Pam Tan shared this after meeting with AtR group and John in October 2020
[12:25 PM, 10/29/2020] Pam: Hi Soh, just want to let you know, how John described anatta last night is already my moment to moment lived 'experience' since beginning of this year. I am 100% doubtless. Even though I shared with no one and do not really want to talk about it. All there is just this current display of shapes colours tactile feel smell thoughts. No conceptual overlay, NONE! Direct, immediate, gapless, intimate. Life continues to function lighter than a baby's breath. Thank you for bringing the meeting about. From deep depression and not having heard of spirituality in 2016 to direct glimpses coming fast and furious back to back this year. Culminating in John's and your presence last evening. His words are myself talking to myself, sealing my milestone.
[12:26 PM, 10/29/2020] Pam: 🙏🙏🙏
[12:56 PM, 10/29/2020] Pam: As John said, anatta realisation is nothing spectacular, it is just recognising this has always been the case. Very beautiful and simple recognition, mySelf meeting mySelf, saying hello mySelf. No more questions, just a smile of quiet understanding.
[1:13 PM, 10/29/2020] Pam: Am open-handed now and seeing alot of deeply embedded old wounds surfacing without stopping them or reacting to them. They are just sensations and they free themselves and dissolve and I smile at how simple it is now, instead of me suppressing and suffering few years back. This purging is sometimes very intense and I have to take deep breaths. For as long as I have this body, there will continue to be old fears and habits based on mistaken beliefs of personhood and doership, I don't hope to exhaust all of them but see clearly that these present themselves as a chance to cleanse and clarify. A lifelong practice. So embrace everything, knowing we are all spotless, innocent, complete and life is very precious and beautiful Self-discovery journey!!!
[1:28 PM, 10/29/2020] Pam: Some real-life egs:
Every morning upon waking, in sleep-wake state, for a flash moment, language is absent so that what is presented have no labels and I have no idea what I am looking at. Just an array of shapes and colours and aircon humming and sensations the contact of body with sheets but all as one tapestry. No sense of someone located somewhere looking and experiencing from the location of a body in bed. Yet feel like I am everywhere.
[1:28 PM, 10/29/2020] Pam: This morning when hanging out the laundry my hands on the poles appear not attached or belonging to myself yet all the clothes and pole and window and flats opposite ARE ME!
The vivid colours of the clothes on the poles are nameless and not seen by the eyes but they are just KNOWN!
[1:30 PM, 10/29/2020] Pam: Colours and sounds are KNOWN immediately by themselves...they are Self-knowing, no need for any agent making an effort to bring info to the brain.
[1:33 PM, 10/29/2020] Pam: Last night watching John at no distance, his shape and voice just ARE. Not even to say "appearing in consciousness"...saying this is saying too much. JUST ARE! Shining vividly by themselves!
[1:39 PM, 10/29/2020] Pam: And every moment is not a linear progression from a previous moment. Just one, the current one, the most updated one,. Updated not as if there was a continuity from previous moment. It is just a compete moment by itself! It presents as a whole package complete with story/memory of the previous moments. So this tricked the brain into thinking there was a past. Giving illusion of time. While in fact they are disjointed, each a complete current display.
[1:42 PM, 10/29/2020] Pam: I used to drag my past into my present when it is just a story etched into the current configuration. There is no way to verify that the story even happened. It is just assumed due to 'evidences' of what others collaborate to confirm back to us.
[1:44 PM, 10/29/2020] Pam: When people talk about there is just the NOW I was so frustrated. Now it is so obvious. What is right now infront of the face and under the feet is all the reality there is. All else are contrivance, hearsay, imagination, assumptions.
[1:47 PM, 10/29/2020] Pam: Regarding substantiality of a background, this is a thought, a concept appearing now.
[1:48 PM, 10/29/2020] Pam: If there are no joined moments how can there be continuity?
[1:48 PM, 10/29/2020] Pam: How can there be a permanent background?
[1:51 PM, 10/29/2020] Pam: Of all illusions, the illusion of a background holding all illusions together is itself the most persistent illusion!!!
[2:32 PM, 10/29/2020] Soh Wei Yu: 👍 wonderfully expressed. Thanks for sharing
[11:23 PM, 3/13/2021] Soh Wei Yu: by the way just wondering if it's ok to share what you shared above? i can remove any specific details if you wish
[7:37 AM, 3/14/2021] Pam: Hi morning Soh, yes can always share if you feel may benefit others