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Chinese:
你现在的心是什么？
John Tan向一位朋友发出了两个有力的公案——值得深思。
1）在没有任何思维的情况下，告诉我你现在的心是什么？
2）在不使用任何词语或语言的情况下，你现在如何体验“我”？
（在禅宗传统中，我们也有：“当你不思善不思恶时，那个时候，什么是你的本来面目？”（六祖慧能），“父母未生前的本来面目是什么？”）
一个类似的公案引导我在2010年2月初次顿悟。
...........................
有人回答：“无心”
我们的那位朋友对John Tan说了类似的话，结果被“敲了一下”。
“John Tan：在没有任何思维的情况下，告诉我你现在的心是什么？
朋友：空的。空洞的。
John Tan：敲你的头……哈哈。
在不使用任何词语或语言的情况下，你现在如何体验‘我’？
朋友：……关于个性、习惯、观点的某些东西……
John Tan：如果没有思维，怎么会有习惯、观点和个性？你走到哪里，怎么能错过它？日日夜夜，无论何时何地，那里都有‘你’！你怎么能将‘你’与‘你自己’分离？”
English:
What is your very Mind right now?
John Tan sent two potent koans to a friend—good for contemplation.
- Without thoughts, tell me what is your very mind right now?
- Without using any words or language, how do you experience ‘I’ right now?
(In the Zen tradition, we also have, "When you're not thinking of anything good and anything bad, at that moment, what is your original face?" (Sixth Patriarch Hui-Neng), "What is the original face before your parents were born?")
A similar koan led to my initial sudden awakening in February 2010.
...........................
Someone replied, “No mind"
That friend of ours told John Tan something similar and got 'smacked'.
"John Tan: Without any thought, tell me what is your very mind now?
Friend: Void. Hollow.
John Tan: Smack your head... lol.
Without using any words or language, how do you experience 'I' right now'?
Friend: ....something about personality, habits, opinions...
John Tan: If there is no thoughts, how can there be habits, opinions and personality? Everywhere you go, how can you miss it? Day in and day out, wherever and whenever there is, there 'you' are! How can 'you' distance yourself from 'yourself'?"
Chinese:
John Tan更多的分享：“大手印、大圆满、禅宗，无论什么传统，如何能让你与你自己分离？那么，你是谁？”
自我探究被称为直接之道是有原因的：
“不要关联、不要推理、不要思考。认证‘你’自己，不需要这些。不需要从老师、书籍、大手印、大圆满、禅宗，甚至佛陀那里获得，任何来自外在的都是知识。来自你自己内在最深处的，是你自己的智慧。
不需要寻找任何答案。最终，这是你自己的本质和本性。要从推理、演绎和关联的心跃入最直接和最即时的认证，心必须完全停止，回到任何人为造作形成之前的地方。如果这个‘直接性’的‘眼’没有打开，一切都只是知识，而打开这个直接感知的眼，是无道之道的开始。好了，聊天够多了，已经有太多话语了。不要动摇，继续前行。旅途愉快！”
……
“R先生，我已经对你非常直接了，这只是一个关于你现在的心是什么的问题，别无其他。没有比这更直接的道路了。
我已经告诉你，放下所有思维、所有教义，甚至大圆满、大手印、禅宗，只是问‘你现在的心是什么？’这不是直接告诉你，不浪费时间和言语吗？我也告诉你，任何来自外在的都是知识，把这些都放在一边。智慧直接来自你自己。但是你却给我复制粘贴了所有的文本、对话、禅宗、大手印、大圆满、中观，我已经告诉你要放在一边。
你问我有什么建议。还是一样。不要追求体验和知识，你已经阅读和知道得够多了，所以回归简单。你的责任不是知道更多，而是消除所有这些，回到直接品味的简单性。否则你将不得不再浪费几年或几十年，回到最简单、基本和直接的东西。
从这种简单和直接性中，你然后允许你的本性通过在所有时刻和所有状态中，不断地认证它，在不同的条件下展现其广度和深度。
所以，除非你放下一切，回到纯净、简单的基础，否则在修行上没有真正的进展。直到你明白简单的宝藏，并从那里重新开始，每向前一步都是退步。”——John Tan，2020年
English:
More by John Tan: "Mahamudra, Dzogchen, Zen, whatever tradition, how are they able to deny you from yourself? So who are You?"
Self-Enquiry is called a direct path for a reason:
“Don’t relate, don’t infer, don’t think. Authenticating ‘You’ yourself requires nothing of that. Not from teachers, books, Mahamudra, Dzogchen, Zen or even Buddha, whatever comes from outside is knowledge. What that comes from the innermost depth of your own beingness, is the wisdom of you yourself.
