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Soh Wei Yu"I'm more of the lower capacity type -- I took 4 years after I first had faith and a modicum of conceptual discernment in the three dharma seals as explained to me by John Tan, before I could have a direct realization of anatta. Even to reach the first step took me about a year or two of talking with John Tan, before that my understanding of anatta and three dharma seals was still blurry."This is also why it is important to be patient when explaining dharma to people. Patience [also a bodhisattva's paramita] is a virtue I am still learning from John TanIf it took years for me to even conceptually understand, it may take much longer for someone stuck in substantialist phases like I AM or One Mind for many years to understand it. But don't give up because I've seen many people in the I AM and One Mind phases broke through to anatta. Who can make it or who cannot, it's hard to judge or tell. Open mindedness is a key.
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Yin LingSoh Wei Yu thanks sohFrom my own xp, I also think one crucial ingredient that could make or break us modern practitioners is the strong confidence in whoever our teachers mentors or spiritual friends are and the teachingsSounds v simple but for me it was always the barrier because the way of seeing after insight is so radically different from usual that I sometimes wonder if it’s correct or not , with just a speck of doubt the mind cannot release into its nature and one is always hovering at the brink. I hover a lot lol actually so whenever I receive a message from more advanced practitioner sharing with me how to they see, how things would be etc etc that doubt will suddenly break and suddenly there will be a deepening, but I must trust the person fullyEven now I feel there’s something blocking on me that idk what lol.So if a practitioner gets to have a teacher or mentor he totally trust and is confident in, like u towards John , like me towards my teacher and John.. etc .. it helps tremendouslySo often when ppl ask me about who to learn from as teacher I ask them to explore first by themselves because if they and the teacher “no spark” the trust won’t be there and the realisation is hard also.With confidence it is also hard let alone without. Also why I think In traditions, devotion towards to guru is so emphasisedSometimes I feel it is not much use i just point even though the pointer is powerful and from insight, if the trust between 2 persons is not there, one will never see. So they need to go to someone they completely trust like they Dalai Lama or sthg haha.Sorry long unstructured blah3Soh Wei YuThey must also have tremendous good karma to find the right teachers otherwise their faith will also hinderSoh Wei Yuon a related note just watched this days ago:坐禪奧義(九之一)-正師YOUTUBE.COM坐禪奧義(九之一)-正師Yin LingYes it is the view that makes one stuck.They have the confidence in the wrong view and confidence in their teachers, which is not wrong, except this will be the biggest hurdle to overcome. 神都帮不到It’s like talking to someone with theistic view. Not much different one. Can only pray for them.Soh Wei YuOn the trust part also that is generally true and impt.. although there was on a few occassions they seem to break through even though they were very argumentative with meThen suddenly they break through after they went back contemplate and realise the truth to what i said lolBut that is not say v commonYin LingSoh Wei Yu but if they suddenly have very strong confident in a person MAYBE can break through I thinkHH Dalai Lama etcYin LingSoh Wei Yu haha yeah. U r patient and u garner a certain degree of confidence from others so they can borrow that confidenceFor me if I notice this I just send them to the Dalai Lama. My appearance this life will not convince anyone I better don’t waste time
Soh Wei YuYin Ling wrote a week ago:Yin LingLisette Cardenas-ParisImo it is a balanceBetweenReading/listening , contemplation and meditation.These 3 need to happen for clear insights to happen.Due to being deeply deluded, we are not able to see truth with our current perception. Hence reading the right view of how things are actually and orientate to right view will facilitate progressThe terms can be a headache unfortunatelyContemplation and meditation is crucial to integrate what have been learnt.So each part shouldn’t be ignored.Each person should learn to balance this by themselves , I personally go through periods of studying alternate with deep meditation when I don’t read much at all until whatveee I read has been integrated , this works well for me.I also have a teacher who can point the right way so the amount of reading and finding things out by myself is greatly reducedHope this helpsReply1w
16 Comments
Khizar Ali
What is meant by the 'view'? Is it referring to methods or something else?
Yin Ling
Khizar Ali right view in Buddhism.
seeing things in the way of the dharma seals - impermanence, suffering, non-self , nirvana .
Further along, emptiness and dependent origination.
William Lim
What's the difference between views, insights and perceptual shifts.
Which of those are conceptual and which is experiential?
Yin Ling
William Lim ur Q very hard 🫣
Views is like teaching on how to “see”… one haven’t see yet, but they understand the theory.
Then they take it into investigation, contemplate the view.
Why Buddha say non dual, why Buddha say this say that.. that’s using the view to contemplate..
Then
slowly or suddenly they see, they understood deeply coz their
perception with a small shift showed them what the view is talking
about.. That’s the insight
Perceptual
shift is just a different way of looking, like U suddenly see an image
in those grainy holographic illusory thing they put up for fun
When the insight happens it’s experiential already, one can see real time already.
before that it’s using thinking and contemplating .
View is like telling u how the apple taste then insight is like tasting the apple yourself 

Hope I m not wrong lah

William Lim
Yin Ling yes loh, that's what I'm asking... and I think you answered it quite well lah. 

