Ryan Burton's Breakthroughs
Awakening to Reality · Facebook archive · 2021–2022
Anatta, Luminosity, and Emptiness
Ryan Burton’s November 2021 breakthrough report and his October 2022 “Update 10 Months After Anatta,” together with the substantive discussion threads that followed.
November 30, 2021 — Breakthrough Report
3 nights ago at the end of a week long period of silence I read your “Two Non-dual Contemplations Post I Am” you explained that moment with the gong sound. It reached me.
The background fell away completely and all perceptions were perceived as presence. Presence and manifestation inseparable. The insight was so clear so I wanted to test it. Took a shower in full effortless natural continuous awareness. Couldn’t sleep laid there for 4 hours too much awareness and luminosity behind the eyes.
Next day there was continuous presence for the first time in life. Have practiced meditation for 12 years. Never happened before. 90% of the moments of that day effortless continuity very little deviation. All thought all perceptions were presence. Couldn’t believe it. Still can’t. Seems I’m phasing between Stage 4 & 5 or I’m just completely delusional and experiencing mere clarity a silencing of the 6th consciousness.
Formerly sensory objects were always cause for distraction. I couldn’t apply Longchenpa’s advice on Abiding in the immediacy of sensory appearances. Namkhai Norbu explains this as well but it wasn’t experiential with profound continuity until reading your explanation that unfolded into appearances as presence.
It’s different than previous non-dual inseparability. Presence still felt like something definable yet empty. Now it seems just ineffable.
I think you saved me a decade maybe a lifetime of meditation. Still a long way to go but wanted to say thank you and if you have any advice for me I’d be honored to hear it.
Your stages especially how you described cycling through I Am where it would be prominent for some time then vanish for months is exactly what I went through.
I have no idea what stage or phase I’m definitively at at all it seems to just happen. If recognition is present, everything is perceived as mind. The atman is just a thought. Ill be reading the rest of the ATR Guide but if there are any sections any of the admins think I should focus on specifically please let me know.
Discussion thread
Did you go through I AM before?
It is a good breakthrough. Your insight is more on second stanza. Both stanzas must be thorough.
You may want to reread:
https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html
And
https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2021/06/pellucid-no-self-non-doership.html
Regarding the “cycling through I Am” which article are you referring to?
Also can you link me the Longchenpa text you mentioned too. Thanks
Ryan and Soh I'd love to see an interview between you two...Im sure it would be well watched 🙂
In such an interview it would be great to start with Soh describing in his own words the various stages, with you Ryan asking any relevant questions,
THEN go on to describe this experience you've had,
which will provide a nice real-world example.
...especially since the interpretability of text on page makes it alot harder to gain certainty one understands what people are talking about, compared to a proper chat
Awesome, congrats man, I’m so happy to hear it ☺️
A.D. haha was just telling someone I don't do zoom meetings
Soh Wei Yu, why not? Embrace the #newnormal 🙂
Soh Wei Yu I’m happy to interview you Ryan if you’re up for it 😉. No pressure of course it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I find it tends to be helpful for others to get the feel of what it’s like to go through these shifts.
Angelo Grr Maybe you can just interview Ryan, that'll be nice 😂
Soh Wei Yu yes that’s what I meant, I think I just put it in a sub thread 😂
Angelo Grr Sure we can do an interview I'll dm you and we can figure out a time
Ryan Burton sounds good
Soh Wei Yu in the world of interconnection and inter penetration you are being a boob of separation!
Soh Wei Yu do you have any advice for sleeping problems post Anatta? There’s been too much clarity and presence to sleep at reasonable hours
Ryan Burton
Read Tips on Energy Imbalances chapter in AtR guide, be somatic and dont strain or overfocus on the radiance
Ryan Burton
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Soh Wei Yu: Ryan can’t sleep.
John Tan: Lol, energy imbalance... Just don’t think about it; come back to it later. 🤣
John Tan: So far, most people seem to have this problem. Maybe I should write something to caution people about it.
Soh Wei Yu: Lol, I see... Yeah, I just told him to read the energy-imbalance chapter.
Soh Wei Yu please do . I myself too have a ceiling of practise for 3-4 hours, anything more than that the energy is uncomfortable so have been looking into energetic practises.. not sure if they help tho
Ryan Burton shift to practices like calm abiding. where you orientate the mind and body towards relaxation and tranquility.
other than that what I've found with energy is to learn to absorb it. this leads to crystallization of a different kind of body. which in turn leads to more capacity to take in energy. etc.
there isn't really an end.
discomfort usually arises when a subtle energy mets a coarser energy. so tension in the body is a coarse energy, which then a subtle solvent of energy breaks down. that discomfort is natural and one has to just understand that is what is happening without fighting or trying to manipulate.
another way is understanding too much energy can equate to agitation. when there is agitation then you need spaciousness or the sensation of openness. this greatly helps work out the kinks so to speak so that there is much more evenness and pervasiveness.
but all in all when you access an infinite source of energy, the crux point is to re-cognize it as your own radiance. welcome it as a friend, be gentle and love it. let it do and be what is needs to do.
