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Soh Wei Yu
Mr. K.O.O,

Depends. Maybe your teacher doesn't emphasize the I AM, but I have seen many that do. I used to learn from a Ch'an lineage that totally emphasizes that as well. Actually I find it is important and crucial, just that the teachers don't seem to understand anatta beyond the I AM and one mind they realised.
Also, for example if you look into this, a lot of the descriptions reported are exactly pointing to the I AM -
https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/KapleauPillars.pdf
Including this:
""What is it that thinks in terms of good and bad, that sees, that hears?" If you question yourself profoundly in this wise, you will surely enlighten yourself. If you enlighten yourself, you are instantly a Buddha. The Mind which the Buddhas realized in their enlightenment is the Mind of all sentient beings. The substance of this Mind is pure, harmonizing with its surroundings. In a woman's body it has no female form, in a man's body it has no appearance of male. It is not mean even in the body of the lowly, nor is it imposing in the body of the noble. Like boundless space, it hasn't a particle of color. The physical world can be destroyed, but formless, colorless space is indestructible. This Mind, like space, is all-embracing. It does not come into existence with the creation of our body, nor does it perish with its disintegration. Though invisible, it suffuses our body, and every single act of seeing, hearing, smelling, speaking, or moving the hands and legs is simply the activity of this Mind. Whoever searches for Buddha and Truth outside this Mind is deluded; whoever directly perceives that his intrinsic nature is precisely that of a Buddha is himself a Buddha. A Buddha has never existed who has not realized this Mind, and every last being within the Six Realms of Existence is perfectly endowed with it. The statement from a sutra "In Buddha there is no discrimination" confirms this....
...This Mind is latent in everyone, it is the master of the six senses. The effects and causes of all transgressions vanish in a flash, like ice put into boiling water, when one awakens to this Mind. Only after gaining such direct Insight can you affirm that your own Mind is itself Buddha. The Mind-essence is intrinsically bright and unblemished, in it there is no distinction of Buddha and sentient beings. But its clarity is hidden by delusive thoughts just as the light of the sun or the moon is obscured by clouds. Yet such thoughts can be dispelled by the power of practicing zazen, in the same way that clouds can be dissipated by a blast of wind. Once they vanish, the Buddha-nature reveals itself, just as the moon makes its appearance when clouds disappear. This light has ever been present, it is not newly obtained outside oneself."
3 / TO LORD NAKAMURA. GOVERNOR OF AKI PROVINCE /
You ask me how to practice Zen with reference to this phrase from a sutra: "Mind, having no fixed abode, should flow forth." There is no express method for attaining enlightenment. If you but look into your Self-nature directly, not allowing yourself to be deflected, the Mind flower will come into bloom. Hence the sutra says: "Mind, having no fixed abode, should flow forth." Thousands of words spoken directly by Buddhas and Patriarchs add up to this one phrase. Mind is the True-nature of things, transcending ail forms. The True-nature is the Way. The Way is Buddha. Buddha is Mind. Mind is not within or without or in between. It is not being or nothingness or non-being or non-nothingness or Buddha or mind or matter. So it is called the abodeless Mind. This Mind sees colors with the eyes, hears sounds with the ears. Look for this master directly!
A Zen master (Rinzai) of old says: "One's body, composed of the four primal elements,6 can't hear or understand this preaching. The spleen or stomach or liver or gall bladder can't hear or understand this preaching. Empty-space can't understand it. Then what does hear and understand?" Strive to perceive directly. If your mind remains attached to any form or feeling whatsoever, or is affected by logical reasoning or conceptual thinking, you are as far from true realization as heaven is from earth.
How can you cut off at a stroke the sufferings of birth-and-death? As soon as you consider how to advance, you get lost in reasoning; but if you quit you are adverse to the highest path. To be able neither to advance nor to quit is to be a "breathing corpse." If in spite of this dilemma you empty your mind of all thoughts and push on with your zazen, you are bound to enlighten yourself and apprehend the phrase "Mind, having no fixed abode, should flow forth." Instantly you will grasp the sense of all Zen dialogue as well as the profound and subtle meaning of the countless sutras.
The layman Ho asked Baso: "What is it that transcends everything in the universe?" Baso answered: "I will tell you after you have drunk up the waters of the West River in one gulp."7 Ho instantly became deeply enlightened. See here, what does this mean? Does it explain the phrase "Mind, having no fixed abode, should flow forth," or does it point to the very one reading this? If you still don't comprehend, go back to questioning, "What is hearing now?" Find out this very moment! The problem of birth-and-death is momentous, and the world moves fast. Make the most of time, for it waits for no one.

