(Note: This article was originally written in 2011 when I was 21. It has been lightly edited for English flow in 2025.)

The Question

Soh's Reply

Hi, u/krodha (Kyle Dixon) directed me to this post... I think I will share my 2 cents.

There are different degrees of self/Self. I can elaborate a lot of them -- you can find these elaborations on my blog and (free) guide - The Awakening to Reality Practice Guide. But in this post I will just summarise them.

There are three main degrees or aspects of self/Self and no-self/Self experience, although each of them has different degrees of refinement in terms of insight + experience:

1. No-self as 'Non-doership'

You no longer feel like a doer or controller, all thoughts and actions are just happening spontaneously on its own accord. You see that even your thoughts and emotions are not from a doer, you can't even know what your next moment of thought is, it just happens. When you are thirsty, the hand just grabs the drink on its own accord and the body just gulps down the drink.

A more refined level of non-doership is what I call 'impersonality'. Impersonality is not just an experience of non-doership. It is the dissolving of the construct of 'personal self' that led to a purging of ego effect to a state of clean, pure, not-mine sort of "perception shift", accompanied with a sense that everything and everyone is being expressions of the same aliveness/intelligence/consciousness. This can then be easily extrapolated into a sense of a 'universal source' (but this is merely an extrapolation and at a later phase is deconstructed) and one will also experience 'being lived' by this greater Life and Intelligence.

Impersonality will help dissolve the sense of self but it has the danger of making one attached to a metaphysical essence or to personify, reify and extrapolate a universal consciousness. Deeper insights into anatta and emptiness will dissolve this tendency to reify and extrapolate.

Also, I should also mention that there is another insight or realization -- and this is not the same as non-doership but rather the realization of one's luminous essence as Pure Presence and Clarity. Someone who has experienced non-doership does not necessarily realize that one's very Beingness, Presence-Awareness, that I AMness -- that remains even without engaging in concepts/thinking. It is when at a moment where all engagement in thoughts subside, in that gap, there is this sudden realization of doubtless Existence itself, that even without a thought, just I/Existence/Consciousness. And you realize that is the Luminous core of Existence itself. It is consciousness, pure beingness and bliss.

This realization is often reified into the Atman but I consider this realization precious and important and a progression from mere non-doership, but on later realizations below will get refined, especially with realization of anatta. Realization of anatta in point 3) sees the nature of this Presence-Awareness, not by denying it but properly comprehending it - its non-inherent, empty and non-dual nature of that Presence-Awareness (also its nondual aspect does not imply realizing its empty nature, but I will not elaborate too much yet).

But basically if you have this realization, you will not end up sounding so nihilistic because you have discovered a very positive luminous core of Existence. Also, after this realization, you feel like an infinite Ground of Being underlying all your thoughts and in fact the entire world. When you jog across the streets, no longer do you see yourself as a person relating to objects out there, rather, all objects and trees and people and scenery actually emerge and subside and 'pass through' from within that Ground of Being, much like the projections of a movie merely 'pass through' the screen. You no longer feel like someone that pass by things, rather your body and mind, the scenery and objects are merely 'projected from' and 'pass by' within unmoved Beingness.

About this realization, John Tan also wrote before:

“Hi Mr. H,

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. There will come a time when 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 samantha. Intuit the total exertion and realization. The essence of message must be raw and uncontaminated by words.

Hope that helps!” - John Tan, 2019

However someone who realize non-doership may not yet realize that Presence-Awareness, so doing self-enquiry (asking Who/What am I?) can help one going into that direction. The I AM realization is also important, and can serve as an important base for further insights, as explained in Anatta and Pure Presence. To realize I AM, the most direct method is Self-Inquiry, asking yourself 'Before birth, Who am I?' or just 'Who am I?' See: What is your very Mind right now?, and the self-inquiry chapter in The Awakening to Reality Practice Guide.

It is actually very important to have the direct realization of one's radiance, one's pristine consciousness or pure Presence. Without which, one's experience of no-self will be skewed to non-doership and one will not experience pellucid non-dual luminosity. That is not considered genuine realization of anatman in AtR.

