RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? J C 6/8/17 7:58 PM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? streamsurfer 6/9/17 4:49 AM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? O'lorin 6/9/17 4:53 AM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? Chris M 6/9/17 7:28 AM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? An Eternal Now 6/9/17 10:39 PM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? An Eternal Now 6/9/17 10:38 PM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? J C 6/10/17 9:49 PM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? An Eternal Now 6/11/17 12:52 AM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? An Eternal Now 6/11/17 1:18 AM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? J C 6/11/17 2:27 PM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? Chris M 6/12/17 12:43 PM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? J C 6/12/17 1:48 PM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? Chris M 6/12/17 2:07 PM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? Derek2 6/12/17 5:36 PM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? J C 6/12/17 5:58 PM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? shargrol 6/12/17 7:02 PM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? Chris M 6/13/17 7:49 AM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? An Eternal Now 6/13/17 9:47 AM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? J C 6/12/17 1:53 PM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? Dream Walker 6/13/17 7:25 PM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? Thomas Jackson-Brown 6/14/17 12:49 AM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? An Eternal Now 6/19/17 10:39 AM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? tom moylan 6/14/17 4:59 AM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? Chris M 6/14/17 4:21 PM
RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)? Chris M 6/18/17 8:31 PM
J C, modified 6 Years ago at 6/8/17 7:58 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/8/17 7:58 PM

How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 644 Join Date: 4/24/13 Recent Posts
The focus of my meditative journey thus far, up through my last big shift two years ago, has been examining and breaking down my sense of agency. Since then, I have not felt like there is a me to do anything or that I am making any movements I make. Things seem to be happening on their own.

The path that took me to that point seemed to line up with the four paths, in terms of experiencing fruitions and bliss waves at each path as my sense of agency diminished. I had thought this big shift was 4th path.

But I have realized that there seems to be something missing - luminosity. I seem to have the no-self side of the paths down, but not the other side of the path, the side that sees open spaciousness and awareness in everything outside my body, all my sensory perceptions.

I did see a change in vision at the big shift - depth perspective became more prominent and my vision became more "in my face," as though a screen had been removed.

But I don't see everything as luminous spacious awareness, though I sometimes have flashes of it.

So, I don't think I qualify for 4th path.

A while back, An Eternal Now commented on this:

An Eternal Now:

The difference is that in no-mind, when the sense of a seer or hearer is gone, there is the direct experience of consciousness as precisely that sound, that sight. That is, there is direct experience of the non-dual luminosity/radiance as transience, and all appearances turn alive.
...
One cannot realize that there is no agent yet [] not directly experience phenomena as luminous, certain, non-dual and primordial... or [] not experience the non-dual luminosity as transience, otherwise it is more of impersonality and non-doership than anatta. In non-doership one may experience dissolution of control, doership, and the 'illusion of free will' and clearly experience everything as 'happening on its own'.


https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/4179363#_19_message_5642696
An Eternal Now:

If you are experiencing lack of doership or doer and hearing and moving is just 'happening naturally on its own' without a personal experiencer or doer, that is non-doership.

If you are experiencing the dissolution of a hearer or seer and consciousness/hearing is precisely only the sound and the sight, that is no-mind.


https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/4179363#_19_message_5643005

So - what's going on here?

Seems like as well as taking apart the sense of self, there's another side to the path - we could call it the "true self" side as opposed to the "no self" side - or the "object" side as opposed to the "subject" side - or the "positive" side instead of the "negative" side.

The no-self side is about realizing that none of your sensations, thoughts, or perceptions are you - dismantling the center.

The true self side is about seeing everything as you - that is, everything as spacious awareness.

Odd that I seemed to go through the 4 paths but didn't get the true self side of things.

Since the two sides are really the same, I imagine that everything joins together at the final end.

So where would you say I am, and what would you suggest in order to get the other side of the path?
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streamsurfer, modified 6 Years ago at 6/9/17 4:49 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/9/17 4:48 AM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 101 Join Date: 1/19/16 Recent Posts
If you just lay aside the attainment scale for a second;

How do you know an object is no self or true self?
Where is the luminosity you seek and where not?
What is hindering you to see it clearly?
Try to investigate the periphery of your clarity.

Greetings!
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O'lorin, modified 6 Years ago at 6/9/17 4:53 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/9/17 4:53 AM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 21 Join Date: 5/5/17 Recent Posts
Hey rookie here, so I understand this is probably above my pay-grade. Regardless, I think there is a contradiction here:
But I have realized that there seems to be something missing - luminosity. I seem to have the no-self side of the paths down, but not the other side of the path, the side that sees open spaciousness and awareness in everything outside my body, all my sensory perceptions.
If you had truly removed the 'center' of experience, then shouldn't by definition, experience be luminous with awareness of things seeming to manifest where they are? If you have seen through the 'perceiver' as the center, then all thatshould be left is the 'perception' right? Where else could it be if there is no center?

Then it seems to me you answered your own question when quoting 'An Eternal Now'. In that quote it seems the inference to be made is that you may have eradicated a sense of the 'doer', but not the sense of a 'see-er' or 'hear-er'. Hence while sounds, sensations etc... may seem to be happening on their own, nonetheless they aren't luminously happening 'where they are' because their is still a sense that they are imprinted on the 'perceiver'. 

