from Mr. H sent 4 hours ago
Now this was very helpful, such a difference when you talk to me directly.
As for your 1st message, I do understand and practice this all, including daily meditation for years.
Your 3rd and 4th messages were the most helpful in my understanding of what kind of state you mean, and also what kind of state you don't mean. This way I have an idea of what to look for. I suppose there is a complete rewiring taking place here, and when it's complete, it just establishes a new model of reality where it needs no further tending to. But do tell me this, do you ever enter the state of flow? If you're not familiar with the term, it means being so fully immersed in what you're doing that you completely lose track of time and context, meaning the mind switches into autopilot, but a productive autopilot. Do you experience this still? It's hard for me to imagine that there is any awareness of reality or flow itself while in flow, as opposed to only retrospectively after it has happened. Sure, there may be an underlying "new model" that pervades everything, but is it always mindfully known to be the case? Do you ever yield to the mind so fully, for productive behavior, that mindfulness of reality temporarily subsides?
Regarding your 6th message, I do intellectually understand this and pretty much everything you say, I am able to experience reality in this way, as I am able to experience it with a "background" as well. I am in a phase of inquiry as to whether atman or anatman appears to be truer, but assuming one or the other, I can experience either to one extent or another, meditate on it, and contemplate it.



Soh To: Mr. H

I know the flow state you're talking about. After anatta is realized, you are always fully immersed and you don't need to chase flow states.

It is as Thusness said before, " 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.”" - excerpt from https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2021/07/anatta-is-dharma-seal-or-truth-that-is.html


So the key is really to realize anatta as a dharma seal. Otherwise a state of no mind will always be merely a state to achieve, that can be entered or left, like flow states. Right now I am always fully immersed in the action (to be clear, there is no 'I' to be fully immersed with the action, there is only the action, the action is everything and is the full immersion but I think you get what I mean), like the action of typing and words appearing on the screen, it is completely actionless action, non-action-action, wei wu wei, which is not to say that there is no intention or action, but that the gap between actor and act, doer and deed has been refined till none (Effortlessly, naturally, after anatta insight) in the single act where total action without actor-act is non-action.

In short... When the gap between actor and action is refined till none, that is non-action and that non-action is total action. Whether this total action is understood as the natural way will depend on whether the insight of anatta has arisen. Anatta is the insight that allows the practitioner to see clearly that this has always been the case. I think it was Frank Yang (who makes very interesting videos about his anatta insight and other practical advise, see for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t8KvdMtT4A&ab_channel=FrankYang -- although I wouldn't call that 'full enlightenment', just stream entry or realisation of anatman or Thusness Stage 5) who said after anatta, it's always flow state, which you never leave. Or something like that. It becomes a natural state.

You asked about mindfulness. What is mindfulness in this case? In relation to actions, activities, and even thinking? Mindfulness does not mean stepping back as a watcher. A watcher is a delusion. There is no watcher. In the seeing just the seen, seeing is always already and only the seen, without a seer, just like wind is ever just the blowing and just another word for blowing, not the agent of blowing, and lightning is just another word for flash, never was there two, thunder is simply another word for roaring and is not some invisible agent that creates the roaring. In hearing, only sound, no hearer or hearing besides sound. So on and so forth. Contemplate this way in direct experience until it is realised as clear as day.


So to answer your question directly, "It's hard for me to imagine that there is any awareness of reality or flow itself while in flow, as opposed to only retrospectively after it has happened."

Anatta is precisely the realization of what awareness truly is. Under the state of delusion, we think that awareness is something outside of the flow, watching the flow as a watcher. That's the delusion. In truth, thoughts think and sound hears. The observer has always been the observed. Awareness has always been merely the flow itself, never was it ever outside the flow, not even for a moment. Never was, except in one's delusions. No watcher was ever needed nor did it ever exist, the process itself knows and rolls as Venerable Buddhaghosa writes in the Visuddhi Magga. Everything is self-luminous, self-known, self-knowing. The quality of knowingness is not denied, it is just no longer reified into a ghostly background behind manifestation but is simply the luminous manifestation, as Thusness said years ago, "The key towards pure knowingness is to bring the taste of presence into the 6 entries and exits. So that what is seen, heard, touched, tasted are pervaded by a deep sense of crystal, radiance and transparency. This requires seeing through the center.", "“Geovani Geo to me, to be without dual is not to subsume into one and although awareness is negated, it is not to say there is nothing.

Negating the Awareness/Presence (Absolute) is not to let Awareness remain at the abstract level.  When such transpersonal Awareness that exists only in wonderland is negated, the vivid radiance of presence are fully tasted in the transient appearances; zero gap and zero distance between presence and moment to moment of ordinary experiences and we realize separationn has always only been conventional.

Then mundane activities -- hearing, sitting, standing, seeing and sensing, become pristine and vibrant, natural and free.” – John Tan, 2020"



I know what you're going to say next. You're going to say, but I'm missing the point. Because the awareness that you can't imagine being simultaneous with being in the flow is not the sort of 'knowingness' but the sort of "time and context" and so on, or in other words, mind information as opposed to merely non conceptual sensory and bodily actions, correct?

But that is only because you are looking from the perspective of a peak experience of no-mind, where you enter into a state of total mental silence and self-transcendence in an activity, for example. But in anatta, every moment is so, whether in silence or noise, stillness or activities, and remembering mental information is just as much part of the flow as any other moment of manifestation, thoughts are equally Buddha-nature, radiant and empty thoughts without a thinker or a watcher. No-mind is no longer a state with an entry and exit, it is natural and effortless. In that very act of skiing, just the skiing, in the act of driving, just the driving, no agent, no actor, no watcher besides. And in the act of remembering or thinking, just thought! Not any different from all other activities and experiences. So that's how things are or have been since anatta realization. There is no split or gap between mundane activities, stillness, programming, work, or walking, driving, or sitting meditation. All activities, even the chaos of complex mental activities and worklife, can become an ongoing actualization of buddha-nature or practice-enlightenment. You still need to sit in meditation diligently though, but for another reason which I partly explained earlier but its best to learn from a teacher and guidance of someone deeply awakened.

On the subject of mindfulness, this is a key practice in Buddhism. In 2012, I quoted from Walpola Rahula in his very highly recommended book What the Buddha Taught https://www.amazon.com.au/What-Buddha-Taught-Pb-Rahula/dp/0802130313 :


10/20/2012 11:27 AM: AEN: "Mindfulness, or awareness, does not mean that you should think and be conscious 'I am doing this' or 'I am doing that.' No. Just the contrary. The moment you think, 'I am doing this,' you become self-conscious, and then you do not live in the action, but you live in the idea 'I am,' and consequently your work too is spoiled.
"You should forget yourself completely, and lose yourself in what you do. The moment a speaker becomes self-conscious and thinks 'I am addressing an audience,' his speech is disturbed and his trend of thought broken. But when he forgets himself in his speech, in his subject, then he is at his best, he speaks well and explains things clearly.
All great work -- artistic, poetic, intellectual or spiritual -- is produced at those moments when its creators are lost completely in their actions, when they forget themselves altogether, and are free from self-consciousness.
10/20/2012 11:27 AM: Thusness: All past/present/future tendencies, ignorance, wisdom is in this one thought...
10/20/2012 11:30 AM: AEN: This mindfulness or awareness with regard to our activities, taught by the Buddha, is to live in the present moment, to live in the present action (this is also the Zen way which is based primarily on this teaching.) Here in this form of meditation, you haven't got to perform any particular action in order to develop mindfulness, but you have only to be mindful and aware of whatever you may do. You haven't got to spend one second of your precious time on this particular 'meditation': you have only to cultivate mindfulness and awareness always, day and night, with regard to all activities in your usual daily life. These two forms of 'meditation' discussed above are connected with our body."
10/20/2012 11:30 AM: Thusness: Yes...and insight of anatta opens the gate.
10/20/2012 11:32 AM: AEN: Ic..
10/20/2012 11:33 AM: AEN: Delma tells me today her total exertion has stabilized
10/20/2012 11:34 AM: AEN: "Interesting times. Nondual is becoming more and more stable. I don't understand it, but just reading your material and deeply contemplating it seems to have tremendous affect. Yesterday while driving home from work and walking to my house, there was just walking, just driving. This was is what is becoming more and more sustained.

