The Way of Maha Ati
(Maha Ati = Great Perfection/Dzogchen)

John Tan a week ago: 

"There is no self. If there is a split between self and other, then training of self is in understanding otherness. If you are to practice forgoing ego, you are essentially practicing full opening when meeting situations, events and otherness." 

I then sent John Tan the Maha Ati text by Chogyam Trungpa (I know he is a teacher who had issues with conduct and controversies, but sometimes you can write something well without fully living it)

Download the text here: https://app.box.com/s/xegntds90q29m5a5f0nbeuiq9u4d6u4r

John Tan replied "Quite good"
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Innate and Imputing Ignorance
Lopon Malcolm:

“In the basis (Tibetan: གཞི, Wylie: gzhi) there were neutral awarenesses (sh shes pa lung ma bstan) that did not recognize themselves. (Dzogchen texts actually do not distinguish whether this neutral awareness is one or multiple.) This non-recognition was the innate ignorance. Due to traces of action and affliction from a previous universe, the basis became stirred and the Five Pure Lights shone out. When a neutral awareness recognized the lights as its own display, that was Samantabhadra (immediate liberation without the performance of virtue). Other neutral awarenesses did not recognize the lights as their own display, and thus imputed “other” onto the lights. This imputation of “self” and “other” was the imputing ignorance. This ignorance started sentient beings and samsara (even without non-virtue having been committed). Yet everything is illusory, since the basis never displays as anything other than the five lights.”

Kyle Dixon:

“I’m obviously preferable to the Dzogchen system because I started there and although branching out, my primary interest has remained there. But I do appreciate the run-down of avidyā or ignorance in the Dzogchen system because it is tiered and accounts for this disparity I am addressing. 

There are two or three levels of ignorance which are more like aspects of our delusion regarding the nature of phenomena. The point of interest in that is the separation of what is called “innate” (or “connate”) ignorance, from what is called “imputing ignorance.”

The imputing ignorance is the designating of various entities, dimension of experience and so on. And one’s identity results from that activity. 

The connate ignorance is the failure to correctly apprehend the nature of phenomena. The very non-recognition of the way things really are. 

This is important because you can have the connate ignorance remain in tact without the presence of the imputing ignorance. 

This separation is not even apparent through the stilling of imputation like in śamatha. But it can be made readily apparent in instances where you awaken from sleep, perhaps in a strange location, on vacation etc., or even just awakening from a deep sleep. There can be a period of moments where you do not realize where you are right yet, and then suddenly it all comes back, where you are, what you have planned for the day, where you need to be, etc., 

In those initial moments you are still conscious and perceiving appearances, and there is still an innate experience of the room being external and objects being something over-there, separate from oneself. That is because this fundamental error in recognition of the nature of phenomena is a deep conditioning that creates the artificial bifurcation of inner and outer experiential dimensions, even without the activity of imputation.”
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All Appearance as Vivid Voidness
If you say that the nature of all thoughts is total voidness without arising or cessation, you take voidness too literally and fall into the extreme of nihilism. What they are is vividness that leaves no trace; whose nature is without arising, cessation, or duration; and which cannot be identified as having this colour, that shape, etc.

If you realise this much, you have developed a little understanding. Furthermore, you must recognise that they cannot be identified as this or that, and do so without thinking conceptually, "They cannot be identified as this or that." And without any grasping or contradiction in your mind between the vividness and the voidness of thoughts, you must recognise that thoughts arise and subside simultaneously, like a drawing on water.

In addition, you must gain the insight that there is not the slightest difference in nature between thought and its object, between the settled mind and the moving mind, between past mind and present mind, and so forth. They are all by nature clear, brilliant awareness.

When you draw a thought in for investigation, or if it disappears, it is not that it has gone into clear voidness, nor that such voidness has been left in its wake. Rather, the thought that arises all of a sudden is itself clear voidness. When you realise or gain this insight, then you have recognised the nature of thought.

