No I and No Mine
Soh

 

    Yin Ling

    Mart2c9h 111 70hampt1o 101:074 s74foeAM 
    Just a sharing, and see if my xp resonates with others.
    I receive a kind message asking about how I “see” my emotion world and thought world as opposed to others?
    There is always a continuum of thoughts for this being and we are not privy to another’s thought, that is for sure.
    So the person ask, does that not affect how the whole “no self” experience?
    I gave that a serious contemplation this morning’s meditation and look into my xp.
    I realise there is two parts of the no self insight.
    First part is like in the first few sentences of the Bahiya Sutta, “in the seen only the seen” and etc.
    Manifestation and awareness arise in and of itself, without a seer, doer, hearer. That is clear when initial no self insight arise.
    However xp always seen to be appropriated somewhere - like “my thoughts”, “my emotions” “my cognized” “my music” becusse we can’t see other ppls thoughts and emotions and we can’t hear what the hear.
    There is this subtly “mine-ness” in xp, which is still an attachment.
    Suddenly this morning the last part of Bahiya sutta sprung forth into attention - there is no you here, there is no you there, there is no you in between.. this is the end of suffering.
    For all experience, there is no appropriation to a “you” or “mine”. Just that itself is all.
    Imo, The Buddha was trying to teach us to dis-identified with “mine” in the second part, less of an I , as the I should be seen through in the first part of Bahiya sutta.
    When there is no you/mine-ness in these emotions and thoughts, and they arise just dependently from conditions, not being appropriated to any person, all xp becomes equal and there is no worries of other ppls emotions and thoughts because even the emotions and thoughts that feels to be for this person here are not even “mine”. Xp sync!
    I do love the Bahiya sutta. 😁😬

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    • Yin Ling
    Soh Wei Yu thanks Soh for your comment.
    I thjnk it will be worthwhile for me to go back to do classic vipassana and note carefully everything in consciousness to detect subtle “Mine” . Somehow this way of vipassana helps but I can still sense subtle Mine in consciousness.
    Then, I also realise, emptiness is another separate insight / realization.
    Feel like DO could solve both problems. Lol. Kill 2 birds with one stone. In DO, hard to have mine, have to have substance.
    I am not entirely sure.
    Will continue gazing at my navel 😂😂

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    • Soh Wei Yu
    Yin Ling Agree
    12th September 2010
    Thusness:
    Hi Simpo,
    How have you been getting on? I am planning for my retirement. 🙂
    I think after stabilizing non-dual experience and maturing the insight of anatta, practice must turn towards ‘self-releasing’ and ‘dispassion’ rather than intensifying‘non-dual’ luminosity. Although being bare in attention or naked in awareness will help in dissolving the sense of ‘I’ and division, we must also look into dissolving the sense of ‘mine’. In my opinion, dissolving of the sense of ‘I’ does not equate to dissolving the sense of ‘mine’ and attachment to possessions can still be strong even after very stable non-dual experience. This is because the former realization only manage to eliminate the dualistic tendency while the latter requires us to embody and actualize the right view of ‘emptiness’. Very seldom do we realize it has a lot to do with our ‘view’ that we hold in our deep most consciousness. We must allow our luminous essence to meet differing conditions to realise the latent deep. All our body cells are imprinted and hardwired to ‘hold’. Not to under-estimate it. 🙂


    • Soh Wei Yu
    Also I believe I wrote this in 2014:
    I commented: this is very important.. and lately I'm seeing it more as well. To overcome all sense of I, me, and even mine, D.O. has to step in. Many people talk about no I, no background, but still there is sense of mine... and there are also those that say everything is 'the manifestation of my mind or my nature'.. that is subtly subsuming everything to mind. Even if there is no duality.
    In dependent origination you totally see the entire formation of interdependencies... not in words but directly taste the totality of its workings forming every moment of experience. When the drum beat sounds you don't see it as just 'the manifestation of my mind' but you see it as the person hitting, the drum, the vibration, the ears etc... all in total exertion... how can that have anything to do with I or mine? It is not 'mine' anymore than it is the person hitting, the drum's, the vibration's... etc. It is not only that there is no hearer behind sound... not only no I but no mine at all.. the sound itself does not belong to anyone... it is the entire universe in total exertion so to speak.. but it is not understood in logic. You have to see the whole process and interdependencies directly. Breathing is like this... walking is like this... every action every experience is like this. This is the path to dissolve I, me, mine... only through D.O. is the release thorough.
    Not 'everything is just consciousness' or 'everything is my consciousness'... consciousness isn't that special or important. It does not have a special, independent, ontological status. Rather it is the interdependencies the workings of D.O. through which that moment of consciousness/experience is in total exertion. The true turning point is when mind is completely separated from mine.. I, me, mine.. the dualistic and inherent tendency must be dissolved and replaced with the wisdom of D.O."


    • Yin Ling
    Soh Wei Yu thanks!
    Personally for me, deconstructing the I and deconstructing the Mine. Both lead to differnt understanding and experience.
    The deconstruction of the I seems straightforward and clear. It’s also easy to see if an “I” comes up.
    The “mine” is so much subtler. Yet seeing it and deconstructing it gives one much more “non-attachment” taste that the uprooting of an “I”.
    Wonder if it makes sense lol.
    I was reading through some posts on “mine-ness” on ATR and it seems like most of the practitioners agree that it’s a separate domain to deconstruct altogether. Really nice. Never see it spoke about so clearly elsewhere. Most treat I and mine as the same but in practise it really is not.


    • Soh Wei Yu
    Yin Ling john tan said to me
    “to overcome "I", u need insight. To overcome "mine", what that is needed now is calm abiding in addition to insight.”

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    • Yin Ling
    Soh Wei Yu oh thank you!


    • Yin Ling
    Soh Wei Yu and can I ask what do you do for "calm abiding'?
    Anapanasati ?


    • Soh Wei Yu
    Yin Ling mainly yes
    Anapanasati
    But i also do more “formless” style like trekchod/shikantaza
    (The latter you might have read in steve hagen’s meditation now or never)
    I also do some mantra (tara, dabeizhou etc) some times and dzogchen song of vajra

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    • Soh Wei Yu
    after.
    Jui: I always hear people say when you see one object you are like the object… but in my experience…
    John: In your experience now, your self at the behind will be gone. But you are unable to reach completely mind to object (one pointedness). But your behind disappears. But to zhuan zhu yi ge (be absorbed in one [object]) you are unable to reach, that requires Samadhi state. That is, that behind is gone, but you are one pointed into one object, then with view you will experience maha experience, total exertion. He (me/Soh) is also the same, the behind is gone, no more self, only the sound but there is no self, there is just this, there is just that. That is because the insight has arisen but concentration (?) my way is different. Before insight of anatta I had decades of practicing meditation, then I AM, then meditation, then I AM. My practice is like that. (?) but for you guys, you see clearly first, the behind is gone and your experience becomes very clear and vivid and yet you are unable to concentrate. So you must understand that concentration is different. Peacefulness and releasing is (different), clear vivid awareness is also different. It requires different insights and practice. You still have to meditate, it is impossible that (?) you should be in this stage, you are very clear, the click click sound is felt to be very vivid, then one day you will have total exertion feeling, but you must practice releasing and concentration. When the mind is discursive and wandering, you need practice. your mindfulness/thought needs to be practiced. You need to have a stillness/Samadhi. (to me/Soh) Your stillness is still not enough. Your mind is still having thought after thought, you are unable to have stillness. But your insight is able to reach no self. You are still unable to reach stillness and releasing. It is not a matter of saying then you can reach it, it requires practice.
    (Comments by Soh: before my realization of anatta I would do samatha and enter into jhanic bliss [samadhi bliss but not resting in nature of mind], afterwards it is more towards the bliss of no-self luminosity, yet samadhi is still vital)
    Me: best way is to practice vipasssana?
    John: Vipassana … when it becomes non conceptual and non dual, it is even more difficult like for you, your insight is there, there is no self, yet when you sit you are unable to reach it. Because you need to focus. You need to focus your breath, (otherwise?) unable to reach it. For normal people they are able to reach it even easier. For you it is somewhat more difficult. So I always tell you, for example, for you and him the way of entering is by clear luminosity… feel as clear as possible. For example when you breathe, feel your breathe entirely. So you feel very very clear, just this breath you know. Then you feel the vividness. It is easier to enter this way.
    (Comments by Soh: before my realization of anatta I would do samatha and enter into jhanic bliss, afterwards it is more towards the bliss of no-self luminosity, yet samadhi is still vital)
    Me: so you are advising Anapanasati?
    John: yes of course, then you do many times. But when you do many times you are not counting. Don’t count. Just feel the entire sensation of the breath. You are just that sensation of your breath. Then you are so clear with your entire breath. That whole aircon that touches your nostrils, then going into your lungs. It is just this sensation. This is what we call breath. So you keep on doing. You are very aware of it. Actually it is not you are very aware of lah. This is what I call awareness and the whole thing is awareness, there is no somebody awaring. It is just breath. Then slowly you will have this (Samadhi?), you need to keep doing.
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    • Yin Ling
    Soh Wei Yu many thanks 🙂
    Did practise formless style aka Master Sheng Yen "Do nothing" meditation occasionally, abit like shikantanza if im not wrong.…
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    • Yin Ling
    Soh Wei Yu lovely. I love doing samadhi, sounds like i need to go back to it 🙂

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Rigpa and Alaya are Not Reified Entities
Soh

 

  • Bartek Nowacki shared a link.

    ht42ftgp0u1oa8ch110 
    Hi guys, I was reading an interview with John Peacock and there is something interesting about Anatta, Alaya, Rigpa:
    "It’s about the radically contingent nature of everything that leaves us with nothing left to grasp onto. Dependent Origination, in its universal form and in its sense of human becoming, is unique to world thought and utterly undermining of every other system of thought. It is so challenging, in fact, that both in early India and in current Buddhist teaching, few are able—or willing—to get it totally.
    Can you say more about this?
    Some of the movements and trends we see in Western Buddhism actually are akin to what was going on in the ancient period—a reification of some element of thought or experience. First there was an attempt to treat the notion of a person, a puggala, as somehow privileged metaphysically, much like with the modern psychological self. Even after Nāgārjuna reiterated the absolute emptiness of any thing, very soon after we begin to hear that “everything is empty except for one thing,” the mind. A whole metaphysics of the mind springs up, first around a storehouse consciousness (alaya), and then around a primordial or perfected consciousness (rigpa). These ideas of course resonate easily with both Judeo-Christian, Romantic era, and New Age notions in the Western tradition and thus have great popular appeal in modern Dharma teaching.
    Even if these ideas came initially as a report on experience, which I believe many of them did, it shows a tendency of the human mind to grasp after something to hold onto and to solidify it. This is what is getting us today, “Just fall back on your awareness, just be aware of awareness itself.” When awareness is used as a noun like this, it ends up looking strangely like some Upanishadic Brahman.
    But the Buddha’s final words in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta are “Everything is evanescent; strive on diligently.” He is encouraging us to be fearless in the face of radical contingency. He knows that we are going to go running away to the safest haven we can just as quickly as possible. In fact if we try to create a false haven for ourselves, we end up just dukkharing, creating more suffering for ourselves. I think that is the absolute radical nature of it—impermanence so profound and far reaching there cannot be any fixed notion of the self.".
    Full interview here:
    buddhistinquiry.org
    Back to the Source

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    • André A. Pais
    Admin
    The nature of mind is supposed to be beyond affirmation and denial. Being stuck on affirming it is as bad as being stuck on denying it.
    Impermanence is a relative teaching (ultimately, all are), because if there is no arising, abiding or ceasing, there can't be any "evanescence" either.
    (Even if there is no Evanescence, they still dropped a few good albums back in the days! 😎)


    • Bartek Nowacki
    Author
    There is no absolute point of view.


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    • Soh Wei Yu
    Admin
    While many teachers and students may reify rigpa, rigpa is not reified in original dzogchen texts and teachings:
    A Letter to Almaas on Dzogchen and Longchenpa
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    • Soh Wei Yu
    Admin
    The alaya of mahayana sutras is also not a reified entity.
    Thrangu rinpoche explains in his book “pointing out the dharmakaya”:
    “The Seventh and Eighth Consciousnesses
    Previously, we looked at the first six consciousnesses: the eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, tactile con- sciousness, and mental consciousness. Five of these, the consciousnesses of the five gates or five senses, are obviously intimately connected with the physi- cal body, as they rely upon particular organic supports in order to function. These experiences of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling are gen- erated in dependence upon the physical body. Even the sixth consciousness, which is, in a sense, less physically oriented, is still intimately connected with
    the body in the way we experience it.
    It is the seventh and eighth consciousnesses that we might take to be fun-
    damentally different from the body. The seventh consciousness is called the consciousness that is mental affliction; the eighth consciousness is called the alaya consciousness. The eighth consciousness, the alaya, is called that because it is itself the ground of consciousness. It is that mere cognitive lucid- ity which is the fundamental level of consciousness.
    Earlier, the terms “unstable consciousnesses” and “stable consciousnesses” were mentioned. Unstable means a consciousness that is generated when var- ious causes and conditions come together and subsequently vanishes when those causes and conditions are no longer present together. The first six con- sciousnesses are like that. The seventh and eighth are stable, which does not mean permanent, but means they are continuous. They never stop func- tioning.
    The eighth consciousness in particular, the alaya consciousness is subtle, not obvious; it never becomes more obvious, and it never simply disappears or ceases to function altogether. Nor is it permanent, because it is not the same consciousness that passes through time. For example, the alaya con- sciousness of last year, of last month, of yesterday, like the five conscious- nesses or six consciousnesses that were generated at those times, has ceased to exist. Nevertheless, the habits of those consciousnesses and the habits of the actions performed at those times have been retained in the continuity of the alaya; therefore, in each moment, the alaya consciousness retains those habits. Eventually the results of these karmas, these actions and habits, arise or emerge as form, much like the way that, at night, when we’re dreaming, the images and habits stored in the daytime emerge as dream images. What emerges from the alaya consciousness arises as both body and mind, the expe- rience of a body and the experience of a mind.
    The alaya consciousness retains the particular habits that are implanted through one’s actions and habituation throughout time, as well as the begin- ningless habit of ignorance. All of these habits that are stored in the alaya con- sciousness re-emerge from it in the form of various appearances. That is how the eighth consciousness functions, how it projects appearances.
    The seventh consciousness is called the consciousness which is mental affliction, or the afflicted consciousness; essentially, it is fixation on a self. The seventh consciousness is that faculty which fixates on the cognitive aspect of the alaya consciousness and mistakes it to be “I,” or a self. On the basis of mistakenly fixating upon that awareness aspect of the alaya consciousness as a “self,” it designates “others” as well. That’s why it’s called the consciousness which is mental affliction because this duality between self and other is the
    root of all mental affliction, or klesha. This is not the same as when we con- sciously think “I.” That happens on the level of the sixth consciousness. The seventh consciousness is stable, which is to say, it is constant; it is always there. Whether you recollect yourself or not, whether you think of yourself or not, there is a fixation on this imputed self that is always there, whether you’re eating, talking, in the midst of activity, no matter what you’re doing; and it never stops.
    The alaya consciousness arises as apprehended objects and an apprehend- ing subject. The seventh consciousness fixates on the appearance of the appre- hending subject as a self and, then, on the appearances of apprehended objects as other. In that way, through the action of these consciousnesses, the appearances of body and mind arise as distinct from one another, in the sense that the body appears as an apprehended object, while the mind appears as an apprehending subject. They’re distinct in appearing that way, but they’re not, in fact, different from one another, since they are merely two aspects of a single appearance that arises through the projection of the alaya conscious- ness. In that sense, as well, they are beyond being the same or different.”

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