Showing posts with label Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho. Show all posts

Mr M shared this in 2020 which John Tan commented back then “Yes zen is directly into no-mind and anatta.”


Mr M shared:


“ Sharing a Dharma talk that effectively smacked me upside the head and told me what I needed to hear:


https://wwzc.org/dharma-text/starting-point


“So let's begin right here.


Right here, right now.


Open to this breath, these sensations, these colours and forms you are seeing, these sounds you are hearing.


And now, let's begin again. Open attention again, to THIS breath, THESE colours and forms, THESE sounds. And again. Now. In each moment we need to begin again.


Each moment of our lives is when - and where - our lives are. Each moment is the starting point for beginning to practise and each moment points to where and when we can practise.


In the teisho series, "Painting Reality" Zen Master Anzan Hoshin says:


Waking up to the possibility of Waking Up like this for even the slightest moment is hotsu-bodaishin, the rousing of the mind which seeks the Way. Sometimes this is called the thought of enlightenment, sometimes the Awakening of intelligence, sometimes enlightenment-finding mind, and sometimes the mind which follows the Way. Following the Way at first often involves finding all of the ways that we follow our own lead and lose our direction, take twists and turns that double back upon themselves. Occasionally we move past these and actually do the practice for a few moments. Eventually, the mind which seeks the Way stops seeking and finds the Way in not seeking. But then it finds that this isn't the Way either. The mind which finds the Way doesn't seek but doesn't not seek. It releases.


When our hands are open, the Way fills them. When we release this, then the Way is our hands. When we release this, then the Way has open hands and we are how the Way unfolds.


You have heard Teachers say over and over that mindfulness is not a state. It is an activity, something we actually do moment to moment. And despite that, we would like to turn it into something that we "have", something we can crank up like a machine and leave it running by itself in the background while we get on with the "really important stuff" in our lives -- our "stuff and things".


But what's going on is really just the opposite. We crank up states about our stuff and things and leave them running in the background. And the foreground. And to the sides. and hanging over our heads. We give so much attention to our henpen, our "stuff and things" that we believe that we are our stuff and things. "My job, my husband, my wife, my problems, my concerns." Oh MY, oh MY oh MY.


Ooops.


Let's start over. Begin again, right here, right now, with this moment, these sensations, colours, forms, sounds.


Where do you think we are going from here? Where is all of this going? Just here, just now. Here and now are the only place you ever are.


Stop with the figuring. The whole problem here is too much figuring. That's never good. You try to figure out the past, but you are only right here, right now, thinking about the past. You try to figure out the future, but you are only right here, right now, thinking about the future. Your thoughts seem to create a sense of movement, of something happening, but you haven't gone anywhere at all and there is nothing happening. You get "lost in thought", but you're not lost. You're sitting right here. See the wall? feel your hands in the mudra?


But I WANT TO FIGURE SOMETHING OUT!


Leave it alone.


Begin again, right now, with this breath, this breath that breathes life; this breath that breathes in the airborne dusts of beings who have come and gone. Soon enough your dust will be in the air too, but for now you can breathe this breath. What does it feel like? What does it really feel like? What do these sensations feel like? Legs crossed, hands resting in the mudra, right here, right now?


A myriad of colours fill the delicate, moist globes we refer to almost dismissively as "eyes". "My eyes". Whose eyes? Oh, you mean this seeing through meat? Do you make the meat see? How could you do that? Certainly not by thinking about it. Open attention now to this extraordinarily spacious, luminous seeing. Allow peripheral vision to fall open. What do you see? What fills your eyes? You see the wall, you see other details to the left, right, up and down all at the same time. Do you also see the seeing? Do you see the graininess to the visual field? Do you see the space between yourself and the wall that also extends in all directions? Just see. Don't squint in judgment of your passing thoughts. Just let seeing see, expansively, generously and stay out of the way.


Another quote from "Painting Reality":


When our eyes open and the world paints the brilliance of colours, then seeing is lit up. Our ears, fingertips, the nuances of sensation of fabric touching the nape of the neck are all alight. There might come the old reaction of shrinking away or of trying to claim and own and carry this brightness back into our old nest of old views where we can rub up against it. But it's just the sensation of fabric against the nape of the neck and so we realize that they cannot get what we usually hunger for from this. After all, these are just ordinary sensations, just colours and forms and sounds and yet they are extraordinary. It is not a matter of having seen something beautiful or luxurious. There is just clarity, vividness, richness to the seeing itself. There is something satisfying about this in itself. If we do not react with the usual greed and aversion, then there is more space allowed for spaciousness to present itself.


Ssshhh.


Stop talking to yourself. Stop looking to see if you have an opinion about what you are noticing. Listen, right now, to the sounds that move as waves moving through space which can be both heard and felt. The world speaks as the sound of bird call, the distant sound of traffic, a voice, an exhalation. Shut up and listen. Open past your chatter by opening attention to what the ears are actually hearing instead of talking over everything. Have you ever been trapped in a room with someone who just will not shut up? They want to go on and on and on and have no idea how boring and tedious they are. Well, when you natter away to yourself endlessly, you're worse than that because you don't just drown out another person. You drown out reality. Shhhh. Listen! Listen right now to what you are hearing with your ears.


You can do this. Everyone in this room is here because at some point or another, in some way or another, each of us have recognized that how we experience experience has something to do with how our attention is arranged. And through doing this practice, we have seen again and again that although we can be brittle, angry, petty, self-consumed, we are also capable of stepping past our states, to open to Openness. And when we do that even for a moment, we have a taste of a kind of friendliness towards ourselves and others, a grateful appreciation of the simplicity and fullness of experiencing and a sense of wonder at simply being alive. And we know that if we could apply that understanding to the rest of our lives, in how we interact with others, in the decisions we make, our lives could be expressions of that simplicity and richness.


And then we forget what it is that we came here to do.

Begin again.


In Shinjin Gakudo: Study of the Way Through the Bodymind, Eihei Dogen zenji says:


"In giving rise to this thought of enlightenment, the entire realm of experiencing arises. Although conditions are rooted in this enlightenment-finding-mind, this enlightenment-finding-mind is never conditioned. This enlightenment-finding-mind and all conditions are this single hand held out as one hand, and one hand clasping all beings as this single hand. Thus, rouse this thought of enlightenment in all the conditioned realms of being: utter contraction, hunger, dullness, and aggression."


Begin now. Open attention to THIS breath and allow the thoughts to dissipate into the open space in which the bodymind arises. Feel the sensations of the bodymind sitting on the zafu, the sensations of thumb touching thumb in the mudra. The whole posture is dignified and yet so delicate. There are so many subtle sensations. And in feeling into these you are feeling into reality. Before and beyond anything you think or feel, reality must be your starting point.


Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, at any time of the day or night, reality must be your starting point. Don't blunder about making ill-considered decisions, flailing about in distorted interpretations and assumptions about what is going on. You only stir up confusion by doing that. Cut through the swirl of confusion by allowing attention to fall open to the details of things as they are. This is your starting point, whether you are standing in a bank line or having a conversation, at work, at home, everywhere you go, in everything you do. Your practice on the zafu provides you with the information you need to do this. But you need to make the effort to integrate what you have understood all of the time, as much as possible, even when you are not sitting.


"But" (students pretty much always have a but) "This is boring. There has to be more."


Of course there's more, but until you can stay in the room and stop filling up the space with the stuff you toy with, there isn't more than the stuff you toy with. You don't allow enough room for "more". Give up the toys and then we can talk about "more". "More" is not hidden from you. You make yourself unavailable to it.


But here we are again. Come back to right here. THIS BREATH. THESE SENSATIONS. THESE COLOURS AND FORMS. THESE SOUNDS. You want "more"? This is how "more" unfolds. More advanced instruction does not come about because a student is curious. Churning up theories, wishfully trying to stretch your mind into imagined "realms" will get you nowhere. Practising in, as, and through the bodymind, wordlessly questioning into experiencing is how the inherent wisdom of the bodymind can present itself.


No, really. Really, really, really.


You, over there, stop that. Don't fold down into yourself like that. Stay out here with the rest of us, with the rest of the world. You and the world are not separate. Each thing interpenetrates every other thing right here, right now. All there ever is, is right here, right now. Align with this moment of present experiencing. Come out of hiding to be who you really are. You are not your thoughts and feelings.


Nothing obstructs the seeing of the wall and the wall. Nothing obstructs the sensations of the breath and the breath breathing. Nothing obstructs the arising of a sound and the hearing of a sound. But by following and propagating thoughts and feelings, attention can become so coarse that the world can seem obscured.


We start again.


This is the starting point and here is where we can begin, again and again.””

 


ChatGPT 翻译,原文: https://wwzc.org/dharma-text/all-around-all-once-part-3-unfabricated


全方位,全程:第三部分:“无造作”


由尊敬的仁明莲花法师讲授


大念寺,2017年11月17日


每个瞬间都展现出丰富的色彩、形态和声音,如同无数的感觉。真诚的修行是让整个身心活在见性的光明、声音的深邃、不断变化的感觉中,作为整体体验的光明。当我们允许自己做到这一点时,就有了一种质疑的品质,对所经历的一切感兴趣和亲密。但要做到这一点,我们需要选择停止追随注意力凝结成造作,这些造作导致进一步的收缩,并最终导致痛苦。


安山宏心老师在“八千行般若波罗蜜多经”系列课程中说:


恐惧是自我形象的基本机制,试图以最基本的方式将现实具体化,简单地冻结和收缩。那些未学过、未听闻佛法、未实践过的人们,他们的生活基于一种本身就建立在收缩上的文化理解,将让自己陷入恐惧,并让恐惧阻碍他们获得自由。


这指出我们必须无言地审视一切,无所假定:不论是我们认为的自我、我们的记忆、我们认为的身体、我们认为的心、我们的倾向和习性告诉我们要做的事,我们的愤怒或恐惧告诉我们要做的事。你经历的任何状态、任何姿态、任何你经历的注意力结构都是不必要的。它们都是反弹,都是自我造成的伤害。


如老师在“佛教心理学发展”系列的第四课中解释的:


所有有为的存在都会引起苦或不满意、痛苦、收缩、混乱;这种痛苦、苦,是由抓取的机制所驱动的,试图在无法持有时抓住某物,并持续误解我们的经验性质。


“苦”并不仅描述一种特定的状态,而“痛苦”不一定是创伤性或戏剧性的。我之所以提及这一点,是因为有时学生会将某种状态,如无聊,描述为苦。例如,学生可能会描述一种沉闷的心态、缺乏兴趣,而他们真正的意思是无聊,而无聊是愚痴烦恼的结果。换句话说,无聊是一种通过你正在造作、追随、传播的注意力的平坦化而中毒的体验方式。这不如愤怒或贪求的发作戏剧性。但它仍然是一种幼稚的策略。