Am I misunderstanding something perhaps?
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Chris M, modified 6 Years ago at 6/9/17 7:28 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/9/17 7:27 AM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
Hi, JC.

In my experience "progress" at this (your) stage, will come from dropping all notions of engineering, guiding, or managing your experience. It will come by letting go of these things and just be-ing. It's natural to want to fight to get somewhere. After all, that's what we've always done, right? But that's only going to mask and frustrate the next realization. It is the seeking itself that gets in the way of the finding.

Hope this might help you.
An Eternal Now, modified 6 Years ago at 6/9/17 10:39 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/9/17 10:28 PM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 638 Join Date: 9/15/09 Recent Posts
There are two stanzas of anatta mentioned by Thusness in http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html . If you came from an Awareness-practice background (e.g. Advaita, Zen, Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Thai Forest Tradition, etc) and had a direct realization the I AMness, it's almost certain your experience will skew towards the second stanza initially after the insight into anatta because you are guided by the direct taste of Presence-Awareness and transitioning from background (the formless) to the foreground (all senses) then followed the realization that the stuff of transience is the radiance of awareness.

And if you came from a purely Vipassana practice background, and had no prior doubtless realization of Awareness, then it's almost certain you will skew towards the first stanza initially. Both are to be complemented. In your case, you may want to practice the intensity of luminosity while keeping the second stanza in mind, contemplating on it so that the realization of the radiance as the transience can occur.

Here's something I wrote many years ago, hope it helps:

Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 8:15 PM
To: Zen
Subject: Re: Stopping thoughts

Good insight. Stability of experience has a predictable relationship with
the unfolding and deepening of insights. For example how seamless and
effortless can non-dual experience be, if in the back of one's mind, subtle
views of duality and inherency and tendencies continue to surface and affect
our moment to moment experience - for example conjuring an unchanging source
or mind that results in a perpetual tendency to sink back and referencing
experience back to a source.

For example even after it is seen that everything is a manifestation of
awareness or mind, there might still be subtle tendencies to reference back
to a source, awareness or mind and therefore the transience is not
appreciated in full. Nondual is experienced but one sinks back into
substantial nonduality - there is always a referencing back to a base, an
"awareness" that is nevertheless inseperable from all phenomena.

If one arises the insight that our ideas of an unchanging source, awareness
or mind is just another thought - that there is simply thought after
thought, sight after sight, sound after sound, and there isn't an inherent
or unchanging "awareness", "mind", "source". Non-dual becomes implicit and
effortless when there is the realisation that what awareness, seeing,
hearing really is, is just the seen... The heard... The transience... The
transience itself rolls and knows, no knower or other "awareness" can be
found. Like there is no river apart from flowing, no wind apart from
blowing, each noun implies its verb... Similarly awareness is simply the
process of knowing not separated from the known. Scenery sees, music hears.
Because there is nothing unchanging, independent, ultimate apart from the
transience, there is no more sinking back to a source and instead there is
full comfort resting as the transience itself.

Lastly do continue practicing the intensity of luminosity... When looking at
tennis ball just sense the tennis ball fully.... Without thinking of a
source, background, observer, self. Just the tennis ball as a luminous
light. When breathing... Just the breathe... When seeing scenery, just
sights, shapes and colours - intensely luminous and vivid without an agent
or observer. When hearing music... Sound of bird chirping, the crickets...
Just that - chirp chirp. A zen master noted upon his awakening... When I am
hearing the bell ringing, there is no I and no bell... Just the ringing. The
direct experiencing of no-mind and intensity of luminosity.. This is the
purpose of the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness that is
taught by the Buddha.

Regards
Wei yu
Sent via BlackBerry from SingTel!
An Eternal Now, modified 6 Years ago at 6/9/17 10:38 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/9/17 10:38 PM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 638 Join Date: 9/15/09 Recent Posts
An Eternal Now:
There are two stanzas of anatta mentioned by Thusness in http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html . If you came from an Awareness-practice background (e.g. Advaita, Zen, Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Thai Forest Tradition, etc) and had a direct realization the I AMness, it's almost certain your experience will skew towards the second stanza initially after the insight into anatta because you are guided by the direct taste of Presence-Awareness and transitioning from background (the formless) to the foreground (all senses) then followed the realization that the stuff of transience is the radiance of awareness.

And if you came from a purely Vipassana practice background, and had no prior doubtless realization of Awareness, then it's almost certain you will skew towards the first stanza initially. Both are to be complemented. In your case, you may want to practice the intensity of luminosity while keeping the second stanza in mind so that the realization of the radiance as the transience can occur.

Here's something I wrote many years ago, hope it helps:

Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 8:15 PM
To: Zen
Subject: Re: Stopping thoughts

Good insight. Stability of experience has a predictable relationship with
the unfolding and deepening of insights. For example how seamless and
effortless can non-dual experience be, if in the back of one's mind, subtle
views of duality and inherency and tendencies continue to surface and affect
our moment to moment experience - for example conjuring an unchanging source
or mind that results in a perpetual tendency to sink back and referencing
experience back to a source.

