The Mahāyāna Deconstruction of Time
by David Loy

Philosophy East and West
Vol. 36, No. 1 (January, 1986)
pp. 13-23
Copyright 1986 by University of Hawaii Press
Hawaii, US

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The Mahāyāna Deconstruction of Time

David Loy is currently engaged in research in Kamakura, Japan.

All beings are impermanent, which means that there is neither impermanence nor permanence.
Nāgārjuna[1]

I

One of the more interesting parallels between Eastern and Western philosophy is the same disagreement within each regarding the nature of time. More precisely, it is an ontological disagreement expressed in terms of how time is to be understood: is ceaseless change the "ultimate fact," or is there an immutable Reality behind or within such impermanence? The importance of this issue can hardly be exaggerated. In the former case, nothing escapes from the ravages of time, but with the latter time itself is in some sense illusory and unreal.
For both East and West, the answers given to this question have been fundamental to the subsequent development of philosophy, and hence of civilization itself. In ancient Greece, this disagreement found its sharpest expression in the pre-Socratic difference between Heraclitus and Parmenides.[2] Heraclitus claimed that the cosmos is in ceaseless flux, which he further identified as ever-living fire. Because of this, we cannot step into the same river twice -- a view amended by his disciple Cratylus, who argued that we cannot step into the same river once, since it is changing even as we dip our foot into it.[3] In contrast, and perhaps in response, Parmenides argued that "what is" is whole, immovable, unborn, and imperishable -- hence nontemporal -- in sharp distinction to "what is not," which is literally unthinkable.[4] This implied another distinction, between reason and the senses: one should not depend on the latter, which present the illusion of change, but should judge by the former.
Plato's "synthesis" was to combine these two alternatives into a hierarchical dualism favoring Parmenides. For example, the Timaeus distinguishes the visible world of changing and hence delusive appearances from the invisible and timeless world of mental forms which can be immediately apprehended by the purified intellect. His nod to Heraclitus is that the sensory world is granted a derivative reality -- things are the shifting shadows, as it were, of forms -- thus setting up a "two truths" doctrine which would have been anathema to Parmenides. How mystical Plato was -- what he meant by "the purified intellect" and its "immediate apprehension" -- is a controversy which will probably never be settled[5] but Western thought has yet to escape from the intellect-versus-senses duality that he reified. Few still accept the reality of such immaterial forms, but in a sense all the subsequent history of Western philosophy has been, until very recently, a search for the Being hidden within the world of Becoming.[6] Even science is a "footnote to Plato," for the same dualism can be observed in its enterprise of extracting atemporal (for example, mathematical) truths from


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changing phenomena. In many ways contemporary Western culture has reversed Plato's hierarchy, but we nonetheless remain largely determined by it.
The Eastern parallel to this is seen most clearly in the classical Indian opposition between the anitya (impermanence) of early Buddhism and the immutable Brahman of the Upaniṣads, as later systematized by the various Vedantic schools, most notably the Advaita Vedānta of Śaṅkara. T. R. V. Murti has summarized their contrasting standpoints:
There are two main currents of Indian philosophy -- one having its source in the ātma-doctrine of the Upaniṣads and the other in the anātma doctrine of Buddha. They conceive reality on two distinct and exclusive patterns. The Upaniṣads and the systems following the Brāhmanical tradition conceive reality on the pattern of an inner core or soul (ātman), immutable and identical amidst an outer region of impermanence and change, to which it is unrelated or but loosely related. This may be termed the Substance-view of reality (ātmavāda)....
The other tradition is represented by the Buddhist denial of substance (ātman)and all that it implies. There is no inner and immutable core in things; everything is in flux. Existence for the Buddhist is momentary (kṣaṇika), unique (svalakṣaṇa), and unitary (dharmamātra). The substance (the universal and the identical) was rejected as illusory; it was but a thought-construction made under the influence of wrong belief (avidyā). This may be taken as the Modal-view of reality....[7]

When we look for a resolution of these two extreme positions, however, we find a solution very different from Plato's: a "middle way" radically different because it denies not only the dualism of Plato's synthesis but also the two original alternatives. Rather than accepting the reality of both permanence and change, by combining them in a hierarchy, Mādhyamika criticizes and dismisses them both by revealing their interdependence. We are confronted with a paradox denying the very dualism that the problem takes for granted. One way to express this paradox is to say that, yes, there is nothing outside the flux, but, yes also, there is indeed that which does not change. Rather than being a contradiction, the first alternative implies the second as well, as we are able to understand once we realize the nonduality of time and "things."[8] The purpose of this article is to explain that paradox.

II

This article is the third in a series which analyzes the opposition between Advaita Vedānta and early Buddhism and concludes that their diametrically opposed positions are phenomenologically equivalent.[9] The contrast between the Brahmanical substance view and the Buddhist modal view has been approached through four sets of categories: self versus no-self, substance versus modes, no-causality versus all-conditionality, and now permanence versus impermanence. Both views are extreme positions, trying to resolve these problematic relations by conflating one set of terms into the other; so it is not surprising that the two turn out to be mirror images of each other.


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The anātman doctrine of Buddhism is often contrasted with the Upaniṣadic identification of ātman with Brahman (for example, tat tvam asi, "that thou art," in the Chāndogya[10]), but these two extremes turn out to be identical: the Buddhist "no-self" is indistinguishable from the "all-Self" of Vedānta, for to shrink to nothing is to become everything.[11] Later Dōgen expressed the point succinctly: "To learn the Buddhist way is to learn about yourself. To learn about yourself is to forget yourself. To forget yourself is to perceive yourself as all things."[12] This is consistent with the meditative practices of both traditions, in which students learn not to be attached to (identify with) any physical or mental phenomenon, but to "let go" of everything -- especially the dualistic sense of a subjective self (Jīva) confronting an external and objective world. Since the resulting experience is nondual, neither description is better or worse than the other.
Substance versus mode, the second set of categories, is also interdependent, with the consequence that both extremes -- the "only-Substance" of Advaita and the complete denial of svabhāva in Buddhism -- converge in precisely the same way. Śaṅkara is reduced to defining the substratum so narrowly that nothing can be predicated of Nirguṇa Brahman, which is approachable only through the via negativa of neti, neti. Brahman ends up as a completely empty ground, unchanging only because it is a Nothing from which all phenomena arise as ever-changing and hence deceptive appearances. From the perspective of Buddhism, this is śūnyatā reified into an attributeless substance which, since it has no characteristics of its own, cannot really be said to be at all. But from the perspective of Vedānta, Buddhism ignored the fact that such a ground is necessary, for, as Parmenides pointed out, nothing can arise from nothing and it is meaningless to deny all substance: something must be real. More important than the difference is that, for both, the emptiness of this "ground" -- however otherwise understood -- is also fullness and limitless richness, for it is the lack of any fixed characteristics that makes possible the infinite diversity of the phenomena which arise from "it."[13]
The third issue is a controversy over the nature of causality. The pratītyasamutpāda of early Buddhism might be labeled "all-conditionality" because it explains all phenomena by locating them within a cause-and-effect relationship: "when X exists, then Y arises." Conversely, Advaitic vivartavāda denies any real conditionality, since all effect-phenomena are merely illusory name-and-form superimpositions upon the immutable Brahman. In this case, however, the sharpest expression of the disagreement is found within Mādhyamika itself, which paradoxically both asserts and denies causality: pratītyasamutpāda is used to refute svabhāva and is identified with śūnyatā itself, yet the causal relation is also shown to be incomprehensible and is dismissed as māyā. The solution, again, is that complete conditionality is phenomenologically equivalent to a denial of all causal conditions. We use the category of causality to explain the relationships among "things," which means that the concepts of objects and causal relations


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are interdependent. Hence they stand or fall together. Once pratītyasamutpāda is used to "dissolve" svabhāva, then the lack of "thingness" in things implies a nondual way of experiencing in which there is no awareness of cause-and-effect because one is the cause/effect. Again, each pole "deconstructs" the other, and what remains is inexpressible in the dualistic categories of language.

III

The arguments above are dialectical; to absolutize either term by eliminating the other does not work, because each half of the duality is dependent upon the other. If one is negated, so must the other be. This shows the convergence of the Mahāyāna and Advaitic descriptions, which together provide us with the most detailed and satisfactory accounts of the nondual experience.[14] The question now is whether permanence and change are susceptible to the same approach. Are they also interdependent, so that neither is comprehensible without the other? And since the answer will obviously be yes, what does this imply about the possibility of another way of experiencing time?
Consider a solitary rock out in the middle of an ocean current, protruding above the surface of the sea. Whether one is on the rock or floating by it, it is the relation between the two that makes both movement and rest possible. Obviously, the current will be measured by the rate of movement past the rock, but the rock can be said to be at rest only if there is something else defined as moving in relation to it -- a point modern physics makes by emphasizing the relativity of perspective. Analogous to this, the concept of impermanence -- "time changing" -- also required some fixed standard against which time is measured, although such "temporal juxtaposition" is very different: I am able to determine that precisely one hour has passed only because, in looking at a clock, I compare the hand positions now with my memory of where they were before. Conversely, the concept of permanence is dependent upon impermanence because permanence implies that which persists unchanged through time -- that is, while other things change. But what is the phenomenological significance of this interdependence?
In Indian philosophy, the rock represents more than permanence and unchanging substance; it also symbolizes the self. For both Vedānta and Buddhism, the self is that which does not change, although they disagree about whether this concept corresponds to anything existent. What is most important of all is that they agree in denying any duality between rock and current, although of course they negate this duality in different ways. Buddhism denies that there is a rock, asserting that there is only a flux. The rock is a thought construction and the sense of self might be compared to a bubble which flows like the water because it is part of the water. In contrast, Advaita denies that there is anything flowing. Change cannot be ignored, but ultimately it is subrated as illusory in the realization of immutable Brahman. But neither Buddhism nor Vedānta affirms the rock in relation to the current: both deny the rock as jīva, an ego-self counterposed to