I do follow your advice and follow the breath without counting. Then there is only breath. It's more effortless these days. So, thank you.
10/20/2012 11:34 AM: AEN: luminosity, but not awareness as a thing or entity. just the senses, experienced as independent streams. It's the walking experience which seems different and sustained. No one is walking. At first this would be experienced with a bit of effort, but it's becoming more natural and the feeling of it always having been this way is there."
10/20/2012 11:38 AM: Thusness: Quite good

- www.awakeningtoreality.com/2012/10/total-exertion_20.html

.....

In short, in the very immersion in the vivid act of losing yourself in the activity that you call 'being in the zone/flow', or even in the midst of thinking -- there is just that act, just that thought, self-luminous and empty thought without a thinker/watcher, actualizing the seal of anatman, and the inseparability of luminosity and emptiness, that in itself is mindfulness. On the contrary, if we experience clarity but reify it into a changeless self under the power of ignorance and karmic propensities into a watcher, a background, that is called not being mindful, losing sight of the three dharma seals -- anicca, dukkha, anatta. Losing sight of right view. Mindfulness is remembering right view experientially. And realization of anatman is the beginning of the realization of right view, to be further extended later on in terms of dependent origination and emptiness.

More comments on mindfulness:

Although the practice of mindfulness was first taught by Buddha, it is usurped and misinterpreted by people who do not understand Buddhism. I mean it's fine they use the term mindfulness in their own ways, but it is just not mindfulness in the context of Buddhism. Most people think of mindfulness in the way of being an atman, a Watcher, a background, this is not how Buddha taught.

As I wrote over a decade ago:


 I will discuss one of the most popular technique the Buddha said could lead to the attainment of Anagamihood and Arahantship in as little as 7 days and at most 7 years (of course you must be seriously practicing it with a background of right view and understanding, otherwise you can't possibly have right mindfulness to begin with, which is why not everyone who meditates become enlightened so quickly), which is the Four Foundations of Mindfulness found in the Satipatthana Sutta (which I highly recommend everyone to read) which is according to Wikipedia the most popular Buddhist text. In that technique, one is mindful/aware of every sensation. You may think ‘oh this is probably some typical Witnessing technique found even in common self-help books to dissociate from all forms and experiences in order to transcend to the formless Self or Watcher’, BUT notice that the Watcher is nowhere mentioned in the sutta (and any other Pali sutta for that matter) and more importantly: the Buddha’s repeated expression in the sutta of "observing the body in the body," "observing the feelings in the feelings," "observing the mind in the mind," "observing the objects of mind in the objects of mind." Why are the words, body, feelings, mind, and objects of mind repeated? Why ‘observe the … IN THE ….’? It means you are living and experiencing IN and AS the sensations, and not observing the sensations in and as an observer/watcher and the sensations are not meant to be disassociated from in order to get to an ultimate reality or transcendental Self!

The Buddha's method of contemplating anatta therefore is for practitioners to have direct experience and contemplation of pure sensations as in Bahiya Sutta, 'in seeing just the seen, in hearing just the heard'* WITHOUT the filtering of the conceptual mind, the false sense or conception of a self, or the passions and afflictions that causes all manners of craving and aversions for the sensations, so that insight and realization can arise, so that true liberation and abandonment can take place, and it is only in this context that contemplating anatta can be understood. And this is the insight meditation taught by Buddha himself, which, at least in the Pali canon, is considered as the most direct path to liberation (however note that the term 'direct path' is used differently by me in my e-book).

*Bahiya Sutta said, "Then, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bahiya, there is no you in terms of that. When there is no you in terms of that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress." 

- www.awakeningtoreality.com/2011/10/anatta-not-self-or-no-self_1.html

----


Lastly you said "I am able to experience it with a "background" as well", well that is not the pure experience of the I AM. A background is only experienced when one is outside of the authentication of the pure Beingness or Presence, and the mind captured that image of a foreground moment of pure presence and turn it into a background.

Many people have described it this way in case you haven't noticed, except they didn't realise the nature of it: sometimes the thoughts and 'stuff' of their lives recede into the 'background' and instead the I AM they realized would come to the foreground and they would experience with vivid intensity just Awareness Aware of Itself as Itself, as the pure foreground and sole reality that is I AM/Pure Beingness. But at other times, the I AM appears as sort of there in the background, while thoughts and other stuff take up the foreground position, yet the stillness and presence underlying all the other thoughts and activities that's going on, an undercurrent of peace and stillness and presence still goes on like the canvas for the forms to take place.

That should actually give you a hint. In the very pure authentication of I AM, it actually is a foreground experience, it never was a background except when captured by the mind and reified into an underlying substratum behind other foreground experiences (making it dualistic). This prevents the authentication of Pure Presence in the midst of all forms and activities.

We're not denying the pure Presence or the pure sense of Existence that seems 'formless', it is just the Mind door or the subtle aspect of the mental realm, the subtle clear light. But it too is a foreground manifestation, and no more ultimate and special or luminous than any other thought, sight, sound, scent, sensation, colors, smells, all equally intensely vivid and radiant and empty -- Buddha-nature. It is just a misunderstanding of its nature, the ignorance, the power of karmic conditioning which makes the 'background' appear so real and ultimate, that turns it dualistic and prevents the actualization of buddha-nature in all forms. It is misapprehending the nature of awareness.

Perhaps you can go through these excerpts again in light of this understanding:



In 2009:

“(10:49 PM) Thusness:    by the way you know about hokai description and "I AM" is the same experience?
(10:50 PM) AEN:            the watcher right
(10:52 PM) Thusness:    nope. i mean the shingon practice of the body, mind, speech into one.
(10:53 PM) AEN:            oh thats i am experience?
(10:53 PM) Thusness:    yes, except that the object of practice is not based on consciousness. what is meant by foreground? it is the disappearance of the background and whats left is it. similarly the "I AM" is the experience of no background and experiencing consciousness directly. that is why it is just simply "I-I" or "I AM"
(10:57 PM) AEN:            i've heard of the way people describe consciousness as the background consciousness becoming the foreground... so there's only consciousness aware of itself and thats still like I AM experience
(10:57 PM) Thusness:    that is why it is described that way, awareness aware of itself and as itself.
(10:57 PM) AEN:            but you also said I AM people sink to a background?
(10:57 PM) Thusness:    yes
(10:57 PM) AEN:            sinking to background = background becoming foreground?
(10:58 PM) Thusness:    that is why i said it is misunderstood. and we treat that as ultimate.
(10:58 PM) AEN:            icic but what hokai described is also nondual experience rite
(10:58 PM) Thusness:    I have told you many times that the experience is right but the understanding is wrong. that is why it is an insight and opening of the wisdom eyes. there is nothing wrong with the experience of I AM". did i say that there is anything wrong with it?
(10:59 PM) AEN:            nope
(10:59 PM) Thusness:    even in stage 4 what did I say?
(11:00 PM) AEN:            its the same experience except in sound, sight, etc
(11:00 PM) Thusness:    sound as the exact same experience as "I AM"... as presence.
(11:00 PM) AEN:            icic
(11:00 PM) Thusness:    yes”

“"I AM" is a luminous thought in samadhi as I-I.  Anatta is a realization of that in extending the insight to the 6 entries and exits.” – John Tan, 2018

“The Absolute as separated from the transience is what I have indicated as the 'Background' in my 2 posts to theprisonergreco.

