Taken from a facebook group dharma connection.

Thusness:

In ignorance, there is hearer hearing sound.
In anatta, in hearing, only sound.
Yet sound has no true inherent nature (empty),
It is an activity and is that very activity called “hearing”.
Both “hearing and sound” are pointing to the same activity.
Only when seen to have true existence on either side does confusion arise.

In Madhyamaka Emptiness, reification is seen through.
Yet the experiential state of freedom from reification is not expounded.
However one can have a taste of that freedom from arising insight of anatta since anatta is precisely the freedom from reification of Self/self (First fold Emptiness).
In anatta, seeing is simply the full scenery, in hearing only sound…
thus, always only lights, shape, colors, sounds, scents… in clean purity.
Emptying the object further (second fold) is merely dissolving subtle bond of “externality” that creates the appearance of true existence of objects outside. When “externality” is deconstructed, it is effectively a double confirmation of anatta…
…innerly coreless and outwardly empty, all appearances are still simply sound, lights, colors and rays
In thorough deconstruction, as there is no layer that reifies, there is no conceptuality. Therefore no complication, no confusion, no stains, no boundaries, no center, no sense of dual..
no sense of activity…just self arising.
All collapse into a single sphere of natural presence and spontaneous simplicity.
Whatever appears is
neither here nor now,
Neither in nor out,
Neither arises nor ceases,
In the same space…
non-local, timeless and dimensionless
Simply present…

To Jax:
The place where there is no earth, fire, wind, space, water…
is the place where the earth, fire, wind, space and water kills “You” and fully shines as its own radiance, a complete taste of itself and fully itself.

Lastly, it is interesting to get know something about Dzogchen however the jargons and tenets are far beyond me.
Just wrote due to a sudden spurt of interest, nothing intense.
Thanks for all the sharing and exchanges.
Gone!

That's the only part where I can perceive a difference between 1-fold and 2-fold even if I dont' understand it. Everything else make 2-fold sounds the same as 1-fold (in the hearing only the hearing). I'm curious to hear 4th Pathers on that matter. It sounds like if 1-fold mean eliminating the center and then 2-fold eliminate something left around what used to be the center... But that just words and it's basically meaningless to me as since I still have a center.

It is interesting that in another thread the was the assertion that MCTB whatever was about the first meaning of emptiness, rather than what your quote defines as both.

Just to be clear:

When I mean empty, I also mean without boundary, without inside and outside

I also mean the direct immediate experience in its unprocessed or raw form. I also mean the total dissolution of the sense of a perceiver.

I also mean no active agent.

I also mean that nothing is stable, including space and time.

I also mean that all is bare, shifting, empty sensate experience, causal, happening according to the basic laws of the universe, naturally, on its own.

I also would say that there is no boundary or differentiation between the sense doors at they occur, nor between body and mind, nor between manifestation and awareness, nor between this and that, beyond those ordinarily used for communication and discriminating function, but these are not the essential nature of experience, just part of it as sensations when they occur.

Nor can one find any here that is stable, nor a now that is stable, nor a knower, nor an investigator, nor any practitioner, nor any attainer.

When I talk of an integrated transient, natural, causal, luminous experience field, this sounds to me exactly like your "All collapse into a single sphere of natural presence and spontaneous simplicity."

I see no obvious difference either in theory or in actual practice.

Thoughts?

AEN, please correct me if I am wrong, because my understanding isn't the greatest. Nevertheless, here is a stab at explaining it...


The normative view is that there is a sort of feeling of an inherently existing self, a self that has certain properties. But if we investigate it and break it down into sensory data, see how it isn't really there till at one point the sense that there is an I ceases to arise. Experiences might have certain properties but we realize that there was never really a substantive I at the center to begin with. The nominal 'I' doesn't go away but leads to a different way of experiencing the world.

This is one fold emptiness.


For two fold emptiness lets replace the self with a slice of chocolate cake, representing the universe...



The "1 fold emptiness" view is that there is a thing called a choclate cake, that has certain properties. But if we investigate our senses independently to find the unique chocolate cake it becomes evident that the physical chocolate cake that exists in space and time is an imputation, based on some rather basic sensory input.

eg the visual field is shades of color. the entire tactile filed is one sensation, the location imputed later on by the mind. etc.

When all objects are repeatedly deconstructed in this way. The sense of an inherently existing slice of chocolate cake is seen through. There was never really an inherently existing chocolate cake to being with. Nominally the chocolate cake still tastes like chocolate cake. But it leads to a different way of experiencing the world.

DZ, I am not sure if you are implying that Daniel is just talking about single-fold emptiness, but if you are, these quotes definitely suggests that he is actually talking about 2-fold emptiness.





I don't really know how he could make it any clearer to be honest...

What you said is all very resonating here.

However, I see emptiness of subjective self and emptiness of objects as two distinct realization. One may penetrate the subject, agent, perceiver, source, etc... and yet conceive of things appearing as 'outside'. Well experientially, without a perceiver, there is no sense of an inside and outside and experience is just 'in seeing only scenery', however it may still seem that the things in scenery exist 'outside' on its own.

Does seeing through the subjective self lead to seeing everything as 'mere appearance' or 'just experience'? Not necessarily. Things can still appear to be external to mind/awareness/experience after no-self. This is not just a matter of no subject/object duality in experience. The experience may already be non-dual, but subtle dualistic view can still distort perception.

The realization of emptiness is something intimate and non-intellectual. That is to say, understanding the theory of anatta doctrinally is not the same as actually realizing and experiencing it, the same goes for twofold emptiness.

Investigating into thoughts and perceptions, looking for the origin, location, core, and ceasing of phenomena, it may be suddenly realized that everything is an unborn and unoriginated appearance that is illusory like a magical apparition (without a magician as there is no self/Self). Non-arising and non-ceasing. It is not that everything is subsumed into a changeless/deathless Self or Mind (that view is seen through in anatta), it is that "mind", even though empty of self and seen as mere mental activities, that manifesting activities is further penetrated to be empty. Everything is mere appearance/mind/experience/empty and non-arising. Contemplating on thoughts and perceptions this way and the resultant insight happened after reading an instruction from Mahamudra.

One can also try an experiment such as taking a small mirror and tilt it to an angle that reflects one light source from above at you. Then, noticing that depending on which eye you use to look (without even needing to close your eye), you can see that light at the top, or bottom (or another location) of the surface of the mirror and if you use both eyes you see two lights on the surface. Is there inherently one light at the top, at the bottom, or two lights? This is not to be answered intellectually like, "it's all empty" or a "yes and no" answer. It is being contemplated until intuitive insight of dependent origination and a conviction and experience of everything as an empty coreless illusion/appearance arises. There is a deconstruction of externality/objectivity into an immediate taste, just like in anatta realization there is a deconstruction of subjectivity into a non-dual luminous taste of 'just sensation'. This must arise as a taste and not a logic, then bliss and wonder and release will arise. This 'experiment' arose spontaneously and led to to an experience so I am sharing this from experience.


Just as Loppon Namdrol said:

...At base, the main fetter of self-grasping is predicated upon naive refication of existence and non-existence. Dependent origination is what allows us to see into the non-arising nature of dependently originated phenomena, i.e. the self-nature of our aggregates. Thus, right view is the direct seeing, in meditative equipoise, of this this non-arising nature of all phenomena. As such, it is not a "view" in the sense that is something we hold as concept, it is rather a wisdom which "flows" into our post-equipoise and causes us to truly perceive the world in the following way in Nagarjuna's Bodhicittavivarana:

"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."


This vision is not just a Mahayana thing - it is clearly described by Buddha in many occassions, including in Phena Sutta.

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/advise-for-taiyaki.html

Thusness:

Last year, a forummer from the NewBuddhist forum (Albert Hong a.k.a. Taiyaki) penetrated within a year the realization of I AM to non dual and anatta. He is an avid reader of this blog.

Thusness wrote the following pointers for him:

"There are several points that maybe of help to Taiyaki:

1. First there must be a deep conviction that arising does not need an essence. That view of subjective essence is simply a convenient view.

2. First emptying of self/Self does not necessarily lead to illusion-like experience of reality. It does however allows experience to become vivid, luminous, direct and non-dual.

3. First emptying may also lead a practitioner to be attached to an 'objective' world or turns physical. The 'dualistic' tendency will resurface after a period of few months so it is advisable to monitor one's progress for a few months.

4. Second emptying of phenomena will turn experience illusion-like but take note of how emptying of phenomena is simply extending the same "emptiness view" of Self/self.

5. From these experiences and realizations, contemplate what is meant by "thing", what is meant by mere construct and imputation.

6. "Mind and body drop" are simply dissolving of mind and body constructs. If one day the experience of anatta turns a practitioner to the attachment of an 'objective and actual' world, deconstruct "physical".

7. There is a relationship between "mental constructs", energy, luminosity and weight. A practitioner will experience a release of energies, freedom, clarity and feel light and weightless deconstructing 'mental constructs'.

8. Also understand how the maha experience of interpenetration and non-obstruction is related to deconstructions of inherent view.

9. No body, no mind, no dependent origination, no nothing, no something, no birth, no death. Profoundly deconstructed and emptied! Just vivid shimmering appearances as Primordial Suchness in one whole seamless unobstructed-interpenetration."

Thusness just wrote something in our blog: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/daniels-post-on-anattaemptiness.html


Thusness's comments to AEN:

Hi AEN,

Those were just some very casual sharing written on the spur of a moment, they were not well thought. Emptiness to me has another dimension if you wish to look into it.

When there is not even a single trace of Self/self nor is there any sense of inner/outer division, experiencer and what experienced collapsed...

At this moment there is just this vivid beautiful scenery, this bright brilliant world…all self arises

At this point…

Close your eyes....

Voidness....

Leave yourself with this all-consuming awaring void, this clear non-dual Awareness standing alone as itself and of itself…

Then shift the focus to the breath…

Just the sensations of the breath…

Then the transparent dancing sensations…absolutely no mind, no body, no experiencer/experienced, no inner/outer division …borderless and boundless

Every moment is all consuming…great and miraculous …

This must become so natural to you first.

Then at this moment of appreciating maha suchness of the breath, the sensations, the entire scenery, the entire world…

Understand that their nature is Emptiness.

Experience the magnificence then deeply understand that they are empty but this Emptiness has nothing to do with deconstruction or reification or do I mean they are impermanent. So what is this Emptiness I am referring to?

I found this on zenforuminternational.org and it helped me understand what I believe AEN is referring to with "two-fold emptiness". I don't think it is not seeing externality, I think it is seeing internality AS externality.

"First is the ordinary view; the self sees dharmas as “other” (than the self). Second is the view from within the experience of emptiness; the self sees dharmas as “self” (i.e. dharmas as “other” vanish; self and other merge into oneness); herein “self” and “other” are experienced as lacking distinctness, hence there is “no self” and “no other” – only a uniform oneness. Third is the Buddha view; the self sees self as “other”; this occurs when, from the perspective of emptiness (i.e. the oneness of self and other) the self sees that despite their “oneness” the “other” (dharmas) appears and acts independently of the will/expectation of the “self.”"

It seems two-fold emptiness is the view in bold. It seems you have to see through the illusion of a self-existent "single sphere of natural presence and spontaneous simplicity". The self is not self, that is why it is self. Dharmas are not dharmas, that is why they are dharmas.

Because of this view, a buddha is not a sentient being.

I don't think you can talk about this phenomenologically because it transcends phenomena.

Any thoughts on this?

This remind me writings by Bernardette Roberts. If I'm not mistaken, she call "oneness" her first shift and "no-self" her last shift.

That particular quote by Ted Biringer is not bad.

When the self sees dharmas as self, that is the realization of One Mind. At One Mind, subject and object is collapsed into Self. One still clings to an unchanging, independent Self/Mind/Awareness but at the same time it is expressing itself 'AS' everything without the slightest gap or distance (instead of things happening 'to' or 'within' me, which is still dualistic)... so everything is subsumed as Me, mySelf. Non-dual yet inherent. This is Thusness Stage 4.

Anatta realization is not the same. Instead of collapsing everything into an undifferentiated oneness, one penetrates the view of 'Awareness' 'Mind' 'Self' and see that it is ever just a label collating all the myriad phenomena. In seeing there is just self-luminous colours/shapes/forms, in hearing always just sound, 'awareness' is just all of these details... there never was an awareness in and of itself, no Self, and no uniform oneness either.

At this point, due to seeing through self/Self-view completely, there is naturally not a collapsing into an inherent oneness base (subject/object collapses into one field of awareness appearing as everything without division) but wide boundless opening into multiplicity of all experiences.

At this point, even oneness is deconstructed - in fact, without a Subject to begin with, what could be 'one with' the objects? There is not even an subject/object inseparability there, there is simply manifestation, activity, vivid and alive pure sensations, pure sound, pure scenery without seer. It's like saying, water is one with h2o. Well, if water IS just a label for h2o, how could there be a 'water' to be 'one with' h2o? There's just h2o, a conglomerate and process of seamlessly dependently originated activities. And what is water? Water is not a container of h2o, nor is it made of h2o, nor is it one with h2o, nor is it separate from h2o, because water is mere label collating h2o. Water IS h2o... conventionally speaking. 'Self' and 'aggregates' are likewise - mere imputations, ultimately empty.

Ted Biringer is very clear about the different phase of insight between One Mind and Anatta, and he states:

Dogen explains that although Buddhas and ancestors actualize various kinds of enlightenment (e.g. original, acquired, initial, etc.), there is more to Buddhas and ancestors than that. The “body” that the Buddha spoke of as consisting of the “integrated form” of myriad dharmas should not be hastily regarded as a “single unified form” (of undifferentiated oneness). According to Dogen, this “oceanic-body” does not contain the myriad forms, nor is it made up of myriad forms – it is the myriad forms themselves. The same instruction is provided at the beginning of Shobogenzo, Gabyo (pictured rice-cakes) where, he asserts that, “as all Buddhas are enlightenment” (sho, or honsho), so too, “all dharmas are enlightenment” which he says does not mean they are simply “one” nature or mind. On that line from Gabyo, Hee-Jin Kim comments:

All Buddhas and all things cannot be reduced to a static entity or principle symbolized as one mind, one nature, or the like. This guards against views that devaluate the unique, irreplaceable individuality of a single dharma.
Hee-Jin Kim, Flowers of Emptiness, p.257


And if in seeing there's just what's seen happening, thinking just thoughts happening never an experiencer or thinker, then isn't everything self-arising and self-felt? Everything is self-arising and self-felt without an agent.

But all these are still Anatta... they are not what I call the twofold or secondfold emptiness. In twofold emptiness, externality too is deconstructed (but not subsumed).

Ted Biringer has direct realization into Anatta, but not just that, also further penetrates Dependent Origination leading to Maha and total exertion... but the Zen tradition mostly do not emphasize emptiness realization (with some exceptions that I've seen) but on that, especially Dogen is clear about the Maha aspect. The Tibetan traditions on the other hand focus more on Emptiness realization and may neglect total exertion and Maha.

