Book Review: An Eternal Now E-book Journal - Discussion
Book Review: An Eternal Now E-book Journal
Richard Zen, modified 10 Years ago at 8/23/14 10:15 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/22/14 12:08 PM
Book Review: An Eternal Now E-book Journal
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An Eternal Now E-book Journal
It’s about time to review Buddhist books since I’ve reviewed mainly psychology books that dovetail with Buddhism.
Here are my favourite practice advice instructions of An Eternal Now's (Wei Yu's) Journal, though I still recommend reading it all if you can. I know it’s huge and intimidating but I distilled the 500 pages into around 15-20 pages of my favourite parts. If anyone wants to add quotes, not posted here, they are welcome to. The book is linked below and I recommend his website:
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.ca/2010/12/my-e-booke-journal.html
E-book journal
http://www.awakeningtoreality.blogspot.ca/
Web-site (There are a lot of good stickies on the right side of the site that should be looked at)
The book is long and has many repetitions due to it being a practice journal but it’s worth diving in. The quotes below are from various people and sources. It’s also good to read Nagarjuna to understand the middle path. Inherent existence means a belief that experience exists independently and without cause and effect. To not believe in inherent existence is to understand that everything is interdependent and effected by causes. The absolute would be to understand that experience in actuality is seamless and the seams are the brain’s simplification of the universe for survival purposes. The middle path would be to avoid the extremes of treating objects as inherent or the other extreme of nihilism (belief nothing exists).
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I AM:
As the thoughts subside, an intense and palpable sense of beingness and presence, the only 'thing' that remains that I feel to be my innermost essence... became very obvious... very very vivid and intense, and feels like a constant background in which everything is taking place, thoughts (almost none at that moment, but arise afterwards) that arise are also taking place in this unchanging background... and there is this certainty and doubtlessness about this I AM-ness, IT is absolutely real and undeniable. IT/I AMness/The Witness is the only solid and undoubtable Presence and is clearly present with or without thoughts. I remembered briefly thinking after having experienced that, "So this is it! This is enlightenment!" and "No, not enlightenment", but it’s funny how these thoughts are just passing thoughts like wind, occurring in this solid constant undoubtable sense of presence. Inconsequential and illusory doubts and concepts are arising within undoubtable presence... passes away as soon as they arise because there is no more identification with the mind/ego. After all, I am just this Reality, this background of awareness that is ever-present and watching, I'm not any of those thoughts that come and go. The part that thinks 'I am enlightened' or 'I am not enlightened', that is not what I am and can never be 'enlightened' and thus totally irrelevant, while what I am, is always already completely clear and perfect beyond doubt, already and always perfectly 'awake'/'aware'. From the perspective of Consciousness, all thoughts and perceptions are just illusory appearances coming and going within consciousness. I just found a quote by Nisargadatta Maharaj that puts it so well: "This reality is so concrete, so actual, so much more tangible than mind and matter, that compared to it even diamond is soft like butter. This overwhelming actuality makes the world dreamlike, misty, irrelevant."
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Notice when thoughts are paused there are no doubts; the certainty of (doubtless) Being is obviously present; the unquestionable FACT of EXISTENCE. Notice that the Being is ALWAYS presently shining, effortlessly and spontaneously. Stay with that undeniable non-conceptual confidence. Your Being has always been present for every single experience. That natural cognition in which all experiences arise is not a person.
Be as you ARE and not what you imagine yourself to be.
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Essentially what you have to ask is 'Who am I?' Trace the radiance to its source. You are aware and present, this is undoubtable and undeniable. So Who/What is Aware? Trace the radiance to the source.
You hear sounds of bird chirping, so Who/What is Hearing? Turn the light around, trace the radiance to the source, listen to the listener, investigate 'What Listens', until you can say with absolute certainty and conviction that you realized your true nature. (btw, this is Guan Yin's method of practice - 反闻闻自性)
http://buddhism.sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/401963
Chinul: Do you hear the sounds of that crow cawing and that magpie calling?
Student: Yes.
Chinul: Trace them back and listen to your hearing‐nature. Do you hear any sounds?
Student: At that place, sounds and discriminations do not obtain.
Chinul: Marvelous! Marvelous! This is Avalokitesvara's method for entering the noumenon. Let me ask you again. You said that sounds and discriminations do not obtain at that place. But since they do not obtain, isn't the hearing‐nature just empty space at such a time?
Student: Originally it is not empty. It is always bright and never obscured.
Chinul: What is this essence which is not empty?
Student: As it has no former shape, words cannot describe it
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That ego is certainly not true, it cannot be found. Just investigate in your own experience and you see that whatever you labeled as 'me' is in fact, not you at all. They are simply more transient thoughts and feelings arising in the field of awareness, they come and go. What we perceive as an individual person, or a personality, at the center of lives... simply is more patterns of thoughts, actions, feelings, behavior arising in the field of awareness. There isn't a 'me' actually. 'That me' that sentient beings identify with is actually not a 'me' at all. It is only impersonal thoughts, feelings, sensations arising and subsiding momentarily in the field of awareness without any substantiality or separate doer, they are only effortless/spontaneous expression of One Life. You clearly see that we are not separate selves living our lives, but we are all being lived as an effortless expression of One Life.
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“You may very well 'do something' to change the conditions, but even the 'actions to change the conditions' is the 'being done', not the 'doer'.”
For example,
Hear a bird chirping.
What/who is hearing?
(silence)
Silence means you aren't trying to answer the question using your mind (because the answer cannot be found there - the more you try to figure out with your mind the more time is wasted because you are looking at the wrong direction), but instead you are directly looking at 'What Hears' and experiencing your True Self, your Hearing- Nature/Pure Awareness. The inner cognizer (I AM) turns within and cognizes itself, it's true nature.
The pure silence underneath the sound is your true nature, but it is not an inert nothingness, in fact not even silence as such, but more accurately a featureless wide- awake space which perceives all sounds, all sights, all thoughts, etc. It cannot be understood by the mind. You have to trace the hearing, the radiance, the seeing, to its Source.
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When you see an apple, does your awareness or eye say 'I see apple?' No, the 'I see apple' is an after-thought. Does the thought 'I see apple' have the power of seeing the apple? No, Presence-Awareness is what is Seeing. 'I see apple' is merely an after-thought that separates an imaginary 'I' and an imaginary separate object 'apple'. The actual seeing precedes subject-object division, the actuality of it does not have a separate 'I' involved.
Similarly, does thoughts or actions arise spontaneously or are you the doer/thinker of thoughts/actions? Can you know what your next moment of thought will be? No, you can't. Thoughts simply arise spontaneously on its own accord. Ditto to actions. All the causes and conditions come together and something pops up, but no separate doer/thinker/controller can be found. There is only conditioned and spontaneous arisings.
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The ego is not real and has no real power to 'do' or 'perceive' things at all. The 'ego' is simply an after-thought/after-identification of an actual act or perception. It is the identification of something done/perceived as 'me' or 'mine' or perceived/done through a 'perceiver'/'doer' which is false.
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“If other thoughts arise, one should, without attempting to complete them, enquire, 'To whom did they occur?' What does it matter if ever so many thoughts arise? At the very moment that each thought rises, if one vigilantly enquires 'To whom did this appear?' it will be known 'To me'. If one then enquires 'Who am I?' the mind will turn back to its source and the thought that had arisen will also subside. By repeatedly practising in this way, the mind will increasingly acquire the power to abide at its source. When the mind, which is subtle, is externalised via the brain and the sense organs, names and forms, which are material, appear. When it abides in the Heart, names and forms disappear. Keeping the mind in the Heart, not allowing it to go out, is called 'facing the Self' or 'facing inwards'. Allowing it to go out from the Heart is termed 'facing outwards' When the mind abides in the Heart in this way, the 'I', the root of all thoughts, . Having vanished, the ever-existing Self alone will shine. The state where not even the slightest trace of the thought 'I' remains is alone swarupa [one's real nature]. This alone is called mauna . Being still in this way can alone be called jnana drishti [seeing through true knowledge]. Making the mind subside into the Self is 'being still'. On the other hand, knowing the thoughts of others, knowing the three times [past present and future] and knowing events in distant places - these can never be jnana drishti.”
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Don't try to comprehend the process intellectually. Don't stop at any thought- conclusion, like "to me" (which is simply an inferred thought), but trace all thoughts and perceptions to its source by asking "Who am I?" to discover your True Self. Spending more time trying to figure out how this works in the mind is just going to prevent you from directly realizing and experiencing your True Mind. The purpose is to trace the radiance back to the source, then abide at the Source as Ramana Maharshi said.
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“There are many things that I can doubt, but I cannot doubt my own consciousness in this moment. My consciousness IS, and even if I tried to doubt it, it would be my consciousness doubting. I can imagine that my senses are being presented with a fake reality – say, a completely virtual reality or digital reality, which looks real but is merely a series of extremely realist images. But even then, I cannot doubt the consciousness that is doing the watching…
The very undeniability of my present awareness, the undeniability of my consciousness, immediately delivers to me a certainty of existence in this moment, a certainty of Being in the now-ness of this moment. I cannot doubt consciousness and Being in this moment, for it is the ground of all knowing, all seeing, all existing…
Who am I? Ask that question over and over again, deeply. Who am I? What is it in me that is conscious of everything?
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In other words, don't give transient thoughts more solidity/reality than they are: as transient dream-like phenomena arising and dissolving instantly in infinite Awareness, leaving no traces. It is like a ball, if you throw it into space, it has no place to stay/abide/latch on to, and it just falls back as soon as it goes up. The space in this analogy is referring to your space-like Awareness, the ball is referring to your thoughts. In this way, thoughts that do arise don't leave traces, they just come and go naturally according to circumstances but there is no latching on to them. You are like a non-stick pan of Awareness itself.
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Deeply contemplate this verse by Zen Master Huang Po (his stuff are good):
All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measure, names, traces and comparisons. It is that which you see before you – begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error. It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured. The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood. By their very seeking they lose it, for that is using the Buddha to seek for the Buddha and using mind to grasp Mind. Even though they do their utmost for a full aeon, they will not be able to attain it. They do not know that, if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings. It is not the less for being manifested in ordinary beings, nor is it greater for being manifest in the Buddhas.
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…the thought 'I see apple' has no power to be aware of apple.
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The practice of 'neti neti' is done in order to reject the not-self in order to find or discover the Self. To put it in Namdrol's terms, the Advaita technique resorts to affirming negations to support a position of its own. Why? The not- self of Advaita is established only in contrast with the True Self.
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"How am I experiencing the moment of being alive?" -- aliveness
"How am I experiencing the moment of hearing?" -- sound
"How am I experiencing the moment of seeing?" -- scenery
"Who am I?" – I AM
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Non-duality:
Having said that, since none of your recent posts are about the absorptive state but are experiences relating to non-dual in transience, it is appropriate to practice bringing this ‘taste’ of pure luminous brilliance to the foreground. By ‘foreground’, I am referring to all your six entries and exits (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind) and experience vivid luminous aliveness in colors, forms, shape, sound, scent, taste and thoughts. It is essential for Phase 4 and 5 insights, that is, experiencing directly the 18 dhatus and aggregates and realize that the entire idea of 'I and Mine' is learnt. Also, I do not think you have the time to practice deep absorptive meditation in army. You can re-visit this ‘Oceanic Samadhi Bliss’ later when there is thoroughness and fearlessness in forgoing the sense of self/Self.
The universe is this arising thought.
The universe is this arising sound.
Just this magnificent arising!
Is Tao.
Homage to all arising.
Doing this foreground practice, you are effectively refining your realization from “You as pure Existence” to “Existence is the very stuff of whatever arises”. The actual stuff - the screen, the keyboard, the clicking sound, the cool air, the taste, the vibration…is the actuality of Universe itself, there is no other. Nevertheless do take note that these are still experiences, they are not realizations. You will have to go through what you have gone through in the phase of ‘I AM’ from intermittent experiences to realizations.
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..vividly present and instantly gone…
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The Buddha… he wants us to have realizations, which are permanent.
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Instead of being fully identified with or engaging in the contents of thoughts... if you simply step back and witness the arising of thoughts and the body and everything... you will see how thoughts arise totally spontaneously on its own according to imprints and habits. There is absolutely no thinker involved! Thoughts simply arise, they just happen, and you are simply this non-interfering witness. You are not a thinker, or a doer, or a controller, but the witness. Even apparent choices are simply thoughts spontaneously happening due to conditioning and imprints. Just notice next time how thoughts arise! Watch!
