Breakthroughs to Anatta

Two persons realised anatta recently in AtR group:

Juliette Paul shared:

Hello friends. I have been reading the blog for a few years now. It was suggested to me back in 2017 on the DhO, but I wasn't ready for it. Looking back I was definitely in stage 1 and I can trace my way through the first 4 stages. Something dawned on me 2 days ago and all things became unstuck. It became clear to me that every moment is just the thoughts, scenery, sounds. Nothing has ever been obscured! I was trying to find what I was missing but then it dawned that I was missing the fact that "searching for what was missing" is also just thought, sensation, manifestation. I still very subtly believed I was a non-dual awareness having a non-dual experience. I was trying to expand awareness to include more and more sensations. The size isn't the problem, it is realizing that there isn't anything more than just this and digging up subtler and subtler views that support this reification of awareness as a formless thing or ground of all experience. The last couple days have been effortlessly no-mind because all experiences are and always were no-mind. Finally most of the words on your blog speak to my direct experience. Thank you for the pointers!

Td Unmanifest shared:

Soh Wei Yu suggested I post something about my experience after our email conversation.

I emailed to thank him and John Tan for their writings, resources, and pointers that have helped me immensely in my progress.

Many years ago I had a powerful, "accidental" I Am experience that compelled me to search for what it was and how to make it permanent. Over the years I have explored many teachers, practices, systems, and techniques. Some more helpful than others.

I actually encountered AtR several years ago via a DhO post, but honestly aside from some of the I Am posts and discussions, none of it made much sense to me. I now know that's due to the fact I was stuck in the I Am phase, yet I thought I was much further along in my progress.

Earlier this year, I rediscovered AtR, and began to read and study the Journal and Guide, along with the associated posts. It all was much clearer to me this time -- maybe I was more ripe for the teachings now

Realizing I had been stuck in I Am, I followed the recommendations from the guide. The contemplation of "where awareness ends and manifestation begins" was especially helpful and propelled me into a nondual realization. It was all very clear. The luminosity and clarity, descriptions, and experience, all lined up with what was written. It was extremely helpful to have my insights and experiences line up with writings from someone who had been down the path. The insight/shift from no-mind, to anatta was the most powerful, yet ordinary thing. As I said in my email to Soh Wei Yu:

Though the earlier anatta experience shifted to a "no center, no background" emptiness of no-self, there was still a sense of a doer. This current shift/experience has left the doer and the "agencylessness" seems the default view.

Dogen's Uji, and the insights of being-time have also been very powerful for me, along with Tozen's "place where there is no cold or heat," which was recommended by Soh Wei Yu. It's amazing how the suttas and teachers make so much sense now and help clarify and stabilize realization and insight.

Just writing this short post, it's difficult to describe these insights. It makes me appreciate how well the AtR team and other teachers have been able to describe and present the material in a clear way.

...

TD Unmanifest:

I got stuck in I AM for a long time due to clinging to dissociation and the experience as Soh mentioned above. The focus was almost entirely on the mind. When I shifted to other sense doors (hearing in particular) something "popped" and the nondual experience moved from mind to body to everything (not really the best description, but the only way I can think to explain it). Contemplation on where the nondual Self ended and manifestation begins shifted my experience again, and began the process to a taste of no-mind then to annata.

The issue wasn't the dissociation, it was the clinging to the experience that was taken to be something more transcendental than it was. This stuff is hard to explain, so hope that makes some sense

Difference between "neo advaita nihilism" and Anatta

John Tan’s new website
John Tan (Thusness / PasserBy) brings together his books, articles and narrated videos on anatta, emptiness and dependent arising at atr-passerby.com. See Soh’s introduction and reading suggestions.
Editorial note added by Soh.

“[3:29 PM, 6/25/2020] John Tan: Thought of how to explain the difference in anatta and advaita nihilism.

[3:40 PM, 6/25/2020] John Tan: When a person in ignorance, why is he so blinded? If there is no I, shouldn't him be already free?

 

Sentient being: if there is no I in ignorance, then you are therefore free.

Anatta: There is no I in ignorance, you are precisely THAT ignorance, therefore fully and entirely blinded.

What anatta insight is telling us is the "I" and "ignorance" are the same phenomenon. This also tells us that even when in ignorant, there is complete and effortless non-dual experience, anatta is a seal.

 

 

[2:52 PM, 6/27/2020] Soh Wei Yu: The Beauty of Virtue

 

Thought  is  movement  between  “what  is”  and  “what  should  be.”  Thought  is  the  time  to  cover  that  space,  and  as  long  as  there  is  division  between  this  and  that  psychologically,  the  movement  is  the  time  of  thought.  So  thought  is  time  as  movement. Is there time as movement, as thought, when there is only observation of “what is”? That is, not observation as the observer and the observed, but only observation  without  the  movement  of  going  beyond  “what  is.”  It  is  very  important  for  the  mind  to  understand  this,  because  thought  can  create  most  marvelous images of what is sacred and holy, which all religions have done. All religions  are  based  on  thought.  All  religions  are  the  organization  of  thought,  in  belief, in dogma, in rituals. So unless there is complete understanding of thought as time and movement, the mind cannot possibly go beyond itself.

 

We  are  trained,  educated,  drilled  to  change  “what  is”  into  “what  should  be,”  the  ideal,  and  that  takes  time.  That  whole  movement  of  thought  to  cover  the  space  between  “what  is”  and  “what  should  be”  is  the  time  to  change  “what  is”  into  “what  should  be”—but  the  observer  is  the  observed,  therefore  there  is  nothing to change, there is only “what is.” The observer doesn’t know what to do with  “what  is,”  therefore  he  tries  various  methods  to  change  “what  is,”  controls  “what is,” tries to suppress “what is.” But the observer is the observed: the “what is”  is  the  observer.  Anger,  jealousy,  are  also  the  observer;  there  isn’t  jealousy  separate  from  the  observer—both  are  one.  When  there  is  no  movement  as  thought  in  time  to  change  “what  is,”  when  thought  perceives  that  there  is  no  possibility of changing “what is,” then that which is—“what is”—ceases entirely, because the observer is the observed.