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Soh Wei Yu

Your own Mind is intrinsically Buddha. Buddhas are those who have realized this. Those who haven't are the so-called ordinary sentient beings. Sleeping and working, standing and sitting, ask yourself "What is my own Mind?" looking into the source from which your thoughts arise. What is this subject that right now perceives, thinks, moves, works, goes forth, or returns? To know it you must intensely absorb yourself in the question. But even though you do not realize it in this life, beyond a doubt you will in the next because of your present efforts.
In your zazen think in terms of neither good nor evil. Don't try to stop thoughts from arising, only ask yourself; 'What is my own Mind?" Now, even when your questioning goes deeper and deeper you will get no answer until finally you will reach a cul-de-sac, your thinking totally checked. You won't find anything within that can be called "I" or "Mind." But who is it that understands all this? Continue to probe more deeply yet and the mind that perceives there is nothing will vanish; you will no longer be aware of questioning but only of emptiness. When awareness of even emptiness disappears, you will realise there is no Buddha outside Mind and no Mind outside Buddha. Now for the first time you will discover that when you do not hear with your ears you are truly hearing, and when you do not see with your eyes you are really seeing Buddhas of the past, present, and future. But don't cling to any of this, just experience it for yourself!
See here, what is your own Mind? Everyone's Original-nature is not less than Buddha. But since men doubt this and search for Buddha and Truth outside their Mind, they fail to attain enlightenment, being helplessly driven within cycles of birth-and-death, entangled in karma both good and bad. The source of all karma bondage is delusion, i.e., the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions (stemming from ignorance). Rid yourself of them and you are emancipated. Just as ash covering a charcoal fire is dispersed when the fire is fanned, so these delusions vanish once you realize your Self-nature.
During zazen neither loathe nor be charmed by any of your thoughts. With your mind turned inward, look steadily into their source and the delusive feelings and perceptions in which they are rooted will evaporate. This is not yet Self-realization, however, even though your mind becomes bright and empty like the sky, you have awareness of neither inner nor outer, and all the ten quarters seem clear and luminous. To take this for realization is to mistake a mirage for reality. Now even more intensely search this mind of yours which hears. Your physical body, composed of the four basic elements, is like a phantom, without reality, yet apart from this body there is no mind. The empty-space of ten quarters can neither see nor hear; still, something within you does hear and distinguish sounds. Who or what is it? When this question totally ignites you, distinctions of good and evil, awareness of being or emptiness, vanish like a light extinguished on a dark night. Though you are no longer consciously aware of yourself, still you can hear and know you exist. Try as you will to discover the subject hearing, your efforts will fail and you will find yourself at an impasse. All at once your mind will burst into great enlightenment and you will feel as though you have risen from the dead, laughing loudly and clapping your hands in delight. Now for the first time you will know that Mind itself is Buddha. Were someone to ask, "What does one's Buddha-mind look like?" I would answer: "In the trees fish play, in the deep sea birds are flying." What does this mean? If you don't understand it, look into your own Mind and ask yourself: "What is he, this master who sees and hears?"
Make the most of time: it waits for no one.
4 / TO A DYING MAN /
Your Mind-Essence is not subject to birth or death. It is neither being nor nothingness, neither emptiness nor form-and-color. Nor is it something that feels pain or joy. However much you try to know (with your rational mind) that which is now sick, you cannot. Yet if you think of nothing, wish for nothing, want to understand nothing, cling to nothing, and only ask yourself, "What is the true substance of the Mind of this one who is now suffering?" ending your days like clouds fading in the sky, you will eventually be freed from your painful bondage to endless change.

