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Soh
Always happy to hear of breakthroughs like this (my efforts to inform people in reddit in just these two short years seems to have led to a number of genuine anatman breakthroughs so far, so I recommend everyone to spare no effort in spreading the message whenever and wherever possible, in skillful ways. Even if it does not bear fruit today, it can bear fruit in 1 or 2 years, who knows):
Fishskull3
Today
Hey!! We talked two years ago where you told me about your blog AtR (Awakening to Reality: https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/). I read it back then but didn’t fully appreciate the immense value of the creation that you and thusness brought forth. At that time I was sitting in this weird phase that was halfway point between One Mind and Anatta but I didn’t fully realize it, so I just brushed off your maps instead (Soh: I believe he's referring to John Tan's 7 Stages https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html ). I kept practicing because I assumed I just needed more time to integrate and maybe I did.
It wasn’t until a few days ago when I happened to stop by your blog again and read the two stanzas (Soh: the two stanzas of anatta/no-self can be found in John Tan's article https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html ) and contemplated it where the last subtle bits of the “conceiving a background” collapsed effortlessly and I was shocked. I sat with it some more and in my trekchod practice I could tell there was still some mental construct I was subtly reifying so I kept reading a page here and there.
And then today when I was on the toilet (lmao) I read this passage by Andre:
“When looking at the apple and orange resting on the table, the presence of the apple refers to a somewhat separate instance of “luminosity”, while the orange refers to another instance, or manifestation, of “luminosity”. They are not the same luminosity or the same awareness, because there is no overarching awareness enveloping, controlling, owning or pervading the display of appearances.” (Soh: I believe this is from this article by André A. Pais https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2018/11/beyond-awareness.html 8) Beyond Awareness: reflections on identity and awareness)
I realized immediately that my issue was I was creating this mental construct of the “foreground” experience being a single unified awareness and it immediately dropped away and it was just the luminosity of appearances.
I just wanted to say thank you for absolute treasure you and everyone else have created with this blog. I greatly appreciate it.
It wasn’t until a few days ago when I happened to stop by your blog again and read the two stanzas (Soh: the two stanzas of anatta/no-self can be found in John Tan's article https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html ) and contemplated it where the last subtle bits of the “conceiving a background” collapsed effortlessly and I was shocked. I sat with it some more and in my trekchod practice I could tell there was still some mental construct I was subtly reifying so I kept reading a page here and there.
And then today when I was on the toilet (lmao) I read this passage by Andre:
“When looking at the apple and orange resting on the table, the presence of the apple refers to a somewhat separate instance of “luminosity”, while the orange refers to another instance, or manifestation, of “luminosity”. They are not the same luminosity or the same awareness, because there is no overarching awareness enveloping, controlling, owning or pervading the display of appearances.” (Soh: I believe this is from this article by André A. Pais https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2018/11/beyond-awareness.html 8) Beyond Awareness: reflections on identity and awareness)
I realized immediately that my issue was I was creating this mental construct of the “foreground” experience being a single unified awareness and it immediately dropped away and it was just the luminosity of appearances.
I just wanted to say thank you for absolute treasure you and everyone else have created with this blog. I greatly appreciate it.
xabir 8:27 PM
Thats good.. would you say both stanzas are clear experientially for you?
Are you in our atr group btw?
Yeah I would say both stanzas are experientially true. I would also say understanding anatta as a dharma seal and not a stage is what made it very evident on its own accord.
And no I am not, I wouldn’t mind joining though
xabir 8:43 PM
How is your experience now?
Do you relate with this:
Partial excerpts from https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2023/05/nice-advice-and-expression-of-anatta-in.html
What is experiential insight
👍
Yin Ling:
When we say experiential insight in Buddhism,
It means..
A literal transformation of energetic orientation of the whole being, down to the marrow.
The sound MUST literally hears themselves.
No hearer.
Clean. Clear.
A bondage from the head here to there cut off overnight.
Then gradually the rest of the 5 senses.
Then one can talk about Anatta.
So if for you,
Does sound hear themselves?
If no, not yet. You have to keep going! Inquire and meditate.
You haven’t reach the basic insight requirement for the deeper insights like anatta and emptiness yet!
Yin Ling:
Yin Ling: “Realisation is when
This insight goes down to the marrow and you don’t need even a minute amount of effort for sound to hear themselves.
It is like how you live with dualistic perception now, very normal, no effort.
Ppl with Anatta realisation live in Anatta effortlessly, without using thinking to orient. It’s their life.
They cannot even go back to dualistic perception because that is an imputation, it js uprooted
At first you might need to purposely orient with some effort.
Then at one point there is no need.. further along, dreams will become Anatta too.
That’s experiential realisation.
There’s no realisation unless this benchmark is achieved!”
