Effortless and Gapless Luminosity
Soh

J: http://actualfreedom.com.au/…/ar…/thismomentofbeingalive.htm

Me: Focus on the insight of anatta in the two stanzas*. The rest will follow. The pce (pure consciousness experience) is an effortless everyday experience for me. Even now sitting at a food court waiting for food everything is experienced as vivid luminous aliveness - sights-sounds-smells, without self/Self.

Even after a tiring day at work, the gapless vivid luminosity simply does not “turn off”. It is not the result of effort but a natural ongoing actualising of insight.

By over-emphasising on the experience, the AF fail to bring out the key that makes PCE effortless.

J: Effortlessness is a key element in my practice. Thank you for confirming.

Me: It’s really about letting insight sink in. When the insight sinks in you cannot “turn it off” even if you want to. Until then, effort cannot help but arise. Contemplating to let insight arise is important.

There has to be realization that the stuff of transience is the very radiance of Awareness and the very radiance of Awareness is none other than the stuff of transience.

(There are some good articles in the AFT website, but it's not necessary to become a hardcore follower of their doctrines or dogmas)

* two stanzas of anatta: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html
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Merely Labelled
Soh

Based on something I wrote to someone:

Whatever you call or vividly feel to be Awareness has always been based on a cognized manifestation of clarity. And not some changeless ontological background. Or rather Awareness is always experienced, what is unexperiencable or thought to be an unseen source of experience is really a fabrication of inherent existence out of luminous experience. See for yourself if this is true.

When we say "weather" is a label or imputation based on the everchanging clouds rolling by, wind blowing, rain falling and so forth, we are not really saying "weather" is a concept therefore go beyond concepts and realize reality as it is. That's not my point. The point is really that what we think or feel to be weather is really just something imputed based on the dynamic unfolding that I mentioned. That there never was a 'weather' that could exist in and of itself, apart from that basis -- it cannot be found to be an entity in itself apart from, nor within, that basis, but is designated in dependence on it.

So when we say 'merely labelled' we are not just saying 'go beyond the labels or concepts of awareness, weather, self and things' but rather it's that very real and vivid sense of what we call Awareness (although when uninvestigated is felt to be a changeless ontological source or background of phenomena) is really only based on the dynamic unfolding 'presencing' - manifesting experience, seen, sensed, touched, smelled, tasted, cognized, in whatever form manifestation takes place, even if it is 'formless presence' it is simply formless presence as cognized. And what feels to be one's very real 'cognizer' is really also just another imputation out of or depending on a cognized moment of 'presence-awareness' which when the quality of 'luminous clarity' is abstracted out of that luminous moment of manifestation turns into a sense of a cognizer.

We should understand dependent designation this way. What we feel to be very real, intimate, 'self' is dependently designated as such. Not saying that 'self' is a mere thought or label and therefore unimportant, go beyond thought... Not saying that 'seeing' is a mere label or 'hearing' is a mere label therefore go beyond that but that 'seeing' is really 'merely' designated (or felt to be a reality as such) based on vivid colours as its basis. When investigated, it cannot be found to exist inherently, either apart from them nor within them. The sense of self is really 'imputed' based on the aggregates just like 'weather' is imputed on.... and as such, no self-existing agent, entity, or weather could exist or perceive or act upon its own aggregates or experiences as it simply has no self-existence nor the capacity of agency.


.....

Later, writing to Din Robinson who wrote

"resting as pure awareness is the final lie
there's no one that needs to do anything"

I wrote:

I agree that resting in pure awareness is a lie.

Not because there is no one that needs to do anything but because “Awareness” is merely designated/imputed on manifest self-luminous experience which is always manifesting afresh and spontaneously without a background self/Self to rest back in.

And then a moment of self luminous experience is captured and fabricated into a background.

Then comes the effort to rest or sink back into what one feels “Awareness” to be.

Not realising Awareness has no intrinsic existence or identity than whatever is manifesting.

Knowingness is always seen, smelt, heard, sensed, cognized. What is thought to be an unseen unexperiencable source or background of experience is simply a fabricated/abstracted/extracted image of inherent existence out of, or based on, a self luminous experience. There never was a background whatsoever.

Even a pure sense of formless Beingness is simply what’s experienced or cognized in that moment of direct taste or experience as a foreground nondual experience. And no more special or ultimate than any other self luminous experience or forms, always a taste of nondual foreground presence, as sound, sights, smells... in all its vivid aliveness.

Awareness is always based on an experience just like “weather” is imputed as such based on manifest conditions like wind blowing cloud forming rain falling and so forth. There is no weather apart or within them but merely designated in dependence on a valid basis of designation. Just like awareness.

Awareness has no one true face of its own but countless faces. Grasping at a one true face of Awareness to “rest in” is simply grasping at a dead and fabricated image of a prior experience of presence captured by the mind and fabricated into some changeless independently existing background.

When that delusion of “awareness as background or inherently existing” is seen through by realising in seeing always just scenery without seer, then naturally one is Always touching, seeing, hearing, Presence-Awareness as forms. A dynamic actualization of spontaneous action, manifestation, rather than a resting state.
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