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Soh Wei Yu

etc etc. It is clear that Phillip Kapleau teaches I AM as the beginning breakthrough like so many other Zen and Ch'an masters I encountered.
I believe
Angelo Gerangelo
recommends that book as an essential reading.
Also, Phillip Kapleau mentioned in his book "Straight to the Heart of Zen: Eleven Classic Koans & Their Inner Meanings", the two distinct phases of realization in Zen practice that corresponds to I AM realization and anatta~total exertion:
"...A shallow kensho is not fully satisfying. One has seen into constant change, it is true, and into the formless Self as well - that which makes change possible. One has caught a glimpse of both change and changelessness. But it's only a glimpse, and it is not enough, because in reality, the two worlds of change and changelessness are not really two at all. After a time this initial seeing makes us want to go further, deeper. Instinctively we know that it's only well-chewed food that nourishes and satisfies. This we might take as meaning long training through which we more fully integrate our understanding into our daily lives. Our enlightenment is fully digested. Now change is Changelessness. This is what keeps away hunger and uncertainty, anxiety, fear, and above all unsatisfactoriness, the constant feeling of being on edge, alienated, separated - 'a stranger and afraid', as the poet A. E. Housman wrote, 'in a world I never made.' At last we know real peace.
The verse says: 'This one instant, as it is, is an infinite number of kalpas.' What is a kalpa? The sutras describe a kalpa as the length of time it would take a heavenly being, a deva, sweeping its gossamer wings across the top of the mile-high mountain once each year to wear that mountain down to the ground. This one instant is a kalpa. All time is in this instant, and an infinite number of kalpas are, at the time, this one instant. All time means past, present, and future....
...if our mind is entirely free from both time and timelessness, it we are living fully and wholly every moment, every moment is everything; all of time is in each full, vitally alive moment. If one has truly seen into time and timelessness - if one has really become time itself - then there is no notion of time or timelessness to hinder or bind..."
""
On the above excerpts I pasted John Tan 3 years ago, he also said:
[5:41 PM, 10/22/2017] John Tan: Quite good.
[5:41 PM, 10/22/2017] John Tan: But differentiate this from DO.
[5:42 PM, 10/22/2017] John Tan: Different from Direct Experiencing and direct insight
[5:43 PM, 10/22/2017] John Tan: Means like what I thought of u the other day no ordinariness or superior
[5:43 PM, 10/22/2017] John Tan: But when u r fully engaged in life, there is life and death doesn't matters
[5:44 PM, 10/22/2017] John Tan: This is different from DO and emptiness... How r they different?

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Soh Wei Yu

Also, the Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck also taught two phases - These are just two examples. There are many others as well: https://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/.../the-observing... -- although the description here isn't very much like I AM realization.
There are also many Ch'an masters that emphasize koan to realize the I AM. Ch'an master Hsu Yun is one of them, also I quoted a number of Ch'an and Zen masters that emphasized that in the AtR guide.

AWAKENINGTOREALITY.BLOGSPOT.COM
The Observing Self
The Observing Self
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Soh Wei Yu