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Simply resting as Awareness, allow everything to unfold on its own and eventually these stuff subside into the background while Pure Consciousness-Existence 'comes' into the foreground of your experience. Simply abiding in just This.
But notice that the stuff arising in awareness is really nothing but the manifestation of awareness... there is no separation or division anywhere whatsoever. If Awareness is limitless and borderless, how can you say that Awareness is here, and the sound is over there? Isn't the 'over there' also 'here', as Awareness? Where does Awareness end and manifestation begin? There are no borders, no boundaries, no divisions, no limits, no center and no circumference...
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…realize how the mind is manifesting a subtle tendency of attempting to ‘pin’ and locate something that inherently exists.
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When you are trying to get away from that experience to some other experience which is perceived as being more pleasant, the sense of trying to escape present experience is due to a subject-object dichotomy, of being a 'someone' experiencing an 'unpleasant external situation'. In various situations, challenges, interactions with others, when the sense of a personal self arise, we lose sight of vivid nondual awareness. This is why clarity and the sense of self has an 'inverse relationship' - clarity is not apparent if sense of self is being believed in, even though awareness is ever-present, because you are overlaying/superimposing reality with a belief in something which is not reality, say, the belief in duality, the belief in a separate self, superimposing names and forms on experience and thereby believing that there exists innumerous independently existing objects in an external universe, existing in space and time.
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And there is no reference point whatsoever, a thought is simply a thought like a sound is simply a sound, a manifestation of universal awareness.
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So what is the remedy? Guru Padmasambhava said, "the unmodified uncorrected nature of the mind is liberated by its being allowed simply to remain in its own (original) natural condition." Full clarity is returned by not-doing, by simply letting the natural condition be as it is, by no longer clouding the waters with our dualistic vision and self-sense.
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I have always been interested to know what throws me out of pure non-dual perception...
And in the past few days, it is becoming clearer to me.
It is the sense of self, latent or imprinted in consciousness as a form of deep conditioning, that becomes temporarily in abeyance when one is experiencing pure consciousness... (well to be more precise, each moment IS pure consciousness, though the sense of self apparently obscures the direct perception of it)
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And the antidote? To remember the pure sensate happiness/bliss when you experience pure non-dual luminosity... I have described this bliss previously. When you remember and 'activate' this... the good/bad/neutral feelings and emotions all subside and in place.
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"How am I experiencing the moment of hearing?", or "How am I experiencing the moment of seeing?" or "How am I experiencing the moment of being aware?"
All the bullshit concepts, constructs and images of an 'aliveness', a 'hearing', a 'seeing', an 'awareness' simply dissolves in the direct experiencing of whatever arises... just 'seeing is seeing, hearing is hearing, thinking is thinking and they are all flowing independently', with 'no self holding all these sensory experiences together'.
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An advise I often give which in my experience is a highly effective method for realizing no-self: "spend quality hours (or however much time you can afford) everyday practicing being naked in awareness (whether in sitting meditation or in movement), which is to say hear the sounds as clear as can be in its pristine clarity and vividness… observe/experience the minutest details of sensations in its crystal clarity and aliveness, the sights, smells, taste, touch. Then contemplate and notice the fact that “there is no experiencer behind experience, just the experience” or “in seeing just the shapes, colours, forms, no seer”... this can eventually lead to non dual experience and insight.”
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For one who realises non-duality (no subject-object split) there is no division of body and spirit. At non-duality realisation, body is not seen as entity but as perceptions and sensations that are 'not separated from environment'. In fact perception and sensation is the 'environment'.
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1) One Mind - lately I have been noticing that majority of Buddhist practitioners and masters describe non-dual in terms of One Mind. That is, having realized that there is no subject- object/perceiver-perceived division or dichotomy, they subsume everything to be Mind only, mountains and rivers all are Me - the one undivided essence appearing as the many.
2) No Mind Where even the 'One Naked Awareness' or 'One Mind' or a Source is totally forgotten and dissolved into simply scenery, sound, arising thoughts and passing scent. Only the flow of self-luminous transience.
However, we must understand that even having the experience of No Mind is not yet the realization of Anatta. In the case of No Mind, it can remain a peak experience. In fact, it is a natural progression for a practitioner at One Mind to occasionally enter into the territory of No Mind... but because there is no breakthrough in terms of view via realization, the latent tendency to sink back into a Source, a One Mind is very strong and the experience of No Mind will not be sustained stably. The practitioner may then try his best to remain bare and non-conceptual and sustain the experience of No Mind through being naked in awareness, but no breakthrough can come unless a certain realization arises. In particular, the important realization to breakthrough this view of inherent self is the realization that Always Already, never was/is there a self - in seeing always only just the seen, the scenery, shapes and colours, never a seer! In hearing only the audible tones, no hearer! Just activities, no agent! A process of dependent origination itself rolls and knows... no self, agent, perceiver, controller therein. It is this realization that breaks down the view of 'seer-seeing-seen', or 'One Naked Awareness' permanently by realizing that there never was a 'One Awareness' - 'awareness', 'seeing', 'hearing' are only labels for the everchanging sensations and sights and sounds, like the word 'weather' don't point to an unchanging entity but the everchanging stream of rain, wind, clouds, forming and parting momentarily... Then as the investigation and insights deepen, it is seen and experienced that there is only this process of dependent origination, all the causes and conditions coming together in this instantaneous moment of activity, such that when eating the apple it is like the universe eating the apple, the universe typing this message, the universe hearing the sound... or the universe is the sound. Just that... is Shikantaza. In seeing only the seen, in sitting only the sitting, and the whole universe is sitting... and it couldn't be otherwise when there is no self, no meditator apart from meditation. Every moment cannot 'help' but be practice-enlightenment... it is not even the result of concentration or any form of contrived effort... rather it is the natural authentication of the realization, experience and view in real-time. Zen Master Dogen, the proponent of practice-enlightenment, is one of the rare and clear jewels of Zen Buddhism who have very deep experiential clarity about anatta and dependent origination. Without deep realization-experience of anatta and dependent origination in real time, we can never understand what Dogen is pointing to... his words may sound cryptic, mystical, or poetic, but actually they are simply pointing to this. Someone 'complained' that Shikantaza is just some temporary suppressing of defilements instead of the permanent removal of it. However if one realizes anatta then it is the permanent ending of self-view, i.e. traditional stream-entry.
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Anatta (No-Self/First-fold Emptiness):
First you reduce all multiplicities into a Single Awareness without any subject/object division... all experiences are simply the manifestation of Awareness. This is the non dual stage.
Then you realise there is no agent, no inherency to Awareness... you see that 'Awareness' is merely a label pointing only to insubstantial but vivid arisings. This is the insight into anatta.
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Please understand that seeing emptiness is not end of story. At least, not for my case. I am currently working on the remaining defilements. This doesn't meant that i will need to forcefully remove them. Forceful willing will only result in suppression. Rather, the 'method' is to be aware of and be equanimous to whatever that is arising in order for them to pass away naturally. This 'aware of' is not as easy as it sounds.
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"...When one is unable to see the truth of our (empty) nature, all letting go is nothing more than another from of holding in disguise. Therefore without the 'insight', there is no releasing.... it is a gradual process of deeper seeing. when it is seen, the letting go is natural. You cannot force yourself into giving up the self... purification to me is always these insights... non-dual and emptiness nature...."
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A deeper level of disidentification has to be done through an investigation with direct meditative awareness of our experience right here. When we observe our experience, we notice that the tendency to grasp after a location inside a 'body' is due to taking the 'body' to be an entity with shape, with edges, with location, and separated from the rest of the universe... and we take it to be a 'thing' that 'belongs to me' and a 'place' where 'I reside in'.
However if we suspend all assumptions and simply go by experience... we notice that there is no such thing as a 'body'. We experience tactile sensations arising one after another... each one distinct from another. They do not make up anything like an entity with a shape, edge, and location, apart from our assuming it to be so... However, we grasp after these sensations and by habitual tendencies, take these sensations to 'imply' a solid entity called the 'body', largely due to habit of objectifying visual perceptions and then linking all other perceptions (including bodily sensations) with our mental construct of a 'body' being a solid object made of shape, edges, location, etc. If we deconstruct the construct 'body', all we see are simply a bunch of sensations arising and fading moment by moment... including visual, bodily, and other perceptions.
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"...When one is unable to see the truth of our (empty) nature, all letting go is nothing more than another from of holding in disguise. Therefore without the 'insight', there is no releasing.... it is a gradual process of deeper seeing. when it is seen, the letting go is natural. You cannot force urself into giving up the self... purification to me is always these insights... non-dual and emptiness nature...."
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I was doing push ups this morning in camp and thinking how to induce the 'body mind drop' when I realized that there are just points of sensations and no 'body' to be found at all... the attempt to 'let go of body' is based on a wrong assumption that there is a 'body' to let go... lol
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do you control what you hear? Sometimes you were sound asleep and suddenly a sound woke you up.
Well, did you choose that sound? Obviously not... if you could choose not to hear that sound you would have chosen not to. If that moment of consciousness, that sound, is not up to your decision, then how can it be 'me' or 'mine'? It is simply the spontaneously occurring manifestation of the universe. That is why feelings, perceptions, consciousness, whatever they are... they arise spontaneously on their own accord without a controller. Whether you want to or not, the universe manifests in whatever ways it has to manifest (according to dependent origination).
And when I say 'universe manifests'.... the word 'universe' is really referring to Consciousness. But likewise when I say Consciousness, it is also referring to Universe. There is no perceiver anywhere... the direct experience of seeing, hearing, touching, without a perceiver... alone IS. As Steven Norquist wrote the formula: U=C, Universe=Consciousness. They are two words pointing to the same thing... which is, really not a thing at all. There is no such thing as 'A Consciousness' or 'A Universe'.... the word is often misleading as it implies a subject, or an object, that is static and graspable... no such thing however can ever be found in direct experience. Rather, those words, Consciousness, or Universe, points to this intimate, non-dual, dynamic flow of experiencing... that can never be grasped by words or concepts...
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And then a thought may occur, 'fair enough that I don't have control over sensorial experiences, but how about MY thoughts? Aren't MY thoughts truly mine and under my control?' Well, I'd say take a look. Did you choose your thoughts? Can you know what your next moment of thought is? The direct answer if you truly look is, no... they just come up by themselves! Isn't that amazing? Thought IS, but a thinker is not. What we often think of as 'me' or 'mine' due to our investment and identification in a thought- based story of 'self'... is really in direct observation made up of some spontaneously arising 'stuff' of the universe that has nothing to do with 'me' or 'mine'.
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'Just cultivate a sense of perpetually letting go. Scan tightness in body and let go. Don't dwell on thoughts and let go'.
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Therefore in addition to what you realized, allow your understanding of liberation to focus on this ‘aspect’ -- the impermanence, the stream of continual passing away. Allow this understanding of perpetual passing away to refine your understanding of anatta; allow this 'seeing of process' to wash away the sense of self as a refinement of your insight into anatta.
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No-self is a more subtle insight. There is a subtle 'switch'. It is this subtle switch that allows for the arising and passing away as the 'self' is not blocking the arising from passing away.
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Therefore in Buddhism, besides the experience, right view is very important. Upon the clearing seeing of ‘no division’, it is advisable to penetrate further into the impermanent nature of phenomena both at the micro and macro level of experience. In terms of practice, there is no letting go to an ultimate ground or great void but the letting go is due to the thorough insight of the ‘empty nature’ of all arising -- Reality is perpetually ‘letting go’.
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There isn't even a 'letting be'... everything already is happening without a self. What I meant is that there is less obsession and focus with self-centered thoughts, and without fixation on these thoughts, there is an opening to all the senses in its vivid clarity without self, no longer ignoring/blocking out the totality and vivid clarity of experience. There is a natural tendency to feel everything directly instead of skewing focus to thoughts.
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Only after that experience do you think "I saw that sight" "I heard that sound". There is this reference to an 'I' that did that.
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Are you confident that all phenomena arising is without self, arising without an agent, experiencer, doer?
Are you confident that all phenomena arising is inconstant and hence, unsatisfactory?
Are you confident that all phenomena arise due to causes and conditions?
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For example the thought/intention 'I need to get up now' arises, followed by a bodily action of standing up. The thought 'I need to get up now' serves as a condition for the bodily action... but the thought itself is not a self or doer/controller of action - it is merely an arising that serves as a condition for the action. The volition to stand up is mental, but what actually stands up is the body. Each arising is a complete new reality arising with various supporting conditions.