As you said, "Fake it till you make it".
So
wondering which part is the "Fake it" (Theory or Pointing Instructions)
and which part is the "Make it" (Perceptual Shifts or Insights).
Is Insight an intellectual understanding, or a shift in perception, or not really?
And do you need a shift in perception before you can get the view?
Yin Ling
William Lim
for me personally it’s like.. when my teacher tell me to investigate
where the awareness is.. she guides me and point me.. and I realise it’s
not separate from the sensations, and I read in the book it says the
same thing, so I have the “view” of non dual now, but I haven’t truly
experience
So
what I do is I keep asking myself “ok now if the sound and the
awareness is not separate, how should it feel?” Then I play around with
it. I was quite obsessed lah lol so I go everywhere I investigate “how
ahh” “why it doesn’t feel like the sound hear?”.. why is it so strong
inside the head here what is this thing ahhh .. play around for a
while..
then one day it’s like
Ohhh
I seeee.. the whole experience of “sound hearing “ became very clear
like a veil taken off. I don’t need to use effort anymore like before.
It’s just there. The change is sudden for me. That is to me , an
insight.
Yin Ling
William Lim for emptiness I also play with it like that.
I got the view from all the reading.. then I experiment ..
Like..
ok so buddhism say exist but not truly there right .. ok how ahhh…
investigate and investigate and slowly slowly the thing ness become less
and less and the whole scenery become light floaty and like a display

That’s
my personal experience lah.. our mind is super malleable. U give it a
view, it will slowly manifest sthg for u lol. Very fun actually 



William Lim
Power lah... you really "Fake it till you make it" 

Yin Ling
William Lim hahahaa yeah it is like that one. Basically just practise until the mind give up old ways 





Soh Wei Yu
Conceptual
view is like you are able to explain to someone that the cow in the
picture puzzle is located roughly at what location and what it should
look like based on what someone else described, but you still cannot see
it.
Experiential
realization is like it is more obvious than obvious, clearer than day
the cow is there when you look at the picture. Even if you may not yet
have thought up the perfect way to express it, you just know, you see it
with your own two eyes.
Soh Wei Yu
View when directly realized is experienced directly, it becomes your experience in a direct manner.
View when understood intellectually does not have a paradigm and perceptual shifting effect.
So
the understanding of three dharma seals goes through three stages
according to Buddha -- first you accept it by faith, then you ponder it
with a modicum of discernment (intellectual analysis), then you directly
realize it. The third one is stream entry, or in Mahayana the stream
entry is first bhumi. I would personally add that in my view, those of
greatest capacity skip straight to third (like Bahiya et al), those of
medium capacity skip to second then progress into third (the smart and
analytical type), while those of lower capacity starts from the first
step then progress into second and then third. I'm more of the lower
capacity type -- I took 4 years after I first had faith and a modicum of
conceptual discernment in the three dharma seals as explained to me by
John Tan, before I could have a direct realization of anatta. Even to
reach the first step took me about a year or two of talking with John
Tan, before that my understanding of anatta and three dharma seals was
still blurry.
Cakkhu Sutta (SN 25:1)
Near
Sāvatthī. “Monks, the eye is inconstant, changeable, alterable. The
ear… The nose… The tongue… The body… The mind is inconstant, changeable,
alterable.
“One
who has conviction & belief that these phenomena are this way is
called a faith-follower: one who has entered the orderliness of
rightness, entered the plane of people of integrity, transcended the
plane of the run-of-the-mill. He is incapable of doing any deed by which
he might be reborn in hell, in the animal womb, or in the realm of
hungry ghosts. He is incapable of passing away until he has realized the
fruit of stream-entry.
“One
who, after pondering with a modicum of discernment, has accepted that
these phenomena are this way is called a Dhamma-follower: one who has
entered the orderliness of rightness, entered the plane of people of
integrity, transcended the plane of the run-of-the-mill. He is incapable
of doing any deed by which he might be reborn in hell, in the animal
womb, or in the realm of hungry ghosts. He is incapable of passing away
until he has realized the fruit of stream-entry.
“One
who knows and sees that these phenomena are this way is called a
stream-enterer, steadfast, never again destined for states of woe,
headed for self-awakening.”
Soh Wei Yu
<---
and then people may ask, oh Buddha said as long as you accept phenomena
are impermanent, you are bound for stream entry? Really meh? Don't
everyone accept everything is impermanent? Everyone will die what that's
obvious.
That's
not what faith in impermanence means. It means you can understand at
least intellectually and have faith that everything, even mind, consciousness,
arises and passes according to conditions and is not a knower, a
subject, an unchanging soul, and so on. Meaning the anatta understanding
understood conceptually and you have faith in that.
For
me, I am pretty sure I became a faith follower or dharma follower
destined to stream entry in the year 2006. I still proceeded into I AM
phase in 2010 but because I am a 'faith follower' and then perhaps a
'dhamma follower', I then proceeded into direct realization of anatta in
8 months from I AM.
William Lim
"First
you accept it by faith, then you ponder it with a modicum of
discernment (intellectual analysis), then you directly realize it."
Soh Wei Yu, thanks for sharing your process & progress.
So realization comes from intellectual analysis?
Soh Wei Yu
William Lim You also need to practice and contemplate. Intellectual understanding alone is not enough.
William Lim
By practice, you mean meditate?
By contemplate, you mean think and/or investigate?
Soh Wei Yu
Yes.
Or eightfold path for Sravakayana (although also covered in Mahayana
and Vajrayana), Paramitas for Mahayana, or the path of Tantra and
Self-Liberation [Dzogchen and Mahamudra] in Vajrayana, etc.
Eightfold path is summarised as sila samadhi prajna.
Conduct, samadhi / meditative composure, insight / wisdom are important.