Sorry if those terms are confusing, they are explained by Thusness here: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html

What do you mean by externality?

That objects truly exist and is real, not mere appearance, not illusory.

Hello AEN, long time no type

I have a problem with your statement, for "objects" imply "subjects", and that is not what anatta/sunyata is, according to my experience.

Hows this:
what 5 aggregates yield is real, not illusory, but completely free, non-abiding, with no inherent nature or meaning or implication whatsoever - well, empty, for the lack of a better word.


s.

[quote=Seraphis .'.]

Hello AEN, long time no type

I have a problem with your statement, for "objects" imply "subjects", and that is not what anatta/sunyata is, according to my experience.

Hows this:
what 5 aggregates yield is real, not illusory, but completely free, non-abiding, with no inherent nature or meaning or implication whatsoever - well, empty, for the lack of a better word.


s.Hi Seraphis, you misread my statement. I was answering Nick's question about what I mean by externality.

Five skandhas are unreal and illusory just like a dream or a magician's trick.

I was talking with Piotr yesterday. Piotr is a 19 year old guy from Poland who recently realized anatta (http://sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/468434)


10:42pm
Piotr

if u were to give pith

instruction about second-fold emptiness when one already sees that sound is hearing without agent, what is lacking there for second-fold emptiness if one doesn't assume there are objects/material world behind these activities which spontaneously (non-)arise nowhere?
10:45pm

AEN

as thusness pointed out,

10:45pm
Piotr

I saw that u described anatta in similiar way that I could describe it pointing to mere sound-hearing without heearer, but ur thread in DhO about two-fold emptiness

it seems it isn't complete

(that thread in which daniel ingram responded to u)
10:49pm
AEN

12/4/13 7:38:27 PM: Thusness: In my article anatta and emptiness, I mention abt ungraspability of thought, have u contemplated abt that?

12/4/13 7:48:41 PM: Thusness: When u open ur eyes and see the entire vivid scenery, where is this scenery?

12/4/13 7:49:11 PM: Thusness: Outside, inside, other's mind or in ur mind?

12/4/13 7:52:31 PM: Thusness: Step on the floor...feel the hardness sensation

12/4/13 7:52:44 PM: Thusness: Where?

12/4/13 7:53:07 PM: Thusness: Clearly here but 'where'
10:50pm
AEN

12/4/13 8:48:39 PM: Thusness: Seeing things intuitively as illusionary may not b a good thing if one is not ready

12/4/13 8:50:22 PM: AEN: Oic.. How come

12/4/13 9:06:19 PM: Thusness: Actually second emptying is abt this, not simply deconstructing 'externality' as I hv told taikayi

12/4/13 9:08:11 PM: Thusness: But it is better to mature this seamless experience into a single activity b4 talking abt that

12/4/13 9:09:07 PM: Thusness: If experience is truly pervaded by this sense of illusory, the 3 states turn into a single activity

12/4/13 9:09:40 PM: Thusness: May not b a good thing

12/4/13 9:17:50 PM: AEN: Why may not be a good thing

12/4/13 9:19:38 PM: Thusness: May cause a person to hv some strange experiences

12/4/13 9:28:59 PM: AEN: What kind of strange experience

12/4/13 10:10:30 PM: AEN: So u feel like everything is a dream in waking state too

12/4/13 10:10:32 PM: AEN: Isn't that good

12/4/13 10:51:34 PM: Thusness: It is better to perfect and mature insight of anatta and total exertion then isn't everything clear, non-dual, luminous, boundless and illusionary?

12/4/13 10:52:21 PM: Thusness: Yet it is clearly and naturally understood and experienced like our heart beat

12/4/13 11:45:09 PM: Thusness: Actually a lot of advises abt non-meditation and spontaneity is for those after maturing insight of anatta...

13/4/13 12:41:58 AM: AEN: U said anatta and total exertion then illusionary

13/4/13 12:42:34 AM: AEN: But isn't anatta only leading to nondual direct etc

13/4/13 12:42:51 AM: AEN: Like ted biringer always talking about total exertion maha

13/4/13 12:43:04 AM: AEN: But always putting down illusionary

13/4/13 12:43:44 AM: AEN: He says prajnaparamita teachings don't teach illusionary or not existing but how things really exist

13/4/13 12:44:14 AM: AEN: Anyway Kyle just replied

13/4/13 12:44:45 AM: AEN: Scenery is just colors and shades of color, the colors don't create objects. Distance is lighter color and decrease in size, however there's no abiding object which increases or decreases in size since these appearances are only found in the immediacy, no object within or behind appearance, no subject within or behind appearance. Movement is patterns of color. Fully experience.

13/4/13 12:48:34 AM: Thusness: Ted is abt full exertion but I hv commented in -a +a

13/4/13 12:48:46 AM: Thusness: Both r imp

13/4/13 12:49:23 AM: AEN: So "It is better to perfect and mature insight of anatta and total exertion then isn't everything clear, non-dual, luminous, boundless and illusionary?"

13/4/13 12:49:34 AM: AEN: Should not include illusionary isn't it

13/4/13 12:50:57 AM: Thusness: It is only when ur experience is mature coz experience is pervaded with radiance clarity

13/4/13 12:51:52 AM: AEN: Does that lead to illusionary? Doesn't AF experience radiance clarity?

13/4/13 12:52:16 AM: Thusness: Not experience is pervaded but experience is the radiance clarity

13/4/13 12:52:35 AM: AEN: Ic

13/4/13 12:53:46 AM: Thusness: Is color solid?

13/4/13 12:54:28 AM: Thusness: Does sensation give solidity?

13/4/13 12:54:34 AM: Thusness: Sound?

13/4/13 12:54:39 AM: Thusness: Taste?

13/4/13 12:54:47 AM: Thusness: Or thoughts?

13/4/13 12:54:58 AM: AEN: No

13/4/13 12:56:03 AM: Thusness: If u say u experience real, solid, inherent, true sort of experience, how can u say u hv mature ur insights?

13/4/13 12:57:11 AM: AEN: But maturing insight in terms of emptiness not necessarily just radiance aspect isn't it

13/4/13 12:57:24 AM: Thusness: How is it possible for one to say such thing if in the six entries and exits there is no any solidity found?

13/4/13 12:57:36 AM: AEN: I see

13/4/13 12:58:24 AM: Thusness: Instead understand one has not deconstructed thoroughly



10:50pm
AEN

basically

if there's a pith instruction, i would point him to the mahamudra type of contemplation

it worked for me

i wasnt directly contemplating on thusness's instruction then but its similar (emptiness section in http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html)

in particular i was reading and contemplating on this one then insight arose: http://luminousemptiness.blogspot.com.au/2008/11/niguma-vajra-verses-of-self-liberating.html

....

Something I wrote on that link two years ago:



An Eternal Now said...

Hi Chodpa,

Just like to thank you for your sharing... you have a gift in expressing the inexpressible.

This article triggered the 'my' realization of the magic of luminous and empty apparitions... and the seeing of this is amazing, marvellous, wonderful, blissful, freeing.

I wrote to wrote an email to PasserBy/Thusness titled "the unborn dharma":

"In attempting to find and locate where thought comes from, reside, and go to, it is realised that thought is ungraspable, unfindable, unfathomable... A magicians magical apparition, like everything (the experiential universe) is... A wonderful display of luminous emptiness, dependent origination. Yet after this is seen, it is nothing resembling nihilism or non-existence... When someone lights up his lighter to burn an innocent ant, compassion just arise... A magical universe demands magical response and compassion from no one to no one"

(more about it in my e-book http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-e-booke-journal.html )

Thanks...
1:46 pm

I see. Thank you.

You've got email.

s.

[quote=Seraph .'.]

I see. Thank you.

You've got email.

s.I find this youtube video very interesting.

Seems like modern quantum physics views of wave-particle and Buddha's teachings on Phena Sutta and Mahamudra's pointing out 'where does a thought come from and go to and where does it abide?' is identical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HtR7nESmkQ

Thusness wrote in 2006:

Hi Longchen,

You may want to grab the book ‘The Spiritual Universe’ by Fred Alan Wolf, it is a good read. He is a Ph.D in theoretical physics and described matter as follows:

“…Matter seemingly solid when observed on a scale of inches and seconds, was mostly empty space with tiny bits of something call probability clouds filling that space. These clouds are fundamental particles’ ‘tendencies to exist’ to somehow pop out of nothing and become coherent matter…”

If quantum reality is as what he described, then yes. In terms of reality as a “flux”, “tendencies to exist”, “non-locality” and collapsing of quantum waves, it is in line with Buddhist thought. One additional point I need to stress, the process itself knows. This point is missing.

- http://sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/194898

I find this youtube video very interesting.

Seems like modern quantum physics views of wave-particle and Buddha's teachings on Phena Sutta and Mahamudra's pointing out 'where does a thought come from and go to and where does it abide?' is identical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HtR7nESmkQ

Thusness wrote in 2006:

Hi Longchen,

You may want to grab the book ‘The Spiritual Universe’ by Fred Alan Wolf, it is a good read. He is a Ph.D in theoretical physics and described matter as follows:

“…Matter seemingly solid when observed on a scale of inches and seconds, was mostly empty space with tiny bits of something call probability clouds filling that space. These clouds are fundamental particles’ ‘tendencies to exist’ to somehow pop out of nothing and become coherent matter…”

If quantum reality is as what he described, then yes. In terms of reality as a “flux”, “tendencies to exist”, “non-locality” and collapsing of quantum waves, it is in line with Buddhist thought. One additional point I need to stress, the process itself knows. This point is missing.

- http://sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/194898

"the process itself knows"

The process itself happens. The difference between happening and consciousness is way less than western materialists assume. A being's consciousness through five of the sense doors is the happening of energy generated by information tuned to the occurrence of events outside the sense doors. Causally there's a link, but the events we perceive are not conscious for us any more than our seeing the sun is knowledge of being the sun.

The is 0 difference between happening and consciousness... consciousness is itself the happening. The scenery seen is self-seen, the sound heard is self-heard, there is no sound apart from sound-consciousness nor a consciousness apart from the experience we call scenery, sound, scent, etc. Never was there a seer or a hearer.

But even after this truth of anatta is realized, further steps to deconstruct notions of objective reality is still important... the notion that there is a truly existing sun 'out there' (or 'in here') itself is to be investigated and challenged.

Wrote some stuff recently after it became more apparent during a contemplation.

"After maturing the insight of anatta, the natural and immediate experience is total exertion. It is an intuitive experience. In hearing, there is only sound. But it is not just the non-dual experience of sound, it also has this flavor of the entire movement, a total activity, and that becomes natural. One starts to see whole universe involved in the activity. Then one begins to feel net of indra in real time."

"Dharma Body

We might feel that our body is moving through the universe... then we might realize that body is not 'our' nor is it 'other', in fact there's no 'body' other than felt sensations, perceptions and actions (movement, etc)... and this sensation-perception-action is not in any way limited... for where does body end and the world begin? Where can we divide an inner into an outer? Not me, not mine of bodily aggregates leads to the dropping of a presupposed 'me/mine' grasping, reference and boundaries not in a dissociative way but rather leading to complete intimacy with the whole field of Dharma. Is body 'me' or 'mine' or ever just part of the world/universe/environment or better yet - just the Dharma* in a whole interconnected movement?

(Note: Dharma as simply a unit of experience dependently originating - not implying any inherently existing material universe [as the universe/dharma body here is seen as marvelous activities/phenomena dependently originating seamlessly without center or boundaries], nor is this dharma body in any sense a subjective body at all [if it is subjectively self-existent then causes and conditions will not be incorporated nor necessary for any given manifestation])

I was suddenly reminded of a term used by Thusness many years ago, "Dharma Body". Here I do not dissociate from my body as 'other'... in fact all bodily sensations and movement are felt in crystal clarity and intimacy... Yet, no more intimate than the trees and the sky and the buildings, which are all the Dharma Body in action... all functioning together as much as two legs are functioning together in an activity called walking.

Yes... when I move this body (actually take the "I" out - body is just this movement without I), it is this whole hands swinging-legs moving-heads turning-scenery appearing and shifting all in one interconnected activity, and this "environment"/scenery is also the movement of body as much as moving legs are considered the movement of body. It is all the Dharma Body in action and complete intimacy.

Update: elaborated on how the Dharma Body is neither an inherently existing object nor a subject to clarify due to noticed tendency to misunderstand what I mean."

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/contemplatingobserving-breathing.html

2nd translation. As with my first translation, help in correcting is very much appreciated!

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5b4d23f60102e2y3.html

观呼吸 (Contemplating/observing breathing)
(2012-08-02 11:00:07)

智者坐在那里观呼吸，
他不说“我在呼吸”、“我在呼吸”……
那样是在强化一个虚幻的、不存在的“我”！
也不符合事实真相。

The Wise One sits there contemplating/observing breathing,
He does not say "I am breathing", "I am breathing"....
That would be solidifying a delusional, non-existent "self"!
And it does not match with the truth of things.




“呼——吸”、“呼——吸”……
他观察到，其中没有呼吸的人、也没有被呼吸的人。
呼吸在进行，就像天地起落的风；
就像风来回在一片枊叶之旁。

"Breathe in ------- Breathe out", "Breathe in ------- Breathe out"...
He notices that, in it there is no person who is breathing, and there is no person who is being-breathed.
Breathing is on-going, like the wind rising and falling in the sky and earth (world).
It is just like wind going back and forth at the side of a willow leaf.


在呼吸之中，
没有一个独立的造作者，也不存在一个承受造作的人。
是胸，是肺，是骨，是髓，是血，是肉，
是心、是念……，是诸缘造成了呼吸！

In the midst of breathing,
There is no independent doer, there does not exist a person who is the feeler of action.
It is the chest, it is the lungs, it is the bones, it is the marrow, it is the blood, it is the flesh,
it is the mind, it is the thought...., it is various conditions that is causing breathing!


当他长吸气，他了了分明他在长吸气，
但他不认为是他在吸气，
是他在吸气的诸缘中，又加入了一个“我作长吸气”的念，
于是长吸气发生。

When he is breathing in long, he clearly comprehends that he is breathing in long,
but he does not reckon that it is he who is breathing in,
that is within the various conditions of his breathing in, one imputes another layer of thought "I am doing the breathing in long"
Therefore breathing-in long happens.


当他长呼气，他了了分明他在长呼气，
但他不认为是他在呼气，
是他在呼气的诸缘中，又加入了一个“我作长呼气”的念，
于是长呼气发生。

When he is breathing out long, he clearly comprehends that he is breathing out long,
But he does not reckon that it is he who is breathing out,
that is within the various conditions of his breathing out, one imputes another layer of thought "I am doing the breathing out long"
Therefore breathing-out long happens.


当他短吸气，他了了分明他在短吸气，
但他不认为是他在吸气，
是他在吸气的诸缘中，又加入了一个“我作短吸气”的念，
于是短吸气发生。

When he is breathing in short, he clearly comprehends that he is breathing in short,
But he does not reckon that it is he who is breathing in,
that is within the various conditions of his breathing in, one imputes another layer of thought "I am doing the breathing in short"
Therefore breathing-in short happens.