For example even after it is seen that everything is a manifestation of
awareness or mind, there might still be subtle tendencies to reference back
to a source, awareness or mind and therefore the transience is not
appreciated in full. Nondual is experienced but one sinks back into
substantial nonduality - there is always a referencing back to a base, an
"awareness" that is nevertheless inseperable from all phenomena.

If one arises the insight that our ideas of an unchanging source, awareness
or mind is just another thought - that there is simply thought after
thought, sight after sight, sound after sound, and there isn't an inherent
or unchanging "awareness", "mind", "source". Non-dual becomes implicit and
effortless when there is the realisation that what awareness, seeing,
hearing really is, is just the seen... The heard... The transience... The
transience itself rolls and knows, no knower or other "awareness" can be
found. Like there is no river apart from flowing, no wind apart from
blowing, each noun implies its verb... Similarly awareness is simply the
process of knowing not separated from the known. Scenery sees, music hears.
Because there is nothing unchanging, independent, ultimate apart from the
transience, there is no more sinking back to a source and instead there is
full comfort resting as the transience itself.

Lastly do continue practicing the intensity of luminosity... When looking at
tennis ball just sense the tennis ball fully.... Without thinking of a
source, background, observer, self. Just the tennis ball as a luminous
light. When breathing... Just the breathe... When seeing scenery, just
sights, shapes and colours - intensely luminous and vivid without an agent
or observer. When hearing music... Sound of bird chirping, the crickets...
Just that - chirp chirp. A zen master noted upon his awakening... When I am
hearing the bell ringing, there is no I and no bell... Just the ringing. The
direct experiencing of no-mind and intensity of luminosity.. This is the
purpose of the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness that is
taught by the Buddha.

Regards
Wei yu
Sent via BlackBerry from SingTel!
There are two articles. Both are to be complemented, the first concerns luminosity -

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2010/04/tada.html
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2010/04/stainlessness.html
J C, modified 6 Years ago at 6/10/17 9:49 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/10/17 9:49 PM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 644 Join Date: 4/24/13 Recent Posts
Just found this:


Beyond emptiness and suchness is a third, even more subtle characteristic of existence called atammayata, which means “not made of that.”

Although we may have seen through the “I am” conceit, known as asmi-mana, traces of clinging can remain—that is, clinging to the idea of an objective world being perceived by a sub­jective knowing, even though no sense of “I” is discernible. There is the feeling of a “this” that is knowing a “that” and either saying “yes” to it, in the case of suchness, or “no,” in the case of emptiness.


https://www.lionsroar.com/the-sound-of-silence/
An Eternal Now, modified 6 Years ago at 6/11/17 12:52 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/11/17 12:52 AM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 638 Join Date: 9/15/09 Recent Posts
J C:
Just found this:


Beyond emptiness and suchness is a third, even more subtle characteristic of existence called atammayata, which means “not made of that.”

Although we may have seen through the “I am” conceit, known as asmi-mana, traces of clinging can remain—that is, clinging to the idea of an objective world being perceived by a sub­jective knowing, even though no sense of “I” is discernible. There is the feeling of a “this” that is knowing a “that” and either saying “yes” to it, in the case of suchness, or “no,” in the case of emptiness.


https://www.lionsroar.com/the-sound-of-silence/


Reminds me of an article written by a dharma teacher in Singapore - Piya Tan.

Atammayata

Comments: Jui sent me a good article which Thusness and I think is good. The first part of this article is subsuming all as Mind... second part is anatta. As Thusness say, it is good "because there is a direct taste of mind. Otherwise one also has the danger of misunderstanding anatta as mere non-doership and ownership without the direct taste of mind." Also he said, "Atammayata is an important word... depicting a freedom from proliferation without subsuming."


(Above: Piya Tan, a Dharma teacher in Singapore, author of this article)

Reflection no 328:
[For past reflections, see http://dharmafarer.org]

Making nothing of it
We
have all heard of the 3 characteristics of impermanence,
unsatisfactoriness and non-self. It is impossi­ble for any of us, in our
right minds, to deny that everything in this universe is impermanent.
Whatever is impermanent is not satisfactory (or is suffering): we can
never be fully satisfied with such a thing, even if we tenaciously grasp
to it. Indeed, we keep grasping it because we are not satisfied with
it!

Whatever is impermanent and unsatisfactory entails that there
is no abiding entity behind it. It has no con­trolling factor, nor any
kind of essence, whether we call it God, soul, or whatever. Everything
that exists is a process. There are no entities. Of course, we may have
concepts of an “entity,” but it is merely an idea to discuss or
communicate some other ideas with.

Very often, the main hindrance
to our understanding the higher reality that Buddhism or Buddhist
medi­tation offers us is that of language. The kind of language we use,
the kinds of questions we ask, often decide whether or not we will
readily or really understand the nature of true reality.

For
example, we often tend to ask questions like “Who created the world?”
This is a loaded question, one that is wrongly put. We assume it is a
“who” (some kind of entity) that “creates” the world. We assume that the
world is “created,” and so we assume that there is also a “creator.”
The world is “evolving,” a process; we are all processes, we are
evolving beings. We are sets of conditions, physical and mental, working
together to produce results which in turn become new conditions, and so
on and on.