但“苦”指的是所有由有为的经验引起的状态,所有状态都产生痛苦、不满意和束缚。


巴利文“苦”的根是“jur”和“kha”,意为“坏”和“空间”。这背后的根本隐喻是车轮的孔被阻塞。因此,这个词的意思是阻塞的空间。


我们需要了解的是,作为看和听及仅仅是体验这一事实,我们的存在空间本就是开放的。当你处于某种状态时,你认为自己没有选择,但事实是你没有选择。你在追随强迫。选择实际上的修行并开放注意力,轴将自由转动。


修行时很容易培养状态——无聊的状态、平静的状态、安静的状态、欣喜的状态、闪闪发光的状态。但所有这些都是死胡同,因为在状态中所经历的一切只能是状态的产物。内容被限制在适合它的种类的环境中。这就是为什么这些状态看起来如此令人信服和迷人。这就是你对它们着迷的原因。没有人比你更擅长对你撒谎,而被谎言说服的东西就是撒谎的东西。一旦你理解了这个把戏的工作原理,它就不是魔法。状态定义了被想象为自我的身份和内容,但实际上这只是阻碍和造作的过程。


然而在禅修中,我们所做的是开放地关注,而不是固定。你不能从状态内部‘修复’一个状态。你必须先围绕它开放并释放它。当注意力以一种结构(状态)排列时,你经历的任何事物都将是有偏见的,因此不能是真实的。看到这些结构并学习更加开放地关注它们,用你的整个体验来关注它们,这是禅定揭示的许多真理的一部分。在“佛教心理学发展”系列的第六课大纲中,老师说,佛陀已经清楚地看到苦的根源是对无法抓住的东西的执着。这种执着是由将瞬息万变的经验努力认为是一系列真实和永久的对象和实体的构想所驱动的,认为这种执着将带来快乐和满足,而实际上只会导致痛苦和混乱,而无我和超越个人自我的东西当作是自我和个人的。他称这些抓住和困惑的连续瞬间为“轮回”,称这种无用的奋斗和对经验的战略性方法的终结为“涅槃”,意为“熄灭”。在许多早期文本中,我们反复发现佛陀再三要求学生放弃他们的精神和世俗策略,只是理解一些如此明显以至于经常被忽视的东西。


这就是为什么我们要求学生按照时间表入坐,为什么老师经常说“时间表即是佛”。那些令人畏惧的固定打坐和你承诺遵循的时间表很重要,因为你必须做出超越强迫的选择才能做到这一点。这是你生活中的某件事,将坚持要求你走得比你的习性和倾向所指示的更远,并可以邀请你进入佛陀的世界。佛陀的世界是无造作的、无生的,你通过将自己释放进入它而到达那里。


我们坐禅,我们进行这种修行,因为一刻又一刻,我们不理解。来来去去的理解片段是不够的。我们不能用我们的状态、我们的思想、我们的解释、我们的造作来娱乐自己。这些都是我们如何误解的一部分,都无助于我们澄清理解。我们不能负担得起懒惰。所以今天早上和整个法会期间,请努力真正地修行色彩和形态和声音的丰富性,感觉的细微差别。让整个身心活在看的明亮、声音的深邃、不断变化的感觉中,作为整体体验的光明,通过全方位、全程地开放。


--------


ChatGPT 翻译,原文:https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2010/04/tada.html / https://wwzc.org/dharma-text/tada


塔达!


法会开始:2010年4月30日,星期五


(上午9:38) 如实(Thusness/John Tan)说:塔达(Tada)非常好。无瑕也很好,但若要挑剔……必须消除‘它’……无瑕(Stainlessness)是不可得的生灭现象。没有任何生起的自性和地点……内外皆无。


(上午9:38) 如实(Thusness/John Tan)说:引用的所有表达都很出色。


(上午9:38) 如实(Thusness/John Tan)说:所有这些洞见的阶段都是为了让你理解塔达和无瑕文章中所表达的内容。这是无我和空性变得过时的地方。🙂


(上午9:38) 如实(Thusness/John Tan)说:把这个放在博客上……表达得很好。


John Tan 在我悟到无我之前告诉我(当时我在‘本我’阶段):


(晚上11:20) 如实(Thusness/John Tan)说:你从未经历过任何不变的东西


(晚上11:21) 如实(Thusness/John Tan)说:在后期阶段,当你体验到非二元时,仍然有这种专注于背景的倾向……这将阻碍你直接洞见塔达,如塔达文章中所描述。


(晚上11:22) 如实(Thusness/John Tan)说:即使你已经证悟到那个层次,仍有不同程度的强度。


(晚上11:23) AEN:非二元?


(晚上11:23) 如实(Thusness/John Tan)说:塔达(一篇文章)超越了非二元……它是第五至第七阶段


(晚上11:24) AEN:原来如此..


(晚上11:24) 如实(Thusness/John Tan)说:这是关于无我和空性洞见的整合


(晚上11:25) 如实(Thusness/John Tan)说:体验到无常的生动感觉,我所说的‘临在明觉的纹理和面料’作为形式是非常重要的


然后是空性


(晚上11:26) 如实(Thusness/John Tan)说:光明与空性的整合


法会:“塔达!”


由尊敬的仁明莲花法师讲授的法语


大念寺,2009年10月24日


人们对生活有各种期待,不仅是对未来的生活,甚至是对今天,对这一刻的期待。但现实不是一个想法。它是什么就是什么。塔达。


在寒冷的秋天,树木正在变色,落叶铺满了街道的沟渠。看到这些,我们知道冬天将至。但尽管我们大多数人今天在这里都年复一年地看到这种情况发生,我们实际上并不知道冬天的寒冷将会是什么样。我们有冰冷的手指的记忆,脚下雪地发出的嘎吱声,还有为了保护自己免受冰风侵袭而穿上多层衣物的记忆。但对寒冷的记忆不是寒冷的现实。它是什么就是什么,我们会在寒冷时知道寒冷……塔达。现在,在雪来之前,我们看到周围世界的颜色正在褪去,树木掉落叶子,光秃的树枝在灰暗的天空下显得格外突出。街上的落叶中混杂着丢弃的纸杯、口香糖包装纸、用过的面巾纸和偶尔的三明治包装纸,都在风中旋转。它是美丽的吗?是丑陋的吗?都不是。是好是坏?也都不是。它就是塔达。


“塔达”是一个日语词,意思是“正是、当然、正如它是的。”在永平道元禅师和安山宏心禅师的教学中,有时用作“如是”(tathata)这一更技术性术语的同义词,意思是“真如”/如是。真如是所有法,所有事物或经验的现实性。另一个技术术语是“实相”,意味着每个事物都是空的,空缺我们对任何事物的所有想法和知识,它是无常的,它是体验的光明的辐射。


无常是非常明显的。我们看到我们的祖父母去世,随着我们自己的年龄增长,我们看到我们的父母去世。我们看到周围的其他人去世。我们知道全世界每天都有无数的人去世。但当我们身边的某个人去世时,我们会感到非常惊讶。我们对关系的变化、经济的变化、环境的变化感到惊讶,我们也对自己必须改变,我们的行为因这些变化而必须改变感到惊讶。我们对自己生病感到惊讶,对自己放任事情而导致困难感到惊讶。而这种惊讶大多是因为我们对现实的想法与现实的真实不符所引起的冲突。现实就是塔达:事物的真实状态。如是/真如。塔达。


你耳后的痒?塔达。就是这样。你双手安放在手印的感觉?就是这样。你舌头上感受到的湿润?就是这样。呼吸的动作?正如其是。旁边坐着的人的形态?就是这样。当你矫正姿势时,颈部和脊椎的释放?就是这样。我的声音和话语间的静默暂停?正是如此。在从思维中醒来的瞬间,认识到流动的思维永远不能定格在任何一个确切的“真理”上,因为它们只能是不断变化的流动?就是这样。塔达。


每件事的细节都清晰而明确地展现出来,就如它们本来的样子,体验是新鲜的,时刻更新。无需修饰、沉思、策划或抓住任何东西,因为每一个被知道的事物都简单地作为细节在知觉中出现。塔达。如此简单。


但当然,如果你让注意力变窄并集中,那么集中所产生的扭曲远非简单。我们对我们的琐事大惊小怪……


我们可以对一个呵欠大惊小怪:“呵-呵-呵-呵-呵-呵-欠”。


对一个喷嚏大惊小怪:“啊-啊-啊-啊-啊-啾!”


对一种感觉大惊小怪:“我有......头痛”;“我累了”,“我的膝盖疼”。


对一种情感语调(哀怨、恳求的声音)大惊小怪:“哦,但我以为我应该......”。“但你告诉我......”


对一种立场大惊小怪:“我是对的,我知道我是对的,就这么回事”。


对一个琐碎的记忆大惊小怪:“我记得你做过那件事,它是如何让我感觉的,我永远也不会原谅你”。


我们可以对早上必须起床大惊小怪。


对晚上必须上床睡觉大惊小怪。


对到了吃饭时间必须吃饭大惊小怪。


对必须上班大惊小怪。


对等待公交车大惊小怪,


对我们在公交车上得到的座位大惊小怪,


对简单的坐下或站起大惊小怪。


我们对最简单的任务大惊小怪。


在我们做之前:“呃,我得做呀呀”。


当我们在做的时候:“呃,这什么时候能结束?”


即使在我们做完之后:“我做得太好了。从来没有人能像我这样做得这么好,任何地方的任何人都应该承认这一点。”


我们对我们如何看待其他人以及他们如何看待我们大惊小怪,因为我们认为这一切“意味着”些什么。这“意味着”关于“我”的某些东西。


“我很悲伤。看我的哀伤的眼睛,多么深邃而充满感情”。


“我很愤怒,看我如何瞪你”。(这个可能相当有趣)。


“我病了,看我多么憔悴,多么接近死亡”。


就停止那些“呀呀呀”。只是塔达。只是修行。


但我们可以对任何事情,包括我们的修行,大惊小怪。我们可以对正念修行大惊小怪,以至于不是简单的修行,而是“我”在修行。塔达!


