Mr H wrote: Thank you, I have only had time to skim and read parts, but it appears to be very helpful, and I will go through it properly when I have enough time. Just to clarify something, which will help me with interpretation when I read it properly: is it then fair to characterize anatta as always on autopilot? I would appreciate just a short answer to this if possible, so that I can read the rest with this understanding.



Soh to Mr. H: 


From online: ""Everyone has experienced flow — that state of mind where you’re “in the zone” and able to perform tasks optimally with little conscious effort. In flow, time seems to pass differently. Your deep-seated skills take over and run on autopilot. You might even find that you’re able to successfully perform tasks at a level that was previously out of reach."



Under this definition, I would say no, anatta does not require deep seated skills. It is not a peak experience brought about by being so skilled and pro at something that everything becomes automatic because you're just darn good at it and things flow naturally due to learnt skills.


For example it can be the very first time you ever did cooking, and you keep referring back to the cooking instructions and manual and recipes, and after one or two hours of clumsy cooking all the food still turns out bland and tasteless, and you made a mess in the kitchen along the way because you didn't know how to operate things properly. You failed by the judgements of all others. Still, you still could have actualized anatta completely throughout the process. 


As I quoted to you earlier, https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2021/07/anatta-is-dharma-seal-or-truth-that-is.html


""Differentiate Wisdom from Art



Replying to someone in Rinzai Zen discussion group, John Tan wrote recently:



“I think we have to differentiate wisdom from an art or a state of mind.

In Master Sheng Yen’s death poem, 

 

Busy with nothing till old. (无事忙中老)

In emptiness, there is weeping and laughing. (空里有哭笑)

Originally there never was any 'I'. (本来没有我)

Thus life and death can be cast aside. (生死皆可抛)

 

This "Originally there never was any 'I'" is wisdom and the dharma seal of anatta. It is neither an art like an artist in zone where self is dissolved into the flow of action nor is it a state to be achieved in the case of the taoist "坐忘" (sit and forget) -- a state of no-mind. 

 

For example in cooking, there is no self that cooks, only the activity of cooking. The hands moves, the utensils act, the water boils, the potatoes peel and the universe sings together in the act of cooking. Whether one appears clumsy or smooth in act of cooking doesn't matter and when the dishes r out, they may still taste horrible; still there never was any "I" in any moment of the activity. There is no entry or exit point in the wisdom of anatta.”""




That being said, anatta is characterized by pellucid non-dual luminosity as well as spontaneity. But it is not just the aspect of non-doership and spontaneity otherwise it becomes more of non-doership than the anatta experience or insight.


Excerpt from another link:

Of late I had a few conversations with a number of people whose experience of no-self is skewed towards non-doership rather than pellucid no-self, the pellucidity of luminosity in nondual and no-self. John Tan too have similar encounters. At the most their insight is into the first stanza of anatta but not the second https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html

I think I will need to write an article on this in AtR blog and guide.

[8:39 PM, 6/9/2021] John Tan: Yes more on no-doership.

[8:40 PM, 6/9/2021] John Tan: 1. Dzogchen has a phrase "spontaneous presence". I do not know it's exact meaning in dzogchen however the phrase is intimately related to the 2 experiences of the 2 stanzas:

1. No doership = spontaneous

2. Mere appearances as Presence

Imo, she is more on 1 not so much on 2 so far in her descriptions."

"[11:25 PM, 5/23/2021] John Tan: Like in prasangika mmk, the non-affirming negation, in the phases of insights approach of the 2 stanzas,one is not interested in the affirmation, just the thorough deconstruction of self construct. The seeing through of self in anatta is the direct experiential taste of non-dual, purity and spontaneity.

[11:39 PM, 5/23/2021] John Tan: So when someone describe to u, they say they have deconstruct self/Self but there is no direct taste of colors, smell, sensation, sound, no direct face to face of the radiance, pellucidity, purity, spontaneity, insubstantiality and non-duality of appearances, is that genuine authentication?

[12:00 AM, 5/24/2021] Soh Wei Yu: No its not.. more like impersonality

[12:00 AM, 5/24/2021] Soh Wei Yu: Or nondoership""" 

-

https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2021/06/pellucid-no-self-non-doership.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+AwakeningToReality+(Awakening+to+Reality)


Both aspects are present every moment of actualizing even if you are completely unfamiliar, clumsy, at doing something for the very first time with zero skills at all, or are still a learner, still following the manuals, etc. Anatta does not preclude thinking, intentionality, effort, even the act of choice or choosing. In each act there is no agent or doer or watcher behind the act, just the act alone is. Intentions are integrated into the total action without a gap between actor and act.



John Tan:


The logic that since there is no agency, hence no choice to be made is no different from "no sufferer, therefore no suffering".


This is not anatta insight.