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something objective. Vedānta absolutizes the rock: it negates the flux by expanding to incorporate it -- phenomena are māyā because they are only transient name-and-form manifestations of Brahman -- but the rock can only do this by simultaneously emptying itself of all particular characteristics.
In terms of the analogy, then, Advaita and Buddhism end up with much the same thing. Whether the rock disappears or expands to encompass everything by becoming nothing, all that can be experienced in either case is the water flowing, although devalued to a greater (māyā) or lesser (śūnya) degree. But -- and here we reverse the dialectic -- if there is no rock (permanence), what awareness can there be of any current (change)? If everything is carried along together in the current, then in effect there is no current at all. This is the crucial point, to which we return in a moment.
Despite its claim of anitya, Buddhism does not merely accept time and change as we usually experience them. For all schools, saṁsāra is literally the temporal cycle of birth-and-death which is in some sense negated in nirvāṇa. For both Advaita and Buddhism, as in "illuminative" traditions everywhere, time is a problem: not an abstract problem, but a very personal and immediate one. In fact, the basic anxiety (duḥkha) of our lives can be expressed in terms of the contradiction between permanence and impermanence: on the other hand, we somehow feel that we are immortal and timeless, yet we are also all too aware of our inescapable temporality: illness, old age, death.
What is the genesis of this problem? It is the mind, or, more precisely, the ways in which our minds usually work: "... time is generated by the mind's restlessness, its stretching out to the future, its projects, and its negation of 'the present state.'"[15] But there is no future without a past; expectations and intentions are determined by previous experiences -- more precisely, by the seeds (vāsanās and saṁskāras) -- that remain from them. So Vedānta and Buddhism also emphasize the role of memory "wrongly interpreted": identifying with such memories provides the illusion of continuity -- a "life history" -- necessary to sustain a reified sense-of-self.[16] Thus past and future originate and work together to obscure the present, usually negating it so successfully that we can hardly be said to experience it -- which is extremely ironic, of course, since from another perspective all experience can only be in the present: my action may be determined by a saṁskāra, and I may anticipate some coming event, but both saṁskāra and expectation can only be experienced now. The ceaseless stream of intentionality devalues the present into simply one more moment in the sequence of causal relations, as an effect of past causes and a cause of future effects. For example, thinking usually consists of linking-thoughts-in-a-series, thus missing something about the origin and nature of this thought because it is understood only in logical (which in effect is also temporal) relation to other thoughts.[17]
The effect of this devaluation of the present is that time becomes objectified through a reversal taking place. Instead of past and future being understood as a function of present memories and expectations, the present becomes reduced to a


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moment within a "time-stream" which is understood to exist "out there" - a "container," as it were, like space, within which things exist and events occur. But in order for time to be a container, there must be a contained -- something that is "in" it -- which must be objects. And in order for objects to be "in" time, they must in themselves be atemporal -- that is, self-existing. In this way a delusive bifurcation occurs between time and "things" generally, as a result of which each gains a spurious "reality."[18] The first reified object, and the most important thing to be hypostatized as atemporal, is the "I," the sense of self as something permanent and unchanging. So the "objectification" of time is also the "objectification" of self, which discovers itself in the anxious position of being an (apparently) atemporal entity nonetheless inextricably "trapped" in time.
The best philosophical expression of this intuitive notion of "objective" time is found in Newton's conception of an absolute linear time which flows smoothly regardless of what events occur, and which is infinitely divisible.[19] This goes beyond the devaluation of the present and eliminates it completely: the present becomes a durationless instant -- or rather, a mere dividing line -- between the infinities of past and future, from which it is rescued (but only psychologically) by the "specious present" (an ironic term indeed) of E. R. Clay and William James.

IV

If we are thus trapped in time, how can we escape? The paradoxical nondual solution is to eliminate the dichotomy dialectically by realizing that I am not in time because I am time, which therefore means that I am free from time.
Much of our difficulty in understanding time is due to the unwise use of spatial metaphors -- in fact, the objectification of time requires such spatial metaphors -- but in this case another spatial metaphor is helpful. We normally understand objects such as cups to be "in" space, which (as explained above in relation to time) implies that in themselves they must have a self-existence distinct from space. However, not much reflection is necessary to realize that the cup itself is irremediably spatial. All its parts must have a certain thickness, and without the various spatial relations among the bottom, sides, and handle, the cup could not be a cup. Perhaps one way to express this is to say that the cup is not "in" space but itself is space: the cup is "what space is doing in that place," so to speak. The same is true for the temporality of the cup. The cup is not an atemporal, self-existing object that just happens to be "in" time, for its being is irremediably temporal. The point of this is to destroy the thought-constructed dualism between things and time. When we wish to express this, we must describe one in terms of the other, by saying either that objects are temporal (in which case they are not "objects" as we usually conceive of them) or, conversely, that time is objects -- that is, that time expresses itself in the manifestations that we call objects. Probably the clearest expression of this way is given by Dōgen: "The time we call spring blossoms directly as an existence called flowers. The flowers, in turn, express the time called spring. This is not existence within time; existence


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itself is time."[20] This is the meaning of his "being-time" (uji):
"Being-time" means that time is being; that is, "Time is existence, existence is time." The shape of a Buddha-statue is time.... Every thing, every being in this entire world is time.... Do not think of time as merely flying by; do not only study the fleeting aspect of time. If time is really flying away, there would be a separation between time and ourselves. If you think that time is just a passing phenomenon, you will never understand being-time.[21]
Time "flies away" when we experience it dualistically, with the sense of a self that is outside and looking at it. Then time becomes something that I have (or do not have), objectified and quantified in a succession of "now-moments" that cannot be held but incessantly fall away. In contrast, the "being-times" that we usually reify into objects cannot be said to occur in time, for they are time. As Nāgārjuna would put it, that things (or rather "thingings") are time means that there is no second, external time that they are "within."
This brings us to the second prong of the dialectic. To use the interdependence of objects and time to deny only the reality (svabhāva) of objects is incomplete, because their relativity also implies the unreality of time. Just as with the other dualities analyzed earlier in section II, to say that there is only time turns out to be equivalent to saying that there is no time. Having used temporality to deconstruct things, we must reverse the analysis and use the lack of a thing "in" time to negate the objectivity of time also: when there is no "contained," there can be no "container." If there are no nouns, then there can be no temporal predicates because they have no referent. When there are no things which have an existence apart from time, then it makes no sense to speak of" them" as being young or old: "so the young man does not grow old nor does the old man grow old" (Nāgārjuna).[22] Dōgen expressed this in terms of firewood and ashes:
... we should not take the view that what is latterly ashes was formerly firewood. What we should understand is that, according to the doctrine of Buddhism, firewood stays at the position of firewood.... There are former and later stages, but these stages are clearly cut.[23]
Firewood does not become ashes; rather, there is the "being-time" of firewood, then the "being-time" of ashes. But how does such "being-time" free us from time?
Similarly, when human beings die, they cannot return to life; but in Buddhist teaching we never say life changes into death.... Likewise, death cannot change into life.... Life and death have absolute existence, like the relationship of winter and spring. But do not think of winter changing into spring or spring into summer.[24]
Because life and death, like spring and summer, are not in time, they are in themselves timeless. If there is nobody who lives and dies, then there is no life and death -- or, alternatively, we may say that there is life-and-death in every moment, with the arising and disappearance of each thought, perception, and act. Perhaps this is what Heraclitus meant when he said that "both life and


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death are in both our living and dying."[25] Certainly it is what Dōgen meant when he wrote that we must realize that nirvāṇa is nothing other than life-and-death, for only then can we escape from life and death.
In terms of time, this paradox can be expressed in either of two contradictory ways. We may say that there is only the present: not, of course, the present as usually understood -- a series of fleeting moments which incessantly fall away to become the past -- but a very different present which incorporates the past and the future because it always stays the same.
We cannot be separated from time. This means that because, in reality, there is no coming or going in time, when we cross the river or climb the mountain we exist in the eternal present of time; this time includes all past and present time.... Most people think time is passing and do not realize that there is an aspect that is not passing. (Dōgen)[26]
Dōgen's "eternal present of time" -- the "standing now" (nunc stans) of medieval Western philosophy -- is eternal because there is indeed something which does not change: it is always now. Alternatively, this nondual way of experiencing time may be described as living in eternity: of course, not eternity in the usually sense, an infinite persistence in time which presupposes the usual duality between things and time. There is an "eternity on this side of the grave" if the present is not devalued:
For life in the present there is no death. Death is not an event in life. It is not a fact of the world. If by eternity is understood not infinite temporal duration but non-temporality, then it can be said that a man lives eternally if he lives in the present.[27]

V

So the eternity we seek has always been "with" us -- closer to us than we are to ourselves, to paraphrase Eckhart -- for all we need to do is forget ourselves and realize that which we have always been. But because of the habitual restlessness of our minds, we are not able to experience the present -- to be the present -- and so we over look something about it. Due to anxious thought construction and thought projection, our kangaroo minds seize on one thing and then jump to another. In this state of attachment, we experience the true nature neither of that thing reified by our fixation, nor of the mind which fixates, nor of the "eternal now" within which all these fixations must occur -- for if we did experience their true nature we would realize these three to be the same "thing."
What would such a nondual experience be like? Not the static "block universe" which has been unfairly attributed to Parmenides, for there would still be transformation, although experienced differently since one is the transformation rather than an oberserver of it. In fact, such change would be a smoother, more continuous flux, since the mind would not be jumping, staccato-fashion, from one perch to another in order to fixate itself. In one way, nothing would be different: "I" still get up in the morning, eat breakfast, go to work, and so forth. But there


