Anatta and Cessation of Thoughts

"The association of anatta (no-self) to the cessation of thoughts is a due to a lack of insight that anatta is a seal, not a stage of attainment. In thinking there are always only thoughts, no thinker. In fact it is the realization that the continual arising and ceasing of thoughts without a thinker that is precious. The 2 important qualities that must be experienced are non-dual and spontaneity. Thoughts can slow down or even completely ceased but it has nothing to do with the insight of anatta."

- Thusness, 2009
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Luminosity vs Clarity
Also see: The Sun Does Not Rise or Set
The Unbounded Field of Awareness
Jax's Message
Fully Experience All-Is-Mind by Realizing No-Mind and Conditionality
Miraculously Aware 
The Transient Universe has a Heart


Someone asked me about luminosity. I said it is not simply a state of heightened clarity or mindfulness, but like touching the very heart of your being, your reality, your very essence without a shadow of doubt. It is a radiant, shining core of Presence-Awareness, or Existence itself. It is the More Real than Real. It can be from a question of "Who am I?" followed by a sudden realization. And then with further insights you touch the very life, the very heart, of everything. Everything comes alive. First as the innermost 'You', then later when the centerpoint is dropped (seen through -- there is no 'The Center') every 'point' is equally so, every point is A 'center', in every encounter, form, sound and activity.
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A comment about Zen's Ten Oxherding Pictures


Tenth Oxherding Picture

Barefooted and naked of breast, I mingle with the people of the world.
My clothes are ragged and dust-laden, and I am ever blissful.
I use no magic to extend my life;
Now, before me, the dead trees become alive.
Comment: Inside my gate, a thousand sages do not know me. The beauty of my garden is invisible. Why should one search for the footprints of the patriarchs? I go to the market place with my wine bottle and return home with my staff. I visit the wine shop and the market, and everyone I look upon becomes enlightened.

(Introduction and verse by 12th century Chinese Rinzai Chán (Zen) master Kuòān Shīyuǎn (廓庵師遠, Jp. Kaku-an Shi-en))

https://terebess.hu/english/bulls.html
Good commentary: https://terebess.hu/english/oxherding.html


My comment:

Based on the commentary, it is pretty clear that Ninth Oxherding is the realization of anatta (the original poem of ninth oxherding describes the experience of no mind but not very clear about anatta, the path is presented as I AM realization to non dual to no mind), and Tenth Oxherding is the actualization of anatta in daily life.

Tenth oxherding is not really an end, just the beginning of the endless pathless path of dynamic practice-enlightenment or practice-actualization. The commentary sounds a little misleading as if one has reached the end. Dogen is clearer on this regard:

To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.



Another comment:

The ninth oxherding poem gives me the impression that the author has spent a lot of effort and time trying to return to or abide in the Source after the initial I AM realization and then the substantialist nondual phases, before realizing the direct path is to forget and dissolve oneself in vivid manifestation. (Much like many others, including Thusness himself, have spent years or over a decade getting stuck at a background source and other substantialist phases)

The ninth stage verse: 返本還源：返本還源已費功，爭如直下似盲聾，庵中不見庵前物，水自茫茫花自紅。

(English translation taken from website:

Having come back to the origin and returned to the source, you see that you have expended efforts in vain.
What could be superior to becoming blind and deaf in this very moment?
Inside the hermitage, you do not see what is in front of the hermitage.
The water flows of itself and the flowers are naturally red.)

I personally think the first sentence might be better translated as "[The very attempt to] return to the Source is already an effort in vain."

The second sentence tries to convey the directness and immediacy of the direct path, (my translation:) "Better to directly [and immediately]  be as if blind and deaf"
I agree it's unnecessary to waste so much time going through all the oxherding stages 3-8 for too long getting trapped with a ridgepole (a center, a background source) and getting tied or trying to hang onto it for years or decades. I AM is a crucial realization to acquint yourself with that direct taste of Pure Presence. Once realized, rather than reifying false view (enhancing the view of reality/awareness being an unchanging Self, independent, separate, having agency, etc) and getting stuck in a formless background or even substantial nondual for decades one should boldly move on and bring that taste to the foreground and mature it in terms of impersonality, nondual, intensity of luminosity, effortlessness, seeing through and dissolving the need to return, re-confirm and abide. Then finally through contemplation with certain pointers like anatta verses or the Bahiya Sutta, a breakthrough into realization of anatta and effortless actualization will follow.But the original author of the oxherding poems failed to bring out the gist of the realization that will make "no-mind" effortless.