 

Go  into  this  very  deeply  and  you  will  see  for  yourself.  It  is  really  quite  simple.  If  I  dislike  someone,  the  dislike  is  not  different  from  the  “me”  or  the  “you.”  The  entity  that  dislikes  is  dislike  itself;  it  is  not  separate.  And  when  thought  says,  “I  must  get  over  my  dislike,”  then  it  is  movement  in  time  to  get  over  that  which  actually  is,  which  is  created  by  thought.  So  the  observer—the  entity—and  the  thing  called  “dislike”  are  the  same.  Therefore  there  is  complete  immobility. It is not the immobility of being static, it is complete motionlessness and therefore complete silence. So time as movement, time as thought achieving a result, has come totally to an end, and therefore action is instantaneous. So the mind has laid the foundation and is free from disorder; and therefore there is the flowering and the beauty of virtue. In that foundation is the basis of relationship between you and another. In that relationship there is no activity of image; there is  only  relationship,  not  one  image  adjusting  itself  to  the  other  image.  There  is  only “what is” and not the changing of “what is.” The changing of “what is,” or transforming of “what is,” is the movement of thought in time.

 

When you have come to that point, the mind and the brain cells also become totally  still.  The  brain  which  holds  memories,  experience,  knowledge,  can  and  must  function  in  the  field  of  the  known.  But  now  that  mind,  that  brain,  is  free  from the activity of time and thought. Then the mind is completely still. All this takes  place  without  effort.  All  this  must  take  place  without  any  sense  of  discipline, control, which belong to disorder.

 

You  know,  what  we  are  saying  is  totally  different  from  what  the  gurus,  the  “masters,” the Zen philosophers say, because in this there is no authority, there is no  following  another.  If  you  follow  somebody,  you  are  not  only  destroying  yourself but also the other. A religious mind has no authority whatsoever. But it has intelligence and it applies that intelligence. In the world of action there is the authority of the scientist, the doctor, the man who teaches you how to drive, but otherwise there is no authority, there is no guru.

 

So, if you have gone as deeply as that, then the mind has established order in relationship, and understands the whole complex disorder of our daily lives. Out of the comprehension of that disorder, out of the awareness of it, in which there is  no  choice,  comes  the  beauty  of  virtue,  which  is  not  cultivated,  which  is  not  brought  about  by  thought.  That  virtue  is  love,  order,  and  if  the  mind  has  established  that  with  deep  roots,  it  is  immovable,  unchangeable.  And  then  you  can inquire into the whole movement of time. Then the mind is completely still. There is no observer, there is no experiencer, there is no thinker.

 

There    are    various    forms    of    sensory    and    extrasensory    perception.    Clairvoyance,  healing,  all  kinds  of  things  take  place,  but  they  are  all  secondary,  and  a  mind  that  is  really  concerned  with  the  discovery  of  what  is  truth,  what  is  sacred, will never touch them.

 

The  mind  then  is  free  to  observe.  Then  there  is  that  which  man  has  sought  through   centuries,   the   unnameable,   the   timeless.   And   there   is   no   verbal   expression  of  it.  The  image  that  is  created  by  thought  completely  and  utterly  ceases because there is no entity that wants to express it in words. Your mind can only  discover  it,  or  come  upon  it,  when  you  have  this  strange  thing  called  love,  compassion,  not  only  for  your  neighbor,  but  for  the  animals,  the  trees,  for  everything.

 

Then such a mind itself becomes sacred.

 ~ J Krishnamurti, 'This Light in Oneself: True Meditation'

[2:53 PM, 6/27/2020] Soh Wei Yu: reminds me of what you said 'you are the ignorance'

[6:52 AM, 6/28/2020] John Tan: Yes”

p.s. John Tan also said years ago,

"After this insight, one must also be clear of the way of anatta and the path of practice. Many wrongly conclude that because there is no-self, there is nothing to do and nothing to practice.  This is precisely using "self view" to understand "anatta" despite having the insight.  

It does not mean because there is no-self, there is nothing to practice; rather it is because there is no self, there is only ignorance and the chain of afflicted activities. Practice therefore is about overcoming ignorance and these chain of afflictive activities.  There is no agent but there is attention. Therefore practice is about wisdom, vipassana, mindfulness and concentration. If there is no mastery over these practices, there is no liberation. So one should not bullshit and psycho ourselves into the wrong path of no-practice and waste the invaluable insight of anatta.  That said, there is the passive mode of practice of choiceless awareness, but one should not misunderstand it as the "default way" and such practice can hardly be considered "mastery" of anything, much less liberation."

In 2013, Thusness said, "Anapanasati is good. After your insight [into anatta], master a form of technique that can bring you to that the state of anatta without going through a thought process." and on choiceless awareness Thusness further commented, "Nothing wrong with choice. Only problem is choice + awareness. It is that subtle thought, the thought that misapprehend (Soh: falsely imputes/fabricates) the additional "agent"."

“A state of freedom is always a natural state, that is a state of mind free from self/Self. You should familiarize yourself with the taste first. Like doing breathing meditation until there is no-self and left with the inhaling and exhaling... then understand what is meant by releasing.”

Continue with John Tan’s newer writings
Explore his free books, articles and narrated videos at atr-passerby.com, or read Soh’s introduction.
Editorial note added by Soh.