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would be something timeless about all these activities: "in changing it is at rest" (Heraclitus, fragment 84a). In place of the apparently solid "I" that does them, there would be an empty and immovably serene quality to them.[28] The experience would not be of a succession of events (spring does not turn into summer) but of just this one thing (tathatā) which effortlessly transforms itself into another just-this-one-thing.[29] To live (in) the Now-which-does-not-fall-away is freedom, for in the "eternal present" there is nothing to gain or lose. Gain and loss are the external projections of hope and fear, which "hindrances in the mind" (Heart sutra) depend on negating the Now.
So Heraclitus/Buddhism and Parmenides/Vedānta are both right: there is nothing outside the incessant flux, yet there is also something which does not change at all: the "standing now." That which transcends time turns out to be time itself. This breathes new life into Plato's definition (one of the oldest) in the Timaeus: time is indeed the moving image of eternity, provided that we do not read into this any duality between the moving image and the immovable eternity. In Buddhist terms, life-and-death are the "moving image" of nirvāṇa. This paradox is possible because, as with all other instances of subject-object nonduality, to forget oneself and become something is at the same time to realize its emptiness and "transcend" it.[30]
The problem with this conclusion, from a Mādhyamika point of view, is that it leaves us with something: "both ... and," however paradoxical and anti-hierarchical, is still a solution. And as long as we identify any view as correct, our attachment to such ideas keeps us from the nondual experience to which it points. Therefore it seems better to turn each half of the assertion against the other, in order to negate any attempt at a successful description: no, there is nothing permanent, for everything is in flux; and no, also, there can be no flux if there is nothing to be in it. Each alternative deconstructs the other, leaving no residue of "lower truth" to interfere with the inexpressible "higher truth." In classical Mādhyamika fashion, the analysis is parasitic upon the problematic duality and ends in a silence which reveals a different way of experiencing. In this way, the philosophical problem of time -- fundamentally, the relation between "things" and "time" -- is not answered, but it is ended.



NOTES


1. Nāgārjuna, Śūnyatāsaptati, verse 58.
2. Such, at least, is the traditional interpretation of their views, which has recently been questioned -- notably by Heidegger, who claims there is no such disagreement. This article could be used to support such a reinterpretation, for it could be argued that its conclusions are compatible with the fragments that remain of both Heraclitus and Parmenides, and perhaps even offers a more consistent interpretation of their claims.
3. For the same reason, Cratylus also concluded that language can never describe reality, since words are an attempt to fix that which never stops changing. So at the end of his life he no longer spoke but just "wagged his finger."


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4. Aristotle's description of Parmenides is as accurate a summary Nāgārjuna:
Some earlier philosophers, e.g., Melissus and Parmenides, flatly denied generation and destruction, maintaining that nothing which is either comes into being or perishes; it only seems to us as if this happens. (De Caelo, 298 B14)
They say that no existing thing either comes into being or perishes because what comes into being must originate either from what exists or from what does not, and both are impossible: what is does not become (for it already is), and nothing could come to be from what is not. (Physics, 191 A27)

5. Thomas McEvilley makes a strong case for Plato as a Mādhyamika, in "Early Greek Philosophy and Mādhyamika," Philosophy East and West 31, no. 2 (April 1981): 149-152.
6. Nietzsche was the first to emphasize this, and even his own "Eternal Recurrence" may be seen as yet another, and more desperate, attempt to wrest a Being from the flux of Becoming.
7. T. R. V. Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (London: Alien and Unwin, 1960), pp. 10-11.
8. That Śaṅkara's and other Vedantic systems were elaborated after Mādhyamika, and even utilized much of Nāgārjuna's dialectic, does not deny the fact that Mādhyamika is a synthesis of the two extremes, as Murti has shown. With regard to historical influence, the comparison with Plato is also apt: the Mahāyāna resolution did not prevail in India, but its influence elsewhere -- Tibet and environs, China, Mongolia. Korea, and Japan -- has been incalculable.
9. "Enlightenment in Buddhism and Advaita Vedānta: Are Nirvāna and Moksha the Same?" International Philosophical Quarterly 22, no. I (March 1982); "The Paradox of Causality in Madhyamika," International Philosophical Quarterly 25, no. I (March 1985).
10. Chāndogya Upaniṣad, Vl.viii.7ff.
11. Of course this insight is not confined to the Indian tradition: "As long as I am this or that, or have this or that, I am not all things and I have not all things. Become pure till you neither are nor have either this or that; then you are omnipresent and, being neither this nor that, are all things" (Eckhart). "Here we see that solipsism coincides with pure realism, if it is strictly thought out. The I of solipsism shrinks to an extensionless point and what remains is the reality coordinate with it...." "... [A]t last I see that I too belong with the rest of the world, and so on the one side nothing is left over, and on the other side, as unique, the world. In this way idealism leads to realism if it is strictly thought out" (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Notebooks 1914-1916 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1961), 2.9.16 and 15.10.16).
12. Dōgen Zenji, Shōbōgenzō, Vol. I, trans. Nishiyama and Stevens (Sendai, Japan: Daihok-kaikaku, 1975), p. 1.
13. Perhaps Heraclitus is making the same point in fragments 67 and 65: "God is ... fullness/emptiness." "Fullness and emptiness are the same thing."
14. They are so similar that some scholars perceive them as two moments in the evolution of the same nondual philosophy: "Buddhism and Vedānta should not be viewed as two opposed systems but only as different stages in the development of the same central thought" (Chandradhar Sharma, A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976), chap. 17, p. 318, defends this point of view). "I am led to think that Śaṅkara's philosophy is largely a compound of Vijñānavāda and Śūnyavāda Buddhism with the Upaniṣad notion of the permanence of the self superadded" (S. Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975), Vol. I, pp. 493-494). Sharma is sympathetic to this nondualist tradition; Dasgupta is critical of it.
15. Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978), vol. 1, p. 45. Arendt is describing Plotinus and Hegel, but the quotation also fits the nondualist Eastern traditions.
16. For example, the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra attributes saṁsāra to memory "wrongly interpreted," and Śaṅkara's definition of māyā in the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya makes the same point in terms of superimposition (adhyāsa).
17. "In the exercise of our thinking faculty, let the past be dead. If we allow our thoughts, past, present and future, to link up in a series, we put ourselves under restraint. On the other hand, if we never let our mind attach to anything, we shall gain deliberation" (Hui Neng, Platform Sutra, chap. 4). This is issue is discussed in detail in "Nondual Thinking," forthcoming in the Journal of Chinese Philosophy.
18. Heidegger finds the same duality at the origin of Greek philosophy:


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"... even the very relation between presencing and what is present remains unthought. From early on it seems as though presencing and what is present were each something for itself. Presencing itself unnoticeably becomes something present.... The essence of presencing, and with it the distinction between presencing and what is present, remains forgotten.
The oblivion of Being is the oblivion of the distinction between Being and beings." ("The Anaximander Fragment," in Early Greek Thinking, trans. Krell and Capuzzi (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), p. 50; Heidegger's emphasis)

So Heidegger sees the interdependence of presencing and what-is-present, but he does not further deconstruct the duality because he still wants to maintain an ontological distinction between Being and beings.
19. A possible objection here, that I am confusing "psychological time" with "objective (e.g., Newtonian) time," presupposes the very duality that this article challenges.
20. Masunaga Reiho, The Soto Approach to Zen (Tokyo: Layman Buddhist Society Press, 1958), pp. 68-69.
21. Shōbōgenzō, op. cit. pp. 68-69.
22. Mūlamadhyamikakārikā, XIII 5.
23. Dōgen, Shōbōgenzō, p. 2.
24. Ibid.
25. And perhaps not. The source is Sextus Empiricus (Pyrr. Hyp. Ill 230): "Heraclitus says that both life and death are in both our living and dying; for when we live our souls are dead and buried in us, but when we die our souls revive and live." The gloss makes the first statement much more pedestrian, but it may not be Heraclitus' own.
26. Dōgen, Shōbōgenzō, pp. 69, 70.
27. Wittgenstein, Notebooks 1914-1916, p. 75e, 8.7.16.
28. This is the wu-wei of Taoism, discussed further in "Wei-Wu-Wei: Nondual Action," Philosophy East and West 35, no. 1 (January 1985).
29. The argument of this article uses Mādhyamika dialectic, but the same points could be made in terms of Yogācāra's trisvabhāva doctrine. The imaginary world of parikalpita is our usual dualistic experience of a collection of discrete things causally interacting in space and time. The interdependent world of paratantra is experiencing a space/time continuum of causal interrelationships, distinguishable but no longer separable (Indra's web). The perfected world of parinispanna negates space/time and causality: there is just this one thing (each interstice-jewel contains the whole of Indra's web).
30. This suggests a "solution" to Zeno's paradoxes, which presuppose a realist -- that is, objectified -- conception of time. Quantification into a succession of finitely (atomism) or infinitely (continuum) divisible moments is inevitable if time is a "thing" and thus obviously composed of parts, but no collection of such units can ever add up to the flux of an event. As Nāgārjuna also pointed out, the basic problem is that continuity can never be established between such discrete moments, regardless of their duration. The error was to presuppose that the "now" is merely a unit of time, one of a sequence of moments successively falling away. Of course, this does not refute Zeno. His paradoxes prove just what he wanted: as his teacher Parmenides argued, time as something objective, that things are "in" is unreal.
Also see:

Vipassana Must Go With Luminous Manifestation
Four Foundations of Mindfulness: The Direct Path to Liberation
Vipassana
Mindfulness as Remembrance
Thusness's Vipassana