The problem is that whenever we assume something,
especially about someone or even about ourselves, the situation is never
really what we have assumed it to be. When we assume something to be
“that,” it often turns out to be something else. This is a more tricky
aspect of impermanence that we are troubled with but less likely to
notice. Indeed, if we are able to notice this guile of impermanence, we
would surely understand ourselves and the world much better.

Things
are such that we cannot make sense of them unless we accept that they
are impermanent, chang­ing and becoming other. Interestingly, the key
term here is “that.” We can rightly say, for example, “that’s the way it is.” And leave it at that, but this is not easy if we do not really understand what it is that we are letting go of.

Let’s use a simple figure: the hand takes the shape of whatever it grasps. The process of seeing,
for exam­ple, is explained as the eye sending out some kind of rays
which then takes the shape of what we see and comes back with it.
Similarly with thought:
mental energy con­forms to its object (such as a thought) and then
returns to the subject. Our idea is “formed of that,” which in Pali is atam,mayata,[1]
that is, the mental energy of the experiencer is physically shaped by
the thing experienced. In modern terms, this may be said to be a representationalview of perception.

The early Buddhist theory of perception, on the other hand, is constructional.
We cognize sense-data through the sense-faculties, which are then
perceived or recognized by checking them, as it were, against a memory
bank of past experiences, so that we can make sense of it, form ideas
and motivation for vari­ous actions. In other words, we do not really
see even a representation of the external world, but con­struct our own
private reality and live with that.

In simple terms, we can say that an understanding of atam,mayata
corrects our inner vision to see things as they really are. Otherwise,
we are constantly pushed ahead or pulled back by the idea, “What is
that?” meaning that something else out there is more interesting or more
real than what is in here.

Try examining this. Thinking the mind
is in the body, we say, “my mind” [pointing at the head] or “my mind”
[pointing at the chest (the body)]. “It’s all in my mind.” Actually,
it’s the other way around.

The mind is not in the body, but that the body is in our mind! Even when we are in
a body, “our” body, we are not really there if we do not have a
conception of “body.” We can only truly know our body by constantly
being mindful of it; then, we begin to know what it really is.

What do we know about our body? We can see it. We can hear it. We can smell it. We can touch it.

But, where does seeing occur?               In the mind.
Where does hearing occur?                    In the mind.
Where does smelling occur?                  In the mind.
Where does tasting occur?                     In the mind.
Where do we feel touch?                         In the mind.

When we think or know of the body, we do so through the agency of our minds. We have never known anything about our body except through our mind.
So our entire life, from the very first day, everything we have ever
known about our body and the world has happened in our mind. So, where
is our body?

It does not mean that there is no physical world, but all that we can meaningfully say is that our expe­rience of the body and of the world happens within our minds.
It does not happen anywhere else. It is all happening here, and in this
here-ness, that the world’s externality and separateness cease. When we
real­ize that the whole world is in this body of ours,[2] its thingness, its thatness, its otherness, stop. We are bet­ter able to see its true nature.

This
shift of vision is a simple but useful meditation tool we can use any
time. It is very useful be­cause it leads us on to see the true reality
of the matter. As it were, it turns our world inside out, so that we are
able to see that this body is indeed just a set of perceptions, and
everything is seen in proper per­spective. It is all happening right here in our minds.

Having said that, we are now ready for atam,mayata to take us a step further. At first, atammayata
makes us realize that there is really no “that,” only “this.” Then, as
we get used to this new level of reality, we soon realize that even the
“this” is meaningless, that is, we begin to see the duality of subject
and object, or the notions of self and other, as essentially
meaningless.

In reality, atammayata creates neither an objective observed “thing” known nor a subjective “observ­er” knowing it. There is neither a representation (“thatness”) of reality nor a construction (“thisness”) of reality: there is just true reality.
It is the abandoning of the conceiving of “thatness” and “thisness,” of
the observer and the observed, of subject and object, of duality.
Hence, non-identificationrefers to the sub­ject­­ive aspect and non-fabrication to the objective. True reality transcends both.

Atammayata is the realization that, in reality, there cannot be anything other than ultimate reality. There is neither this nor that. In completely letting go of this and that,
the whole relative subject-object world, even at its subtlest level,
dissolves away. Transcending both these extremes of perception, atammayata
refers nei­ther to a state where the mind does not “go out” to the
object and occupy it, nor to a fabricated virtual real­ity relative to
the object. The roots of duality have been pulled out. All we see is a spacious whole­ness: this realization is true wisdom and seeing wholeness is true compassion.

With this kind of understanding, we will find that a cryptic passage in the Malunkya,putta Sutta (S 35.95) becomes clearer, as it is illustrative of atammayata:
 
”When, Malunkya,putta, regarding what is seen, heard, sensed and cognized by you,

in the seen                   there will only be the seen;
in the heard                  there will only be the heard;
in the sensed               there will only be the sensed;
in the cognized            there will only be the cognized,

then, Malunkya,putta, you are ‘not by that.’