 


但那是错误的塔达。我们体验的丰富性、尊严、亲密性,正如其本身,无需我们的造作、收缩和操纵,是不可思议的。它实际上和完全超越了概念、想法和故事。为了实现这一点,我们需要放下身心所表现的所有注意力习性。


禅师指出,一个“我”的感觉更直接基本上是一个“定位感”,与此同时还有一个方向性,因为它似乎我们的注意力是从一个中心点,一个“我”,向外及对经验移动。当这种定位感最初形成时,它是一个无言的假设,认为认知从“这里”移动到“那里”以便认知。然而,这种定位感作为自我本身就可以被认知,因此显然不能是一个“认知者”或“自我”。它是注意力的冻结或结晶,很像一个框架,从这个框架中,注意力似乎向外移动并指向所知的东西。这就是为什么,而不是简单地修行,我们似乎是一个“我”在修行。


在《节奏与歌》中,一系列关于东山良价大师文本《宝镜三昧》的提唱中,安山宏心禅师讲述了东山大师和他的学生之间的许多公案对话。其中一个学生是雪峰,后来在从德山接受传法后成为了伟大的教师,与东山不同,德山不介意用他的禅杖打学生。但在雪峰与东山学习时,他仍然充满了自我和关于真如和空性的想法。这里有一个故事:


有一次,雪峰搬运一捆柴火。当他到达师父面前时,他将柴捆扔下。


师父问:“它有多重?”


雪峰说:“世上无人能举起它!”


东山问:“那它是怎么来的?”


雪峰无话可说。


可怜的雪峰。他是一个傻瓜,因为他试图利用他周围的一切作为扩大自我的傻瓜。即使是一捆柴火。即使是搬运的简单行为。对他来说,连侍僧的修行,也关于他对空性理解的深刻性。真是个傻瓜。


在《节奏与歌》中,安山宏心禅师从我们的宗派所有佛陀和觉祖所实现和修行的地方呼唤我们,


当我们放下时,亲密性被揭示。我们在意识到自己无法摆脱自己不希望拥有的所有事物、所有想法和情感以及策略时放下;有时我们厌倦了它们,有时我们又深信不疑。


这并不简单。


它比那简单得多。


这是最简单的事。


关于我们的一切都不是真的。我们的好想法不会使我们变好。我们的狡猾想法不会使我们变得狡猾。我们的坏想法不会使我们变坏。


一个想法不能造成任何事。


无处可藏,因为没有藏身之需。


关于我们的没有什么是真的,因为我们就是那个真实。我们是那在一切地方呈现为一切事物,却本身无处可寻,也无实体可言。


你就是这种深刻的亲密。


你去了哪里?


所以,请加入我,不仅仅是说,而是真正地成为:塔达。




-----------------



ChatGPT 翻译,原文: https://wwzc.org/dharma-text/stainless




无染(Stainless)


由仁明莲花禅师讲述


大念寺,2007年6月9日


抽象数字艺术


一切本已开放。每一刻体验或“法”的特征是它是无常的(annica)和空(sunya),透明和开放。另一种说法是,一切都是“无染”。


这一刻的无染不仅仅是因为色彩和形态就是如此,感觉就是如此;事实是,这一刻无法被把握。你无法从任何特定角度理解这一刻,因为它太广阔,它在不断变化。你在其中出现,我在其中出现,我们都在其中出现。当我们通过修行实现这一点时,我们也会认识到我们自己同样是无染的。


坐在坐禅的姿势中,没有什么可以抓住。即使你试图抓住坐垫以使其或自己稳固,下面还有座垫和地板,周围是房间以及透过开窗飘进的空气、光线和声音。这一刻是无染的,无条件(无为)的,没有界限,这是你可以释放所抓持之物的地方。没有人能够持有,没有什么可以被持有。


佛陀关于无常的教义不是对事物的一种感觉,也不是理论上的。它不是事物发生的事情,更不是可能或可能不会发生在事物上的事情。这是事物一直的状态。无染不是一种神秘的闪光虚空,一个特别的地方,一种特别的体验。它是每一个瞬间已经是的样子。


身心体验体验发生在心念之间。当你坐在这里面对墙壁时,有多少细节呈现出来?当你注意到它们时,即使你注意到的很少,你的注意也是非常非常快的。快到你无法思考它们。


如安山宏心禅师在《此刻之心》中所说:


“在这个开放的空间里,我们几乎没有什么可以被迷惑的;我们没有在扮演我们的造作和自欺欺人,因此我们可以非常清楚地看到它们。由于它们几乎没有什么可以固定的,它们也没有太大的重量,所以我们发现它们可以非常快地转变。看到这种转变是调查的一个重要部分。看到注意力如何停留在一个对象上,然后又转移到另一个和另一个对象上。看到这些并不是一件事物,尽管注意力持续地通过习惯和冲动向局部化倾斜,但也存在转变的品质。尽管注意力持续地拉扯和推动,所持有的、所推动的并无连续性。只有这种转变,这种改变。法的无常公开地展示了自己。在每一个心念的瞬间,在呈现自身的任何事物中,根本的无常被揭示。”


当我们在修行时,我们可以看到注意力向习惯性思想和感觉的移动,当我们选择通过正念修行打开注意力,当我们与现实一致时,我们的行为越来越多地被开放本身引导。但当我们停止修行时,开放体验的空间被故事线和感觉色调弄乱;过去体验的片段;当前故事线的碎片;零散的思想和感觉的块和块。收缩导致进一步的收缩。有时你会生气。你感到被误解。你认为你知道一切,知道发生了什么,会发生什么。一个故事线引入另一个和另一个。它看起来像“这个”和“这个”。但你什么也没看见。它听起来像“这个”和“这个”。但你什么也没听见。它感觉像“这个”和“这个”。但你什么也没感觉。除了状态。


在所有的细节中 - 你可能注意到的无限范围的细节 - 为什么这个想法如此重要?为什么是这种感觉?为什么是这种状态?


这就像这样:假设你在一个美丽的春天,你正看着窗外,看到树叶和树枝、阳光和飘动的云朵以及鸟儿。然后你注意到窗户上的一只苍蝇。你开始关注它,你关注得越多,它在你眼中看起来越大。你可以将注意力缩得很小,以至于你觉得只有苍蝇存在,而你之前看到的背后的世界和周围的世界似乎完全消失了。但如果你释放这种聚焦,苍蝇并没有消失;相反,你看到苍蝇和窗户、树木、天空和鸟儿一起 - 你在上下文中看到苍蝇。


同样,如果你专注于一个故事线,世界似乎会消失。如果你释放这种聚焦,世界似乎会重新出现。但当然,世界并没有真正“重新出现”。它一直在那里。当你从一个思想中醒来时,“你”并没有让世界重新出现。你只是停止了聚焦,看见就是看见。


但无论你选择坐在那里专注于一只苍蝇或一个思想,还是选择围绕它打开,看到苍蝇与整个世界一起出现,无论你的注意力在那一刻如何,世界、苍蝇、你、你所坐的房间和广泛的其他细节都已经存在,已经同时发生。即使你选择将注意力收缩,使自己变得愚蠢,这一刻仍然是无染的。你所需要做的就是放开聚焦,开放只是事物的本来面目。


在现实中,你永远无法与开放分离。但你不能使事物开放。你能做的就是将自己整体释放到这一刻的无染中。你不能通过思考无染来将自己释放到无染中。如果你坐在那里思考无常,这就是“愚人禅”。空或无染不能被一个思想包含,因为不仅思想是空的,无染本身也是空的。它不是某种“东西”或其他的“东西”。这是一切事物的状态,你能做的就是闭嘴,让开,向它开放。你如何向现实开放?通过以身心实践现实。向呼吸的感觉、看和听的现实开放。向你在这一刻体验的现实开放。通过全身正念和向身体周围的物理空间的细节开放来释放注意力。与现实保持一致。


在“佛教心理学发展”系列课程中,禅师说:


“从一个心念到另一个心念的连续是如此迅速,这些心念之间的内容互动(例如嗅到某物、不喜欢它、责怪某人使洗手间变得如此糟糕、思考那个人的其他缺点,然后绊到脚趾、对此感到恼火等)也是如此迅速,以至于从一种状态转变到另一种状态的实际序列通常无法被认识,更不用说从一个心念到另一个心念的转变了。


通过直接关注我们如何体验我们所体验的,就会清楚地看到,对体验的常规理解是简单和原始的,因为它将真正的知觉瞬间的过程构建成了单一的大块内容。然后我们开始绊倒自己对这些块和结构的想法,并感觉到情况具有使真正的改变变得不可能的永久性。


无论我们如何在其中隐藏,无论我们多么确信这种立场、这种感觉、这种状态,它们都在升起和消退,一次又一次地将我们暴露于无常、于无常之中。”


当我们沉溺于自我形象,并从贪、嗔、痴三种烦恼中行事时,我们对自己和周围世界的感知变得纠缠和阻塞。体验堆积在一起,紧紧地捆绑在扭曲的思想和感觉色调的脆弱结构中。就像不匹配的拼图片,被强行压入形状,形成阴暗的图画。当这种情况发生时,我们无休止地对自己说话,寻找黑暗,计算,绘图,传播问题和分离的感觉。但正如一首由圣约书亚大念禅师所写的赞美诗中所说,


“注意,注意。


一切永远无染,


每一相永远无相。


与道相符,


每一法永远是佛法。”


我们对自己和周围世界的自我叙述形成了对这个和那个的“观点”的凝固,但在这些“观点”的周围,世界向四面八方延伸。只有通过聚焦和缩小注意力并选择忽略思想发生的背景,我们才能说服自己任何观点是真实的,是最终的,是合理的。


如果你看到有人坐在路中央,自言自语,用石头打自己,你可能会说:“别自言自语了。看看你在哪里。”你会非常清楚地认识到这种行为是完全疯狂的。但当你坐在坐垫上时,如果你没有向现实开放,而是在自言自语,用你的故事线折磨自己,你实际上在做着同样的事情。


在大约17年前作为禅师的学生开始修行不久后,我在拥挤的街道上看到一个给我留下深刻印象的人。那是夏天,所以他穿着短裤和T恤。但此外,他还穿戴着各种包和许多带子交叉绑在他的身上。从这些包里伸出各种小玩意和电线。他有诸如电话、晶体管收音机等许多我无法辨认的小物件 - 数十个。这些物件上还缠绕着许多电缆和线,也绕在他的身上。他确实是一个令人震惊的景象,街上的人们都绕着他走,因为他看起来像一个即将爆炸的行走炸弹。除了他的大部分电子设备显然已经损坏到不可能工作的程度。完全不顾周围人的反应,他在一个长椅上停下来坐下。当我等待一家商店开门时,我站在不远处观察了他大约十到十五分钟,他断开和重新连接电线,但很明显没有任何东西会或能工作。


我对这个人印象深刻,并对他如何陷入这种可悲状态产生了各种想法。我看着他,然后看着我自己,然后看着其他人,当我意识到通过聚焦注意力,他已经变成了一个沉迷于修理自己电线的人。任何人,任何地方,都可以通过聚焦注意力同样与现实脱节。然后我突然想到了我即使坐在坐垫上也会出现的一系列思想、感觉、故事线,意识到这些 - 这些思想、感觉和故事线,反复宣扬它们、排练它们、一次又一次地回顾它们是如何使“我”凝固成我认为的“我”,所有这些都必须被质疑和释放。看似“正常”的只是变得习惯性的东西。