There is no need to look for any answers. Ultimately, it is your own essence and nature. To leap from the inferencing, deducting and relating mind into the most direct and immediate authentication, the mind must cease completely and right back into the place before any formation of artificialities. If this ‘eye’ of immediacy isn’t open, everything is merely knowledge and opening this eye of direct perception is the beginning of the path that is pathless. Ok enough of chats and there have been too much words. Don’t sway and walk on. Happy journey!’
…
“Mr. R, I have been very direct to you and it is just a simple question of what is your mind right now and nothing else. There is no other path more straightforward than that.
I have told you to put aside all thoughts, all teachings, even Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Zen and just [asked] ‘what is your mind right now?’. Isn’t that telling you straight to the point, not wasting time and words? I have also told you whatever comes from external is knowledge, put all those aside. Wisdom comes from within yourself directly. But you have cut and pasted me all the texts, conversations, Zen, Mahamudra, Dzogchen, Madhyamaka that I have told you to put aside.
You asked me what is my advice. Still the same. Don’t go after experiences and knowledge, you have read and known enough, so return back to simplicity. Your duty is not to know more, but to eliminate all these and [get] back to the simplicity of the direct taste. Otherwise you will have to waste a few more years or decades to return back to what is most simple, basic and direct.
And from this simplicity and directness, you then allow your nature to reveal the breadth and depth through constantly authenticating it in all moments and all states through engagement in different conditions.
So unless you drop everything and [get] back into a clean, pure, basic simplicity, there is no real progress in practice. Until you understand the treasure of simplicity and start back from there, every step forward is a retrogress.“ – John Tan, 2020
Chinese:
标签：我是感、光明、自我探究
John Tan在2009年曾在Dharma Overground写道：
“嗨，加里，
在这个论坛上似乎有两组修行者，一组采用渐进法，另一组采用直接之道。我在这里比较新，所以可能有误。
我的看法是，你正在采用渐进的方法，但你在直接之道中体验到了一些非常重要的东西，那就是‘观察者’。正如肯尼斯所说，‘你在这里发现了一些非常重要的东西，加里。这个修行会让你解脱。’但肯尼斯所说的，需要你觉醒到这个‘我’。它需要你有那种‘啊哈！’的领悟。觉醒到这个‘我’，精神之路就会变得清晰；它只是这个‘我’的展开。
另一方面，Yabaxoule所描述的是渐进的方法，因此淡化了‘我是’。你必须评估自己的状况，如果你选择直接之道，你不能淡化这个‘我’；相反，你必须完全、彻底地体验整个‘你’作为‘存在’。我们本然的空性将在直接之道的修行者面对非迹可寻、无中心、无努力的非二元觉知时显现。
也许对你有所帮助的是，两种方法在何处相遇。
觉醒到‘观察者’的同时，将‘打开’‘直接性的眼’；也就是说，它是能够直接穿透离散思维和感官，直接感知、感觉、知觉所感知的东西。这是一种直接的知晓。你必须深刻地意识到这种‘无需中介的直接’的感知——太直接了，以至于没有主客体的间隙，太短暂了，以至于没有时间，太简单了，以至于没有思维。它是能够通过‘成为’‘声音’来看到整个‘声音’的‘眼’。在做内观时也需要同样的‘眼’，即‘赤裸’。无论是非二元还是内观，都需要打开这个‘直接性的眼’。”
English:
Labels: I AMness, Luminosity, Self Enquiry
John Tan wrote in Dharma Overground back in 2009,
“Hi Gary,
It appears that there are two groups of practitioners in this forum, one adopting the gradual approach and the other, the direct path. I am quite new here so I may be wrong.
My take is that you are adopting a gradual approach yet you are experiencing something very significant in the direct path, that is, the ‘Watcher’. As what Kenneth said, “You're onto something very big here, Gary. This practice will set you free.” But what Kenneth said would require you to be awaken to this ‘I’. It requires you to have the ‘eureka!’ sort of realization. Awaken to this ‘I’, the path of spirituality becomes clear; it is simply the unfolding of this ‘I’.
On the other hand, what that is described by Yabaxoule is a gradual approach and therefore there is downplaying of the ‘I AM’. You have to gauge your own conditions, if you choose the direct path, you cannot downplay this ‘I’; contrary, you must fully and completely experience the whole of ‘YOU’ as ‘Existence’. Emptiness nature of our pristine nature will step in for the direct path practitioners when they come face to face to the ‘traceless’, ‘centerless’ and ‘effortless’ nature of non-dual awareness.