And as Thusness said 12 years back,

"But what exactly is this “witness” we are talking about? It is the manifestation itself! It is the appearance itself! There is no Source to fall back, the Appearance is the Source! Including the moment to moment of thoughts. The problem is we choose, but all is really it. There is nothing to choose.

There is no mirror reflecting
All along manifestation alone is.
The one hand claps
Everything IS!"

"The manifestation is the source, spend not even a moment of thought for the source."
- https://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/.../mistaken...

Which the commentary is clear in elucidating this insight.
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Affirming Dependencies
Lack of inherent existence affirms dependencies, or the heap of dependencies. In the state of actualizing anatta (the background self, or seer-seeing-seen, or a standalone Clarity or Presence is seen through into pure taste of mere manifestation) where bliss and clarity is intense and Presence stands out as everything intensely, realize that this Presence/Presencing is a heap or collection of activities-dependencies, so the non-inherent existence way of seeing 'mere name' actualises or affirms pure presence as dependencies. It can be anything manifesting at that moment, the whole universe is involved in giving rise to a given activity or moment, for example if you are singing in a group then "each person" is contributing to that activity and the entirety of Presence is that dependencies. Without deep experience of anatta, one cannot appreciate this. Then even after that, contemplate and deepen one's view even more.

This "mere name" way of seeing all and any given imputed entities/selves/phenomena allows us to penetrate into the true nature of appearance as seamlessly arising in dependence but not truly arising (not coming into being by its own power but more like reflections of moon on water).

...

There's two modes of perception. The wrong mode of perception is seeing something as having solid inherent existence or as totally non existent. The other mode is seeing the pure appearances as dependent reflections but this pure appearances doesn’t "exist by way of inherent existence" but as dependencies. Conventions also do not refer to inherent existence but only appears via dependencies.

Shadow is not same or different from sunlight. Without sunlight there is no shadow, but neither exists by itself. We cannot say that sunlight or shadow does not exist. But the "actual condition" of shadow is that it is only established conventionally in relation to sunlight (conditions).

Sunlight/shadow supports and is supported by all other conditions. A conventional phenomena cannot manifest, support or be supported by other conditions if it truly exists on its own.

If we say sunlight is same or different from shadow, then we are seeing from the viewpoint of inherent existence and fail to see its manifestation is inseparable from its dependencies, in terms of conditions and designation. If sunlight does not exist then neither could shadow. If there were inherent existence of either shadow or sunlight, or that they are same or different, then shadow could not appear as there will be no sunlight that supports shadow. The emptiness of inherent existence affirms dependencies and the way things are via dependencies. The lack of inherent existence reveals that appearances and conventions only arise in relation and dependencies.
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Awareness and Appearance
Andre A. Pais:

Awareness cannot be independent or separate from the appearances it knows. If it was, there could be no connection between knowing and known - and thus no experience could arise. All perception must be non-dual, despite having [conceptually] implicit in its functioning a subject and an object.

But if awareness is not separate or independent from the appearances that are known, it must be as transient and fluxing as the very appearances that are known. There is no sensible way in which one single thing (in this case the [conceptual] union of awareness and appearances) can have a split nature or a contradictory way of being.

These being the case - that no awareness exists outside of the arising appearances; and that awareness is thus of a transient nature -, it follows that all there ever exists is the self-knowing, self-luminous appearances, free of an observing or knowing subject beyond themselves, meaning that awareness, mind or any knowing principle are merely beliefs imputed on the flow of naturally luminous appearances.

It follows that we are not experiencing an external reality (naive realism), nor a mental representation (scientific materialism), nor even modulations of our own awareness (most non-dual traditions). There is actually no experiencer, no witness, no observer, no center or core, no knower - and no awareness (as awareness is always posited as "that which knows"). Let's allow that to sink in. This is one of the most powerful insights available to us.

What this means is that there isn't even perception going on. There is no one perceiving anything. The dualistic idea of perception itself is merely conceptually constructed and imputed onto pure manifest activity. What appears is reality as it is - as real, authentic and direct as it gets. Luminosity arises naturally and dependently, empty of any duality of knowing and known, mind and matter, inside and outside, subject and object, etc. Curiously, if one had to choose between the reality of either subject or object, the presence of the "objective world" would be far more undeniable than that of any subjective entity.