当他短呼气，他了了分明他在短呼气，
但他不认为是他在呼气，
是他在呼气的诸缘中，又加入了一个“我作短呼气”的念，
于是短呼气发生。

When he is breathing out short, he clearly comprehends that he is breathing out short,
But he does not reckon that it is he who is breathing out,
that is within the various conditions of his breathing out, one imputes another layer of thought "I am doing the breathing out short"
Therefore breathing-out short happens.



深观呼吸者，归依风界；
深观呼吸者，了见诸法无我！
深观呼吸者，看见了因缘法；
因看见了因缘法，他看见了如来！

Deeply contemplating the breather, returning and relying/taking refuge in the element of wind/air;
Deeply contemplating the breather, seeing with insight that all dharmas are without self!
Deeply contemplating the breather, seeing the dharma of dependent origination;
Because of seeing the dharma of dependent origination, he sees the Thus Come One [Buddha]!


如观呼吸一样，
智者观想“受、想、行、识”——
于诸受中，智人不见造作者，不见承受者；
于“想、行、识”中，也是这样。

Just like contemplating/observing the breathing,
The Wise One contemplates "feelings, perception, volition and consciousness" ----
And within all feelings, The Wise One does not conceive of a doer, does not conceive of a feeler;
And within "perception, volition and consciousness", it is also likewise.


观呼吸，可以入法界；
智者深观一切法，皆能通达诸法实相，见证如来！
呼吸是个入口，
一切色、受、想、行、识，皆是入口。

By contemplating/observing breathing, it is possible to enter the Dharmadhatu;
The Wise One deeply contemplates/observes all dharmas, thereby could understand the reality of all dharmas, and witness the Thus Come One [Buddha]!
Breathing is an entry-point,
All forms, feelings, perceptions, volition, and consciousness are all entry points.


智者坐在那里观呼吸，
他观见虚空藏菩萨，观见风神，
观见三世一切如来，
呼——吸、呼——吸，他就像天地。

The Wise One sits there contemplating/observing breathing,
He perceives the Ākāśagarbha bodhisattva (bodhisattva of boundless space treasury), perceives the god of the wind,
perceives all the Thus Come Ones [Buddhas] of the three times,
Breathe in --------- Breathe out. Breathe in --------- Breathe out. He is just like heaven and earth.

Emptiness Rambles by Piotr Ludwiński


Piotr Ludwiński wrote:

You think that you liberate
play of luminous form
from "who/what/where/when/how/why" cage
you have yourself created...

But luminous form...

Luminous form
Does not appear on it's own
Does not abide on it's own
Does not cease on it's own

Luminous form
Does not alternate between absence and presence

Neither by it's own power
Nor by power of another luminous form
Does it switch from absence to presence
And again from presence to absence

How could luminous form be pinned down?
How could "it" arise?
How could "it" abide?
How could "it" cease?

By cutting branches
but leaving root in tact
you will never realize suchness
you ignorant fool!

You might have
realized that "seer seeing seen" is mistake
and have seen through
agent and his action

But isn't expression
"it appears here and now"
exactly same mistake
you are repeating again?

You have taken out your hands out of dirt
But why do still you stand on two legs in it?

You might have
seen through universal and individual agent
but now why do you make
infinite agents as infinite luminous forms?

For luminous form
to alternate between presence and absence
to appear or disappear
is to pin down luminous form as agent who does something

Free yourself from
the seer who sees

Free yourself from
it that appears

Again and again
look at your mind

See that time and space
Are also dreams dependent
on your three-fold dream
of subject, action and object!

~ from me to myself!
---------

Firstfold emptying: subjective universal/individual agency

- active agent "Seer sees", "doer does", "choicer choices", "controller controls", "coordinator coordinates", "that which appears as everything"
- inactive agent "background against which appearances arise", "substance out of which appearances are made of"

result: non-action, non-duality, no global source/substance

quote: "Then, Bāhiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bāhiya, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress." Gautama Buddha, Ud 1.10

Secondfold emptying: objective agency

- active agents "appearances arising/abiding/ceasing by their own power"
- inactive agents "appearances arise/abide/cease by the power of other"

result: interconnectedness, non-arising

quote: "Neither from itself nor from another,
Nor from both,
Nor without a cause,
Does anything whatever, anywhere arise. " Nagarjuna, MMK 1.1

Twofold emptying: no subjective and no objective agency
- subject is empty
- action is empty
- object is empty
- time is empty
- space is empty

result: emptiness/clarity inseparable
quote1: ""Thus, monks, the Tathagata, when seeing what is to be seen, doesn't construe an [object as] seen. He doesn't construe an unseen. He doesn't construe an [object] to-be-seen. He doesn't construe a seer.

"When hearing...

"When sensing...

"When cognizing what is to be cognized, he doesn't construe an [object as] cognized. He doesn't construe an uncognized. He doesn't construe an [object] to-be-cognized. He doesn't construe a cognizer.

Thus, monks, the Tathagata — being the same with regard to all phenomena that can be seen, heard, sensed, & cognized — is 'Such.' And I tell you: There's no other 'Such' higher or more sublime." Gautama Buddha, An 4.24

quote2:'
"When the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara."

"Was Coursing in the Deep Prajna Paramita."

"He Perceived That All Five Skandhas Are Empty."

"Thus He Overcame All Ills and Suffering."

"Oh, Sariputra, Form Does not Differ From the Void,
And the Void Does Not Differ From Form.
Form is Void and Void is Form;
The Same is True For Feelings,
Perceptions, Volitions and Consciousness."

"Sariputra, the Characteristics of the
Voidness of All Dharmas
Are Non-Arising, Non-Ceasing, Non-Defiled,
Non-Pure, Non-Increasing, Non-Decreasing."

"Therefore, in the Void There Are No Forms,
No Feelings, Perceptions, Volitions or Consciousness."

"No Eye, Ear, Nose, Tongue, Body or Mind;
No Form, Sound, Smell, Taste, Touch or Mind Object;
No Realm of the Eye,
Until We Come to No realm of Consciousness."

"No ignorance and Also No Ending of Ignorance,
Until We Come to No Old Age and Death and
No Ending of Old Age and Death."

"Also, There is No Truth of Suffering,
Of the Cause of Suffering,
Of the Cessation of Suffering, Nor of the Path."

"There is No Wisdom, and There is No Attainment Whatsoever."

"Because There is Nothing to Be Attained,
The Bodhisattva Relying On Prajna Paramita Has
No Obstruction in His Mind."
[Commentary on above text]

"Because There is No Obstruction, He Has no Fear,"

"And He passes Far Beyond Confused Imagination."

"And Reaches Ultimate Nirvana."

"The Buddhas of the Past, Present and Future,
By Relying on Prajna Paramita
Have Attained Supreme Enlightenment."

"Therefore, the Prajna Paramita is the Great Magic Spell,
The Spell of Illumination, the Supreme Spell,
Which Can Truly Protect One From All Suffering Without Fail."

"Therefore He Uttered the Spell of Prajnaparmita,
Saying Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha." Heart Sutra

The true face of our pristine nature
Manifests unreservedly and miraculously,
As the transience that arises and subsides.
Thoroughly real, discrete and complete,
Arises but not arising from,
Subsides but not subsiding to,
Completely free from the erroneous view of a who, where and when,
Fully unsupported, unfindable and essence-less
Luminous yet empty,
This alone is liberation!

~ Thusness, September 21, 2008

In deep contemplation, it can become apparent in direct experience and insight that all appearances are merely appearances, nothing arising or staying or ceasing... there is no actual birth of anything. Just like no matter what images appear on the movie or in a dream it will never amount to anything more than an appearance, without anything that truly come into existence. This is different from resolving non-arising through being-time. Lastly it is not that things are mental projections but that they are dependent arising.. what dependently originates is empty and nonarising appearance... momentary suchness, but still as vivid.

It is with some reluctance that I'm sharing this... I'm afraid that writing this might be a disservice to readers. I shall refrain from posting and discussing further about this. I do not wish this to become merely something to talk about, it has to be seen in direct taste and insight... so that one knows what the experience is like and what the realization is. Spouting big words or philosophizing about this do not mean anything.

Anyway Piotr shared some nice quotations:

In the Prajñāpāramitā Sutras, the Buddha taught:


No beginning is perceptible,

No end is perceptible,

And nothing in between is perceptible either. [The Sun of Wisdom]

"In the sutras, the Buddha explained:


When one’s hands, two sticks, and one’s effort of rubbing the sticks come together,

From these conditions, fire arises,

And after arising and performing its function, it quickly ceases.

But when the wise ones ask,

“Where did it come from and where did it go?”

They look in all directions, but never find any occurrence of its coming or going.



So it is with the aggregates, sources of consciousness, and potentials—

They do not exist inside and they do not exist outside;

All are free of self-entity,

And they do not abide anywhere.

The defining characteristic of phenomena is that they are of the essence of space." [The Sun of Wisdom]

A conversation I had with Thusness that led to an insight.

Two-Way Dependency/Dependent Designation

Posted by: Wei Yu

John Tan12:14amJohn Tan

Now
in hearing, there is only sound. In total exertion, not only the ears
heard, the eyes, the hair, the entire body hears...there is no eye, no
ear, no body...all six entries are one function and even that act of
hearing is profoundly deconstructed.
Or let's say just anatta, in hearing there is only sound. If u search for "sound", u can never find it. If u try to find the line of demarcation that separates sound and the conditions that give rise to it, can u find that line?
Wei Yu12:19amWei Yu

nope
John Tan12:23amJohn Tan

In
non-conceptual mode of anatta, just a dimensionless sphere of clear
"tingsss" and even saying that is too much. Is there separation of the
bell, the ear, the stick, the air...etc? All is profoundly exerted into
the suchness beyond speech. However when u expressed conventionally,
must u not see the dependent arising, the causal dependencies?

Wei Yu12:25amWei Yu

oic..
yea

John Tan12:25amJohn Tan

So
u must know at the ultimate it is expressed as if there is no sound, no
conditions but at the conventional it is expressed as DO.

Wei Yu12:27amWei Yu

ic..

John Tan12:31amJohn Tan

Therefore
if one does not see DO, he will not see the ultimate correctly. To
teach emptiness is to to see DO and to see DO is to see emptiness.
Appears therefore empty, empty therefore appears. There is no emptiness
without appearance and no appearances that is not empty.

John Tan1:02amJohn Tan

Just
read Greg's comments. He pointed one imp point that is mutual
dependency. In Prasangika, this mutual dependency is quite unique and
important but not in the sense that they affect or produce each other
but they (cause and effect) are mutually dependent for their
conventional existence. For example we normally think sound is causally
dependent on its causes and conditions for its arising but in
Prasangika, sound is dependent on its conditions and the conditions r
also dependent on sound for their existence. Why so? This is important
to understand total exertion.

Wei Yu1:16amWei Yu

its like without sunlight, the sun would not be the sun... sunlight
makes sun what it is conventionally.. sound actualizes a bell, and
blowing wind actualizes a fan

John Tan1:22amJohn Tan

(thumbs up)

Wei Yu1:27amWei Yu

interesting.. if we think of computer screen as an entity, then the images
on the screen and the screen is only a one way dependency. the images
are dependent on the screen and the screen is not dependent on the
images... the screen will always be the screen (until it gets
'destroyed') and the images come and go, shows on and off. but seeing
the lack of intrinsic existence of screen and image... then its like
water pouring into water, screen and image co-emerge in total
exertion... its not youtube happening on a screen... the screen is
manifested through youtube and it is youtube-screen. the same goes for
consciousness... thats why buddha said consciousness is reckoned by its
conditions (reference: http://www.leighb.com/mn38.htm)...

(comments by Wei Yu: The
same can be said in many other examples: Plane and Flying (we may think
of 'flying' as something that 'plane' is 'doing', but what does the
co-emergence of plane and flying and the lack of intrinsic identity of
both tells us?), Subject-Action-Object, etc...)

John Tan1:37amJohn Tan

Well said. The
heart of total exertion and emptiness...feel it. U r beginning to bring
the taste of total exertion into "view". Even in conventionality and
conceptuality, the experience of "water pouring water" in meditative
equipoise can b brought into actual taste. +A and -A can b integrated.

Wei Yu1:38amWei Yu

oic..


p.s. This excerpt by Dogen is worth repeating: “Birth is just like riding in a boat. You raise the sails and row with
the pole. Although you row, the boat gives you a ride, and without the
boat no one could ride. But you ride in the boat and your riding makes
the boat what it is. Investigate such a moment.”

Also, अष्टावक्र शान्ति posted nice quotes from Dalai Lama:

"Something
is not a cause in and of itself; it is named a “cause” in relation to
its effect. Here the effect does not occur before its cause, and its
cause does not come into being after its effect; it is in thinking of
its future effect that we designate something as a cause. This is
dependent-arising in the sense of dependent designation." - H.H Dalai
Lama

"But
when you take it further, the dependent-arising of cause and effect
comes because of dependent designation, which itself indicates that
cause and effect do not have their own being; if they did have their own
being, they would not have to be dependently designated." - H.H Dalai
Lama



HHDL's explanation on dependent designation is very
clear! Funny how I didn't see it in the past though I read through his
book before:

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=kqvlPsyV33IC&pg=PA190&lpg=PA190#v=onepage&q&f=false



Dependent Designation is a key teaching of Madhyamika:"Whatever is dependently co-arisen That is explained to be emptiness. That, being a dependent designation Is itself the middle way. Something that is not dependently arisen, Such a thing does not exist. Therefore a non-empty thing Does not exist. "  -- Nagarjuna

Hmm.. this is my first time reading this thread.

Would you call the first thing Shinzen's talking about here one-fold emptiness and the second thing two-fold emptiness?

No, they are not the same.

The 'Witness Consciousness' is related to an experience of I AM but not yet to the point of I AM realization. Non-Dual awareness which he describes is the "oneness of subject and object" -- which he describes as either a touch, sight, sound without a sense of an observer separate from it, so there is just an experience of being that touch, sight, sound, which he calls "sabija samadhi".

--> This is what I call No-Mind. This is a peak experience, but there is no realization involved. For the difference between an experience and a realization, please see my links below.

Then he talks about a deeper experience of oneness that is nondual awareness, where not only does reaction not arise, but the touch, sight, sound itself arises but does not fixates but becomes a flow, and the two flows merge, vibrate and interpenetrate, and dies down, and becomes zero, and in that nothingness there is no subject-object, and that is the true observer. This he calls "nirbija samadhi" where subject and object dissolves into the one nothing which he says is the realization that "you are the true self, aka the no-self", which is the timeless source out of which everything emerge and dissolves into. 

--> The dissolution of all into the nothingness or the true observer which is beyond subject-object is what I call the I AM Realization. The interpenetration of senses into a flow is similar to a peak experience of total exertion, and is also related to what Daniel Ingram calls "Formation".