Session Start: Monday, August 18, 2008

(2:15 PM) AEN: yesterday i meditated very late at midnight... i was already v tired that time and eyes like closing and i tot when i meditate i wld just fall asleep, but strangely when i meditate my mind become like very bright and aware... become totally awake. then i dun feel tired anymore. and i also feel i could drop away everything at that moment
(3:34 PM) AEN: what do u tink of Element's explanation of mindfulness and awareness, http://www.buddhachat.org/forum/showthread.php?t=9891&page=6
(3:34 PM) AEN: Yesterday, 06:24 PM
(11:41 AM) Thusness: The experience is good but as a lay, it is not advisable to do that.  This is to prevent us from upsetting our biological clock.  I told you try not to practice awareness presence during sleeping hours, practice dropping instead (or dropping into total openness).
(11:41 AM) Thusness: Good exchange between element and you.  Will talk to u tonight as there are several key points u need to take note.
(11:45 AM) AEN: icic..
(11:56 AM) AEN: btw i think i didnt try to be aware that time, i think it came quite naturally and by surprise
(11:57 AM) AEN: oh ya and when i practice dropping gradually theres this sensation of letting go into total openness, feels like i become disappearing
(7:19 PM) Thusness: 'I' disappearing as in what sense?
(7:22 PM) AEN: like into nothingness lor
(7:23 PM) Thusness: no....
(7:23 PM) Thusness: i go washroom first.
(7:23 PM) AEN: ok
(7:24 PM) AEN: a bit like fading into open space? no sense of me being there... until i notice it
(7:26 PM) AEN: its different from the initial experience of presence cos theres still a sense of center in it, no thought but feels centered. but later is more like no center
(7:28 PM) Thusness has changed his/her status to Idle
(7:28 PM) AEN: its like nothingness yet is different from sleep?
(7:31 PM) Thusness has changed his/her status to Online
(7:31 PM) Thusness: all the 6 stages are actually telling u what is the true nature of our pristine awareness.
(7:32 PM) Thusness: The mind initially will not be able to discern correctly what Pristine Awareness is.
(7:32 PM) AEN: icic..
(7:33 PM) Thusness: You must first understand, due to our views, the experiences are distorted.
(7:33 PM) Thusness: so it is as if all these experiences are purified in each stage.
(7:33 PM) AEN: oic..
(7:34 PM) Thusness: The purpose of buddhism is to jump directly to stage 5 and enter into 6.
(7:34 PM) Thusness: that is, if non-dual is experienced correctly, it is like 6.
(7:34 PM) Thusness: as described in DO.
(7:34 PM) AEN: icic..
(7:35 PM) Thusness: or if non-dual is peaked it is like that and the understanding is as described by Buddha exhibiting the 3 seals and emptiness characteristics.
(7:35 PM) Thusness: but if we are not clear, it appears to be as what element said 'Oneness'.
(7:36 PM) Thusness: For the lay, it is very difficult to see pristine awareness as empty luminosity, DO.
(7:36 PM) AEN: oic..
(7:37 PM) Thusness: What is spirituality about?
(7:37 PM) AEN: understanding our true nature?
(7:37 PM) Thusness: what is meant by 'our'?
(7:38 PM) AEN: means what we experience right now
(7:38 PM) AEN: for conventional purpose :P but theres no 'we'
(7:38 PM) AEN: lol
(7:38 PM) Thusness: It is no separate I from the transience
(7:38 PM) AEN: icic..
(7:39 PM) Thusness: it is to experience 'I'.
(7:39 PM) Thusness: the Eternal Witness, the source.
(7:39 PM) AEN: oic
(7:39 PM) AEN: but u said "It is no separate I from the transience"?
(7:39 PM) Thusness: But what is this 'I'?
(7:40 PM) Thusness: din I tell u that "I AM" is the Presence?
(7:40 PM) AEN: ya
(7:40 PM) Thusness: so when u say there is no 'I', you must know what it meant.
(7:40 PM) Thusness: it is rather the right experience of ur true nature.
(7:41 PM) AEN: icic..
(7:41 PM) Thusness: progressing from stage 1 to 6 to naturalness.
(7:42 PM) Thusness: However when someone speaks to u or u have some experiences of altered states of our consciousness, ur mind battled from its memory bank trying to categorize these experiences.
(7:42 PM) Thusness: it attempts to conceptualize.
(7:42 PM) Thusness: it is not allowing the experience to tell the whole stories.
(7:43 PM) AEN: oic..
(7:43 PM) Thusness: and it is very difficult to go beyond this.
(7:43 PM) Thusness: many only reached the level of understanding of non-dual like stage 5.
(7:43 PM) Thusness: And clearly there is this experience that is stage 5.
(7:44 PM) Thusness: But there is also stage 6.
(7:44 PM) Thusness: and one with correct 'understanding' is able to go to stage 6.
(7:44 PM) AEN: icic..
(7:45 PM) Thusness: When u talk about spirituality, u cannot talk about existence without Awareness.
(7:45 PM) Thusness: That is science attempts to do that.
(7:46 PM) Thusness: But in spirituality, this is not the case.
(7:46 PM) AEN: ic ya
(7:46 PM) Thusness: u cannot mixed the 2.
(7:46 PM) Thusness: don't get confused.
(7:46 PM) Thusness: u cannot deep in u want to understand as if Pristine Awareness doesn't exist in spirituality.
(7:47 PM) AEN: icic yea
(7:47 PM) Thusness: This also applies to Buddhism.
(7:47 PM) AEN: icic..
(7:48 PM) Thusness: It is not a teaching about objective existence but phenomena.
(7:48 PM) Thusness: It is a teaching about our pristine awareness.
(7:48 PM) AEN: oic..
(7:48 PM) Thusness: i go makan first.
(7:48 PM) AEN: ok

(8:00 PM) Thusness: So it is just my experience and opinion.
(8:01 PM) Thusness: Because science has such powerful impact on modern society, u will unknowingly be affected.
(8:01 PM) Thusness: and when understanding DO, u will be confused.
(8:02 PM) AEN: icic..
(8:02 PM) AEN: does that mean ppl in the past can understand DO more easily?
(8:02 PM) Thusness: possible. :P
(8:02 PM) Thusness: anyway focus more on ur experience.
(8:03 PM) Thusness: so when u see DO, try not to view it as independent of our pristine awareness as if it is talking about objective existence.
(8:03 PM) AEN: oic..
(8:03 PM) Thusness: This is just my opinion and experience. :)
(8:04 PM) Thusness: Next what is mindfulness?
(8:04 PM) AEN: means bare attention of experience?
(8:04 PM) Thusness: what did Element said about "Mindfulness"?
(8:04 PM) AEN: more like recollecting something
(8:05 PM) Thusness: So in your opinion, is this a correct description of mindfulness?
(8:05 PM) AEN: dun tink so
(8:06 PM) AEN: actually
(8:06 PM) AEN: mindfulness has a quality of 'remembering' but its not like memory
(8:06 PM) AEN: more like coming back to attention thats all
(8:06 PM) Thusness: not good enough
(8:06 PM) Thusness: what else?
(8:07 PM) AEN: mindfulness is actually our natural state.. like what ven gunaratana said,
(8:07 PM) AEN:

When you first become aware of something, there is a fleeting instant of pure awareness just before you conceptualize the thing, before you identify it. That is a stage of Mindfulness. Ordinarily, this stage is very short. It is that flashing split second just as you focus your eyes on the thing, just as you focus your mind on the thing, just before you objectify it, clamp down on it mentally and segregate it from the rest of existence. It takes place just before you start thinking about it--before your mind says, "Oh, it's a dog." That flowing, soft-focused moment of pure awareness is Mindfulness. In that brief flashing mind-moment you experience a thing as an un-thing. You experience a softly flowing moment of pure experience that is interlocked with the rest of reality, not separate from it. Mindfulness is very much like what you see with your peripheral vision as opposed to the hard focus of normal or central vision. Yet this moment of soft, unfocused, awareness contains a very deep sort of knowing that is lost as soon as you focus your mind and objectify the object into a thin
(8:07 PM) AEN: . In the process of ordinary perception, the Mindfulness step is so fleeting as to be unobservable. We have developed the habit of squandering our attention on all the remaining steps, focusing on the perception, recognizing the perception, labeling it, and most of all, getting involved in a long string of symbolic thought about it. That original moment of Mindfulness is rapidly passed over. It is the purpose of the above mentioned Vipassana (or insight) meditation to train us to prolong that moment of awareness.
(8:09 PM) Thusness: What about the stuff Element said?
(8:10 PM) AEN: he speaks about mindfulness as if something we can direct according to our intentions
(8:10 PM) AEN: but i tink mindfulness is more like waking up from our conceptualization process to what is present
(8:11 PM) AEN: ya and he said mindfulness is like a supervisor
(8:11 PM) AEN: like watching the mind or something
(8:12 PM) Thusness: mindfulness as recollection
(8:12 PM) Thusness: but he further clarifies mindfulness as remembering to be in the present moment.
(8:12 PM) AEN: icic..
(8:13 PM) Thusness: so what has that got to do with the 3 seals?
(8:14 PM) AEN: the present moment exhibits 3 seals?
(8:14 PM) Thusness: and he brought up a very important topic, 'oneness vs dispassionate'
(8:15 PM) AEN: oic ya actually i think its the same
(8:15 PM) AEN: i wanted to reply yesterday but no time, but i saved some of the things i wrote... going to edit first
(8:15 PM) AEN: haven edited