正如《自在三昧歌》所说,“不要跟随并成为注意力的形式。”


我们开始修行是因为我们认识到我们自己的某些方面应该改变,尽管我们对此并不一定非常清楚。无论我们想改变什么,如何想改变,或者我们想改变的事物不断变化的事实,有一件事是明确的:我们想要改变。我们可能开始修行是因为我们想改变一两个细节,一些我们不喜欢的关于自己的事情,但我们会保留其他的。所以我们试图按照自己的条件来修行,试图将修行弯曲成对我们可接受的形状。我们专注于我们喜欢或不喜欢的东西,但随着我们继续修行,我们开始发现不仅仅是我们认为丑陋、坚硬、不舒服的部分需要改变,一切都需要改变。随着它的改变,它变成的东西也需要被释放,以腾出空间进行进一步的改变。我们“舒适”的东西和我们“不舒服”的东西一样奇怪。


我们刚开始修行时的许多行为基本上是在交换一个状态以换取另一个状态。出现了我们不喜欢的状态,然后我们提升一种开放感来对抗它。我们迷失在思想中,注意到这一点,不喜欢我们看到的,所以我们尝试提升一个沉默的状态(禅那状态)来对抗它。但偶尔我们真正记得去实践指令,实际感受呼吸、身体,开放于看和听。起初,我们不断检查修行对我们有什么作用,想知道我们如何“进步”,但最终我们意识到所有这些自我考虑也必须被释放。试图衡量自己的修行有点像在后院用木尺试图测量太阳或月亮。如果你注意到自己在做这个,停止关于自己的自言自语并修行。为什么?因为时刻是无法衡量的但短暂的,你正在浪费时间。


当禅师说“如果它是封闭的,围绕它开放;如果它看似开放,更进一步开放”,他是在指导我们在这一刻中围绕这一刻的无染性开放。这是真正的改变。他所说的“围绕它开放”是什么意思?他的意思是你应该使用对任何体验细节的注意作为一个提醒,释放专注于该细节的倾向并开放于该细节发生的背景。如果你专注于一个思想、一种感觉、你听到的无数声音中的一个声音、你可以看到的无数视觉细节中的一个方面,通过回归全身正念、开放视觉、开放听觉的修行来围绕那一个事物开放注意力。禅师所讨论的是将习惯性的思想和感觉以及与它们相关的注意力动作释放到无染性中,不断开放和进一步开放,不在任何地方停留,不安定,不让自己舒适。


真正奇怪的是,当我们变得收缩时,我们真的认为没有其他人能看到我们的状态;没有人能看到或感觉到我们如何扭曲和压缩我们的注意力,没有人能看到或感觉到我们用来切割自己和他人的锋利刀片的圈。但事实是,我们一直在展示我们的状态,并且如果我们沉浸并传播一种状态,它将使自己显现出来。没有什么是与其他事物分离的。一切事物同时发生,彼此互相渗透,在这一刻的无染性中。在你经历的状态周围,世界向四面八方延伸,但当你沉浸在一种状态中时,你会让自己看到的只是那个状态。不要愚蠢。围绕它开放。停止自言自语关于你对一切的看法和感受。如果你像你认为的那样有趣,当你坐下时你不会让自己这么无聊。


每天太阳升起和落下;月亮出现并在太阳再次升起时消失。天空是蓝色和明亮的,然后云层聚集,将雨雪或冰雹洒向地面。地球转动,山脉增长和后退,海岸线改变。生物出生和死亡,一波又一波的生物来去匆匆。在这一切中有什么是固定的?当你的经验向你展示所有事物的明显无常时,你怎么可能是固定的?在这种无常之中,你所经历的任何状态怎么可能是固定的?


我曾经与禅师谈论我的父亲,他已经去世很久了,谈论他的生活,他认为重要的事情,并评论说我们是如何努力和忍耐,希望和恐惧,而最终什么都不剩。禅师说,“就像在水上写的等式,正当它被写下的时候就已经消失了”。


禅坐不仅仅是改变我们自己的这个或那个方面。它使我们暴露于并揭示了一个事实:改变是我们本来就是的状态。


我说话,我的话语已经消失。你不需要追逐它们,因为你已经在它们被说出的那一刻理解了你所理解的。你看到墙壁,但不需要注意力向外移动并朝向墙壁,也不需要你尝试“组织”看见。只需看。你不需要进一步探究那看见的瞬间,因为那一刻已经过去,你已经看过了。你不需要在所看到的事物中找到“意义”,因为意义已经很明显,现在是这一刻的看见。它是什么就是什么。它就是墙壁。开放到周边视野。只是看。你感受到感觉,但注意力不需要跟随它们。只是感受。你注意到一个想法,并且你不需要进一步探究它。只是开放于整个身心坐在垫子上的体验。现在。又现在。愉快的感觉,不愉快的感觉被感受到,明亮,鲜明,消失。现在呢?坐在这一刻无染中的感觉实际上是什么?


所有的体验在注意力不被扭曲时都是无染的。所有法都在一个人的世界中生、住、灭。穿透每一个体验的瞬间。穿透这一刻的呼吸;穿透这堵墙,这个地板,这个心,这个世界。当你从坐垫上起身行走时,你仍在这个世界中行走。所有生命体都被遇见,所有事件都在兴衰中,这种对自己世界的穿透是我们修行的本质。我们的修行不是与世界分离的。我们的修行是心以世界无染地出现,世界以心无染地出现的修行。

Also See: A compilation of Zen teacher Anzan Hoshin Roshi's teachings


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Session Start: Friday, 30 April, 2010

(9:38 AM) Thusness: The tata is very good. The Stainless is also good but just to be picky... the 'it' must be eliminated...stainlessness is the ungraspable of the arising and passing phenomena. Without essence and locality of any arising...nothing 'within or without it'.
(9:38 AM) Thusness: all the expressions in what u quoted are excellent.
(9:38 AM) Thusness: and all those phases of insight is to get u to what's being expressed. 🙂
(9:38 AM) Thusness: and all those phases of insights are to get u to what that is being expressed in the tata and stainless articles. It is the place where anatta and emptiness become obsolete. 🙂
(9:38 AM) Thusness: put this in the blog...great expression 

John Tan also told me before my anatta realisation:

(11:20 PM) Thusness:    u never experience anything unchanging
(11:21 PM) Thusness:    in later phase, when u experience non-dual, there is still this tendency to focus on a background... and that will prevent ur progress into the direct insight into the TATA as described in the tata article.
(11:22 PM) Thusness:    and there are still different degree of intensity even u realized to that level.
(11:23 PM) AEN:    non dual?
(11:23 PM) Thusness:    tada (an article) is more than non-dual...it is phase 5-7
(11:24 PM) AEN:    oic..
(11:24 PM) Thusness:    it is all about the integration of the insight of anatta and emptiness
(11:25 PM) Thusness:    vividness into transience, feeling what i called 'the texture and fabric' of Awareness as forms is very important
then come emptiness
(11:26 PM) Thusness:    the integration of luminosity and emptiness