Although he is clear about the various forms of non-dual experience, and has realized the I AM, he has not touched on anatta or twofold emptiness. As a result there is a tendency to resort and return back to the Source. In Anatta, there is no more need to resort or sink back to a Source, there is no 'Source' besides manifestation that alone is, there is nothing behind behind manifestation, even formless awareness is simply subjectless foreground manifestation. And it is realized that there never was a 'consciousness' apart from the manifest experience of pure sight, sound, taste, touch, etc... without a taster, seer, smeller, hearer, feeler, etc. And even this is just the anatta... not the twofold emptiness aspect.

Anatta and twofold emptiness must arise as a realization.

For more information on my terminologies please read: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/insight-diagnosis-simplified.html, or a much longer version: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/09/realization-and-experience-and-non-dual.html

Also see http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html


p.s. Shinzen Young's experience and understanding is like this:

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2007/03/mistaken-reality-of-amness.html


Excerpt: "Like a river flowing into the ocean, the self dissolves into
nothingness. When a practitioner becomes thoroughly clear about the
illusionary nature of the individuality, subject-object division does
not take place. A person experiencing “AMness” will find “AMness in
everything”. What is it like?


Being freed from individuality -- coming and going, life and death, all
phenomenon merely pop in and out from the background of the AMness. The
AMness is not experienced as an ‘entity’ residing anywhere, neither
within nor without; rather it is experienced as the ground reality for
all phenomenon to take place. Even in the moment of subsiding (death),
the yogi is thoroughly authenticated with that reality; experiencing the
‘Real’ as clear as it can be. We cannot lose that AMness; rather all
things can only dissolve and re-emerges from it. The AMness has not
moved, there is no coming and going. This "AMness" is God..."

Are you familiar with Shinzen's other videos or is this your first video of him? If the latter, perhaps this one video gave a skewed impression or his phrasing was misleading. If the former, it strikes me as remarkable that Shinzen could practice for so long without realizing anatta or twofold emptiness. Though, honestly, I'm open to all possibilities here because these things are extremely slippery and I just don't know.

And, thank you for replying in detail.

I have actually read quite a few articles of his, and watched quite a few videos of his. I do not believe I am mistaken, and his descriptions are actually quite vivid.

p.s. realization of anatta and twofold emptiness is actually incredibly rare even among longtime practitioners. Most people can get the experiences, but anatta and twofold emptiness requires realization of view. It would help however if one is introduced to right pointers and guidance by someone in the know.

Wei Yu: Thank you for sharing. I belive you make a distinction betwen "realization" and "actualization" of insights. Is this correct, and if so, what would you say is the difference. Be well.-Bill

Realization is realization... means a truth is directly realized and one becomes doubtless what is always so.

After realization it is important to live it without second thought. For example, thinking and analyzing about total exertion is not the same actualizing as total exertion. A million thoughts, words and books are just dead words. What is an expression beyond the dead words in a single instant?

Car is hot, whole body is the burning. That burning hot is the full expression.

O.K. Thank you. Trying to understand so bare with me, and if neither of these categories fit then just ignore. I don't want to box in, but I am trying to understand. Is the "actualizing" the deepening of the realization in our day to day life, or is it the effortless manifestation of the realization?

It is to live that realization in real-time experience.

So can i jump in here and ask for further clarification?

an experience (say of annatta) comes and goes, this is clear. In the moment there is clarity about the subjectlessness of reality. Then it passes and the old embodied presuppositions which contradict that clarity resurface, it 'feels like' there is a subject again. (So far so good?)

Realization is not an experience though, but is instead the dropping of those presuppositions? It is an insight that transforms how mind functions so there is no longer doubt? Without those presuppositions conditioning mind then there is ongoing clarity that phenomena are subjectless and always were and there never was a subject. (Is this a fair characterization of the difference between experience and insight?)

If this is still an adequate paraphrase, can you say more about the difference between realization and actualization? Specifically, how is it that actualization doesn't automatically occurr in the wake of realization if the latter is the dropping of those presuppositions of being a subject? What is the phenomenological difference between realization and actualization?

I'm not seeing why there is a difference between realization and actualization.

Realization is the realization of 'what's always so', which therefore causes the dropping of presuppositions, and yes there is no more doubts after that. There are a number of realizations... I'll just discuss the anatta realization a bit.

The experience of no-mind is where all sense of a sensor, seer, perceiver, feeler, thinker, doer, self/Self in all manners completely drop away and what's left is the pure experience of sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, thoughts, which is vivid and alive. This sense of self/Self can come back after that peak experience.

The realization of anatta is different, it is the realization that in seeing, always only the seen, no seer, in thinking always only thoughts, no thinker. The truth of anatta is always so. This leads to a 180 degree change in view which counteracts the previous view of a self and of duality, and as a result. Then we can realize how 'view' affects our experiential reality so much. After this realization no-mind becomes quite effortless and natural. (However: realizing anatta is not the full story, and to fully counteract all obscurations of view, we need to extend our realization into dependent origination and twofold emptiness)

After initial realization of anatta, traces of self can still return after 90 days of intense peak experience, but those can also eventually disappear effortless with deepening of insight and view.

This is the part where Bill F. wrote: "Though it is tempting to think of awakening as binary, an on/off switch that once encountered is complete, my own experience is that it is more gray scale. It is true that there are insights that once seen, can never be unseen, and that in the seeing perception changes clearly in a permanent, effortless, no need to induce anything sort of way. None the less, within that transformation there are still moments of dullness or narrowing that obscure the lucidity of luminosity and emptiness." -- http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5626636

So yes, actualization is actually quite automatic after realization. There is however different intensity of that actualization in experience. And also a question of whether that actualization has entered all states of life including even sleep.

The same goes for total exertion.. etc.

OK, that is more clear.

My experience is that there are different levels of holding a view, from more superficial intellectual levels tracing down deeper into a felt-sense of embodied view.

After my first 'big' peak experience as a kid, I would occassionally have flashes of what you might call no-mind experiences. Just thinking thinking, just moving moving, nothing 'behind' the natural activity of thinking, talking, moving, sensing. Just these things arising themselves and passing themselves naturally. In those moments I would say it was clear that this was actually always the case, and when that experience would fade and the sense of being a solid seperate self would re-emerge I would find it very perplexing: 'How can it be that THAT is always true, yet I keep feeling like a self? How does this work? How can an illusion be so convincing?"

I would define those as experiences, not realization, even though they included in the moment a clear seeing that no-self was always true. Only later through practice did I experience a breakthrough that began to result in lasting shifts in the felt-sense of identity and deeper insights into the process of identification. I would define that as partial realization, because the felt sense of self definitely still arises and functions even though when it does it is often translucent (obviously just another selfless, impermanent process) as well as many times throughout the day just not being there at all.

So are you saying that you had experiences of no-mind in which you felt like there was an actual self which actually stopped existing somehow and then returned (rather than seeing that the felt-sense of self is evidently empty, impermanent, dependantly arisen)?

From a laymans perspective all this sounds so weird. A bunch of marionettes discussing the realization about being a marionette.

This is more related to 'non-doership' than anatta, as I wrote in http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/insight-diagnosis-simplified.html

I had experiences of non-doership many years even before I realized anatta. I could see how everything is happening by itself without a doer doing it. Thusness wrote way back then informing that they are different:

"Also what you said about the no observer can be quite misleading. It does not mean there is 'no one doing anything' and 'everything is arising spontaneously'. You should understand anatta from below quotations taken from 'The Sun My Heart' by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh:

Sunshine and Green Leaves

"When we say I know the wind is blowing, we don't think that there is something blowing something else. "Wind' goes with 'blowing'. If there is no blowing, there is no wind. It is the same with knowing. Mind is the knower; the knower is mind. We are talking about knowing in relation to the wind. 'To know' is to know something. Knowing is inseparable from the wind. Wind and knowing are one. We can say, 'Wind,' and that is enough. The presence of wind indicates the presence of knowing, and the presence of the action of blowing'."

"..The most universal verb is the verb 'to be'': I am, you are, the mountain is, a river is. The verb 'to be' does not express the dynamic living state of the universe. To express that we must say 'become.' These two verbs can also be used as nouns: 'being", "becoming". But being what? Becoming what? 'Becoming' means 'evolving ceaselessly', and is as universal as the verb "to be." It is not possible to express the "being" of a phenomenon and its "becoming" as if the two were independent. In the case of wind, blowing is the being and the becoming...."

"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.""

....



Session Start: Saturday, 3 July, 2010

(12:27 AM) Thusness:    do u understand what zen master thich nhat hanh by wind, blowing and mind?
(12:32 AM) AEN:    ya i think so...
it reminds me of lucky7strike's post i posted in the blog
(12:34 AM) Thusness:    that is only part of it.
(12:36 AM) Thusness:    you do contemplate on the quotations together with "there is no thinker, just thoughts"
(12:37 AM) Thusness:    You realized that Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh's is not linking anatta to how any phenomenon is registered spontaneously in Awareness without intention nor is he relating how a subjective awareness being aware of an external phenomenon called sound and how the two become one.
(12:39 AM) Thusness:    Rather he is attempt to convey how dynamic movement is itself the knowing.  But when u try to understand from an inherent perspective, u will never get it.
(12:41 AM) Thusness:    That is, the wind, the blowing, the knowing are all referring to the same phenomena.  It is not talking about dissolving the division/boundary between a subjective mind and external phenomenon.
(12:42 AM) AEN:    oic..
(12:43 AM) Thusness:    also understand what he meant by 'knowing'
(12:44 AM) AEN:    for him knowing means perceiving right, like perceiving sounds, sights, thoughts... and its not something independent from them, the perceiving always happen in relation to the phenomena and cannot be separate from it
(12:44 AM) Thusness:    no
he means presence
(12:45 AM) Thusness:    so it is a very thorough insight of presence.
(12:46 AM) Thusness:    it is a way of being rather than knowing
(12:47 AM) Thusness:    it is not to find out what, when, where, why and how
there is no answer to it.
(12:47 AM) AEN:    oic..
ya its a non conceptual knowing
(12:48 AM) Thusness:    means u do not know how 'sleeping' works, how ur heart pumps
(12:49 AM) Thusness:    we think that this is 'knowing'
and we try to understand 'stuff' using such mode of knowing
(12:49 AM) Thusness:    if we can't find out, we felt uneasy
(12:50 AM) AEN:    oic..
(12:50 AM) Thusness:    but we do not know that this 'mode of understanding thing' is learnt
(12:51 AM) Thusness:    and such mode of knowing prevents u from 'non-dual intuitive and direct knowing' aka presence
(12:51 AM) AEN:    ya i better understand now how awareness is totally ungraspable by the mind as an object, thats why it can never understand what happens during sleep, etc.. to the mind awareness is like nothingness or void bcos it cant understand it, though it obviously isnt in direct experience
(12:52 AM) Thusness:    not good enough
(12:52 AM) Thusness:    u wanted to know because of the tendencies
(12:53 AM) Thusness:    ur way of knowing is 'the dualistic and inherent mode of knowing'
not by way of being
(12:54 AM) Thusness:    it is not to know the science of how breathing in and out works
(12:55 AM) Thusness:    it is just the entire vivid sensation of breathing, just breathing....
(12:56 AM) Thusness:    but that does not mean the conceptual way of knowing is not important
it is important for the conceptual mind
(12:56 AM) AEN:    oic..
(12:56 AM) Thusness:    and that is how i communicate with you
(12:56 AM) Thusness:    therefore i break them down into point forms so that u can understand better
(12:57 AM) Thusness:    so there are several parts to it
(12:57 AM) Thusness:    i want u to know what the zen master meant by 'knowing'
(12:58 AM) Thusness:    in addition to that, i want u to understand the differences and 'our existing mode of knowing' is nothing ultimate, it is learnt
(12:59 AM) Thusness:    lastly i want to to see the difference between what u wrote and what zen master thich nhat hanh wrote is different.
u have only understood non-dual, not anatta.
(1:00 AM) Thusness:    yet this is a natural progression of awareness practice
(1:01 AM) Thusness:    until you are able to dissolve the subject/object division into one seamless field of experience and mature this experience

No, I could understand intellectually that that sense of self is delusional, but there is no direct realization that 'in seeing, only the seen, no seer' or 'there is no seeing besides the seen', there was insight into how the seer-seeing-seen framework is delusional and there was realization of what 'awareness' truly is, that luminosity/awareness/etc is just the self-luminous, radiant sights, sounds, etc without a perceiver, doer, etc or linking agent... besides the experience, and activity.

When that realization of anatta arose, no-mind becomes and effortless, ongoing, natural state... even now it is so. That tendency to grasp at a self is neutralized by the actualization of the view in real-time experience.

From last year. Thusness:

Hi Kyle,

Actually I am saying instead of attempting to deconstruct endlessly,
why not resolved that that pure experience itself is empty and
non-arising.

In hearing, there is only sound. This clear clean
and pure sound, treat and see it as the X (treat and see it like an
imputation/conventional designation as u explained), empty and
non-arising.

In seeing, just scenery, just this clear clean
and lurid scenery. Where is this scenery? Inside, outside, other’s mind
or our mind? Unfindable but nonetheless appears vibrantly.


This arising thought, this dancing sensation, this passing scent, all
share the same taste. All experiences are like that -- like mirages and
rainbows, illusory and non-arising, they are free from the 4 extremes.


Resolved that all experiences are non-arising then pure sensory
experiences and conventional constructs will be of equal taste. Realize
this to be the nature of experience and illusory appearances will taste
magic and vajra (indestructible)! Groundless and naturally releasing!

Just my 2 cents of blah blah blah in new year.

...............

Thusness:


Haha Jackson, u never give up.


This heart is the "space" of where, the "time" of when and the "I" of who.

In hearing, it's that "sound".

In seeing, it's that "scenery".

In thinking, it is that "eureka"!

In snapping a finger, it is seizing the whole entire moment of that instantaneous "snapping".

Just marvelous such as it is on the fly.

So no "it" but thoroughly empty.

To u this "heart" is most real, to dzogchen it is illusory. Though
illusory, it is fully vivid and brilliance. Since it is illusory, it nvr
really truly arise. There is genuine "treasure" in the illusory.

I think Kyle has a lot points to share. Do unblock him.

Nice chat And happy journey jax!

Gone!

Thanks for your detailed response

I know you have a disclaimer in your write up that not everyone wil experience things in the same order as you and some folks may skip things altogether. I tend to get a little skeptical about systems with clear stages because there is such a variety in how people recognize things. One thing in particular about creating a linear map (which, despite your disclaimer, it still seems that you are doing) that I find problematic is that genuine and deep insights into the nature of reality tend to get esotericized. They start to stack towards the 'higher levels' of the system.

For instance, almost as long as I can remember I have had flashes of insight into territory that my mind simply cannot map. Call it 'great perfection' 'maha' emptiness and DO or what have you- the fact is, mind can never capture or label the true nature of reality.

While it's true that:

we can start having more regular and deeper peak experiences
and we can even experience profound transformations of identity which leave our baseline shifted

even then we can get caught up in mind trying to define the nature of things and beleive in that definition. So this means we seem to need some kind of approach which debunks these mental representations of the experience of true nature so we don't get caught in transpersonal identities such as the Witness for example.