2. No-self as penetrating the subject/object dichotomy

This relates to the sense of being an internal subjective perceiver perceiving the world of objects in the senses. In other words, normal people feel deeply that they are relating to the world from behind their own eyes, as someone perceiving an 'outside world' of trees and people and objects and so on...

It should be understood and noted that someone who has experienced the non-doership or even impersonality aspect of no-self in 1), may not experience non-duality in 2). In other words, one can still experience everything happening on its own accord, but still feel like a dissociated observer detached from things happening on their own.

Now, the dissolution of subject-object/perceiver-perceived dichotomy can happen as an experience, which is transient, short-lived peak experiences, or it can happen as a realization which leads to stabilization of non-dual experience.

In describing such a peak experience, Michael Jackson wrote:

“Consciousness expresses itself through creation. This world we live in is the dance of the creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye but the dance lives on. On many an occasion when I am dancing, I have felt touched by something sacred. In those moments, I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists.

I become the stars and the moon. I become the lover and the beloved. I become the victor and the vanquished. I become the master and the slave. I become the singer and the song. I become the knower and the known. I keep on dancing then it is the eternal dance or creation. The creator and creation merge into one wholeness of joy. I keep on dancing...and dancing...and dancing. Until there is only...the dance.”

However, what is described here is still merely an experience. An experience of non-duality, but not the realisation. Such experiences come and go.

But all these experiences come and go, until a paradigm shift takes place in consciousness where one suddenly realizes that the truth about reality or consciousness is that there never was a subject and object division, that consciousness was in truth never from the beginning ever divided into a perceiver and perceived, consciousness and its display, that they were never separate to begin with.

Such a realization can however be divided into two types:

• a) substantialist/essentialist non-duality
• b) non-substantialist/non-essentialist non-duality (The realization of anatta, proper)

Regarding a): Such a person may have realized that their consciousness was never divided from manifestations, that all manifestations are none other than consciousness itself. However the karmic (deep conditioning) tendency to conceive of consciousness as an inherently existing, unchanging source and substratum of phenomena, remains... Hinduism can get as far to this point.

3. No-Self as Realization of Anatta

But then there is b), where one realizes that not only is it the case that all forms are merely modulations of consciousness, in actual fact 'Awareness' or 'Consciousness' is truly and only Everything -- in other words, there is no 'Awareness' or 'Consciousness' besides the very luminous manifestation of the aggregates, whatever is seen, heard, sensed, touched, cognized, smelled...

Anatta is not merely a freeing of personality sort of experience; rather, there is an insight into the complete lack of a self/agent, a doer, a thinker, a watcher, etc, cannot be found apart from the moment to moment flow of manifestation. Non-duality is thoroughly seen to be always already so: here is effortlessness in the non-dual and one realizes that in seeing there is always just scenery (no seer or even seeing besides the colors) and in hearing, always just sounds (never a hearer or even a hearing besides the sounds). A very important point here is that Anatta/No-Self is a Dharma Seal, it is the nature of Reality all the time.

To illustrate further due to the importance of this seal, I would like to borrow a quote from the Bahiya Sutta:

‘in the seeing, there is just the seen, no seer’, ‘in the hearing, there is just the heard, no hearer’…

Non-doership is just one of the aspects of anatta, by itself it is not the anatta realization. (Thusness Stage 5: "...Phase 5 is quite thorough in being no one and I would call this anatta in all 3 aspects -- no subject/object division, no doer-ship and absence of agent...") One can experience non-doership during the I AM phase, or for some people even before the I AM realization. Hence non-doership is not equivalent with anatta realization.

It is my estimate that when someone says they have broken through to no-self, 95% to 99% of the time they are referring to impersonality or non-doership, not even non dual, let alone the true realization of anatman (Buddhism's no-self dharma seal). For those that claimed insight into no-self, I usually ask them to check their experience against this: "What is experiential insight"

Also.. “Sound hearing themselves, sights see themselves” etc. That's just nondual. A state of no mind. This is not yet the realisation of anatman. Whats more important is the realization of anatta as a dharma seal and which sees through the referents of inherent view.

