This is a transcript of a conversation with Eden, shared with permission. Eden wrote: “Totally fine! My name is Eden” and “Honored to be on the blog!”
Note: This version has been lightly converted from chat-log style for readability using Prompt 8: obvious typos, punctuation, capitalization, and shorthand have been cleaned, while emojis, technical terms, quoted passages, links, chronology, speaker identity, and substantive meaning are preserved. A closed Zangthal / AMS screenshot is intentionally omitted from this public transcript, and one cut-off screenshot line is marked.
THU 10:33
Image shared: ATR / anatta article excerpt
[Cited excerpts from John Tan's article On Anatta (No-Self), Emptiness, Maha and Ordinariness, and Spontaneous Perfection] absence of an agent. These 2 experiences are key for my phase 5 of the 7 phases of insights.
1. The lack of doer-ship that links and co-ordinates experiences.
Without the 'I' that links, phenomena (thoughts, sound, feelings and so on and so forth) appear bubble-like, floating and manifesting freely, spontaneously and boundlessly. With the absence of the doer-ship also comes a deep sense of freedom and transparency. Ironical as it may sound but it's true experientially. We will not have the right understanding when we hold too tightly 'inherent' view. It is amazing how 'inherent' view prevents us from seeing freedom as no-doership, interdependence and interconnectedness, luminosity and non-dual presence.
2. The direct insight of the absence of an agent.
In this case, there is a direct recognition that there is “no agent”. Just one thought then another thought. So it is always thought watching thought rather than a watcher watching thought. However the gist of this realization is skewed towards a spontaneous liberating experience and a vague glimpse of the empty nature of phenomena -- that is, the transient phenomena being bubble-like and ephemeral, nothing substantial or solid. At this phase we should not misunderstand that we have experienced thoroughly the ‘empty’ nature of phenomena and awareness, although there is this temptation to think we have. :-)
Depending on the conditions of an individual, it may not be obvious that it is “always thought watching thought rather than a watcher watching thought.” or "the watcher is that thought." Because this is the key insight and a step that cannot afford to be wrong along the path of liberation, I cannot help but with some disrespectful tone say,
For those masters that taught,
“Let thoughts arise and subside,
See the background mirror as perfect and be unaffected.”
With all due respect, they have just “blah” something nice
but deluded.
Eden / 李亦登:
I watched all of John Tan's videos and then made a transcript of the one titled “Reality Isn't Made of Things” to share with a friend, and then I read over it again.
I was about to fall asleep and was reading this again for the 100th time, but the second part hit me.
Eden / 李亦登:
It's just thought after thought after thought, no constant background.
Eden / 李亦登:
It was clear that my way of “being in rigpa” was just conceptuality, a thought confirming and still going on undetected.
Eden / 李亦登:
Until I saw it, how silly, how could that thought be any of this? How could it ever stain this? So much easier and simpler and so obvious, but it was totally unclear before when I read that second part.
Eden / 李亦登:
You said:
"From a letting go perspective, "a watcher watching thought" will create the impression that a watcher is allowing thoughts to arise and subside while itself being unaffected. This is an illusion; it is 'holding' in disguise as 'letting go'."
Exactly what was happening.
Soh:
Do you experience instant presence?
Eden / 李亦登:
Yes, it's so immediate.
Eden / 李亦登:
I get why it's called instant now.
Eden / 李亦登:
It's so intimate, so close, right here.
Soh:
What is it like? Before yesterday, did you also experience presence, and what was it like?
Eden / 李亦登:
It feels like fully inhabiting all senses, no residue and no film in between.
Eden / 李亦登:
Before, I thought I did experience instant presence.
Eden / 李亦登:
But now I see it was still a fabrication, a subtle reification of a watcher.
Eden / 李亦登:
I still needed to put effort in, to maintain something that I had thought was it.
Eden / 李亦登:
Now it's effortless.
Eden / 李亦登:
Like, pervasive, so obvious, no effort needed. Clear, like there's nothing wrong and nothing to do.
Eden / 李亦登:
Before, I had to go through the mental motions of “oh, I'm going to be in instant presence,” and then I was also subtly grasping at an idea or thought of how it was supposed to be. But now it's just immediate and instant, like if I were to flip a switch, but the light was already on. Full contact already.
[Closed Zangthal / AMS [Ācārya Malcolm Smith] screenshot was shared privately here and is intentionally omitted from this public transcript.]
