Soh Wei Yu
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Tommy McNally "I still disagree that anything exits the body in those experiences, but I accept that we may just be using different language to describe extremely subtle states." Well said.
From 2006 Forum posts of John Tan
http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/.../part-2-of-early...
Thusness:From a conventional point of view, it is. If we feel, see, hear and think in terms of ‘entity’, then it seems that there is a ‘self’ leaving the body. This is because all along, we experience all phenomenon appearances as ‘solid things’ existing independently. Such conventional mode of comprehending our meditative experiences masked the true character of these experiences.
If we treat consciousness to be an atomic-like-particle residing in our body somewhere, then we are making it as a self too. Do not do that. The true character of Consciousness is not a thing, it does not enter, leave, reside within or outside the body. Clear Luminosity is bonded by karmic propensities, causes and conditions. There is no need for a place ‘within’. Yes, there is a ‘mental phenomenon’ arising but the sensation of ‘entering’ and ‘leaving’ is the result of associating it with a ‘self’. Just like it is illusionary to see a ‘self’ succeeding from moment to moment, an ‘entrance’ and ‘exit’ is equally illusionary.
Mystical experiences are extremely crucial during the journey of enlightenment. Do not discard them unwisely but assign them correct places. These experiences loosen karmic bonds that latent deep down in our consciousness where it is almost impossible to break through ordinary means. It is an essential condition for the awakening of penetrating insight. The main different between non Buddhist and Buddhist practitioners is that transcendental and mystical experiences are not molded into a ‘self’ but correctly understood and purified with the wisdom of emptiness. This applies true to the Luminous Clarity Knowingness that is non-dual, it is not wrongly personified into Brahman. In perfect clarity, there are no praises for radiance bright, only the Dharma is in sight. The wisdom of emptiness is so deep and profound that even if one has entered the realm of non-dual, he/she will still not be able to grasp its essence in full. This is the wisdom of the Blessed One. The second level of Presence. Smile
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Thusness:
Interesting site...
In most religions and mystical path, the dissolving of the 'Self' is necessary for the experience of the divine. The 'self' is always experienced as the ultimate block that prevents one from experiencing the transcendental. Glimpses of the beyond arise when we are able to go beyond labels and concepts.
I respect her experience but would just like to add some comments:
On the experience of “AMness”:
The key when the ‘I’ drops away lies in “fusing into everything”. Without this experience, it is still resting in “I AM”, there is no breakthrough. Even with the experience of “fusing into all things”, it remains as a stage having an entry and exit point. To experience pathless that is without entry and exit point is where the doctrine of anatta and emptiness steps in.
On the unchanging self:
"It is strange that when people want to know their real self, they start looking at relative bunches of ever changing concepts. Reality is that which underlies relativity. Reality is unchanging.
We must ask ourselves: “What is the only unchanging reality of our life? What is the only phenomenon that has never changed since we were born?”
The answer can readily be experienced when we close our eyes and go introspective. It is our sense of BEING. Our I AM-ness. Everybody can always experience the sense that they exist. That inner sense never changes and is there if we are happy, angry, sad, drunk,- whatever. Further, it cannot be localized within any part of the body. It is limitless and experienced by everyone the same way. It is infinite REALITY!"
When observing moment to moment changes, it is almost natural to conclude this way. There must be an unchanging observer observing change is a logical deduction. It is the result of the lightning flash changes, logical deduction and memories that create the impression of an unchanging entity. There is continuity, but continuity with an unchanging entity is not necessary.
On feeling lightness and experiencing ‘astral traveling’:
"My own experience is that the density of the body seems to change. Years ago I experienced the phenomena of ‘astral traveling.’ During this experience you have the feeling of leaving the coarser body and floating. At some stage you have to return to the body, and the feeling is not very pleasant. You are going from a feeling of freedom and ‘lightness’ back into what feels like cold, dense, clay. This ‘clay’ is the collective emotions, experiences, and holding of the body. After some AMness has fallen away, the body feels lighter and less dense. You just keep feeling lighter and freer."
The “density” and “lightness” is the weight of “losing her identification with certain aspect of the self”. The power of this “identification” cannot be underestimated.
Next is her experience of ‘astral traveling’, if she is in a stage of absorption and then out of a sudden awareness, the eyes of awareness may allow her to witness something that is altogether different from the physical place but this does not necessary mean that ‘consciousness’ has left and re-enter the body. Consciousness is propelled by causes and conditions. According to her conditions of absorption and clarity, just IS.
But then everyone has their own experiences. Just my 2 cents. Smile