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Yes the view is very important therefore do not fall into determinism too. There is intention that influences the outcome. Clear seeing that there is no-agent does not lead one into hard determinism; it merely leads one to clearly see the illusionary split of subject/object division, the essencelessness and dependent originated nature of arising. There is no lack of influence of intentionality in the chain of ever becoming. Adopt the middle path so that we will not fall to the extreme.
From a pragmatic perspective, the view is also important because it is difficult to see how the idea of duality (separation) is the direct result of not seeing the anatta and empty nature of Awareness. This is a phase where experience desync with view (dualistic and inherent view) and can lead to quite intense confusion if a practitioner tries to make sense of 'what is'.
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The joy of being alive is also another experience arising and subsiding... To penetrate into the stream of arising and ceasing, do not hold onto any experiences. Let them come, yes, but not to cling on to any states. Eventually it will be seen that awareness is ever this stream of arising and ceasing.
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Practice will reveal that clear seeing + constant reminding of letting go + lingering dualistic and inherent view cannot lead to thorough letting go. The 'view' will always create a very thin layer of division.
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If 'you' are clear, then welcoming of whatever arises is non-dual and letting go is non- dual; no more holding in disguise as letting go and coming and going turns liberating. all appearances turn spontaneous, stainless, coreless and crystal present.
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The question ought to be, 'how do these phenomena arise'? And the answer to that is they arise interdependent with all various supporting conditions... Everything interacting with each other to support this moment of manifestation, including our deep latent mental tendencies/propensities/conditionings.
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For this to be thorough, effortless and natural, arise the 'willingness' to let go of Awareness first.
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You should see in the direction of 'in seeing just the seen', 'in hearing just the heard', 'in thinking just thought'... there is no seer, hearer, thinker behind arisings - only just thoughts, sounds, sight. There is just a self-luminous and self-accomplishing process of knowing/thinking/doing without a behind agent.
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Seamless presence is the luminous character of every phenomenon, but each moment of seamless presence is a unique and complete phenomenon that is distinct from the unique and complete phenomena of a different mindstream. We do not, for example, experience a dog’s experience.
There are no ‘multiple selves’, or ‘multiple experiencers’, but there are different mindstreams/experiences. Experience is not denied, just the experiencer that is denied/cannot be found.
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"Just so, o King, is the chain of phenomena linked together. One phenomenon arises, another vanishes, yet all are linked together, one after the other, without interruption. In this way one reaches the final state of consciousness neither as the same person nor as another person.''
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Consciousness is simply experience as it is - it is not the source of experience. It's self- luminosity is simply the characteristic of each unique experience... Consciousness is the 'effect' of interdependence, not the 'cause'. i.e. Consciousness IS the sound of 'BANG'... it is not that there is a 'consciousness' causing the experience of hearing sound 'BANG'... and, this experience could not have happened without various supporting conditions. With supporting conditions, experience naturally arises, and where experience/arising is, consciousness is (experience IS by nature conscious).
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'...be wary of anything that wants to be a super-awareness, a rigpa that is larger than everything else, as it can't be, by definition...'
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"In any phenomena, whether psychological, physiological, or physical, there is dynamic movement, life. We can say that this movement, this life, is the universal manifestation, the most commonly recognized action of knowing. We must not regard 'knowing' as something from the outside which comes to breathe life into the universe. It is the life of the universe itself. The dance and the dancer are one."
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The sense of there being a 'Witness' of phenomena is simply a thought... in that thought, there is just a thought! There is no witness of thought... the witness of thought is simply a thought, a self-referencing thought. There is always just in thinking just thoughts. And in the hearing, just sound, there is no hearer of sound... just the self-luminous and self- accomplishing process of hearing. And so on... The sense of self is simply another sensation, a sensation that does not actually refer to anything: it is just a sensation without a sensor. A thought of self is also simply an empty thought, an empty label or story that does not refer to anything substantial. Everything is just like this... You do not come to see the mountain, the mountain simply 'sees'/'reveals' by itself without a seer... this has always been the case.
When it's seen that thoughts and sensations that imply self are actually not self but is simply a pure sensation happening to nobody, then its coming and going becomes self- liberating. (Like you said, the sense of self is already no-self!) Otherwise, thoughts and sensations that imply self are clung to, solidified, reified, and leads to a chain of suffering.
The annihilation of self is based on a false view of self: that it has existence to begin with, and is solid, real, etc.
By seeing the absence of an agent, or a solid, separate, permanent, controlling/perceiving self, such a view is overthrown... what remains is the arising and subsiding of arisings according to conditions.
How can there be a 'self' to annihilate when no 'self' is found to begin with?
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Like the utterly still certainty of beingness, every moment the universe stands still. Complete. Whole. Yet not permanent. It is impermanence without movement. It is a process without the continuity of an entity. Past, present and future do not apply to This. Ever just this one thought, this one sound, this one sight, this one breathe. Certain and undeniable. Non-arising and non-ceasing.
There is no ‘non-arising and non-ceasing Awareness reflecting the comings and goings of arising and ceasing phenomena’, there is just This, non-arising, non-ceasing, transient phenomena.
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One more thing: no-self or anatta is not just non-doership. Non-doership is just one aspect of anatta, not its entirety. It is not yet the realization of no agency. Realization of anatta arises when you see that the framework of there being a seer seeing the seen is false, that always already, in seeing always just the sight, shapes, forms and colours vividly manifesting without an observer/seer. In hearing just sounds, no hearer. Always already so.
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The realization of anatta arises from direct experiential insight and not an inference. It is not an inferred conclusion due to not being able to locate the whereabouts of an agent or perceiver. Similarly the emptiness of objects is not just about being unable to locate where phenomena is, it is the direct realization of dependent origination and the corelessness of all phenomena. Anatta realization is also not inferred conclusion from peak experiences of no-mind which you had.
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"observing the body in the body," "observing the feelings in the feelings," "observing the mind in the mind," "observing the objects of mind in the objects of mind." Why are the words, body, feelings, mind, and objects of mind repeated? Why ‘observe the … IN THE ….’? It means you are living and experiencing IN and AS the sensations, and not observing the sensations in and as an observer/watcher and the sensations are not meant to be disassociated from in order to get to an ultimate reality or transcendental Self!
The Buddha's method of contemplating anatta therefore is for practitioners to have direct experience and contemplation of pure sensations as in Bahiya Sutta, 'in seeing just the seen, in hearing just the heard'* WITHOUT the filtering of the conceptual mind, the false sense or conception of a self, or the passions and afflictions that causes all manners of craving and aversions for the sensations, so that insight and realization can arise, so that true liberation and abandonment can take place, and it is only in this context that contemplating anatta can be understood.
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Further penetration into anatta reveals that all phenomena are disjoint, unsupported, unlinked, bubble-like, insubstantial, dream-like, and self-releasing - there is absolutely nothing, not even an Awareness that underlies two thoughts, two manifestations - in fact there is not even two thoughts as such, just this thought, which spontaneously self- releases upon inception leaving absolutely no traces.
Shunyata (Second-fold Emptiness):
In addition to the emptiness of self in insubstantial non-duality, there is the emptiness of objects (second-fold emptiness) where all experiences, thoughts, and perceptions are discovered to have no independent essence - as such a core of appearance is unlocatable, unfindable, and ungraspable - the appearances shimmers vividly but no core can be found. They are like an empty shell, appearing due to dependent origination, and yet coreless.
All appearances, due to being realized as empty of inherent existence, is seen to be like an illusion, like a magician's trick, like a dream - appearing and yet no-thing truly there.
This is amazing and magical, and gives rise to wonder - like if you see a very clear mirage on the edge of the sea of an island, you may think it is wonderful, but this time your entire experiential field is seen to be like a mirage - vividly shining and appearing and yet empty. How wonderful is that!
Experience becomes liberating as you are liberated from all views of 'is' and 'is not' with regards to self and objects, so there is no-thing to cling to, only the ungraspable flow of unreified suchness of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, thinking, all self-liberating upon inception leaving no traces, the trace being clinging to any views of 'is' and 'is not'.
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Yeah, out of nowhere, in nowhere, going nowhere, yet vivid and apparently real.
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Now when anger arise, it is a magical display. It is this ‘magic’ that is releasing. If you cannot understand, then there will be staying and attachment. There is nothing dull in releasing.
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…it’s not about subsuming, it’s more about… thoughts and all sensory experiences cannot be found anywhere, cannot be located in anywhere, yet amazingly ‘it’ appears…
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Anatta does not require reification of objects, however anatta alone does not remove reification of objects.
Anatta is that awareness is an empty convention like weather, collating a ungraspable self-luminous process of the six consciousness that dependently originates, and not a subjective self or agent. There is no agent, perceiver.
Shunyata is that even that process is unlocatable and empty.
Contemplating the non-locality of things leads to emptiness of object
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The real purpose is the ‘freedom’ from ‘inherent’ view and then releases itself from any forming of ‘views’ so that the magic of functioning can be realized and directly experienced. However during the journey, there is always attachment here and there… therefore the ‘emptying of emptiness’. We go through step by step in dissolving the knot of ‘inherency’ till we see that ‘mind’ is the full embodiment of the immediate marvelous activity. Just eating, seeing, sensing, tasting, thinking...simply sound, thoughts, scenery and scents. Nothing within and without, only this spontaneous miraculous functioning, an interplay of dharma. When we entertain conceptual knowledge and seek unchanging Awareness or Self, the marvelous ‘interconnectedness’ of functioning is being misunderstood as ‘something’ being transformed into ‘something’ as if ‘winter’ has been transformed into ‘spring’.
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The purpose is not to get attached to the ‘non-inherent’ view either.
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"Form is similar to a foam, Feeling is like water bubbles,
Ideation is equivalent with a mirage,
Formations are similar with a banana tree,
Consciousness is like an illusion."
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How can something appear to arise without arising?
Find out where does the thought come from, where the thought is, where the thought goes to. Find the core or essence of that thought. You will see that it is magical appearance, like a magic show - appearing, yet not truly there or anywhere, without a place of origin, abidance, and subsidance. You will realize that there is no essence or substance or thingness of that appearance, that there is no-thing coming into being and no-thing to cease.
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Maha is that experience of total-relativity just like no-mind is that experience of total- change. The clinging onto entities and self prevents these experience, or more precisely, maha and no-mind is the natural state of 'existence', yet clinging onto 'is', 'is not' of self and objects obscure the experiential seeing of what is.
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Maha is not an experience, but the natural state of seeing, hearing, smelling, moving your hands, walking. When walking, the universe walks. There is no point in time where it isn't actually Maha.
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It is precisely by means of self that I perceive not-self...
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…impermanence, dissatisfactoriness, and non-self are done not to discover some ultimate reality, but rather to result in knowledge and vision of things as they are (as being empty of self) which leads to dispassion and ultimately cessation (nirvana) of suffering and afflictions. The result of contemplating as such results in the realization of Anatta.
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Many people practice vipassana as a kind of dissociation, not understanding that anatta-contemplation as Buddha intended it actually leads to insight-discernment of anatta, not-self, which is not a form of dissociation or merely a rejection of 'form = self' but a rejection of self pertaining to forms in all manners (including as happening to self, in self, or self in it, etc), including any self of a permanent, independent, separate nature, or of agency (perceiver, controller), such that there is "In reference to the seen, only the seen, no you in terms of that".
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Movement is perceived when it is falsely perceived that there is some unchanging self-entity that links two moments together.
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…there is just disjoint, unsupported, self-releasing images that has no link to each other.
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Instead, Point A is Point A, Point B is point B, and so on... Z is Z, whole and complete in itself. Each moment, ever fresh, whole, complete, and leaving no trace the next moment.
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…according to the Pali suttas, all identification (including all self-view) is caused by craving.
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Ignorance is at the base of the 12 links, so it is the remainderless cessation of ignorance we should practice for - the cessation of ignorance leads to the cessation of the rest of the links.
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Without seeing through the false view of self by insight, one can never release the false of view of self, in the same way as a child who doesn't realize Santa Claus as false will never end craving for Santa Claus. Even if he is convinced not to crave Santa Claus in an obvious way, that very belief in Santa Claus leads to clinging. And the way to end the belief of Santa Claus is not to beat the hell out of the child, to take the child's gift away, etc etc... it's just to tell him that there's no Santa Claus.