There is not even the slightest difference between the non-conceptual state and the state of true insight into the triad of dynamic thought, settled mind, and thought's nature as clear, void, and brilliant. To distinguish between these is an interpolation of the mind that does not recognise them.

—Wangchug Dorje, 9th Karmapa (1556-1603), "Mahāmudrā: Eliminating the Darkness of Ignorance"
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Robert Dominik's Breakthrough
Also see No Mind and Anatta, Focusing on Insight 

Robert Dominik practices Dzogchen, manages http://www.tkanka.eu and teaches meditation (website and contents are in Polish). In his words, "...After coleading a meditation workshop with one of Trungpa's close students and getting permission from one of Dharma Ocean senior teachers to do classes and workshops on Somatic Meditation I started to do classes and workshops in my free time (afterhours). My partner got permission to work with Genpo Roshi's Big Mind method - she is also a therapist and a coach. Apart from that we had experience in Tantra, meditation for couples and other forms of meditation practice so we've decided to cooperate and work on our own programs (mostly on meditation, somatic practice and relationships). And it sort of developed from there - the feedback was very good..."


Robert Dominik wrote:

"No self. Never was. Only mistaken way of seeing experience due to attributing selfhood to dependent interplay of 18 dhatus."

So not long ago I've reached a milestone in my practice. I related it then to Soh Wei Yu with the above words. Here's the rest:
"Colors, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations and mental objects rolling on."

"These too lacking substance - coming and going does not appen, nothing truly arises, abides or ceases, compounded and uncompouded dharmas do not exist on their own. Even movement is just an illusion due to mistakenly construing on the basis of different moments - which also lack essence. Yet everything is wondrously and magically appearing - circumstances and conditions. Everything is perfely luminious but it is impossible to find any observer, any background or any essence in or outside of display."

The rest is mostly a convo on how did the insight happen and so on. It is worth quoting the following:

"I am confident that it's impossible for there to be any self nor reality to the illusion so there is no idea like "this might arise again" because there never was a self to begin with..."


Background
As promised I would prepare some journal entry about it. Hence I've written this text. Before the above happened I had some exchanges with Soh and Thusness concerning practice. After a Dzogchen Bon retreat which I've attended I had a powerful experience which also was a milestone in terms of my own Dzogchen practice (it was a precise taste of selfliberation of thoughts - and true enough after that event many pointers from Soh and Thusness made experiental sense like: for example how would it feel if there was no thinker of thoughts etc). However after relating it to Soh Wei Yu he considered it to be a No-mind experience. The fact is that there was no clarity about no-self being a seal. I started contemplating pointers from Soh and Thusness and in the background of my own practice there was this remembering that Anatta is a seal. This slowly shifted my focus from trying to achieve states of suspending duality to penetrating into the actual nature of experience. I've also had a few powerful endorsements for this type of shift from Dzogchen sources that I was reading at the time. Thusness also noted in one convo that it would be worthwhile if I worked on Metta a little bit. Interestingly enough my biggest problem with actualising that the Anatta is a seal was the tendency to experience contraction and stress while interacting if people. I'd then be under the impression that "a sense of self is arising again". So a wrong view persisted and one of its marks was big dichotomy between meditating in solitude and interacting with people. The funny thing is that I was going through a Reggie Ray program called Awakening the Heart which mostly deals with somatic ways of cultivating relative Bodhichitta (4 immeasurables, tonglen, maitri and karuna etc.) and studying relative Bodhichitta section of Namkhai Norbu's training program. These helped me to relax while interacting with people and help me open up a little bit, improve my behavior and attitude etc. This was an important factor in developing my practice.

Insight
The breaktrough itself happened during an 8 day retreat. With my partner we were practising together the NN's program I've mentioned. We dedicated the first 3 days to the secondary practices of samten (based on Shantideva's Bodhisattvacharyavatara - the section on the Fifth Paramita). This had prepared a fertile ground for the insight to happen and was a kind of a culmination of my work on Metta etc.
Then we had 5 days dedicated to contemplating the absence of independent identity. 1 day of working on emptiness of self and 4 days of working on emptiness of phenomena. 4 x 2 hours each day + lots of extra studying/reading (Pali Canon: Yamaka Sutta and Aggi-Vachagotta Sutta on the first day; Nectar of Manjushri's Speech - a commentary on Bodhisattvacharyavatara and notes on Bodhisattvacharyavatara by A. Wallace for all 5 days; Sun of Wisdom by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso during the 4 days devoted to emptiness of phenomena).

