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Someone who had anatta insight not too long ago wrote to me:
Hey Soh, I’ve been contemplating visual experience and have something to ask you about.
There seems to be two types of distance/perspective, one more real than the other.
The first is subject-object distance. It’s the imaginary distance between “I” and “the object”. “I am over here, and the car is over there”. It’s the feeling of being distant from objects. It’s what’s seen through in the realisation of anatta.
The second type of distance or perspective is different though, it’s the distance not between subject and object, but between two apparent objects. For example, between the the pen and the eraser, there’s a space/distance of “desk”. And there’s a type of perspective that remains, too. If I hold up my hand, it’s the front of my hand that’s seen, not the back. I rotate the hand, the back is seen, not the front. In this way there’s perspective, but it’s sort of “built in”—it’s just the way the object is appearing—rather than being due to a subject over here perceiving the object from this angle.
One type of distance/perspective is seen never to have been the case when anatta is realised, but the other type of distance/perspective remains but is now “built into” the apparent objects.
Is this accurate? Do you have any thoughts on this?
I replied:
all distances and measurements are just relative and conventional. most important is not to mistaken conventional for truly existing entities. when you see through self, it is the sense of an inherently existing self or agent standing on its own, independent of perception, causes and conditions, that is seen through. when that is gone, the sense of there being a really existing self entity vantagepoint from which objects out there at a distance are perceived from disappears, along with sense of distance.
the sense of physicality and objects will also dissolve when you contemplate on dependent origination, emptiness and non-arising. at that point everything becomes as illusory as a hologram, a rainbow and a reflection. no phenomena are real, and nothing is locatable anywhere, a vividly appearing absence. you can still measure distance and so on but you understand all these are just conventional measurements that does not reference some truly existing entities located in truly existing self or truly existing phenomena
see http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2022/05/rainbow.html
http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2019/08/emptinesschariot-as-vivid-appearing.html
http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2020/06/primordially-unborn.html
http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2020/06/non-arising-due-to-dependent-origination.html
also, http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html -
The experience of our empty nature is a very different from that of non-dual oneness. ‘Distance’ for example is overcome in non-dual oneness by seeing through the illusory aspect of subject/object division and resulted in a one non-dual presence. It is seeing all as just ‘This’ but experiencing Emptiness breaks the boundary through its empty ungraspable and unlocatable nature.
There is no need for a ‘where-place' or a ‘when-time' or a ‘who-I' when we penetrate deeply into this nature. When hearing sound, sound is neither ‘in here’ nor ‘out there’, it is where it is and gone! All centers and reference points dissolve with the wisdom that manifestation dependently originates and hence empty. The experience creates an "always right wherever and whenever is" sensation. A sensation of home everywhere though nowhere can be called home. Experiencing the emptiness nature of presence, a sincere practitioner becomes clear that indeed the non-dual presence is leaving a subtle mark; seeing its nature as empty, the last mark that solidifies experiences dissolves. It feels cool because presence is made more present and effortless. We then move from "vivid non-dual presence" into "though vividly and non-dually present, it is nothing real, empty!".
also see: http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2013/04/daniel-post-on-anattaemptiness.html
also, http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2010/04/buddhism-is-not-what-you-think.html
everything is seen not as physical objects but as empty clarity, illusory, non-arisen, like a rainbow, hologram, reflection. but to say everything is clarity does not imply clarity has real existence. clarity/mind/awareness is just another name for the vivid vibrancy and luminosity of [that is none other than the] appearance, otherwise mind/awareness is reified. also appearances are not mistaken in terms of physically existing objects with its own true existence.. everything is mere dependent designations, dependent origination and non originating, like the moon reflection on the water or the rainbow analogy explained in the first link by john tan and jayson mpaul