Perhaps a little on where the two approaches meet will be of help to you.
Awakening to the ‘Watcher’ will at the same time ‘open’ the ‘eye of immediacy’; that is, it is the capacity to immediately penetrate discursive thoughts and sense, feel, perceive without intermediary the perceived. It is a kind of direct knowing. You must be deeply aware of this “direct without intermediary” sort of perception—too direct to have subject-object gap, too short to have time, too simple to have thoughts. It is the ‘eye’ that can see the whole of ‘sound’ by being ‘sound’. It is the same ‘eye’ that is required when doing vipassana, that is, being ‘bare’. Be it non-dual or vipassana, both require the opening of this 'eye of immediacy'.”
Chinese:
——-
在2009年，John Tan写道：
“嗨，德昌，
你所描述的很好，可以被认为是内观禅修，但你必须清楚这样练习的主要目标是什么。具有讽刺意味的是，真正的目的只有在生起无我见解之后才变得明显。我从你的描述中收集到的，并不是关于无我或现象的空性，而是更倾向于觉知的练习。所以，最好从理解觉知究竟是什么开始。你提到的所有修行方法都会导致一种非概念化的体验。你可以有声音、味道的非概念化体验……等等……但更重要的是，在我看来，你应该从直接、非概念地体验觉知开始（首次领略我们光明的本质）。一旦你‘品尝’到觉知是什么，你就可以考虑‘扩展’这种赤裸的觉知，并逐渐从觉知的角度理解‘提升和扩展’是什么意思。
接下来，虽然你在An Eternal Now的论坛上听到和看到‘非二元、无我和缘起’（你最近买的Toni Packer的书是关于非二元和无我的），但一开始‘二元’并没有什么错。即使在直接、非概念地体验觉知之后，我们的观点仍将继续是二元的；所以不要认为二元是坏的，尽管它阻碍了彻底的解脱体验。
Dharma Dan给出的评论非常有见地，但最近我意识到，直接首次领略我们光明的本质是很重要的，然后再进入这样的理解。有时过早地理解某些东西会让自己无法实现，因为它变成了概念。一旦形成了概念性的理解，即使是有资格的导师也会发现很难引导修行者达到实际的‘领悟’，因为修行者将概念性的理解误认为是领悟。
祝好，
约翰”
English:
In 2009, John Tan wrote:
"Hi Teck Cheong,
What you described is fine and it can be considered vipassana meditation too but you must be clear what is the main objective of practicing that way. Ironically, the real purpose only becomes obvious after the arising insight of anatta. What I gathered so far from your descriptions are not so much about anatta or empty nature of phenomena but are rather drawn towards Awareness practice. So it will be good to start from understanding what Awareness truly is. All the method of practices that you mentioned will lead to a quality of experience that is non-conceptual. You can have non-conceptual experience of sound, taste...etc...but more importantly in my opinion, you should start from having a direct, non-conceptual experience of Awareness (first glimpse of our luminous essence). Once you have a ‘taste’ of what Awareness is, you can then think of ‘expanding’ this bare awareness and gradually understand what does ‘heightening and expanding’ mean from the perspective of Awareness.
Next, although you hear and see ‘non-dual, anatta and dependent origination’ all over the place in An Eternal Now’s forum (the recent Toni Packer’s books you bought are about non-dual and anatta), there is nothing wrong being ‘dualistic’ for a start. Even after direct non-conceptual experience of Awareness, our view will still continue to be dualistic; so do not have the idea that being dualistic is bad although it prevents thorough experience of liberation.
The comment given by Dharma Dan is very insightful but of late, I realized that it is important to have a first glimpse of our luminous essence directly before proceeding into such understanding. Sometimes understanding something too early will deny oneself from actual realization as it becomes conceptual. Once the conceptual understanding is formed, even qualified masters will find it difficult to lead the practitioner to the actual ‘realization’ as a practitioner mistakes conceptual understanding for realization.
