I was asked what is the direct insight of emptiness.

I wrote:

The insight is how presence/appearance appears yet never truly exists (i.e. by way of inherent existence), like truly there... instead it's just mere substanceless appearance. Instead of essence, we see dependent origination.

It's an insight into seeing how 'essence' does not apply, not only to background/self but to foreground/presence/phenomena, therefore arising/abiding/ceasing also don't apply.

Because of this, there's no way to locate or pin down anything anywhere, therefore all the where, now, here, there don't apply, as pinning down something as 'there' requires the essence view.

It is not just an experience of all reality as 'dream-like' (this experience can arise by linking what appears to one's radiance) but a direct insight that overturns the wrong view of phenomena as having essence in the same manner as the direct insight into anatta overturns the wrong view of self or consciousness as having essence existing by its own side.

Samsara and freedom from samsara is defined differently in different traditions.

In the Direct Path, it is said that even the Witness stage is liberation from samsara. In Buddhadharma's point of view, this is just another subtler version of samsara, as all identities whatsoever are completely relinquished at the time of liberation. Bahiya Sutta defines liberation. Also in another sutta, the Buddha acknowledged that other religious traditions claim to reach liberation, and yet is different from his version of liberation due to his unique rejection of the doctrine of self. In his very own words in that sutta, he said, 'The doctrines of others are devoid [64] of recluses: that is how you should rightly roar your lion's roar.' - https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.011.ntbb.html

In the Direct Path, after the collapse of Witness, there is nondual awareness, and yet this nondual awareness still has a reification of awareness as a oneness. This is still a subtle reification and thus precluded from the Buddhadharma's definition of liberation from samsara. If there is still any sense at all of being an ultimate Self, or being an ultimate reality that is unchanging, substantial, inherent, and so forth, that is not what Buddhadharma defines as liberation but simply another form of subtle (formless) state and reification. Buddhadharma's liberation cannot be attained as long as there is still the sense of being "an inherently existing, unchanging awareness as ground" or any notion of "atman-brahman" as ultimate reality.

And then Direct Path goes one step further to dissolve the notion of "awareness". This is starting to get closer to Buddhism but I'm not sure how far it goes.

Greg Goode wrote before, "It looks your Bahiya Sutta experience helped you see awareness in a different way, more .... empty. You had a background in a view that saw awareness as more inherent or essential or substantive?

I had an experience like this too. I was reading a sloka in Nagarjuna's treatise about the "prior entity," and I had been meditating on "emptiness is form" intensely for a year. These two threads came together in a big flash. In a flash, I grokked the emptiness of awareness as per Madhyamika. This realization is quite different from the Advaitic oneness-style realization. It carries one out to the "ten-thousand things" in a wonderful, light and free and kaleidoscopic, playful insubstantial clarity and immediacy. No veils, no holding back. No substance or essence anywhere, but love and directness and intimacy everywhere..."

It will be interesting if the Direct Path leads to a similar insight. I just haven't seen followers of Advaita describe similar realizations, but if there is I'll be happy to read up more.

I have studied the doctrines of all major religions. I've read many of the Upanishads and I haven't found verses that describes something close to the Buddhadharma's version of liberation. I've also read the bible (I actually think Jesus's teachings are pretty close to Advaita and Kashmir Shaivism in some sense, based on the four gospels and especially if you take the gnostic gospel of thomas into consideration too), the quran, tao te ching, and so forth. I appreciate all of them. But I do not see them as leading towards the same goal.

In terms of non-Buddhists, there are a couple of non-Buddhists that are pretty close (yet not entirely similar) to the Buddhadharma's version of 'anatta insight'. Examples include: U.G. Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti, Actual Freedom, and so forth. Interestingly, all these guys rejected and refuted the "Atman-Brahman" concept. Their experiential insight is pretty close to what I call anatta. Particularly, Actual Freedom is also very clear in distinguishing itself from the True Self or One Mind realization as Richard has gone through these distinct phases. But even his teachings are quite problematic from the viewpoint of the Buddhadharma in various ways. But I think as far as experiential insight goes he comes closest to my insight of anatta, yet, I do not consider even his experience to be liberation. Also, the view of emptiness and dependent origination is lacking in these teachings. But if I have to approximate where I am in the framework of actual freedom teachings, I would say what I have attained holds similarities to 'actual freedom', and if I were to approximate where I am in the Advaita framework, I would say what I experience holds similarities with 'sahaja samadhi' as the experience of reality here is constant in life without needing to enter a special state of absorption or trance through meditation, yet it cannot really be equated that way.

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Also it should be noted that 'anatta' and 'emptiness teachings' do not reject or negate Awareness but clarifies its nature.