However I find the discourse that you construct problematic in that it could be taken to reserve authentic insight into the nature of things for a special class of people (despite your disclaimers). For instance, how can you be sure that my description of 'thinking thinks' 'walking walks' etc is 'really' no-doer or 'really' no-mind?

My sense is that humans have direct access to deep insight into the nature of things-- buddha nature-- complete freedom. Right now. AND we will almost all tend to 'return' from this glimpse into some kind of delusory view. These views will change over time with investigation, mind training, and behavioral/relational practices (insight, concentration, sila).

Implicit views that condition our baseline become unearthed and debunked in pretty unique order however and constructing a system that elevates our own particular path of seeing through our implicit views seems problematic. For one thing, the 'system' is likely to continually change as our practice deepens.

In my opinion it may be better to point out the deepest insights and to continually re-orient to what is seen in the 'glimpse' of true nature, and give up our limited viewpoints on it and any transpersonal identities or head trips that come with it, and just keep re-orienting to that deepest glimpse and what it teaches

(which is fundamentally twofold: 1) complete true nature is available to anyone at anytime in principle as technically we only imagine that things are not that way and 2) no metaphysical interpretation of the glimpse, and no identity based on what is glimpsed, can stick.. they will all prove to be empty and impermanent and dependantly arisen...)
 Just a thought

You could have experienced no-mind but what you managed to express from what I read is more of non-doership.

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.

Even then, it may be a mere peak experience, whereas anatta is the realization that there never was any subject, agent, and that there isn't any consciousness besides sound, scenery, etc. One cannot realize that there is no agent yet does not directly experience phenomena as luminous, certain, non-dual and primordial... or does 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'. But no-mind and anatta is not just that. Non-doership is merely one aspect of anatta, as Thusness wrote in his phase 5.

Interesting-
so you had experiences of no-doership in which there was still a subject (a hearer, seer, etc?). It's hard for me to imagine how that would even work. On the other hand, perhaps it makes sense, given you were able to pursue what you call I AM and One Mind to the point of realization, which I take to mean a shift of identity from the personal to the witness and nondual. For me those experiences always presented as illusory. That is, experiences of being the Witness, the Self, always felt like the root of delusion rather than like a primordial truth. I often had really intense experiences in that family during my twenties. Although there is something undeniably compelling about the experience, it also seemed very dangerous, something one could get stuck in.

Part of the reason why I think constructing a linear path based on personal experience is problematic: I suspect that such differences could be related to personality structure in some hard to define, complex systemic ways.

I believe I have read you saying something like 'keep the experience, refine the View' in regards to these experiences along the way. That these facets of experience can naturally arise but gradually we stop making fixed identities and metaphysical theories out of them (and so gradually, reactivity lessens). I like that. I think my approach to the whole thing is to say 'keep all experiences, refine the view'. Then over time, with continued investigation and mind training and behavioral-relational training the baseline of experience naturally drifts into more open territory.

I'm sorry - I still do not understand the difference between non-doership and anatta. If I hear a sound or make a motion, and I recognize that there is no subject or agent, just the hearing or moving, how is that not anatta? What else is missing?

And also, do you equate no-mind = anatta = 1-fold emptiness?

I get the sense that when an experience of non-doership is complete through-and-through it becomes a no-mind experience, and when a no-mind experience is complete through-and-through it becomes an anatta experience. I think it's probably a continuum where subtler and subtler parts of the Field are still subtly separated until there is absolutely nothing separated in... a complete anatta experience, or complete twofold emptiness? Dunno. The difference between those latter two is still unclear to me.

I also agree with Jake about personality structures coloring our experiences and order of unfoldment.

I appreciate that you acknowledge a range of perhaps nonlinear experiences in contrast to the Revised Four Path Model or Simple Model in MCTB. But, I think you still might be subtly falling into the trap of My-Categories-Are-Better-Than-Your-Categories. Personally, I'm most interested in arguments about the final outcome, if there is such a thing. I think intermediate categories are useful only insofar as they pragmatically orient one towards that hypothetical final outcome.

EDIT:
Oh yeah, I acknowledge that that Hypothetical Final Outcome may only be the final outcome in one, albeit important, dimension. Perhaps Hypothetical Final Platform might be a better phrase.

I relate to a lot of AEN's descriptions and stages. There are some that I can see on the intellectual level, but I can't honestly say that I have realized deeply in a way that has permanently shifted experience, particularly stage 7. I'm feeling tired and lazy, but for the sake of comparision, here goes:
I had worked within the fold of the pragmatic dharma scene for a while. Shortly prior to stream entry it became evident that what I had called "me", this backdrop upon which all experience seemed to reflect and hinge, was not solid and durable, but was instead a composite built from causes and conditions in the field of experience. After stream entry it became impossible to solidify around this idea of an eternal, solid "me", but habitual patterns of thought and reaction could lead to thoughts and behavior not aligned with this insight.
At third path in the pragmatic dharma model it became clear to me that external phenomena in the form of thoughts, mental impressions, sights, sounds, etc. could not be separated into things with inherent solidity. I could look at a face and see it as a fluxing pattern of nondistinct, vividness. I was working with the elderly at the time and the beauty of their faces, and wrinkles was really amazing. This insight is not perfected, perhaps it never will be, but the general pattern is that it continues to infuse more and more areas of experience.
As a point of comparison, having seen the empty nature of self at stream entry, or perhaps even before, does not mean that you will never axgain think a sentence with the word "I" or constrict around a personal attack. If you've been driving one hundred miles per hour for ten, twenty, or forty years and you suddenly slam the breaks the momentum of the previous years will continue to effect the movement of the car. The next phases in my practice involved a further shift into what zen refers to as One Mind. Alex Weith in his excellent piece on the Bahiya Sutta  -Bahiya- writes the following of this phase: "One Mind has often been compared to a bright mirror that reflects phenomena and yet remains untouched by appearances. As discussed with one of Sheng-yen's first Western students, this One Mind is still an illusion. One is not anymore identified to the self-center, ego and personality, yet one (the man) is still holding to pure non-dual awareness (the ox). Having tamed the ox, the ox-herder must let go of the ox (ox forgotten) and then forget himself and the ox (ox and man forgotten).
The problem is that we still maintain a subtle duality between what we know ourself to be, a pure non-dual awareness that is not a thing, and our daily existence often marked by self-contractions. Hoping to get more and more identified with pure non-dual awareness, we may train concentration, try to hold on to the event of awakening reifying an experience, or rationalize the whole thing to conclude that self-contraction is not a problem and that suffering is not suffering because our true nature is ultimately beyond suffering. This explains why I got stuck in what Zen calls "stagnating waters" for about a year. "

One of the more interesting aspects of this phase is that cycling between the nanas that before seemed a major problem, no longer seemed to be a problem. It was as though some physical instability that had been driving practice for me for those years (five at the time of this phase) seemed gone. Two of the major pragmatic dharma teachers diagnosed me as fourth path at this point, but in truth, I did not find my ongoing experience to match up to Daniel's description of 4th path  until several months later. During the next several months I would occasionally have experiences where any sense of an internal observer just vanished. My consistent experience was still that of the non-solid Watcher, empty but in some way separate and reflecting on other empty phenomena. But then suddenly the watcher would be gone, and there would just be experience experiencing itself vividly, no doer, or watcher, simply the sensations manifesting as themselves at all sense doors. Each time I would come out of this state there would be a sense of anxiety, particularly as these experiences began to increase in consistency and duration. Then one day I was walking the dog General R.I.P and I experienced the vanishing of the observer, but with the realization that there had never been a separate observer, dual or non-dual, no watcher, no Self, or self. Experience spoke for itself without any residual observation point. Even self-referential thinking was seen to occur without a landscape from which it projected or landed onto. I documented that experience, and the fall out here, towards the bottom of the page, on January 29: Bill'sNotes    More thany anything else I had experienced this changed the nature of how I understood everything that had happened before and it totally destroyed any sense of my being a meditatior or on a spiritual path or any of that. That being said, I still practice daily for 2-3 hours, but practice is perhaps the wrong word as that implies efforting towards a goal. Things continue to change and deepen and infuse new areas. I went through a dramatic deepening a couple weeks ago, but nothing new was really revealed, just an increase in clarity and immediacy.
As an aside, I can't know for sure that what I'm writing about/experienced is what AEN and Thusness are writing about. I am just sharing my own experience, and it may not correspond exactly so I'm not making definitive notes as a representative of Thusness and AEN's understanding.

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.



Also in earlier 2010, Thusness wrote:

(10:33 PM) Thusness:    there is a difference between everything is effortless and spontaneous
and there is no thingness, there is seeing, no seer
(10:34 PM) Thusness:    it is not talking about the spontaneity and effortlessness
(10:34 PM) Thusness:    it is about the realization that the background is extra...get it?
(10:34 PM) AEN:    ic..
(10:35 PM) AEN:    u mean the the insight of anatta and the spontaneous/effortless are different?
(10:35 PM) Thusness:    yes
(10:35 PM) Thusness:    u r always thinking that way
and explaining that way
it is not
(10:36 PM) AEN:    oic.. whats the difference
(10:38 PM) Thusness:    what do u mean what is the difference?
(10:39 PM) AEN:    isnt it bcos u realize that in seeing there is always only scenery and no seer, that the no-mind experience becomes effortless?
(10:39 PM) Thusness:    non-dual becomes effortless
yes
(10:40 PM) Thusness:    but what has that got to do with spontaneous arising?
(10:40 PM) AEN:    oic
(10:43 PM) AEN:    so spontaneous perfection has to do with spontaneous arising
but musnt be misunderstood as the anatta and emptiness insight?
(10:43 PM) Thusness:    u kept associating spontaneous arising and everything as natural with anatta
(10:44 PM) Thusness:    i am telling u it is not
(10:44 PM) AEN:    icic..
(10:44 PM) Thusness:    when someone tell u there is just the breath...
(10:45 PM) Thusness:    instead of thinking just one seamless flow..just the action...
(10:45 PM) Thusness:    u r thinking everything is natural, effortless and spontaneous
(10:46 PM) Thusness:    i am telling u to understand sunyata, the process, the flow, the action, the breathe, the seeing...
(10:47 PM) Thusness:    that all along there is just that
and u r always thinking everything is effortless, natural, spontaneous
(10:47 PM) Thusness:    it is a world of difference
(10:48 PM) Thusness:    it is like full and complete action, experience
(10:49 PM) Thusness:    now if u breathe, u have thoughts
u will have the sense of an agent breathing
(10:50 PM) Thusness:    seldom u have simple the pure sense of breathing
just the breath
(10:50 PM) Thusness:    get it?
(10:50 PM) AEN:    yea
(10:51 PM) Thusness:    it is different from saying breathing is natural
(10:53 PM) Thusness:    even when u r having a dualistic view, breathing is still natural
and effortless
get it?
but when insight of anatta matures, u do not concentrate or work towards a state
u realized
there is always just that
the breath
get it?

Hah I was just having this discussion today in my FB group 'dharma connection'... I'll paste what I wrote there.


Anu. J:  Wei Yu, Yes, I understood that. I am quite clear about one-mind non- dualism. I have moved away from that.

I was going through Joan Tollifson's site. Has she got the complete view?
12 hrs · Edited · Like
Anu. J:  I asked about Joan because what she says is something or completely similar to what I do now - Learning to stay with "what is" from moment to moment.
12 hrs · Like
AEN:  She is clear in terms of insight about nondual, and her experience and view is still of one mind and into no-mind, and she is able to deconstruct mind/body well (results in 'mind body drop'), but the realization of the view of anatta and especially twofold emptiness is not exactly there yet. I pointed out her site because her pointers on the non-dual aspect may be quite helpful -- no seer apart from the seen, etc.

On the difference between I AM, one mind, no-mind and anatta:

15/4/13 12:19:30 AM: John Tan: What do u mean by subsuming?
15/4/13 12:23:19 AM: John Tan: Means consciousness is of true existing like a container
15/4/13 12:23:54 AM: John Tan: Consciousness is not in the body but the body is in consciousness
15/4/13 12:24:25 AM: John Tan: Sound arises in consciousness
15/4/13 12:24:56 AM: John Tan: Therefore consciousness doesn't change
15/4/13 12:25:58 AM: John Tan: The other is as if consciousness is the substance of matter
15/4/13 12:27:36 AM: John Tan: When we say sound-consciousness, there is no such thing as sound and sound-consciousness
15/4/13 12:27:59 AM: John Tan: That sound is the sound-consciousness
15/4/13 12:28:24 AM: John Tan: There is no such thing as sound
15/4/13 12:28:36 AM: John Tan: Or sound-conscious
15/4/13 12:29:04 AM: John Tan: When we say I hear sound

15/4/13 12:37:11 AM: John Tan: One mind is u r always looking at an ultimate mind behind, u r not looking at manifestation
15/4/13 12:37:26 AM: AEN: : But it's not I Am right
15/4/13 12:37:36 AM: John Tan: Yes it is not
15/4/13 12:38:28 AM: John Tan: Everything is consumed into the source
15/4/13 12:39:24 AM: John Tan: I m is just the pure background behind but external objects r not subsumed into it...like separate
15/4/13 12:39:48 AM: John Tan: I m I ....dualistic

15/4/13 12:44:02 AM: John Tan: When the hearer is gone and there is only sound, that sound is precisely consciousness
15/4/13 12:45:15 AM: John Tan: That is the experience of no-mind

15/4/13 12:50:31 AM: John Tan: No mind is like the mirror becomes transparent and there is just that
15/4/13 12:51:22 AM: John Tan: But the view is the reflection and the mirror is not the same
15/4/13 12:52:09 AM: John Tan: Like sky is not the flowing cloud
15/4/13 12:53:28 AM: John Tan: Anatta is a realization that there isn't a consciousness besides sound, scenery...etc
15/4/13 12:56:15 AM: John Tan: U c through reification of that agent and get in touch with the base manifestation where the label rely upon
15/4/13 12:57:02 AM: John Tan: So sound is the actual consciousness is referring to
15/4/13 12:57:36 AM: John Tan: There is no consciousness other than that

15/4/13 1:01:13 AM: John Tan: When they see through reification, then phenomena has a different meaning
15/4/13 1:02:04 AM: John Tan: Seeing everything as awareness is not one mind
15/4/13 1:02:52 AM: John Tan: Seeing everything as the same unchanging mind is the problem
15/4/13 1:04:09 AM: John Tan: When u c through reification, u realized "awareness" is just a label point to these manifestations
15/4/13 1:04:32 AM: John Tan: So there is nothing wrong saying that
15/4/13 1:05:24 AM: John Tan: Only when we treat awareness to b of true existence then we r deluded because there isn't any
15/4/13 1:11:36 AM: John Tan: In hearing, there is only sound
15/4/13 1:11:57 AM: John Tan: Hearing implies the presence of sound
11 hrs · Like · 1
AEN:  My sense is that Joan's experience is mostly no-mind but still unable to overcome the one mind sort of view which subsumes everything into a larger context of awareness: "...This vast awareness is beholding (and being) the entire universe. Your body appears in this awareness along with
your family, your co-workers, your neighborhood, the trees and cars,
the furniture, the night sky, the stars, the distant galaxies, all your
thoughts and images about yourself, every movie you've ever seen...it
all appears within this impersonal and boundless aware presence, and as
Nisargadatta says, I AM THAT. Our True Nature is that undivided
wholeness of being, that unbound presence that includes everything..."
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Anu. J:  Yes, I thought so
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Neony Karby Water poured into water
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Joel A.: Wei Yu, I'm not sure I understand the distinction between No Mind and Anatta. No Mind = the hearer is gone, there is only sound. "There is no consciousness other than that." Anatta = realizing that there is no consciousness other than sights, sounds, etc. What is the difference?
9 hrs · Like · 1
Aditya Prasad "Aditya, of course awareness does not require effort because it is the essence of mind."<-- this was not an "of course" for me for some years or decades. "Awareness" referred to the sense of tuning into that background, and in that sense there was no such thing as "awareness" when it wasn't being effortfully recognized.
5 hrs · Like
Stian. G. H.: It was not addressed to me, but for what it's worth, I also struggled with the no-mind/anatta distinction, and as far as I managed to clarify, the distinction is primarily about what here is called 'view' as distinguished from 'experience' and 'realization'.