As I wrote before:

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Distinguishing No-Mind, One Mind, and Anatta

In the past, many years ago, I visited a Zen center in Geylang many times, whose master is a very famous Korean Zen master with many established dharma centers throughout the world, who passed away in the early 2000s. I found his writings quite resonating because he was able to express simply and articulately the state of no-mind. I read many books by him. He even said things like, "your true self has no outside, no inside. Sound is clear mind, clear mind is sound. Sound and hearing are not separate, there is only sound.", and so on.

However I was dismayed to find out later that he was having the experience of no mind but the view of one mind, meaning that he has not had the realisation of anatman that penetrated the view of inherent existence. As a result, despite his nondual experience, he was still unable to overcome the view of an inherently existing one substance modulating as many, which is the view of substantiated nonduality (nondual based on substance or essence view). I only realised this after reading in more details his views and writings and found an article where he expressed that Dharma-nature is the universal substance which everything in the universe is composed, is an unchanging substance that is formless like h2o but can appear as rain, snow, fog, vapor, river, sea, sleet, and ice, and everything is different forms of the same universal and unchanging substance.

It is clear to me that he experiences nondual and no-mind, but what he said above is still precisely reifying an ontological, universal, one, indivisible and unchanging source and substratum that is the "one without a second" manifesting as many. This is having a view of inherent existence pertaining to a metaphysical source and substratum even though it is nondual with phenomena.

I informed John Tan the above in 2018 and he replied, “To me yes. Mistaken experience due to lack of view. That is Zen's problem imo. No mind is an experience. Insight of anatta must arise, then refine one's view." (This is a general trend but there are many Zen masters with clear view and deep realisations too)

Another American Zen writer, whose books I have enjoyed reading and found to be quite resonating in many ways, because he was able to express the experience of no-mind and what I call Maha total exertion. He wrote that the Buddha mind is mountains, rivers, and the earth, the sun, moon, and stars. And that "In the state of authentic practice and enlightenment, the cold kills you, and there is only cold in the whole universe. The heat kills you, and there is only heat in the whole universe. The fragrance of incense kills you, and there is only the fragrance of incense in the whole universe. The sound of the bell kills you, and there is only “boooong” in the whole universe…" This is a good expression of no mind.

However, later on, upon further reading, I was disappointed to find out that he is still lacking realization into anatman, and hence did not go beyond the view of one mind yet having no mind experience. He continued to assert that "Objects of mind come and go in an endless stream, contents of awareness arise and cease – mind or awareness is the unchanging realm in which objects come and go, the immutable dimension wherein the contents of awareness arise and cease", and although he sees awareness as unchanging while all phenomena are changing, he insists awareness is nondual with phenomena: "In short, reality is nondual (not-two), thus everything in reality is an intrinsic aspect or element of that one reality."

It is clear that despite his nondual experience up to no mind, the view of inherent existence is very strong, and subtly dual. The desync between view and experience persists. It is having the atman view of an unchanging and inherently existing one reality yet being nondual with everything. I could go on and on and cite countless other teachers and practitioners, whether Buddhist or non-Buddhist, that are having this problem, because it is very common.

This is why anatta is not just the experience of no-mind, or a nondual experience, or even the realisation of the non-division between subject and object, perceiver and perceived, hearing and sound. Many practitioners and teachers unfortunately mistaken it to be so. It should instead be a realization that sees throughs, cuts through the view of inherent existence of a source/substratum/awareness. It is the realization that only vivid luminous manifestation knows and rolls without ever a knower or an agent, much like there is no wind that is the agent of blowing or lightning that is the agent of flash (both are just dependent designations and mere names）, and also there is no ontological or metaphysical essence that exists in any way or form.

So after breakthrough from I AM to nondual, it is crucial to get out of “one substance” view and phase through the realization of anatman. Even this is just a start.