——


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[8/10/23, 5:30:08 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Actually nowadays in practice i dont really have much designations or referents.. its oceanic and boundless whether in sitting or movement. In a sense its similar to infinitude of universe like AF except there is no solidity.. its just dependent origination and emptiness in action like when you move the whole infinite net of indra reflects accordingly. The dependent origination its not like inherent cause and effect.. In moving its not like body interacting with environment but like infinite reflections in total exertion, like the whole universe is the movement not i moving. When sitting there is no me or body mind sitting like out of body into boundless and oceanic but there is no sense of a self expanding outward, just natural and spontaneous presence like whole universe is sitting. Gapless distanceless without boundaries and radiant but nothing there.. no seer, no seeing, nothing seen and also no universe to ground in.. i dunno if im skewing to radiance but i seldom engage in analysis nowadays. Or its good for me to do more analysis
[8/10/23, 5:40:53 PM] John Tan: Quite good. But still skewing towards radiance. Try to balance with space-like nature. And don't talk about natural state, still far from it.
[8/10/23, 5:41:46 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
[8/10/23, 5:42:51 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Maybe i should do more dzogchen sky gazing lol
[8/10/23, 5:43:02 PM] Soh Wei Yu: I like to sit outside in nature, beach and parks
[8/10/23, 5:43:12 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Usually weekends i always do except only yesterday too hazy
[8/10/23, 5:43:26 PM] John Tan: Dunno what is that. But meditation on open space is crucial and helpful.
[8/10/23, 5:43:39 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
[8/10/23, 5:43:58 PM] Soh Wei Yu: quotes: (
[21/7/19, 8:46:47 PM] John Tan: The inner develope must include the ability to b contented in oneself.
[21/7/19, 8:47:31 PM] John Tan: When I sit in silent listening to meditation music, I was like being "there".
[21/7/19, 8:47:50 PM] John Tan: This I have told u.
[21/7/19, 8:49:26 PM] John Tan: U should look at the wide sky
[21/7/19, 8:50:10 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
[21/7/19, 8:50:53 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Like sky gazing dzogchen meditation haha
[21/7/19, 8:51:17 PM] John Tan: I do not know what they do
[21/7/19, 8:51:19 PM] John Tan: Lol
[21/7/19, 8:52:55 PM] John Tan: The reason nowsaday I don't want to talk to u abt experience is because u r already attached to experience.
[21/7/19, 8:56:22 PM] John Tan: Elena wrote something about getting "real". U know what that means?
[21/7/19, 9:02:28 PM] Soh Wei Yu: “
4) Sky-gazing
Sometimes called "mingling the threefold sky" or "namkha arted." This is an important Dzogchen practice to enhance one's released shiné. Basically, one mingles one's consciousness with the infinitude of the sky, thereby actively undoing the subject-object duality.”
‎[21/7/19, 9:02:38 PM] Soh Wei Yu: ‎image omitted
‎[21/7/19, 9:02:38 PM] Soh Wei Yu: ‎image omitted
‎[21/7/19, 9:02:39 PM] Soh Wei Yu: ‎image omitted
‎[21/7/19, 9:02:39 PM] Soh Wei Yu: ‎image omitted
‎[21/7/19, 9:02:40 PM] Soh Wei Yu: ‎image omitted
[21/7/19, 9:03:09 PM] John Tan: Then it is the same...lol
‎[21/7/19, 9:04:38 PM] Soh Wei Yu: ‎image omitted
‎[21/7/19, 9:04:38 PM] Soh Wei Yu: ‎image omitted
‎[21/7/19, 9:04:39 PM] Soh Wei Yu: ‎image omitted
[21/7/19, 9:04:50 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic lol.. the book by namkhai norbu
[21/7/19, 9:05:30 PM] John Tan: Mingling one's consciousness with the infinitude of the sky undoing the subject-object duality...I din know that is the purpose of sky gazing👍
[21/7/19, 9:06:36 PM] John Tan: Allowing the infinitude to dissolve whatever traces that is left...
[21/7/19, 9:07:35 PM] John Tan: However one should not b attached to blissfulness of non-dual.
[21/7/19, 9:08:29 PM] John Tan: Rather what u should learn is if u were in ur sis place, having all those issues, how r u to heal urself.
[21/7/19, 9:08:37 PM] John Tan: That is more important...
[21/7/19, 9:11:55 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
[21/7/19, 9:12:27 PM] John Tan: Tell me what "Elena" meant by getting "real"
[21/7/19, 9:13:46 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Like this? “Rather what u should learn is if u were in ur sis place, having all those issues, how r u to heal urself.”
[21/7/19, 9:14:26 PM] John Tan: What is this "healing" abt?
[21/7/19, 9:18:05 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Recovering from the various physical and mental conditions
[21/7/19, 9:18:33 PM] Soh Wei Yu: But i dunno about it myself
[22/7/19, 12:13:37 AM] John Tan: Anatta allow u to experience non-dual naturally and effortlessly in the six entries and exits
[22/7/19, 12:15:06 AM] John Tan: What will enable u to engage in market place fully and without duality?)
[8/10/23, 5:44:35 PM] John Tan: Even sitting in open park, with hot and humid weather under a tree, I can quite enter into samadhi.
[8/10/23, 5:45:25 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Nice.. ya im now at a park lol walking
[8/10/23, 5:45:30 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Just sat a little just now later i sit more
[8/10/23, 5:45:44 PM] John Tan: But I try not to sit in open nature now coz attracted school kids...lol
[8/10/23, 5:45:54 PM] John Tan: Maybe in the morning in park
[8/10/23, 5:45:59 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Lol i see
[8/10/23, 5:55:33 PM] John Tan: Do u know what is dharmadhathu?
[8/10/23, 5:59:52 PM] Soh Wei Yu: I think i see you and kyle mentioned before, something like dharmadhatu is the emptiness of all phenomena while dharmata is the emptiness of a specific phenomena
[8/10/23, 6:09:06 PM] John Tan: U must learn to write ur own experiences in small lil thing like what yin ling did. Nothing about quotes but just simple daily stuff, so direct and simple and u directly see the depth of insight for example "ignorance" in that post.
[8/10/23, 6:10:56 PM] John Tan: No words from dharma, from the 7 phases of insights but just some simple descriptions u see the engagement and authentication of insight on "ignorance", on the hypnotic spell.
[8/10/23, 6:12:55 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
[8/10/23, 6:17:17 PM] Soh Wei Yu: U know ven jinmyo osho the zen teacher
[8/10/23, 6:17:25 PM] John Tan: Dunno
[8/10/23, 6:17:29 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Her lineage is always talking about space
[8/10/23, 6:17:32 PM] Soh Wei Yu: But its very much anatta
[8/10/23, 6:17:45 PM] Soh Wei Yu: She also always talk about space
[8/10/23, 6:18:33 PM] Soh Wei Yu: 1: The Sky Sits Up Straight
Presented by Ven. Jinmyo Renge sensei
Dainen-ji, Saturday, August 24th 2019
Anzan Hoshin roshi has said to me, "The sky is always sitting up straight above, around, and all the way to the ground. The sky envelops the earth with atmosphere. As the atmosphere fades, the space of the sky extends to the sun and past, enveloping the galaxy and all stars and worlds galaxies to the edges of the universe. But people are focussed upon whether the sky is cloudless and blue, or clouded and grey."
The other day, Roshi once more pointed out to me that "Clouds are magnificent atmospheric sculptures standing in the sky, far beyond the talents of any sculptor, formed of air and water."
Clouds forming and reforming, sometimes massive and imposing, towering and billowy; sometimes displaying as wisps and curls and waves, as fish scales or solid sheets of pewter. It is art being created moment to moment and it’s all free.
In the Buddhadharma, the sky has often been used as a metaphor for complete and utter Awakening, the Dharmakaya or the context of Awake Awareness. Within the context of the sky, within the Troposphere, the band of atmosphere closest to the earth, vapour congeals into water or ice droplets, forming clouds and these have been used to represent the congealing of attention into content within context.
In “Six Verses in Leisurely Solitude”, written by Eihei Dogen zenji, one verse entitled “The True Person Displayed Throughout The Ten Directions” says:
The true person is
no one in particular.
Like the deep blue
of the vast sky
it is everyone, everywhere.
Breathing in, breathing out, we breathe the sky. No matter what we are doing, regardless of how we feel about what we are doing, we are always breathing the sky.
On a clear evening if you are able to see the Milky Way, what you are seeing is about 200 billion stars and the universe says, “Do you know how ancient I am, how beautiful I am, how vast I am?” And you recognize this because you are made of stardust and so you are what those 200 billion stars are, and you and they arise together in the same space. “It is everyone, everywhere”. You see the light of stars that are 100,000 lightyears away or more, and although you can’t touch them, their light crosses vast space and time and touches you.
What you are able to see of the sky, and of space beyond the sky, is only possible because of light - the light from the sun, the light reflected by the moon, and the light from objects far from the earth. Right now, facing the wall, you are seeing space lit by daylight and electric lighting. You are seeing sky. And the space of the sky is always available to you.
What we’re talking about is context. The open space of the sky is the context. Clouds within the sky refer to content within context. In this series of Dharma Talks we will discuss how to open the clouds of states you create by opening to context.
At any moment you notice a contraction, by simply feeling the breath and the body and opening to the space around the body, there is a loosening of the contraction. All contractions are simply knots tied in space.
Contraction is the result of grasping and clenching and recoiling and refusing the openness of reality. Self-image continuously sorts experiencing into what it likes (passion, or grasping), what it doesn't like (aggression, pushing away and struggling), and then everything else, the 99.9% of experiencing that it can't be bothered with (ignorance) because it doesn't fit into the categories of liking and disliking. Self-image wants to hide, to lose itself in states.
The space doesn’t bend to your likes and dislikes. It doesn’t care about any of your states or storylines. And yet, it envelops all of them with an intimacy that is closer than any relationship you could ever have and always has space for anything that might come up.
In a collection of poetry called "The Sky Itself" published in 1986, Roshi wrote:
the wisdom-sword of Monju
takes no sides
it cuts
leaving no trace
it cuts cutting
it cuts Monju
right edge cuts left
left cuts right
but leave all this behind
and cut into THIS!
this moment, this sound
autumn rain falling
in the midst of darkness
the sky itself
this breath
As the Roshi says, “The three klesas or three poisons of passion, aggression, and ignorance are self-image's three fundamental options towards anything that arises: run to it, run away from it, curl up in a ball and ignore it. But all that is known points to the open space of Knowing.”
We too, can sit up straight, as does the sky that is always around the clouds. And even clouds are just forms of the sky. Whatever comes and goes, whatever clouds form and dissolve, sit with this breath as the sky that you are breathing in and breathing out.
----
2: Five Heaps and Three Poisons
2: Five Heaps and Three Poisons
Presented by Ven. Jinmyo Renge sensei
Dainen-ji, Saturday, October 19th 2019
I have spoken about the open space of the sky in order to represent the open context of our Experiencing, and clouds within the sky to refer to contents arising within this context.
In order to talk about the various kinds of content that students became clouded by, we should address what these ‘clouds’ or entanglements are, and how they happen. And to do that we need to begin with the traditional Teaching of the three kleshas of passion, aggression, and stupidity because they are the currents that stir together as all of our ‘entanglements’. They make up the basic style through which self-image relates to experience.
So, what are the clouds? Self-image, the image one has of oneself and the rest of the world comes about through a process of contraction. To understand the three klesas it is helpful to understand the play of the “five skandhas”. Now, don't be scared by Sanskrit terms. We chanted the Heart Sutra, the Maha Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra just a few moments ago.