84. RE: Is there an absolute reality? [Skarda 4 of 4]
Mar 27 2009, 9:15 AM EDT | Post edited: Mar 27 2009, 9:15 AM EDT
Hi theprisonergreco,

First is what exactly is the ‘background’? Actually it doesn’t exist. It is only an image of a ‘non-dual’ experience that is already gone. The dualistic mind fabricates a ‘background’ due to the poverty of its dualistic and inherent thinking mechanism. It ‘cannot’ understand or function without something to hold on to. That experience of the ‘I’ is a complete, non-dual foreground experience.

When the background subject is understood as an illusion, all transience phenomena reveal themselves as Presence. It is like naturally 'vipassanic' throughout. From the hissing sound of PC, to the vibration of the moving MRT train, to the sensation when the feet touches the ground, all these experiences are crystal clear, no less “I AM” than “I AM”. The Presence is still fully present, nothing is denied. -:) So the “I AM” is just like any other experiences when the subject-object split is gone. No different from an arising sound. It only becomes a static background as an afterthought when our dualistic and inherent tendencies are in action.

The first 'I-ness' stage of experiencing awareness face to face is like a point on a sphere which you called it the center. You marked it.

Then later you realized that when you marked other points on the surface of a sphere, they have the same characteristics. This is the initial experience of non-dual. Once the insight of No-Self is stabilized, you just freely point to any point on the surface of the sphere -- all points are a center, hence there is no 'the' center. 'The' center does not exist: all points are a center.

After then practice move from 'concentrative' to 'effortlessness'. That said, after this initial non-dual insight, 'background' will still surface occasionally for another few years due to latent tendencies...

86. RE: Is there an absolute reality? [Skarda 4 of 4]
To be more exact, the so called 'background' consciousness is that pristine happening. There is no a 'background' and a 'pristine happening'. During the initial phase of non-dual, there is still habitual attempt to 'fix' this imaginary split that does not exist. It matures when we realized that anatta is a seal, not a stage; in hearing, always only sounds; in seeing always only colors, shapes and forms; in thinking, always only thoughts. Always and already so. -:)

Many non-dualists after the intuitive insight of the Absolute hold tightly to the Absolute. This is like attaching to a point on the surface of a sphere and calling it 'the one and only center'. Even for those Advaitins that have clear experiential insight of no-self (no object-subject split), an experience similar to that of anatta (First emptying of subject) are not spared from these tendencies. They continue to sink back to a Source.

It is natural to reference back to the Source when we have not sufficiently dissolved the latent disposition but it must be correctly understood for what it is. Is this necessary and how could we rest in the Source when we cannot even locate its whereabout? Where is that resting place? Why sink back? Isn't that another illusion of the mind? The 'Background' is just a thought moment to recall or an attempt to reconfirm the Source. How is this necessary? Can we even be a thought moment apart? The tendency to grasp, to solidify experience into a 'center' is a habitual tendency of the mind at work. It is just a karmic tendency. Realize It! This is what I meant to Adam the difference between One-Mind and No-Mind.” - John Tan, 2009, excerpt from Emptiness as Viewless View and Embracing the Transience https://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/04/emptiness-as-viewless-view.html

----------

One last thing, I sent this to someone recently, you might want to check out the links, especially the one by Zen teacher Alex Weith:

In Cula-sihanada Sutta (MN 11) -- The Shorter Discourse on the Lion's Roar {M i 63} [Ñanamoli Thera and Bhikkhu Bodhi, trans.] - http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.011.ntbb.html , the Buddha declares that only through practicing in accord with the Dhamma can Awakening be realized. His teaching is distinguished from those of other religions and philosophies through its unique rejection of all doctrines of self. [BB]

…

Dzogchen teacher Acarya Malcolm Smith said,

"What you are suggesting is already found in Samkhya system. I.e. the twenty four tattvas are not the self aka purusha. Since this system was well known to the Buddha, if that's all his insight was, then his insight is pretty trivial. But Buddha's teachings were novel. Why where they novel? They were novel in the fifth century BCE because of his teaching of dependent origination and emptiness. The refutation of an ultimate self is just collateral damage."

Dzogchen teacher Acarya Malcolm Smith explains why Dzogchen view and basis is different from that of Advaita Vedanta in this compilation of his writings in this page: http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2014/02/clarifications-on-dharmakaya-and-basis_16.html

...

Zen teacher Alex Weith said well in his well written writings that I compiled here http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/10/zen-exploration-of-bahiya-sutta.html :

What I realized also is that authoritative self-realized students of direct students of both Ramana Maharishi and Nisargadatta Maharaj called me a 'Jnani', inviting me to give satsangs and write books, while I had not yet understood the simplest core principles of Buddhism. I realized also that the vast majority of Buddhist teachers, East and West, never went beyond the same initial insights (that Adhyashanti calls "an abiding awakening"), confusing the Atma with the ego, assuming that transcending the ego or self-center (ahamkara in Sanskrit) was identical to what the Buddha had called Anatta (Non-Atma).

It would seem therefore that the Buddha had realized the Self at a certain stage of his acetic years (it is not that difficult after all) and was not yet satisfied. As paradoxical as it may seem, his "divide and conquer strategy" aimed at a systematic deconstruction of the Self (Atma, Atta), reduced to -and divided into- what he then called the five aggregates of clinging and the six sense-spheres, does lead to further and deeper insights into the nature of reality. As far as I can tell, this makes me a Buddhist, not because I find Buddhism cool and trendy, but because I am unable to find other teachings and traditions that provide a complete set of tools and strategies aimed at unlocking these ultimate mysteries, even if mystics from various traditions did stumble on the same stages and insights often unknowingly.

…

Another dharma teacher who underwent similar journey from Vedanta realization to Buddhist realization is Archaya Mahayogi Shridhar Rana Rinpoche, you can read about his bio and articles here: https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/search/label/Acharya%20Mahayogi%20Shridhar%20Rana%20Rinpoche

Recently shared the following article by Dalai Lama a few times again with others when discussion came up.

Someone said all pervading presence implies nondual is realised. I explained it is not the same with teh following quotations:

All pervading presence doesnt mean nondual is realised.

“Just my opinion...

For my case, the first time i experienced a definitive I AM presence, there was zero thought. just a borderless, all pervading presence. In fact, there was no thinking or looking out for whether this is I AM or not. There was no conceptual activity. It was interpreted as 'I AM' only after that experience.