Rgds,
John"
Chinese:
安杰罗写道：
用于第一次觉醒的探究
引导第一次觉醒的探究是一件有趣的事情。我们想知道“如何”精确地进行这种探究，这是完全可以理解的。问题是，通过描述某种技术，它并不能被完全传达。实际上，这是找到放下和意图相遇的甜蜜点。我将在这里描述一种方法，但重要的是要记住，最终，你（作为你认为的自己）没有能力让自己觉醒。只有生命本身有这种力量。所以，当我们将自己投入某种探究或修行时，必须保持开放。我们必须保持对神秘和可能性的门户开放。我们必须认识到，不断地断定“这不是，这也不是……”只是心智的活动。这些都是思维。如果我们相信任何一个思维，那么我们就会相信下一个，如此下去。然而，如果我们认识到，“哦，那种怀疑只是现在升起的一个思维”，那么我们就有机会认识到那个思维会自行消退……然而，“我”作为那个觉知到那个思维的，仍然在这里！我们现在可以对思维之间的这个间隙感到好奇：当没有思维存在时，这种纯粹的“我”的感觉是什么，这种纯粹的觉知的感觉，纯粹的存在的感觉？这种能够照耀并照亮一个思维（就像它每天成千上万次所做的），而当没有思维时仍然照耀的光是什么？它是自我照耀的。是什么注意到思维的存在，在思维之前、期间和之后都处于清醒和觉知状态，并且不被任何思维以任何方式改变？请理解，当你问这些问题时，你并不是在寻找一个思维的答案，答案就是体验本身。
当我们开始允许注意力放松到这种更广阔的视角中时，我们开始将自己从思维中解放出来。我们开始凭感觉、本能来认识无拘无束的意识的本质。这就是进入的方式。
起初，我们可能断定这个间隙、这个无思维的意识是无趣的、不重要的。它感觉相当中性，而繁忙的心智对中性没有办法，所以我们可能倾向于再次故意引发思维。如果我们认识到“无趣、不重要、没有价值”都是思维，并简单地回到这种流动的意识中，它将开始扩展。但我们不需要去思考扩展或等待它。只要我们与之同在，它会自然而然地这样做。如果你愿意识别每一个思维和心中的图像，并将其视为这样，并让你的注意力警觉但放松地融入与“我”的感觉连续的思维的“物质”中，一切都会自行解决。只要愿意暂停评判。愿意放弃结论。愿意放下所有对自己进展的监控，因为这些都是思维。对纯粹的体验保持开放。只需一次又一次地回到这个没有对象的意识之处，或纯粹的“我是”之感。如果你愿意这样做，它将以我见过的任何人都无法解释的方式向你展示自己，但它比真实更真实。
旅途愉快。”
English:
Angelo wrote:
Inquiry for First Awakening
The inquiry that leads to first awakening is a funny thing. We want to know “how” precisely to do that inquiry, which is completely understandable. The thing is that it’s not wholly conveyable by describing a certain technique. Really it’s a matter of finding that sweet spot where surrender and intention meet. I will describe an approach here, but it’s important to keep in mind that in the end, you don’t have the power (as what you take yourself to be) to wake yourself up. Only Life has that power. So as we give ourselves to a certain inquiry or practice it’s imperative that we remain open. We have to keep the portals open to mystery, and possibility. We have to recognize that the constant concluding that “no this isn’t it, no this isn’t it either...” is simply the activity of the mind. Those are thoughts. If we believe a single thought then we will believe the next one and on and on. If however we recognize that, “oh that doubt is simply a thought arising now,” then we have the opportunity to recognize that that thought will subside on its own... and yet “I” as the knower of that thought am still here! We can now become fascinated with what is here once that thought (or any thought) subsides. What is in this gap between thoughts? What is this pure sense of I, pure sense of knowing, pure sense of Being? What is this light that can shine on and illuminate a thought (as it does thousands of times per day), and yet still shines when no thought is present. It is self illuminating. What is the nature of the one that notices thoughts, is awake and aware before, during, and after a thought, and is not altered in any way by any thought? Please understand that when you ask these questions you are not looking for a thought answer, the answer is the experience itself.
When we start to allow our attention to relax into this wider perspective we start to unbind ourselves from thought. We begin to recognize the nature of unbound consciousness by feel, by instinct. This is the way in.
At first we may conclude that this gap, this thoughtless consciousness is uninteresting, unimportant. It feels quite neutral, and the busy mind can’t do anything with neutral so we might be inclined to purposely engage thoughts again. If we recognize that “not interesting, not important, not valuable” are all thoughts and simply return to this fluid consciousness, it will start to expand. But there is no need to think about expansion or watch for it. It will do this naturally if we stay with it. If you are willing to recognize every thought and image in the mind as such, and keep your attention alert but relaxed into the “stuff” of thought that is continuous with the sense of I, it will all take care of itself. Just be willing to suspend judgement. Be willing to forego conclusions. Be willing to let go of all monitoring of your progress, because these are all thoughts. Be open to the pure experience. Just return again and again to this place of consciousness with no object or pure sense of I Am. If you are willing to do this it will teach itself to you in a way that neither I nor anyone I’ve ever seen can explain, but it is more real than real.
Happy Travels."
