Author: garyrh
Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum

Directly after waking up this morning for a moment (15 sec) thoughts arose without an observer. The thoughts just arose of themselves. At the time it all seemed pretty nataural there were no thoughts like this is strange. When the observer returned I was aware of the unusual nature of what had occured. I now have an attachment to this state in that it felt pretty liberating and I would welcome it for longer.

I would like to place this experience into the overall path.
Is it significant? Could this be not self? Is there more of this to come?

Thanks

describe it more? the sensate quality of the thoughts, their apparent relation to the rest of the world, how it's different from, say, right now? etc. what else did you notice?

very cool, regardless.

Author: garyrh

The content of the thoughts were to do with the intention or decision to get up now that I am awake. I know this because I am aware of waking up and getting out of bed before things were normal. I do not recall any sensate quality or body or external awareness. Normally (now) when thoughts arise there is a sense they are my thoughts. These were just thoughts of which there was obviously an awareness except the "my" did not exist.

There is an apparent contradiction in that we normally think something (I) has to be aware. This now know this is not the case, there can just awareness without an observer.

Here is a theory; it maybe that those things we normally identify as I (body sensations and reflecting thoughts) are not present in the sleeping state and this experience was the result of a delayed takeup whereby there was just some mind objects and awareness.

It certainly educated me that beneath everything there is just awareness, something that I had read about but not appreciated.

Others would have chanced this - we may get their comment.

what relationship did you notice, if any, between awareness and those thoughts?

Author: garyrh

Awareness is the what I am using to describe knowing without the normal sense of an I. I may have projected this meaning incorrectly.

More specifically to your question I want to define awareness as I used it. There was a knowing of the thoughts arising one after another and that is all there was, between the thoughts there was no thought. I used the word awareness as a "container" for the knowing of the thoughts.

Have I answered the question?

Hey Gary,

Here's an exercise designed to encourage that state to return:

While doing walking meditation, observe yourself as would a dispassionate third party, watching from the outside. Note whatever arises... like this, for example:

See how it walks. See how it feels. See how it observes. See how it gets confused. See how it wonders. See how it gets amused. See how it worries. See how it gets afraid. See how it despairs. See how it scoffs. See how it gets excited. See how it investigates. See how it walks.

This sounds to me like recognizing classic Five Aggregates type stuff, but I could be wrong...

The Buddha taught that the totality of experience rests on Five Aggregates (or Kandhas in Pali, Skandhas in Sanskrit). They are (1) Material Form, (2) Perception, (3) Feeling Tone, (4) Mental Objects, and (5) Consciousness. Thoughts are considered to be a kind of Mental Object, and Consciousness is the bare noticing of experiential phenomena (to say it simply). It sounds to me like you were recognizing the separation between thoughts and the knowing of them. This has happened to me lots of times. The first few times it freaked me out a little bit. One time, I was walking back from taking out the trash, and I looked at my shadow, and I saw that there was the material form of Shadow, but also that there was a label (perception) of shadow along with it, and that they were different. The perception piece dropped away, and I was left with just the knowing of the form. Weird stuff.

It's hard to say if this experience points to any particular stage on the path. If I understand correctly, it happens often during the Cause and Effect stage, when one begins noticing that intentions precede actions. You may notice that you intend to move your arm, but you don't follow through and your arm doesn't move. This sounds like what happened while you were lying in bed. You notice the intention to get up, but nothing happened for a moment, yeah? Tell me if I'm missing something.

Author: garyrh

What you have said here makes sense. Because the Consciousness is broken up there is the knowing of what a thought is,

I do not remember the content of the thoughts. The cause and effect stage would fit with everything else.

Thanks for your input here Jackson.


Thanks

Author: garyrh

Thanks Kenneth I'll give this ago.

not really, but i just was trying to see if i could get you to describe specifics about the qualities of the experience.

how close or far away does that seem right now?

Hey Jackson, is there a book you recommend with a practice-oriented perspective on the Skandhas? The closest I have is "Glimpses of Abhidharma" by Chogyam Trungpa, but it's rambly (it being a collection of talk trancripts). It would be nice to see practice instructions directly related to them.

if jackson's right about that, the thing to do would be to see that neither the thought (object) is i nor consciousness (thought-echo) is i, because if neither is i then they both pass without remainder.

I completely agree, but it can take some time to really get the hang of. If you get really concentrated, and are able to see both thought and consciousness arise and vanish, and still notice their distinct qualities, you'd really be on to something. For is consciousness and thought appear and vanish together, who the hell is doing all of it? Who's left?