To me, I AM experience is actually a glimpse of the way reality is.. but it is quickly re-interpreted. The attribute of 'borderlessness' is experienced. but other 'attributes such as 'no subject-object', 'transparent luminosity, emptiness are not understood yet.

My take, is that when 'I AM' is experienced, you will be doubtless that it is the experience.”

- Sim Pern Chong, 2022

Thusness wrote to Sim back in 2005 while Sim was still at his I AM phased (sim realised anatta and emptiness in the following years):

https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2013/09/early-forum-posts-by-thusness_17.html

Excerpts:

stream.

Thusness:

Hi LongChen,

It is not that it is pointless to experience all as pure presence.

Your experience of "All there is are actually the all-pervading Presence" is most valuable and sacred.

Nothing is more real and clear than IT -- The reality of All.

There is no doubt about it. Smile

I am sure you have experienced 'Pure Presence' but I am equally sure that it escapes you in daily life experiences.

Why is this so?

Because during the process of analysis we have unknowingly divided 'Pure Presence' from sensation, thoughts, images, taste and forms..etc

and worst still we have made this a blueprint for us to 'see' and 'experience' the phenomenon existence.

This unintentional re-enforcement of our karmic forces will prevent us from experiencing our nature in full

and 'Pure Consciousness' will become a transparent like-substance hiding somewhere waiting forever to be found.

This Pure Consciousness as a 'transparent-formless-light' is an image created by thought, it is not the true face of Pure Consciousness.

Do explore into the concept of Emptiness and Conditional Arising of Buddhism in detail if you have time. Smile

Thusness

Longchen:

Dear Thusness,

Thank you for your advice... it is most valid and helpful and I can see that 'habit' that you have described.

I do have experiences of presence in the daily waking life... but there are also habitual patterns as well. It will take time and fearlessness to fully stabilise. You know what i mean.

Also, I have psychically 'read' you and Xabir (i.e. AEN/Soh) and are intuitively factored.

Thanks for the help. Smile

Thusness:

Eternal Now,

When the pure, formless, clear, brilliance bright, boundless and luminous enters

the sphere of thoughts, the mind transforms the Presence into an 'ENTITY' that is pure, formless,

clear, brilliance bright, boundless and luminous.

This entity, this something is the 'Self' added by a divided mind.

Without creating this 'center', this base, this something, a divided mind does not know how to function. Because the thinking mind understands through measurement and comparison.

In Buddhism, this 'Self' is extra and created. In reality it does not exist.

This is the wisdom to be awaken in order to see reality in its nakedness.

When this is clear, the stream always IS.

Longchen:

Hi Sangha,

What happens when presence is eliminated. No thought, no presence... then could this be a blank?

I do have a time when i meditated into a blank. No perception. it was when the mind 'moves' again that i realise that i was in the blank.

Thanks you.

Thusness:

Hi LongChen,

The blankness is a form of absorption where the knowing faculty of consciousness is temporarily suspended. Complete clarity and Presence without a 'Self' is more crucial. Smile

The 'Self' that is created over countless lives of attachment cannot be underestimated.

We are in almost helpless bondage that our perceptions are shaped and held in a sort

of hypnosis that we feel, think, experience and deduced our understandings from the

perspective of an 'I'. Thus analytical understanding derived from the glimpse of

the Pure Presence Reality will very quickly get distorted.

When Presence is experienced with the six sense doors shut,

Presence is experienced as a form of "I AMness".

When Presence is experience with six sense doors widely open,

Presence is experienced as a form of "I AM All".

However neither experience tells us the TRUE NATURE of Pure Presence.

Even the very sense of Realness, of Existence, of Life and Vividness is so strong,

due to the sense of 'I' there will be a sense of location somewhere,

and the true face of Pure Presence remains hidden.

The mind is just not used to knowing the absolutely nothing, non-local,

nowhere to be found yet pure, brilliance bright and ever luminous.

It will locate, it will find, it will grasp.

There must come a time for the mind to let go of itself completely.

If we are bold enough to let go and enter into the world that is wordless,

labelless and thoughtless, and if this is sustained, wisdom and insight will arise.

This wisdom is the extraordinary Clarity, Vividness and Realness, wholeness whole.

It is crystal clear filling all spaces and places.

Both in silence and in noise, in blankness and somethingness.

Those that experience the Pure Presence will appreciate this crystal clear reality.

This re-visiting of Pure Presence will be thorough and entire.

There will be no doubt.

Buddhism Emptiness is deep and profound. Do go into it. Smile

Happy Journey

Longchen:

Hi Thusness,

Your message feels of truth. Thanks for it. I will do as you advice. Very Happy

http://sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/157333?page=2

Thusness:

Hi longchen,

It is ungraspable not because the Ultimate Object cannot be the subject of observation; but rather there is really no such ‘ultimate object’ hiding behind anywhere. A ‘someone’ inside somewhere is from the very beginning a mistake. True authenticity comes when we realized that any form of ‘centricity’ is illusionary.

To experience the Pure Presence of Isness, “I AMness” must completely dissolve. The Pure Presence you experienced is non-local and has no-center. It becomes an ‘I AM’ due to linear mode of analysis. If you have time do explore into insight meditation and the essence of ‘Emptiness’ Wink

Regards,

Thusness

…..

another quote from sim pern chong from 2008:

I think Eckhart Tolle may have been suffering alot and suddenly he 'let go' of trying to work out his problems. This results in a dissociation from thoughts which give rise to the experience of Presence.

To me, 'I AM' is an experience of Presence, it is just that only one aspect of Presence is experienced which is the 'all-pervading' aspect. The non-dual and emptiness aspect are not experienced.. Because non-dual is not realised (at I AM stage), a person may still use effort in an attempt to 'enter' the Presence. This is because, at the I AM stage, there is an erroneous concept that there is a relative world make up of thoughts AND there is an 'absolute source' that is watching it. The I AM stage person will make attempts to 'dissociated from the relative world' in order to enter the 'absolute source'.

However, at Non-dual (& further..) stage understanding, one have understood that the division into a relative world and an absolute source has NEVER occcured and cannot be... Thus no attempt/effort is truly required.

- https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2018/09/a-compilation-of-simpos-writings.html

An online sharing with redditors yesterday.

Xabir = Soh, Me

https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/10ooxab/how_do_buddhists_account_for_the_continuity_of/

User avatar
level 3
Mayayana
·
2 days ago

....I wouldn't describe it as the background. There's a viewer, like a mirror. Buddha nature. But a kind of hypnosis happens and the viewer gets lost in the action. There's an old analogy of a man dreaming he's being attacked by a tiger. Another man who's awake knows the tiger is not real, but awakens the dreaming man out of compassion. That's the role of the realized spiritual teacher.

So what's the viewer or mirror? There's a limit to what we can know. You have to watch out for the tendency to want to establish empirical confirmation. This is beyond dualistic perception. What can we know for sure? There seems to be some kind of cognition happening. Some kind of curiosity takes the trouble to cognize. That's all we can say for sure. Realized masters tell us that the true nature of mind is emptiness and luminosity. Like a sunlit sky..... [long excerpt snipped, go to link to see the full message]
1
level 4
xabir
·
1 day ago

I rather like what Khamtrul Rinpoche said here:

"At that point, is the observer—awareness—other than the observed—stillness and movement—or is it actually that stillness and movement itself? By investigating with the gaze of your own awareness, you come to understand that that which is investigating itself is also no other than stillness and movement. Once this happens you will experience lucid emptiness as the naturally luminous self-knowing awareness. Ultimately, whether we say nature and radiance, undesirable and antidote, observer and observed, mindfulness and thoughts, stillness and movement, etc., you should know that the terms of each pair are no different from one another; by receiving the blessing of the guru, properly ascertain that they are inseparable. Ultimately, to arrive at the expanse free of observer and observed is the realization of the true meaning and the culmination of all analyses. This is called “the view transcending concepts,” which is free of conceptualization, or “the vajra mind view.”