Further investigation must happen as to deeply understand the unestablished, empty and merely transient nature of what appears. This will help clarify the answer to "what is this?". However, the main question of all spiritual traditions, "who/what am I?", is answered when reality is understood as being without any observer, experiencer or entity of any kind and thus free of knowingness itself (and its ideas of "distorted" or "undistorted" perception).
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Truth and Reality
Hoping for Thusness's comments on this writing by Andre A. Pais:



What appears is what appears. We could call that ''reality''.

''Reality'', when conceptualized, becomes a ''truth''.

If those concepts express the true nature of what appears, it's an ultimate truth (usually about the emptiness of what appears; or the natural union of emptiness and appearance in what appears).

If those concepts express something other than the true nature of what appears, it's a conventional truth (usually about some function performed by some conceptualized object, like a table; or a belief in the permanence or inherency of some conceptualized object).

Concerning what appears, ''reality itself'', when it arises as ''concealing'' its true nature (emptiness), which is every ordinary appearance, then it's conventional reality.

When what appears, appears as it actually is (happening only when one has a direct perception of emptiness, since emptiness is empty and appears as such), then it's ultimate reality.

So, we have both conventional and ultimate reality. And we have both conventional and ultimate truth.

____

I'm having an issue with the conventional reality aspect. I said ordinary appearances are intrinsically of a ''concealing'' nature, because the tradition says that things always appear as inherently existing. Only emptiness appears in the same way as it is - empty.

I'm not sure I agree. When what is labeled as ''perception of blue sky'' arises, the ''blueness'' that appears is not broadcasting any inherency. It is only ''naturally manifest'', a mere  instance of sheer luminosity. The mask of inherency is added later, conceptually.

So, I'd say all appearances are ultimate reality, because they all naturally express the intrinsic union of emptiness and appearances, nothing else. All else is a mere truth about it - conventional or ultimate.

____

What are people's thoughts about this?
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Great Self in Dzogchen
Kyle Dixon wrote:

And to put this “great self” thing on ice:

Depending upon which system of Dzogpachenpo you are using there can be between seven and nine positions one can take in relation to the basis [gzhi]. 

Vairocana's view of choice was bdag nyid chen po, however that is only one facet of the basis and therefore grasping at that definition as an all encompassing view which speaks for the basis would be akin to the blind man grasping the elephants tail and proclaiming that the elephant is actually a rope. It is an incomplete view. 

Further, the only definitive view of the basis is held to be ka dag i.e. original purity, which is emptiness free from extremes. Ka dag as such therefore completely forbids any type of substantial self.

As stated by Dylan Esler on this issue, 'integral being' [bdag nyid chen po] (what Jackson is fixating on as a “Great Self”) is nothing more than the inseparable emptiness and clarity [stong gsal dbyer med] which is experienced upon recognizing the nature of mind [sems nyid] and does not refer to an eternal, great or "true" self of any kind. He states "The fact that it is explicitly described as being both empty and luminous excludes reification into a monolithic self."

The point of bdag nyid chen po is to illustrate that the nature of one's mind is not to be found elsewhere, that it is one's immediate condition, however it is the the wisdom which ensues from recognizing the non-arising of one's mind [skt. citta, tib. sems]. This term is therefore pointing to that nature, and only that nature which is completely empty and free from extremes.

Esler continues:

“...the tantric and rDzogs-chen notion of integral being [skt. mahātman] should not be misconstrued to contradict the orthodox Buddhist insistence on selflessness [skt. anātman], simply because of the use of related words with different shades of meaning. As mentioned above, the terminology used is sufficiently precise to ward off misunderstanding, and that is to say nothing of the contextual meaning, which leaves no trace of doubt.”

and:

“It is precisely when egocentric apprehension, the mistaken moment-by-moment reification of a self [skt. ātman], falls aside that one can speak of integral being [skt. mahātman], without this notion contradicting more normative Buddhist ideas of selflessness [skt. anātman].”

Malcolm writes:

“In Dzogchen, the term bdag nyid chen po and bdag nyid accompanies the terms ngang and rang bzhin. This true in both Buddhist and Bon texts. 

For example, in the Zhang Zhung sNyan rGyud, we find:

‘State [ngang], nature [rang bzhin] and identity [bdag nyid] are a trio. The state is the total clarity of rig pa. The nature is the total emptiness of rig pa. The identity is the nonduality of clarity and emptiness. Everything is understood as pure consummate mind [byang chub sems] through the axiom of total identity [bdag nyid chen po].’

I have many similar examples from Buddhist texts. So here, I would prefer to render this term as ‘total identity.’”
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