When Malunkya,putta, you are ‘not by that,’ then you will ‘not be therein’.
When, Malunkya,putta, you are ‘not therein,’ then you will ‘be neither here nor beyond nor in between the two’.       (S 35.95.13/4:73), SD 5.9[3]


R328 Revisioning Buddhism RB85
[an occasional re-look at the Buddha’s Example and Teachings]
Copyright by Piya Tan ©2014

An Eternal Now, modified 6 Years ago at 6/11/17 1:18 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/11/17 1:07 AM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 638 Join Date: 9/15/09 Recent Posts
https://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/awareness-natural-and-uncontrived_13.html

Thusness wrote to me in 2012:

"Although you see how precise Theravada teaching is, your current mode of practice should be as direct and uncontrived as possible. When you see nothing behind and magical appearances too are empty, awareness is naturally lucid and free. Views and all elaborations dissolve, mind-body forgotten... just unobstructed awareness. Awareness natural and uncontrived is supreme goal

Relax and do nothing,
Open and boundless,
Spontaneous and free,
Whatever arises is fine and liberated,
This is the supreme path.
Top/bottom, inside/outside
Always without center and empty (2fold emptiness),
Then view is fully actualized and all experiences are great liberation."

"u should b feeling like a living awareness like that  I M... ...ur awareness feel like standing out. Like clear space awareness, transparent livingness, clear luminosity. When experience of clear space becomes a living experience without referencing or thoughts coz anatta would hv cleared that, do no re-trace, have not even a single trace of attachment...
That's natural luminosity. There will no b any sense of self or dual. Then just relax and feel DO. Feel interconnectedness And let go. Neither phenomena nor the clear space should b attached. No further views and concepts r necessary. Do not Pre-conceptual anything. The path is not abt understanding anything but as a full and natural expression."



Dakpo Tashi Namgyal, "Clarifying the Natural State":

"Remain fresh in unconcerned naturalness.
Remain artless and uncontrived without judging.
Remain unbound and uninvolved in striving."

"Elevate your experience and remain wide-open like the sky.
Expand your mindfulness and remain pervasive like the earth.
Steady your attention and remain unshakable like a mountain.
Brighten your awareness and remain shining like a flame.
Clear your thoughtfree wakefulness and remain lucid like a crystal."

"Unobscured like a cloudless sky, remain in a lucid and intangable openness.
Unmoving like the ocean free of waves, remain in complete ease, undistracted by thought.
Unchanging and brilliant like a flame undisturbed by the wind, remain utterly clear and bright."

"First, suspend all effort to deeply relax body and mind. Next, let be in uncontrived freshness without indecision. Finally, maintain the practice after resolving that all perceptions are nonarising and naturally freed."



Actual Freedom Richard:

"A PCE is when one’s sense
of identity temporarily vacates the throne and apperception
occurs. Apperception is the mind’s perception of itself … it is a pure
awareness . Normally the mind perceives through the senses and
sorts the data received according to its predilection; but the mind
itself
remains unperceived ... it is taken to be unknowable.
Apperception is when the ‘thinker’ and the ‘feeler’ is not and an
unmediated
awareness occurs. The pure consciousness experience is as if one
has eyes in the back of one’s head; there is a three hundred and sixty
degree awareness and all is self-evidently clear."
J C, modified 6 Years ago at 6/11/17 2:27 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/11/17 2:27 PM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 644 Join Date: 4/24/13 Recent Posts
AEN, earlier you said not to focus on "awareness" as a thing in itself, but just the seen, heard, etc.

But I don't get a spacious luminosity feeling from that - the thing that gets me that feeling and puts me in a non-dual state is stuff like focusing on awareness, conceptualizing a larger space in which everything is in or projected on, imagining the mind as a clear surface, or thinking about the source of experience or ground of being.

What's going on there?
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Chris M, modified 6 Years ago at 6/12/17 12:43 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/12/17 12:43 PM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
... the thing that gets me that feeling and puts me in a non-dual state is stuff like focusing on awareness, conceptualizing a larger space in which everything is in or projected on, imagining the mind as a clear surface, or thinking about the source of experience or ground of being. 

I'm not AEN but here's my hint based on what you said above: Do you consider awareness to be an object? Is it?

J C, modified 6 Years ago at 6/12/17 1:48 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/12/17 1:48 PM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 644 Join Date: 4/24/13 Recent Posts
Chris Marti:
... the thing that gets me that feeling and puts me in a non-dual state is stuff like focusing on awareness, conceptualizing a larger space in which everything is in or projected on, imagining the mind as a clear surface, or thinking about the source of experience or ground of being. 

I'm not AEN but here's my hint based on what you said above: Do you consider awareness to be an object? Is it?


Of course it's not, and the no-self side (looking at perceptions just as they are) and true-self side (looking at awareness) are ultimately the same thing.

But looking at awareness as if it were a separate thing is a practice technique that seems to help take me towards true-self.

So what am I missing? Why do they seem different? Why do the true-self practices seem to get me towards the luminosity thing I'm looking for, while the no-self ones seem to have resulted in a huge reduction in self but nothing on the true-self side?
J C, modified 6 Years ago at 6/12/17 1:53 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/12/17 1:53 PM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 644 Join Date: 4/24/13 Recent Posts
Good thread and post of Daniel's on the subject:

Daniel Ingram:

As to seeing "emptiness" in real-time, this is what anagamis do particularly well, especially those who have been them for a while, and what is means is that they can notice that sensations are just where they are, doing just what they do, on their own, not observed, not as object, but simply as manifesting transience.