In translations from the early Pali texts the five skandhas are often referred to as the "five aggregates of clinging”. They can also be called the "five heaps". The five skandhas have been translated by Anzan Hoshin roshi as "form, basic reactivity, symbolization, habitual patterning and consciousness". When the Buddha originally presented his Teachings on this, he piled up five heaps of different grains to represent these categories of impermanent phenomena.
The five skandhas can be discussed in many different ways, but they are primarily used in the Abhidhamma and the Abhidharmakosa to describe body (rupa) and mind or nama (with the categories of vedana, samjna, samskara, vijnana) as a collection of various kinds of things instead of being one solid thing, like the heaps of grains that the Buddha showed his disciples.
Instead of just describing body and mind as various kinds of things, the five skandhas can also be used to describe how perceptions and cognitions occur as a consequence of self-image. To illustrate this, I’ll quote from a passage in the “Development of Buddhist Psychology" series of classes presented by Anzan roshi in 1990:
“An example I use quite often - which of course is not at the level of mind moments, more at the level of mind-hours, mind-weeks or mind-years, but is something that we can use to understand how subtler processes happen - is to draw an example from something that almost everybody has experienced.
You walk into a room and there isn’t anybody there and you know there is nobody in the house, but there is somebody there and (sharp inhalation) you feel shocked for a moment.
And then you look and you realize it is a mirror and it is just you.
So you walk into the room and all of a sudden there is “HUHHH” – there is just “Something is there!” and everything becomes frozen. Everything becomes form. There is a big split that comes in so that you are there and what you are experiencing is out there, very definitely out there, but so much so that you cannot get any kind of focus on it.
At first it is just “HUHHH”, just panic and then feeling. You go “What is it? What’s wrong? There is somebody here. There is somebody here.”
And then perception, the third skandha comes in and you go, “There is a person in here and they are about this tall and they are”…so on and so forth.
And the next skandha, the fourth skandha comes in, in which you kind of rummage through and see if what you are experiencing now has a precursor, that is to say, if it is similar to something you have experienced in the past.
And you go, “Well, that’s me.”
Then the fifth skandha, or consciousness skandha, “Oh! It’s a mirror.” And sort of cluing into what is actually going on.
So the five skandhas can be looked at as simply a way of clarifying what we are experiencing. However, the way in which that happens tends to have an awful lot of contraction to it.
First of all, this sense of “this”, “that”, “self” and “other”, something out there – has a quality of panic to it. Not just in that example, but in the way in which self-image functions as nama rupa in the arising of mind moments, there is a very frozen, crystallized quality to it.”
According to the Abhidhamma and the Abhidharmakosa, attachment to feelings is developed through the second skandha of basic reactivity. And that brings us to the topic of the three Kleshas.
In the Pali Canon's discourses kilesa is often associated with the various passions that "defile" bodily and mental states. In the Pali Canon's Abhidhamma and post-canonical Pali literature, ten "defilements" are identified, the first three of which – passion, aggression, and stupidity – are considered to be the "roots" of suffering. The Sanskrit word klesa refers to mental states that temporarily cloud the mind's nature. They are referred to as "the three poisons" in Mahayana Buddhism. The kleshas specifically refer to the subtle movement of mind (citta) when it initially encounters a mental object. This is the second skandha of basic reactivity.
So at this point, the three klesas are as yet very subtle. They are orientations rather than actual emotions or feeling-tones and storylines. They are like predispositions rather than the stirring of states. But if this becomes amplified through the following skandhas of symbolization, and then habitual patterning, it becomes a state within consciousness.
It is through following the direction of these predispositions that we become lost in the poisonous clouds of the klesas. Unless our practice is deep and subtle, we will only very rarely recognize the basic reactivity of the second skandha. But through opening up around how the three klesas of passion, aggression, and stupidity have clouded our experience in the fifth skandha again and again and again, we become more and more capable of releasing these states earlier and earlier.
When we chanted the Heart Sutra this morning, it kept telling us that the five skandhas are empty, or sky-like. They are not solid, not fixed. They are like air and moisture and various causes and conditions mixing as clouds while all around the clouds is the already open sky.
When our world seems covered in clouds of passion, aggression, and stupidity, and we are coughing and hacking at the consequences of identifying with them, the truth is that our world is actually already open like the sky. We do not have to follow through on our pre-dispositions, our compulsions, our clouded states.
The open sky is available to us in the spaciousness of our actual bodily sensations, our ability to sit up straight and to walk upright through the spaces around the bodymind. As our practice deepens and opens then we can realize the five skandhas as the five wisdoms and the three poisons as the numberless gates to the Dharma that we can move through freely.
I will talk about the shapes of these clouds of passion, aggression, and stupidity soon. But, right now, let us sit up straight and walk upright.
----
Receiving the Dharma Seal
Hekiganroku Case 2: Zhaozhou’s “The Vast Way is Without Difficulty”
Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Jinmyo Renge sensei
Dainen-ji, Sogaku O-sesshin, Thursday May 20th 2021
On this day, in this moment, I sit before the students gathered in the Hatto, having just received Inka, or the Seal of Authenticity as a Zen Teacher, from my Master, Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi in a face-to-face and mind-to-mind private ceremony in the Hojo, or Abbot’s Quarters. Having been a successor to his Dharma through shiho, I now have been entrusted as his Dharma-heir through inka and can Transmit it to my own students.
And so, the Lineage of Awakened Ancestors is continuously alive, being passed on from Teachers to students who themselves can become Teachers who then pass it on to their own students.
I can never repay the Roshi for his instruction, encouragement, his humour, and sometimes his fierceness in his insistence that I practise realization and follow through, that I make as much use as I can of rich resources that are available, the Dharma Gates that are open in all directions right now. In speaking with the Roshi, every situation, no matter what it is, is a lesson in how to embody the Way, in how to fulfill the Four Great Vows. Whether through instruction in formal practice, or providing guidance about how to respond to a student or a situation, or explaining something about literature or history or Linux, he is continuously pointing to the spaciousness and Radiance of Experiencing, continuously asking us to open past our states and beliefs so that we can see what he is pointing to. He is always Teaching, in word, deed and gesture. His commitment to all of his students, the depth and breadth of his knowledge and understanding of Dharma and the entanglements that students experience, his foresight in creating volumes of Teachings for those who will follow, all of the effort he has made to ensure that we have the best possible resources - for all that I have mentioned and so much more, I am grateful beyond words.
I am also very grateful to the late Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho-ajari whom we honoured as O-sensei. She was my Dharma-sister and together with me had received shiho as a successor in Anzan Hoshin roshi's Lineage. I am grateful for the instruction she gave me when I was a new student, and then for always being available to consult with over the years.
Our Transmission from such Masters as Eihei Dogen to Koun Ejo, to Tettsu Gikai, to Keizan Jokin, Sogaku Hakukaze, Anzan Daiko, Mushin Daie, from Joshu Dainen to Anzan Hoshin, and now from Anzan Hoshin to me, is the practice of Vast Openness that is without a centre or fringe, and has no beginning and no end.
The whole point of the Lineage is to protect, maintain and uphold, and to continue the practice of realization, so that it can be passed on to coming generations as completely as possible. It’s not something that can be owned by anyone - although people will try to rope off areas of Zen practice and try to sell them off in various forms - those can only ever be scraps and husks because these fragments do not have actual Transmission behind them. But though the practice can’t be owned by anyone, it can be upheld and passed on.
I often explain to students that since what we are practising is Vast Openness, within that some ‘markers’ are needed - a structure with clear signposts along the way so we don’t just wander about aimlessly and fall into ditches and bumble in the brambles. In an open field you could just wander around and around in the closed circles of self concern. Without touchstone and markers, we could very easily just “wander in delusion”.
And yet the structure that we use in our Zen practice is very simple. The forms are part of that structure: bowing practice, how we take our seats, how we handle our zafu, sitting zazen, walking kinhin, the kata, oryoki, koan practice, Mikkyo practices, samu, the structure of training itself, with the various training posts - minor and major - these are all markers within Vast Openness that show us clearly what we need to do now and what we need to do next.
But people tend to want to make them into things, into signposts that they can hold up and say “Look, I am here! I’ve arrived! I understand! I’ve GOT IT, for once and for all”. But they are not ‘things’ that you can take hold of and own. They are more like gates that open out into larger and larger spaces.
Some of you may be familiar with the game of "Weiqi" or in Japanese “Go”, which is likely the oldest board game. It originated in China and is thought to be about 4,000 years old. According to legend, the game was created by the legendary Chinese Emperor Yao as a tool to teach his son how to rule. Anzan roshi and I played many games together, especially decades ago when the Sangha was at our old monastery Zazen-ji. It is played on a flat board marked with a grid. The blank board is open with possibilities, but so many that it is not until the pieces - which are actually small stones - are placed on it that you can begin to see the shapes made by stones as clear possibilities. The stones do not just squat on a square but are set on the interstitial lines so that the four directions open out from them and can form relationships with the other stones. The stones are set and rest and interact rather than squat and then jump to take territory. There are more and more possibilities as more stones are added but this is not a matter of building actual structures out of the stones. The board and the stones together merely represent various possibilities of interaction. And if you narrow and focus attention on some little area, some strategy you’re letting yourself become preoccupied with, you’ll miss what’s going on with the rest of the board. In the games of Go that Anzan roshi played with me there was no winning or losing but only playing with possibilities until they became too certain to be interesting. Then the game was over.
In the same way, the forms, the practices we do are not about building structures and rules. They are about opening attention, not narrowing attention, and they all point to the Vastness in which all of this is occurring. But because self-image is so habitually contracted, so territorial, it will lock onto fragments of experiencing and try to hold them, freeze them, so that it can feel that it is finally clear, finally certain about something. This is what is going on when people take bits and pieces of our practice out of context and try to sell them off. Self-image wants to use meditation, spirituality, anything that is at hand in order to be better at being itself. It wants something isolated from everything around it, in order to "justify" itself, or make itself seem more "real". This is self-image practicing itself, and what it will produce is self-image. This is the exact opposite of our practice.