......
"Soh:
what is important is that there is experiential realisation that leads
to an energetic expansion outwards into all the forms, sounds, radiant
universe... such that it is not that you are in here, in the body,
looking outwards at the tree, listening the birds chirping from here
it is just the trees are vividly swaying in and of itself, luminously
without an observer
the trees sees themselves
the sounds hear itself
there is no location from which they are experienced, no vantage point
the energetic expansion outward into vivid manifestation, boundless, yet
it is not an expansion from a center, there is just no center
without such energetic shift it is not really the real experience of no
selfxabir Snoovatar" - https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2022/12/the-difference-between-experience-of.html
The atr group is here, you are welcomed to join :) https://www.facebook.com/groups/AwakeningToReality
xabir 8:56 PM
Also i see you are into dzogcheb
Dzogchen
Do you have a teacher in dzogchen?
Yeah I do relate with that, I would say my experience now is best described as a collection of self-luminous appearances that are unsubstantiated
Yes, Lama Lena, but not in the way where we are in communication with one another
xabir 8:58 PM
I see. I recommend acarya malcolm smith and kyle dixon for dzogchen teachings and materials
Shared recently to someone:
Krodha who posted in your thread has realised anatman and emptiness (thusness stages 5 to 7)
Shared recently with someone:
“It does come. Mahayana stream entry is first bhumi as Malcolm said
Also his student kyle dixon (krodha) shared his awakening:
https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2014/10/advise-from-kyle_10.html
This is a good read too
He is the dzogchen subreddit main admin Krodha
He made me a moderator too but i seldom participate
Malcolm told me over dinner years ago that kyle was the first to totally understand his teachings
Kyle Dixon also shared back in 2020 how Dzogchen practice led to his anatman and emptiness realizations:
Also tell John yes Dzogchen practice is resting in moment of unfabricated consciousness in sense gates, with mindfulness and awareness that directly hit thought as it arises and then is not distracted by thought
👍1
Then also direct perception of vidyā
The first will lead to anatta realization, the second two fold emptiness
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It is now subject and object are recognized as empty
But also the semdzins
Can expedite insight
Seeing through thought is how anatta occurred for me
The Rig Pa Rang Shar says, as thought arise (shar grol) then as one gets more familiar in the practice thought arise by themselves (rang grol) and finally in realization as if they never arose in the first place (ye grol)
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Non-arising of thought is what led to insight of no background for me and then whole intense realization
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Time is held together by thought and substratum delusion of background knower”
“Krodha who posts regularly in reddit and also posted in your thread is also very clear and has similar anatman and emptiness realisations.
Kyle Dixon ( https://www.reddit.com/user/krodha/ ), who Dzogchen teacher Acarya Malcolm told me over dinner was his first student to understand his teachings, wrote:
"'Self luminous' and 'self knowing' are concepts which are used to convey the absence of a subjective reference point which is mediating the manifestation of appearance. Instead of a subjective cognition or knower which is 'illuminating' objective appearances, it is realized that the sheer exertion of our cognition has always and only been the sheer exertion of appearance itself. Or rather that cognition and appearance are not valid as anything in themselves. Since both are merely fabricated qualities neither can be validated or found when sought. This is not a union of subject and object, but is the recognition that the subject and object never arose in the first place [advaya]. ", "The cognition is empty. That is what it means to recognize the nature of mind [sems nyid]. The clarity [cognition] of mind is recognized to be empty, which is sometimes parsed as the inseparability of clarity and emptiness, or nondual clarity and emptiness." - Kyle Dixon, 2014
John Tan/Thusness and I also attended Dzogchen teacher Acarya Malcolm Smith’s teachings online https://www.zangthal.com/
Also Malcolm’s writings can be found here https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2014/02/clarifications-on-dharmakaya-and-basis_16.html
Krodha expressed his anatman realisation and experience here: https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2014/10/advise-from-kyle_10.html
I gathered from your posts you may have a breakthrough to realise the clarity aspect (atr calls I AM), but as malcolm and kyle said that is a preliminary insight https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2020/09/the-degrees-of-rigpa.html “
Yeah I have acarya Malcom’s self arising and self liberating translations. Both of those people seem very knowledgeable
xabir 9:00 PM
Their expressions are very consistent with the anatta and emptiness insights
So much so that i created a scraping program to scrape and compile all their writings into pdfs
https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2014/10/advise-from-kyle_10.html - see if you can relate to this by kyle with your newfound insight
Btw do you mind if i share what you said today into the atr blog? :)
Yeah I can definitely relate with what I’ve experexperienced so far. I will also say that Trekchod has become effortless and has basically been happening on its own ever since. Whereas before it was still slightly contrived
Please feel free :)
I can definitely relate with that in what I’ve experienced so far***