Òskar K. Linares
Actually it's funny that you related Mahamudra with total exertion. Frankly in the past I have never seen any descriptions of total exertion in Mahamudra, John Tan and my impression of Mahamudra is that it is focused on the -A aspect of emptiness only.
However, recently just two weeks ago, I discovered a description of total exertion in Mahamudra text, which describes mature One Taste as such: "...Having realized the three divisions of time to be the same, in a single moment you see them as indivisible, eons are condensed into an instant, and an instant opens into aeons. You master time. Since body, mind and phenomena are integrated, space and the palm of your hand are equal; the billion world systems fit into a few grains; one is transformed into many, and many are made into one...."
(Coincidentally, similar to the Zen Master Phillip Kapleau passage I pasted above)
So you may be right to relate that to higher one taste.
John Tan agreed with me that this description is precisely Maha Total Exertion. He also said,
[10:45 PM, 11/15/2020] John Tan: Doesn't sound like mahamudra
[10:46 PM, 11/15/2020] Soh Wei Yu: lol.. its from the mahamudra book 'The Royal Seal of Mahamudra: Volume 2: A Guidebook for the Realization of Coemergence'
[10:46 PM, 11/15/2020] John Tan: Yeh that is y I said doesn't sound like it
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  Matt Harvey
  Is there a standard understanding of how these stages [Mahamudra four yogas] map over to Thusness's 7 stages? (Or am I stepping on a land mine by asking this? ;-))
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    André A. Pais

    

    I think Soh has gone there in the past. Perhaps search the 4 yogas in the blog (or here).
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  André A. Pais
  
  I think Soh has said that one-pointedness is I Am.
  I'd say one-pointedness is merely samadhi, while simplicity is anatta, and one taste is non-dual (but with the view of anatta). Non-meditation can only be shunyata and spontaneous perfection.
  The yogas are mainly meditative, while AtR is mainly view and inquiry, I'd risk to say.
  
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  Michael Hernandez
  Comparative to the jhanas?
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  André A. Pais
  
  Matt Harvey
  moreover, AtR is hybrid (Advaita + Buddhism), while the 4 yogas is strickly buddhist.
  
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  Kyoshu Okan Özaydin
  Michael Hernandez
  Jhanas are stages of samatha. Not insight.
  
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  Soh Wei Yu
  
  Matt Harvey
  : There are two explanations on the yoga of one pointedness depending on which teacher teaches it. Some Mahamudra teachers teach the yoga of one pointedness as simply a samadhi state, no realization involved.
  However, in Clarifying the Natural State (a must read if you are into Mahamudra) by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal, it states, "You have seen the essence of One-Pointedness if you have reached a naturally knowing and confident certainty in your mind's aware emptiness. You have not seen the essence if you do not possess this confident certitude, even if you can remain in the states of bliss, clarity and nonthought." - https://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/.../mahamudra...
  Dakpo Tashi Namgyal is saying here that One Pointedness is not simply a samadhi state of bliss, clarity and non-thought, that it confers a kind of realization and certainty about the mind's aware emptiness.
  I AM realization is also about the certainty of what Mind is. I say, it is similar. But this is just the beginning as it goes in AtR or Mahamudra path.
  
  
  
