Traktung Khepa on Uncontrived Awareness

>Uncontrived awareness is simply spontaneously present. It is present, not as a static entity, but as a pure process of presencing in/as perceiving and knowingness . Meditation is to relinquish rigidity and fixation on appearances as static objects and perceiver as subjective entity. For awareness to settle relaxedly within its own expanse without fixation, free from reference points, is the essence of Great Perfection meditation of non-meditation.

Alejandro Serrano

TK is an amazing teacher.

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Mike Scarf

Can you speak about the conflict of Dzogchen meditation vs something like Vipassana where the former says go straight into awareness and that's it, non meditation only - vs Vipassana which is more formal etc?

Reply21h

Soh Wei Yu

Mike Scarf

How do you define formal? Actually Dzogchen practices can be very "formal". And very serious Dzogchen practitioners actually spend years doing retreats and practicing various forms of contemplations and practices. Of course, we all do our best, and for those that have worldly commitments we just try to practice as much as possible in our daily lives and attend some retreats that we can afford to spare our time to attend. For example John Tan sits 2 hours of meditation everyday or more, and told me to do the same, even though meditation is 24/7. Same for Yin Ling and others, who meditates more hours than that everyday.

Non-meditation does not mean literally no need for meditation, retreats, and so on. It means in actualization or true meditation, both meditator and object of meditation, that duality is exhausted.

See:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dzogchen/comments/o7hevv/jeanluc_achard_on_integration_of_the_view_and_the/

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Jean-Luc Achard on Integration of the View and the Role of Diligence in Relation to the Key Points of Trekcho

It is actually pretty easy to enter the experience of rigpa but more difficult to cultivate it without artifice, outside of a retreat context. Most of the westerners I know do not do any retreat. They go to teachings when a lama is there and they call it a retreat. I’ve received a lot of teachings in Tibet and none of the masters ever said a word about integration into daily working life. This is something that a few Tibetan masters have made for the west. Traditionally, when you receive a Dzogchen teaching, you then go into retreat and generate some experience. This takes months at best. Then you come back to the master and relate your experience. Then you get further details on more advanced practice, etc., and you go into another retreat. So not doing any “real” retreat is probably a drawback that affects most people. For instance, the retreat of trekchö in the Kunzang Nyinthik (its the same for those who follow the Yeshe Lama for instance) does not last less than 18 continuous months in a traditional context.

Another point that is related is misunderstanding some key points in trekchö. For instance, all our masters repeat that once you have entered the state of trekchö, then you must not do anything. And you consequently have people not doing anything for years! They just remain like that, glued in a state of total blankness, using vague words like “presence” to describe the actual fogginess of their experience. Actually, what texts say is that you don’t do anything at first, not continually. “At first” means that it’s simply the threshold of trekchö practice. What you actually have to do is once you don’t doubt anymore regarding the actual “flavor” of this state, then you have to cultivate it with artifice during specific sessions (that’s the purpose of the 18 months mentioned above) after which you are quasi-certain to reach a non-regressive stability in this state. Most of the time, this stability is reached quite earlier during the retreat. It’s actually easier to succeed in this during a retreat than during the daily working life when you have all the distractions of your ordinary social life. So during the retreat, at a certain stage, you train in integration. There are four things to integrate: (i) the activities of the three doors, (ii) the activities of the six associations of consciousness, (iii) specific intellectual activities of the mind, and (iv) the variety of circumstances that life puts on your path. So the “doing nothing” is really something for beginners in trekchö. Most people I know mistake it for the real practice. That’s the worst mistake to make because one is never going to make any progress if one goes on like this.

There are plenty of things to do. Rushen for instance in order to clearly deepen this knowledge and have a direct experience that is not produced by our discursiveness. Then, the training of the 3 doors. Then specific techniques such as the four natural accesses to properly access the state of trekchö. [One should not think] there is nothing to do: there are things to do to enter this state, and once you’re in it you cultivate it by integrating other things (after having become familiarized with it). This appears to be not understood by all. When you are in this state, you just have to stabilize it. This takes the whole path to do so! Don’t bypass it because you don’t like it, it’s precisely like this, one has to practice, period. You may state otherwise but this is not Dzogchen anymore. Once you are stable in the experience of the natural state, you realize that this experience is uncompounded, unaltered, etc., and you don’t have to do anything to correct it. But in general, everyone (including our masters at a stage in their life) regresses from it. So one has to become familiar with it, through contemplation practice. But this contemplation practice is aimless if it just means sitting and doing nothing. That means each time you quit your sitting meditation, you are regressing from that state. But, if you want to integrate the natural state in a non-regressive way, you have to do something. Trekchö has to be done for very long sessions during specific retreats in total silence and isolation. The longer the sessions, the deeper the experience grows until, like a sheet which constantly put into water never dries, one does not regress anymore from the experience of the natural state.

