Dieter Vollmuth runs a spiritual blog in German
https://dieter-vollmuth.de/
Conversation from
https://www.facebook.com/groups/AwakeningToReality
I have a Question to this text from here:
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/…/presence-and-natur…
"If we observe thought and ask where does thought arise, how does it
arise, what is ‘thought’ like. 'Thought' will reveal its nature is empty
-- vividly present yet completely un-locatable. It is very important
not to infer, think or conceptualise but feel with our entire being this
‘ungraspability’ and 'unlocatability'. It seems to reside 'somewhere'
but there is no way to
locate it. It is
just an impression of somewhere "there" but never "there". Similarly
“here-ness” and “now-ness” are merely impressions formed by sensations,
aggregates of causes and conditions, nothing inherently ‘there’; equally
empty like ‘selfness’."
-------------------
In the above Text is stated, that thought is unlocatable.
But when I watch thoughts and other perceptions, I have a very clear
and sharp impression of where they come from. They arise in the body
consciousness in or near the Hara.
I can clearly feel how they
penetrate from "outside" to "inside" - or from "inside" the hara to
"outside" the hara - and then bubbles to the head, where they show their
content.
The content can also be seen through very sharp concentration - it is like catching it and looking directly into it.
I also feel that the penetration of the perceptual bubbles into the
hara is taking place JUST BEFORE a sound is heard or a picture is seen
or thought is experienced. It seems that the hara is the producer of all
appearances - like a film projector.
This is not a delusion - it
is as clear as feeling the left arm. If the feeling-concentration is
very sharp, then it is much clearer than the feeling of the left arm.
Does anyone have similar experiences?
Dieter Vollmuth
- I read your questions and after that the field seem to expand
I wrote, what i felt and saw:
- The whole field is sound, vision
- All sounds and visions all sense-data are like hollow/empty bubbles with virtual-data-content
- There is no one seeing and hearing - only vision and sound
- Bubbles seems to bubble up from the hara-center but also from the whole field
- The whole body is nothing else as hollow bubbles with feelings and other perceptions
- the whole field is perveiving or better: perceptions
- the divine sound (nada) is heard through all perceptions
- There are no real objects -> form is foam
-
Hale OHerren
What
is the field? Is it something tangible? A container perhaps? Where are
the limits and boundaries to this field? Or is “field” just another
label for seeing, hearing, touching etc?
Does hearing take place inside of this field? Are sounds inside the
field? What’s the difference between hearing and sound? What’s the
difference between the field and sound? Is there even a field at all?
Why the need to label something “divine”? Is it ok for it to be just as it is? Or do we need to give it a name?
-
Dieter Vollmuth There is no inside and no outside, so there are no boundaries. So, sound can not be inside and not be outside.
The
expression "field" seems to be pure conformity - because if there are
no borders and no inside and outside, then there is no field, because for something to be a field, there must also be a "no field".
I
unconsciously saw the "field" as a background. But if there is no
field, just the perceptions - wherever they are - then it is unnecessary
to use the word "field" and also to assume a background. There is just
"that". Amazing.
The nada is called the "divine sound" - but it is not necessary to give it a name because it is simply there.
The
"I am" had been pretty deconstructed because since month it began to
flicker and become inconsistent. It "kicked" me out of the honeymoon, so
to speak. But somehow I always assumed it as a "background" without
realizing it. Only your questions brought some movement in there. Thank
you!
-
Soh Wei Yu Dieter Vollmuth
Good insights. There is indeed a borderless, boundless (as well as
centerless, nondual, luminous, transient, ephemeral, empty, etc) quality
to awareness/experience in its purity. This will become more and more
apparent as your experience matures and as
insight matures and becomes effortless. It is an intense, out-of-body
(more like mind-body-drop than a literal dissociative OBE experience, it
is completely nondual and not dissociative in any way) experience of
limitless expanse of luminosity, but as manifestation. However the
boundless quality is often reified into a larger container and then all
perceptions may seem to merely arise 'within' the field so to speak,
this becomes one mind. But it need not be reified into one mind,
reification happens due to lack of clarity of deep insight. But as you
have rightly seen, the field is not a background, it is just
manifestation. There is nothing containing anything -- no container.