During the first day I've lost all doubt regarding there never being a self (note: all the insights that I express are actually shared by my partner). We contemplated and pondered questions which CHNNR suggests in his program (which come from instructions from Meditations on Bodhisattvacharyavatara by Patrul), which are basically questions to contemplation like - is Self the same as Body, Speech and Mind or is it something different, what is its origin and so on.
Nectar of Manjushri's Speech was helpful becasue it completely demolishes notion of ultimate, eternal self of Samkhya/Advaita type. The key element was deconstructing the self into 5 skandhas, 12 ayatanas and 18 dhatus. Before this retreat I briefly studied a little bit of Ornament of Abhidharma by Chim Jampaiyang (only the beginning though). It helped me to establish some genuine understanding of what is the purpose of skandhas, ayatanas and dhatus as a teaching tool and made me familiar with them. I deconsructed the whole field of experience. It was impossible to find any self within this field and it was impossible for the self to be somewhere outside (classification of phenomena from abhidharma is troughrough and does not leave anything out). This led me to a Bahiya Sutta type of insight with the taste of "in the seen there is only the seen". I knew about Bahiya Sutta before and tried to employ it but somehow my attempts were hijacked by the wrong view of 'entry-exit'. I was trying to achieve and experience and force 'a Bahiya way of seeing' instead of actually contemplating the nature of experience. Subtle mistake that sets worlds apart. Anyhow the deconstructing of the self gave me unshakeable confidence in lack of selfhood. The insight into lack of self left me at ease - without the feeling of struggle. However there was still intuition that this too is pretty shallow compared of what is going to happen (though very deep insight when compared to what mostly passes as enlightenment in most nondual circles).
The next 4 days was a pretty throughrough contemplation on emptiness of the 5 aggregates. We worked progressively with body and form (1st day of the 4), vedanas (feeling/sensation; 2nd day), mind/consciousness (3rd day), perception and mental fabrications (4th day). Our analysis culminated in uncompounded dharmas and emptiness itself. We've progressively gained total confidence in emptiness of all phenomena. There is no sense in describing the whole process in details but I think there were a few key moments:
  • while contemplating the body the questioning moved to "where is the body now?" and then to "what is here?" and "what is now?". We've analysed where is the body located and saw that all points of reference are relative and without them there is no any "here" and that "here" is only afterthought attached to bodily orienting mechanisms. "Now" was dropped after seeing that without Past (being already gone) and without Future (not yet arisen) it is impossible to designate any "Now". It is impossible to pinpoint such a thing and the absurdity of looking for such reference points in the mere flow of appearances was seen completely. This resulted in a complete and utter ordinariness. Like this is more familiar than something familiar. When you have a feeling or memory of something familiar from childhood... but even more basic and primal. Completele lack of any artificialness - though the intensity of clarity and vividness dwarfed anything that I have ever experienced on psychedelics xD (though without HPPD or hallucinations) or with meditation before.
  • while contemplating the vedanas there was a moment of having an insight that it is impossible to pinpoint pleasure or pain. I then started strongly pressing my finger and a nail into my body to check where the "pain" is but I couldn't pinpoint its reality.
  • Vajra Cutter turned out to be a powerful tool of deconstruction that helped me see that arising and ceasing are impossible.
  • Even space... before the retreat I had a subtle tendency to reify spaciousness and openness into a really existing space. I've noticed that reality to space is only attributed on the basis of phenomena that seemingly are placed in it. Without objects and elements in space one couldn't find it.