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…you realize “in seeing always just the seen, shapes, colours, forms! never a seer! never was there a seer-seeing-seen! seeing is just the seen!” which is a eureka moment, and this realization wakes you up from the delusion of a seer, never again to haunt you (like waking up from the delusion of rope being snake makes you not being haunted by the snake again), apart from potential traces or remnants of tendencies (contractions related to the sense of personality usually) which gets resolved over time.
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If you do not have right view, no matter how hard you practice mindfulness and concentration, now matter how hard you try to let go of your clingings and attachments, it will not lead to Nirvana and end of ignorance, simply because you are practicing under the influence of wrong views, you are dealing with gross manifest attachments but not addressing a more fundamental and underlying cause of ignorance.
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• Emptiness is not light
• Emptiness is not consciousness or awareness
• Emptiness is not the Absolute
• Emptiness does not exist on its own
• Objects do not consist of emptiness
• Objects do not arise from emptiness
• Emptiness of the “I” does not negate the “I”
• Emptiness is not the feeling that results when no objects are appearing to the mind
• Meditating on emptiness does not consist of quieting the mind
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There is no such thing as “this arises, that ceases”. This was not taught by Buddha. You are again distorting the teaching of dependent origination. The Buddha teaches this:
“When there is this, that is.
With the arising of this, that arises.
When this is not, neither is that.
With the cessation of this, that ceases.”
When conditions are present, afflictions Will arise.
Nirvana is the cessation of afflictive causes (craving and ignorance), and due to the cessation of afflictive causes, the entire chain of afflictive dependent origination also ceases.
So cessation happens in the manner of “this ceases, that ceases”
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Not realizing the true face of awareness, we attempt to get behind thoughts and try to "get back" to an existent state of awareness, which basically means dissociation.
The practice of the four foundations of mindfulness coupled with the right insights, the three dharma seals and sunyata, is simply to recognize and experience all sensations displaying themselves in their spontaneously perfected bright self-luminosity and self- release by its emptiness. Freed from false views of duality and inherent existence, no efforts to cling to any states, and no efforts to dissociate from any experience is required.
..before that effort put in to practice mindfulness is fine, but at some point effort to sustain a purest state of awareness is seen through as unnecessary and illusory.
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"Lucid awareness" refers to an individual's pure consciousness, which is detached from any dualistic discrimination. A perfect insight into the intrinsic void of reality, it is wisdom with clarity. This is one of those important points that have been misinterpreted in the West. The literal rendering of the original Tibetan term "osel" (spelled 'od-gsal) as "clear light" seems to be the case. It is a metaphor, signifying an inbred clarity.
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…Nying-ma posits a mind-vajra which has no beginning or end and proceeds without interruption through the effect stage of Buddhahood. It is considered ‘permanent’ in the sense of abiding forever and thus is presented as a permanent mind. It is permanent not in the sense of not disintegrating moment by moment but in the sense that its continuum is not interrupted…
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…seeing through the need to abide in non-dual and dropping it - notice the tendency to reconfirm nondual by giving rise to thoughts like "the sound is as much you as the thought", seeing how ridiculous it is when always already in seeing just sound, in thinking just thought, all thoughts to reconfirm nondual arise due to falsely perceiving there to be a self to be nondual with "that" which turns into one mind and worse still it presumes there to be a subtle split that needs to be resolved when that notion of separation is entirely illusory. The entire movement to become nondual is illusory when anatta is fully seen and all self-notions are dropped.
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One of the crucial factors to liberation is dispassion.
Even the purpose of realizing emptiness is to lead to this arising dispassion. Because if there is no clinging at a true existence of anything, there is just an illusory dream like appearance without grasping that is self-arisen and self-liberated, instead of there being some strong mental attachment or craving to things.
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there must be willingness to let go of the 'wrong view' entirely then with the experience of no-mind and realization, the adoption of the view carries u...until u perfect the experience then the doubts is completely gone ur entire experience transcend the entire idea of 'essence' the center is completely gone...just flat, disjoint, unsupported, dimensionless and pure experience manifested as whatever arises this is very important and must take note otherwise u will not be able to advice correctly.
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In actual fact all of us experience the original, unsullied and pure moment of naked awareness (such as hearing or seeing something before analyzing or thinking about it) from time to time, but as you rightly pointed out, it is often quickly obscured and overshadowed by "another thought" that arises which seems to say I am doing everything, that imputes or conceives of a fictitious self or label over the original naked experience.
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I see Shikantaza (The Zen meditation method of “Just Sitting”) as the natural expression of realization and enlightenment. But many people completely misunderstand this... they think that practice- enlightenment means there is no need for realization, since practicing is enlightenment. In other words, even a beginner is as realized as the Buddha when meditating. This is plain wrong and thoughts of the foolish.
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Nothing Hidden, Totally Manifest
Mind, awareness, experience, sensations are synonymous. It is not “mind is aware of experience”. For what is mind? Seeing sight, hearing sound, all is mind. So, experience is mind is awareness. This is the truth of non-duality. The non-conceptual sense of beingness or am-ness is mind, the non-conceptual presence of seeing, hearing, etc too is mind, thoughts too is mind. To apply effort to sustain a particular state of mind as being “nature of mind” is thus irrelevant, since every state and manifestation is in fact not other than the nature of mind. There is no nature of mind apart from mind, and no mind apart from experience. But until this is experientially realized, there is no benefit.
There is nothing concrete, substantial or unchanging about mind, thus allowing for infinite potential of appearances. Emptiness, luminosity and energy co-emerge. Inseparable from the interconnectedness of causes and conditions, vividly present but empty, being a ceaseless flow, appearing as various shapes and forms and bubbles like an endless river flowing according to various conditions. Mind is not some pure potential behind manifestation, rather lacking an independent self-substance, mind points to this very manifestation itself, whatever it is for “you” at this moment (probably the sight of these words).
What about analogies that the nature of mind is like space? It does not mean there is a space behind phenomenon, but rather the mind is empty of a concrete identity, and being so is free from limitations, center or boundaries just like space, manifest as this very appearance. There is no noumenon behind phenomenon. At this point, “who is aware?” no longer applies. Nothing hiding, totally manifest! This is what Padmasambhava meant by “Since there is only this pure observing, there will be found a lucid clarity without anyone being there who is the observer; Only a naked manifest awareness is present.”, and what a cook told Zen Master Dogen, “Nothing in the entire universe is hidden.” This is what Thusness calls, “total transparency”.
Another point to “Nothing in the entire universe is hidden.” is that this manifestation is the activity of the entire universe, so this very manifestation is in fact not different from and not the same as the entire universe. The apple is the sun-apple, the farmer-apple, the air-apple, the universe-apple, the biting is the apple-biting-apple and the mouth-biting-apple, the universe biting apple. Nothing in the universe is hidden for the universe is totally manifest As this very activity. This activity is the manifestation of the whole universe of interdependency in a perfect and complete expression, just like this. The ever evolving process of an interdependent universe universing universe. All causes and conditions are incorporated in seamless interdependence in a single activity. (E.g. Hand, shaking, cup, water, ripples) What we call “universe” is simply this evolving process of interactivity made manifest in each unfolding moment, an interconnected process rolling on and on without an agent, nothing hidden whatsoever.
So in summary: when we talk about “intrinsic awareness” or “intrinsic mind”, we may also call it “intrinsic luminosity of experience”, for what is mind? Nothing whatsoever and yet nothing is not (totally manifest, nothing hidden), the words experience/mind/awareness all point to this very luminous-experience-mind. It points to the dynamic flow of mind-activities. Thus luminosity is not an attribute of a fixed unchanging entity hidden somewhere, but the essence of the manifesting mind/experience itself, unfabricated and unconditioned (not created by something, by effort or by contrivance). And yet manifesting as whatsoever due to an interconnected flow of activities, nothing independent and nothing lasting more than moment.
Experience can really be summed up this way:
Vividly present dependent on conditions Utterly gone upon the cessation of conditions.
Thus come, thus gone!
One who sees the suchness of dependent origination sees the Dharma, one who sees the Dharma sees the Tathagata (Thus Come One).
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The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinion for or against. The struggle of what one likes and what one dislikes is the disease of the mind.
But what exactly is this “witness” we are talking about? It is the manifestation itself! It is the appearance itself! There is no Source to fall back, the Appearance is the Source! Including the moment to moment of thoughts. The problem is we choose, but all is really it. There is nothing to choose.
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“Deeper clinging to a Self is not washed away with the non-dual insight. There must be further integration of the ‘non-dual’ experience into this arising and passing away, this impermanent nature, to dissolve the illusionary sense of self, anger, emotion, pride even the non-dual presence that we treasure so much; let whatever arises goes, be it during the waking, dreaming or deep sleep state. There will then come a time where a practitioner realizes the same ‘taste’ of the 3 states as there is no holding of the non-dual presence and all experiences turn natural, effortless and self-liberating.”
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1. Seeing inherent object as a mere convention collating... If a practitioner keeps penetrating whatever arises this way, experience will turn groundless and illusion –like
2. Seeing clearly in non dual mode but deep in us realize that this is merely a dependent originated manifestation, nothing ultimate and solidly real
3. You see "no going, no coming, no here, no there" and penetrate deeply into the seamless interpenetration of activities leading to the maha experience
Until this empty nature of whatever arises is intuit in our moment to moment of experience, you can then feel the total exertion and self liberating aspect of experience.
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What you lack now is feel with the entire body mind until body-mind is entirely forgotten, deconstructed and enter into total exertion all things. There is neither you, body, mind, environment nor super awareness... just fully open up and experience the Beauty of this total exertion of suchness non dually. No body, mind, self can still remain at pure awareness level. The measurement is to total giving up so that the experience of how immensely is this web of interpenetration is experience as this moment of arising is important. You need to practice with the view in mind to see the interconnection, not non-conceptuality of whatever arises.
There are two practices, one is feel the intensity of this moment of arise till there is no mind, body, self… directly right into the place where there is no heat or cold, the intensity of our luminous essence. The other is holding the view in mind till body, mind, self, universe is being deconstructed in this immerse interconnectness. They are different, yet both practices are equally important. One is total non conceptuality, one is full integration of the view interconnectedness. In non conceptuality of in hearing, just sound...there is no mind, no self, no hearer, just this sound. This universe is fill with the arising sound... Clear vivid and non-dual... you practice the intensity of luminous essence. But hearing sound, deep in you, you see the empty nature of arise, you see the stick, the drum, the ear drums, the sound ... This requires view...
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Balancing Right View:
Thusness commented before that Zen often (not always – but a common scene) overemphasize experience over the view, while Madhyamika students often overemphasize the view over direct experience. A balance must be striked.
It’s about time to review Buddhist books since I’ve reviewed mainly psychology books that dovetail with Buddhism.
Here are my favourite practice advice instructions of An Eternal Now's (Wei Yu's) Journal, though I still recommend reading it all if you can. I know it’s huge and intimidating but I distilled the 500 pages into around 15-20 pages of my favourite parts. If anyone wants to add quotes, not posted here, they are welcome to. The book is linked below and I recommend his website:
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.ca/2010/12/my-e-booke-journal.html
E-book journal
http://www.awakeningtoreality.blogspot.ca/
Web-site (There are a lot of good stickies on the right side of the site that should be looked at)
The book is long and has many repetitions due to it being a practice journal but it’s worth diving in. The quotes below are from various people and sources. It’s also good to read Nagarjuna to understand the middle path. Inherent existence means a belief that experience exists independently and without cause and effect. To not believe in inherent existence is to understand that everything is interdependent and effected by causes. The absolute would be to understand that experience in actuality is seamless and the seams are the brain’s simplification of the universe for survival purposes. The middle path would be to avoid the extremes of treating objects as inherent or the other extreme of nihilism (belief nothing exists).
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I AM:
As the thoughts subside, an intense and palpable sense of beingness and presence, the only 'thing' that remains that I feel to be my innermost essence... became very obvious... very very vivid and intense, and feels like a constant background in which everything is taking place, thoughts (almost none at that moment, but arise afterwards) that arise are also taking place in this unchanging background... and there is this certainty and doubtlessness about this I AM-ness, IT is absolutely real and undeniable. IT/I AMness/The Witness is the only solid and undoubtable Presence and is clearly present with or without thoughts. I remembered briefly thinking after having experienced that, "So this is it! This is enlightenment!" and "No, not enlightenment", but it’s funny how these thoughts are just passing thoughts like wind, occurring in this solid constant undoubtable sense of presence. Inconsequential and illusory doubts and concepts are arising within undoubtable presence... passes away as soon as they arise because there is no more identification with the mind/ego. After all, I am just this Reality, this background of awareness that is ever-present and watching, I'm not any of those thoughts that come and go. The part that thinks 'I am enlightened' or 'I am not enlightened', that is not what I am and can never be 'enlightened' and thus totally irrelevant, while what I am, is always already completely clear and perfect beyond doubt, already and always perfectly 'awake'/'aware'. From the perspective of Consciousness, all thoughts and perceptions are just illusory appearances coming and going within consciousness. I just found a quote by Nisargadatta Maharaj that puts it so well: "This reality is so concrete, so actual, so much more tangible than mind and matter, that compared to it even diamond is soft like butter. This overwhelming actuality makes the world dreamlike, misty, irrelevant."