Good work. Anyway I was just just reminded of this: https://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/.../the-unbound...
Soh Wei Yu Thusness, 2013:
"there
is a very intense and much deeper state i assure u...but there is clear
understanding that the manifestation is it....however awareness is like
an unbounded and limitless expanse field
the luminosity is intensely clear
the experience is like Non-Dual Awareness broke lose and exist as a unbounded FIELD
there is a difference in seeing sound and a hearer and realizing sound as awareness itself
u cannot focus and there cannot be any sense of effort
there cannot be any sense of boundaries
just itself
u must be very very stable and mature in the anatta state
and u cannot be in an enclosed room...
it is the effortlessness and crystal clear transparency and intensity of luminosity...
but
duality must no more trouble the practitioner, phenomena is clearly
understood as the radiance...so nothing is obscuring then in total
effortless and emanation arises and the expanse just continues"
On how this differs from one mind:
"one mind is subsuming
therefore there is a sense of dual
in this case there isn't
it
is like a drop of water landed on the surface of a clear ocean. the
nature of water and ocean are one and the same...nothing containing
anything
when sounds and music arise...they are like water and waves in ocean...everything is it"
Soh Wei Yu Dieter Vollmuth http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/.../rigpa-and...
Rigpa and Aggregates
(Also see: Dzogchen, Rigpa and Dependent Origination)
From Dharma Overground, Dharma Dan (Daniel M. Ingram):
Dear Mark,
Thanks for your descriptions and analysis. They are interesting and relevant.
I
think of it this way, from a very high but still vipassana point of
view, as you are framing this question in a vipassana context:
First, the breath is nice, but at that level of manifesting sensations, some other points of view are helpful:
Assume
something really simple about sensations and awareness: they are
exactly the same. In fact, make it more simple: there are sensations,
and this includes all sensations that make up space, thought, image,
body, anything you can imagine being mind, and all qualities that are
experienced, meaning the sum total of the world.
In
this very simple framework, rigpa is all sensations, but there can be
this subtle attachment and lack of investigation when high terms are
used that we want there to be this super-rigpa, this awareness that is
other. You mention that you feel there is a larger awareness, an
awareness that is not just there the limits of your senses. I would
claim otherwise: that the whole sensate universe by definition can't
arise without the quality of awareness by definition, and so some very
subtle sensations are tricking you into thinking they are bigger than
the rest of the sensate field and are actually the awareness that is
aware of other sensations.
Awareness is simply manifestation. All sensations are simply present.
Thus,
be wary of anything that wants to be a super-awareness, a rigpa that is
larger than everything else, as it can't be, by definition. Investigate
at the level of bare sensate experience just what arises and see that
it can't possibly be different from awareness, as this is actually an
extraneous concept and there are actually just sensations as the first
and final basis of reality.
As you like the Tibetan stuff, and to quote Padmasambhava in the root text of the book The Light of Wisdom:
"The mind that observes is also devoid of an ego or self-entity.
It is neither seen as something different from the aggregates
Nor as identical with these five aggregates.
If the first were true, there would exist some other substance.
This is not the case, so were the second true,
That would contradict a permanent self, since the aggregates are impermanent.
Therefore, based on the five aggregates,
The self is a mere imputation based on the power of the ego-clinging.
As to that which imputes, the past thought has vanished and is nonexistent.
The future thought has not occurred, and the present thought does not withstand scrutiny."
I
really found this little block of tight philosophy helpful. It is also
very vipassana at its core, but it is no surprise the wisdom traditions
converge.
Thus, if you want to crack the nut, notice
that everything is 5 aggregates, including everything you think is
super-awareness, and be less concerned with what every little type of
consciousness is than with just perceiving them directly and noticing
the gaps that section off this from that, such as rigpa from thought
stream, or awareness from sensations, as these are golden chains.