(8:19 PM) Thusness: first tell me more about mindfulness
(8:20 PM) AEN: hmm wat about it
(8:20 PM) Thusness: what can u learn from Element and what you know
(8:21 PM) AEN: hmm
(8:21 PM) AEN: mindfulness is like recollecting what is present?
(8:22 PM) Thusness: how can u recollect what is present?
(8:23 PM) AEN: means not forgetting present moment and getting lost in thoughts?
(8:23 PM) Thusness: no
(8:24 PM) AEN: recollecting just means paying attention?
(8:24 PM) Thusness: no
(8:25 PM) AEN: hmm
(8:25 PM) AEN: means focusing on an object and keeping it in mind?
(8:25 PM) Thusness: no
(8:26 PM) AEN: dunnu leh
(8:26 PM) AEN: lol
(8:27 PM) Thusness: mindfulness is a form of practice
(8:27 PM) AEN: by noticing that you are not present?
(8:27 PM) Thusness: what is so great about being 'Now'?
(8:28 PM) AEN: because 'now' is the only reality?
(8:28 PM) Thusness: so what is so great about 'Reality'?
(8:29 PM) AEN: its clear and liberating?
(8:30 PM) Thusness: ???
(8:30 PM) Thusness: who tell u that?
(8:30 PM) Thusness: Buddha tell u that being in the 'Now' moment u will be liberated?
(8:30 PM) AEN: no
(8:30 PM) Thusness: then why u say that?
(8:31 PM) AEN: hmm
(8:31 PM) AEN: by clearly perceiving the true nature of the 'now' moment then there is liberation?
(8:31 PM) Thusness: who tell u that?
(8:31 PM) Thusness: no such thing.
(8:31 PM) AEN: icic
(8:31 PM) Thusness: It was derived.
(8:32 PM) Thusness: By some practitioners and masters.
(8:32 PM) AEN: being "now" means going pre symbolic?
(8:32 PM) AEN: oic
(8:33 PM) Thusness: first Element spoke about recollection.
(8:33 PM) Thusness: is mindfulness about recollection?
(8:33 PM) Thusness: or being pre-conceptual and bare.
(8:33 PM) AEN: i tink all?
(8:33 PM) Thusness: all as in?
(8:34 PM) AEN: its recollection, pre conceptual and bare
(8:34 PM) Thusness: meaning?
(8:34 PM) AEN: ven gunaratana said
(8:34 PM) AEN:

(A) Mindfulness reminds you of what you are supposed to be doing . In meditation, you put your attention on one item. When your mind wanders from this focus, it is Mindfulness that reminds you that your mind is wandering and what you are supposed to be doing. It is Mindfulness that brings your mind back to the object of meditation. All of this occurs instantaneously and without internal dialogue. Mindfulness is not thinking. Repeated practice in meditation establishes this function as a mental habit which then carries over into the rest of your life. A serious meditator pays bare attention to occurrences all the time, day in, day out, whether formally sitting in meditation or not. This is a very lofty ideal towards which those who meditate may be working for a period of years or even decades. Our habit of getting stuck in thought is years old, and that habit will hang on in the most tenacious manner. The only way out is to be equally persistent in the cultivation of constant Mindfulness. When Mindfulness is present, you will notice when you become stuck in your thought patterns. It
(8:34 PM) AEN: It is that very noticing which allows you to back out of the thought process and free yourself from it. Mindfulness then returns your attention to its proper focus. If you are meditating at that moment, then your focus will be the formal object of meditation. If your are not in formal meditation, it will be just a pure application of bare attention itself, just a pure noticing of whatever comes up without getting involved--"Ah, this comes up...and now this, and now this... and now this".

Mindfulness is at one and the same time both bare attention itself and the function of reminding us to pay bare attention if we have ceased to do so. Bare attention is noticing. It re- establishes itself simply by noticing that it has not been present. As soon as you are noticing that you have not been noticing, then by definition you are noticing and then you are back again to paying bare attention.

Mindfulness creates its own distinct feeling in consciousness. It has a flavor--a light, clear, energetic flavor. Conscious thought is heavy by comparison, ponderous and picky. But here again, these a
(8:35 PM) AEN: hmm
(8:35 PM) AEN: mindfulness becomes a mental habit?
(8:35 PM) Thusness: mindfulness leading to enlightenment?
(8:35 PM) AEN: huh
(8:36 PM) AEN: i mean mindfulness serves as recollection when it becomes a mental habit?
(8:36 PM) Thusness: What is the relationship between Mindfulness and Enlightenment?
(8:37 PM) AEN: u need mindfulness to see things as they are, like perceive the 3 characteristics
(8:38 PM) Thusness: closer...what is mindfulness?
(8:38 PM) AEN: means bare attention?
(8:38 PM) Thusness: bare is pre-symbolic like being naked in awareness.
(8:39 PM) AEN: icic ya
(8:40 PM) Thusness: now getting back to where u stop after ur mind wonders is not the purpose of mindfulness.
(8:40 PM) Thusness: every form of meditation requires us to do that.
(8:40 PM) AEN: oic..
(8:40 PM) AEN: so u mean
(8:40 PM) AEN: mindfulness is not recollection?
(8:41 PM) Thusness: u do not recollect present moment
(8:41 PM) AEN: icic
(8:41 PM) Thusness: what has it got to do with the 3 characteristics?
(8:41 PM) Thusness: the seals?
(8:42 PM) AEN: recollecting itself does not mean one perceives 3 characteristics
(8:42 PM) AEN: but only when one becomes observant
(8:42 PM) Thusness: ai yoo...
(8:42 PM) Thusness: Buddha spoke of the dharma seals.
(8:43 PM) Thusness: sounded simple but difficult to understand
(8:43 PM) Thusness: we cannot understand the wisdom behind it
(8:43 PM) AEN: oic..
(8:44 PM) Thusness: mindfulness has several characteristics
(8:44 PM) Thusness: in which bare attention or being naked and non-conceptual awareness is important
(8:45 PM) AEN: icic..
(8:45 PM) Thusness: 2nd is it must remind (not recollect)
(8:45 PM) Thusness: remind of what?
(8:45 PM) AEN: present moment? or what you are doing?
(8:46 PM) AEN: like breathing meditation then remind of that
(8:46 PM) Thusness: no
(8:46 PM) Thusness: what is there to remind
(8:46 PM) Thusness: when u r bare in attention, u r in the present
(8:46 PM) AEN: ya the reminding serves its purpose only when one becomes lost in thoughts, i tink
(8:46 PM) AEN: hmm
(8:47 PM) AEN: so u're saying reminding = being bare in attention?
(8:47 PM) Thusness: told u that is in all practices
(8:47 PM) Thusness: nothing to talk about.
(8:47 PM) AEN: icic..
(8:47 PM) Thusness: remind u constantly of the dharma seals.
(8:47 PM) AEN: oic..
(8:47 PM) Thusness: when u r bare in attention, does it mean that u know the dharma seals?
(8:48 PM) Thusness: when u r in non-dual, does it mean that u know the 3 characteristics?
(8:48 PM) AEN: i thinks perceiving 3 characteristics is also a matter of clarity?
(8:48 PM) Thusness: all experiences are distorted due to ignorance and propensities.
(8:49 PM) Thusness: for u, u say u r Eternal Witness as if u r constant and everything flow even now.
(8:49 PM) Thusness: Even after reading so much and countless conversation with me.
(8:49 PM) Thusness: so isn't it not clear yet?
(8:49 PM) AEN: oic
(8:50 PM) AEN: so being bare in attention doesnt mean one perceives the 3 characteristics
(8:50 PM) AEN: bcos of propensities?
(8:50 PM) Thusness: even now...even after years of reading and summarizing and discussions?
(8:50 PM) Thusness: yes
(8:50 PM) Thusness: we do not know
(8:50 PM) Thusness: therefore we need to remind ourselves of the seals.
(8:50 PM) AEN: oic..
(8:50 PM) Thusness: why?
(8:51 PM) Thusness: because insight and wisdom have not arisen.
(8:51 PM) AEN: icic..
(8:51 PM) Thusness: therefore u practice mindfulness
(8:51 PM) AEN: oic..
(8:52 PM) Thusness: u attempt to become non-conceptual, bare but the experience will still be distorted.
(8:53 PM) Thusness: now observing phenomena, seeing them arise and pass away, 'dispassion' arise
(8:53 PM) Thusness: does that mean that u seek what that does not arise and pass away?
(8:54 PM) AEN: depends on whether propensities is reacting?
(8:54 PM) AEN: or whether theres right understanding
(8:54 PM) Thusness: right understanding means u seek or don't seek?
(8:54 PM) AEN: dont seek
(8:54 PM) Thusness: so what is important?
(8:55 PM) AEN: insight?
(8:55 PM) Thusness: insight into what?
(8:55 PM) AEN: the 3 seals?
(8:55 PM) Thusness: or our empty nature
(8:55 PM) Thusness: we come to that later
(8:55 PM) AEN: icic
(8:57 PM) Thusness: This is very important.
(8:58 PM) Thusness: emphasized the 3 characteristics in vipassana because their clear seeing causes something called dispassion and dispassion is the cause of Nibbana.
(8:59 PM) AEN: oic..
(9:00 PM) Thusness: Remember wat I told u and truth about becoming so sick that u gave up everything?
(9:00 PM) Thusness: suffering causes so much pain that u gave up?
(9:01 PM) AEN: not so sure :P
(9:03 PM) Thusness: go and read what i told Isis also.
(9:03 PM) Thusness: and all the discussions about mindfulness relates to what I told u about the 2 practices i told u to do.
(9:04 PM) AEN: dropping and self inquiry?
(9:05 PM) Thusness: if u can understand what i said and the purpose, u will know what i meant and what i am trying to teach u from beginning.
(9:05 PM) Thusness: that is continue to recall and summarize non-dual and emptiness
(9:06 PM) Thusness: to have clarity in concepts and the meaning of it.
(9:06 PM) Thusness: to have the non-dual experience
(9:06 PM) Thusness: and lastly dropping
(9:07 PM) AEN: icic..
(9:07 PM) AEN: by recall u mean mindfulness?
(9:07 PM) AEN: btw wat did u tell isis
(9:08 PM) Thusness: dropping is about dispassion but it is not about dispassion but to arise a total willingness to let go.
(9:08 PM) Thusness: because grasping is 'self' in disguise.
(9:08 PM) Thusness: but non-dual experience will not be understood in terms of the 3 characteristics
(9:08 PM) Thusness: in terms of its empty nature
(9:11 PM) AEN: means one can have the experience of dispassion through dropping but not comprehending the 3 seals or emptiness?
(9:11 PM) Thusness: so bare and being non-conceptual will not allow u to have the right experience of non duality
(9:11 PM) AEN: icic
(9:11 PM) AEN: that is through recollecting or being mindful of the 3 seals right
(9:11 PM) AEN: or vipassana
(9:11 PM) AEN: *reminding
(9:12 PM) Thusness: vipassana must go with right view
(9:12 PM) AEN: icic
(9:17 PM) Thusness: So what are the purposes of the 3 practices?
(9:19 PM) AEN: dropping is to give rise to the total willingness to let go of the self, vipassana is to give rise to the insight of the 3 seals or emptiness, self inquiry is the experience the "I AM" and show how strong the propensity is?
(9:20 PM) Thusness: It is like the dispassion.  That is very important.
(9:21 PM) AEN: icic..
(9:21 PM) Thusness: Oneness is very important too.
(9:21 PM) Thusness: Or non-dual luminosity :)
(9:21 PM) AEN: icic..
(9:21 PM) AEN: thats experienced through vipassana rite?
(9:22 PM) Thusness: Understand oneness from DO perspective.
(9:23 PM) Thusness: And non-dual presence through right view and experience of presence.
(9:24 PM) AEN: oic
(9:25 PM) Thusness: These 3 aspects must go hand in hand
(9:25 PM) Thusness: There is no point arguing
(9:26 PM) AEN: icic..
(9:26 PM) Thusness: There can be no true understanding of Buddha's teachings without non-dual insight.
(9:27 PM) AEN: oic..
(9:28 PM) Thusness: To understand the 3 relationships, u need to practice hard
(9:29 PM) Thusness: Don't be afraid of right views.
(9:29 PM) AEN: wat u mean by afraid of right views
(9:29 PM) Thusness: It will help.
(9:29 PM) AEN: u mean dont be afraid of having (right) views?
(9:30 PM) Thusness: Don't be trapped by non-conceptuality
(9:30 PM) AEN: oic
(9:30 PM) Thusness: Yes
(9:32 PM) Thusness: Having right views will sync non-dual luminosity with that 'dispassion' (total willingness to let go)
(9:33 PM) AEN: oic..
(9:33 PM) Thusness: The experience of Presence and non-dual experience can lead to very strong attachment of the Ultimate Reality
(9:34 PM) AEN: even after realising non duality?
(9:34 PM) Thusness: Yes
(9:34 PM) Thusness: But not anatta
(9:34 PM) AEN: oic
(9:34 PM) AEN: y attachment
(9:35 PM) Thusness: because of ignorance
(9:35 PM) AEN: icic
(9:35 PM) Thusness: Of our empty nature
(9:36 PM) Thusness: Therefore advaita is not Buddhism
(9:36 PM) AEN: oic..
(9:36 PM) AEN: btw buddha say dispassion is linked to disenchantment is linked to insight
(9:36 PM) AEN: "Dispassion, monks, also has a supporting condition, I say, it does not lack a supporting condition. And what is the supporting condition for dispassion? 'Disenchantment' should be the reply.