AWAKENINGTOREALITY.COM
Part 2 of Early Forum Posts by Thusness
Part 2 of Early Forum Posts by Thusness
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Soh Wei Yu
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2007:
(12:37 AM) Thusness: if u practice soul travel it is always different
(12:37 AM) AEN: btw ppl like buddha boy... the way he practise only leads to jhana isnt it
(12:37 AM) Thusness: but u will still get tired.
(12:37 AM) AEN: oic
(12:38 AM) AEN: btw wats soul travel for
(12:38 AM) AEN: isit astral projection? wat is it used for
(12:38 AM) Thusness: i c it as a form of remote viewing.
(12:38 AM) AEN: oic
(12:38 AM) Thusness: coz to me consciousness is non local.
(12:38 AM) AEN: icic
(12:38 AM) AEN: then they use it for wat.. haha
(12:38 AM) AEN: communicate with other beings?
(12:38 AM) Thusness: i don't like to tok about non locality.
(12:39 AM) Thusness: told u liao.
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“Dogen is saying that the act is polishing the tile, doing zazen, polishing the mirror. It's a particular use of of the idea of polishing, and he says "We don't polish it because there is dust on the mirror." This is our usual way of thinking about what we do in practice. Again, it's almost unavoidable that we create a contrast between clarity and confusion in our sitting. We want at some basic level our mind to settle down, to quiet down, retreat, with thoughts as noise and emotion as dust, as if they’re clouding the mirror with a contaminant that practice is going to wipe away, so that once and for all there will be clarity, silence, emptiness, whatever you say to yourself. Yet the basic work of practice is not eliminating dust, but eliminating the dichotomy between dust and clarity. To see the dust as empty, to see the content of our mind as empty is to eliminate the very notion the very idea of dust as something that can soil, contaminate our mind.

For Dogen, polishing the tile or polishing the mirror in doing zazen is an act of expression, not an act of transformation. In a certain sense, he's saying we polish the tile the way we polish the old silver. We polish the tile the way we might polish that old 1957 Corvette we wish we had in the driveway. We would just keep it clean and polished and in perfect shape all the time, not because we were going to turn it into something else by all that care or polish, but the activity of cleaning it will reveal it for what it is, will allow us, even as polish it, to enjoy, appreciate and know it's nature.


I think it's probably very basic in Japanese Zen that when they talk about appreciating something for its own sake, they usually manifest that by cleaning it. I mean the basic activity of work practice in a zendo is cleaning something. It's wiping down the floors and the walls in the kitchen and the bathroom, just endless, endless cleaning. And it's not really the kind of cleaning that is to be contrasted with things being dirty, because very often when they wipe down the floor in the zendo, it's already as shiny and clean as you can imagine, and yet we clean it one more time. The cleaning is an act of appreciation and attention that means we're getting down there on our hands and knees and touching and feeling, stroking, caressing the floor in our cleaning. We're really appreciating the feel, the texture, the substance of the floor. We're appreciating it's floor-ness, we're not just getting rid of the dirt.

Zazen is analogous to that. It's an act of appreciation. It's a kind of polishing the car, because we have enormous love and respect for the craftsmanship and the style of this old piece of machinery, and all we want to do is show it reverence in the intention we give it. This is something like the notion of polishing in zazen. It's an expression of appreciation for who and what we are, who and what this moment is, dissolving of any kind of dichotomy between our ordinary mind and Buddha nature and enlightenment. In that very act of sitting and appreciating and being, practice and enlightenment become one thing. In the action itself of polishing, the realization of Buddha and the actualization of the mirror, these become what they are through our participation and engagement.

So Baso, when he hears Nangaku say, "How can you become Buddha by practicing zazen? How can you make a mirror by polishing a tile?" he achieves great enlightenment, and then what does he do? He sits down again in zazen, continues to polish the tile, and continues to polish the mirror.”

• Zen teacher Barry Magid

We think so often of a kind of verticality, of a mask on the outside, a false self on the outside, a true self deep inside, but as Merton is saying here, it wants to go back against all this fantasy of oh, I've got this precious true self deep inside. True self is moment after moment after moment. Instead of cultivating the fantasy that your true self is identified with some special state we cultivate in zazen, maybe your true self is the way you treated your partner this morning. Maybe your true self is how you were to the person next to you on the subway. We don't really want that to be our true self. That's our basic dilemma and in a certain sense, it's why we create a lot of metaphysical and transcendental stuff to believe in. We want to create this curative fantasy of purity and perfection and we treat our practice as if it is a purification project but it's not that at all. If anything, it's the opposite: it's allowing us to really stay with all the things we came here to avoid. To want to find your true self, your original face, you don't have to go farther than the bathroom mirror.

• Zen teacher Barry Magid

........................

“Yes Zen is about ordinary experience, yet you must understand what is meant by ordinary mind. The ordinary mind is the mind of anatta. If we pretend to be ordinary and try to 'look' for expression of ordinariness then we are deluded. If we fail to realize that true ordinariness comes from the realization of anatta and mistaken the finger for the moon, we are deluded. Without the insight of anatta, how could we ever understand the essence of being natural, effortless and ordinary? This is what Buddhism meant by ordinary.

Yet I have seen people going after 'ordinariness', trying to be 'nothing special', attempting to look for expression of ordinariness. That is why for (Soh: I believe he meant certain misguided/deluded) zen practitioners, they will not understand the seven phases of experience. They are caught up by 'forms', by the stages of the ox herding and missed the insight.