Eden / 李亦登:
The past few days, I've been trying to understand what AMS [Ācārya Malcolm Smith] meant when he pushes back against “candle illuminates itself,” because I didn't understand what was wrong with it. But then I came across this post today and reread it, and it didn't really click until I reread ATR.
Image shared: WhatsApp with John Tan, 10:56
John Tan:
The video? That was from the anatta article.
Soh:
Yeah, he quoted your article.
John Tan:
Then he gets what?
Soh:
I think he saw no background.
Soh:
Before that, he talked to me about presence, but it sounded I AM.
Soh:
His previous I AM awakening was through Dzogchen practices and teachings.
John Tan:
I see. Post-anatta, one has to have all those mini experiences of total exertion as undivided activity in experience.
Then work on maturing deeply the view due to the desync of view and experience to overcome cognitive obscurance. Otherwise, effortlessness and natural spontaneity are impossible by insights and experiences alone.
👍
John Tan:
It is not easy to clearly understand the relational view correctly and apply the logic.
Soh:
I was reminded of something:
Soh:
What John said here in 2013, highlighted part.
Image shared: 2013 transcript / page 2069 of 2487
John Tan:
Awareness aware of itself soon becomes dead.
The measure of one's depth is in the ineffability and marvelous manifestation in activity. Anatta and emptiness cannot be dead.
Soh Wei Yu:
I see.
John Tan:
Every time I go on tour, my Awareness just heightens multifold.
Soh:
Cool, your anatta breakthrough was also in Korea.
Soh:
I mean the first two lines: “Awareness aware of itself” and “The measure of one's depth.”
Eden / 李亦登:
Yes, exactly. The awareness of awareness is just what I was doing before. It felt like what everyone was talking about, but it was the difference between the idea of openness and the vivid, ever-changing experience of openness that is absolutely not dead.
Eden / 李亦登:
It's more like, “What the hell is this? What is going on?”
Eden / 李亦登:
What does he mean by “maturing deeply the view due to the desync of view and experience”?
Eden / 李亦登:
“The mirror is not perfect; it is the happening that is perfect. The mirror appears to be perfect only to a dualistic and inherent view.”
Absolutely true. Before, I was still reifying awareness as a state to be in, even though I knew not to. It was so, so subtle but ended up just being another thought. It was a thought that tried to make reality a kind of way, still subtly getting distance from everything and trying to control subtly. But the happening is already perfect; there was nothing to fix or to control or to change about all of this at all.
Soh:
Related to https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2022/02/a-letter-to-almaas-on-dzogchen-and.html
Eden / 李亦登:
I read this right before going to the anatta article. I'll reread it again.
Soh:
Yeah, you should read the whole article again. Also, the relevant part starts from:
The
Philosophical Foundations of
Classical rDzogs chen in Tibet:
Investigating the Distinction
Between Dualistic Mind (sems) and
Primordial knowing (ye shes)
John Tan: He goes on to point out
that self-occurring primordial
knowing lacks most of the qualities
associated with the Yogacara
svasaṃvedana - its [message continues, but the screenshot cuts off here]
Image shared: WhatsApp with John Tan, 11:20
John Tan:
Yes, that is experiences and insights, but our view itself is still inherent. This means that whenever we attempt to logically analyze or understand, the conceptual mind becomes immobilized.
This habitual way of understanding and analyzing runs very deep and is the default framework for orienting our world.
This is the desync between insights, experiences, and the view we deeply hold.
When our conceptual mind encounters teachings like Nagarjuna Madhyamakakarika, the mind just immobilizes and can't understand anything.
It can't see how past, present, and future contradict. How causal efficacy is maintained, how eight extremes are overcome from a non-substantialist standpoint.
It is like when I asked you the question two decades ago: this moment ceases as it arises, does it arise or cease?
Eden / 李亦登:
It's like he's reading me. 😭
I was just reading Chandrakirtis Madhyamakavatara before bed and then stopped because all my mind was doing was becoming immobilized. Before reading John's message, I thought that was the whole point of Madhyamaka; but, as he says, I don't think it is, because they obviously understand something, and it's not just a paralyzed mind.
Eden / 李亦登:
What they understand, though, I don't know. I will have to deepen the view.
Eden / 李亦登:
Thank you, Soh. I get what desync is now.
Eden / 李亦登:
I will continue to read. 🙏 Endless gratitude to you and John Tan.
10:30
Soh:
Is it okay if I share this conversation on the ATR blog? I can also anonymize your name if you prefer.
Eden / 李亦登:
Totally fine! My name is Eden.
Eden / 李亦登:
Honored to be on the blog!
Soh:
Great, thanks.
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