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Notice when thoughts are paused there are no doubts; the certainty of (doubtless) Being is obviously present; the unquestionable FACT of EXISTENCE. Notice that the Being is ALWAYS presently shining, effortlessly and spontaneously. Stay with that undeniable non-conceptual confidence. Your Being has always been present for every single experience. That natural cognition in which all experiences arise is not a person.
Be as you ARE and not what you imagine yourself to be.
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Essentially what you have to ask is 'Who am I?' Trace the radiance to its source. You are aware and present, this is undoubtable and undeniable. So Who/What is Aware? Trace the radiance to the source.
You hear sounds of bird chirping, so Who/What is Hearing? Turn the light around, trace the radiance to the source, listen to the listener, investigate 'What Listens', until you can say with absolute certainty and conviction that you realized your true nature. (btw, this is Guan Yin's method of practice - 反闻闻自性)
http://buddhism.sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/401963
Chinul: Do you hear the sounds of that crow cawing and that magpie calling?
Student: Yes.
Chinul: Trace them back and listen to your hearing‐nature. Do you hear any sounds?
Student: At that place, sounds and discriminations do not obtain.
Chinul: Marvelous! Marvelous! This is Avalokitesvara's method for entering the noumenon. Let me ask you again. You said that sounds and discriminations do not obtain at that place. But since they do not obtain, isn't the hearing‐nature just empty space at such a time?
Student: Originally it is not empty. It is always bright and never obscured.
Chinul: What is this essence which is not empty?
Student: As it has no former shape, words cannot describe it
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That ego is certainly not true, it cannot be found. Just investigate in your own experience and you see that whatever you labeled as 'me' is in fact, not you at all. They are simply more transient thoughts and feelings arising in the field of awareness, they come and go. What we perceive as an individual person, or a personality, at the center of lives... simply is more patterns of thoughts, actions, feelings, behavior arising in the field of awareness. There isn't a 'me' actually. 'That me' that sentient beings identify with is actually not a 'me' at all. It is only impersonal thoughts, feelings, sensations arising and subsiding momentarily in the field of awareness without any substantiality or separate doer, they are only effortless/spontaneous expression of One Life. You clearly see that we are not separate selves living our lives, but we are all being lived as an effortless expression of One Life.
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“You may very well 'do something' to change the conditions, but even the 'actions to change the conditions' is the 'being done', not the 'doer'.”
For example,
Hear a bird chirping.
What/who is hearing?
(silence)
Silence means you aren't trying to answer the question using your mind (because the answer cannot be found there - the more you try to figure out with your mind the more time is wasted because you are looking at the wrong direction), but instead you are directly looking at 'What Hears' and experiencing your True Self, your Hearing- Nature/Pure Awareness. The inner cognizer (I AM) turns within and cognizes itself, it's true nature.
The pure silence underneath the sound is your true nature, but it is not an inert nothingness, in fact not even silence as such, but more accurately a featureless wide- awake space which perceives all sounds, all sights, all thoughts, etc. It cannot be understood by the mind. You have to trace the hearing, the radiance, the seeing, to its Source.
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When you see an apple, does your awareness or eye say 'I see apple?' No, the 'I see apple' is an after-thought. Does the thought 'I see apple' have the power of seeing the apple? No, Presence-Awareness is what is Seeing. 'I see apple' is merely an after-thought that separates an imaginary 'I' and an imaginary separate object 'apple'. The actual seeing precedes subject-object division, the actuality of it does not have a separate 'I' involved.
Similarly, does thoughts or actions arise spontaneously or are you the doer/thinker of thoughts/actions? Can you know what your next moment of thought will be? No, you can't. Thoughts simply arise spontaneously on its own accord. Ditto to actions. All the causes and conditions come together and something pops up, but no separate doer/thinker/controller can be found. There is only conditioned and spontaneous arisings.
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The ego is not real and has no real power to 'do' or 'perceive' things at all. The 'ego' is simply an after-thought/after-identification of an actual act or perception. It is the identification of something done/perceived as 'me' or 'mine' or perceived/done through a 'perceiver'/'doer' which is false.
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“If other thoughts arise, one should, without attempting to complete them, enquire, 'To whom did they occur?' What does it matter if ever so many thoughts arise? At the very moment that each thought rises, if one vigilantly enquires 'To whom did this appear?' it will be known 'To me'. If one then enquires 'Who am I?' the mind will turn back to its source and the thought that had arisen will also subside. By repeatedly practising in this way, the mind will increasingly acquire the power to abide at its source. When the mind, which is subtle, is externalised via the brain and the sense organs, names and forms, which are material, appear. When it abides in the Heart, names and forms disappear. Keeping the mind in the Heart, not allowing it to go out, is called 'facing the Self' or 'facing inwards'. Allowing it to go out from the Heart is termed 'facing outwards' When the mind abides in the Heart in this way, the 'I', the root of all thoughts, . Having vanished, the ever-existing Self alone will shine. The state where not even the slightest trace of the thought 'I' remains is alone swarupa [one's real nature]. This alone is called mauna . Being still in this way can alone be called jnana drishti [seeing through true knowledge]. Making the mind subside into the Self is 'being still'. On the other hand, knowing the thoughts of others, knowing the three times [past present and future] and knowing events in distant places - these can never be jnana drishti.”
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Don't try to comprehend the process intellectually. Don't stop at any thought- conclusion, like "to me" (which is simply an inferred thought), but trace all thoughts and perceptions to its source by asking "Who am I?" to discover your True Self. Spending more time trying to figure out how this works in the mind is just going to prevent you from directly realizing and experiencing your True Mind. The purpose is to trace the radiance back to the source, then abide at the Source as Ramana Maharshi said.
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“There are many things that I can doubt, but I cannot doubt my own consciousness in this moment. My consciousness IS, and even if I tried to doubt it, it would be my consciousness doubting. I can imagine that my senses are being presented with a fake reality – say, a completely virtual reality or digital reality, which looks real but is merely a series of extremely realist images. But even then, I cannot doubt the consciousness that is doing the watching…
The very undeniability of my present awareness, the undeniability of my consciousness, immediately delivers to me a certainty of existence in this moment, a certainty of Being in the now-ness of this moment. I cannot doubt consciousness and Being in this moment, for it is the ground of all knowing, all seeing, all existing…
Who am I? Ask that question over and over again, deeply. Who am I? What is it in me that is conscious of everything?
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In other words, don't give transient thoughts more solidity/reality than they are: as transient dream-like phenomena arising and dissolving instantly in infinite Awareness, leaving no traces. It is like a ball, if you throw it into space, it has no place to stay/abide/latch on to, and it just falls back as soon as it goes up. The space in this analogy is referring to your space-like Awareness, the ball is referring to your thoughts. In this way, thoughts that do arise don't leave traces, they just come and go naturally according to circumstances but there is no latching on to them. You are like a non-stick pan of Awareness itself.
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Deeply contemplate this verse by Zen Master Huang Po (his stuff are good):
All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measure, names, traces and comparisons. It is that which you see before you – begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error. It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured. The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood. By their very seeking they lose it, for that is using the Buddha to seek for the Buddha and using mind to grasp Mind. Even though they do their utmost for a full aeon, they will not be able to attain it. They do not know that, if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings. It is not the less for being manifested in ordinary beings, nor is it greater for being manifest in the Buddhas.
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…the thought 'I see apple' has no power to be aware of apple.
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The practice of 'neti neti' is done in order to reject the not-self in order to find or discover the Self. To put it in Namdrol's terms, the Advaita technique resorts to affirming negations to support a position of its own. Why? The not- self of Advaita is established only in contrast with the True Self.
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"How am I experiencing the moment of being alive?" -- aliveness
"How am I experiencing the moment of hearing?" -- sound
"How am I experiencing the moment of seeing?" -- scenery
"Who am I?" – I AM
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Non-duality:
Having said that, since none of your recent posts are about the absorptive state but are experiences relating to non-dual in transience, it is appropriate to practice bringing this ‘taste’ of pure luminous brilliance to the foreground. By ‘foreground’, I am referring to all your six entries and exits (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind) and experience vivid luminous aliveness in colors, forms, shape, sound, scent, taste and thoughts. It is essential for Phase 4 and 5 insights, that is, experiencing directly the 18 dhatus and aggregates and realize that the entire idea of 'I and Mine' is learnt. Also, I do not think you have the time to practice deep absorptive meditation in army. You can re-visit this ‘Oceanic Samadhi Bliss’ later when there is thoroughness and fearlessness in forgoing the sense of self/Self.
The universe is this arising thought.
The universe is this arising sound.
Just this magnificent arising!
Is Tao.
Homage to all arising.
Doing this foreground practice, you are effectively refining your realization from “You as pure Existence” to “Existence is the very stuff of whatever arises”. The actual stuff - the screen, the keyboard, the clicking sound, the cool air, the taste, the vibration…is the actuality of Universe itself, there is no other. Nevertheless do take note that these are still experiences, they are not realizations. You will have to go through what you have gone through in the phase of ‘I AM’ from intermittent experiences to realizations.
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..vividly present and instantly gone…
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The Buddha… he wants us to have realizations, which are permanent.
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Instead of being fully identified with or engaging in the contents of thoughts... if you simply step back and witness the arising of thoughts and the body and everything... you will see how thoughts arise totally spontaneously on its own according to imprints and habits. There is absolutely no thinker involved! Thoughts simply arise, they just happen, and you are simply this non-interfering witness. You are not a thinker, or a doer, or a controller, but the witness. Even apparent choices are simply thoughts spontaneously happening due to conditioning and imprints. Just notice next time how thoughts arise! Watch!
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Simply resting as Awareness, allow everything to unfold on its own and eventually these stuff subside into the background while Pure Consciousness-Existence 'comes' into the foreground of your experience. Simply abiding in just This.
But notice that the stuff arising in awareness is really nothing but the manifestation of awareness... there is no separation or division anywhere whatsoever. If Awareness is limitless and borderless, how can you say that Awareness is here, and the sound is over there? Isn't the 'over there' also 'here', as Awareness? Where does Awareness end and manifestation begin? There are no borders, no boundaries, no divisions, no limits, no center and no circumference...
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…realize how the mind is manifesting a subtle tendency of attempting to ‘pin’ and locate something that inherently exists.
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When you are trying to get away from that experience to some other experience which is perceived as being more pleasant, the sense of trying to escape present experience is due to a subject-object dichotomy, of being a 'someone' experiencing an 'unpleasant external situation'. In various situations, challenges, interactions with others, when the sense of a personal self arise, we lose sight of vivid nondual awareness. This is why clarity and the sense of self has an 'inverse relationship' - clarity is not apparent if sense of self is being believed in, even though awareness is ever-present, because you are overlaying/superimposing reality with a belief in something which is not reality, say, the belief in duality, the belief in a separate self, superimposing names and forms on experience and thereby believing that there exists innumerous independently existing objects in an external universe, existing in space and time.
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And there is no reference point whatsoever, a thought is simply a thought like a sound is simply a sound, a manifestation of universal awareness.
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So what is the remedy? Guru Padmasambhava said, "the unmodified uncorrected nature of the mind is liberated by its being allowed simply to remain in its own (original) natural condition." Full clarity is returned by not-doing, by simply letting the natural condition be as it is, by no longer clouding the waters with our dualistic vision and self-sense.
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I have always been interested to know what throws me out of pure non-dual perception...
And in the past few days, it is becoming clearer to me.
It is the sense of self, latent or imprinted in consciousness as a form of deep conditioning, that becomes temporarily in abeyance when one is experiencing pure consciousness... (well to be more precise, each moment IS pure consciousness, though the sense of self apparently obscures the direct perception of it)
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And the antidote? To remember the pure sensate happiness/bliss when you experience pure non-dual luminosity... I have described this bliss previously. When you remember and 'activate' this... the good/bad/neutral feelings and emotions all subside and in place.
