Is what you are calling in
this old thread 'the simplest thing' the same as the 'wisdom eye', and if so is this not in line with how your experience of a PCE plays out?
The Simplest Thing is what it has been called here recently. The Simplest Thing is one way of saying those other things. I like the old line, “In the seeing, just the seen. In the hearing, just the heard,” etc. I think it makes its point very clearly and concisely. It doesn’t get any more simple that that, and that was what I realized on that retreat.
In the same linked thread you say
I remember the first time I chanced on to No Dog, and it happened to be just a few seconds after the Fruition that got me arahatship. When the mind flipped into that way of perceiving things, it was for me that that time everything I was looking for. As an anagami, I had become so sick of cycles and cycles and cycles that the transcendence of No Dog was absolutely amazing. Cycles occurred, and the only thing of relevance was staying in No Dog. I associated it with the term Wisdom Eye, and my whole goal at that point was keeping in that state. The only problem was it didn’t last...
And
I do think that No Dog is a very important attainment, just like I like the Formless Realms, The Pure Land Jhanas and Nirodha Samapatti, and No Dog is even one better, but I think that one must finally come to a place where even that is seen as just one more variation or motif on the basic theme that phenomena manifest in various ways and realization must be found in a way that is not bound up in any specifics, and that includes No Dog."
So the 'simplest thing' (also compared to the Bahiya sutta description of arahat, seen in the seen etc) is the 'wisdom eye' open?
Also is 'just the seen in the seen' the ongoing experience of '4th path' with the 'wisdom eye' open as you have defined it?
And if so, does the ongoing experience of 'just the seen, in the seen' still involve the compounding and fabrication of moods and emotions? I ask this as my experiential version of what I call 'just the seen in the seen' etc. does not provide the mental space so to speak for any fabricating to occur. If the mind has the jhanic factors as the sole object of consciousness, and suddenly there is the decision to switch perception to 'just the seen in the seen' etc. then all jhanic factors (objects of consciousness) cease to be 'objects' of consciousness and the jhana will cease, and all there is is seen in the seen, heard in the heard etc. So this is my version of 'seen in the seen'. It may differ to other 'takes' so i wish to be clear what 'seen in the seen' is for your definition of 'the simplest thing'.
I would say my journey since MCTB 4th path has been a journey of getting closer and closer to permanent 'seen in the seen' as I have sort of described above. Another way to talk of it is when in a jhana, there will be some 'mental space' so to speak where a factor or factors of that jhana have the spot light (this is a poetic way of describing it). When the mind cease to attend to those mental objects (the factors that come together to fashion or give shape to the corresponding jhana), and ceases to attend to any object of the field of experience, all that is left is the 'back of the eyelids', sounds heard in the heard, etc.
Nick