The difference is that no-mind (as used here) refers to the very experience of "only sounds, only colors" (and no hearer & seer) *regardless* of the correctness of view of anatta.

So it is possible to have a "no-mind experience" without realizing the anatta view.

No-mind refers to an experience devoid of a reified subject, while anatta refers to such experience when the lack of a reified subject is explicitly the result of correct view and not any other circumstance.
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AEN:  Joel A.::

A person can have peak experiences of No Mind while looking at a sunset, listening to music, looking at trees without even prior spiritual practices. The sense of self is gone... and there is just the tree swaying, the brilliant colours, of nature... that is no-mind, but it is just a stage or state of peak experience, there is no realization or fundamental shift in view. The famous Chinese poet Li Bai said, 'We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.'

They may also have such peak experience while taking a high dosage of psychedelic drugs. It is also likely for someone with realization of nondual at the One Mind level to have peak experiences of no mind from time to time, however, it will not become effortless due to their 'view'.

Anatta is the realization of 'what is always so', that there is no self/Self, or 'consciousness' besides the manifestation. This will remove even the one mind sort of view such as 'consciousness is the container that is inseparable from its contents'.
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Joel A.: Thanks, Stian and Wei Yu!
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AEN:  "...when the lack of a reified subject is explicitly the result of correct view"

Yes, and more precisely the direct realization of the right view...
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Also something Thusness wrote in 2009 might be helpful:

Hi Kim123,


Just to add a lil, see whether it makes sense to you.

As a start it is almost not possible not to feel
dualistic.  An observer observing the observed is our ordinary
experience and it will appear that this is an experiential
fact.  Therefore we should not rush into anything but just
simply recognize the ‘cause’.  The cause that made us see in
such a way is termed ‘ignorance’.  Try to understand
‘ignorance’ not as not knowing but a form of knowing instead. 
See it as a very deep form of ‘dualistic knowing’ that we have
taken it to be truth.  We then proceed to overcome this wrong
view in 2 steps; one by strongly and firmly establishing the right
view to replace our existing ‘dualistic and inherent view’ and
second, practice seeing in bare attention to lessen the grip of
views. Practice being bare in bodily sensation till there is a very
strong clear mirror feeling in bodily sensation.  Then with
the right view, non-dual will dawn.  Without the right view,
it will most likely turn into a mirror reflecting phenomena
experience.

Practices can take decades and often quite frustrating and
challenging during the journey.  But have faith, be patient
and have confidence, all effort will proof worthwhile
eventually.

A simple summary I use to help my practice:-


When there is simply a pure sense of existence;

When awareness appears mirror like;

When sensations become pristine clear and bright;

This is luminosity.


When all arising appear disconnected;

When appearance springs without a center;

When phenomena appears to be on their own without controller;

This is no doer-ship.


When subject/object division is seen as illusion;

When there is clarity that no one is behind thoughts;

When there is only scenery, sounds, thoughts and so forth;

This is anatta.


When phenomena appears pristinely crystal;

When there is merely one seamless experience;

When all is seen as Presence;

This is non-dual Presence.


When we feel fully the unfindability and unlocatability of
phenomena;

When all experiences are seen as ungraspable;

When all mind boundaries of in/out, there/here, now/then
dissolve;

This is Emptiness.


When interconnectedness of everything is wholly felt;

When arising appears great, effortless and wonderful;

When presence feels universe;

This is Maha.


When arising is not caged in who, where and when;

When all phenomena appear spontaneous and effortless;

When everything appears right every where, every when;

This is spontaneous perfection.

 

Seeing these as the ground of all experiences;

always and already so;

This is wisdom.


Experiencing the ground in whatever arises;

This is practice.


Happy journey.

There is no better or worse. Daniel describes his own journey quite well. I describe mine. They are not exactly the same journey... for example he didn't go through the I AM/Vedanta phase of realization. I resonate quite well with his 4th path and his recent AF-related experiences.

Actually I find that the 'I AM realization' is quite a precious realization. As I wrote in: http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/1631786?_19_delta=20&_19_keywords=&_19_advancedSearch=false&_19_andOperator=true&_19_resetCur=false&_19_cur=2 : "
It is important to note that the 'I AM' is not simply an experience of being the Witness/Watcher or a state of witnessing. One can also have
an experience similar to I AM yet the realization has not occurred.
This is being discussed in the article written by Thusness: Realization and Experience and Non-Dual Experience from Different Perspectives"

It is the direct taste of luminosity, of the Mind, or of Thought if you would like. But it is not thought as in verbal, conceptual, visual thoughts... it is what Thusness calls non-conceptual thought. Which is just the pure presence that is pure thought or mind. (as Buddha taught there are 6 'senses', which is five senses + mind) Even if you enter into a sensory deprivation tank, or somehow all your five senses are not working, and verbal thoughts are not forming, at that moment there is still pure consciousness of mind. This 'Mind' is not a self or a Self, but it is being reified into a Self after that direct realization due to the lack of deeper insight into the view of anatta and emptiness as you said...

As Thusness wrote in 2011:

(5:08 PM) Thusness:    what is "I AM"
is it a pce?
is there emotion
is there feeling
is there thought
is there divison or complete stillness?
in hearing there is just sound, just this complete, direct clarity of sound!
so what is "I AM"?
(5:10 PM) Soh Wei Yu:    it is the same
just that pure non conceptual thought
(5:10 PM) Thusness:    is there 'being'?
(5:11 PM) Soh Wei Yu:    no, an ultimate identity is created as an after thought
(5:11 PM) Thusness:    indeed
it is the mis-interpretation after that experience that is causing the confusion
that experience itself is pure conscious experience
there is nothing that is impure
that is why it is a sense of pure existence
it is only mistaken due to the 'wrong view'
so it is a pure conscious experience in thought.
not sound, taste, touch...etc


..........

But due to self-view this 'mind' is being reified into something like a background self. In reality it is just a foreground aggregate, no different from a pure sound, a pure sight... etc.

Great insights, thanks for your sharing

Thanks Wei Yu. You give of your own quite freely, so why not...

I was referring just to the categories you use to describe experience, not experience itself. I was trying to say that you seem to me to be slightly pigeon-holing other people's experiences into your categories. While, honestly, I think you've done an excellent job at constructing a range of categories, I still think actual experience is less cut-and-dried. I suspect Jake may have been pointing to this also.

You have misunderstood what I mean by "I AM". Do note that I have seen people use the term "I AM" to mean different things.

By I AM -- the direct realization of it -- I do not mean that there is a Being. It in fact cannot be called "I AM". It is only reified into an ultimate identity after that direct experiential realization, due to the poverty of ignorance or the view of inherency that reifies it into a Self. There is nothing wrong at all with the I AM realization in itself.

There is absolutely no problem with Mind -- it is empty of any self/Self, it is what the Buddha calls "luminous mind". It is no different from say, a sight, or a sound... it is not more ultimate than a sight or a sound, it is just pure luminous consciousness experienced at the mind door as opposed to say, the visual or auditory or tactile senses. At that moment of realization there is no concepts, no sense of Being, no self/Self, no identity, no emotions, etc etc... it is no different from the pure consciousness experience of a sight or a sound, except it is the pure consciousness of non-conceptual thought/mind. (The reification that happens after that, prior to realizing anatta, is a different story)

I get what you mean by shutting down processess... yes one can get into a state of complete cessation where even 'Mind' ceases, such as Nirodha Samapatti. However, liberation to me is not confined to any particular states of cessation. If you read Daniel's MCTB you should know that by the time of the (mctb) third and fourth path, 'liberation' is no longer seen as being confined to states of cessation, fruitions, or even N.S., even though N.S. may be considered by Daniel to be 'king daddy' attainment second only to the 'mctb 4th path' -- which is defined as 'in the seeing only the seen', etc, luminous and transient, free of any agent/perceiver/controller/centerpoint, and experiencing this in real-time, and this in itself is liberating, there is no need to get rid of seeing or hearing or stay perpetually in a state of nirodha sampatti..

In the seeing only the seen, no seer.... in hearing only sound, no hearer, what about thought/mind? In thought just that thought -- that is what I AM realization is about. When anatta realization is realized, then to call it "I AM realization" is misleading, it is only called "I AM realization" for those who have not realized anatta. But it is not the "I AM realization" that is faulty.. it is the view of inherency.

p.s. there is nothing 'intrinsic', there is only dependently originated sensations and that includes sights, sounds, and even 'non-conceptual thought'.

Yeah that is part of what I'm wondering about. I wanted to ask some questions because although there is a disclaimer 'this is my own experience, these things can be non-linear", still, people reading or interacting with AEN could perhaps be mislead into thinking this is how it must be because despite the disclaimer there seems to be a tendency to interpret others' experiences in terms of this system. I too find it a fascinating system and

@AEN I do appreciate your sharing and your reflections on your path. Part of why I may have so many questions is because when you cut and paste conversations you have had with others or scriptures or what have you it isn't always clear how what you are cutting and pasting relates to the question; whereas a simple answer in your own words describing your own experience might be more helpful (to me). That said your recent quoted exchange with Thusness seemed to make sense to me so sometimes it is helpful.

I think in general I think there is a danger to systems which reserve deep insight into reality to the higher levels of practice because my experience is that we can cut through all illusion/delusion immediately and glimpse reality in its supercompleteness beyond all concepts. This glimpse can then become the orientation, the touchstone of practice, and the path can simply be about dropping all illusory views of how things are through training in that pure View.

[ETA: and I appreciate your emphasis on views because indeed we pretty much all tend to take an experiential insight into reality and then turn around and construct a conceptual view about 'what it means'- construct an identity and view ofworld and others which is a new, golden cage. So working to refine view to drop conceptual views that seek to define life, experience, reality is important.].

This is a simple model which remains open to infinite variety of non-linear progress unique to each practitioner. Then the catalogueing of 'states and stages' is more a catalogueing of typical detours and premature resting places, transpersonal identities and views that are used to try and 'understand' what was glimpsed in pure clarity (emptiness, dependant arising, great perfection).
IMO then Realization/integration is measured by whatever extent we have dropped the compulsive habit of interpreting experience with conceptual views (even though retaining the ability to conceptualize pragmatically and poetically). This is demonstrated in the ease of behavioral-emotional transformation; realization is an existential liberation of the human-being-as-such from the constraints of conceptual views and the emotional reactivity and habit patterns that express those views.

Also, in regards to nonconceptual mind, I agree it is an important facet of experience. Understanding it directly without superimposing a conceptual view like "I am that!" or "I am infinite eternal pure consciousness!!", just letting it be what it is without turning it into a new identity, is valid, profoundly significant and very valuable.

In my understanding, spirituality is a very subtle thing, and it is extremely unlikely that one could attain deep insight and liberation all at once, possibly except those of the highest calibre in scriptures could have achieved it (like Bahiya? etc). That doesn't happen to most people.

Most people have some insights, but it is not fully clear, so it gets refined through practice, and then there are karmic tendencies.

Since you mentioned "My sense is that humans have direct access to deep insight into the nature of things -- buddha nature -- complete freedom. Right now. AND we wil almost all tend to 'return' from this glimpse into some kind of delusory view."


It should be mentioned that even in so called "sudden schools" of Buddhism that talk about "buddha nature" is really not as sudden as one might think it is. For example in Dzogchen, and I am saying this based on reliable source Lopon Namdrol who learns from ChNN and KDL and is asked by KDL (kunzang dechen lingpa) to teach Dzogchen: the initial recognition of rigpa is simply the recognition of unfabricated clarity. This is no different from what I call "I AM realization". It is a requirement in order to start practicing Dzogchen. Emptiness is only realized at the third vision of thodgal. And needless to speak, Mahamudra has its 'four yogas' -- again, different stages of insights. Zen has the ten oxherding pictures, and the 5 ranks of Tozan where each class of koan is aimed at different insight.

As Thusness said, "Therefore we must understand in Zen tradition, different koans were meant for different purposes. The experience derived from the koan “before birth who are you?” only allows an initial glimpse of our nature. It is not the same as the Hakuin’s koan of “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” The five categories of koan in Zen ranges from hosshin that give practitioner the first glimpse of ultimate reality to five-ranks that aims to awaken practitioner the spontaneous unity of relative and absolute (non-duality). Only through thorough realization of the non-dual nature (spontaneous unity of relative and absolute) of Awareness can we then understand why there is no split between subject and object as well as seeing the oneness of realization and development. Therefore the practice of natural state is for those that have already awaken to their non-dual nature, not just an initial glimpse of Awareness. The difference must be clearly understood. It is not for anyone and it is advisable that we refrain from talking too much about the natural state. The 'natural' way is in fact the most challenging path, there is no short cut.

On the other hand, the gradual path of practice is a systematic way of taking us step by step until we eventually experienced the full non-dual and non-local nature of pristine awareness. One way is by first firmly establishing the right view of anatta (non-dual) and dependent origination and practice vipassana or bare attention to authenticate our experience with the right view. The gradual paths are equally precious, that is the point I want to convey."

To think that these schools do not undergo different phases of insights would be to indulge in fantasies. Realization of 'I AM' (or any realization) is sudden, but the process of refining insights, view, etc is gradual.

What most people call "realization of Buddha-nature" is really no different from what I call I AM realization. Is it the 'complete insight'? I don't think so, but it is an important insight into the luminous essence and could pave the way for further refinement of view so that the taste can be experienced effortlessly and naturally in all manifestations without contrivance.

Also... it is not rare that people have glimpses of no-mind as an experience. Experience is not realization. As AF Richard points out, everyone has had a PCE once in their life. I'm not too sure if it applies to 'everyone', but it is pretty common. What's important is not the experience but the direct realization of the view... and not only anatta, but dependent origination and emptiness. Direct realization is not merely a 'glimpse' but a 180 degree shift in view in one's experience, and the experience becomes effortless and natural and seamless. A 'glimpse' is more like a peak experience.