"Disenchantment, monks, also has a supporting condition, I say, it does not lack a supporting condition. And what is the supporting condition for disenchantment? 'The knowledge and vision of things as they really are' should be the reply.
(9:37 PM) Thusness: The arising of 'dispassion' is very important but must be correctly understood
(9:37 PM) AEN: icic
(9:38 PM) Thusness: U should take that para seriously
(9:39 PM) Thusness: But Oneness and non-dual should not be overlooked.
(9:39 PM) AEN: oic..
(9:40 PM) Thusness: Missing either one, missed the point.
(9:41 PM) Thusness: Therefore the 3 things I told u.
(9:41 PM) AEN: icic..
(9:42 PM) AEN: wat are the 3 things
(9:44 PM) Thusness: U tell me.
(9:45 PM) AEN: dispassion, oneness, DO?
(9:46 PM) Thusness: What I tell u to practice?
(9:50 PM) AEN: dropping, vipassana, self inquiry?
(9:51 PM) Thusness: Summary of non-duality and emptiness
(9:52 PM) Thusness: Having right view
(9:52 PM) Thusness: How many times must I tell U?
(9:53 PM) AEN: icic..
(9:54 PM) Thusness: Without the right view, even with non-dual experience, wisdom of nature will not arise.
(9:54 PM) AEN: oic..
(9:56 PM) AEN: so the 3 are dropping, non dual presence, and summarising?
(9:57 PM) Thusness: Yes
(9:57 PM) AEN: icic..
(10:15 PM) AEN: what is the difference between non dual and anatta
(10:19 PM) Thusness: It is the right understanding of non-dual experience free from the subject/Object and inherent views.
(10:20 PM) AEN: icic
(10:20 PM) AEN: that means one can realise pathless non dual but yet not be free from subject/object and inherent views?
(10:22 PM) Thusness: Huh?
(10:22 PM) Thusness: I hv written and told u so many times
(10:23 PM) Thusness: then what is emptiness for?
(10:26 PM) AEN: oic
(10:26 PM) AEN: but can u realise non dual and yet not be free from subject/object views?
(10:26 PM) AEN: or u mean inherency
(10:27 PM) Thusness: Yes
(10:27 PM) AEN: icic
(10:27 PM) Thusness: U can have non dual experience but not non-dual insight
(10:28 PM) AEN: so anatta actually includes understanding of DO and emptiness rite
(10:28 PM) AEN: non dual insight u mean insight into pathless nonduality or insight into anatta
(10:28 PM) Thusness: Which is clarity of what is the nature of our pristine awareness
(10:28 PM) Thusness: It is the same.
(10:28 PM) AEN: icic..
(10:29 PM) Thusness: when one spoke of no-self, one says there is no subject/Object split
(10:30 PM) Thusness: One understands
(10:30 PM) Thusness: One realises that there isn't such a split.
(10:31 PM) AEN: oic..
(10:32 PM) Thusness: But doesn't mean there is clarity
(10:32 PM) AEN: icic..
(10:37 PM) Thusness: Advaita realises that there is no split.
(10:37 PM) Thusness: But the grasping of the source is still there.
(10:38 PM) Thusness: However in anatta there is no grasping of anything.
(10:38 PM) AEN: how to grasp source when its realised to be all manifestation
(10:42 PM) Thusness: as long as one is under the propensity of Self, there is grasping of permanence.
(10:43 PM) AEN: oic ya even sailor bob adamson talks about awareness as permanent/changeless
(10:44 PM) AEN: though he said "everything in essence is that changeless natural knowing--nothing else"
(10:45 PM) Thusness: Although the experience is there, one is unable to fully go beyond this dualistic bond.
(10:45 PM) AEN: oic..
(10:45 PM) Thusness: Thus it is subtle and deep.
(10:45 PM) AEN: icic..
(10:46 PM) Thusness: The real essence that is empty of inherent existence is the cause of non-dual insight
(10:48 PM) Thusness: the practitioner will not be able to overcome that bond
(10:49 PM) Thusness: Even after the non-dual experience
(10:49 PM) Thusness: Even after deep experience
(10:50 PM) AEN: oic..
(10:51 PM) Thusness: Unless that inherent/dualistic view Is completely replaced in its inmost level
(10:51 PM) AEN: through emptiness?
(10:52 PM) Thusness: Therefore I said there is a desync
(10:52 PM) AEN: oic..
(10:53 PM) Thusness: Unable to go beyond it, practitioner prefer to rest in naked awareness
(10:54 PM) Thusness: The grasping will still be there because the root cause is still there.
(10:54 PM) AEN: icic..
(10:54 PM) AEN: grasping on what
(10:54 PM) AEN: source?
(10:55 PM) Thusness: But one having non-dual and realises our emptiness nature is not afraid of having right view.
(10:55 PM) Thusness: Yes source.
(10:55 PM) AEN: icic..
(10:56 PM) Thusness: But understand that it is a raft that serves as the antidote to dissolve inherent view.
(10:57 PM) AEN: oic..
(10:58 PM) Thusness: From it one gradually replaces inherent view and experiences nonlocality
(10:59 PM) AEN: means no sense of 'being here'?
(10:59 PM) Thusness: Because there is no need to hold on to anything in the deepest level.
(10:59 PM) AEN: icic
(10:59 PM) Thusness: No this nor that
(10:59 PM) Thusness: Here nor there
(11:00 PM) AEN: oic..
(11:00 PM) Thusness: Dissolve any inherent view, there is no returning nor going
(11:01 PM) Thusness: The experience of non-dual is refined
(11:01 PM) AEN: icic..
(11:01 PM) Thusness: The source is dropped
(11:01 PM) AEN: btw u realised DO/emptiness by contemplating on the buddha's verse 'this is, that is'?
(11:01 PM) AEN: oic
(11:02 PM) Thusness: No
(11:02 PM) AEN: oic then
(11:02 PM) Thusness: Because there is the truthfulness in me...Hehe
(11:03 PM) AEN: wat u mean
(11:03 PM) Thusness: My non-dual stage 5 does not sync in terms of view
(11:05 PM) Thusness: Therefore I continue to have further clarity in non-dual experience and compare with Buddha's teachings
(11:06 PM) AEN: oic..
(11:06 PM) AEN: u read the sutras?
(11:06 PM) Thusness: When deep in my mind I require no more subject/Object framework, my luminosity becomes clear.
(11:07 PM) AEN: oic..
(11:08 PM) Thusness: I can see the teachings with deeper clarity.
(11:09 PM) Thusness: There is no holding of any views
(11:09 PM) AEN: icic..
(11:10 PM) Thusness: It is just intuiting it is so.
(11:10 PM) AEN: oic..
(2:09 AM) AEN: truthz sent me this link to a video explanation of heart sutra, what u tink: http://www.tudou.com/playlist/playindex.do?lid=3173479
(2:13 AM) AEN: thats still non duality as a stage right?
(2:30 AM) AEN: i think it describing stage 2 rite
(12:39 PM) Thusness: The understanding is stage 2 but the experience is stage 5.
(12:39 PM) Thusness: therefore it is advaita sort of understanding.
(12:39 PM) Thusness: http://www.tudou.com/playlist/playindex.do?lid=3173479
(12:39 PM) Thusness: non-dual insight.
(12:39 PM) Thusness: not to misunderstand that the master doesn't know what is non-dual or emptiness.
(12:39 PM) Thusness: there is deep clarity. :)

"Thusness wrote in 2006:

Buddha Nature is NOT "I Am"

...Practitioners should never mistake this as the true Buddha Mind! "I AMness" is the pristine awareness. That is why it is so overwhelming. Just that there is no 'insight' into its emptiness nature. Nothing stays and nothing to hold on to. What is real, is pristine and flows, what stays is illusion. The sinking back to a background or Source is due to being blinded by strong karmic propensities of a 'Self'. It is a layer of ‘bond’ that prevents us from ‘seeing’ something…it is very subtle, very thin, very fine…it goes almost undetected. What this ‘bond’ does is it prevents us from ‘seeing’ what “WITNESS” really is and makes us constantly fall back to the Witness, to the Source, to the Center. Every moment we want to sink back to Witness, to the Center, to this Beingness, this is an illusion. It is habitual and almost hypnotic.
 