This comes as much from having clearly penetrated and understood the sensations that seemed to make up "subject" as it does about anything to do with "object".

However, there are still processes that are somewhat artificially dualistic, distorted, subject-objecty, or however you want to put it.

As to primordial awareness, it actually becomes something of an extraneous concept at the end, as finally there is "in the seeing just the seen, in the hearing just the heard, in the feeling just the felt, etc.", and things being that simple, that direct, that untangled, is what makes the difference, and you can call it what you like.

Fruition is when reality vanishes in very specifically complete way and and then reappears. Primordial awareness is realized when one realizes there is no such thing as primordial awareness that is different from the field of transient manifestation, though there are various aspects of that understanding that can become the focus of attention, which is to say present themselves, and various linguistic ways to talk about this, some of which are clearly more ambiguous than others.


https://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/95028
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Chris M, modified 6 Years ago at 6/12/17 2:07 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/12/17 2:07 PM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
So what am I missing? Why do they seem different? Why do the true-self practices seem to get me towards the luminosity thing I'm looking for, while the no-self ones seem to have resulted in a huge reduction in self but nothing on the true-self side?


Again my comment would be that it's the seeking that gets in the way of the finding. Maybe you still have some unrecognized desire for something that is the hurdle you are encountering - the end that you believe you can find by trying so hard. I'm sounding like a broken record but that's how it worked for me. I got to a point where I gacve up and just stopped the seeking. Then stuff happened. Ignore me if you want.


Derek2, modified 6 Years ago at 6/12/17 5:36 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/12/17 5:36 PM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 231 Join Date: 9/21/16 Recent Posts
Chris Marti:
it's the seeking that gets in the way of the finding.


+1
J C, modified 6 Years ago at 6/12/17 5:58 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/12/17 5:58 PM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 644 Join Date: 4/24/13 Recent Posts
Chris Marti:
So what am I missing? Why do they seem different? Why do the true-self practices seem to get me towards the luminosity thing I'm looking for, while the no-self ones seem to have resulted in a huge reduction in self but nothing on the true-self side?


Again my comment would be that it's the seeking that gets in the way of the finding. Maybe you still have some unrecognized desire for something that is the hurdle you are encountering - the end that you believe you can find by trying so hard. I'm sounding like a broken record but that's how it worked for me. I got to a point where I gacve up and just stopped the seeking. Then stuff happened. Ignore me if you want.



I'm not ignoring you! I think this is a good point. The thing is that after I got what I thought was 4th path I didn't do anything for over a year and hardly meditated. No seeking there at all. And of course I didn't get anywhere. So I think there's a balance needed.

I'm not sure what you mean "unrecognized" desire - why would it have to be unrecognized? I recognize a lot of desires. It might be interesting to write them out. I desire:

to be happy and calm all the time, get along with everyone, be super organized, be emotionally nonreactive, never get distracted, always be present, have quiet spacious stillness in my head all the time, to feel a deep sense of rooted perfection at all times, have all sensory perceptions shine with luminosity, to hide out in emptiness or awareness forever, to be clearly totally super enlightened to the max so I'm sure I'm done...

I'm pretty sure I got some kind of shift just now typing all that out, so seems like this is the right track...
shargrol, modified 6 Years ago at 6/12/17 7:02 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/12/17 6:59 PM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 2344 Join Date: 2/8/16 Recent Posts
The (apparent) binaryness of things can be a clue/practice. The trick is to find a binary that really speaks to you. Maybe true self/no self, maybe enlightened/not enlighted  --- but don't necessarily use dharma terms. Use what it really seems/feels like. For me, it was superior and inferior. So I'll just use that in my explanation...

I would walk around noticing when I felt on top of things, knowing what was going on and feeling in control and say (mentally) "superior". When I felt like I was missing something and didn't know what I was doing I would say "inferior". Eventually I could feel that viscerally. Then I started inducing that feeling, consciously deciding to take on "superior" or "inferior" attitude and live from that orientation. It didn't feel fake at all. I could really feel what it was like to choose to be truly superior and truly inferior. I played with that like breaking a paperclip by bending it back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...

Do that until you are sick of it. 

Eventually, there is a sense of something that transcends that duality... and it can come from exploring -- this is neither superior or inferior, those are both states that get overlayed on "this",  so what is this experience? I was in a business meeting at the time and suddently it was like I went from looking at an aquarium to being in the aquarium --- just for a moment. This was my first non-dual experience. Luminosity is really apparent in the non-dual experience.

Then cultivate the experience of non-duality by deeply relaxing... and do it again.

Just as a big of a teaser... it's possible to make a duality out of non-duality, which is basically the last binary that gets seen through. And oddly enough, what is seen is the nature of seeking itself.

By the way, it's okay to skip all the steps and just notice that seeking is a sensation.

Best wishes JC!
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Chris M, modified 6 Years ago at 6/13/17 7:49 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/13/17 7:49 AM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
I'm not sure what you mean "unrecognized" desire - why would it have to be unrecognized? I recognize a lot of desires. It might be interesting to write them out. I desire...