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"How am I experiencing the moment of hearing?", or "How am I experiencing the moment of seeing?" or "How am I experiencing the moment of being aware?"
All the bullshit concepts, constructs and images of an 'aliveness', a 'hearing', a 'seeing', an 'awareness' simply dissolves in the direct experiencing of whatever arises... just 'seeing is seeing, hearing is hearing, thinking is thinking and they are all flowing independently', with 'no self holding all these sensory experiences together'.
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An advise I often give which in my experience is a highly effective method for realizing no-self: "spend quality hours (or however much time you can afford) everyday practicing being naked in awareness (whether in sitting meditation or in movement), which is to say hear the sounds as clear as can be in its pristine clarity and vividness… observe/experience the minutest details of sensations in its crystal clarity and aliveness, the sights, smells, taste, touch. Then contemplate and notice the fact that “there is no experiencer behind experience, just the experience” or “in seeing just the shapes, colours, forms, no seer”... this can eventually lead to non dual experience and insight.”
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For one who realises non-duality (no subject-object split) there is no division of body and spirit. At non-duality realisation, body is not seen as entity but as perceptions and sensations that are 'not separated from environment'. In fact perception and sensation is the 'environment'.
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1) One Mind - lately I have been noticing that majority of Buddhist practitioners and masters describe non-dual in terms of One Mind. That is, having realized that there is no subject- object/perceiver-perceived division or dichotomy, they subsume everything to be Mind only, mountains and rivers all are Me - the one undivided essence appearing as the many.
2) No Mind Where even the 'One Naked Awareness' or 'One Mind' or a Source is totally forgotten and dissolved into simply scenery, sound, arising thoughts and passing scent. Only the flow of self-luminous transience.
However, we must understand that even having the experience of No Mind is not yet the realization of Anatta. In the case of No Mind, it can remain a peak experience. In fact, it is a natural progression for a practitioner at One Mind to occasionally enter into the territory of No Mind... but because there is no breakthrough in terms of view via realization, the latent tendency to sink back into a Source, a One Mind is very strong and the experience of No Mind will not be sustained stably. The practitioner may then try his best to remain bare and non-conceptual and sustain the experience of No Mind through being naked in awareness, but no breakthrough can come unless a certain realization arises. In particular, the important realization to breakthrough this view of inherent self is the realization that Always Already, never was/is there a self - in seeing always only just the seen, the scenery, shapes and colours, never a seer! In hearing only the audible tones, no hearer! Just activities, no agent! A process of dependent origination itself rolls and knows... no self, agent, perceiver, controller therein. It is this realization that breaks down the view of 'seer-seeing-seen', or 'One Naked Awareness' permanently by realizing that there never was a 'One Awareness' - 'awareness', 'seeing', 'hearing' are only labels for the everchanging sensations and sights and sounds, like the word 'weather' don't point to an unchanging entity but the everchanging stream of rain, wind, clouds, forming and parting momentarily... Then as the investigation and insights deepen, it is seen and experienced that there is only this process of dependent origination, all the causes and conditions coming together in this instantaneous moment of activity, such that when eating the apple it is like the universe eating the apple, the universe typing this message, the universe hearing the sound... or the universe is the sound. Just that... is Shikantaza. In seeing only the seen, in sitting only the sitting, and the whole universe is sitting... and it couldn't be otherwise when there is no self, no meditator apart from meditation. Every moment cannot 'help' but be practice-enlightenment... it is not even the result of concentration or any form of contrived effort... rather it is the natural authentication of the realization, experience and view in real-time. Zen Master Dogen, the proponent of practice-enlightenment, is one of the rare and clear jewels of Zen Buddhism who have very deep experiential clarity about anatta and dependent origination. Without deep realization-experience of anatta and dependent origination in real time, we can never understand what Dogen is pointing to... his words may sound cryptic, mystical, or poetic, but actually they are simply pointing to this. Someone 'complained' that Shikantaza is just some temporary suppressing of defilements instead of the permanent removal of it. However if one realizes anatta then it is the permanent ending of self-view, i.e. traditional stream-entry.
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Anatta (No-Self/First-fold Emptiness):
First you reduce all multiplicities into a Single Awareness without any subject/object division... all experiences are simply the manifestation of Awareness. This is the non dual stage.
Then you realise there is no agent, no inherency to Awareness... you see that 'Awareness' is merely a label pointing only to insubstantial but vivid arisings. This is the insight into anatta.
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Please understand that seeing emptiness is not end of story. At least, not for my case. I am currently working on the remaining defilements. This doesn't meant that i will need to forcefully remove them. Forceful willing will only result in suppression. Rather, the 'method' is to be aware of and be equanimous to whatever that is arising in order for them to pass away naturally. This 'aware of' is not as easy as it sounds.
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"...When one is unable to see the truth of our (empty) nature, all letting go is nothing more than another from of holding in disguise. Therefore without the 'insight', there is no releasing.... it is a gradual process of deeper seeing. when it is seen, the letting go is natural. You cannot force yourself into giving up the self... purification to me is always these insights... non-dual and emptiness nature...."
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A deeper level of disidentification has to be done through an investigation with direct meditative awareness of our experience right here. When we observe our experience, we notice that the tendency to grasp after a location inside a 'body' is due to taking the 'body' to be an entity with shape, with edges, with location, and separated from the rest of the universe... and we take it to be a 'thing' that 'belongs to me' and a 'place' where 'I reside in'.
However if we suspend all assumptions and simply go by experience... we notice that there is no such thing as a 'body'. We experience tactile sensations arising one after another... each one distinct from another. They do not make up anything like an entity with a shape, edge, and location, apart from our assuming it to be so... However, we grasp after these sensations and by habitual tendencies, take these sensations to 'imply' a solid entity called the 'body', largely due to habit of objectifying visual perceptions and then linking all other perceptions (including bodily sensations) with our mental construct of a 'body' being a solid object made of shape, edges, location, etc. If we deconstruct the construct 'body', all we see are simply a bunch of sensations arising and fading moment by moment... including visual, bodily, and other perceptions.
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"...When one is unable to see the truth of our (empty) nature, all letting go is nothing more than another from of holding in disguise. Therefore without the 'insight', there is no releasing.... it is a gradual process of deeper seeing. when it is seen, the letting go is natural. You cannot force urself into giving up the self... purification to me is always these insights... non-dual and emptiness nature...."
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I was doing push ups this morning in camp and thinking how to induce the 'body mind drop' when I realized that there are just points of sensations and no 'body' to be found at all... the attempt to 'let go of body' is based on a wrong assumption that there is a 'body' to let go... lol
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do you control what you hear? Sometimes you were sound asleep and suddenly a sound woke you up.
Well, did you choose that sound? Obviously not... if you could choose not to hear that sound you would have chosen not to. If that moment of consciousness, that sound, is not up to your decision, then how can it be 'me' or 'mine'? It is simply the spontaneously occurring manifestation of the universe. That is why feelings, perceptions, consciousness, whatever they are... they arise spontaneously on their own accord without a controller. Whether you want to or not, the universe manifests in whatever ways it has to manifest (according to dependent origination).
And when I say 'universe manifests'.... the word 'universe' is really referring to Consciousness. But likewise when I say Consciousness, it is also referring to Universe. There is no perceiver anywhere... the direct experience of seeing, hearing, touching, without a perceiver... alone IS. As Steven Norquist wrote the formula: U=C, Universe=Consciousness. They are two words pointing to the same thing... which is, really not a thing at all. There is no such thing as 'A Consciousness' or 'A Universe'.... the word is often misleading as it implies a subject, or an object, that is static and graspable... no such thing however can ever be found in direct experience. Rather, those words, Consciousness, or Universe, points to this intimate, non-dual, dynamic flow of experiencing... that can never be grasped by words or concepts...
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And then a thought may occur, 'fair enough that I don't have control over sensorial experiences, but how about MY thoughts? Aren't MY thoughts truly mine and under my control?' Well, I'd say take a look. Did you choose your thoughts? Can you know what your next moment of thought is? The direct answer if you truly look is, no... they just come up by themselves! Isn't that amazing? Thought IS, but a thinker is not. What we often think of as 'me' or 'mine' due to our investment and identification in a thought- based story of 'self'... is really in direct observation made up of some spontaneously arising 'stuff' of the universe that has nothing to do with 'me' or 'mine'.
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'Just cultivate a sense of perpetually letting go. Scan tightness in body and let go. Don't dwell on thoughts and let go'.
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Therefore in addition to what you realized, allow your understanding of liberation to focus on this ‘aspect’ -- the impermanence, the stream of continual passing away. Allow this understanding of perpetual passing away to refine your understanding of anatta; allow this 'seeing of process' to wash away the sense of self as a refinement of your insight into anatta.
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No-self is a more subtle insight. There is a subtle 'switch'. It is this subtle switch that allows for the arising and passing away as the 'self' is not blocking the arising from passing away.
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Therefore in Buddhism, besides the experience, right view is very important. Upon the clearing seeing of ‘no division’, it is advisable to penetrate further into the impermanent nature of phenomena both at the micro and macro level of experience. In terms of practice, there is no letting go to an ultimate ground or great void but the letting go is due to the thorough insight of the ‘empty nature’ of all arising -- Reality is perpetually ‘letting go’.
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There isn't even a 'letting be'... everything already is happening without a self. What I meant is that there is less obsession and focus with self-centered thoughts, and without fixation on these thoughts, there is an opening to all the senses in its vivid clarity without self, no longer ignoring/blocking out the totality and vivid clarity of experience. There is a natural tendency to feel everything directly instead of skewing focus to thoughts.
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Only after that experience do you think "I saw that sight" "I heard that sound". There is this reference to an 'I' that did that.
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Are you confident that all phenomena arising is without self, arising without an agent, experiencer, doer?
Are you confident that all phenomena arising is inconstant and hence, unsatisfactory?
Are you confident that all phenomena arise due to causes and conditions?
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For example the thought/intention 'I need to get up now' arises, followed by a bodily action of standing up. The thought 'I need to get up now' serves as a condition for the bodily action... but the thought itself is not a self or doer/controller of action - it is merely an arising that serves as a condition for the action. The volition to stand up is mental, but what actually stands up is the body. Each arising is a complete new reality arising with various supporting conditions.
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Yes the view is very important therefore do not fall into determinism too. There is intention that influences the outcome. Clear seeing that there is no-agent does not lead one into hard determinism; it merely leads one to clearly see the illusionary split of subject/object division, the essencelessness and dependent originated nature of arising. There is no lack of influence of intentionality in the chain of ever becoming. Adopt the middle path so that we will not fall to the extreme.
From a pragmatic perspective, the view is also important because it is difficult to see how the idea of duality (separation) is the direct result of not seeing the anatta and empty nature of Awareness. This is a phase where experience desync with view (dualistic and inherent view) and can lead to quite intense confusion if a practitioner tries to make sense of 'what is'.
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The joy of being alive is also another experience arising and subsiding... To penetrate into the stream of arising and ceasing, do not hold onto any experiences. Let them come, yes, but not to cling on to any states. Eventually it will be seen that awareness is ever this stream of arising and ceasing.
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Practice will reveal that clear seeing + constant reminding of letting go + lingering dualistic and inherent view cannot lead to thorough letting go. The 'view' will always create a very thin layer of division.
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If 'you' are clear, then welcoming of whatever arises is non-dual and letting go is non- dual; no more holding in disguise as letting go and coming and going turns liberating. all appearances turn spontaneous, stainless, coreless and crystal present.
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The question ought to be, 'how do these phenomena arise'? And the answer to that is they arise interdependent with all various supporting conditions... Everything interacting with each other to support this moment of manifestation, including our deep latent mental tendencies/propensities/conditionings.
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For this to be thorough, effortless and natural, arise the 'willingness' to let go of Awareness first.
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You should see in the direction of 'in seeing just the seen', 'in hearing just the heard', 'in thinking just thought'... there is no seer, hearer, thinker behind arisings - only just thoughts, sounds, sight. There is just a self-luminous and self-accomplishing process of knowing/thinking/doing without a behind agent.
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Seamless presence is the luminous character of every phenomenon, but each moment of seamless presence is a unique and complete phenomenon that is distinct from the unique and complete phenomena of a different mindstream. We do not, for example, experience a dog’s experience.
There are no ‘multiple selves’, or ‘multiple experiencers’, but there are different mindstreams/experiences. Experience is not denied, just the experiencer that is denied/cannot be found.