What is seen through in anatta is the mistaken view that the conventional structure of "subject action object" represents reality when it is not. Action does not require an agent to initiate it. It is language that creates the confusion that nouns are required to set verbs into motion.


Therefore the action of choosing continues albeit no chooser.


"Mere suffering exists, no sufferer is found;


The deeds are, but no doer of the deeds is there;


Nibbāna is, but not the man that enters it;


The path is, but no traveler on it is seen.""-- https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2020/06/choosing.html


Anatta is a dharma seal, it is the nature of reality, it is what is always already case, it is not a peak experience. No self is what is always already the case: in hearing there is always only sound, never a hearer, in seeing only ever colors, no seer, in doing just the action, never have there been a doer or actor just like wind is only the blowing and nothing else.


As such, no acts can ever be precluded from this truth, even actions like complex thinking, etc. It is not a peak experience you can enter or leave nor does it take effort at all to experience. It is a truth that is always so, and once seen cannot be unseen, much like a rope that was mistaken to be a snake, once realized to be merely a rope will never be hallucinated into a snake again. Once you realize the truth of no background and no self/Self and no agent as what is always already, you can never again 'hallucinate' Awareness into a background. It will no longer be like a mode you switch between (background and foreground) because you see the truth of it so clearly -- there is no background. This does not mean you deny the "pure sense of Existence" of that "I AM" but it is just realized to be another foreground manifestation, a mere vivid spontaneous happening, spontaneous presence, no different from the pellucid pristine luminosity of a color, a sound, a smell or sensation or thought, it is not a static background. No background is a truth -- in hearing, hearing is only ever sound without a hearer, in seeing, seeing is only ever radiant colors without a seer. Sound hears and sight sees, everything knows and rolls without a knower or agent.



p.s. one more excerpt on the pellucid luminosity of no-self:


Actual Freedom and the Immediate Radiance in the Transience

I was having a conversation with someone today (he had some history with various practices, vipassana, actual freedom, and recently came across a famous Thai ajahn, etc) who shared about an experience of dissolving into centerless space. I told him what I call anatta is not just being centerless, it is the effulgence and radiance of the transience. That is, regardless of any realization of no-self, and no matter how centerless one feels or how centerless is one's experience of awareness and so forth... still, anything short of direct realization of the radiance or luminosity as the very stuff of transiency is still not what I call the realization of anatta. (And that too is also just an aspect of anatta, and furthermore not yet into the twofold emptying)


Was reminded of a conversation with Thusness back in Aug 2010 and found some excerpts from the Actual Freedom site:


"(12:22 AM) Thusness: for u, u will not be clear now... what Richard taught has some problem...that focus is in the experience

u should focus on the realization

(12:22 AM) Thusness: the pce is what i told u, bring what u experience into the foreground

(12:23 AM) Thusness: Richard has a very important realization.

(12:24 AM) Thusness: that is, he is able to realize the immediate radiance in the transience

(12:25 AM) AEN: this is like ur second point of anatta in the anatta article?

(12:25 AM) Thusness: yes

(12:26 AM) Thusness: there is nothing to argue, it is obvious and clear.

(12:27 AM) Thusness: however i do not want to focus on the experience

(12:27 AM) Thusness: u need to go through a period of frustration first"


From the Actual Freedom site:

http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/…/selecte…/sc-relativism.htm

RESPONDENT: How do the qualities of ‘splendour and brilliance’ present themselves AS splendour and brilliance?

RICHARD: Directly ... as splendour and brilliance are intrinsic to the properties of this actual world they present themselves openly where apperception is operating: everything is literally bright, shining, vivid, intense, sparkling, luminous, lustrous, scintillating and coruscating in all its vitality here in this actual world.

.....

RICHARD: As I understand it (I am not a scientist nor have any scientific training) a photometer can measure how bright or brilliant something is in a more precise, reliable and universal way than the eye can sensately determine ... and one can then talk about the brilliance of that something if one wishes to convey to another what one is experiencing (the word comes from the French ‘briller’ meaning ‘shine’).

• ‘brilliance: brilliant quality; intense or sparkling brightness, radiance, or splendour; an instance of this’. (© Oxford Dictionary).

As for the splendour of something (the word comes from the Latin ‘spendere’ meaning ‘be bright; shine’) ... it is related to a brilliant display:

• ‘splendour: 1. great or dazzling brightness, brilliance. 2. magnificence; sumptuous or ornate display; impressive or imposing character; a magnificent feature, object, etc. 3. distinction, eminence, glory’. (© Oxford Dictionary).

Therefore, when I wrote that ‘as [the qualities of] splendour and brilliance are intrinsic to the properties of this actual world’ and that ‘they present themselves openly where apperception is operating’ I am reporting that literally everything is ‘bright, shining, vivid, intense, sparkling, luminous, lustrous, scintillating and coruscating in all its vitality here in this actual world’ ... thus it is not the imposition of subjective attributes (which phrase may very well equate to what you called ‘internal percepts’ in the previous e-mail) that I am talking about.