— Jean-Luc Achard

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Soh Wei Yu

Mike Scarf I'm not a student of Traktung Khepa but if I am not wrong, many of Traktung Khepa's students spend many hours practicing everyday and for years. But certainly what I found from their website is that they hold intensive practice retreats.

"It is clear that this community of Buddhist practitioners is earnest, devoted, and determined to live according to the path they chose. It’s not easy. Tsochen Khandro describes it this way:

"Our community is small because those who study with us have to be like the Navy SEALs of Buddhism. Students here begin and end their days with meditation practice. Normally, they do two or three hours of practice a day. On retreat, they practice eight to ten hours a day. We all put Dharma at the center of our lives.

For decades of my life, while raising young children, I awoke at five a.m. so I could practice before they were awake. And I practiced as soon as they went to bed. I went on a solitary retreat every year for a month once my first daughter reached the age of five. I had no contact with the world, including my family. We had an agreement that I would not be contacted unless my daughter was hospitalized and needed me. But if any member of my family were to die, I would not learn about this until coming out of retreat. I had to let go of everything to go into retreat, not knowing if it would still be there when I came out. This was very good for my practice." - Tsochen Khandro" - https://tsogyelgar.org/new-page

Khandro — Tsogyelgar

TSOGYELGAR.ORG

Khandro — Tsogyelgar

Khandro — Tsogyelgar

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Mike Scarf

Soh Wei Yu Oh yes I am very aware that non-meditation is still meditation, but that it should be happening always, be quite effortless, and non-dual. Thanks for the reply and information 😃

Reply18m

Soh Wei Yu

Mike Scarf Formal meditation is still important.

As John Tan / Thusness said before:

"After this insight, one must also be clear of the way of anatta and the path of practice. Many wrongly conclude that because there is no-self, there is nothing to do and nothing to practice. This is precisely using "self view" to understand "anatta" despite having the insight.

It does not mean because there is no-self, there is nothing to practice; rather it is because there is no self, there is only ignorance and the chain of afflicted activities. Practice therefore is about overcoming ignorance and these chain of afflictive activities. There is no agent but there is attention. Therefore practice is about wisdom, vipassana, mindfulness and concentration. If there is no mastery over these practices, there is no liberation. So one should not bullshit and psycho ourselves into the wrong path of no-practice and waste the invaluable insight of anatta. That said, there is the passive mode of practice of choiceless awareness, but one should not misunderstand it as the "default way" and such practice can hardly be considered "mastery" of anything, much less liberation."

Reply11m

Soh Wei Yu

http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2018/09/dzogchen-meditation-and-jhana.html

Malcolm (Loppon Namdrol) wrote:

Rongzom makes the point very clearly that Dzogchen practitioners must develop the mental factors that characterize the first dhyana, vitarka, vicara, pritvi, sukha and ekagraha, i.e. applied attention, sustained attention, physical ease, mental ease and one-pointedness. If you do not have a stable samatha practice, you can't really call yourself a Dzogchen practitioner at all. At best, you can call yourself someone who would like to be a Dzogchen practitioner a ma rdzogs chen pa. People who think that Dzogchen frees one from the need to meditate seriously are seriously deluded. The sgra thal 'gyur clearly says:

The faults of not meditating are:

the characteristics of samsara appear to one,

there is self and other, object and consciousness,

the view is verbal,

the field is perceptual,

one is bound by afflictions,

also one throws away the path of the buddhahood,

one does not understand the nature of the result,

a basis for the sameness of all phenomena does not exist,

one's vidya is bound by the three realms,

and one will fall into conceptuality

He also added:

Dhyanas are defined by the presence or absence of specific mental factors.

The Dhyanas were not the vehicle of Buddha's awakening, rather he coursed through them in order to remove traces of rebirth associated with the form and formless realms associated with the dhyanas.

...

Whether you are following Dzogchen or Mahamudra, and regardless of your intellectual understanding, your meditation should have, at base, the following characteristics:

Prthvi -- physical ease Sukha -- mental joy Ekagraha -- one-pointedness Vitarka -- initial engagement Vicara -- sustained engagement

If any of these is missing, you have not even achieved perfect samatha regardless of whether or not you are using an external object, the breath or even the nature of the mind.

...

(more in link)

Dzogchen, Meditation and Jhana

AWAKENINGTOREALITY.COM

Dzogchen, Meditation and Jhana

Dzogchen, Meditation and Jhana

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Soh Wei Yu

Excerpt from https://www.sotozen.com/eng/practice/zazen/advice/fukanzanzeng.html

Dogen: The way is originally perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent on practice and realization? The true vehicle is self-sufficient. What need is there for special effort? Indeed, the whole body is free from dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from this very place; what is the use of traveling around to practice? And yet, if there is a hairsbreadth deviation, it is like the gap between heaven and earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion. Suppose you are confident in your understanding and rich in enlightenment, gaining the wisdom that knows at a glance, attaining the Way and clarifying the mind, arousing an aspiration to reach for the heavens. You are playing in the entranceway, but you are still short of the vital path of emancipation.

