Soh

Excerpt from http://read.84000.co/translation/UT22084-031-002.html

The Transcendent Perfection of Wisdom in Ten Thousand Lines

Daśa­sāhasrikā­prajñā­pāramitā


Chapter 13

Like Space

13.1The Blessed One addressed Senior Su­bhūti as follows: “Su­bhūti, you asked where this vehicle will come to rest. In this regard, Su­bhūti, [F.134.b] the vehicle will not come to rest anywhere. If you ask why, it is because resting is non-apprehensible, and so all things do not come to rest. On the other hand, the vehicle will come to rest by way of its non-resting. Su­bhūti, just as the expanse of reality neither comes to rest, nor does it not come to rest, similarly, Su­bhūti, the vehicle does not come to rest, nor does it not come to rest. The same refrain should be extensively applied here, just as has been indicated in the context of the previous chapter.
13.2Su­bhūti, just as non-arising neither comes to rest, nor does it not come to rest, similarly, this vehicle does not come to rest, nor does it not come to rest; in the same vein, just as non-cessation, non-signlessness, non-affliction, non-purification and non-conditioning neither come to rest, nor do they not come to rest, similarly, Su­bhūti, this vehicle does not come to rest, nor does it not come to rest. If you ask why, Su­bhūti, it is because the essential nature of the expanse of reality neither comes to rest, nor does it not come to rest. If you ask why, Su­bhūti, it is because the essential nature of the expanse of reality is empty of the essential nature of the expanse of reality. In the same vein, the essential nature of those other unconditioned phenomena, up to and including non-conditioning, is empty of non-conditioning, [and so forth]. Su­bhūti, for these reasons this [Great] Vehicle will not come to rest anywhere, but nor will it not do so. This is owing to its non-resting.
13.3“Also, Su­bhūti, you asked who will attain emancipation by means of this vehicle. In this regard, Su­bhūti, no one will attain emancipation by means of this vehicle. If you ask why, Su­bhūti, it is because all those things associated with this vehicle, and with those who would attain emancipation, and that in which emancipation is attained, are non-existent and they are non-apprehensible. [F.135.a] Since all things are accordingly non-existent and non-apprehensible, who could attain emancipation by means of anything? In what could emancipation possibly be attained? If you ask why, Su­bhūti, it is because the self and other [posited subjects], up to and including the knower and the viewer, are non-apprehensible. This being the case, the ‘self’ is never apprehensible. Similarly, [other posited subjects], from sentient beings and living creatures to knowers and viewers, are all non-apprehensible.

.......

Senior
Su­bhūti then said to the Blessed One, “Venerable Lord! This great vehicle, which is called the Great Vehicle, overpowers and attains emancipation from the world with its gods, humans, and antigods. Venerable Lord! As I understand the words spoken by the Blessed One, this Great Vehicle is equal to space. Just as in space, coming, going, and abiding are not discernible, so in this Great Vehicle, also, coming, going, and abiding are not discernible. Just as in space, the limit of the past is non-apprehensible, and the limit of the future and the intervening [present] are non-apprehensible, so in this Great Vehicle, also, the limit of the past is non-apprehensible, and the limit of the future and the intervening [present] are non-apprehensible. It is because it genuinely transcends the three times266 that this vehicle is called the Great Vehicle.”

13.14The Blessed One then replied to Senior Su­bhūti, “That is so, Su­bhūti! It is just as you have said! This vehicle is equal to space. That is why it overpowers and attains emancipation from the world with its gods, humans, and antigods. Su­bhūti, this vehicle of the bodhisattvas comprises the six transcendent perfections. [F.137.a] If you ask what these six are, they are the transcendent perfection of generosity, the transcendent perfection of ethical discipline, the transcendent perfection of tolerance, the transcendent perfection of perseverance, the transcendent perfection of meditative concentration, and the transcendent perfection of wisdom. Su­bhūti, these designate the Great Vehicle of great bodhisattva beings.
Soh
Thusness:

Christian, I see all phenomena like rainbow, they appear but are empty.  Neither exist nor not exist, they are free from extremes.

As for the word “exist”, I reserve it for “svabhāva”.  To exist is to possess essence or substance.  Essence means phenomenon possessing characteristic or not brought about by causal process or capable of standing by itself.  Substance means irreducible constituents of reality can be found.

...

Yes Christian, I understand. Whether it is expressed as “exist conventionally but ultimately empty” or “appear but r empty” is simply a matter of flavour.

What is important is the taste of seeing conventional things as empty till one’s entire body-mind is pervaded with emptiness - like space, free and unobstructed.
Soh
Malcolm wrote:

https://dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?t=19502&start=200

The Uttaratantra states:
Unconditioned, effortless,
not realized through other conditions,
endowed with wisdom, compassion and power,
buddhahood is endowed with two benefits.
But what does this really all mean?

When we examine Asanga's comments on this, he states:
When these are summarized, buddhahood is described with eight qualties. If it is asked what those eight qualities are, they are unconditioned, effortless, not realized through other conditions, wisdom, compassion, power, the abundance of one's own benefit and the abundance of others' benefit. [Buddhahood] is unconditioned because it is the nature of lacking a beginning, middle and end. It is called "effortless" because peace is endowed with the dharmakāya. It is not realized through other conditions because each person must realize it for themselves. It is wisdom because those three things are realized. [Buddhahood] is compassionate because [the Buddha] shows the path. It is powerful because it is free from suffering and affliction. The former three [unconditioned, effortless and not realized through other conditions] are for one's own benefit; the latter three [wisdom, compassion and power] are for others' benefit.