Conclusion
So there is no shred of doubt about lack of selfhood and insubstantiality of phenomena.
The funny thing is that before I had an intellectual understanding of some of the aspects of emptiness teachings (in some regards as far as couple of years ago) but these have never penetrated me to the core. Somehow practice in my case was mostly chasing peak experiences of no-mind and having some theory of emptiness. What was lacking in my case was a mixture of factors with most important being:
  • strong routine of meditation - because of not being embodied in the past and not having sufficient meditative introspection I'd turn what I'd intellectually learn on Anatta and Emptiness into a an object of knowledge. This changed in the past. This lack made me miss the opportunity to fully benefit from anatta and emptiness teachings when I first came into contact with them.
  • throrough approach - in the past I would be satisfied with mere "yeah that makes sense" or assuming that I get it because I understand the words. I'd also generalise some glimpses and shreds of understanding to whole of the experience field. But I've never so systematically and precisely worked on discerning the meaning as in the last couples of months. Instead before that I'd just collects bits of pointers and try to latch them onto my peak experiences if that makes sense.
  • critical thinking - actually I've developed a tendency to just assume many teachings that come from Buddhadharma are true. I'd then try to parrot these. Or if somebody more experienced told me that teachings say x or y then I'd be hesitant to express doubts or questions.

Aftermath/effects
It's been almost a month from the said insight. I've noticed some effects but mind you this can be attributed to having a strong routine of daily practice (2 hours a day + regular retreats lately; not to mention that I work in mindfulness business so much of my work is meditating with clients and instructing them in meditation). In any case these include:
  • surge in clarity - the experience most of the times feels like enhanced with drugs in all the positive ways. There is heightened vividness - everything is more sharp and more colorful at the same time. Color, sounds, smells feel more rich.
  • magical illusion - there is quite effortless feeling of everything being a magical display. Whenever I stop concentrating on a given task - it seems to be obvious.
  • increased pain resistance - for example I have a migraine problem - the migraine attacks are less of a nuisance nowadays and I feel like I can cope with them better as pain is just an empty feeling.
  • thoughts seem less problematic - in the past there was attachment to nonthought states in meditation. In general though I have less thoughts nowadays than I used to have (I was a classical overthinker).
  • ease and acceptance towards what happens; general trust in the process of life; increased self-confidence (in the sense of having more confidence in my movements and actions) and honesty (in the past I was quite a manipulative person)
This does not seem final and there is still A LOT more way to go with regards to my practice. It doesn't seem like I can bend spoons or walk through walls. The spontaneous perfection aspect still seems like it has to go through refinement and cycles of insight. My dream awareness definetely would use an improvement
So that's it I guess All the best to you guys and I hope somebody finds this helpful Will be grateful for any useful comments
 
 
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Someone asked:
Are there any available step by step guides to stream entry and awakening that may be written in a digestible and easy to understand means?
 
Robert Dominik replied:
    Robert Dominik Tkanka
    Depends on what do you mean by stream-entry. Its different when it comes to different Vehicles. In Mahayana we would say 1st Bhumi is actually a kind of stream-entry aka realisation of emptiness. Malcolm Smith said that in Dzogchen you could say that experience of chonying ngosum is a kind of stream entry.
    From Pali Canon point of view Anatta realisation is key. Meaning that you directly and without any doubt see there is no self in or outside the skandhas, both in and out nor elsewhere (we were just talking with
    Soh Wei Yu
     about that in the other thread - the Yamaka Sutta one).