"Fruition vipashyana is the correct realization of the final conviction of the nonduality of observer and observed."

From the royal seal of mahamudra part 1.

This is why buddha nature cannot be a background
1

xabir
·
1 day ago

Also in truth there is no mirror. Mirror too is conventional..

I can quote many teachers that said this when I am home
1
User avatar
level 5
Mayayana
·
1 day ago

Thanks. I didn't know about that book. I've heard of Khamtrul Rinpoche but never had any contact.

I'm hesitant about the idea of no mirror, though. This can get too cute and Zennie. I find the analogy of a mirror helpful because it's a way to see awareness as unaffected by objects of awareness, and that aspect seems important. A mirror or crystal ball are also common metaphors in Vajrayana generally.

I suppose if you demote buddha nature rangthong-style, then you might say there's no mirror. Personally I'm not much of an academic. Buddha nature makes sense to me. Mahamudra/Dzogchen make sense. If you demote buddha nature then you're back to an essentially Mahayana focus on emptiness. That, then, easily becomes conceptual or dogmatic. Too much ultimate truth. And even Huineng, in his famous poem contest, didn't reject mirror. :)

Bodhi originally has no tree.
The mirror has no stand.
The Buddha-nature is always clear and pure.
Where is there room for dust?

1
level 6
xabir
·
22 hr. ago
· edited 21 hr. ago

In the initial phase of practice, one discovers Clarity as being like a mirror that is untainted by reflections. It is the first glimpse of the Clarity aspect of our buddha nature, but this is not realizing its empty nature, or anatman. (And the analogy can be helpful for pointing towards the initial phases of realizing the Clarity aspect) The analogy usually only gets us that far. The tendency is to get stuck here and then fall into eternalist views like the Atman-Brahman of Hinduism, Samkhya and Advaita Vedanta.The realization of anatman allows us to realize what Khamtrul Rinpoche said in the quotation above, that there is no awareness besides movement and stillness and manifestations, no observer besides the observed, each pairs of opposites or no other than the other and so on. Each is merely conventional and does not exist in and of itself by its own side.

In other words, it is very much like wind and blowing. In delusion wind is being mistaken to be an independent agent of blowing. Lightning is flashing as if lightning is the inherent cause or agent of the action or manifestation called flashing. In truth each is merely a convention of the other, lightning is merely the flash, and wind is merely the blowing. I can cite many Zen teachers and Vajrayana teachers who have explained and elaborated about this point if you are interested.Likewise there is no viewer besides view/manifestation/appearance which are self-seen and luminous. There is no seer or even a seeing besides what's seen, in the seen just the seen (see Bahiya Sutta), in hearing just sound, no hearer, and so on.


/u/krodha explained well almost a decade ago:


"'Self luminous' and 'self knowing' are concepts which are used to convey the absence of a subjective reference point which is mediating the manifestation of appearance. Instead of a subjective cognition or knower which is 'illuminating' objective appearances, it is realized that the sheer exertion of our cognition has always and only been the sheer exertion of appearance itself. Or rather that cognition and appearance are not valid as anything in themselves. Since both are merely fabricated qualities neither can be validated or found when sought. This is not a union of subject and object, but is the recognition that the subject and object never arose in the first place [advaya]. ", "The cognition is empty. That is what it means to recognize the nature of mind [sems nyid]. The clarity [cognition] of mind is recognized to be empty, which is sometimes parsed as the inseparability of clarity and emptiness, or nondual clarity and emptiness." - Kyle Dixon, 2014

IMO at this point the mirror analogy fails us and isn't really helpful. Because a mirror is not feeling the reflection. Awareness is truly not like that, when anatman is realized. In hearing sound, there is just sound... the whole of sound... fully experienced... It is always the reflection. Fully felt and tasted... Separation is simply a mistaken view. So how can a mirror be a good example? Instead it is misleading people turning away from realising what exactly is clarity. There is in truth, not a hairbreadths of distinction between 'awareness' and 'appearance'.

What actually one wants to emphasize is the non-arisen unborn nature of sound... instead we created a mirror and mislead people to look at the mirror and neglect the reflection. Distancing further from directly and effortlessly experiencing what we called "awareness" and also misleading people from see non-arisen from DO [dependent origination] view.

To me, to be without dual is not to subsume into one and although awareness is negated, it is not to say there is nothing.

Negating the Awareness/Presence (Absolute) is not to let Awareness remain at the abstract level. When such transpersonal Awareness that exists only in wonderland is negated, the vivid radiance of presence are fully tasted in the transient appearances; zero gap and zero distance between presence and moment to moment of ordinary experiences and we realize separation has always only been conventional.

Then mundane activities -- hearing, sitting, standing, seeing and sensing, become pristine and vibrant, natural and free.

Lastly I wanted to quote several Zen masters, Dzogchen masters, and Mahamudra masters, Theravada, etc because ultimately they all agree on this point (at least those that have realised anatman -- although many do not), but I feel it will be too much, too long for a post and I do not know what is specifically relevant to you. Are you a Mahamudra practitioner? Do you know of Thrangu Rinpoche?

He said, among many excerpts, "... If we look for a perceiver, we won’t find one. We do think, but if we look into the thinker, trying to find that which thinks, we do not find it. Yet, at the same time, we do see and we do think. The reality is that seeing occurs without a seer and thinking without a thinker. This is just how it is; this is the nature of the mind. The Heart Sutra sums this up by saying that “form is emptiness,” because whatever we look at is, by nature, devoid of true existence. At the same time, emptiness is also form, because the form only occurs as emptiness. Emptiness is no other than form and form is no other than emptiness. This may appear to apply only to other things, but when applied to the mind, the perceiver, one can also see that the perceiver is emptiness and emptiness is also the perceiver. Mind is no other than emptiness; emptiness is no other than mind. This is not just a concept; it is our basic state.

The reality of our mind may seem very deep and difficult to understand, but it may also be something very simple and easy because this mind is not somewhere else. It is not somebody else’s mind. It is your own mind. It is right here; therefore, it is something that you can know. When you look into it, you can see that not only is mind empty, it also knows; it is cognizant. All the Buddhist scriptures, their commentaries and the songs of realization by the great siddhas express this as the “indivisible unity of emptiness and cognizance,” or “undivided empty perceiving,” or “unity of empty cognizance.” No matter how it is described, this is how our basic nature really is. It is not our making. It is not the result of practice. It is simply the way it has always been.Source: Crystal Clear ...",

"Next is pointing out the mind within appearances, which is the twenty-fourth topic, and this is a presentation of what is an authentic experience of the relationship between mind and appearances.When you are meditating and looking at the mind within appearances, then you may have the experience that, while the perceived objects and the perceiving mind do not seem in any way to disappear or cease to exist and are, in a sense, still present, when you actively look at them, you do not find anything in either that exists separate from the other. And in that way, when looking at the mind that experiences appearances, you find that there is nothing in that mind to fix upon as a truly existent subject or apprehender, yet the mind still appears to experience. And when you look at the perceived objects, while they do not disappear and while you are looking at them, they remain vivid appearances that are without anything in them anywhere that you can fix upon as existing separate from the experience of the nonduality of appearances and mind. This nonduality of appearance and mind is held to be the authentic experience or recognition of the mind within appearances.

