Posted in AtR group:
Someone posted something before I could approve, I was at work (yes I have a 9 to 6 job, and I cannot be answering AtR all day) and the post disappeared before I could read it properly and approve it. None of my admins removed it as far as I know, which means the initial poster removed it himself. But I will try to respond based on what I can recall (I only took a glance at my workplace).
But basically that person feels confused and discouraged as awakening or stream entry seems elusive, all kinds of people and teachers presenting unique information that appears overwhelming and he didn't know who to trust.
Well first of all I have to say, be a little patient as it will all be figured out at the end if you have the heart to figure it out, if you truly wish to awaken, to discover Truth, I think everything will turn out well. There are plenty of people who awakened, through AtR as I've said, more than 60 have awakened to anatman. There are also teachers available -- https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2024/01/finding-awakened-spiritual-teacher-and.html . And just to be clear, stream entry requires the realization of anatman, or at least Thusness Stage 5 and is not just the preliminary awakening (such as the I AM awakening), but still, the I AM awakening is crucial for a start.
It is true that awakening is not as simple and straightforward a journey as many would prefer and there are several stages of deepening and unfolding of insights even after the initial awakening. But in the end, all efforts will prove worthwhile. Before I even had any personal realizations (my awakening in 2010), I was acquinted with John Tan, who shared many things with me, including but not limited to the Thusness 7 Stages of Enlightenment https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html
If you can truly understand (as I did, even before 2010) at least intellectually what these stages or phases of realization meant, then you will be able to understand why different teachers and spiritual aspirants say different things. There are actual, different stages of realization and insights, and different people express differently based on what they understand and realized. Of course many have not even realized the I AM -- Stage 1, but still, they might (or might not) be able to offer some good advise.
In any case, I can only suggest that you read the 7 stages carefully, then everything will start to make clearer sense. In my own experience, and those of many others, even if one has not awakened yet, those who read the AtR articles very quickly becomes less confused by the vast variety of views and sayings of different teachers and speakers in the spiritual marketplace and be able to discern what the insights meant, or even which phase of insight, and so on. Soon after reading the 7 stages and conversing with John Tan, even before I awakened, I was able to discern the correct view and even tell 'what stage the other teachers are at', although the point isn't to be able to discern which teacher or person is at which stage, it is more for one's own inner development and discernment so that when these stages unfold in oneself, it can serve as a guide.
But one must be patient and not expect to get it all at once. It often takes years of reading, contemplating, meditating, conversing with teachers and others etc to begin to see some fruition and one's understanding, then insights (experiential insights, not just intellectual understanding) begin to manifest and mature. There is no need to rush to the end point but it is important to have an earnest desire to discover the Truth.
It's like if you are at high school, there is no need to feel overwhelmed when you peek into a university or degree material. When you get there, eventually it will all make sense, although it may take a couple of years. But if you put your heart to it, there is no doubt you will get there eventually so to speak. (I'm just using this as an example -- of course, awakening does not mean academic achievement, even an uneducated person can be awakened)
In short: Do not feel exhausted at seeing the numberless discussions and differing views stemming from people at different stages of insights or varying experiences, but just have a good overall understanding and take steps on your path. Once you start to understand the 7 Stages, it all makes sense. But don't expect to get it all in one day, just take steps to read the AtR articles, like the 7 stages. And start to practice, meditate, self-enquire, etc so that whatever you read does not remain as merely intellectual information but can be directly realized and tasted.
And if you are feeling overwhelmed, I suggest that you just read the 7 stages to have a general picture but focus on the I AM. Just take steps to contemplate, self enquire, meditate, realize the I AM first. You can read the AtR practice guide focusing on the initial chapter on self enquiry and I AM: https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2022/06/the-awakening-to-reality-practice-guide.html , or you can read another book related to I AM awakening like The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (a good one, I always buy and give it to friends), etc.
As Krodha/Kyle Dixon said before,
“I don’t see why not. Stream entry involves recognition of the true nature of the clear, bright, knowing, cognizance of your mind.
As your practice progresses you should begin to familiarize with that knowing capacity. Even with bipolar, in the height of happiness, the depths of depression, in the intensity of anger, that knowing capacity is always the same, stable, bright, clear. Like the surface of a mirror.
Anger, sadness, happiness and everything else are like reflections that appear in the surface of the mirror but don’t affect it.
Be the mirror and don’t get caught up in the reflections.
This is not yet stream entry. But it can be a basis for practice that will help you get there.
…
In initial practice, if you treat your knowing conscious clarity of mind as something like the surface of a mirror, and the sensory stimuli as reflections that appear on the mirror, anchor your view as being the mirror and the view will always be stable no matter what appears.”