But what exactly is this “witness” we are talking about? It is the manifestation itself! It is the appearance itself! There is no Source to fall back, the Appearance is the Source! Including the moment to moment of thoughts. The problem is we choose, but all is really it. There is nothing to choose.

There is no mirror reflecting
All along manifestation alone is.
The one hand claps
Everything IS!..."


"Many good points in that text...

"No need to seek the real;

Just extinguish your views."

This reminds me of John Tan commenting on a number of occasions 'not to chase after experiences, but sever the center'...

"Two comes from one,

Yet do not even keep the one.

When one mind does not arise,

Myriad dharmas are without defect.

Without defect, without dharmas,

No arising, no mind.

The subject is extinguished with the object."

This should be clear for you and actualizing it will stabilize your stage 5"




3rd Ch'an/Zen Patriarch Jianzhi Sengcan:
 

http://www.angelfire.com/nc/prannn/faithinmind.html

FAITH IN MIND

The Supreme Way is not difficult

If only you do not pick and choose.

Neither love nor hate,

And you will clearly understand.

Be off by a hair,

And you are as far apart as heaven from earth.

If you want it to appear,

Be neither for or against.

For and against opposing each other-

This is the mind's disease.

Without recognizing the mysterious principle

It is useless to practice quietude.

The Way is perfect like great space,

Without lack, without excess.

Because of grasping and rejecting,

You cannot attain it.

Do not pursue conditioned existence;

Do not abide in the acceptance of emptiness.

In oneness and equality,

Confusion vanishes of itself.

Stop activity and return to stillness,

And that stillness will be even more active.

Only stagnating in duality,

How can you recognize oneness?

If you fail to penetrate oneness,

Both places lose their function.

Banish existence and you fall into existence;

Follow emptiness and you turn your back on it.

Excessive talking and thinking

Turn you from harmony with the Way.

Cut off talking and thinking,

And there is nowhere you cannot penetrate.

Return to the root and attain the principle;

Pursue illumination and you lose it.

One moment of reversing the light

Is greater than the previous emptiness.

The previous emptiness is transformed;

It was all a product of deluded views.

No need to seek the real;

Just extinguish your views.

Do not abide in dualistic views;

take care not to seek after them.

As soon as there is right and wrong

The mind is scattered and lost.

Two comes from one,

Yet do not even keep the one.

When one mind does not arise,

Myriad dharmas are without defect.

Without defect, without dharmas,

No arising, no mind.

The subject is extinguished with the object.

The object sinks away with the subject.

Object is object because of the subject;

Subject is subject because of the object.

Know that the two

Are originally one emptiness.

In one emptiness the two are the same,

Containing all phenomena.

Not seeing fine or course,

How can there be any bais?

The Great Way is broad,

Neither easy nor difficult.

With narrow views and doubts,

Haste will slow you down.

Attach to it and you lose the measure;

The mind will enter a deviant path.

Let it go and be spontaneous,

Experience no going or staying.

Accord with your own nature, unite with the Way,

Wander at ease, without vexation.

Bound by thoughts, you depart from the real;

And sinking into a stupor is bad.

It is not good to weary the spirit.

Why alternate between aversion and affection?

If you wish to enter the one vehicle,

Do not be repelled by the sense realm.

With no aversion to the sense realm,

You become one with true enlightenment.

The wise have no motives;

Fools put themselves in bondage.

One dharma is not different from another.

The deluded mind clings to whatever it desires.

Using mind to cultivate mind-

Is this not a great mistake?

The erring mind begets tranquility and confusion;

In enlightenment there are no likes or dislikes.

The duality of all things

Issues from false discriminations.

A dream, an illusion, a flower in the sky-

How could they be worth grasping?

Gain and loss, right and wrong-

Discard them all at once.

If the eyes do not close in sleep,

All dreams will cease of themselves.

If the mind does not discriminate,

All dharmas are of one suchness.

The essence of one suchness is profound;

Unmoving, conditioned things are forgotten.

Contemplate all dharmas as equal,

And you return to things as they are.

When the subject disappears,

There can be no measuring or comparing.

Stop activity and there is no activity;

When activity stops, there is no rest.

Since two cannot be established,

How can there be one?

In the very ultimate,

Rules and standards do not exist.

Develop a mind of equanimity,

And all deeds are put to rest.

Anxious doubts are completely cleared.

Right faith is made upright.

Nothing lingers behind,

Nothing can be remembered.

Bright and empty, functioning naturally,

The mind does not exert itself.

It is not a place of thinking,

Difficult for reason and emotion to fathom.

In the Dharma Realm of true suchness,

There is no other, no self.

To accord with it is vitally important;

Only refer to "not-two."

In not-two all things are in unity;

Nothing is not included.

The wise throughout the ten directions

All enter this principle.

This principle is neither hurried nor slow-

One thought for ten thousand years.

Abiding nowhere yet everywhere,

The ten directions are right before you.

The smallest is the same as the largest

In the realm where delusion is cut off.

The largest is the same as the smallest;

No boundaries are visible.

Existence is precisely emptiness;

Emptiness is precisely existence.

If it is not like this,

Then you must not preserve it.

One is everything;

Everything is one.

If you can be like this,

Why worry about not finishing?

Faith and mind are not two;

Non-duality is faith in mind.

The path of words is cut off;

There is no past, no future, no present.

by Jianzhi Sengcan

Third Patriarch of Chan

b.?, d. 606 A.D.
Thusness Stage 3: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html

Thusness (2008) on Stage 3: "Associating 'death of I' with vivid luminosity of your experience is far too early. This will lead you into erroneous views because there is also the experience of practitioners by way of complete surrendering or elimination (dropping) like Taoist practitioners. An experience of deep bliss that is beyond that of what you experienced can occur. But the focus is not on luminosity but effortlessness, naturalness and spontaneity. In complete giving up, there is no 'I' ; it is also needless to know anything; in fact 'knowledge' is considered a stumbling block. The practitioner drops away mind, body, knowledge...everything. There is no insight, there is no luminosity there is only total allowing of whatever that happens, happen in its own accord. All senses including consciousness are shut and fully absorbed. Awareness of 'anything' is only after emerging from that state.

One is the experience of vivid luminosity while the other is a state of oblivious. It is therefore not appropriate to relate the complete dissolving of 'I' with what u experienced alone."

Related article on going from I AM to Nothingness: http://www.prahlad.org/disciples/premananda/essays/NISARGADATTA%20CONSCIOUSNESS%20AND%20AWARENESS.htm


Thusness's comments on Stage 3:



Session Start: Saturday, October 04, 2008


(3:21 PM) AEN:    Q: Is the "I Am" there all the time, as long as my body is there?

M: The "I Am" is absent only in the state of samadhi, when the self merges into the Self.  Otherwise, it will be there. In the state of a realized person the "I Am" is there; he just  doesn't give much importance to it. A jnani is not guided by a concept.
(3:21 PM) AEN:    .... Feeling that I am present depends on having a body; I am neither the body nor the  conscious presence.

In this body is the subtle principle "I Am"; that principle witnesses all this. You are not  the words. Words are the expression of space, they are not yours. Still further, you are not  that "I Am"
(3:22 PM) AEN:    Q: As an individual can we go back to the source?

M: Not as an individual; the knowledge "I Am" must go back to its own source.

Now, consciousness has identified with a form. Later, it understands that it is not that form  and goes further. In a few cases it may reach the space, and very often, there it stops. In a  very few cases, it reaches its real source, beyond all conditioning.

It is difficult to give up that inclination of identifying the body as the self. I am not  talking to an individual, I am talking to the consciousness. It is consciousness which must  seek its source.
(3:22 PM) AEN:    Out of that no-being state comes the beingness. It comes as quietly as twilight, with just a  feel of "I Am" and then suddenly the space is there. In the space, movement starts with the  air, the fire, the water, and the earth. All these five elements are you only. Out of your  consciousness all this has happened. There is no individual. There is only you, the total  functioning is you, the consciousness is you.

You are the consciousness, all the titles of the Gods are you names, but by clinging to the  body you hand yourself over to time and death -- you are imposing it on yourself.
(3:22 PM) AEN:    I am the total universe. When I am the total universe I am in need of nothing because I am  everything. But I cramped myself into a small thing, a body; I made myself a fragment and  became needful. I need so many things as a body. In the absence of a body, do you, and did you, exist? Are you, and were you, there or not?  Attain that state which is and was prior to the body. Your true nature is open and free, but  you cover it up, you give it various designs.
(3:24 PM) AEN:    wat he means by in a few cases it may reach the space
(3:28 PM) Thusness:    not exactly good in my view.
(3:28 PM) AEN:    oic
(3:28 PM) AEN:    wat is he trying to say
(3:33 PM) Thusness:    trying to experience something like stage 3
(3:33 PM) AEN:    icic..
(3:35 PM) AEN:    ya he said about going into oblivion
(3:35 PM) AEN:  

M: If you feel that sense of something, can it be the truth? When this consciousness goes into oblivion, who is to say what that state is?