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"Just so, o King, is the chain of phenomena linked together. One phenomenon arises, another vanishes, yet all are linked together, one after the other, without interruption. In this way one reaches the final state of consciousness neither as the same person nor as another person.''
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Consciousness is simply experience as it is - it is not the source of experience. It's self- luminosity is simply the characteristic of each unique experience... Consciousness is the 'effect' of interdependence, not the 'cause'. i.e. Consciousness IS the sound of 'BANG'... it is not that there is a 'consciousness' causing the experience of hearing sound 'BANG'... and, this experience could not have happened without various supporting conditions. With supporting conditions, experience naturally arises, and where experience/arising is, consciousness is (experience IS by nature conscious).
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'...be wary of anything that wants to be a super-awareness, a rigpa that is larger than everything else, as it can't be, by definition...'
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"In any phenomena, whether psychological, physiological, or physical, there is dynamic movement, life. We can say that this movement, this life, is the universal manifestation, the most commonly recognized action of knowing. We must not regard 'knowing' as something from the outside which comes to breathe life into the universe. It is the life of the universe itself. The dance and the dancer are one."
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The sense of there being a 'Witness' of phenomena is simply a thought... in that thought, there is just a thought! There is no witness of thought... the witness of thought is simply a thought, a self-referencing thought. There is always just in thinking just thoughts. And in the hearing, just sound, there is no hearer of sound... just the self-luminous and self- accomplishing process of hearing. And so on... The sense of self is simply another sensation, a sensation that does not actually refer to anything: it is just a sensation without a sensor. A thought of self is also simply an empty thought, an empty label or story that does not refer to anything substantial. Everything is just like this... You do not come to see the mountain, the mountain simply 'sees'/'reveals' by itself without a seer... this has always been the case.
When it's seen that thoughts and sensations that imply self are actually not self but is simply a pure sensation happening to nobody, then its coming and going becomes self- liberating. (Like you said, the sense of self is already no-self!) Otherwise, thoughts and sensations that imply self are clung to, solidified, reified, and leads to a chain of suffering.
The annihilation of self is based on a false view of self: that it has existence to begin with, and is solid, real, etc.
By seeing the absence of an agent, or a solid, separate, permanent, controlling/perceiving self, such a view is overthrown... what remains is the arising and subsiding of arisings according to conditions.
How can there be a 'self' to annihilate when no 'self' is found to begin with?
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Like the utterly still certainty of beingness, every moment the universe stands still. Complete. Whole. Yet not permanent. It is impermanence without movement. It is a process without the continuity of an entity. Past, present and future do not apply to This. Ever just this one thought, this one sound, this one sight, this one breathe. Certain and undeniable. Non-arising and non-ceasing.
There is no ‘non-arising and non-ceasing Awareness reflecting the comings and goings of arising and ceasing phenomena’, there is just This, non-arising, non-ceasing, transient phenomena.
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One more thing: no-self or anatta is not just non-doership. Non-doership is just one aspect of anatta, not its entirety. It is not yet the realization of no agency. Realization of anatta arises when you see that the framework of there being a seer seeing the seen is false, that always already, in seeing always just the sight, shapes, forms and colours vividly manifesting without an observer/seer. In hearing just sounds, no hearer. Always already so.
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The realization of anatta arises from direct experiential insight and not an inference. It is not an inferred conclusion due to not being able to locate the whereabouts of an agent or perceiver. Similarly the emptiness of objects is not just about being unable to locate where phenomena is, it is the direct realization of dependent origination and the corelessness of all phenomena. Anatta realization is also not inferred conclusion from peak experiences of no-mind which you had.
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"observing the body in the body," "observing the feelings in the feelings," "observing the mind in the mind," "observing the objects of mind in the objects of mind." Why are the words, body, feelings, mind, and objects of mind repeated? Why ‘observe the … IN THE ….’? It means you are living and experiencing IN and AS the sensations, and not observing the sensations in and as an observer/watcher and the sensations are not meant to be disassociated from in order to get to an ultimate reality or transcendental Self!
The Buddha's method of contemplating anatta therefore is for practitioners to have direct experience and contemplation of pure sensations as in Bahiya Sutta, 'in seeing just the seen, in hearing just the heard'* WITHOUT the filtering of the conceptual mind, the false sense or conception of a self, or the passions and afflictions that causes all manners of craving and aversions for the sensations, so that insight and realization can arise, so that true liberation and abandonment can take place, and it is only in this context that contemplating anatta can be understood.
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Further penetration into anatta reveals that all phenomena are disjoint, unsupported, unlinked, bubble-like, insubstantial, dream-like, and self-releasing - there is absolutely nothing, not even an Awareness that underlies two thoughts, two manifestations - in fact there is not even two thoughts as such, just this thought, which spontaneously self- releases upon inception leaving absolutely no traces.
Shunyata (Second-fold Emptiness):
In addition to the emptiness of self in insubstantial non-duality, there is the emptiness of objects (second-fold emptiness) where all experiences, thoughts, and perceptions are discovered to have no independent essence - as such a core of appearance is unlocatable, unfindable, and ungraspable - the appearances shimmers vividly but no core can be found. They are like an empty shell, appearing due to dependent origination, and yet coreless.
All appearances, due to being realized as empty of inherent existence, is seen to be like an illusion, like a magician's trick, like a dream - appearing and yet no-thing truly there.
This is amazing and magical, and gives rise to wonder - like if you see a very clear mirage on the edge of the sea of an island, you may think it is wonderful, but this time your entire experiential field is seen to be like a mirage - vividly shining and appearing and yet empty. How wonderful is that!
Experience becomes liberating as you are liberated from all views of 'is' and 'is not' with regards to self and objects, so there is no-thing to cling to, only the ungraspable flow of unreified suchness of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, thinking, all self-liberating upon inception leaving no traces, the trace being clinging to any views of 'is' and 'is not'.
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Yeah, out of nowhere, in nowhere, going nowhere, yet vivid and apparently real.
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Now when anger arise, it is a magical display. It is this ‘magic’ that is releasing. If you cannot understand, then there will be staying and attachment. There is nothing dull in releasing.
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…it’s not about subsuming, it’s more about… thoughts and all sensory experiences cannot be found anywhere, cannot be located in anywhere, yet amazingly ‘it’ appears…
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Anatta does not require reification of objects, however anatta alone does not remove reification of objects.
Anatta is that awareness is an empty convention like weather, collating a ungraspable self-luminous process of the six consciousness that dependently originates, and not a subjective self or agent. There is no agent, perceiver.
Shunyata is that even that process is unlocatable and empty.
Contemplating the non-locality of things leads to emptiness of object
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The real purpose is the ‘freedom’ from ‘inherent’ view and then releases itself from any forming of ‘views’ so that the magic of functioning can be realized and directly experienced. However during the journey, there is always attachment here and there… therefore the ‘emptying of emptiness’. We go through step by step in dissolving the knot of ‘inherency’ till we see that ‘mind’ is the full embodiment of the immediate marvelous activity. Just eating, seeing, sensing, tasting, thinking...simply sound, thoughts, scenery and scents. Nothing within and without, only this spontaneous miraculous functioning, an interplay of dharma. When we entertain conceptual knowledge and seek unchanging Awareness or Self, the marvelous ‘interconnectedness’ of functioning is being misunderstood as ‘something’ being transformed into ‘something’ as if ‘winter’ has been transformed into ‘spring’.
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The purpose is not to get attached to the ‘non-inherent’ view either.
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"Form is similar to a foam, Feeling is like water bubbles,
Ideation is equivalent with a mirage,
Formations are similar with a banana tree,
Consciousness is like an illusion."
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How can something appear to arise without arising?
Find out where does the thought come from, where the thought is, where the thought goes to. Find the core or essence of that thought. You will see that it is magical appearance, like a magic show - appearing, yet not truly there or anywhere, without a place of origin, abidance, and subsidance. You will realize that there is no essence or substance or thingness of that appearance, that there is no-thing coming into being and no-thing to cease.
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Maha is that experience of total-relativity just like no-mind is that experience of total- change. The clinging onto entities and self prevents these experience, or more precisely, maha and no-mind is the natural state of 'existence', yet clinging onto 'is', 'is not' of self and objects obscure the experiential seeing of what is.
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Maha is not an experience, but the natural state of seeing, hearing, smelling, moving your hands, walking. When walking, the universe walks. There is no point in time where it isn't actually Maha.
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It is precisely by means of self that I perceive not-self...
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…impermanence, dissatisfactoriness, and non-self are done not to discover some ultimate reality, but rather to result in knowledge and vision of things as they are (as being empty of self) which leads to dispassion and ultimately cessation (nirvana) of suffering and afflictions. The result of contemplating as such results in the realization of Anatta.
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Many people practice vipassana as a kind of dissociation, not understanding that anatta-contemplation as Buddha intended it actually leads to insight-discernment of anatta, not-self, which is not a form of dissociation or merely a rejection of 'form = self' but a rejection of self pertaining to forms in all manners (including as happening to self, in self, or self in it, etc), including any self of a permanent, independent, separate nature, or of agency (perceiver, controller), such that there is "In reference to the seen, only the seen, no you in terms of that".
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Movement is perceived when it is falsely perceived that there is some unchanging self-entity that links two moments together.
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…there is just disjoint, unsupported, self-releasing images that has no link to each other.
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Instead, Point A is Point A, Point B is point B, and so on... Z is Z, whole and complete in itself. Each moment, ever fresh, whole, complete, and leaving no trace the next moment.
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…according to the Pali suttas, all identification (including all self-view) is caused by craving.
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Ignorance is at the base of the 12 links, so it is the remainderless cessation of ignorance we should practice for - the cessation of ignorance leads to the cessation of the rest of the links.
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Without seeing through the false view of self by insight, one can never release the false of view of self, in the same way as a child who doesn't realize Santa Claus as false will never end craving for Santa Claus. Even if he is convinced not to crave Santa Claus in an obvious way, that very belief in Santa Claus leads to clinging. And the way to end the belief of Santa Claus is not to beat the hell out of the child, to take the child's gift away, etc etc... it's just to tell him that there's no Santa Claus.
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…you realize “in seeing always just the seen, shapes, colours, forms! never a seer! never was there a seer-seeing-seen! seeing is just the seen!” which is a eureka moment, and this realization wakes you up from the delusion of a seer, never again to haunt you (like waking up from the delusion of rope being snake makes you not being haunted by the snake again), apart from potential traces or remnants of tendencies (contractions related to the sense of personality usually) which gets resolved over time.
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If you do not have right view, no matter how hard you practice mindfulness and concentration, now matter how hard you try to let go of your clingings and attachments, it will not lead to Nirvana and end of ignorance, simply because you are practicing under the influence of wrong views, you are dealing with gross manifest attachments but not addressing a more fundamental and underlying cause of ignorance.
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• Emptiness is not light
• Emptiness is not consciousness or awareness
• Emptiness is not the Absolute
• Emptiness does not exist on its own
• Objects do not consist of emptiness
• Objects do not arise from emptiness
• Emptiness of the “I” does not negate the “I”
• Emptiness is not the feeling that results when no objects are appearing to the mind
• Meditating on emptiness does not consist of quieting the mind
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There is no such thing as “this arises, that ceases”. This was not taught by Buddha. You are again distorting the teaching of dependent origination. The Buddha teaches this:
“When there is this, that is.
With the arising of this, that arises.
When this is not, neither is that.
With the cessation of this, that ceases.”
When conditions are present, afflictions Will arise.
Nirvana is the cessation of afflictive causes (craving and ignorance), and due to the cessation of afflictive causes, the entire chain of afflictive dependent origination also ceases.
So cessation happens in the manner of “this ceases, that ceases”
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Not realizing the true face of awareness, we attempt to get behind thoughts and try to "get back" to an existent state of awareness, which basically means dissociation.
The practice of the four foundations of mindfulness coupled with the right insights, the three dharma seals and sunyata, is simply to recognize and experience all sensations displaying themselves in their spontaneously perfected bright self-luminosity and self- release by its emptiness. Freed from false views of duality and inherent existence, no efforts to cling to any states, and no efforts to dissociate from any experience is required.
..before that effort put in to practice mindfulness is fine, but at some point effort to sustain a purest state of awareness is seen through as unnecessary and illusory.
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"Lucid awareness" refers to an individual's pure consciousness, which is detached from any dualistic discrimination. A perfect insight into the intrinsic void of reality, it is wisdom with clarity. This is one of those important points that have been misinterpreted in the West. The literal rendering of the original Tibetan term "osel" (spelled 'od-gsal) as "clear light" seems to be the case. It is a metaphor, signifying an inbred clarity.