In recent weeks more people realized anatman in my blog and I have been guiding them into deeper insights into dependent origination and emptiness. However, genuine insights of emptiness and dependent origination cannot be understood without deep understanding of our consciousness, our empty clarity. I generally do not confuse people too much on dependent origination and emptiness until they are thoroughly clear about the realization of anatta through the two stanzas, the 2 authentications of anatta, because that is the base. Everything is empty of inherent existence but vividly clear and radiant, everything appears because it is all radiance of clarity. Therefore to have deep insight, the direct authentication of one's radiance and clarity is crucial. Anatman realization is key.

In the first stanza, the background subject, agent, watcher, doer is seen through, everything is spontaneous arising. In the second stanza, seeing is just the seen, one’s radiance clarity and presence-awareness is directly authenticated as all appearances, as all mountains, rivers, the great earth.

Both stanzas are equally important. Lacking this direct authentication of radiance as all vivid appearance, this powerful taste and insight of all transience as Presence-Awareness, is not what I call an authentic realization of anatman. It can be either an intellectual understanding, or still skewed towards non-doership, not yet nondual and anatta. Yet even if one has the realization of awareness as vivid appearance, it can still fall into substantialist nondual, so one must be careful to deepen insight and see through any remaining views and sense of an inherently existing and unchanging awareness.

The two authentications of anatta are like what I wrote earlier:

It's late here and this post is getting way too long and I will address some of your issues regarding non-doership in a separate post tomorrow.

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Clarifications on Non-Doership and Action

The next day, I wrote more:

After describing the different facets of self/Self and no-self/Self, I'll dwell a little into the pitfalls and misunderstandings of non-doership and no-self. Someone who goes through non-doership experiences spontaneity and a sense of freedom to a certain degree, yet it often comes with a great deal of confusion that only gets cleared up with deeper insights or pointers.

One possible pitfall is that one could end up with a confused understanding of no-self and non-action.

No-self/Anatta is not about denying thinking, action, carrying water and chopping wood... and this is the key difference between genuine anatta insight from dualistic conceptual understanding. The very notion that "action" and "intention" implies, or necessitates, an "actor", and therefore for non-action the intentions and actions must also cease, is precisely using dualistic thinking to understanding anatta...

Action never required a self (in fact there never was a self or a doer apart from action to begin with: only a delusion of one), and action does not need to perpetuate the myth of a self.

When one is operating with a dualistic way of understanding, one thinks that action implies a self that is doing an act, and one thinks that non-action implies that the self ends with the action. But genuine insight into non-action is simply the realization that never was there a real actor behind action, so there is always in acting just that action - whole being is only the total exertion of action, and this is always already the case but not realized. That is true non-action - there is no subject (actor) performing an act (object).

Dogen calls this practice-enlightenment. You do not practice For enlightenment (as some future goal separated from you). Your very practice of actualizing insight of anatta itself is practice-enlightenment. Sitting down is practice is actualization is Buddha-nature is enlightenment. Shitting too can be practice/actualization and that very act is Buddha-nature is enlightenment.

Also, as John Tan/Thusness said many years ago:

“Nihilistic tendencies arise when the insight of anatta is skewed towards the no-doership aspect. The happening by itself must be correctly understood. It appears that things are accomplished by doing nothing but in actual case it is things get done due to ripening of action and conditions.
So the lack of self-nature does not imply nothing needs be done or nothing can be done. That is one extreme. At the other end of extreme is the self-nature of perfect control of what one wills, one gets. Both are seen to be false. Action + conditions leads to effect.”

After maturing of anatta one feels great energy coursing through one's body and even one's complexions naturally radiates the joy and luminosity that is experienced. I remember one of the first things John Tan/Thusness asked someone many years ago after that person described certain insight of no-self and non-doership, he asked, "has zealous energy arisen?" and commented, "Advisable to bring the insight of anatta into the active mode."

This non-dual action eventually matures into total exertion, which is emphasized in certain teachings like Soto Zen and Zen Master Dogen. Total exertion is like when you are eating, the whole universe is eating. When you walk, the whole sky and mountains walks with you.