This may not resonate, but while it feels like you're in difficult territory it's really a breathtakingly beautiful place. It's the desire you cannot name (or type in here) that is "unrecognized." The best way now is to lighten up and relax, just be with it for a while. When the whatever happens things will fall into place lickety split and you'll laugh at your angst over this. I did. I giggled and laughed my way off the plane I was on.

Hang in there!
An Eternal Now, modified 6 Years ago at 6/13/17 9:47 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/13/17 9:44 AM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 638 Join Date: 9/15/09 Recent Posts
J C:
Chris Marti:
... the thing that gets me that feeling and puts me in a non-dual state is stuff like focusing on awareness, conceptualizing a larger space in which everything is in or projected on, imagining the mind as a clear surface, or thinking about the source of experience or ground of being. 

I'm not AEN but here's my hint based on what you said above: Do you consider awareness to be an object? Is it?


Of course it's not, and the no-self side (looking at perceptions just as they are) and true-self side (looking at awareness) are ultimately the same thing.

But looking at awareness as if it were a separate thing is a practice technique that seems to help take me towards true-self.

So what am I missing? Why do they seem different? Why do the true-self practices seem to get me towards the luminosity thing I'm looking for, while the no-self ones seem to have resulted in a huge reduction in self but nothing on the true-self side?


You are having glimpses of Mind but it is not the realization yet. You may want to try self-inquiry, ala Ramana Maharshi style. It leads to Self-Realization - complete certainty of pure Beingness. This is different from your approach which involves "conceptualizing a larger space in which everything is in or projected on, imagining the mind as a clear surface, or thinking about the source of experience or ground of being"

That is, your approach is still indirect and while it leads to an experience of spaciousness and clarity like a glimpse of the Witness, it is still not the doubtless realization of the Witness or I AM, the complete thoughtless certainty of just Being (as Thusness discussed the difference between experience and realization in his article http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/09/realization-and-experience-and-non-dual.html ). This is a direct realization of Awareness but pertaining to the Mind door (in non-dual anatta this taste is effortlessly present in all six pure sensory appearances).

After Self-Realization or the doubtless direct realization of Awareness, a eureka of what you truly are without any traces of doubts left, continue investigating the nature of awareness, bring that direct taste of Awareness into the foreground and investigate and challenging all subject-object dualities with Bahiya Sutta in mind so that the structure of seer-seeing-seen is seen through and presence-awareness is directly tasted as all vivid manifestation.

Eventually you should come to what Thusness expressed years ago,



Taste the breadth and depth of empty clarity

"Free this immediate experience from all definitions;
Free this immediate experience from all boundaries;
Free this immediate experience from all inherent solidity;
Without the ghost image of a backdrop and absence of essence in the foreground, then whatever arises is free and liberating.
Spontaneous and naturally perfected.

You can only recognize the taste, never fixate any idea or image of instant presence"
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Dream Walker, modified 6 Years ago at 6/13/17 7:25 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/13/17 7:25 PM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 1657 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
J C:

But I have realized that there seems to be something missing - luminosity. I seem to have the no-self side of the paths down, but not the other side of the path, the side that sees open spaciousness and awareness in everything outside my body, all my sensory perceptions.



But I don't see everything as luminous spacious awareness, though I sometimes have flashes of it.
Perhaps you could define the luminous spacious awareness better such that you make sure your experience lines up with others. Then you could have other people who "think" they have this same attainment describe their expereince back to you, then you might choose the best advice available from those that you are sure that have this particular attainment, if they actually have direct useful instructions such that you can follow them.

Good luck,
~D
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Thomas Jackson-Brown, modified 6 Years ago at 6/14/17 12:49 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/14/17 12:43 AM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 22 Join Date: 1/31/17 Recent Posts
So grateful for this thread. Thank you J C for going into this.

The responses have helped connect the dots for me. I felt that I had been in this territory for a while and exploring it with difficulty, without a teacher. Thank you to all, and this truly is breathtaking!

These are some quotes from this thread that helped me:

It is the seeking itself that gets in the way of the finding - Chris Marti

It's okay to skip all the steps and just notice that seeking is a sensation - Shargol


the realization that the stuff of transience is the radiance of awareness -AEN

there is no more sinking back to a source and instead there is 

full comfort resting as the transience itself. -AEN

our expe­rience of the body and of the world happens within ... it turns our world inside out

 
there cannot be anything other than ultimate reality. There is neither this nor that. 

Then just relax and feel DO. Feel interconnectedness And let go. Neither phenomena nor the clear space should b attached. No further views and concepts r necessary. Do not Pre-conceptual anything. The path is not abt understanding anything but as a full and natural expression."
-Thusness


Coming from a Mahasi vipassana background mixed with Ramana style I AM self-inquiry, I was totally uncertain where I was on the 4 path model. For a long time I noticed splarkling/shimmering lights that constantly pervade all sights, sounds, thoughts, feelings, everything, even dream perception. But never paid much attention to it. Recently I have been percieving all experiences as being "within me". Like the sidewalk is within. The traffic is within.The sky and clouds are within. This person making eye-contact is within. Allowing all experiences to be equal. (a la "nothing is sacred").
This sparkling transience has become clearer. Relaxing the muscles of the face, shoulders and stomach really opens up pereception to this shimmering-ness too.