Dieter Vollmuth Thank you, Soh, for your Answers!
Since
last night, the body has much more "holes", than "points of reference".
It seems to be transparent with some "points of fog" flying around
there.
Oddly enough, the
vibration does not become faster, but much slower. it seems like the
vibration is seen in slow motion. But it's probably the other way around
- the resolution has increased drastically.
There
are no thoughts - this is pure experiential. The "points of reference"
are flying around and flicker and are interwoved. It is a "bunch of
flickering points" without knowing what that is really. Only that.
"That" fills the whole "field of experience" - or better "that" IS the
whole "field of experience".
The experience is very
stable because the mind feels like stone. Five years ago, there was a
series of experiences in quick succession. The first was a fusion with a
"radiant black mass" in "a womb in the body". The black mass was
recognized as "I AM" - and in melting into it "I" was lost.
A
few days later there was a jump from a cliff to nowhere. Then the
experience of consciousness, massive like a mountain. This was followed
by an experience of being the entire "world-spanning" consciousness, so
fine that it was almost not noticable.
The feeling
that is now here is both the "consciousness as a massive mountain" AND
the "expansive fine 'no-thingness' of consciousness" together.
stone=stable
no-thingness=expansive wide-ness
"matter" = "flying points of reference" = "radiance"
Soh Wei Yu Dieter Vollmuth
By
being the entire world spanning consciousness, do you mean the world is
embraced by consciousness or the world itself is the radiance?
Soh Wei Yu Yes good. The former is one mind and the latter is no mind.
No mind is made effortless as anatta insight arises, matures and becomes very clear to be “always already so”
Dieter Vollmuth Soh
and Hale: Thank you again - that was here all the time - but I have not
seen it because of the misleading net of words and concepts. 😘
Dieter Vollmuth So,
each "thing" or "point" is nothing other as a "piece of consciousness"
or in other words: consciousness IS the substance of things.
Or better: consciousness appears as a unending stream of appearing and ceasing "points of reference"
Much better: Consiousness is the mechanics of arising and ceasing of appearances. Because that is an action, not a "substance".
Dieter Vollmuth Darkness
is not a metaphor - because exactly with this darkness or "radiating
blackness" "I" was melted into and therefore disappeared.
And consciousness is also not a substance of something but more the "mechanics" of arising and ceasing of appearances.
"Substance" is really not a good word for consciousness, because it has
a notion of "permanence" or "realness". It is more a fluctuating
happening, action.
Oh man - the things are quickly becoming clear by itself - without any effort.
There is only looking - and knowing in the same instant. Its absolutely breathtaking...
-
Dieter Vollmuth there is blowing (action, verb) but not "wind" (noun, concept)
"Wind is blowing" is a concept - because I can only feel the "blowing" on the skin, not "Wind".
hahaha - in the article is the same: verbs, not nouns.
If
the "body is going" there is no body going, there is only alternating
feeling of "foot-pressure", "arm-swinging" and "eye-seeing" etc.
There
is no person lifes its live - there is only living and in that it
seems, that sometimes arise a feeling like "I am that, which is living"
or "that is my live". But there is only life living itself at this point
and at all points.
It is simply an ongoing stream of actions, without an actor - and nothing else. It is so clear, like seeing the left arm.
-
Dieter Vollmuth Last night I felt that I was kidding myself all the time.
Before
falling asleep, there was an absolutely desperate feeling: "Either I
finally see what's really there or I'll die." That seems to have
unlocked something...
-
Dieter Vollmuth Ahh
- now I know, what "suchness" really is: the direct feeling, like "foot
on the ground", without an intermediate. The verbing or acting without
an actor - or the feeling without a feeler. A direct knowing without
knower.
Soh Wei Yu
Well said.
