John Astin's posts focuses on pointing out the seamlessness of anatta and dynamicity of presence.

https://www.johnastin.com/blog/2020/2/23/reality-drinking-itself-1

Reality, Drinking Itself

All there is, is experience.

Feel the reality of this, the undeniable fact that you can never, ever find anything outside of experience. Let it sink in, the reality that experience is all there ever is. Go “inside” of what you think of as yourself and what do you find there? Experience. Go “outside” of what you think of as yourself and you find exactly the same thing. Experience.

Now, within this field of experience, it may feel as if there are two separate things happening—that which is being experienced and the one experiencing it. But in reality, both the apparent subject (self) and object (other), are nothing other than an ever-changing, kaleidoscopic dance of experiencing.

And so when we say that “we” are having an experience of some “thing,” what we’re really saying is that experience is experiencing itself. In every instant, no matter how we might be describing it, all that’s ever happening is that experience is tasting itself, drinking itself, feasting on itself. Feel this, the way in which experience is constantly exploring itself, ever curious about the countless forms it takes each instant.

Drink in the richness, the luscious sensuality of it all. Enjoy this exquisite dance of life savoring itself in all its many forms.

https://www.johnastin.com/blog/2019/3/23/the-painting-that-is-your-life

THE PAINTING THAT IS YOUR LIFE
Imagine that the whole universe consists of a single painting and that this painting is exactly whatever you are presently viewing. That’s it; the entirety of reality right there, present as whatever is being seen, whatever is being heard, whatever is being experienced. That’s it. There is nothing else to see, no other painting to experience, no other painting that could ever be experienced. Nope. There is just this, this single, solitary painting, the painting that is your life…

But this painting of reality is unlike any you've ever encountered for it’s not just sitting there, static and unmoving. No, this painting is alive. It is in a state of constant flux; the images moving and dancing, transforming themselves moment-by-moment into something else. Take a look… how is the painting of your life appearing right now? And what about now? It's different, isn’t it? Every instant the painting shifts, even if in the subtlest of ways...

And what about us, the supposed viewer of the painting? It turns out that we're not actually outside of it, viewing the painting as if it were some object apart from us. No we, the apparent viewers, are actually an intrinsic, inseparable part of the painting itself. The seer of the painting is also in the painting. Remember, there is nothing but the painting, the viewer, the viewing and the viewed, a single apparition.

As we move from moment-to-moment, experience to experience, circumstance to circumstance, we are simply traveling to different portions of the painting. You can never enter or exit the painting for there is only the painting.

Remember… you can never be cast out of the only thing that exists.

April 17, 2019

https://www.johnastin.com/blog/2020/1/18/the-stability-of-instability
THE PEACE THAT PASSETH UNDERSTANDING
I spent a couple of decades as a meditator, attempting to keep attention focused, trying to get my mind to become stabilized. However, the more I investigated the reality of my experience, the more apparent it became that there was no stability. The closer I looked, the clearer it became that experience (which of course includes attention) is changing from one flash instant to the next. Experience drifts, it undulates. After all, it’s alive! Life doesn’t hold still; it dances around. The flow of experiencing is just that, a flow; it never actually becomes anything solid or fixed. Reality is forever on the move, here for less than a nanosecond. And then gone. Swept away.

Now, because of the non-durational nature of things, I not surprisingly kept failing miserably at my meditative efforts to find stability. I longed for things to settle down and become still. But reality would have no part of it. Nope, any apparent stability, any seeming arrival at something substantial or fixed would be swept away no sooner than it arrived. There was no stability. That is what was revealed.

And yet this relentless instability, this ceaseless dance of transformation, this radically unstable dynamism turns out to be its own kind of stability. How so? Well, it is what’s real. In that sense, the inherent instability is what we can count on. We can count on the fact that experience does not endure but is forever on the move. We could call it the “stability of instability.”

But the deepest truth is that how this is, cannot actually be said. We can’t really say whether reality is stable or unstable, restless or calm, still or moving. Nope. What this is cannot be said for any description implies that experience actually resolves as being some “thing,” something definite and definable. But it doesn’t. And so the only true thing we can ever really say about what this is, is that it is simply un-sayable.

This is the peace that passeth all understanding…

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2 Responses
  1. Anonymous Says:

    Do you think John Astin is pointing at ananata here? It seeems very non dual. Live John Astin I’m curious as to where you think he would be on thusness 7 stages?


  2. Soh Says:

    John Astin is pointing to anatta, no doubts. Both anatta and one mind are nondual, the difference is that anatta is nonsubstantialist nonduality, one mind is substantialist nonduality -- an ontological and unchanging substance and substratum being nondual with forms, such that the one inherently existing essence modulates as everything.

    Notice that John Astin never affirmed any unchanging ontological essence at all, he rests merely in transience or the dynamic dance absent of a self or duality of subject-object: "But this painting of reality is unlike any you've ever encountered for it’s not just sitting there, static and unmoving. No, this painting is alive. It is in a state of constant flux; the images moving and dancing, transforming themselves moment-by-moment into something else. Take a look… how is the painting of your life appearing right now? And "

    I suggest reading these links to have more clarity:

    https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2018/09/difference-between-thusness-stage-4-and.html

    https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2018/11/beyond-awareness.html

    https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2022/06/difference-between-stage-4-and-5.html

    https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2022/07/no-nouns-are-necessary-to-initiate-verbs.html


    That being said, anatta is not a finality and John Tan seemed to indicate years ago that his insights could be further refined: "Not necessarily reify but from expression, the depth of knowledge and fine knowledge of how presence manifest isn't there or not appropriately expressed."

    Perhaps could be refined in terms of dependent origination and non-arising.

    See for example:

    https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html

    https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2020/06/primordially-unborn.html

    https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2020/06/non-arising-due-to-dependent-origination.html

    https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2019/08/emptinesschariot-as-vivid-appearing.html