I didn't write anything on how, but you can probably figure it out. =]
in a way energy and that knowing of that energy is the most subtle dualism. like motion and stillness. as long it appears two or distinct, there is always desire for union or incessant fighting. when energy and knowing are single, meaning they are the same exact manifestation then there is no issue as there is just transparency. make body, make feeling, make everything transparent through recognition then whether there is energy or not, luminosity knowing or not, flows in through and out and simultaneously nothing at all ever happening.
A.H. well said thank you🙏
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John Tan: Damn, I’m scared you’ll turn it into a cult group. 🤦
John Tan: Did you also do the same in the Chinese forum?
Soh Wei Yu: Lol, I haven’t. It’s just that in the future, I hope to translate and share more.
Soh Wei Yu: 🤣
John Tan: When advising on energy imbalances, you need to consider each individual’s situation and conditions. Your case and Ryan’s are due to over-focusing on the intensity of clarity as appearances.
John Tan: For example, when you read about Actual Freedom (AF) instead of refining selflessness.
John Tan: That is why I am against non-conceptuality as the way.
Soh Wei Yu: Oh, I see...
John Tan: Have you wondered what selflessness in active mode is? What does freedom from self-nature entail?
John Tan wrote to me on the week I broke through to anatta with Bahiya Sutta:
From https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2010/10/my-commentary-on-bahiya-sutta.html
17 Oct 2010, 12:42 PM
Hi AEN,
Just managed to scan through the past few posts you wrote. They are quite insightful. In summary you are beginning to experience the ‘taste’ you described in the “certainty of being” of the formless presence in transient phenomena. That is what I meant by bringing ‘this’ from the background (formlessness) to the foreground (forms). It is also what I meant by the ‘fabric and texture of Awareness’ in forms. Below are some of the points that came to mind after reading them. I will just jot down some of them for sharing purposes.
1. One Taste
You mentioned about ‘one taste’ but do take note that what you are experiencing is just the ‘same taste’ of luminous essence, not the ‘same taste’ in Emptiness nature. I use the term ‘essence’ differently from Dzogchen. In Dzogchen, luminosity is the ‘nature’ and Emptiness is the ‘essence’. As I see Emptiness as the absence of an essence in whatever arises, I do not feel appropriate expressing the Dzogchen way.
2. “Obvious and direct…yet always missed!”
I like how you expressed it, it is quite apt. However I sense that you may have underestimated the power and full meaning of ‘deeply rooted in consciousness’. If we are unaware of the impact, we will not realize what is meant by ‘latent tendencies’. Try imagining ‘someone’ standing right in front of you yet you are unable to see him because you are under a magical spell that is planted in the deep most of your consciousness. If you are unaware of the latent deep, whatever realized is merely a surface understanding. Day in day out, these tendencies are always in action. You may want to ask yourself will the latent deep find its way up even in a PCE mode?
3. Feels Universe, Pure Consciousness, Pure Aggregates
“You are not just the formless presence/knower/consciousness... you are all forms, you are the universe univers-ing, you are whatever is arising moment to moment as a complete non-dual experience in itself... There is no background awareness and foreground phenomena happening in awareness... there is simply foreground pure consciousness always, be it the pure existence experienced in a formless mode (e.g. I AM, aka the 'thought realm' as Thusness puts it), or in all forms... the making of a non-dual experience into a background is simply trying to capture and reify a moment of pure consciousness.”
I remember writing this to Simpo few years ago in his forum. It is related to his experience of ‘feeling light and weightless’. This also relates to mind-body drop and your dream about ‘transparency’. Being ‘light, weightless and transparent’ is the result of dissolving the body-construct. It is quite an obvious contrast moving from ‘Self/self’ to no-self. Prior to what you have written you should also experience this, otherwise you are being too focused on being ‘brilliance and luminous’ of the 'actuality'.
On the othe hand, feeling ‘universe’ has to do with the deconstruction of ‘identity’ and ‘personality’. You have to have clearer insight of what ‘deconstructions’ leads to what experience.
The text in bold is quite well expressed but knows the dependent originated nature of consciousness. There is the experience of primordial purity of the aggregates and 18 dhatus but there is no 'a substratum background' that is called 'pure consciousness'. The sense of self is dissolved and is replaced by a sense of inter-penertration.
4. No agent and the intensity of luminosity
In the seen, there is just the seen! It is completely non-dual... there is no 'the seen + a perceiver here seeing the seen'.... The seen is precisely the seeing! There is not two or three things: seer, seeing, and the seen. That split is entirely conceptual (though taken to be reality)...