When I said stages of insights are not linear, what I meant is that I've seen people who experienced impersonality before realizing I AM, people who realize I AM before experiencing impersonality, people who go through I AM realization before non-dual and anatta, and people who realized anatta without going through I AM. For example, Daniel Ingram did not go through I AM realization, he realized anatta and his experiences in mctb 4th path and AF related experiences are all related to anatta.

But to suggest that he could have realized MCTB 4th path immediately without going through a lengthy process of refining one's insights? Like Bahiya who got liberated on the spot? I think it is very highly unlikely, although not impossible, even in the suttas days where people are attaining arhantship by the thousands.

There are groups that teach people to contemplate on no-self... like Liberation Unleashed. But their descriptions are also mostly restricted to non-doership. Many of them later progressed to I AM realization. That is why I wrote an article for them which is placed in their group... about the difference faces of self/Self and different insights.



p.s. one can instantaneously 'cut through' all concepts and arrive at non-conceptual luminous awareness, like the I AM, and this is trekchod practice. But this is far from 'cutting through all delusions' as that would require very deep insights.

Those insights are not 'detours', they are actually valid insights, albeit partial. For example realizing the luminous consciousness of Mind (aka I AM realization) is not wrong, it is a correct insight, but it is a partial insight because one has not realized anattta, emptiness etc so there is tendency for reification.

Realizing and experiencing non-doership is not a detour, but an insight and experience into how the notion of a doer or free will behind thoughts/sensations etc that are happening is an illusion. But is it a complete insight? No because there are other constructs.

Experiencing impersonality is not a detour, but an insight and experience of deconstructing the construct of personality so that one is purged of ego/personality and one could experience the 'impersonal life'. But is it complete insight? No, because again due to view of inherency... which then leads to reification of a universal source, etc.

I can go on.. but the point is each of these insights is not a detour, but an important insight that refines one's view and experience, but in themselves are not 'complete'.

The reason why we need to go through these insights is because we have various faces/degrees of self/Self/things reification. Our delusions are complex and subtle.

As Thusness said before,
“…there exist a predictable relationship between the ‘mental object
to be de-constructed’ and ‘the experiences and realizations’… As a
general guideline,

1. If you de-construct the subjective pole, you will be led to the experience of No-Mind.
2. If you de-construct the objective pole, you will be led to the experience of One-Mind.
3. If you go through a process of de-constructing prepositional
phrases like “in/out” “inside/outside” “into/onto,” “within/without”
“here/there”, you will dissolve the illusionary nature of locality and
time.
4. If you simply go through the process of self-enquiry by
disassociation and elimination without clearly understanding the
non-inherent and dependent originated nature of phenomena, you will be
led to the experience of “I AMness”

Lastly, not to talk too much about self-liberation or the natural state, it can sound extremely misleading… …We have to understand that to even come to this realization of the “Simplicity of What Is”, a practitioner will need to undergo a painstaking process of de-constructing the mental constructs. We must be deeply aware of the ‘blinding spell’ in order to understand consciousness…”.

Typical descriptions of Treckchod describe the nature of mind (and thus experience) as 'clear light'. But this includes emptiness. In these descriptions 'clear' refers to emptiness, 'light' to phenomena, and they are nondual and spontaneous. Other dzogchen languaging of this stuff uses 'kadag' and 'lundhrub'; the former means primordial purity (which also refers to emptiness) and the latter means spontaneous perfection. When atributed to treckchod/thogal, the former is cutting through to 'kadag', primal purity, the nonduality of emptiness and clarity (clarity=experience). Thogal then has to do with lundhrub, the spontaneous perfection of that state, which refers to a visionary unfolding of the energetic dynamics implicit in that nature of mind. So, completely different from what you seem to be saying. 

ChNNR describes the 'base' (of the Path of Dzogchen) as including three facets, emptiness (as in dependant origination, impermanence, insubstantiality), clarity (knowing quality, luminosity), and energy (phenomena, activity). Acording to him these are merely conceptually differentiated as part of an oral explanation. Rigpa is the self-awareness of the base. Treckchod is about stabilizing that experience, and can be practiced to the point of realization, so treckchod is about stabilizing insight into the nonduality of emptiness, knowing, phenomena. So the idea that treckchod is about stabilizing the I AM realization or a realization of nonconceptual knowing/lumionosity is mistaken if you are exluding emptiness from that. 

Yes Jake, I am quite familiar with Dzogchen terminology. I have read plenty of books on Dzogchen and Mahamudra in the past and I have attended ChNN's Dzogchen retreat in Singapore.

And I am also very clear about how Dzogchen progresses based on Lopon Namdrol/Malcolm's clarification. When you recognise rigpa and start practicing Trekchod, it is only the recognition of unfabricated clarity. You do not realize Kadag -- you do not realize emptiness yet. But you are introduced to that, and you practice based on that introduction until it is realized, but until then it remains an inference. When you realize Kadag, then you have realized Trekchod, you have realized emptiness. Realization of Trekchod is not the same as practicing trekchod.

The practice of Trekchod (not the realization) is very much similar to Awareness practice, like this: http://nyima108.blogspot.com.au/2006/08/words-of-advice-by-loppn-namdrol.html

As for Thodgal, emptiness is definitely only realized at the third vision. You start to get visions even at the first and second level.

I suggest you to read every single post (lol) by Malcolm and 'asunthatneversets', they clarify a lot. Also 'asunthatneversets' (who is also a Dzogchen practitioner) resonates very well with my experiential insights.



deepbluehum wrote:I say you and Namdrol are both right. You are right because the direct introduction does provide a glimpse into emptiness.

Malcolm:

It is not the same as the realization of the path seeing.

It is an example wisdom only.

N


Malcolm:

Yes, they are quite different.

If not, then all people who have recognized rigpa would be first stage bodhisattvas. But they are not.

The
second fault of your assertion above is that people who have not
realized emptiness will beleive that they had, and such people will than be incurable.



Malcolm:

I
have personal experience of the subject we are discussing and I am not a
first stage bodhisattva. In other words, I am relying on my personal
authority to answer your question.

N

Hmm. What I call 'Rigpa' definitely involves the suspension of "reifying phenomena according to the four extremes". ChNNR's description of the 'base' (i.e., reality) includes emptiness. Rigpa is the self-clarity of the base according to this interpretation. Experience is clearly different from realization but I wouldn't equate 'experience' of emptiness with a mere inference. I understand the latter (inference of emptiness) to pertain to the result of analytical meditations on emptiness in, for instance, a Gelugpa style. Through philosophical reasoning and examining experience an intellectual conviction in the truth of emptiness dawns. This is different from (temporarily) suspending reification, and thus glimpsing emptiness (of self and phenomena). The nonduality of emptiness and skandhas is the nature of the base (a la heart sutra). There is a knowing quality that is primordially present which IS that empty experiencing (in other words, it isn't an objectifying awareness). One can have an experience of emptiness that is not inferred or arrived at intellectually but which is direct and nondual regardless of one's position on a questionable feudal realization hierarchy (bhumis). Do you disagree with this? Or are you equating the higher stages of your teacher's system-- in which emptiness is experienced and realized-- with being on the bhumis?

Also, cool, when did you go on retreat with ChNNR? Do you do any of the practices that he transmits?

My understanding of 'calm state', the first stage of Semde, in my own experience and as confirmed by a senior student of ChNNR's, is that it is the unconditioned empty clarity (which is unconditioned by concepts) and in the light of which things are evidently empty (because in that state, mind is not reifying phenomena according to the four extremes, which are concepts). And that isn't even treckchod, much less the higher 'stages' of Semde, which would be equivalent to Treckchod (continuing in that state). I am also aware that there are other presentations of Semde which do not involve 'rigpa' until the last stage, or the third stage. But my understanding of Norbu's presentation is that the second contemplation is basically treckchod (continuing in that state, integrating it with ongoing experience and activity).

No, I do not practice Dzogchen methods now. And yes, one can directly realize emptiness even without engaging in Madhyamika analysis. But what Malcolm meant by 'inferential understanding' is not Madhyamika inference. The base is empty, but it does not mean that the initial recognition of rigpa includes the direct realization of emptiness. When emptiness is realized as Malcolm points out, "...in Dzogchen teadchings, the realization of emptiness and the so called "full measure of rig pa" occur at one and the same time. At that time your knowledge of reality becomes complete. Your rig pa, or knowledge has gone to its fullest extent. Then, after that, it is time to exhaust dharmatā." Therefore one can have an initial recognition of rigpa, but that is not rigpa in "matured in its full measure", it is not equivalent to the realization of rigpa in its entirety.

It should be noted that in ChNN terminology, when in the calm state one encounters an "experience of emptiness", what he is referring to is not the realization of the freedom from extremes, but the suspension of concepts like a gap between thoughts. This is definitely not the realization of emptiness, nor is it necessarily even the recognition of unconditioned clarity a.k.a Instant Presence (for example, one can remain in a dull inert calmness or thoughtlessness without any realization, or alternatively one may experience a certain state of clarity but still not realizing one's Essence of unfabricated Clarity -- like the doubtless realization of I AM in my own terminology), however it (or any state) may be a condition 'used' for realizing the unconditioned clarity. Only when one realizes that unconditioned clarity can one be considered 'practicing Trekchod' so in that sense, yes, an 'experience of emptiness' (not freedom from extremes, but simply a suspension of concepts in a state of calm shamatha) is not sufficient for practicing Trekchod.

ChNN specifically states that this clarity is not equivalent to either 3 states but is equally present in all three meditative states or nyams or experiences -- of bliss, clarity/movement, and non-thought/emptiness (emptiness here means the calm state, it does not mean freedom from extremes). For example in guru yoga after the visualizations one is asked to drop that visualization and then notice Who is being Present in that? This is self-inquiry and will lead to the realization of unconditioned clarity (a.k.a. Instant Presence). That is really no different from what I call I AM realization. This is essential for beginning to practice Dzogchen and I'm glad it's pointed out in their main method. So, even the self inquiry method is similar to the method that led to my I AM realization in 2010. I went to Dzogchen retreat in 2012 and then started to have a better understanding of ChNN's methods and terminologies.

Also it should be understand that what I call "realization of emptiness" or even "realization of anatta" is really not the result of suspending concepts. It is a direct realization, it is not the result of intellectual analysis, but it is not through the suspending of concepts. With regards to this:


"…The process of eradicating avidyā is conceived… not as a mere
stopping of thought, but as the active realization of the opposite of
what ignorance misconceives. Avidyā is not a mere absence of knowledge,
but a specific misconception, and it must be removed by realization of
its opposite. In this vein, Tsongkhapa says that one cannot get rid of
the misconception of 'inherent existence' merely by stopping
conceptuality any more than one can get rid of the idea that there is a
demon in a darkened cave merely by trying not to think about it. Just as
one must hold a lamp and see that there is no demon there, so the
illumination of wisdom is needed to clear away the darkness of
ignorance."
Napper, Elizabeth, 2003, p. 103



..........

p.s.


Clarence wrote:

I am just wondering if that emptiness is the same emptiness as one
of the three experiences of body, speech and mind.


Malcolm said:


Not the same.

The experience of emptiness is a state free from thought.

Ka dag emptiness is a fundamental feature of the basis, it is the emptiness discussed in madhyamaka.


Malcolm:

ChNN
frequently says this actually, but he does not mean realization of
emptiness free from extremes, he means an experience where the mind is
empty of thought.

Malcolm:

Yes.

Also as to how it all maps to the bhumis:

The different tradition says different things.

However generally there is a consensus that the beginning of entering the Arya Bodhisattva stages, or entering the path of seeing, would entail a direct realization of emptiness. Emptiness here means empty of inherent existence. (It is not, as MCTB seem to suggest, equivalent to a fruition cessation)

I think the Gelugpas may suggest that the first bhumi realizes Anatta or the firstfold emptiness. Some other presentations may say the first bhumi Bodhisattva have realized twofold emptiness.

How about 'Thusness stages'? Stage 5 would be firstfold emptiness, Stage 6 would be secondfold emptiness.

Then as to how those stages then unfold, again, different traditions have different presentations. The Mahamudra would correlate their four yogas to the bhumis. Even the Dzogchen Thodgal path its correlation:


"According to Khenpo Ngachung, the paths and stages don't really map to Dzogchen, but you can explain things that way:

Visions 1 & 2, below the path of seeing.
Vision 3; path of seeing and path of cultivation (bhumis 1-7)
vision 4; end of path of cultivation and path of no more learning (stages 8 to 16)."

-- Malcolm

Yes, ChNNR is totally clear on this point. The experience of non-thought/emptiness is a conditioned experience. It's also not the same as 'calm state' as the latter can include thoughts arising but 'isn't conditioned by them'. He also places the experience of everything being illusory or dream-like in the categorty of emptiness as one of the 'three experiences', i.e., a conditioned state. Yes, the emptiness of the base/reality is different from a passing experience of non-thought or dreamlikeness of phenomena. Thanks for pointing out that distinction. It definitely applies to what I am saying and I am not referring to the conditioned state of non-thought either in referring to 'calm state' in the Semde or in referring to rigpa as the self-awareness of the base.

Also, 'not reifying' phenomena according to the four extremes as a direct insight into the nature of experience has nothing to do with the presence or absence of thoughts as far as I can tell. Thoughts (in the broadest sense of the term) are what characterize phenomena as this way or that way, so they in this broad sense are required for reification. However it isn't necessary to suspend them in order to stop reifying but merely to see them as 'being' in the same way as all other phenomena: beyond the four extremes.

I don't understand what you mean by including this quote (which apparently pertains to Madhyamaka anyway):
"…The process of eradicating avidyā is conceived… not as a mere
stopping of thought, but as the active realization of the opposite of
what ignorance misconceives. Avidyā is not a mere absence of knowledge,
but a specific misconception, and it must be removed by realization of
its opposite".

How do you define the 'active realization of the opposite of what ignorance misconceives"? Do you define it as a conceptual understanding?

To be clear, I agree that suspending concepts is not the same as clearly seeing emptiness, and I grant that there is a difference between clearly seeing emptiness and realizing it as an ongoing integrated insight, the latter of which is not something I can claim. Can you?

What do you see as the mechanism for this realization if it is not emptying the mind of concepts or replacing faulty concepts with accurate ones, which we seem to agree on? What is the 'active realization of the oppsite of what ignorance misconceives' in your own experience and words?

haha I like the way that's phrased... very slippery...  yeah, really, Mahayana and Dzogchen/Tantra are historically very divergent systems but of course if you want you can try to map them to each other. My impression is this is usually done due to politics ;)

I have heard a Kagyu Lama refer to First Bhumi as involving the realization of no-subject, that there is no-one 'behind' experience, which would perhaps relate to annatta in your teacher's system. The complete realization of twofold emptiness is often equated with budhhahood, no? This Lama's presentation of the Bhumis was pretty straightforward and down to earth at least for the ones he implied he had personal experience with (1-4) and he also clearly said that he thought many of his students were on the Bhumis as well. He referred to another famous teacher of whom he didn't really approve as an 8th level bodhisattva, which I thought was very gracious, even though he was using him as an example of how anyone short of full buddhahood can 'make mistakes' (by which he meant can cause suffering to students unnecessarily).