I have had a few moments of what it think Thusness describes as the "Maha" and perhaps what shargol describes as "looking at an aquarium to being in the aquarium". I can also describe it as 360 degree see/hear/feel universal interconnectedness with no focal point, but that doesnt quite do justice. During these moments, the sparkling/radiance is very obvious.

I agree with Thusness, who said elsewhere that this "being in the aquarium" of Maha is a natural state. 

Yet, the more I just relax, the more luminous transcience erodes any belief in any sort of finality. Who knows?

Profound gratitude to all of you within me!





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tom moylan, modified 6 Years ago at 6/14/17 4:59 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/14/17 4:59 AM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 896 Join Date: 3/7/11 Recent Posts
howdy all,
really nice thread, this.

i've beenon hiatus form posting and commenting for a while as I had been feeling, not stuck really, but rather, just floating, directionless.

i have been trying to reconcile an intellectual model of our human place in the hyperdimensional order of things with our current state of development.  i don't want to hijack this thread with this seeming nonsense but rather express my appreciation for the subject.

in my investigation i see us as a expression of an interdimensional conciousness which is constrained by our four dimensional perceptual limitations.  simply put, i am exploring the possibilty thatour "true self" is conciousness itself which can percieve without any dimensional constraints and is essential creativity and and curiosity.  never fixed always expanding its experience. 

one of its main imperatives is to push the boundaries of each dimension with a goal or direction of
Self awareness.

Our task as contemplatives is to reconcile and clarify the limitations of this dimensional restraint and implicit ruleset to attain untainted knowlege and direct experience of truth.

getting to the place where the duality of subject object is completely clarified and seen for the illusion that it is is the point of this grand excercise and you are doing that.

very very cool.
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Chris M, modified 6 Years ago at 6/14/17 4:21 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/14/17 4:21 PM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
Can you turn water into wine?

emoticon
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Chris M, modified 6 Years ago at 6/18/17 8:31 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/18/17 8:31 PM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
Manhood defined by how much one can drink? How enlightened!  emoticon
An Eternal Now, modified 6 Years ago at 6/19/17 10:39 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 6/19/17 10:39 AM

RE: How to get both sides of the path (no-self and true self / luminosity)?

Posts: 638 Join Date: 9/15/09 Recent Posts
Thomas Jackson-Brown:
So grateful for this thread. Thank you J C for going into this.

The responses have helped connect the dots for me. I felt that I had been in this territory for a while and exploring it with difficulty, without a teacher. Thank you to all, and this truly is breathtaking!

These are some quotes from this thread that helped me:

It is the seeking itself that gets in the way of the finding - Chris Marti

It's okay to skip all the steps and just notice that seeking is a sensation - Shargol


the realization that the stuff of transience is the radiance of awareness -AEN

there is no more sinking back to a source and instead there is 

full comfort resting as the transience itself. -AEN

our expe­rience of the body and of the world happens within ... it turns our world inside out

 
there cannot be anything other than ultimate reality. There is neither this nor that. 

Then just relax and feel DO. Feel interconnectedness And let go. Neither phenomena nor the clear space should b attached. No further views and concepts r necessary. Do not Pre-conceptual anything. The path is not abt understanding anything but as a full and natural expression."
-Thusness


Coming from a Mahasi vipassana background mixed with Ramana style I AM self-inquiry, I was totally uncertain where I was on the 4 path model. For a long time I noticed splarkling/shimmering lights that constantly pervade all sights, sounds, thoughts, feelings, everything, even dream perception. But never paid much attention to it. Recently I have been percieving all experiences as being "within me". Like the sidewalk is within. The traffic is within.The sky and clouds are within. This person making eye-contact is within. Allowing all experiences to be equal. (a la "nothing is sacred").
This sparkling transience has become clearer. Relaxing the muscles of the face, shoulders and stomach really opens up pereception to this shimmering-ness too.

I have had a few moments of what it think Thusness describes as the "Maha" and perhaps what shargol describes as "looking at an aquarium to being in the aquarium". I can also describe it as 360 degree see/hear/feel universal interconnectedness with no focal point, but that doesnt quite do justice. During these moments, the sparkling/radiance is very obvious.

I agree with Thusness, who said elsewhere that this "being in the aquarium" of Maha is a natural state. 

Yet, the more I just relax, the more luminous transcience erodes any belief in any sort of finality. Who knows?

Profound gratitude to all of you within me!






Sounds good, perceiving all as within me is what I call "one mind".

However a subtly dualistic view is still present at this point.

Perhaps this advice by Thusness may be of relevance, something he wrote about ten years ago,

" Do not underestimate the impact of the constant
chattering in a dualistic manner. If we
continuously repeat “phenomenon arises in awareness”
and not “as Awareness”, even though there never was a separation,
consciousness will see as if there is a
separation. Although it may seem to be a casual
expression for communication sake, the impact is
subtle. In time to come, the slow and subtle impact will make
separation appear amazingly real. This is true even for
those that have experienced non-duality; they
are not spared from it."

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