If someone talks about an experience he/she had and then lost it,
that's not (the true, deep) awakening... As many teachers put it, it's
the great samadhi without entry and exit.
John Tan: There is no entry and exit. Especially for no-self. Why is there no entry and exit?
Me (Soh): Anatta (no-self) is always so, not a stage to attain. So it's about realisation and shift of perception.
John Tan: Yes
👍
As John also used to say to someone else, "Insight that 'anatta' is a seal and not a stage must arise to further progress into the 'effortless' mode. That is, anatta is the ground of all experiences and has always been so, no I. In seeing, always only seen, in hearing always only sound and in thinking, always only thoughts. No effort required and never was there an 'I'."
---
Here's a description by Daniel Ingram of what is awakening, also an interesting
comment about whether he would trade it for anything else. It's a good
description which resonates with my experience.
“Since the topic
has come up so often and been so bandied about so many times by so many
people, let me state here what I mean by 4th path, regardless of what
anyone else means by it. It has the following qualities:
1) Utter
centerlessness: no watcher, no sense of a watcher, no subtle watcher,
no possibility of a watcher. This is immediately obvious just as color
is to a man with good eyesight as the old saying goes. Thus, anything
and everything simply and obviously manifest just where they are. No
phenomena observe any others and never did or could.
2) Utter
agencylessness: meaning no agency, no sense of doing, no sense of doer,
no sense that there could be any agent or doer, no way to find anything
that seems to be in control at all. Whatever effort or intent or
anything like that that arises does so naturally, causally, inevitably,
as it always actually did. This is immediately obvious, though not
always the forefront of attention.
3) No cycles change or stages
or states or anything else like that do anything to this direct
comprehension of simple truths at all.
4) There is no deepening
in it to do. The understanding stands on its own and holds up over
cycles, moods, years, etc and doesn't change at all. I have nothing to
add to my initial assessment of it from 9 years ago.
5) There is
nothing subtle about it: anything and everything that arises exhibits
these same qualities directly, clearly. When I was third path,
particularly late in it, those things that didn't exhibit these
qualities were exceedingly subtle, and trying to find the gaps in the
thing was exceedingly difficult and took years and many cycles. I had
periods from weeks to months where it felt done and then some subtle
exception would show up and I would realize I was wrong yet again, so
this is natural and understandable, and if someone claims 4th as I
define it here and later says they got it wrong, have sympathy for them,
as this territory is not easy and can easily fool people, as it did me
many, many times over about 5 years or so. However, 4th, as I term it,
ended that and 9 years later that same thing holds, which is a very long
time in this business.
There are other aspects that may be of
value to discuss at some other time, but those are a great place to
start for those who wish to claim this. If you truly have those, then
perhaps we can talk about a few other points that are less central and
essential.
Now, how there can still be affect (though quite
modified in many ways) when there is centerlessness and agencylessness,
this is a mystery to the AF kids and to me as well, and that brings me
to my next point: there seems to be areas of development depending on
what you look for and aim for that may arise independently, and not
everything seems to come as a package necessarily. Those things are what
I looked for really hard for about 7 years, and that is what I found.
Now I find that the interest in the unraveling of what drives that
residual affect is arising, and so that investigation happens on its own
also.
Perhaps people will find this helpful in some way.”
...
"Well, these debates go on and on and on.
A few simple points:
I still very much recommend my criteria as helpfully posted above. They
have merit and value, and achieving those really shifts reality to
something much better, having myself tried the before and after, I can
tell you that from my point of view there is nothing more important that
I achieved and attained than the total elimination of all sense of
doer, watcher, controller, center point, observer, etc. True and total
elimination of duality was a massive step up from the near total
elimination of it: no comparison at all. It is hard to imagine that
anyone else wouldn't value it the same way I do, but then tastes differ.
There are many axes of development: insight, concentration (and it has
many axes within it), morality (an endless festival of axes to develop,
including emotional and psychological health). Insight stands alone in
that it is all basically towards one goal, and that goal does transform
the relationship to all of the rest of it in ways that provide global
improvement at the core sensate and paradigmatic levels of intrinsic
processing. The rest are all also important, but nothing does what that
does.
I really appreciate the chapter in Chögyam Trungpa's
Journey Without Goal about the Five Buddha Families. This is a video of
that chapter by the crazy old dead perverted but helpful genius himself:
The Five Buddha Families
His embracing of the wide range of
experience in all its human glory is so valuable, and that helped
empower me to really take on everything that was going on in my
experience. I still must warn against the limited emotional range models
and what they can do to practice: beware becoming like those who follow
those: so many complexities occur.
Is my emotional life transformed by my insights? Vastly transformed, no question.
Do I still manifest all the standard emotions: definitely, and some even more strongly than I did before.
Is there vastly less suffering in them as a result of their happening
totally on their own just like qualities of space? Absolutely.
Is
this anything like the disconnect feared by a poster above? Not in the
least: there is no disconnection, because there is no longer any
imagined thing to be disconnected.
The field lights up itself
totally, without division, without restraint, without any barrier or
gap, so disconnection is impossible. Does really honestly feeling what
is going on help with emotional transformation more than models that
imply that we shouldn't feel what we are feeling? I definitely think so.
Would I trade this for anything? Maybe world peace, but I would have to
think about it. Until then, this totally rocks, and missing out on it
would be barking crazy from my point of view.
Best wishes, and practice well,
Daniel"