Q: I don't know.

M: Because your "I Amness" is not there, you do not know yourself. When you began knowing that you are, you did a lot of mischief, but when the "I Am" is not there, there is no question of mischief.
(3:37 PM) Thusness:    'I Am' is not there when sense of self is not imputed on sensate reality.
(3:38 PM) AEN:    icic..
(3:39 PM) Thusness:    when we truly know what awareness is, there is no 'I Am'.  That does not require being in a state of oblivion.
(3:40 PM) AEN:    oic..
(3:41 PM) Thusness:    What is important is to experience the one taste of oblivion and presence.  Vividly present and gone thoroughly.
(3:41 PM) AEN:    icic..
(3:43 PM) Thusness:    When we see that all forms are emptiness, we have the one taste of all manifested states and no state.
(3:44 PM) AEN:    oic..
(3:45 PM) Thusness:    When we see are all to see all insubstantiality and essencelessness of forms are vividly luminous, seeing the texture and fabric
(3:45 PM) AEN:    oh ya nisargadatta sems to see that dissolving of 'I AM' as a stage isnt it, he said it dissolves in samadhi otherwise it will be there
(3:45 PM) AEN:    oic..
(3:45 PM) Thusness:    ,we see emptiness as form
(3:45 PM) AEN:    he said "I am the total universe. When I am the total universe I am in need of nothing because I am  everything." this is like nondual rite
(3:46 PM) Thusness:    yes but that is not necessary
(3:46 PM) AEN:    what is not necessary
(3:47 PM) Thusness:    Dissolve in samadhi
(3:47 PM) AEN:    icic..
(3:50 PM) Thusness:    a practitioner that experience the 18 dhatus is buddha nature is in maha every moment.
(3:51 PM) Thusness:    there is no concentration nor attention.
(3:52 PM) Thusness:    Even swallowing saliva is maha.  Great and magnificent.
(3:52 PM) AEN:    oic..
(3:53 PM) Thusness:    No sense of self is imputed, no samadhi to enter.  Always Oneness, One Reality.  One action.
(3:53 PM) Thusness:    One sunya. :P
(3:54 PM) AEN:    icic..
(3:57 PM) AEN:    "When you pursue the spiritual path, the path of self-knowing, all your desires, all your attachments, will just drop away, provided you investigate and hold on to that with which you are trying to understand the self. Then what happens? Your 'I-am-ness' is the state 'to be'. You are 'to be' and attached to that state. You love to be. Now, as I said, ... your desires drop off. And what is the primary desire? To be. When you stay put in that beingness for some time, that desire also will drop off. This is very important. When this is dropped off, you are in the Absolute -- a most essential state."
(3:57 PM) AEN:    he's saying must drop off conscious presence also?
(3:58 PM) Thusness:    Yes
(3:58 PM) AEN:    icic..
(3:59 PM) Thusness:    But that is not the most essential state.
(3:59 PM) Thusness:    It is necessary.
(4:00 PM) AEN:    necessary or not necessary?
(4:00 PM) AEN:    oh u mean necessary but not the most essential state
(4:00 PM) Thusness:    Yes
(4:00 PM) AEN:    icic..
(4:00 PM) Thusness:    That is not the absolute state
(4:01 PM) AEN:    oic..
(4:01 PM) Thusness:    That is just another state That is equally empty
(4:01 PM) AEN:    icic..
(4:02 PM) Thusness:    That too will pass due to its emptiness nature and no purer than that 'I M' state.



Quote - 18 October 2008:


(12:29 AM) Thusness:    There r different phases.
(12:30 AM) Thusness:    Once the 'I' is gone, this quality of seeing as pure seeing without subject and object separation is non-dual experience.
(12:31 AM) Thusness:    But the holding on to the witness prevents the direct experience of the transience.
(12:31 AM) Thusness:    So rest in phenomena completely.  Be phenomena-ing.
(12:31 AM) Thusness:    Don't equate the 2.
(12:32 AM) AEN:    oic..
(12:32 AM) Thusness:    See both as non-dual experiences, but resting completely in the transience, the phenomena-ing, is anatta and path u towards the insight of emptiness and DO later.
(12:32 AM) AEN:    icic..
(12:33 AM) Thusness:    In later phase of ur experience, this phase is most difficult to break-through. :)
(12:34 AM) AEN:    oic..
(12:34 AM) Thusness:    The former always become 'constant' while the later (anatta) is always essenceless, ever manifesting and changing.
(12:35 AM) AEN:    icic..
(12:35 AM) Thusness:    although both has no sense of 'I', the former has not dissolved the tendency and the DO nature is not seen.
(12:36 AM) AEN:    oic..
(12:37 AM) AEN:    is this the difference between the non-dual experience and non-dual insight u mentioned
(12:37 AM) AEN:    like ken wilber is still non-dual experience right?
(12:37 AM) Thusness:    yes
(12:37 AM) AEN:    icic..
(12:37 AM) Thusness:    There can be no such thing as changeless consciousness.
Changelessness wipes out consciousness immediately. A man deprived of
outer and inner sensations blanks out, or goes beyond consciousness
and unconsciousness into the birthless and deathless state (Nisargadatta)
(12:38 AM) Thusness:    The former experience will attempt to seek the above state.
(12:38 AM) Thusness:    While Buddhism is not about that.
(12:39 AM) Thusness:    It is to see all states are empty and experience the nirvana of sound, taste, an arising thought and all transience.
(12:39 AM) AEN:    oic..
(12:39 AM) Thusness:    as well as dream and deep sleep...eheheh
(12:39 AM) AEN:    icic..
(12:40 AM) AEN:    that is stage 3 rite?
(12:40 AM) AEN:    i mean the go beyond conscious and unconscious
(12:40 AM) Thusness:    yes but it is really stage 5.
(12:41 AM) Thusness:    however due to the block of insight of DO, the mind can only rest on phase 3.
(12:41 AM) Thusness:    the experience is already stage 5.
(12:41 AM) Thusness:    But misunderstood stage 3 as ultimate.

...


(12:55 AM) Thusness:    It is without the experience of 'I' but still rest in the Subject.
(12:56 AM) Thusness:    U will see stage 4 onwards is all about resting in transience and nothing on Subject.
(12:57 AM) Thusness:    all those practitioners even after non-dual experience if insight of anatta has not arisen will have the tendency of towards the stage 3.
(12:58 AM) Thusness:    all those practitioners even after non-dual experience and still sink back to the Subject, will have the tendency of skewing towards the stage 3.


...

“[22/4/18, 8:40:51 PM] John Tan: Lately I kept seeing articles and conversations relating to "nothingness" wonder why. The mysterious gate of taoism.

[22/4/18, 8:42:31 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic.. maybe you should write something about it.. lol

[22/4/18, 8:44:36 PM] John Tan: Lol...Taoist valley spirit is the opposite of clarity...it attempts to express the depth "source" of life.

[22/4/18, 8:47:18 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic.. sounds like Christianity? Was reading some Christian mystic website I think based on Father Thomas keating. They are aware of I AM and witnessing but states that the goal of Christian contemplation is beyond that, is the source of that and will and doing

[22/4/18, 8:47:21 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Or something like that

[22/4/18, 8:47:45 PM] John Tan: Nothingness. Even nisargadatta

[22/4/18, 8:49:22 PM] John Tan: There is nothing to contemplate as it cannot be approached through a known mind. They call it contemplative prayer

[22/4/18, 8:49:55 PM] Soh Wei Yu: More like prayer.. or meditation.. dunno what is it. Maybe surrendering

[22/4/18, 8:50:08 PM] John Tan: Yes. The tao is the way. The way of always in Union with the "source". Or even yoga. One has to be aware of this dimension but nothing to seek. It is rather only in daily encounter and manifestation

[22/4/18, 8:55:00 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Union with source is like divine happening? Not my will but the source

[22/4/18, 8:56:12 PM] John Tan: Yes but we cannot approach the  "unfathomable depth" through "knowing".  only moment to moment gnosis in seeing, feeling, thinking, tasting, hearing and smelling.

[22/4/18, 8:57:30 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Knowing as in intellect?

[22/4/18, 8:58:51 PM] John Tan: Yes intellect.  The way to understanding the nature of aliveness and clarity is to fully "live" and "express".

[22/4/18, 8:59:00 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Ic..

[22/4/18, 9:00:01 PM] John Tan: Taoism is unique in this sense in expressing this dark illumination

[22/4/18, 9:03:33 PM] Soh Wei Yu: How is it unique?

[22/4/18, 9:09:19 PM] John Tan: it is not really interest in presence. But what is behind presence...when in deep sleep, where is awareness? So the valley spirit is often described as dark. How is this different from anatta?

[22/4/18, 9:24:30 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Anatta does not see something behind presence but source is none other than manifestation

[22/4/18, 9:25:10 PM] John Tan: What does source is none other manifestation mean to u?

[22/4/18, 9:26:41 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Means when hearing sound, I don’t see it arising out of a nothingness but sound springs from right where it is fully aliveness and full expression of life

[22/4/18, 9:27:59 PM] John Tan: First you must differentiate between experiential insight that there is nothing behind and directly experiencing presence as the 6 entries and exits. From seeing through conventions and how the mind mistaken. How the mind mistakes and reify conventions. How the mind attempt to fix and fit and explain in a "known" pattern according to its existing paradigm. What r the difference?  And only when these 2 insights arise, practitioner can clearly understand and experience.

[22/4/18, 9:34:30 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Insight that there is nothing behind is realising anatta, directly experience presence is all six senses is just PCE”
 
 
Good video by A H Almaas: