Pellucid No-Self, Non-Doership

Of late I had a few conversations with a number of people whose experience of no-self is skewed towards non-doership rather than pellucid no-self, the pellucidity of luminosity in nondual and no-self. John Tan too have similar encounters. At the most their insight is into the first stanza of anatta but not the second https://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/.../on-anatta... .
I think I will need to write an article on this in AtR blog and guide.
[8:39 PM, 6/9/2021] John Tan: Yes more on no-doership.
[8:40 PM, 6/9/2021] John Tan: 1. Dzogchen has a phrase "spontaneous presence". I do not know it's exact meaning in dzogchen however the phrase is intimately related to the 2 experiences of the 2 stanzas:
1. No doership = spontaneous
2. Mere appearances as Presence
Imo, she is more on 1 not so much on 2 so far in her descriptions."
"[11:25 PM, 5/23/2021] John Tan: Like in prasangika mmk, the non-affirming negation, in the phases of insights approach of the 2 stanzas,one is not interested in the affirmation, just the thorough deconstruction of self construct. The seeing through of self in anatta is the direct experiential taste of non-dual, purity and spontaneity.
[11:39 PM, 5/23/2021] John Tan: So when someone describe to u, they say they have deconstruct self/Self but there is no direct taste of colors, smell, sensation, sound, no direct face to face of the radiance, pellucidity, purity, spontaneity, insubstantiality and non-duality of appearances, is that genuine authentication?
[12:00 AM, 5/24/2021] Soh Wei Yu: No its not.. more like impersonality
[12:00 AM, 5/24/2021] Soh Wei Yu: Or nondoership"
“Immediate Present, Ultimate Dharma
Since our activity is not a progression from delusion to enlightenment made solely by the independent self, Dogen defines the first thought of practice as 'immediate present ultimate Dharma' or genjokoan: the presence and perfection of all dharmas as they are in the here-and-now.' Hee-Jin Kim further explains the meaning of genjokoan:
'It does not suggest an evolutionary ascent from hidden-ness to manifestation, or from imperfection to perfection, or conversely, an emanational descent from one to many, or from reality to appearance. Rather, things, events, beings are already unmistakably what they truly are; what is more, they are vibrant, transparent, and bright in their as-they-are-ness.'” - Zen teacher Shinshu Roberts
“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. And John Tan concurs with me on this point. 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)”
Soh Wei Yu is at Gardens by the Bay.
JuotSplyu 1sgolnu2,s Sour2cSr020coenld · Singapore ·
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At this time, everything in the Universe in the ten directions - soil, earth, grass, and trees; fences, walls, tiles and pebbles - perform the Buddha’s work... The grass, trees, soil, earth reached by this guiding influence all radiate great brightness, and their preaching of the deep and fine dharma is without end.
~ Zen Master Dogen
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John Tan
Coincidentally I was watching anime 斗罗大陆, it expresses the experience and taste of total exertion beautifully. I can feel for the character where his clarity loses every trace into the natural radiance and purity of the trees, the flowing river, the wind, the smell and the light.
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• · 48w"
But this does not mean the non-doership or no agent aspect of first stanza is less important. As John Tan also said about someone else:
"More towards second stanza, non-doership is equally important."
 
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“Anatta and Pure Presence

Someone told me about having been through insights of no self and then progressing to a realisation of the ground of being.

 

I replied:

 

Hi ____

 

Thanks for the sharing.

 

This is the I AM realization. Had that realisation after contemplating Before birth, who am I? For two years. It’s an important realization. Many people had insights into certain aspects of no self, impersonality, and “dry non dual experience” without doubtless realization of Presence. Therefore I AM realisation is a progression for them.

 

Similarly in Zen, asking who am I is to directly experience presence. How about asking a koan of what is the cup? What is the chirping bird, the thunder clap? What is its purpose?

 

When I talked about anatta, it is a direct insight of Presence and recognizing what we called background presence, is in the forms and colours, sounds and sensations, clean and pure. Authentication is be authenticated by all things. Also there is no presence other than that. What we call background is really just an image of foreground Presence, even when Presence is assuming its subtle formless all pervasiveness.

 

However due to ignorance, we have a very inherent and dual view, if we do see through the nature of presence, the mind continues to be influenced by dualistic and inherent tendencies. Many teach to overcome it through mere non conceptuality but this is highly misleading.

 

Thusness also wrote in 2018:

 

The anatta I realized is quite unique. It is not just a realization of no-self. But it must first have an intuitive insight of Presence. Otherwise will have to reverse the phases of insights”

...
 

“In addition to what you wrote, I hope to convey another dimension of Presence to you.  That is Encountering Presence in its first impression, unadulterated and full blown in stillness.

 

So after reading it, just feel it with your entire body-mind and forgot about it. Don't let it corrupt your mind.😝

 

Presence, Awareness, Beingness, Isness are all synonyms.  There can be all sorts of definitions but all these are not the path to it.  The path to it must be non-conceptual and direct. This is the only way.

 

When contemplating the koan "before birth who am I", the thinking mind attempts to seek into it's memory bank for similar experiences to get an answer.  This is how the thinking mind works -  compare, categorize and measure in order to understand.

 

However when we encounter such a koan, the mind reaches its limit when it tries to penetrate its own depth with no answer.  It will come a time the mind exhausts itself and come to a complete standstill and from that stillness comes an earthshaking  BAM!

 

I. Just I.

 

Before birth this I, a thousand years ago this I, a thousand later this I.  I AM I.

 

It is without any arbitrary thoughts, any comparisons.  It fully authenticates it's own clarity, it's own existence, ITSELF in clean, pure, direct non-conceptuality.  No why, no because.

 

Just ITSELF in stillness nothing else.

 

Intuit the vipassana and the samatha.  Intuit the total exertion and realization.   The essence of message must be raw and uncontaminated by words. It cannot be secondhand.

 

Hope that helps!

…

...There is nothing underneath everything, in the state of I AM, it is just I AM. The rest of the 5 sense doors are shut. Everything else is excluded. It is called I simply because of the koan, nothing else.

 

What’s experienced is similar to hearing sound without the sense of hearer. So keep the experience but refine the view.” - John Tan to someone in Awakening to Reality Discussion Group, 2019

 
 
 
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If you are skewing towards non-doership, you can contemplate and practice to realise and experience the luminosity aspect:

etc etc
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William Kong's Breakthrough to Anatta

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/AwakeningToReality/





Related Post: Anatta and Post-Anatta, MMK, etc


    These are my reflections since the realization of no-self.
    The insight has been stable, but I've been experiencing a lot of energy imbalances since then. (I was only sleeping about 3 hours a night contemplating on emptiness before annata, and a 2-3 days afterwards before settling back to 6-7h, then back to 4h, etc. I've been getting up in the middle of the night, and would have to just walk and walk to let go of energy.)
    What actually brought me back to AtR approx 2 months ago was the article on pain that I stumbled on, and I initially wrote to Soh about that. I think it has very much to do with severe energy imbalances, and I have been experiencing zen sickness for several years. I will have to write about that later... but it is simply with tremendous serendipity that everything unfolded as it did.
    > 1. If everything is me, then the sense of "me" must also dissapear at that moment of experience. Otherwise one must mature the experience into no-mind and then anatta as an insight.
    2. If later it is realized that there is no me/self/Self as an insight and experience (anatta), then one must refine the view and question how does the sense of me/self/Self arise in the first place?
    On the two stanzas above, I do not know exactly what Thusness intended, this is just my experience and reaction.
    Upon first reading, I actually interpreted them as 2 separate stanzas, but in retrospect they function perfectly together, like two pincers of a claw.
    ***
    The first stanza immediately started to trigger something... "if everything is me" is sounding off, like "I-am-everything", almost Advaitic sounding...Brahman-is-all. I will have to address this point in another post.
    "one must refine the view and question, how does the sense of "me" arise in the first place?". At this moment, I feel rising tension and dissonance in me. Now, the two stanzas together form a koan, not mere questions, but inquiry.
    Insight into annata was sudden, not due to reasoning, instigated by Thusness’ praxis, not due to any kind of deliberate process, analytical, dialectical or otherwise. This is all just my unpacking and reflection from that event.
    ***
    Recently, I had been meditating on emptiness and DO. The thrust of the deconstruction was simple: unburdened by substance-view, I no longer interpreted forms as arising to some background awareness, rather all forms are empty, and they co-arise dependently.
    I had also been contemplating about the meaning of non-arising - and why something like even impermanence is not real (for what does not exist cannot come into being, nor be extinguished, it can neither be said to arise, nor pass away, but it can be conventionally understood to arise and pass away)
    >>> The stanza, "how did it arise?" drove the concepts of emptiness and DO back onto the experience of a "me", and at the moment of insight, I realized right then and there that I had unconsciously been identified with certain thoughts and sensations - that were also empty of an inherent self, and were also dependently originating.
    That is, these thoughts never arose except as dependently arising based on conditions. There was never an "I" that ever arose! It was always already so!
    It does not matter what arises - thoughts and sensations can no more produce a self “on its own side” anymore than visual phenomena of shifting green shapes can produce an inherently existing tree.
    I cannot begin to tell you how freeing it was.
    ***
    I realize now that part of the growing dissonance was between my actual daily experience and substance-view, which was the conceptual framework from which I interpreted that experience.
    I find that emptiness and DO is actually a very accurate description of what is always being experienced. It resonates very strongly with me now.
    Those samsaric thoughts and feelings that arose - I no longer had to get rid of them! They were just dependently arising - at no point is there a 'self' you need to eradicate or perfect. It simply doesn't exist.
    That is the seal of annata - it is always, already so.
    The core of what had felt like an energetic knot suddenly released - like a massive thorn had been removed. The energetic body is still sore - the scar tissue that surrounded the thorn remains, and is healing, but the thorn has been removed.
    This is part one.
    I will have to write more on the experience of no-self - experiencing reality without the subject-object split, and all the parts that I got hung up on earlier.

    5 Comments


    • Soh Wei Yu
    Admin
    JT: Just relax and do nothing for a week unless he knows how to balance his energy imbalance.
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    • 1h

    • Soh Wei Yu
    Admin
    JT:
    Anatta is like activating a new sense -- a new direct non-conceptual perception. Being direct and non-conceptual also opening up one's flow of energies, being in touch with aliveness so natural openness allowing free flowing is important.
    Feel sensation of walking, flowing pulsating of our palms and relax, don't think first.
    2

    • Reply
    • 1h

    • Soh Wei Yu
    Admin
    I will post your writing to atr blog if thats alright
    1

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    • 1h

    William Kong
    Author
    Yes, feel free to use my name.
    In the past, I had tried to talk about this to some people, and it did not always have positive reactions ... but Angelo Grr's interview was just so ...open and candid, it was inspiring.
    I think culturally, in last 10 years, we've shifted so dramatically that talking about consciousness is not so much a faux pas. AtR is the first time I've written about this on any forum.
    I cannot deny that other people's writings have helped me immensely ... the journey had been so...difficult and painful, and if even one person can benefit then it's worth it.
    Reality is ever so splendid, beautiful and radiant.
    2

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    • 48m

    • Soh Wei Yu
    Admin
    Yes having the right community to talk with is great. There will always be some that resonate and some that do not. I like Angelo’s interview and pointers too.
    The first person Buddha talked with just shook his head in disbelief. But then he surveyed and saw some people he knew would be open and receptive. Eventually thousands of those he met and taught awakened. He also told his awakened disciples to spread the message. “Go forth for the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world, for the welfare, the good and the happiness of gods and men. Let no two of you go in the same direction. Teach the Dharma which is beautiful in the beginning, beautiful in the middle and beautiful at the end. Proclaim both the letter and the spirit of the holy life completely fulfilled and perfectly pure.[ N1 ]”
    Like Angelo, I think awakening is heading in a direction where it is becoming mainstream.
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  •  William Kong:


    Hi Soh, Please accept my sincerest gratitude to your effort and commitment to making AtR freely available. Please extend my heartfelt thanks to Thusness as well. He says he does not consider himself a teacher, but I think he’s been a terrific teacher to many. His intuition and insight into my situation was incredibly harp. I did not expect how things would unfold so quickly after being stuck for years.
    🙏
    *incredibly sharp
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