Rather it is the absence of such subjectively imposed attributes – due to the absence of identity – which reveals the world as-it-is.

...

RESPONDENT: This is what I meant in my question ‘present themselves AS splendour and brilliance?’

RICHARD: Okay ... incidentally, I do not go about seeing things in terms of their properties, qualities or values (such classifications never occur to me other than when having a discussion such as this) ... I simply delight in the wonder of it all and marvel in the amazing display.

Once experienced apperceptively – as in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – one will never again settle for second-best.

http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/…/selected…/sc-sensation.htm

RICHARD: Yes ... ‘how amazing’ indeed, eh? I am particularly pleased to see you say that you had a ‘clear and unequivocal PCE’ as, of course, I have no way of ascertaining the intrinsic quality of what any body experiences other than what they describe – and I have no intention of setting myself up to be to arbiter of another’s experience anyway – so I cannot adjudge the exact nature of what you experienced. The rule of thumb is to ask oneself: is this it; is this the ultimate; is this the utter fulfilment and total contentment; is this my destiny; is this how I would want to live for the remainder of my life ... and so on. It is up to each and every person to decide for themselves what it is that they want ... as I oft-times say: it is your life you are living and only you get to reap the rewards and pay the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do. [...]

Having said that, and I am not inferring anything either way by what I am writing here, it may or may not be relevant to report that one must be most particular to not confuse an excellence experience with a perfection experience ... and the most outstanding distinction in the excellence experience is the marked absence of what I call the ‘magical’ element. This is where time has no duration as the normal ‘now’ and ‘then’ and space has no distance as the normal ‘here’ and ‘there’ and form has no distinction as the normal ‘was’ and ‘will be’ ... there is only this moment in eternal time at this place in infinite space as this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware (a three hundred and sixty degree awareness, as it were). Everything and everyone is transparently and sparklingly obvious, up-front and out-in-the open ... there is nowhere to hide and no reason to hide as there is no ‘me’ to hide. One is totally exposed and open to the universe: already always just here right now ... actually in time and actually in space as actual form. This apperception (selfless awareness) is an unmediated perspicacity wherein one is this universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being; as such the universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude.

In a PCE one is fully immersed in the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity where everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous, scintillating vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence – the actualness of everything and everyone – for one is not living in an inert universe.

It is one’s destiny to be living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal, infinite and perpetual universe actually is.

...

http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/…/selected…/sc-sensation.htm

RICHARD: Put simply: as there is no (subjective) experiencer there is no separation ... no ‘inner world’/‘outer world’.

RESPONDENT: If the images (presumably) are identical in quality, do you see them differently (e.g. in terms of clarity)?

RICHARD: Yes ... and just as the moving picture is visually brilliant, vivid, sparkling, so too is the sound track aurally rich, vibrant, resonant.

...

• [Richard]: ‘The whole point of actualism is the direct experience of actuality: as this flesh and blood body only what one is (what not ‘who’) is these eyes seeing, these ears hearing, this tongue tasting, this skin touching and this nose smelling – and no separative identity (no ‘I’/ ‘me’) means no separation – whereas ‘I’/ ‘me’, a psychological/ psychic entity, am inside the body busily creating an inner world and an outer world and looking out through ‘my’ eyes upon ‘my’ outer world as if looking out through a window, listening to ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ tongue, touching ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ skin and smelling ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ nose ... plus adding all kinds of emotional/ psychological baggage to what is otherwise the bare sensory experience of the flesh and blood body’.

...

• [Richard]: ‘I am speaking of the immediate perception, of this body and that body and every body and of the mountains and the streams and of the trees and the flowers and of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on and so on ad infinitum, without the affective faculty existent operating ... which reveals actuality in all its purity and perfection. This applies not only to ocular perception but also to cutaneous perception, to gustatory perception, to olfactory perception, to aural perception ... and even to proprioceptive perception, for that matter. There is no mystery where there is such direct perception of actuality as described ... all is laid open, as it already always has been open just here right now all along, because nothing is ever hidden. One walks through the world in wide-eyed wonder simply marvelling at being here doing this business called being alive on this verdant and azure paradise called planet earth. This is what innocence looks like’.

As immediate, direct perception (sensuous perception) does not involve either the affective faculty or the cognitive function the thinker (‘I’ as ego) and the feeler (‘me’ as soul) do not get a look-in ... hence I call this direct perception ‘apperception’ (perception unmediated by either ‘self’ or ‘Self’). Thus what I am is this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware (sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) ... which means that the actuality of the physical can indeed be known, each moment again, day after day.

I do not know if I can put it more briefly or succinctly than this.

Labels: Actual Freedom, Anatta, Luminosity | 

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