Aditya Prasad:
I don't understand this quote. "Stream entry is X. This is not yet stream entry." I think I am misunderstanding which parts describe stream entry and which do not. Is the distinction here the same as initial rigpa vs mature rigpa ( = stream entry)? Kyle Dixon · 49m
Soh Wei Yu:
Admin
Kyle Dixon is saying that recognising the clarity aspect of rigpa is not stream entry but is an important preliminary realisation. Realising the empty nature (i.e. anatman) of that clarity of mind is stream entry.
(On the subject of the definition of stream entry: see [https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/igored/insight_buddhism_a_reconsideration_of_the_meaning/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf%20](https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/igored/insight_buddhism_a_reconsideration_of_the_meaning/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf%20) and https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2020/08/insight-buddhism-reconsideration-of.html )
I will leave you with something John Tan/Thusness wrote in 2005 to Sim Pern Chong:
"Hi LongChen,
It is difficult to comprehend the mystery of life. Just like there is no half-infinity, the Movement is really the Source. The nature of Consciousness is without self, it is the very otherness that we experience, not to distant itself from itself. The hidden unmanifest is ever manifesting, in the movement everything IS.
There are more workers and warriors then we imagine. Some plant the seed of luminosity, some plant Emptiness. Not all are aware of their designated roles but knowingly or unknowingly they carry out their tasks. The tasks carried out might appear conflicting as if enlightened beings battling among themselves. Thus battling is not only dark against light.
From the perspective of the source, there is no conflict, not even in the minuteness moment of arising – a lost balance does not exist in reality but only in forms. ‘Birth’ is the beginning of life and yet it is also the beginning of Death. The wise therefore look beyond the appearance of forms and works on cause, condition and effect and understands the emptiness nature of reality."
——
Update:
Someone asked:
“What is right view? Should I learn it? I do not know Buddhism, it is so wide and deep in material. I think I gravitated towards advaita because of simplicity to not get lost in too much reading that is hard for me to comprehend. Please advise I am open to whatever is best for me”
Soh replied:
“Meaning anatta, dependent origination and emptiness. Like the 7 stages, on anatta emptiness articles on atr blog might help.
But when you do self enquiry, do not downplay the Existence or I AM
However, you can read articles like these to have an overall picture of the path (and the correct view) and later insights first
https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html
https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html
….
Anatta, dependent origination and emptiness is the right view.
The reason why i said it is important to read and understand these articles even early on is that it plants the seed so that when the Luminosity dawns, one is able to progress smoothly to further phases of insights rather than endlessly enforcing the wrong views that reifies Awareness wrongly.
This is why i was able to progress from I AM to nondual and anatta in less than one year after the initial I AM awakening whereas most people took decades if ever
But when you do self enquiry, do not worry about nondual or anatta etc. just focus solely on inquiring into the Source and discovering what Existence is.
….
On self enquiry vs vipassana, 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'.”
——-
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"
“The anatta I realized is quite unique. It is not just a realization of no-self. But it must first have an intuitive insight of Presence. Otherwise will have to reverse the phases of insights.” - John Tan, 2018
…
Question: “Source and Existence are different?”
Soh: “Same. You trace back all perceptions to its Source. Then you have direct realization of the Source/the I-I/I AM
" Question: What is the mind of void and calm, numinous awareness?
Chinul: What has just asked me this question is precisely your mind of void and calm, numinous awareness. Why not trace back its radiance rather than search for it outside? For your benefit I will now point straight to your original mind so that you can awaken to it. Clear your minds and listen to my words.
From morning until evening, all during the 12 periods of the day, during all your actions and activities - whether seeing, hearing, laughing, talking, whether angry of happy, whether doing evil or good - ultimately who is it that is able to perform all these actions? Speak! If you say that it is the physical body which is acting, then at the moment when a man's life comes to an end, even though the body has not yet decayed, how is it that the eyes cannot see, the ears cannot hear, the nose cannot smell, the tongue cannot talk, the hands cannot grasp, the feet cannot run?
You should know that what is capable of seeing, hearing, moving and acting has to be your original mind; it is not your physical body. Furthermore, the four elements which make up the physical body are by nature void; they are like images in a mirror of the moon's reflection in water. How can they be clear and constantly aware, always bright and never obscured - and, upon activation, be able to put into operation sublime functions as numerous as the sands of the Ganges? For this reason it is said: "Drawing water and carrying firewood are spiritual powers and sublime functions."
There are many points at which to enter the noumenon. I will indicate one approach which will allow you to return to the source.
Chinul: Do you hear the sound of that crow cawing and that magpie calling?
Student: Yes.
Chinul: Trace them back and listen to your hearing-nature. Do you hear any sounds?
Student: At that place, sound and discrimination do not obtain.
Chinul: Marvelous! Marvelous! This is Avalokitesvara's method for entering the noumenon. Let me ask you again. You said that sounds and discrimination do not obtain at that place. But since they do not obtain, isn't the hearing-nature just empty space at such a time?
Student: Originally it is not empty. It is always bright and never obscured.
Chinul: What is this essence which is not empty?
Student: Words cannot describe it. "”
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