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…Nying-ma posits a mind-vajra which has no beginning or end and proceeds without interruption through the effect stage of Buddhahood. It is considered ‘permanent’ in the sense of abiding forever and thus is presented as a permanent mind. It is permanent not in the sense of not disintegrating moment by moment but in the sense that its continuum is not interrupted…
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…seeing through the need to abide in non-dual and dropping it - notice the tendency to reconfirm nondual by giving rise to thoughts like "the sound is as much you as the thought", seeing how ridiculous it is when always already in seeing just sound, in thinking just thought, all thoughts to reconfirm nondual arise due to falsely perceiving there to be a self to be nondual with "that" which turns into one mind and worse still it presumes there to be a subtle split that needs to be resolved when that notion of separation is entirely illusory. The entire movement to become nondual is illusory when anatta is fully seen and all self-notions are dropped.
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One of the crucial factors to liberation is dispassion.
Even the purpose of realizing emptiness is to lead to this arising dispassion. Because if there is no clinging at a true existence of anything, there is just an illusory dream like appearance without grasping that is self-arisen and self-liberated, instead of there being some strong mental attachment or craving to things.
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there must be willingness to let go of the 'wrong view' entirely then with the experience of no-mind and realization, the adoption of the view carries u...until u perfect the experience then the doubts is completely gone ur entire experience transcend the entire idea of 'essence' the center is completely gone...just flat, disjoint, unsupported, dimensionless and pure experience manifested as whatever arises this is very important and must take note otherwise u will not be able to advice correctly.
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In actual fact all of us experience the original, unsullied and pure moment of naked awareness (such as hearing or seeing something before analyzing or thinking about it) from time to time, but as you rightly pointed out, it is often quickly obscured and overshadowed by "another thought" that arises which seems to say I am doing everything, that imputes or conceives of a fictitious self or label over the original naked experience.
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I see Shikantaza (The Zen meditation method of “Just Sitting”) as the natural expression of realization and enlightenment. But many people completely misunderstand this... they think that practice- enlightenment means there is no need for realization, since practicing is enlightenment. In other words, even a beginner is as realized as the Buddha when meditating. This is plain wrong and thoughts of the foolish.
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Nothing Hidden, Totally Manifest
Mind, awareness, experience, sensations are synonymous. It is not “mind is aware of experience”. For what is mind? Seeing sight, hearing sound, all is mind. So, experience is mind is awareness. This is the truth of non-duality. The non-conceptual sense of beingness or am-ness is mind, the non-conceptual presence of seeing, hearing, etc too is mind, thoughts too is mind. To apply effort to sustain a particular state of mind as being “nature of mind” is thus irrelevant, since every state and manifestation is in fact not other than the nature of mind. There is no nature of mind apart from mind, and no mind apart from experience. But until this is experientially realized, there is no benefit.
There is nothing concrete, substantial or unchanging about mind, thus allowing for infinite potential of appearances. Emptiness, luminosity and energy co-emerge. Inseparable from the interconnectedness of causes and conditions, vividly present but empty, being a ceaseless flow, appearing as various shapes and forms and bubbles like an endless river flowing according to various conditions. Mind is not some pure potential behind manifestation, rather lacking an independent self-substance, mind points to this very manifestation itself, whatever it is for “you” at this moment (probably the sight of these words).
What about analogies that the nature of mind is like space? It does not mean there is a space behind phenomenon, but rather the mind is empty of a concrete identity, and being so is free from limitations, center or boundaries just like space, manifest as this very appearance. There is no noumenon behind phenomenon. At this point, “who is aware?” no longer applies. Nothing hiding, totally manifest! This is what Padmasambhava meant by “Since there is only this pure observing, there will be found a lucid clarity without anyone being there who is the observer; Only a naked manifest awareness is present.”, and what a cook told Zen Master Dogen, “Nothing in the entire universe is hidden.” This is what Thusness calls, “total transparency”.
Another point to “Nothing in the entire universe is hidden.” is that this manifestation is the activity of the entire universe, so this very manifestation is in fact not different from and not the same as the entire universe. The apple is the sun-apple, the farmer-apple, the air-apple, the universe-apple, the biting is the apple-biting-apple and the mouth-biting-apple, the universe biting apple. Nothing in the universe is hidden for the universe is totally manifest As this very activity. This activity is the manifestation of the whole universe of interdependency in a perfect and complete expression, just like this. The ever evolving process of an interdependent universe universing universe. All causes and conditions are incorporated in seamless interdependence in a single activity. (E.g. Hand, shaking, cup, water, ripples) What we call “universe” is simply this evolving process of interactivity made manifest in each unfolding moment, an interconnected process rolling on and on without an agent, nothing hidden whatsoever.
So in summary: when we talk about “intrinsic awareness” or “intrinsic mind”, we may also call it “intrinsic luminosity of experience”, for what is mind? Nothing whatsoever and yet nothing is not (totally manifest, nothing hidden), the words experience/mind/awareness all point to this very luminous-experience-mind. It points to the dynamic flow of mind-activities. Thus luminosity is not an attribute of a fixed unchanging entity hidden somewhere, but the essence of the manifesting mind/experience itself, unfabricated and unconditioned (not created by something, by effort or by contrivance). And yet manifesting as whatsoever due to an interconnected flow of activities, nothing independent and nothing lasting more than moment.
Experience can really be summed up this way:
Vividly present dependent on conditions Utterly gone upon the cessation of conditions.
Thus come, thus gone!
One who sees the suchness of dependent origination sees the Dharma, one who sees the Dharma sees the Tathagata (Thus Come One).
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The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinion for or against. The struggle of what one likes and what one dislikes is the disease of the mind.
But what exactly is this “witness” we are talking about? It is the manifestation itself! It is the appearance itself! There is no Source to fall back, the Appearance is the Source! Including the moment to moment of thoughts. The problem is we choose, but all is really it. There is nothing to choose.
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“Deeper clinging to a Self is not washed away with the non-dual insight. There must be further integration of the ‘non-dual’ experience into this arising and passing away, this impermanent nature, to dissolve the illusionary sense of self, anger, emotion, pride even the non-dual presence that we treasure so much; let whatever arises goes, be it during the waking, dreaming or deep sleep state. There will then come a time where a practitioner realizes the same ‘taste’ of the 3 states as there is no holding of the non-dual presence and all experiences turn natural, effortless and self-liberating.”
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1. Seeing inherent object as a mere convention collating... If a practitioner keeps penetrating whatever arises this way, experience will turn groundless and illusion –like
2. Seeing clearly in non dual mode but deep in us realize that this is merely a dependent originated manifestation, nothing ultimate and solidly real
3. You see "no going, no coming, no here, no there" and penetrate deeply into the seamless interpenetration of activities leading to the maha experience
Until this empty nature of whatever arises is intuit in our moment to moment of experience, you can then feel the total exertion and self liberating aspect of experience.
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What you lack now is feel with the entire body mind until body-mind is entirely forgotten, deconstructed and enter into total exertion all things. There is neither you, body, mind, environment nor super awareness... just fully open up and experience the Beauty of this total exertion of suchness non dually. No body, mind, self can still remain at pure awareness level. The measurement is to total giving up so that the experience of how immensely is this web of interpenetration is experience as this moment of arising is important. You need to practice with the view in mind to see the interconnection, not non-conceptuality of whatever arises.
There are two practices, one is feel the intensity of this moment of arise till there is no mind, body, self… directly right into the place where there is no heat or cold, the intensity of our luminous essence. The other is holding the view in mind till body, mind, self, universe is being deconstructed in this immerse interconnectness. They are different, yet both practices are equally important. One is total non conceptuality, one is full integration of the view interconnectedness. In non conceptuality of in hearing, just sound...there is no mind, no self, no hearer, just this sound. This universe is fill with the arising sound... Clear vivid and non-dual... you practice the intensity of luminous essence. But hearing sound, deep in you, you see the empty nature of arise, you see the stick, the drum, the ear drums, the sound ... This requires view...
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Balancing Right View:
Thusness commented before that Zen often (not always – but a common scene) overemphasize experience over the view, while Madhyamika students often overemphasize the view over direct experience. A balance must be striked.
An Eternal Now, modified 10 Years ago at 8/23/14 4:14 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/23/14 4:07 AM
RE: Book Review: An Eternal Now E-book Journal
Posts: 638 Join Date: 9/15/09 Recent Posts
Haha..
Thanks for this post. Though I think some of the quotations are not put in the 'right' category.
e.g. "
Non-duality:
Essentially what you have to
ask is 'Who am I?' Trace the radiance to its source. You are aware and
present, this is undoubtable and undeniable. So Who/What is Aware? Trace
the radiance to the source."
<-- this post should be under I AM. Do note that the whole chapter on Self-Inquiry is all about I AM -- self-inquiry is the method that leads to I AM realization.
"...being lived as an effortless expression of One Life"
<-- this whole post is about Impersonality, not non dual or anatta.
"...You have to trace the hearing, the radiance, the seeing, to its Source."
<-- I AM
In fact most the following posts should be under I AM... there is not much from the One Mind phase being quoted there.
"...All the bullshit concepts, constructs and images of an 'aliveness', a 'hearing', a 'seeing', an 'awareness'..."
<-- this is not exactly about anatta but direct NDNCDIMOP of aliveness/sound/etc.
"the 'method' is to be aware of and be equanimous to whatever that is arising in order for them to pass away naturally. This 'aware of' is not as easy as it sounds." <-- this is shared by 'simpo' is under the anatta chapter but not implying it is related to anatta insight
Also some of my posts under the chapter "twofold emptiness" are not strictly related to it. Just a note.
Thanks for this post. Though I think some of the quotations are not put in the 'right' category.
e.g. "
Non-duality:
Essentially what you have to
ask is 'Who am I?' Trace the radiance to its source. You are aware and
present, this is undoubtable and undeniable. So Who/What is Aware? Trace
the radiance to the source."
<-- this post should be under I AM. Do note that the whole chapter on Self-Inquiry is all about I AM -- self-inquiry is the method that leads to I AM realization.
"...being lived as an effortless expression of One Life"
<-- this whole post is about Impersonality, not non dual or anatta.
"...You have to trace the hearing, the radiance, the seeing, to its Source."
<-- I AM
In fact most the following posts should be under I AM... there is not much from the One Mind phase being quoted there.
"...All the bullshit concepts, constructs and images of an 'aliveness', a 'hearing', a 'seeing', an 'awareness'..."
<-- this is not exactly about anatta but direct NDNCDIMOP of aliveness/sound/etc.
"the 'method' is to be aware of and be equanimous to whatever that is arising in order for them to pass away naturally. This 'aware of' is not as easy as it sounds." <-- this is shared by 'simpo' is under the anatta chapter but not implying it is related to anatta insight
Also some of my posts under the chapter "twofold emptiness" are not strictly related to it. Just a note.
Richard Zen, modified 10 Years ago at 8/23/14 10:17 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/23/14 7:05 AM
RE: Book Review: An Eternal Now E-book Journal
Posts: 1676 Join Date: 5/18/10 Recent Posts
They were just quotes that I resonated with and put under the chapter headings. I'll make some updates to avoid confusion.
EDIT: I made some changes and added some more quotes. It makes me want to practice more. Making this review really helped me see the thinking that thinks about thinking and how resting in thinking is more thinking.
EDIT: I made some changes and added some more quotes. It makes me want to practice more. Making this review really helped me see the thinking that thinks about thinking and how resting in thinking is more thinking.
x x, modified 10 Years ago at 8/23/14 6:53 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/23/14 6:53 PM
RE: Book Review: An Eternal Now E-book Journal
Posts: 122 Join Date: 8/18/13 Recent PostsPP, modified 10 Years ago at 8/27/14 9:35 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/27/14 9:35 PM
RE: Book Review: An Eternal Now E-book Journal
Posts: 376 Join Date: 3/21/12 Recent Posts(D Z) Dhru Val, modified 10 Years ago at 8/27/14 9:48 PM
Created 10 Years ago at 8/27/14 9:48 PM
RE: Book Review: An Eternal Now E-book Journal
Posts: 346 Join Date: 9/18/11 Recent Posts
I like Wei Yu and Thusness's writings.
And Richard always like reading your summaries of books. Most of the books you read are in subject matter that I am interested in and don't have the time to dive in fully.
And Richard always like reading your summaries of books. Most of the books you read are in subject matter that I am interested in and don't have the time to dive in fully.