As Thusness puts it to me years back,

6/3/2012 9:27 PM: John: I do not see practice apart from realizing the essence and nature of awareness
6/3/2012 9:30 PM: John: The only difference is seeing Awareness as an ultimate essence or realizing awareness as this Seamless activity that fills the entire Universe.
6/3/2012 9:32 PM: John: When we say there is no scent of a flower, the scent is the flower....that is becoz the mind, body, universe are all together deconstructed into this single flow, this scent and only this... Nothing else.
6/3/2012 9:33 PM: John: That is the Mind that is no mind.
6/3/2012 9:38 PM: John: There is no an Ultimate Mind that transcends anything in the Buddhist enlightenment. The mind Is this very manifestation of total exertion...wholly thus.
6/3/2012 9:42 PM: John: Therefore there is always no mind, always only this vibration of moving train, this cooling air of the aircon, this breath...
6/3/2012 9:43 PM: Soh Wei Yu: oic..
6/3/2012 9:47 PM: John: The question is after the 7 phases of insights can this be realized and experience and becomes the ongoing activity of practice in enlightenment and enlightenment in practice -- practice-enlightenment.

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"Every religion is talking abt consciousness. It is nature of consciousness that is important. It is like talking about "Soh" from different ppl. Of course all is pointing to "Soh" but when someone say he is an American, has 10 sisters and is now studying in India...we cannot say that he is correct and it is the same because ultimately we r talking about "Soh"."

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I apologize if the way I wrote sound offensive to others. I'm sure there will be people who disagree with the Buddhadharma's views of things or my view of things, that's ok. There's always plenty of different views. We can simply agree to disagree.

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I often distinguish dissolving subject/object division from dissolving the notion of inherency. For example I have gone through a phase where after realising Witness, the Witness collapse into one mind, a single field of awareness where manifestation is undivided from awareness. Only one awareness exists just as all shapes of necklaces are merely superimpositions on one gold. This roughly corresponds to the nondual awareness after collapse of witness in DP. Yet, this Awareness is still seen and felt as inherently existing — have its own substance, ultimate, unchanging, inherently existing. This is despite dissolving the sense of subject/object division.

If that sense of one awareness (inherent) too gets dissolved (which DP purports to), that is getting similar to what I call anatta. As for my anatta insight, it is how Greg describes it above, a dissolving of even the advaitic oneness into the intimacy and directness and clarity of the 10,000 things with no background. In my case it is directly seeing how there can be no seer or seeing besides colors and no hearer or hearing besides sounds (whereas DP collapses these to Awareness, now it’s also collapsing Awareness into the 10,000 things). But its not so much of collapsing but seeing through the structure. Here, Awareness/Presence is no longer seen to exist by its own side, only the thousand faces of Presence. Then comes dependent origination and emptiness in my later progression.

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Geovani Geo what you describe seems similar to my “one mind” phase as I just described above. I no longer perceive Essence or (inherent) existence. No non temporal existence (Brahman) Nor even temporal existences. There is not even temporal existence because the illusory presencing appearance does not amount to something arising for even a flickering instant just like moon reflections or mirages of cities do not amount to existence or arising of any kind. Only empty, essenceless dreamlike and holographic display or appearing, vividly clear radiance, seamless(ly interconnected), non-arising. My insights and progression of insights corresponds with André A. Pais

I will leave you with something from Traktung Rinpoche:

No essence No existence This joy

by Traktung Rinpoche:

There is nothing more disturbing than dharma’s pure message that is the undoing of identity …. the concrete, existent identity of self, of things, of mind. There is a nexus of meanings; we call it our lives - adornment of nothingness’ luminosity across emptiness’ expanse. It is our ownmost authenticity without there being any being, or essence or even existence to it at all.

The Greeks felt essence preceded existence. The existentialists felt that existence preceded essence. Buddha’s great realization disentangles this non-question in the realization of the absence of essence or existence in the unutterable mystery of suchness. Existence and essence are co-emergent substanceless empty appearing / appearance emptiness.

Let the dharma unmake you, disrobe your habits – even the habit called “me”, unconstruct the suredness you call you. In authentic dharma there is no ground to stand on and that no-ground is the most disturbing fact imaginable. …. but the same fact which causes the existentialist nausea is unutterable playfulness to the yogi.

my dark unlearnings began
with the innocent speech of leaf fall.

golden.

snow melt.
mud. fallen tree.

mind

spins, addled by secret scripts of
beetle track, patternings of
rainfall, diagrammatic log fire
ash.

listening.whole body. mitochondrial scholar stones.

i made a deal with moss and dirt a
n
d

l
e
a
r
n
e d about:

identity decomposed. about. little birds. about.
sky all over closer to here than when and this.
kiss.

your lips. memory. how freedom is more
under than above. measureless.
complete love.

- t.k.