Some of the more traditional Bhumi descriptions of course are very fanciful to modern ears and difficult to relate to; that said, I've never heard an explanation except in MCTB in which the first bhumi was any less than the realization of annatta (4th path). I think it's a unique system with its own structures and processes and a whole culture and metaphysic which surrounds it that, ultimately, is foreign to Dzogchen.

Actually as I understand it, third vision or realization of emptiness would be "full measure of rig pa", it is the fourth vision that follows that is referred to as "Then, after that, it is time to exhaust dharmatā".

Malcolm also said: "As I said, it is treated in the same way. When a bodhisattva realizes the first bhumi, there is no more emptiness to realize, all that is left to do is to complete the two accumulations, as I told you, the ten stages only map qualities, not realization."

For example, a bodhisattva on the bhumis still experience varying degrees of emotional and cognitive obscurations, whereas a Buddha has completely released them and has completed the two accumulations. Bodhisattvas on the stages still have not perfected all the paramis, or attained all the wonderful qualities of Buddhahood and omniscience, etc etc.

Also, a bodhisattva may experience equipoise and post-equipoise, but a Buddha is constantly in a state of actualization and does not experience post-equipoise. "Things have relative nature, how they appear as objects of perceptions of an ordinary person; they have an ultimate nature, which is what an ārya perceives in equipoise, and what a buddha perceives at all times." -- Malcolm

That is to say, what an arya Bodhisattva, a.k.a. an awakened Bodhisattva, experiences in meditative equipoise -- the ultimate nature of emptiness, is completely equivalent to what the Buddha experiences, except a Bodhisattva may not actualize their realization all the time but the Buddha does.

Somebody asked me about actualization again today, I referred to something Thusness wrote about actualizing anatta in real-time experience:

"Just like the case we talk abt designations come "live", u must know that in anatta, it is not just the freedom that comes from seeing through self -- the release; it is also not a mere dry mode of being non-conceptual but an insight that opens the floodgate that turns everything "alive". Sound is clean, clear, brilliance, transparent and it turns "alive". This new direct mode of perception enables us to touch the "heart" of whatever arises."

Living in this 'mode' of insight in real time experiences be it in sitting, walking, working, sleeping, is actualizing. Yes, even in sleep it can be actualized.


Then there is actualization of twofold emptiness, and the actualization of total exertion.


p.s. regarding Bodhisattvas making mistakes, I just got reminded of something Thusness told me 3 days ago:

"Many of the problems arise from the inability to clearly discern what is absolute and what is relative truth.
But there will always be dispute about the 2 truths for cognitive obscuration continues even up to 10th bhumi stage."

Thanks, I'm pretty familiar with the dogmas regarding the difference between buddhas and bodhisattvas and the coincident difference between equipoise and subsequent states and I'm not sure how they relate to our discussion?

I think it goes back to my question about the difference between realization and actualization.

That they are both different from a passing experience is clear to me. How they differ from each other is not so clear. Can you describe your own process with annatta to illuminate these three? From initial peak experiences of no-mind... through realization of annatta... through actualization of annatta... particularly, how do the latter two differ?

I'm trying to understand your use of the term 'realization' as it is often taken to mean a permanent shift in how things are understood and experienced, so in that case, there is no need for actualization.

For instance, in your quote about the bhummis Malcom says that at 1sdt bhumi everything is realized, but that a further process is necessary to reach buddhahood which is when this realization is present continuously? When all cognitive and emotional obscurations are no longer arising? So then what is the 'realization' at first bhumi and how does it differ from merely the first glimpse of emptiness/reality/whatever? Or are you saying they are the same?

Again, this whole framework has a completely different view from dzogchen. Although dzogchen pragmatically recognizes the necessity of a process of awakening and stabilization, it doesn't conceive this in terms of substantialized 'obscurations' which are actually present and which need to actually be purified. So it is questionable whether these systems can really be mapped to each other adequately as they seem to imply incompattible views.

An experience is simply an experience but there is no lasting insight. There are many types of experience... non-doership, I AM, nondual, no mind, etc etc. They come and go. (And then there are corresponding insights and realizations at each of those level)

Realization on the other hand is not a glimpse. Say, the realization of anatta, when it happened for me the sense of an agent, background observer, or even 'awareness' is completely gone and in the whole of waking life is effortlessly and naturally pervaded with this luminous taste as it is seen that 'in hearing only sound, no hearer', there is no awareness/hearing besides the luminous sound, so there is just this pure unfiltered cognizance that is none other than sound presenting itself on its own in its complete directness, vivid, clear, incredible aliveness and luminous intensity, and likewise 'in seeing only scenery, no seer', ..... etc, which leads to an intimate.. no... gapless experience of everything which is simply happening and being aware where they are without a referencepoint, a vantagepoint, from which they are looked at. Everything is intensely 'aware' where they are without a center or agent. There is both intense luminosity and a sense of release.

In the whole of waking life, this has become a natural after realizing anatta. Even before realizing anatta there were glimpses of that, where by intently listening to a sound, or looking at a scenery, or dancing, to the vanishingpoint of subjectivity leaving only pure sensation, which often comes with a "Wow!" as if I have entered into another dimension or state but will eventually exit out of it, however, it was not the natural or effortless state as there is not yet there is still the obscuration of self-view which prevents the effortless and natural dissolution of self/Self, thus that dissolution remains a peak experience or fleeting glimpses. But when the mind realizes that there isn't an observer and the way things are, there is no effort, just in seeing, only forms and colors and in hearing, only sounds, all very natural and effortless. When the veil is gone, there is naturally no obstruction and everything becomes most direct and clear without gap. There is no issue of 'entering' or 'exiting' from a state, there is no entry or exit.

Even though after anatta it becomes effortless and natural and becomes sort of perpetual in the waking state, at the very initial phase one may still notice dulling after the initial 3 months of intense peak experience. By dulling I don't mean that the sense of an observer or self/Self has obviously returned, it just means the intensity apparently becomes less intense. That too will be overcome after some time especially with deepening insights and practice. Another issue is that it may still not enter into the sleep, but eventually one will start to experience that.

Regarding realization -- realization can never be lost once realized. But whether it is 'fully actualized' is another question. If you are fully actualizing that realization, then all traces of self/Self/inherency are completely released in actual taste... and as I said the taste is not simply of a freedom, but it is opening another mode of perception. Usually in waking state it happens first then it enters into sleep states.

But even when it is realized that there isn't any awareness/observer besides the sensations and manifestation and there is no more sense of duality, one still has yet to penetrate 2 folds. The "absence/emptiness" of appearance/sensations/dharma will still be understood as some ultimate true existence (sensations) undergoing the phase of arising, abiding and ceasing in a flickering instant. The depth of 2-fold emptiness in terms of insights and actual taste will not be there. Spaciousness and Illusion-like emptiness will not permeate one's entire being in actual experience.

And this is where realizing the non-arising nature of naked sensation is important, what I wrote:

"In deep contemplation, it can become apparent in direct experience and insight that all appearances are merely appearances, nothing arising or staying or ceasing... there is no actual birth of anything. Just like no matter what images appear on the movie or in a dream it will never amount to anything more than an appearance, without anything that truly come into existence. This is different from resolving non-arising through being-time. Lastly it is not that things are mental projections but that they are dependent arising.. what dependently originates is empty and nonarising appearance... momentary suchness, but still as vivid.

It is with some reluctance that I'm sharing this... I'm afraid that writing this might be a disservice to readers. I shall refrain from posting and discussing further about this. I do not wish this to become merely something to talk about, it has to be seen in direct taste and insight... so that one knows what the experience is like and what the realization is. Spouting big words or philosophizing about this do not mean anything."

No, as I understand it, the path may be different, but the result (Buddhahood) is actually the same.

That is, the exhaustion of phenomena into dharmata is really no different from overcoming emotional/cognitive obscurations.

As someone wrote,

"The fourth vision is precisely the exhaustion of phenomena in dharmata, this includes all apparent phenomena including those mental and emotional, as well as any and all beliefs. In fact the letting go of any clinging or attachment of any kind is fundamental to the very definition of both trekcho and togal and what is a belief if not a form of clinging or attachment? "

 AEN, thank you, this is excellent. Very clear. On the contrary I think you should share your own experience more directly as a rule and quote others less. Probably something is lost in cultural translation-- I assume quoting your teachers and avoiding direct descriptions of your experience is a sign of humility and respect-- however, for me at least, this is so much more clear and understandable, and actually (ironically) conduces to less philosophizing than when you quote others at length (which indeed can come across as mere word-mongering). Thanks again for sharing this. Take care, 
--Jake

Thusness had a casual discussion with me regarding the various phases of seeing through intrinsic-ness in experience:

Realizing the nature (i.e. non-arising, empty nature) of clarity is not the same as realizing clarity. Anatta can lead one to experience whatever arises/appearance as presence.

Presence is part of the journey. The practitioner goes through anatta and realizes what we called presence is just appearance. Then he must start

looking at absence. There are at least 4 levels of seeing through intrinsic-ness or the realizing of absence and anatta is just the beginning.

1. The emptiness (i.e. non-existence of a) background

2. Seeing foreground appearance as empty like mist or shimmering paint in

the pond but appearance is seen as arising, abiding and ceasing.

3. Seeing absence in vivid presence... means in clear vivid non-dual

appearance, realize it is never there at all. At this phase, there must

be complete conviction without the slightest doubt from logical

analysis in understanding why it is "never there". The article where I

asked you what is second fold... non-Arisen emptiness. (link: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2013/04/daniels-post-on-anattaemptiness.html)

4. Turn insight of non-arisen in 3 into a taste, otherwise the 2 mindstreams cannot become one... that is, mind stream of dependent arising and emptiness are like what Tsongkhapa said "mutually exclusive", no way to become one unless one reaches Buddhahood. This is because we do not know the key is in recognizing the taste of absence (i.e translate the logical and inferring consciousness into a taste).

...

It is fully and vividly present and in the midst of this clear presence/appearance, it is realized as absence. That is why there is no arising, abiding and ceasing - non-arisen.

When you hear music and just music, there is no hearer... no hearer is anatta (lvl 1), the beautiful music in clean transparency is non-dual appearance... when absence is seen only when music disappears like a disappearing mist then it is phase 2. If it is clearly heard in non-dual mode and simultaneously realized to be absence (without the music disappearing) then it is phase 3. Then entire being will be pervaded with deep sense of illusion-like spaciousness.

But all these are just -A. Next is to look at +A. It is exactly the same again but this round non-conceptual appearance and dependent arising is brought to be seen and understood at the conventional level.

So it is understanding the nature of experience...not just directly experiencing awareness.

After this practice is no practice... just complete non-dual releasing... natural and spontaneous. When essencelessness is thoroughly seen through, the way of practice can only be spontaneous presence and natural perfection. Essence/inherent is what that prevents one from being natural and spontaneous. But don't link it to Dzogchen... all these about spontaneous presence and natural perfection is simply thoroughness of knowing the habit and many faces of inherent tendencies... may be completely different from Dzogchen spontaneous presence.

So do you know why it must be in a state of non-dual presence...?

"Then at this moment of appreciating maha suchness of the breath, the sensations, the entire scenery, the entire world…

Understand that they are Empty!

Experience the magnificence then deeply understand that they are empty but this Emptiness has nothing to do with deconstruction nor reification nor do I mean they are simply impermanent. So what is this Emptiness I am referring to?"

It must be vividly present with all magnificence... why? Because if it is gone then it is not the phase 3 absence.

David replied to me:

The singularity of seeing is self evident. The absence of a seer naturally gives rise to the absence of an object (of seeing), the knowing of which is clarity itself.
2 hrs · Like


I (AEN) replied:

David what you're writing is more about non-dual awareness. But there can be different phases in seeing the nature of non-dual awareness.

Non-dual awareness can reveal everything to be Mind as subject-object dichotomy is deconstructed, but this Mind may be seen to be changeless and inherently existing, which is the substantial nondualism of One Mind. Therefore it is said there is no objects, everything is Self/Awareness/etc. The reflection is none other than the mirror, yet the mirror is not its reflections. This is not yet understanding anatta.

Then it can be realized that 'awareness' is none other than the transience, the manifestation, that there is really no inherently existing/changeless Awareness containing, subsuming, or even 'being inseparable with' manifestation, just like the word 'weather' does not exist as something that contains or subsumes the rain and wind and clouds but is merely a convention collating them, empty of being something in itself.

That, is anatta, and any sense of self/Self behind manifestation is seen through. And this is case 1) -- the emptiness of a background. Then one can proceed on to 2), where by zooming into the impermanence and insubstantiality of pure clarity/manifestation, one tastes the shimmering appearance to be fluxing wave-like or cloud-like or water-painting-like patterns, or like what I scribbled down during an acid trip: "everything is so pure, clean, unfiltered, manifest, clear, just that sensation... consciousness forms/"modulates" (not exactly a good word) like cloud patterns, insubstantial... appears and disappears like a mist".

3) emptiness is directly realized to be the true nature of clarity/manifestation not by zooming into impermanence, but by contemplating Dependent Origination and suddenly it is realized how appearances, like mirror reflections that appear dependently, is really never there. (For example sometimes two of the same faces appear on the 'same mirror' at different locations depending on which eye you use to look at it, which again is due to dependent origination) And what dependently originates is fundamentally non-arising -- uncreated, unborn, never abiding and never ceasing. Zooming into impermanence is unable to remove the fundamental inherent view of seeing 'arising/abiding/ceasing', however it does lead to a taste of the whole field as being insubstantial.

This is where in my previous post it's stated, "But even when it is realized that there isn't any awareness/observer besides the sensations and manifestation and there is no more sense of
duality, one still has yet to penetrate 2 folds. The "absence/emptiness"
of appearance/sensations/dharma will still be understood as some
ultimate true existence (sensations) undergoing the phase of arising,
abiding and ceasing in a flickering instant. The depth of 2-fold
emptiness in terms of insights and actual taste will not be there.
Spaciousness and Illusion-like emptiness will not permeate one's entire
being in actual experience."

Now, in Phase 3, that instant of clarity is realized to be non-arising not by seeing how they momentarily manifests/shimmers for an instant and subsides, but the very presence itself is absence, non-arising, unborn, uncreated, like mirror reflection... the taste of illusory is present in the clarity/appearance without its disappearance, and the illusion of something going through arising/abiding/ceasing is seen through.

4) The realization of non-arising results in an actual taste of everything being illusory appearances, yet it is not like the sort of 'everything is just an illusion, the only reality is Mind/Brahman/Awareness' kind of substantialist view, rather, it is the very vivid non-dual presence itself that we're talking, the very non-dual and luminous display which in all its intense wonder and clarity, is empty and illusory. This is the 'yogic view' of the two truths as one, absence and presence.