Zen Master Bernie Glassman said:

“At its deepest, most basic level, Zen—or any spiritual path, for that matter—is much more than a list of what we can get from it. In fact, Zen is the realization of the oneness of life in all its aspects. It’s not just the pure or “spiritual” part of life: it’s the whole thing. It’s flowers, mountains, rivers, streams, and the inner city and homeless children on Forty-second Street... Zen is life—our life. It’s coming to the realization that all things are nothing but expressions of myself. And myself is nothing but the full expression of all things. It’s a life without limits.”

“What you said is very good. I was reminded of a discussion I just had with Thusness about a new book by Tony Parsons called "This Freedom".

I asked Thusness what freedom is. Freedom is not doing what one likes, that would be still self-view. It is also not just simply being unentangled within the paradigm of duality of subject/object, life/death division. The realization of anatta and emptiness relinquishes the self and reified constructs, consequently artificial boundaries and hindrance are also dissolved.

When artificial constructs are dissolved, the natural, primordial and untainted are also spontaneously manifested in every engagement. If it is not, then one risks the danger of still being entangled in a non-dual ultimate and drowned in stagnant water. Hence there is a difference in understanding non-dual free from the framework of duality and the actualization of the non-dual realization as the spontaneity of action that is full of energy and compassion.

So as Thusness pointed out to me, freedom must be realized not simply as non-attachment but also as boundless expression that is full of life and power.

Therefore not only the path of non-attachment is seen clearly but the way of boundless compassion and powerful viriya (energy) must also be directly felt and lived. Not immobilized by artificial constructs and duality, action is natural and spontaneous; without self, there is no hesitation and obstruction.

If one only sees freedom as non-attachment, then one will have missed an enormous part of the experiential insight of anatta and will not understand why Mipham is so insistent on talking about the positive attributes of Buddha, yet not falling into the views of Shentong.

For example when Thusness asked me what fear is, my answer had mostly to do with the mental/psychological factors and attachment. However what Thusness want me to see is that fear is not only overcome by non-attachment but also by the feeling of unbounded life and energy.
Btw, do you do yoga or any form of energy practice?” – Soh, 2016

"And when you experience, a person will feel radiance bright. Means when you see him, you will find radiance bright, you know? Because once a person experience non-duality, there is no holding, there is just luminosity. There is just a pure sense of existence, of clarity, of all things. Somehow, there is an utmost joy and energy that flows from everywhere, that sustains a person. This is its nature.” - John Tan, 2007

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Update 2025

Due to the specific circumstances of the individual I was addressing this article to, I intentionally refrained from elaborating on further insights beyond the initial anatta breakthrough. Providing more information at that stage would have been overwhelming for someone who was still at the very beginning of their journey.

However, I want to emphasize that the insights described above, even after a genuine realization of anatman, represent just the beginning. Additional insights will naturally unfold over time. To further elaborate, I will cite some of the thoughts shared by John Tan:

"Anatta is allow recognition of appearances as one's radiance. But that is still not anatta proper without recognition of dependent arising.
So one can realize anatta on the aspect of the agency being a conventional construct that does not exist in the "experiencer experiencing" or "hearer hearing sound" or "seer seeing scenery" ...etc but still not realize dependent arising and it's implication and vice versa.
So anatta,
dependent arising and emptiness,
then both.
Then dependent arising and the relationship of nominal constructs and causal efficacy.
Then dependent arising and spontaneous presence.
And natural perfection.
All these must be clear."

Soh on the related "Eight Negations":

"The so-called 'Eight Negations' are: not arising, not ceasing, not permanent, not continuous, not one, not different, not coming, and not going. These Eight Negations primarily aim to dismantle the clinging to the inherent self-nature of sentient beings... These self-inherent views manifest in various ways:

• In time: Views of permanence and cessation.
• In space: Views of oneness and difference.
• In the movement of time and space: Clinging to 'coming and going.'
• In the true nature of phenomena: Clinging to 'arising and ceasing.'

'The wind of the marvelous doctrine of the Eight Negations sweeps away the dust of delusional thoughts and conceptual fabrications; the moon of correct insight into non-attainment floats on the water of the Middle Way of reality.'"