Well expressed! But in the subsequent paragraph, you said,
“All the bullshit concepts, constructs and images of an 'aliveness', a 'hearing', a 'seeing', an 'awareness' simply dissolves in the direct experiencing of whatever arises... just 'seeing is seeing, hearing is hearing, thinking is thinking and they are all flowing independently', with 'no self holding all these sensory experiences together'”
In the article on https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html, I mentioned about the 2 stanza. There is the no-agent aspect and there is the intensity of luminosity aspect. I find that your present experience is still centered on the luminosity aspect. You are directly experiencing seamlessness of any happening where no clear line of demarcation can be drawn between the subject-object split. You realized the boundary is purely illusionary and is clear about the cause that resulted in such division but still, that is not the ‘essence’ of an experiential insight of anatta in my opinion. There is a difference in saying "there is no split between thinking and thinker, the thinking itself is 'me'" and "there is thinking, no thinker". You must be aware that having immediate and direct experience but with dualistic framework intact and complete replacement of the dualistic framework entirely with DO (dependent origination) yields very different experiential insight; you may want to investigate further and move from "they are all flowing independently" to "manifesting in seamless inter-dependencies."
5. "How am I experiencing the moment of being alive?" (HAIETMOBA)
But.... if you contemplate on "How am I experiencing the moment of being alive?", or, "How am I experiencing the moment of hearing?", or "How am I experiencing the moment of seeing?" or "How am I experiencing the moment of being aware?"
"How am I experiencing the moment of being alive?" (HAIETMOBA) is the key question of the AF. I will not comment on it but how does it differ from the question “Without using any symbols of ‘I’, how is ‘I’ experienced?” Also how it differs from the question “Who am I?” -- the question that led you to the realization of “I AM”.
As you get clearer and clearer where exactly are all these questions leading you and the mode of perception that are involved in I AM realization and PCEs, you will have to asked yourself sincerely is this the ultimate mode of perception that will lead you towards genuine freedom. Is being lockup permanently in PCE the way towards liberation and how it differs from seeking permanent uninterrupted abiding in “I AMness”.
Edited by Thusness, 17 Oct 2010, 4:35 PM
I think point 4 is relevant to you Ryan Burton
In the article on https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html, I mentioned about the 2 stanza. There is the no-agent aspect and there is the intensity of luminosity aspect. I find that your present experience is still centered on the luminosity aspect. You are directly experiencing seamlessness of any happening where no clear line of demarcation can be drawn between the subject-object split. You realized the boundary is purely illusionary and is clear about the cause that resulted in such division but still, that is not the ‘essence’ of an experiential insight of anatta in my opinion. There is a difference in saying "there is no split between thinking and thinker, the thinking itself is 'me'" and "there is thinking, no thinker". You must be aware that having immediate and direct experience but with dualistic framework intact and complete replacement of the dualistic framework entirely with DO (dependent origination) yields very different experiential insight; you may want to investigate further and move from "they are all flowing independently" to "manifesting in seamless inter-dependencies."
— From https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2010/10/my-commentary-on-bahiya-sutta.html
Actually the insight of anatta has arisen in both stanzas to some degree even back then, but the first stanza became clearer over the next few months and I think particularly in February 2011 (about four months later) I had another breakthrough. The second stanza was clearer for me first. Usually those who enter anatta with I AM prior, their second stanza is clearer first.
Soh Wei Yu fascinating that people with prior I Am get clear on second stanza first
Ryan Burton
They enter by tasting, expanding and exploring the nature of the luminosity
But as I said better to put aside all thinking, contemplating or even reading until you resolved your energy imbalances. Take a 1~2 week rest and if things improve.
Ryan Burton can also try hatha yoga. I had the same issue three months ago when I could only sleep for three or four hours for several days(albeit still mentally functional). Hatha yoga resolves the metitation insomnia,which is likely induced by energy imbalance.
I remember I searched thru this grp for info and hatha yoga popped out
L.Z.G.
What caused your issue?
Soh Wei Yu I pinpointed to either meditation or rumination due to job change.
But likely meditation as I reembarked on meditation a month or so prior to insomnia. Maintained sitted meditation for at least 30mins daily,and it resolved my worries lol.
Though my mind still abit too still and I had a devil-may-care mentality,not sure if I could call it ennui. One night during the insomnia period,it even felt my heart literally opened out and a bliss of sort overwhelmed my body at around 3-4am(and I was smiling goofily to myself).
So everytime I woke up early and can't sleep I just do meditation. I wonder if that aggravated it lol.
Though I notice that I might had a breakthrough then. At one point there was a schedule screwup during working hours,so I went to a hustling and bustling area to meditate open-awareness style. To my surprised I was able to be mentally still despite the noises of chattering and clattering engine,cold breeze hitting upon my skin, and crowds in front of me.