“I
am telling the first and second stanza must go hand in hand to have
real insight of anatta even for a start. You must have these 2 aspects
of insight in anatta. So what is anatta? means when you penetrate
no-agent, you are effectively developing
your direct insight. That is not reifying anything extra. That is
direct insight into suchness. So that when you see 'Self', there is
nothing but aggregates. When you see 'weather', there is nothing but the
changing clouds, rain… when you see 'body', you see changing sensation.
When you hear sound, you see the DO [dependent origination], then you
see how the 2 fold emptiness are simply one insight and why that leads
to 一合相 (yi4 he2 xiang4; one totality/composite of appearance). If there is no insight but
cling to words then you missed the essence. That is, the gaining of
insight on the 2 stanzas is not to think only of 'Self'” - John Tan,
2011
...
Dieter Vollmuth Soh Wei Yu
When there are dreams, it is more a "half-dream-state" or
"half-wake-state". Consciousness is here but the body lie there like a
corpse. And then there are visions of mechanics of the universe for
example.
My actual state is:
- Day-dreams: absolutely not here
- Imagination: Zero, no pictures, impossible to "make" them
- Night-dreams: could real be forgotten
-
Memory: really bad. Eg: If i leave home or simply don't look at my wife
and she is not talking - in the same instant she is totally forgotten.
If she don't call me by phone - she is forgotten until i come back home
and see her again.
- Consciousness: The normal state
of consciousness here is >90% simply awake, clear, present, nearly
thought-free, silent, empty, free floating.
-
Percveiving: On the surface "interpretative without thoughts" and at the
same time the underlying vibrations, nada, pressure surges, colors etc.
It is more direct than before: "not I hear sound" or "hearing sound" -
but more "only sound".
- Feeling: Most of the time here is simply freedom and silence. Nothing special. Sometimes there is bliss but no clinging to it.
I don't know, what that means, because i have no data of other people. Its simply that, what is present here.
-
-
Soh Wei Yu John Tan:
Yes.
Quite normal. But need to deconstruct "physicality". It is very
difficult to explain. Means there is certain deeply constructed idea of
what is meant by being "physical" and "mental". These deeply
constructed ideas also distort what is being experienced.
-
-
Google translated article from Dieter Vollmuth's German blog:
Awareness is not a container
December 14, 2019 divo
At the moment it looks like this: consciousness is not a field or container, but the things as they appear. Consciousness is also not the substance of things, but rather the mechanics of popping up and disappearing from unsubstantial phenomena. Firmness and permanence is part of the data of virtual reality, which appears as the “world out there with bodies”.
The background field (I AM), which was fragmentary until yesterday, was deconstructed tonight and has disappeared. Now there are only networked points with gaps in between.
On the surface, the body appears firm, solid and permanent - but a closer look immediately shows that it consists of strongly fluctuating, networked points. The deep, glowing blackness shines through the gaps, which has only been experienced as an “inner experience” for years and is now everywhere.
There is nothing more to say about the conventional world, except that it is just the way it is. It cannot be denied as unreal, nor can it be confirmed as real. It is there in terms of experience - but only in the total view that all of these are just appearances (cinema film) and there is no one who sees them or can even change anything in the data content of the appearances can deep peace appear.
The most amazing thing is that this view has been there all the time - but the intricate web of words and concepts has hidden the direct view of the real facts. Therefore, the view cannot be obtained - the obstacles must disappear, then it is there.
What are the obstacles? Words, thoughts, concepts, ideas - which claim: "That the world is solid and permanent and that there are people who act in it and have to distinguish between good and bad". From a conventional point of view, this is correct - from the current point of view, the children's stuff!
It's actually like watching a child playing in the sandpit and claiming that the sandcastle is a real house. But it's just sand, water and imagination ...
The playing child, who pretends that his sand figures are real, shows the watching adults how they themselves mistakenly see the world. But the adults only see the mistake of the child who imitates them - but not their own mistake, because "of course the world is real, everyone sees that!" Yes, every superficial ignoramus sees it that way!
As long as people hold on to this view and are content to see the world in this way, they are forced to suffer from it. This cannot be denied, because everyone experiences it firsthand. Not life is suffering, but to be seen wrong.
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