Eckhart Tolle on manifestation:

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    Soh Wei Yu
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    This is something a little off topic and unrelated to manifestation:

    The peak of the 'completeness of the present moment' and absence of 'feeling of lack' which Eckhart Tolle eludes to, is 'in the seen just the seen', 'in the heard just the heard'.
    If the heat is just heat, the heat kills you and the whole universe is the heat. If cold is just cold, the cold kills you, and the whole universe is cold. (See: Where There Is No Cold or Heat) In such a state, you are completely 'killed'. It is as if, and in fact in an experiential sense it is absolutely true, 'you' no longer exist at all. There is no trace of 'you' left anywhere in the universe. It is such a state of equipoise accompanied with prajna wisdom that liberates. And how can there be incompleteness, imperfection, or feeling of lack in such a state? How can there be mental unease, resistance, or craving in such a state, whether you are sitting on a porch in front of a beach, a mountain, or a slum?

    Bitten by mosquitoes is just another sensation - in sensing only sensation, no sensor. Sensations are just sensations, they kill 'you' (and in fact after anatta is realised as always already so and becomes stable natural state then there is no longer even a 'killing you' it's just naturally so as an actualized state). The sensations don't bother you at all, it is more like you bother the sensation, or rather the sense of 'self' is in fact the karmic activity of resisting that sensation. It's like someone can be very annoyed at some sounds, and another person just sits there in a state of zen and equanimity, why? The sounds in and of itself doesn't bother the person, it's the person 'bothering the sound'. The Buddha said, the eyes and forms, body and sensations, and so on, doesn't fetter you, it is the desire [or resistance/aversion/delusion] towards them that constitutes the fetter. Fetter or afflictions is simply 'self-created' chains and bondage, the aggregates are in and of themselves free when seen as they are.
     

    (Update: and when I said self-created I don't mean arising from a truly existing agent as there isn't any, but rather arising due to the nexus of ignorance-driven dependent origination)

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  • Bodhidharma says, "The usual person, through basic ignorance, fixates on one thing and then another.

     

    This basic ignorance is the root of self-image, avidya, basic ignorance, ignoring the fact that one is already fundamentally free and pretending to be bound. In the midst of space, trying to carve out some territory, as if one could build walls out of the sheer air, as if one could tie knots in the air, nail clouds in place.

     

    This tying of knots, this erecting of walls, this nailing things down, is this fixating on one thing and then another, grasping at thought, grasping at sounds and feelings, grasping at forms, and names. This is called craving.

     

    And so the craving that we need to address in our practice is not just a matter of giving up our attachment to fashion or a beautiful house, a beautiful wife, a beautiful husband, beautiful children, a beautiful life in which there are no problems. Dropping that does not liberate, because all craving, all greed, all lust, all anger, are rooted in this fundamental strategy of self-image to contract and localize, to create boundaries within emptiness, to grasp at emptiness. And so we must understand this process of fixation as it arises, and it arises not in a beautiful house. It arises in this moment of seeing and hearing. It arises as mind moments display themselves, and as this display is interpreted to be self and other, time and space, body and mind. This is the craving that we must understand and release.

     

    - Anzan Hoshin Roshi

     

    SN 35.28 

    PTS: S iv 19 

    CDB ii 1143

    Adittapariyaya Sutta: The Fire Sermon

    translated from the Pali by 

    Thanissaro Bhikkhu

    © 1993

    Alternate translation: Ñanamoli

    Alternate format: [SuttaReadings.net icon]

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    I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying in Gaya, at Gaya Head, with 1,000 monks. There he addressed the monks:

    "Monks, the All is aflame. What All is aflame? The eye is aflame. Forms are aflame. Consciousness at the eye is aflame. Contact at the eye is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the eye — experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain — that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I tell you, with birth, aging & death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, & despairs.

    "The ear is aflame. Sounds are aflame...

    "The nose is aflame. Aromas are aflame...

    "The tongue is aflame. Flavors are aflame...

    "The body is aflame. Tactile sensations are aflame...

    "The intellect is aflame. Ideas are aflame. Consciousness at the intellect is aflame. Contact at the intellect is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the intellect — experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain — that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I say, with birth, aging & death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, & despairs.

    "Seeing thus, the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones grows disenchanted with the eye, disenchanted with forms, disenchanted with consciousness at the eye, disenchanted with contact at the eye. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the eye, experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain: With that, too, he grows disenchanted.

    "He grows disenchanted with the ear...

    "He grows disenchanted with the nose...

    "He grows disenchanted with the tongue...

    "He grows disenchanted with the body...

    "He grows disenchanted with the intellect, disenchanted with ideas, disenchanted with consciousness at the intellect, disenchanted with contact at the intellect. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the intellect, experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain: He grows disenchanted with that too. Disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion, he is fully released. With full release, there is the knowledge, 'Fully released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'"

    That is what the Blessed One said. Gratified, the monks delighted at his words. And while this explanation was being given, the hearts of the 1,000 monks, through no clinging (not being sustained), were fully released from fermentation/effluents.

      



    More comments by Soh:


    🙂 it doesnt mean there really is a person bothering the sound, the “person” is the activity of “bothering the sound” but it is in a sense a distinct stream of phenomena arising in dependence on ignorance and sound Once anatta insight is clear the way of practice is also clear It is like bahiya sutta and Māluṅkyaputta Sutta
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