist forum penetrated within a year the realization of I AM to non dual and anatta. He is an avid reader of this blog.
Thusness wrote the following pointers for him:
"There are several points that maybe of help to Taiyaki:
1. First there must be a deep conviction that arising does not need an essence. That view of subjective essence is simply a convenient view.
2. First emptying of self/Self does not necessarily lead to illusion-like experience of reality. It does however allows experience to become vivid, luminous, direct and non-dual.
3. First emptying may also lead a practitioner to be attached to an 'objective' world or turns physical. The 'dualistic' tendency will resurface after a period of few months so it is advisable to monitor one's progress for a few months.
4. Second emptying of phenomena will turn experience illusion-like but take note of how emptying of phenomena is simply extending the same "emptiness view" of Self/self.
5. From these experiences and realizations, contemplate what is meant by "thing", what is meant by mere construct and imputation.
6. "Mind and body drop" are simply dissolving of mind and body constructs. If one day the experience of anatta turns a practitioner to the attachment of an 'objective and actual' world, deconstruct "physical".
7. There is a relationship between "mental constructs", energy, luminosity and weight. A practitioner will experience a release of energies, freedom, clarity and feel light and weightless deconstructing 'mental constructs'.
8. Also understand how the maha experience of interpenetration and non-obstruction is related to deconstructions of inherent view.
9. No body, no mind, no dependent origination, no nothing, no something, no birth, no death. Profoundly deconstructed and emptied! Just vivid shimmering appearances as Primordial Suchness in one whole seamless unobstructed-interpenetration."p.s. my take on Buddha's claim that Bahiya "did not pester with issues related to the Dhamma": understand and go for the essence, don't dwell in unimportant and unbeneficial side issues or things having no relation to your practice! At least, this is what Thusness advised me (though his advise were shorter than what I just said, but his meaning is something like that) just yesterday. Why? I always pester Thusness with all kinds of questions, while overlooking the essence of what he said.