    • Reply
    • 4h

    • Robert Dominik Tkanka
    I've actually led a 10-week small study&practice group for experienced meditators on emptiness meditation with
    Veronika Tkanka
     in Polish combining different elements and leading people gradually step by step. A lot of time was spent of working on what Anatta really is. Most of the group has directly and without doubt seen that the self-concept is moot and others had some peaks of No-Mind (all reporting strong, experiental clarity and intensity of experience). I am planning to share some of the findings and observations here but after I'm through with my exams 🙂 For now what I can say is that with regards to Non-self I think what works best is combining 4 things: 1. investigation into the impermanence, 2. systematic and throughrough investigation of the 5 Skandhas and 18 Dhatus to establish the lack of self inside and out 3. the Bahiya Sutta and Anatta stanzas from Thusness 4. orienting the investigation with "anatta being a seal (always already so)". Also it's important for people to have some Shamatha groundwork - preferably with strong embodied orientation so people have actual deep, realisation instead of mental fabrication or philosophical idea about it. They do not necessarily need to be masters of Jhanas but stable experiences of open, panoramic and spacious awareness when doing Shamatha seem to help path. Other helpful ingredients seem to be: strong intention to achieve realisation and metta (or 4 immeasurables) to soften the egoistical clinging. I've wrote a summary of my own breaktrough for Awakening to Reality which might be useful if you are familiar with the blog's lingo and basic buddhist terms (however the account is somewhat raw and unpolished 😃 ) http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/.../robert...
    Robert Dominik's Breakthrough
    AWAKENINGTOREALITY.BLOGSPOT.COM
    Robert Dominik's Breakthrough
    Robert Dominik's Breakthrough
    5

    • Reply
    • 4h
    • Edited

    Matt Harvey
    Robert Dominik Tkanka
     That article was written a year ago now - out of interest, how much of the "aftermath/effects" section is still true today, and how much turned out to be a temporary afterglow of the insight?

    • Reply
    • 1h

    • Robert Dominik Tkanka
    Matt Harvey
     all of these are still true. Not one of them turns out to be temporary afterglow.
    Some have deepened due to further penetration of emptiness of phenomena and spontaneous presence aspects.
    1

  • Reply
  • 1h
  • Edited
 
    Matt Harvey
    Robert Dominik Tkanka
     That article was written a year ago now - out of interest, how much of the "aftermath/effects" section is still true today, and how much turned out to be a temporary afterglow of the insight?

    • Reply
    • 1h

    • Robert Dominik Tkanka
    Matt Harvey
     all of these are still true. Not one of them turns out to be temporary afterglow.
    Some have deepened due to further penetration of emptiness of phenomena and spontaneous presence aspects.
    1

  • Reply
  • 1h
  • Edited
 
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Geovani Geo's Insight - Awareness as Transience, Not Self-Abiding Ground Awareness
Geovani Geo's insight shared in Awakening to Reality group

"From another thread:
Someone wrote: "If you see awareness as the untouchable ground of being then things can come and go within it but not have their own existence apart from awareness - but awareness can exist without them.
If on the other hand you see appearances as being modulations of awareness then there is a sense in which you could say that awareness is always 'modulating' in one way or another. So in this way of looking there is always awareness and it always has some kind of appearance - because appearance is an essential aspect of being and to suggest that either being or appearance could exist separately would be incoherent."
I think a got the whole thing now!! You see, above, you are still projecting "things" AND an "awareness". Even when you posit an awareness that modulates itself, there is still a notion that somehow there is an Awareness that is subtly different from things. Look at it. Why the need to talk about an Awareness that is OTHER than things, and that modulates itself? Only Awareness is!! The flow of ever changing things is what Awareness is!!!
Many here have had this realization, but every now and then, because of the wrong view, such realization slips away and a background is questioned. There is no background AND a foreground. If you use the word god, then there is only god. NOT god AND his creation. The whole thing downed to me this morning. See?"
"When Soh says that he is not denying awareness, sounded strange to me. But considering the OP line of inquiry, it seems obvious that the "awareness" that soh is not denying is not some OTHER awareness separate from things. But maybe he could have been clearer by explaining that the non-negated awareness he is referring to, is just another name for the flux of phenomena, or perhaps what "buddha mind" means. Certainly it is not some ongoing self-abiding ground awareness."
I said,
"Yes good Geovani Geo. As john tan wrote years back:
“What is presence now? Everything... Taste saliva, smell, think, what is that? Snap of a finger, sing. All ordinary activity, zero effort therefore nothing attained. Yet is full accomplishment. In esoteric terms, eat God, taste God, see God, hear God...lol. That is the first thing I told Jax few years back when he first messaged me 😂 If a mirror is there, this is not possible. If clarity isn't empty, this isn't possible. Not even slightest effort is needed. Do you feel it? Grabbing of my legs as if I am grabbing presence! Do you have this experience already? When there is no mirror, then entire existence is just lights-sounds-sensations as single presence. Presence is grabbing presence. The movement to grab legs is Presence.. the sensation of grabbing legs is Presence.. For me even typing or blinking my eyes. For fear that it is misunderstood, don't talk about it. Right understanding is no presence, for every single sense of knowingness is different. Otherwise Jax will say nonsense... lol. When there is a mirror, this is not possible. Think I wrote to longchen (Sim Pern Chong) about 10 years ago.” - John Tan"
"John Tan wrote in 2012:
"An interesting comment Jax. After realization...Just eat God, breathe God, smell God and see God...Lastly be fully unestablished and liberate God.""
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Absolute Certainty
"First, acknowledging it is called recognizing one's nature. Next, we must be decisive about what is recognized. This is more complicated, because who really decides? Is it conceptual mind that settles it? Or is it rigpa itself that decides? or is it your teacher who makes up your mind - "The guru said so, so it must be true"? Or will modern technology validate it for you? Could you go to the Rigpa Lab and check your heart and brain with instruments to decide if your rigpa is fine and fit, if your nonduality is in good shape?