Btw my main meditation is putting my intent on nosetip or area above upper lip and watch the in-out breath. Though sometimes I feel mental tightness so later I adopted watching breath moving throughout the body(which is the method favoured by Tibetans afaik).
Usually when I had completed I switch to open-awareness of the senses. Whatever it comes,it comes;whatever it goes,it goes. Just be aware.
Also did kindness and compassion(metta) meditation,though not as frequent and in separate sittings. Some walking meditation. Other than these,body scanning sometimes but not much.
So what caused my insomnia then might be likely mental exertion of trying to be too aware😑
Soh Wei Yu put all thinking aside... that's certainly the best advice at this time thank you
Ryan Burton embodiment takes time. The Great Vow to save all beings clarifies and with this brilliant alive energy we can be of service to others. I practice Zhan Zhuang and Qigong and would highly recommend both of these in terms of becoming useful. If you need any info please let me know.
October 5, 2022 — Update 10 Months After Anatta
Update 10 Months After Anatta
From “there is only now” to “there is no now.” From “there is only here” to “there is no here.” From “there is only mind” to “there is no mind.” From “there is only This” to “there is no such thing as a This.” From “I Am Nothing” to “I Am Everything.” From “I Am Everything” to “There is Only Everything.” From “There is Only Everything” to “There are No Things.”
There are No Things— Sunyata (Emptiness). There never was a Thing— Anutpada (Non-arisen).
There never was a Thing nor will there ever be. There is only transience without beginning. Transparency of experience, the “emptying” of the aggregates is the meaning of “all phenomena are like mirages, dreams, dew drops, bubbles, flashes of lightning.”
To see arising and passing is to see impermanency. To see non-arisen is to see without reference points. Without past or future, here and there, now and then— all gone, phenomena as unproduced. What is considered to be a cause or condition cannot actually be found.
All things are “chariot” made of parts put “together” by designation only and therefore are empty. Because they are empty they aren’t there at all. In understanding this it is seen there is no being to liberate, no self that becomes enlightened, no self that was un-enlightened. There’s only dependent origination, there’s only process, illumined, perfect, empty, Buddha activity.
Tasting presence/phenomena as absence, Maha rolls on and on as DO. The myriad field of experience is doing the myriad field of experience. The Universe in every iota of experience—immaculate immensity. Not a shred of a permanent, solid, real anything to be found. No ending, no beginning. Just “This” which isn’t anything at all. Everything is “Wisdom” which cannot be found. Nothing abides anywhere. Non-abiding, non-arisen. No where, No when, No Here, No Now, No referents.
Tathagata.
Still have to finish Finding Rest In Illusion, Shobogenzo and Avatamsaka. If anyone has any advice or corrections please feel free to share. Thank you Soh Wei Yu and John Tan.
Discussion thread
Hi Ryan, can you shed some light on your relationship with "conventional" life as it stands? Is it easy for you to engage with the relative, conceptual world despite apprehending its ultimate lack of reference points?
J.W. in former years especially in the “I Am Everything” phase I had some difficulties functioning in life, but those have smoothened out. The difficulty I had with conventional life was mostly from this spiritual life vs ordinary life dichotomy I had in my mind. Since that split vanished a few years ago I haven’t had any issues with conventions. There’s no particular resistance to human construct.
Ryan Burton Your description almost reads like a secret chapter of my diary 🙂 Very familiar... Excellent progress, and always a treat to read your content. Be well.
J.W. thanks J.W. 🔥
Did you go via self inquiry and I Am stage, or were you a vipassana yogi?
O.R. I Am & I Am Everything happened after 7 years of meditation. I read the line “Moksha is to know you were never born” in Ramana’s “Talks” and that’s when it began. My practice was mostly Theravadin Samatha and self-enquiry up to that point. Not much Mahasi or Goenka style vipassana. Just a couple retreats in those traditions.
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John Tan: In short, Kyle is talking about the afflictive twelve-link model of dependent origination (DO), which begins with ignorance—when sentient beings take conventional existence to be real. Sentient beings do not see dependent origination; they see true existence.
John Tan: Dependent origination is an enlightened view prescribed by the Buddha to end proliferation. That is why Nāgārjuna begins by praising the Buddha in the dedicatory verses of the MMK (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā) for teaching dependent origination. Those who see dependent origination also see the eight negations, which are used to describe nirvana. Tsongkhapa shares a similar understanding.
John Tan: There are too many subtle points of mental deconstruction to elaborate on easily.
Soh Wei Yu: Oh, I see...
Soh Wei Yu: What should I tell Ryan?
John Tan: If I have time, I may write to him.
Soh Wei Yu: Oh, I see. Okay.
Soh Wei Yu I’ll message him 🙏 thank you Soh
Well said and nice progress! I couldn't have said it better myself
Archived on Awakening to Reality so that these two discussions remain easy to locate and read.
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