@postreptilian:

I don't know of any good practice oriented books involving the five skandhas. The Mahasi Sayadaw book Practical Insight Meditation covers all of the bases, even if not using the skandhas as the outright conceptual framework.

It is quite possible to get the hang of practicing with the skandhas in a slow and systematic way. For instance, if while sitting a pain in your knee arises, you can break it all down. Your knee, as well as the sensations making up the experience are Material Form. Labeling the sensations and recognizing them as "pain" is Perception (that's what we do when we're noting). The sensations will either be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, and that's Feeling Tone. Mental Objects would be any noticeable emotions or thoughts that come in to your mind. Consciousness is the bare noticing, or mental-echo, that any of these processes are happening at all. What's interesting is that when a process stops, so does the knowing (consciousness) of it. It's a clumsy process at first, but it helps you get used to perceiving what is actually taking place in each moment.

In my experience, the sense of a separate self usually hides out in one of the kandhas, even while others are being observed as not self. So while we may notice that thoughts are not self, we may still maintain a dualistic perspective by confusing physical sensations, or the act of knowing itself, as being "I". This all collapses momentarily at stream-entry (and during subsequent fruitions/cessations), and is completely and irreversibly untangled when one attains arahatship. Cool, huh?

Thai Forest Traditions give talks on the skandhas/khandhas a lot. Search Ajahn Mun or Ajahn Chah, etc. Lots of links on accesstoinsight.org. There are a lot of experiential descriptions of practice from many other bhikkhus in their literature to accompany that presentation as well.

Author: garyrh

Is there any difference between this exersize and Vipassana observing not self.

Although the state has not returned I find the exersize valuable. Attachments (and detachment) are revealed with great clarity.

Hi Gary,

Unlike vipassana, this exercise deliberately cultivates detachment by introducing a (contrived) third party observer. When you are simultaneously "the watcher" and that which is being watched, it's harder to identify with what is being watched. Of course, you can identify with "the watcher," but that is a higher-order problem, and one that is self-correcting with practice. To get the sense of self out of the body and into the ether is a big relief, and an important step. In fact, deliberately "dwelling as the I am," i.e., identifying with the apparent watcher who has no stake in Gary's experience, is the workhorse of Advaita Vedanta. This perspective is said to be "the stick that stirs the fire and is eventually consumed by it." Meanwhile, the perspective gained by not being stuck in the small self all day long can be very empowering in your daily life.

Having continuous real time access to this detached state corresponds with Tozan's Third Rank. This is where you can really manifest the "stink of enlightenment." In addition to being very pleasant, it's a powerful teaching tool, as other people can see how "holy" :-) you are, and be inspired by your presence. It's a good idea, in my opinion, to flesh out the stinky phase as much as you can. You will eventually fall from grace, like it or not, at which point you will have reached Tozan's Fourth Rank.

I'm anticipating here; what you are describing is nowhere near Tozan's Third Rank. I'm just preparing you for what can happen if you cultivate detachment.

The stick that stirs the fire, huh? Not to sound cheesy here, but that's an incredibly beautiful metaphor.

I like how Ajahn Chah referred to the observer as "The One Who Knows." Accessing this frame of being was pretty crucial to my getting stream-entry. I think it works because it seems more difficult to cling to this perspective in the same way you can other phenomena. Just a thought.

Author: xsurf

Yes this sounds like an initial glimpse/experience of the no-self characteristic. An effective way to contemplate and experience no-self and give rise to insight is to meditate on these verses:

There is thinking, no thinker
There is hearing, no hearer
There is seeing, no seer

and

In thinking, just thoughts
In hearing, just sounds
In seeing, just forms, shapes and colors.

The first three and last three verses are somewhat different and leads to insights of different aspects of the No-Self characteristic.

See: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html

The article "On Anatta (No-Self), Emptiness and Spontaneous Perfection" is a recently written article by my friend, and have just been expanded and updated today.

It is as if the raw percipience is like a drop of the subtlest quality oil that instantly pervades all fabrications of the moment. Mindful attention is like a radar wave through this media, scanning it's length and breadth, expanding it's capacities into the bigger picture. I think of it as the know quality that touches everything else that is totally abstracted out in non-percipient percipience, that is one very odd one that quality is. Maybe we could call it knowtrons or Drknow or something.