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  Soh Wei Yu
  
  Matt Harvey
  Although I don't really like to compare paths nowadays (unless it is really of practical use to people? ), since you are curious I'll just paste a conversation here, not sure if helps though.
  [12:39 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Now there is the 顿悟 [sudden realization, i.e. Zen] path. But mahamudra is not by the way of 顿悟。
  [12:40 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: So what is the way they use?
  [12:40 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: What is the technique they use?
  [12:41 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: They have many pointing out instructions and methods of investigating what mind is, what perception and thought is, and its nature
  [12:41 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Many?
  [12:41 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: I dun think so
  [12:41 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Lol
  [12:41 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: And also whether mind and perception is separable, whether mind and peeception is originating etx
  [12:41 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Etc
  [12:42 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: So what does that mean?
  [12:42 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: How do they investigate?
  [12:42 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Directly looking at mind’s nature
  [12:42 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: And how do u do that?
  [12:44 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: I have only another 15 mins for u...lol
  [12:44 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: In clarifying the natural state the investigation into Mind reveals Mind itself, to me it is no different from I AM
  [12:44 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Then they expand into perception and thought
  [12:44 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: And resolve the notion of duality, arising etc
  [12:44 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Thrangu Rinpoche:
  In the Vajrayana there is the direct path to examining mind. In everyday life we are habituated to thinking, "I have a mind and I perceive these things." Ordinarily, we do not directly look at the mind and therefore do not see the mind. This is very strange because we see things and we know that we are seeing visual phenomena. But who is seeing? We can look directly at the mind and find that there is no one seeing; there is no seer, and yet we are seeing phenomena. The same is true for the mental consciousness. We think various thoughts, but where is that thinking taking place? Who or what is thinking? However, when we look directly at the mind, we discover that there is nobody there; there is no thinker and yet thinking is going on. This approach of directly looking in a state of meditation isn't one of reasoning, but of directly looking at the mind to see what is there.
  Source: Shentong and Rangtong
  [link removed because it violates Facebook rules etc]
  ...
  If we look for a perceiver, we won’t find one. We do think, but if we look into the thinker, trying to find that which thinks, we do not find it. Yet, at the same time, we do see and we do think. The reality is that seeing occurs without a seer and thinking without a thinker. This is just how it is; this is the nature of the mind. The Heart Sutra sums this up by saying that “form is emptiness,” because whatever we look at is, by nature, devoid of true existence. At the same time, emptiness is also form, because the form only occurs as emptiness. Emptiness is no other than form and form is no other than emptiness. This may appear to apply only to other things, but when applied to the mind, the perceiver, one can also see that the perceiver is emptiness and emptiness is also the perceiver. Mind is no other than emptiness; emptiness is no other than mind. This is not just a concept; it is our basic state.
  The reality of our mind may seem very deep and difficult to understand, but it may also be something very simple and easy because this mind is not somewhere else. It is not somebody else’s mind. It is your own mind. It is right here; therefore, it is something that you can know. When you look into it, you can see that not only is mind empty, it also knows; it is cognizant. All the Buddhist scriptures, their commentaries and the songs of realization by the great siddhas express this as the “indivisible unity of emptiness and cognizance,” or “undivided empty perceiving,” or “unity of empty cognizance.” No matter how it is described, this is how our basic nature really is. It is not our making. It is not the result of practice. It is simply the way it has always been.
  Source: Crystal Clear ( [link removed because it violates Facebook rules etc] )
  ...
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  Soh Wei Yu
  