How do you resolve this point? It may be tough to have to immediately endorse your own experience, but we can decide upon it if we feel even 60 percent confident that it's actually rigpa. As the basis for verifying, we use our teacher's words, the words of an authentic scripture, and our own experience. When our state of experiencing rigpa really is rigpa, there is within that an automatic feeling of certainty. To arrive at that certainty you need to give some time to the process, and you also need to have passion. There is a point at which the certainty is built-in, automatic certainty. Once we get to this natural, unshakable certainty, we feel so sure that even if the Buddha himself came before us and said, "Hey, you're wrong, it's not rigpa!" we would thank him for coming, but it would not change our certainty at all. At a certain point the qualities of empty essence, cognizant nature, and unconfined capacity become so utterly obvious that we really know. At this point, we have gained the certainty that whatever occurs in our minds can be freed by itself."

- Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Fearless Simplicity: The Dzogchen Way of Living Freely in a Complex World
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One Action Samadhi (一行三昧)
Those who regard the mundane as a hindrance to life and practice only understand that in the mundane nothing is sacred; what they have not yet understood is that in sacredness nothing is mundane.
— Dōgen, Genjokoan

As a Soto Zen teacher said (too lazy to find his exact quote, but it goes something like this) - I am not devaluing the status of the precious jewel to the ordinary, I am elevating the status of the ordinary to the status of the precious jewel.

But this requires realisation of anatta. Prior to that, pure presence seems special and transcendent, metaphysical (spaceless and timeless) and exists outside the realm of the mundane and ordinary. The mundane and ordinary seems dry and barren, devoid of “spirit” or “presence” and is merely a distraction. After I AM realization at the age of 17, John Tan always entered nirvikalpa samadhi and was very much inspired to renounce as a monk and follow the footsteps of Ramana Maharshi in Arunacchala. As he said, at that time any attention to the outer world of the five senses seemed like a distraction from the transcendent bliss of pure Being, which is Presence tasted only in the Mind door and not yet realised in the other senses. He only did not renounce due to strong family resistance. 

The way of Anatta is different. The taste of I AMness is similar but now tasted in every single myriad dharmas, the ten thousand things. Furthermore, anything short of the total exertion of a single dharma and activity even in each mundane and ordinary activity like chop wood and carry water, fully engaged and involved as “being-time”, where satori and samadhi (一行三昧) is fully actualized in the daily activities of eating, drinking, shitting and sleeping, anything less than that is not considered zen enlightenment.

Still, we diligently sit in zazen, and practice goes on endlessly according to Dogen. I like Soto Zen for their dedication to zazen and enjoy sitting with them for hours each time back in Australia. I do not have access to Soto Zen in Singapore but I enjoy meditating in parks.
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