But, of course, the Teachers of our Lineage know all about this and there are many Teachings that address it, including many that became koan. So this evening I would like to raise with you one of my favourite koan, Anzan Hoshin roshi and Joshu Dainen daiosho's translation of the Hekiganroku or Blue Cliff Records Case 2: Zhaozhou’s “the Vast Way is Without Difficulty”.
Yuanwu's Pointers:
Heaven and earth are flattened; the sun, moon, and stars go out. Even if blows from the stick fall like rain and "katsu" shouts roll like thunder, you still stop far short of the furthest truth. Even the Buddhas of the three worlds can only know it for themselves, and even the successive Lineage of Awakened Ancestors cannot exhaust its depths. The vast treasury of the sutras cannot wholly expound its meaning and even keen-eyed rag-robed monks cannot save themselves. At this point, what will you do? Saying the word Buddha trails mud and water. Saying the word "Zen," your face should redden with shame. The best students don't need to be told. As for late coming beginners, just get down to it and investigate it.
Through the process of narrowing and congealing into contraction, self-image flattens seeing, hearing, bodily sensation. It blocks out the world in order to sustain itself and the states that seem to justify it. Yuanwu says that “Even if blows from the stick fall like rain and “katsu” shouts roll like thunder, you will stop far short of the furthest truth. Unless you practise the instructions and follow through, it doesn’t matter what anyone else tries to do to try to encourage you to open attention to experiencing as it actually is - not as you ‘want’ it to be. No one can ‘give’ you the Treasury of Dharma.
Yuanwu also says that “...even the successive Lineage of Awakened Ancestors cannot exhaust its depths”. So this tells you that the Dharma is limitless, boundless, without end. So how could you take hold of any part of it and say “This is it”, or think that you could possibly be ‘finished’ in your practice and study when even the successive Lineage of Awakened Ancestors stretching back 2600 years, stretching forward for as long as students are able to uphold the Dharma can never exhaust its depths?
And then Yuanwu says very plainly, “Saying the word "Zen," your face should redden with shame”. The Buddha himself didn’t want to Teach. He didn’t want people to look to him as someone who “knew” everything. Self-image would love to find someone who ‘knows everything’ so that it can pick their brain and take their understanding and then itself be the ‘one’ who knows. Teaching students to practice isn’t about any of that - quite the opposite in fact. So if you find yourself in online chat rooms straightening other people out about how they understand “Zen”, or trying to ‘share’ your understanding of practice with your friends, you should just stop. One should never do anything that might later cause them embarrassment and you will be embarrassed by having done this if you deepen your practice. I almost made this mistake as a beginning student, but I was forewarned by the Roshi that this could come up so I avoided it. This is why all students are told that they should not discuss their practice with other people - to discuss it with a practice advisor, a Dharma Teacher or a Teacher.
The Koan:
Zhaozhou said to the assembly, "The Vast Way is without difficulty. Just don't accept or reject. With a single word, there may arise picking and choosing, or there may arise clarity. This old monk doesn't abide in such ‘clarity.' Do you still hoard any treasures?"
The moment you think you have “clarity” should be the moment you choose to actively question what is being experienced. The same is true of a feeling of ‘difficulty’ - that should be a prompt to question what is being experienced. When Zhaozhou said “The Vast Way is without difficulty. Just don’t accept or reject”, he gives us no choice but to go into this questioning with the whole body.
Xuedou's Verse:
"The Vast Way is without difficulty."
The direct word directly said.
One with many,
non-dual in two.
At the horizon, the sun rises,
the moon sets beyond the hills.
High mountains,
cold waters.
A dried skull has
no consciousness, no joy.
The withered tree
sings tirelessly in the wind.
Difficult, difficult!
"Accepting and rejecting"?
"Clarity"?
See for yourself.
Xuedou knows students so well. He says “The Vast Way is without difficulty, the direct word directly said. He’s really giving you no choice. If what you are practising IS in fact the Vast Way, then you cannot justify a sense of difficulty. Self-image continuously generates a sense of difficulty and this is what students spend so much time roiling about in - in their lives and even when they are sitting on the zafu. Xuedou won’t let students do that. He points to the choice you need to make moment after moment when you are sitting - to release the sense of difficulty, by opening attention to what is actually being experienced in this moment.
Xuedou says, “One with many, non-dual in two”. This is another way of saying “no opposites”. Or “nothing in opposition”. To use an example from your practice: When you are sitting and you open to the visual field, allowing the seeing to open to peripheral vision instead of peering at the wall, the wall isn’t obstructing the seeing. The seeing of the wall is part of the seeing. When you allow attention to open to seeing and hearing and bodily sensation - as many sense fields as you are able - none of these obstruct each other - they all provide information about the whole of your experiencing. Seeing does not obstruct hearing (non-dual in two); opening to all of the sense fields allows attention to open more and more completely (one with many).
Xuedou says,
At the horizon, the sun rises,
the moon sets beyond the hills.
High mountains,
cold waters.
Both of these verses speak of things as they are. At the horizon, the sun rises. You don’t do anything to make that happen. And how you are won’t stop that from happening. There is space for you and everything else and still the sun rises at the horizon and the moon sets beyond the hills. When there are high mountains, there is cold water (water comes from glaciers atop mountains). When there is cold water, there are high mountains.
Stop struggling. Experiencing unfolds as it actually is. Open attention to this extraordinary play of experiencing and - as the Roshi would say - enjoy yourself. Thoughts come and go, feelings come and go, sensations shift and change. Birth, old age, fresh bread, stale crackers, bird song, the sunlight on your skin and the smell of new flowers in the spring. Each thing is in its own place; each thing is taking its own time. Stop struggling.
Xuedou then says,
A dried skull has
no consciousness, no joy.
The withered tree
sings tirelessly in the wind.
Again, he’s speaking about things as they are. A dried skull has no consciousness, no joy. This is obvious on the most basic of levels. But also, if you are sitting there on your zafu, trying to be hollow, trying to be “no-one”, trying to be any way at all, you are like the dried skull with no consciousness, and no joy.
Meanwhile the withered tree isn’t trying to be a ‘something’. It isn’t trying to make a sound. And yet, because it is what it is, and because of the way it interacts with the wind, because both of these things are exerting themselves as they are, there is a song. If you have ever heard a withered tree singing in the wind, you’ll know how beautiful that sound is.
Zhaozhou Congren zenji was speaking from what Eihei Dogen zenji called Before Thinking and Koun Ejo zeni called the Treasury of Luminosity, pointing past the ideas about confusion and clarity held by students.
As Anzan Hoshin roshi said in the series “Without Difficulty: Commentaries of Jianzhi Sengcan’s Xinxin Ming: Words on Trusting Awareness”,
Quote:
"In the absence of picking and choosing, there might arise clarity. But if it is a clarity that depends upon the absence of something then it is merely another state of mind. Like all states it will come and go, like mist and fog and rain and light and dark within the sky. To be truly without difficulty, we must not settle for merely the opposite of anything let alone try to hoard it as if it were a treasure. Instead we must sit, walk, stand, and lie down as the sky itself, always already before and beyond the conditions of body and mind that gather and disperse like weather. There is nowhere to abide, nowhere to dwell, nothing that can be grasped”.
End Quote.
Ryoko Jikaze's Comments and Questions:
Old Zhaozhou confounds the monk. I think the monk confounds Zhaozhou as well, otherwise he would have just beaten the monk into Vimalakirti's silence, wouldn't he? Or is this some kind of dim-witted compassion, letting oneself get entangled in all of this talk of "picking and choosing," "clarity," and "difficulty, no difficulty"? Is there someone to be entangled? Perhaps that's the point after all. Still, there has to be a clearer way.
Ryoko Jikaze doesn’t mean that Zhaozhou doesn’t know how to respond to the monk. But when a student asks a question, the Teacher is tasked with finding a way to respond in such a manner that the student will understand. That can be quite difficult, especially if the student has already taken up a firm stance. Ryoko Jikaze points out that Zhaozhou could have just “beaten the monk into Vimalakirti’s silence.” And although that would have let Zhaozhou off the hook, he chose to help the student understand instead. He’s being a bit tongue in cheek, a bit humorous when he says “Or is this some kind of dim-witted compassion, letting oneself get entangled in all of this talk of "picking and choosing", "clarity," and "difficulty, no difficulty"? Is there someone to be entangled? Perhaps that's the point after all. Still, there has to be a clearer way”. He’s asking students to look into what is being spoken of here, so that they too can understand what Zhaozhou is pointing to.
Zhaozhou said, "The Vast Way is without difficulty. Just don't accept or reject. With a single word, there may arise picking and choosing, or there may arise clarity. This old monk doesn't abide in such ‘clarity.' Do you still hoard any treasures?"
For the Dharma to be Transmitted, it must be given and it must be received. There can be no "holding on" or hoarding. What can be held? This is the true meaning of what people call "renunciation". What can be held? What can you hold reality with? Where could you take a hold of it?
This old monk right here does not abide in such clarity and hoards no treasures. This is how this old monk has received the Dharma Seal of her Master, yet another old monk.
Please, keep your practice open and straight.
[8/10/23, 6:18:58 PM] John Tan: Space as in descriptive language, not as ontological substance.
[8/10/23, 6:19:30 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
[8/10/23, 6:19:55 PM] Soh Wei Yu: I refer ppl either to malcolm or her
[8/10/23, 6:20:13 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Cos they are the only teachers i know who accept overseas online students that i think have quite clear insight lol
[8/10/23, 6:22:47 PM] John Tan: More experiential, Malcolm is more academic.
[8/10/23, 6:24:37 PM] Soh Wei Yu: I see.. yeah
[8/10/23, 6:24:46 PM] Soh Wei Yu: William also think malcolm too chim or something
[8/10/23, 6:24:55 PM] Soh Wei Yu: So i told him look for ven jinmyo osho
[8/10/23, 6:25:40 PM] John Tan: Once the view is pointed out, then we must see all the teaching everywhere. When u walk in the park, when u hear the kids laughing and crying, when u see boy and gal quarrelling, ppl shopping or when u see monks meditating. All these can be use to described dharma in action.
[8/10/23, 6:28:41 PM] John Tan: Driving into carpark or whatever. If ur mind is immense, u see everything as immense. If u see total exertion exertion, u write like teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. U see flower, u see the universe. U touch the earth, u feel its age, everything is deeply connected though only conventional.
[8/10/23, 6:29:37 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
[8/10/23, 6:30:02 PM] John Tan: So when u write, u must write out it's heart...when u write with a pen, u feel the pen itself on the paper. Coz u r the pen.
[8/10/23, 6:32:56 PM] John Tan: So there is no need to quote thusness or passerby or even Buddha, dharma is living in u and u r expression of dharma. When u practice, u see where exactly is ignorance. Feeling someone behind the head, someone entering a mall, an ambulance sirening ...practice become u, every endeavour is practice.
[8/10/23, 6:33:26 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Ic..
[8/10/23, 6:33:29 PM] John Tan: Get it?
[8/10/23, 6:35:22 PM] John Tan: Then ur heart is like space not because it is just nothing, it is continuous blossoming, space-like appearances is alive and dynamic.