  [12:44 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: That is not the way
  [12:46 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: [referring to pasted excerpt above] This is anatta.
  [12:46 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: So how do they recognize the mind?
  [12:46 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: It is not the same as I M.
  [12:47 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: It is by what?
  [12:47 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Contemplating on certain questions?
  [12:48 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: How do they resolve that mind is appearance and appearance is mind?
  [12:48 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: By direct authentication like anatta?
  [12:50 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: This is like going into I AM
  [12:50 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Then looking into thoughts, and then contemplating the relation between thought and Mind
  [12:50 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Why r u cutting and pasting me yet nothing nothing
  [12:50 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Until the duality is seen through and same taste is recognised
  [12:50 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: How do they do that?
  [12:51 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Is this the way?
  [12:52 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Until direct authentication dawn, there is no way to directly know. So what do they resolve it?
  [12:53 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: By various questioning and contemplation like what is the relationship between mind and perception.. and other methods of contemplation like the origin or perception to establish the non originated nature
  [12:54 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Faintz...
  [12:54 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: It is by understanding the nature
  [12:54 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: They try to find mind, they can find it, it is empty.
  [12:55 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: They try to find appearance, they realize they have the same nature.
  [12:55 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: That is how they investigate
  [12:56 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: They use the nature and realize they have the same nature..m
  [12:56 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Get it?
  [12:56 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: But that is not the direct taste
  [12:57 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: That is y they kept investigating the nature of whatever appears.
  [12:57 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: However it is very important and it also tell us more about clarity but understanding emptiness.
  [12:58 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Oic.. i thought the first contemplating on mind leads to something like i am..
  “You have seen the essence of One-Pointedness if you have reached a naturally knowing and confident certainty in your mind's aware emptiness. You have not seen the essence if you do not possess this confident certitude, even if you can remain in the states of bliss, clarity and non- thought.”
  [12:58 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: If they can have I M even better
  [12:58 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Means luminosity
  [12:58 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Not direct taste as in? Not I Am?
  [12:59 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Then they look into the nature and use the nature to resolve.
  [12:59 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: That is y the articles u send me kept talking about the nature and it is resolved.
  [12:59 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: But that is not an authentication
  [1:00 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: However if post anatta and non-dual, it helps one to penetrate further.
  [1:01 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
  [1:02 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Like how it helps me to understand the nature of clarity. But having an intellectual understanding of emptiness. How to relook at phenomena and mind and meditate on them.
  [1:02 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: U will breakthrough further.
  [1:02 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: When u look at a sensation, hear a sound, taste or vision
  [1:04 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: When u know emptiness, u have deeper understanding. When u go through mmk and understand more and more about chariot..
  U see and directly authenticate more and more of mind and phenomena.
  [1:04 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: By authentication you mean like anatta taste and realisation?
  [1:05 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: It will loosen the coventional grip on us and deepen our understanding.
  [1:05 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Yes
  [1:05 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Emptiness has another dimension if u practice diligently.
  [1:05 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: So u mean those mahamudra techniques is more about investigating the emptiness of everything but not necessarily anatta taste
  [1:06 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: It is not just walking in park and appreciate space like openness in non-dual mode.
  [1:07 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: This depends on the training. Like those articles u showed me, there is anatta and there is I M.
  [1:07 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: But the I M may not b as strong as those in advaita. I m not sure.
  [1:08 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
  [1:08 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Now having non-dual experience or a state of no- mind do not mean finality.
  [1:09 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: We must also free our from many more intellectual obscurations.
  [1:10 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: And other obscurations of cause.
  [1:10 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Like having non-dual or no-mind may not free on from the notion of self.
  [1:11 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Freeing one from the notion of self, may not free one from the notion of cause.
  [1:11 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Freeing one from the notion of cause, may not free one from the notion of existence.
  [1:12 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Freeing one from duality, may not free one from non-duality.
  [1:13 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: The color u see is neither inside, nor outside. It is inside, it is also outside. It is private, it is also public.
  So it is neither too.
  [1:14 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: So freedom from insight is not different from a blank state.
  [1:15 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: You mean is different
  [1:15 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Yes
  [1:15 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Ic..
  [1:17 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: So in addition to walking in a park, being anatta, borderless and open, non-dual and total exerted, u must also spend time to free up further intellectual obscurations to blind us.
  [1:18 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: That blind us I mean.
  [1:18 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Oic.. through mmk?
  [1:19 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: The chariot analogy is enough...but the diamond splitter, neither one nor many...all these ways of ultimate analysis that see through essence can help also.
  [1:20 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: But simple looking and understanding the chariot analogy helps me a lot...it depends on individual.
  [1:21 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Then authenticate it with ur actual experience in anatta.
  [1:21 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: That is y I say those article u pasted asking me is that subsuming is good.
  [1:22 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: But if u fail to c, u will miss the importance of it.
  [1:23 AM, 5/16/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Ic..
  [1:23 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: To me it is not to help resolve that appearances r just one's empty clarity but helps to refine my insight on the nature...
  [1:25 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: Our conventional knowledge has cage used into seeing a separate, divided physical and mental world.
  [1:25 AM, 5/16/2020] John Tan: The knowledge blinds and bind is to an assumed reality that is not easy to break.
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  Soh Wei Yu
  
  Òskar K. Linares
  wanted to send you this conversation but it got removed.
  
  
  .....
  