Source: Pointing out the Dharmakaya"


Lastly, Hui-Neng's mirror is without a stand poem does not reflect great awakening. It only reflects the initial awakening to Clarity.

I wrote this before:

Huineng's initial poem only expresses I AM, which was why 5th patriarch was still unimpressed. This is the point made by John Tan, and my Taiwanese teacher, and a few Mahayana teachers I've seen.

I explained in 2014:

Nope. Huineng simply realized the I AM at that time. The 5th patriarch rubbed his no-mirror-stand poem off with his feet saying that too is not an expression of great realization, told him to go meet him at midnight with a cryptic message from his staff. Upon meeting, the 5th patriarch explained the Diamond Sutra, and upon hearing the verse "giving rise to an unsupported mind" he realized "great awakening". This is written in chapter 1 of Platform Sutra

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Its important to note that at the time Hui-neng wrote the no-mirror-stand (not no-mirror) quote, he has not yet attained great enlightenment. It is more like a realization of the formless I AM, and how the I AM is fundamentally void of sensory/mental obscurations. But this is still way better than Shenxiu, who was still talking from the viewpoint of purifying the mind through shamatha, without any realization of his Mind. Hui-neng's great enlightenment occurred later on.

A better translation (by me):

菩提本无树，

Bodhi (Awareness/Mind/Self) is originally without tree

明镜亦非台，

The Clear Mirror (Awareness/Mind) is not a Stand

本来无一物，

Originally (in the Source) there is not one phenomena

何处惹尘埃

Where does dust alight?


.... long excerpt snipped. more citations in following post.
2
level 7
xabir
·
21 hr. ago

“It is not only about recognizing the reflections as reflections, but also recognizing that there is no mirror (no mind)!” - Yogi Prabodha Jnana, teacher from the Dzogchen lineage

* [8:44 AM, 11/15/2020] John Tan: Yogi Prabodha Jnana is very good and clear

[11:58 AM, 11/15/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Oic.. you just read something in it?

[12:20 PM, 11/15/2020] John Tan: I think he visited atr also

[12:20 PM, 11/15/2020] John Tan: Lol

[12:43 PM, 11/15/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Yeah from the start he already told me.. years ago

[12:43 PM, 11/15/2020] Soh Wei Yu: He said the things i post are interesting, am i a teacher?

[12:43 PM, 11/15/2020] Soh Wei Yu: I said no im not a dharma teacher lol

[12:43 PM, 11/15/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Then he liked the post i posted by Yasutani Roshi on no mirror

[12:52 PM, 11/15/2020] John Tan: you communicated with Yogi Prabodha Jnana years ago?

[12:54 PM, 11/15/2020] Soh Wei Yu: He said your stages are in line with the essence of buddhism

[12:54 PM, 11/15/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Haha

[1:01 PM, 11/15/2020] John Tan: Yes I find his teachings very interesting also.

[1:02 PM, 11/15/2020] John Tan: His emphasis on anatta and no mirror especially.

[1:05 PM, 11/15/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Ic.. yeah

[1:11 PM, 11/15/2020] Soh Wei Yu: his partner Abhaya Devi Yogini is also clear about it
.....
“「苦樂 升沉」包括痛麻癢…這些都是，這表示不是特別有一個三昧，各位修了就可以進入，未修就不能進入；或是說有所成就的人才有寶鏡三昧，不是！不管是佛還是凡 夫，有情、無情、饅頭、鑽石、唱歌、走路…皆是，到底什麼意思？
"The rise and fall of suffering and joy" including pain, numbness and itch... these are all it, this means it is not that there is a special samadhi, in which everybody can practice to enter, or that those who have not practiced are unable to enter it. Nor is it the case that only someone accomplished is able to obtain the jewel mirror samadhi, not so! It does not matter if one is a Buddha or a sentient being, sentient or insentient, steam bun, diamond, singing, walking... all is it, what does this mean?
以正眼看，全宇宙是一枚寶鏡三昧。因是一枚故，無能見與所見。
With accurate vision, the entire universe is a piece of Jewel Mirror Samadhi. Because it is one piece, there is no perceiver nor perceived.
『若解會為鏡』假如你把他解釋為一面鏡子，那就『入地獄如矢』。
If you interpret that as a mirror, then you'll enter straight into hell.
你把他當作一面鏡子 解釋，是解釋哦，一解釋的話，你就把他當作是對像去解說，那當然奇怪了，一面鏡子照的當然是影子，這樣分開來的話就完全錯了。
If you explain it as a mirror, you'll be treating it as an object, that would of course be odd. What a mirror reflects would of course be a reflection, it would be erroneous to delineate/separate in this way.
「入地獄如矢」就是馬上錯掉 了，不可以把他當作這樣去解釋。『不見言』是沒有聽說過嗎？『山河不在鏡中見，山河草木即鏡』，你聽到「全宇宙是一枚寶鏡三昧」，就把三昧當作是一副鏡 子，這樣就很容易錯掉了。所以他強調「山河草木不在鏡中見，山河草木就是鏡子」。千萬不要把你所看的、所覺受的當作是鏡中的影子，不可以這樣講，山河大地 本身都是鏡子，不是鏡中的影子。
"Entering straight into hell" means instantly falling into error, we cannot explain it that way. Haven't you heard of it? "Mountains and rivers are not seen within a mirror, mountains and rivers are themselves the mirror." When you heard "the whole universe is a piece of Jewel Mirror Samadhi", and you treat that as a mirror, it is very easy to err. Therefore he emphasizes, "mountains and rivers are not within a mirror, mountains, rivers, grasses and wood are the mirror." Never treat what you saw and sensed as being reflections of a mirror, we cannot explain it that way. Mountains, rivers, and the great earth are themselves the mirror, not the reflections of a mirror.
所以各位看到的、聽到的，你千萬不要以為是大圓鏡智所現，有一面法界法性的鏡子所現 的，隨你的因緣果報不同而現出的影子，這樣解說就完全錯掉了。看到、聽到、摸到、想到的通通都是鏡子，包括你自己，整個都是鏡子！這點不要誤會了。
Therefore, do not think that whatever you see and hear are the manifestations of the Great Mirror Wisdom, as if there is a universal mirror that is reflecting the reflections according to your causes and conditions/karma, such explanations are false. Whatever you see, hear, sense, think are entirely the mirror, including yourself - in their entirety they are all the mirror. Do not be mistaken on this point.” - Zen Master Hong Wen Liang (洪文亮老師) (my longer translation here: http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2017/01/excerpts-from-jewel-mirror-samadhi.html)

......

“The actual experience of enlightenment comes springing forth in the realm of true oneness. And with that, one sometimes cries out in astonishment. One becomes aware that the whole universe is just the single seamless stupa. It's not some simplistic kind of thing like a reflection in a mirror.