In that regard, the conditioned is fully understood as arising somewhere, and also understood as abiding and perishing. Because those do not exist [arising, abiding and perishing], buddhahood itself is unconditioned without a beginning, middle and an end. This is seen as a differentiation made through the dharmakāya. Because all proliferation and concepts are pacified, [buddhahood] is effortless [lhun gyis grub]. Buddhahood is not realized through other conditions because it is realized through wisdom oneself produced. Here, udayo [to produce] is not the arising of a desire for realization. As such, the tathāgata is unconditioned due to the truth, out of the characteristics of non-engagement, all the activities of the buddha effortlessly engaged in without impediment and without interruption for as long as samsara exists
So let us parse this out a little bit.

Asanga states in his commentary on the Uttaratantra:
...the conditioned is understood as arising somewhere, and also understood as abiding and perishing. Because those do not exist [arising, abiding and perishing], buddhahood itself is unconditioned without a beginning, middle and an end.
Buddhahood is unconditioned because the trio of arising, abiding and perishing are false. Not because in contrast to things that arise, abide and perish, buddhahood does not arise, abide and perish.

Buddhahood however has a cause, as he writes:
Buddhahood is not realized through other conditions because it is realized through wisdom oneself produced.
Buddhahood is also effortless, because, as he writes:
...all proliferation and concepts are pacified, [buddhahood] is effortless [lhun gyis grub]...As such, the tathāgata is unconditioned due to the truth; and from the characteristics of non-engagement, all the activities of the buddha are engaged in effortlessly [lhun grub], without impediment and without interruption for as long as samsara exists
As for tathāgatagarbha always existing in the continuums of sentient beings; if you think somehow tathāgatagarba is something other than or different than a sentient beings mind, there there is a fallacy of the tathāgatagarbha being something like an atman. But there is no atman in the tathāgatagarbha theory, not really. the supreme self, (paramātma) is explained very clearly in the Uttaratantra:
The supreme self is the pacification of the proliferations of self and and nonself.
But what does this mean? Asanga adds:
The perfection of self (ātmapāramitā) is known through two reasons: due to being free from proliferation of a self because of being free from the extreme of the non-buddhists and due to being free from the proliferation of nonself because of giving up the extreme of the śrāvakas.
He explains further:
From cultivating prajñāpāramita in order to turn away from seeing the five addictive aggregates as self, the non-existent self in which the others, the nonbuddhists, delight, one attains the result, the perfection of self. In this way all the others, the nonbuddhists, accept natureless things such as matter and so on as a self due to their being deceived by a characteristic of a self according to how those things are being apprehended, but that self never existed.

The Tathāgata, on the other hand, has attained the supreme perfection of the selflessness of all phenomena through the wisdom that is in accord with just how things truly are, and though there is no self according to how he sees things, he asserts a self all the time because he is never deceived by the characteristic of a self that does not exist. Making the selfless into a self is like saying "abiding through the mode of nonabiding.
There are some people who, ignoring the Nirvana Sutra's admonition to rely on the meaning rather than on the words, fall headlong into eternalism, unable to parse the Buddha's profound meaning through addiction to naive literalism.

Tathagatagarbha is just a potential to become a buddha. When we say it is has infinite qualities, this is nothing more nor less than when the Vajrapañjara praises the so called "jewel-like mind":
The jewel-like mind is tainted with
evil conceptual imputations;
but when the mind is purified it becomes pure.
Just as space cannot be destroyed,
just as is space, so too is the mind.
By activating the jewel-like mind
and meditating on the mind itself, there is the stage of buddhahood,
and in this life there will be sublime buddhahood.
There is no buddha nor a person
outside of the jewel-like mind,
the abode of consciousness is ultimate,
outside of which there isn't the slightest thing.
All buddhahood is through the mind...
Matter, sensation, perception
formations and consciousness
these all arise from the mind,
these [five] munis are not anything else.
Like a great wishfulfilling gem,
granting the results of desires and goals,
the pure original nature of the true state of the mind
bestows the result, Buddha's awakening
There is no other basis apart from this natural purity of the mind that is inseparable clarity and emptiness. We can call it whatever we want, but still this fact remains. The Lankāvatara rightly observes that tathāgatagarbha is just a name for emptiness and the ālayavijñāna for those afraid of emptiness. Jayānanda writes that ālayavijñāna is the mind that comprehends the basis, i.e. emptiness. How else can the mind be purified of evil conceptual imputations other than by realizing emptiness? Emptiness free from all extremes is the pure original nature of the true state of the mind, so why bother confusing oneself with all kinds of rhetoric? The mind itself has two aspects, emptiness and clarity, ka dag and lhun grub, and these are inseparable. This inseparable clarity and emptiness is call the ālaya in gsar ma and the basis in Nyingma. This also known as tathagatagarbha when it encased in afflictions, the dharmadhātu from its ultimate side, the ālayavijñāna from its relative side and so on. It really is not that complicated.

........

Malcolm:

Are you making the assertion that use of the term “unconditioned” renders all traditions that use the term compatible? The sugatagarbha doctrine has a few variations, for example, the Lanka equates it with the all-basis consciousness. As I understand the term, tathagatagarbha refers to the union of the mind”s clarity and emptiness. That union is unconditioned, but the mind itself is conditioned. Just this is the “god” ChNN is referring to, and nothing else, since the basis is just this.
Soh

Interesting book. I glanced through and found some of his description of clear light sleep, clear light dream, dreams of clarity and the different states of sleep to be resonating and well written.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1622034597/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
Soh
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.
...
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.
Soh

"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
Labels: 3 comments | | edit post
Soh
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.
Soh


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://www.awakeningtoreality.com/.../mistaken...

Which the commentary is clear in elucidating this insight.
Soh
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.
Soh
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).