  In a different facebook group, Rinzai Zen discussion, someone asked this question on the same day as above conversation, so I replied with a somewhat similar reply:
  
  "
  Is anyone familiar with Ku San Sunim? I wonder if the line "the One Thing that doesn't change" from the following talk at IMS 11/16/’80 could be mistranslated? From my understanding Buddha rejected Atman - the unchangeble, permanent Self. Could Ku San Sunim be possibly referring to something else?
  "From One Bright Thing, the brightness has many marvelous functions.
  All creations are good, but the One Thing that doesn’t change is most beautiful.
  The old mountains stand by the river.
  The boats from the ocean return to the shore. ""
  
  
  Soh replied:
  
  Ms. A.W.M.,
  
  
  Many Zen and Ch'an masters do point to a similar realization as Hinduism's Atman, however as some of them clarified, such as Phillip Kapleau Roshi, it is simply an initial realization and the realization is to be refined later on. Hinduism's Atman is the direct authentication of the aspect of the luminous clarity and Presence of our Buddha-nature, but its empty nature ('no mind' as taught by Bodhidharma) is realised later on. Prior to that refinement of insight, Buddha-nature can be somewhat reified into Atman-Brahman.
  For example, Phillip Kapleau Roshi mentioned in his book "Straight to the Heart of Zen: Eleven Classic Koans & Their Inner Meanings", the two distinct phases of realization in Zen practice that corresponds to what I personally term "I AM realization" and "anatta~total exertion":
  "...A shallow kensho is not fully satisfying. One has seen into constant change, it is true, and into the formless Self as well - that which makes change possible. One has caught a glimpse of both change and changelessness. But it's only a glimpse, and it is not enough, because in reality, the two worlds of change and changelessness are not really two at all. After a time this initial seeing makes us want to go further, deeper. Instinctively we know that it's only well-chewed food that nourishes and satisfies. This we might take as meaning long training through which we more fully integrate our understanding into our daily lives. Our enlightenment is fully digested. Now change is Changelessness. This is what keeps away hunger and uncertainty, anxiety, fear, and above all unsatisfactoriness, the constant feeling of being on edge, alienated, separated - 'a stranger and afraid', as the poet A. E. Housman wrote, 'in a world I never made.' At last we know real peace.
  The verse says: 'This one instant, as it is, is an infinite number of kalpas.' What is a kalpa? The sutras describe a kalpa as the length of time it would take a heavenly being, a deva, sweeping its gossamer wings across the top of the mile-high mountain once each year to wear that mountain down to the ground. This one instant is a kalpa. All time is in this instant, and an infinite number of kalpas are, at the time, this one instant. All time means past, present, and future....
  ...if our mind is entirely free from both time and timelessness, it we are living fully and wholly every moment, every moment is everything; all of time is in each full, vitally alive moment. If one has truly seen into time and timelessness - if one has really become time itself - then there is no notion of time or timelessness to hinder or bind..."

"We think it's all about like, again, because of our modern mind, we almost think everything can be solved through some sort of technology. Right, oh, I just need to do it different, there must be some secret trick to inquiry, that's our technological mind-set. Sometimes that's a mindset that is very useful to us. But, we don't want to let that dominate our spirituality. Because as I witnessed, the intensity of the living inquiry that's more important than all the techniques. 

When somebody Just Has To Know. Even if that's kind of driving them half crazy for a while. And, that attitude is as important or more important than all the ways we work with that attitude, you know, the spiritual practices, the meditations and various inquiries and various different things, sort of practices. If we engage in the practices because they are practices, you know like, ok I just do these because this is what I'm told to do, and hopefully it will have some good effect. That's different than being engaged, when you're actually being deeply interested in what you're inquiring about, and what you're actually meditating upon. It's that quality of real, actual interest, something even more than interest. It is a kind of compulsion, I know I was saying earlier don't get taken in by compulsion, but there is/can be a kind of compulsion. And that's as valuable as anything else going on in you, actually."

- Adyashanti

This is related to Zen's great doubt, great faith and great perseverance. Especially the aspect of Great Doubt.