"Mountains and rivers are not seen in a mirror." It's not that mountains, rivers, and the earth are reflected in one's mind-mirror. That's okay when we are using metaphors for thoughts and consciousness. But what we are speaking of now is the realm of the actual experience of enlightenment. The self is the mountains, rivers, and earth; the self is the sun and moon and the stars.

The great earth has not

A single lick of soil;

New Year's first smile.

"Not another person in the whole universe." One side is all there is, without a second or third to be found anywhere. If one calls this subject, everything is subject and that's all. There is no object anywhere. It's the true mind-only. It's snatching away away the objective world but not the person. If one calls this object, everything is object and that's all. There is no subject anywhere. It's snatching away the person but not the objective world. It's the true matter-only. Whichever one you say, only the label changes and it is the same thing. While Dogen Zenji calls this completely self, he also calls it completely other. It's all self. It's all other. This is the meaning of "when one side is realized the other side is dark." This is also called "one side exhausts everything." It's the whole thing, being complete with one, exhausting everything with one." - Zen Master Hakuun Yasutani, "Flowers Fall"

......
"When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body-and-mind, you grasp things directly. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, and unlike the moon and its reflection in the water, when one side is illumined the other side is dark." - Zen Master Dogen
......

Xue Feng said, “To comprehend this matter, it is similar to the ancient mirror – Hu comes, Hu appears; Han comes, Han appears.” Xuan Sha heard this and said, “Suddenly the mirror is broken, then how?” “Hu and Han both disappear.” Xuan Sha said, “Old monk’s heels have not touched ground yet.” Jian says instead, “Hu and Han are actualized/manifest.”

- http://www.yogichen.org/cw/cw45/b0050ch04.html

Seppo: “My concrete state is like one face of the eternal mirror. When a foreigner comes, a foreigner appears. When a Chinaman comes, a Chinaman appears. Gensa: If suddenly a clear mirror comes along, what then? Seppo: The foreigner and the Chinaman both become invisible. Gensa: I am not like that. Seppo: How is it in your case…If a clear mirror comes along, what then? Gensa: Smashed into hundreds of bits and pieces.” Dôgen comments: “…the truth should be expressed like that.”

- http://www.milwaukeezencenter.org/final/Newsletters/mzc_news_9-07.pdf
3
level 7
xabir
·
21 hr. ago

On Dzogchen and Longchenpa, etc:

John Tan: He goes on to point out that self-occuring primordial

knowing lacks most of the qualities associated with the Yogacara svasaf!1vedana - its

alleged reality, internality, reflexivity, self-evidence, and accessibility to introspection - but

then cautions that "should one become attached to these [rDzogs chen gnoseological] terms

as denoting something real, you won 't find any difference from the Cittamatra conception of

svasaf!1vedana, that is, the cognition which is devoid of subject-object duality and which is

simply auto-illumination.,,247 In highlighting the many drawbacks of reifying the mental,

Klong chen pa rules out any basis for confusing the gnoseological and mentalist conceptions

of self-awareness : for the idealist, self-awareness is a real entity having real characteristics,

whereas for the rDzogs chen pa, it is simply a vivid auto-manifestation, a process lacking

any reality whatsoever.

Soh: What book is this?

John Tan: The Philosophical Foundations of

Classical rDzogs chen in Tibet

Investigating the Distinction Between Dualistic Mind

(sems) and Primordial knowing (ye shes)

David Higgins

( Soh: https://app.box.com/s/1xps30kdq31p0ljfmjvdlh5oiutzc6a8 )

John

Tan:I like this book. Clarifies most of the dzogchen terms and clear

lystates that longchenpa rejects self-reflective awareness

distinguishing dzogchen from yogacara. And in line with anatta

insight. To longchenpa self-awareness "is simply a vivid

auto-manifestation, a process lacking any reality whatsoever".

John Tan: According to the viewpoint of this system, he says, all phenomena

are self-luminous in the state of great primordial knowing like light in the sky, having

always been the very essence of this self-occuring primorial knowing which remains

naturally free from causes and conditions .263

...

"It is possible, Klong chen pa suggests, to simply recognize this

nondual self­occuring primordial knowing in its pristine nakedness (rjen

pa sang nge ba) - both as it

abides in its naked clarity and as it

continuously manifests as myriad objects - without hypostatizing it.273

For so long as "one thinks of the abiding and manifesting of cognition

as two different things and talks about [the experience of] 'settling

in the nonconceptual essence' [but also of] 'preserving the expressive

energy as being free in its arising' , one's practice goes in two

directions and one fails to understand the key point."
....

Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche, Dzogchen teacher:

“…In the cycle of teachings of Maitreya and the writings of the great charioteer Asaṅga, whose thinking is one and the same, it is taught that individuals on the level of earnest aspiration first understand that all phenomena are simply the mind. Subsequently they have the experience that there is no object to be apprehended in the mind. Then, at the stage of the supreme mundane level on the path of joining, they realize that because there is no object, neither is there a subject, and immediately after that, they attain the first level with the direct realization of the truth of ultimate reality devoid of the duality of subject and object. As for things being only the mind, the source of the dualistic perception of things appearing as environment, sense objects, and a body is the consciousness of the ground of all, which is accepted as existing substantially on the conventional level but is taught as being like a magical illusion and so on since it appears in a variety of ways while not existing dualistically. For this reason, because this tradition realizes, perfectly correctly, that the nondual consciousness is devoid of any truly existing entities and of characteristics, the ultimate intentions of the charioteers of Madhyamaka and Cittamātra should be considered as being in agreement… …So, if this so-called “self-illuminating nondual consciousness” asserted by the Cittamātrins is understood to be a consciousness that is the ultimate of all dualistic consciousnesses, and it is merely that its subject and object are inexpressible, and if such a consciousness is understood to be truly existent and not intrinsically empty, then it is something that has to be refuted. If, on the other hand, that consciousness is understood to be unborn from the very beginning (i.e. empty), to be directly experienced by reflexive awareness, and to be self-illuminating gnosis without subject or object, it is something to be established….”
2



....


User avatar
level 2
ch1214ch
Op ·
2 days ago

How is the background for the film--the thing that's able to perceive it--always there?
2
level 3
xabir
·
1 day ago

Buddha nature should not be mistaken as a background, that is the atman view of non Buddhists.

As Dzogchen teacher Acarya Malcolm Smith explained,

Excerpts from https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2014/02/clarifications-on-dharmakaya-and-basis_16.html

gad rgyangs wrote: I dunno Malcolm, the basis is more like the backdrop against which any appearances appear, including any consciousness. Also, what sense would it make to say "rigpa is one's knowledge of the basis" if that basis was one's own continuum? the basis is pure no-thing as abgrund of all phenomena. Consciousness is always a phenomenon.

Malcolm wrote: I prefer to put my faith in the guy whose father started the whole Nyinthig thing.And what is says is verified in many Dzogchen tantras, both from the bodhcitta texts as well as others.

The basis is not a backdrop. Everything is not separate from the basis. But that everything just means your own skandhas, dhātus and āyatanas. There is no basis outside your mind, just as there is no Buddhahood outside of your mind.

[Quoting gad rgyangs: Consciousness is always a phenomenon.] So is the basis. They are both dharmas.

Or as the Great Garuda has it when refuting Madhyamaka:

Since phenomena and nonphenomena have always been merged and are inseparable, there is no further need to explain an “ultimate phenomenon”.