Comments
William Albert
What is your experience of beauty like in this state?
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Soh Wei Yu
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"
"Strong and vivid radiance..
Even now the smell of food is standing out in intensity
...[sights have a] HD hypervivid quality...
...Actually more accurate description is magical and marvellous colors (as in the vivid 'textures' of what's called trees, sky, houses, people, streets, etc), sounds (as in the vivid 'textures' of a bird chirping, sound of traffic, etc), scents (as in the aromas of food, and plants, etc), etc. Complete perfection with a stark intensity...
Yet feels completely natural. Without slightest sense of distance or self/Self, even the tiniest details becomes starkly clear
This sense of perfection and magical radiance of everything is still there even when I'm physically tired and lack sleep on the previous night
By magical what I mean is a sense that there’s something very magnificent, almost like beauty but it is not beauty vs ugly and is not at all a subjectively imposed or affective feeling of beauty, but a sense of perfection.. like I look at the fly crawling on my skin, the fly is so completely perfect, like part of the paradise (note: this is different from Thusness's usage of the term 'magical')
Like a ball of radiance, except radiance as none other than the boundless world of forms, colors, textures and sounds, that is the very radiance, for it is the world that is the radiance and nothing else. Not a subjective radiance standing apart from forms.
There is nothing subjectively imposed here.. when I say “sense of perfection” that is already not quite accurate as it conveys some subjectively imposed interpretation of perfection.. rather it is the world that is the perfection and each moment carries the flavor of perfection
Perfection being merely a qualitative description of the pristine state of consciousness/radiant forms, not an affective feeling of "it is perfect" but neither is it an objective characteristic of some inherently existing object (there is neither subject nor object as subject and object is conceptual)
But this state of consciousness is not just heightened clarity... it’s like even the trees swaying is marvelously and magically alive and life reveals its significance and meaning all around. I think this is what Richard calls “meaning of life”.
The emotional model of AF makes some sense"
...
Driving around Singapore, it feels like I am experiencing Singapore for the first time.
"
The Magical Fairytale-like Wonderland and Paradise of this Verdant Earth Free from Affective Emotions, Reactions and Sufferings
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The Magical Fairytale-like Wonderland and Paradise of this Verdant Earth Free from Affective Emotions, Reactions and Sufferings
The Magical Fairytale-like Wonderland and Paradise of this Verdant Earth Free from Affective Emotions, Reactions and Sufferings
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Anna Mukherjee
Soh Wei Yu what stage this relates to in the AtR system?
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Anna Mukherjee
All these should be experienced even in anatta, stage 5. You see actual freedom teachings full of such descriptions but they reify the physical, the material. I did not as I already had some clarity on dependent origination and emptiness of phenomena.
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Soh Wei Yu
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Anna Mukherjee the first six months after my anatta breakthrough in late 2010 was particularly intense and i was in samadhi like or mini absorption into the intense luminosity of all sense perceptions without trace of self basically all the time even in daily activities. Then it normalizes a little, still intense but not as much as first few months. Then years later another breakthrough amplifies it many fold and it basically stayed since, and total exertion also became natural.
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Actual Freedom and the Immediate Radiance in the Transience
I was having a conversation with someone today (he had some history with various practices, vipassana, actual freedom, and recently came across a famous Thai ajahn, etc) who shared about an experience of dissolving into centerless space. I told him what I call anatta is not just being centerless, it is the effulgence and radiance of the transience. That is, regardless of any realization of no-self, and no matter how centerless one feels or how centerless is one's experience of awareness and so forth... still, anything short of direct realization of the radiance or luminosity as the very stuff of transiency is still not what I call the realization of anatta. (And that too is also just an aspect of anatta, and furthermore not yet into the twofold emptying)
Was reminded of a conversation with Thusness back in Aug 2010 and found some excerpts from the Actual Freedom site:
"(12:22 AM) Thusness: for u, u will not be clear now... what Richard taught has some problem...that focus is in the experience
u should focus on the realization
(12:22 AM) Thusness: the pce is what i told u, bring what u experience into the foreground
(12:23 AM) Thusness: Richard has a very important realization.
(12:24 AM) Thusness: that is, he is able to realize the immediate radiance in the transience
(12:25 AM) AEN: this is like ur second point of anatta in the anatta article?
(12:25 AM) Thusness: yes
(12:26 AM) Thusness: there is nothing to argue, it is obvious and clear.
(12:27 AM) Thusness: however i do not want to focus on the experience
(12:27 AM) Thusness: u need to go through a period of frustration first"
From the Actual Freedom site:
http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/…/selecte…/sc-relativism.htm
RESPONDENT: How do the qualities of ‘splendour and brilliance’ present themselves AS splendour and brilliance?
RICHARD: Directly ... as splendour and brilliance are intrinsic to the properties of this actual world they present themselves openly where apperception is operating: everything is literally bright, shining, vivid, intense, sparkling, luminous, lustrous, scintillating and coruscating in all its vitality here in this actual world.
.....
RICHARD: As I understand it (I am not a scientist nor have any scientific training) a photometer can measure how bright or brilliant something is in a more precise, reliable and universal way than the eye can sensately determine ... and one can then talk about the brilliance of that something if one wishes to convey to another what one is experiencing (the word comes from the French ‘briller’ meaning ‘shine’).
• ‘brilliance: brilliant quality; intense or sparkling brightness, radiance, or splendour; an instance of this’. (© Oxford Dictionary).
As for the splendour of something (the word comes from the Latin ‘spendere’ meaning ‘be bright; shine’) ... it is related to a brilliant display:
• ‘splendour: 1. great or dazzling brightness, brilliance. 2. magnificence; sumptuous or ornate display; impressive or imposing character; a magnificent feature, object, etc. 3. distinction, eminence, glory’. (© Oxford Dictionary).
Therefore, when I wrote that ‘as [the qualities of] splendour and brilliance are intrinsic to the properties of this actual world’ and that ‘they present themselves openly where apperception is operating’ I am reporting that literally everything is ‘bright, shining, vivid, intense, sparkling, luminous, lustrous, scintillating and coruscating in all its vitality here in this actual world’ ... thus it is not the imposition of subjective attributes (which phrase may very well equate to what you called ‘internal percepts’ in the previous e-mail) that I am talking about.
Rather it is the absence of such subjectively imposed attributes – due to the absence of identity – which reveals the world as-it-is.
...
RESPONDENT: This is what I meant in my question ‘present themselves AS splendour and brilliance?’
RICHARD: Okay ... incidentally, I do not go about seeing things in terms of their properties, qualities or values (such classifications never occur to me other than when having a discussion such as this) ... I simply delight in the wonder of it all and marvel in the amazing display.
Once experienced apperceptively – as in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) – one will never again settle for second-best.
http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/…/selected…/sc-sensation.htm
RICHARD: Yes ... ‘how amazing’ indeed, eh? I am particularly pleased to see you say that you had a ‘clear and unequivocal PCE’ as, of course, I have no way of ascertaining the intrinsic quality of what any body experiences other than what they describe – and I have no intention of setting myself up to be to arbiter of another’s experience anyway – so I cannot adjudge the exact nature of what you experienced. The rule of thumb is to ask oneself: is this it; is this the ultimate; is this the utter fulfilment and total contentment; is this my destiny; is this how I would want to live for the remainder of my life ... and so on. It is up to each and every person to decide for themselves what it is that they want ... as I oft-times say: it is your life you are living and only you get to reap the rewards and pay the consequences for any action or inaction you may or may not do. [...]
Having said that, and I am not inferring anything either way by what I am writing here, it may or may not be relevant to report that one must be most particular to not confuse an excellence experience with a perfection experience ... and the most outstanding distinction in the excellence experience is the marked absence of what I call the ‘magical’ element. This is where time has no duration as the normal ‘now’ and ‘then’ and space has no distance as the normal ‘here’ and ‘there’ and form has no distinction as the normal ‘was’ and ‘will be’ ... there is only this moment in eternal time at this place in infinite space as this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware (a three hundred and sixty degree awareness, as it were). Everything and everyone is transparently and sparklingly obvious, up-front and out-in-the open ... there is nowhere to hide and no reason to hide as there is no ‘me’ to hide. One is totally exposed and open to the universe: already always just here right now ... actually in time and actually in space as actual form. This apperception (selfless awareness) is an unmediated perspicacity wherein one is this universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being; as such the universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude.
In a PCE one is fully immersed in the infinitude of this fairy-tale-like actual world with its sensuous quality of magical perfection and purity where everything and everyone has a lustre, a brilliance, a vividness, an intensity and a marvellous, wondrous, scintillating vitality that makes everything alive and sparkling ... even the very earth beneath one’s feet. The rocks, the concrete buildings, a piece of paper ... literally everything is as if it were alive (a rock is not, of course, alive as humans are, or as animals are, or as trees are). This ‘aliveness’ is the very actuality of all existence – the actualness of everything and everyone – for one is not living in an inert universe.
It is one’s destiny to be living the utter peace of the perfection of the purity welling endlessly as the infinitude this eternal, infinite and perpetual universe actually is.
...
Actual Freedom and the Immediate Radiance in the Transience
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Anna Mukherjee
...
http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/…/selected…/sc-sensation.htm
RICHARD: Put simply: as there is no (subjective) experiencer there is no separation ... no ‘inner world’/‘outer world’.
RESPONDENT: If the images (presumably) are identical in quality, do you see them differently (e.g. in terms of clarity)?
RICHARD: Yes ... and just as the moving picture is visually brilliant, vivid, sparkling, so too is the sound track aurally rich, vibrant, resonant.
...
• [Richard]: ‘The whole point of actualism is the direct experience of actuality: as this flesh and blood body only what one is (what not ‘who’) is these eyes seeing, these ears hearing, this tongue tasting, this skin touching and this nose smelling – and no separative identity (no ‘I’/ ‘me’) means no separation – whereas ‘I’/ ‘me’, a psychological/ psychic entity, am inside the body busily creating an inner world and an outer world and looking out through ‘my’ eyes upon ‘my’ outer world as if looking out through a window, listening to ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ tongue, touching ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ skin and smelling ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ nose ... plus adding all kinds of emotional/ psychological baggage to what is otherwise the bare sensory experience of the flesh and blood body’.
...
• [Richard]: ‘I am speaking of the immediate perception, of this body and that body and every body and of the mountains and the streams and of the trees and the flowers and of the clouds in the sky by day and the stars in the firmament by night and so on and so on ad infinitum, without the affective faculty existent operating ... which reveals actuality in all its purity and perfection. This applies not only to ocular perception but also to cutaneous perception, to gustatory perception, to olfactory perception, to aural perception ... and even to proprioceptive perception, for that matter. There is no mystery where there is such direct perception of actuality as described ... all is laid open, as it already always has been open just here right now all along, because nothing is ever hidden. One walks through the world in wide-eyed wonder simply marvelling at being here doing this business called being alive on this verdant and azure paradise called planet earth. This is what innocence looks like’.
As immediate, direct perception (sensuous perception) does not involve either the affective faculty or the cognitive function the thinker (‘I’ as ego) and the feeler (‘me’ as soul) do not get a look-in ... hence I call this direct perception ‘apperception’ (perception unmediated by either ‘self’ or ‘Self’). Thus what I am is this flesh and blood body being apperceptively aware (sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) ... which means that the actuality of the physical can indeed be known, each moment again, day after day.
I do not know if I can put it more briefly or succinctly than this.
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An Actual Freedom From The Human Condition
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An Actual Freedom From The Human Condition
An Actual Freedom From The Human Condition
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Anna Mukherjee
Soh Wei Yu can this also be experienced naturally and effortlessly pre-anatta? What you describe and Richard below is my daily "normal" perception. I would only add to " simple delight in the wonder of it all and marvel in the amazing display." that this wonderment is beyond notion of beauty and ugliness. That radiance and aliveness permeates everything. I drive on average 2-3 hrs a day through a city where traffic and road rage can be insane, and yet it is the simplest samadhi inducing activity. And every day the city is reborn, every instant the "same" roads freshly anew. It's truly delightful.
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Anna Mukherjee that is intensity of lumimosity https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2018/12/four-aspects-of-i-am.html but it need not be nondual yet.
Do you experience the following:
Excerpt:
------
What is experiential insight
👍
Yin Ling:
When we say experiential insight in Buddhism,
It means..
A literal transformation of energetic orientation of the whole being, down to the marrow.
The sound MUST literally hears themselves.
No hearer.
Clean. Clear.
A bondage from the head here to there cut off overnight.
Then gradually the rest of the 5 senses.
Then one can talk about Anatta.
So if for you,
Does sound hear themselves?
If no, not yet. You have to keep going! Inquire and meditate.
You haven’t reach the basic insight requirement for the deeper insights like anatta and emptiness yet!
Yin Ling:
Yin Ling: “Realisation is when
This insight goes down to the marrow and you don’t need even a minute amount of effort for sound to hear themselves.
It is like how you live with dualistic perception now, very normal, no effort.
Ppl with Anatta realisation live in Anatta effortlessly, without using thinking to orient. It’s their life.
They cannot even go back to dualistic perception because that is an imputation, it js uprooted
At first you might need to purposely orient with some effort.
Then at one point there is no need.. further along, dreams will become Anatta too.
That’s experiential realisation.
There’s no realisation unless this benchmark is achieved!”
......
"Soh:
what is important is that there is experiential realisation that leads
to an energetic expansion outwards into all the forms, sounds, radiant
universe... such that it is not that you are in here, in the body,
looking outwards at the tree, listening the birds chirping from here
it is just the trees are vividly swaying in and of itself, luminously
without an observer
the trees sees themselves
the sounds hear itself
there is no location from which they are experienced, no vantage point
the energetic expansion outward into vivid manifestation, boundless, yet
it is not an expansion from a center, there is just no center
without such energetic shift it is not really the real experience of no
selfxabir Snoovatar" -  
https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2023/05/nice-advice-and-expression-of-anatta-in.html
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Four Aspects of I AM
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