An 12th century commentary on this text states (but not this passage):

Amazing bodhicitta (the identity of everything that becomes the basis of pursuing the meaning that cannot be seen nor realized elsewhere than one’s vidyā) is wholly the wisdom of the mind distinct as the nine consciousnesses that lack a nature.

In the end, Dzogchen is really just another Buddhist meditative phenomenology of the mind and person and that is all.

gad rgyangs wrote: Then why speak of a basis at all? just speak of skandhas, dhātus and āyatanas, and be done with it.

Malcolm wrote: Because these things are regarded as afflictive, whereas Dzogchen is trying to describe the person in his or her originally nonafflictive condition. It really is just that simple. The so called general basis is a universal derived from the particulars of persons. That is why it is often mistaken for a transpersonal entity. But Dzogchen, especially man ngag sde is very grounded in Buddhist Logic, and one should know that by definition universals are considered to be abstractions and non-existents in Buddhism, and Dzogchen is no exception.

gad rgyangs wrote: There is no question of the basis being an entity, thats not the point. Rigpa is precisely what it says in the yeshe sangthal: instant presence experienced against/within the "backdrop" (metaphor) of a "vast dimension of emptiness" (metaphor).

Malcolm wrote: It's your own rigpa, not a transpersonal rigpa, being a function of your own mind. That mind is empty.

gad rgyangs wrote: When all appearances cease, what are you left with?

Malcolm wrote: They never cease....

gad rgyangs wrote: In the yeshe sangthal you dissolve all appearances into the "vast dimension of emptiness", out of which "instant presence" arises. This is cosmological as well as personal, since the two scales are nondual.

rigpa is ontological not epistemic: its not about some state of consciousness before dualism vision, it is about the basis/abgrund of all possible appearances, including our consciousness in whatever state its in or could ever be in.

Malcolm wrote: Sorry, I just don't agree with you and think you are just falling in the Hindu brahman trap.

Sherlock wrote: Isn't the difference between transpersonal and personal also a form of dualism?

Malcolm wrote: The distinction is crucial. If this distinction is not made, Dzogchen sounds like Vedanta.

….

Malcolm wrote: Yes, I understand. All awarenesses are conditioned. There is no such thing as a universal undifferentiated ultimate awareness in Buddhadharma. Even the omniscience of a Buddha arises from a cause.

PadmaVonSamba wrote: isn't this cause, too, an object of awareness? Isn't there awareness of this cause? If awareness of this cause is awareness itself, then isn't this awareness of awareness? What causes awareness of awareness, if not awareness?

If awareness is the cause of awareness, isn't it its own cause?

Malcolm wrote: Omniscience is the content of a mind freed of afflictions. Even the continuum of a Buddha has a relative ground, i.e. a the rosary or string of moments of clarity is beginingless.

Origination from self is axiomatically negated in Buddhadharma,

Each moment in the continuum of a knowing clarity is neither the same as nor different than the previous moment. Hence the cause of a given instant of a knowing clarity cannot be construed to be itself nor can it be construed to be other than itself. This is the only version of causation which, in the final analysis, Buddhadharma can admit to on a relative level. It is the logical consequence of the Buddha's insight, "When this exists, that exists, with the arising of that, this arose."

PadmaVonSamba wrote: I am not referring to cognition, rather, the causes of that cognition.

Malcolm wrote: Cognitions arise based on previous cognitions. That's all.

If you suggest anything other than this, you wind up in Hindu La la land.

Malcolm wrote: There is no such thing as a universal undifferentiated ultimate awareness in Buddhadharma.

….

"One, whoever told you rig pa is not part of the five aggregates? Rig pa is knowledge of your own state. In its impure form one's own state manifests as the five aggregates; in its pure form, it manifests as the five buddha families.

Nagārjuna resolves this issue through using the eight examples. There is no substantial transmission, but there is serial continuity, like lighting a fire from another fire, impressing a seal on a document and so on. See his verses on dependent origination:

All migrating beings are causes and results. but here there are no sentient beings at all; just empty phenomena entirely produced from phenomena that are only empty, phenomena without a self and what belongs to a self, [like] utterances, lamps, mirrors, seals, lenses, seeds, sourness and echoes. Although the aggregates are serially connected, the wise are understand that nothing transfers. Also, the one who imputes annihilation upon extremely subtle existents, is not wise, and will not see the meaning of ‘arising from conditions’."

....

“The relative is not "reliant" on the ultimate, since they are just different cognitions of the same entity, one false, the other veridical. There is no separate entity called "buddhanature" that can be established to exist in a sentient being composed of the five aggregates. If one should assert this is so, this position will be no different than the atman of the nonbuddhists.”

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Continued below
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level 4
xabir
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1 day ago

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There is no "experiencer" since there is no agent. There is merely experience, and all experience is empty.

https://dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=102&t=24265&start=540

Why should there be someone upon whom karma ripens? To paraphrase the Visuddhimagga, there is no agent of karma, nor is there a person to experience its ripening, there is merely a flow of dharmas.

...

There are no agents. There are only actions. This is covered in the refutation of moving movers in chapter two of the MMK.

...

https://dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=116&t=26495&p=406369&hilit=agent#p406369

The point is that there is no point to eternalism if there is no eternal agent or object.

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Lukeinaz wrote: ↑Mon Apr 30, 2018 8:39 pm

"In non dual contemplation there is neither experience or experiencer. This itself is real experience."

Malcolm:

Yes, and this is just the message of the Prajñapāramitā Sūtras, since of course, the meaning of the Great Perfection is exactly the same as the Prajñapāramitā Sūtras, the only difference is the method of arriving at that meaning.
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• Soh Wei Yu

  2007:

  (6:01 PM) Thusness: when u r toking about mindfulness, it can range from stage 4 - 5.

  (6:01 PM) Thusness: din i write about stage 4 as mirror bright?

  (6:01 PM) AEN: ya

  (6:01 PM) Thusness: i have written so clear 

  (6:01 PM) Thusness: ehehehhe

  (6:01 PM) AEN: icic..

  (6:01 PM) AEN: actually stage 1 and 2 no mindfulness ah

  (6:01 PM) Thusness: yes

  (6:02 PM) Thusness: but there is experience of Presence. [Soh: Even at Thusness Stage 1 to 2]

  (6:02 PM) Thusness: a mirror but not attached to the reflection. [Soh: Thusness Stage 1 to 4]

  (6:02 PM) Thusness: to there is no mirror! [Soh: Thusness Stage 5]

  (6:03 PM) Thusness: only manifestation alone is. [Soh: Thusness Stage 5]

  (6:03 PM) AEN: oic

  (6:03 PM) Thusness: completely break that mirror.

  (6:03 PM) AEN: icic..

  (6:03 PM) Thusness: then that is non-dual.

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• • Soh Wei Yu

    I also said, "that particular [long] message about mirror is because i wanted to explain in details with citations

    'regular bee' is vedantin in view.. its sad that many Buddhists are following teachers that are vedantins in disguise

    so I hope to provide them with more quotes from other teachers that show the true buddhist view

    im personally not some famous teacher, so its unlikely they will believe my words unless they see that all those other masters are agreeing with me"

    Vedanta's great and was helpful in my earlier years, but confusing it with Buddhism is doing Buddhadharma a great disservice. Buddha was known to repudiate his students strongly like Bhikkhu Sati for holding wrong eternalist views about consciousness.

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