Consider the Buddha: although he was wise at birth, the traces of his six years of upright sitting can yet be seen. As for Bodhidharma, although he had received the mind-seal, his nine years of facing a wall is celebrated still. If even the ancient sages were like this, how can we today dispense with wholehearted practice?

Fukan Zazengi (Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen) | SOTOZEN.COM

SOTOZEN.COM

Fukan Zazengi (Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen) | SOTOZEN.COM

Fukan Zazengi (Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen) | SOTOZEN.COM

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• Mike Scarf

  Soh Wei Yu Is concentration to crazy magnitudes actually necessary or only if one wants to have certain fleeting states, or needs it as a pre-req to investigate phenomena?

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  Soh Wei Yu

  Mike Scarf

  You can have insight without stable samadhi, but for liberation you need both vipassana/insight and stable samadhi.

  Another excerpt from the Acarya Malcolm's link above:

  Samadhi/dhyāna is a natural mental factor, we all have it. The problem is that we naturally allow this mental factor to rest on afflictive objects such as HBO, books, video games, etc.

  Śamatha practice is the discipline of harnessing our natural predisposition for concentration, and shifting it from afflictive conditioned phenomena to nonafflictive conditioned phenomena, i.e., the phenomena of the path. We do this in order to create a well tilled field for the growth of vipaśyāna. Śamatha ultimately allows us to have mental stability and suppresses afflictive mental factors so that we may eventually give rise to authentic insight into the nature of reality. While it is possible to have vipaśyāna without cultivating śamatha, it is typically quite unstable and lacks the power to effectively eradicate afflictive patterning from our minds. Therefore, the basis of all practice in Buddhadharma, from Abhidharma to the Great Perfection, is the cultivation of śamatha as a preliminary practice for germination of vipaśyāna.

  .....

  In the early period of Budddhism, there were two yānas, śamatha yāna and vipaśyāna yāna; beginners went to Śariputra to training in vipaśyāna for stream entry; then they would go train in śamatha with Maudgalyana for further progress.

  Lance Cousins wrote a very interesting article about this.

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  Soh Wei Yu

  Mike Scarf The Buddha said likewise:

  AN 4.170 PTS: A ii 156

  Yuganaddha Sutta: In Tandem

  translated from the Pali by

  Thanissaro Bhikkhu

  © 1998

  X

  The updated version is freely available at

  This version of the text might be out of date. Please click here for more information

  On one occasion Ven. Ananda was staying in Kosambi, at Ghosita's monastery. There he addressed the monks, "Friends!"

  "Yes, friend," the monks responded.

  Ven. Ananda said: "Friends, whoever — monk or nun — declares the attainment of arahantship in my presence, they all do it by means of one or another of four paths. Which four?

  "There is the case where a monk has developed insight preceded by tranquillity. As he develops insight preceded by tranquillity, the path is born. He follows that path, develops it, pursues it. As he follows the path, developing it & pursuing it — his fetters are abandoned, his obsessions destroyed.

  "Then there is the case where a monk has developed tranquillity preceded by insight. As he develops tranquillity preceded by insight, the path is born. He follows that path, develops it, pursues it. As he follows the path, developing it & pursuing it — his fetters are abandoned, his obsessions destroyed.

  "Then there is the case where a monk has developed tranquillity in tandem with insight. As he develops tranquillity in tandem with insight, the path is born. He follows that path, develops it, pursues it. As he follows the path, developing it & pursuing it — his fetters are abandoned, his obsessions destroyed.

  "Then there is the case where a monk's mind has its restlessness concerning the Dhamma [Comm: the corruptions of insight] well under control. There comes a time when his mind grows steady inwardly, settles down, and becomes unified & concentrated. In him the path is born. He follows that path, develops it, pursues it. As he follows the path, developing it & pursuing it — his fetters are abandoned, his obsessions destroyed.

  "Whoever — monk or nun — declares the attainment of arahantship in my presence, they all do it by means of one or another of these four paths."

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  Soh Wei Yu

  The Mahayana Sutras, like the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment and so on, have explored similar themes with much greater elaborations.

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  Soh Wei Yu

  Mike Scarf I just posted this yesterday:

  http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/.../have-quality-time...

  Have quality time for practice

  It is crucial to have enough quality time for practice everyday for further breakthrough. As John Tan does himself and told me, sit at least two hours a day (even though meditation is 24/7, even amidst activities).

  

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[7/11/22, 1:26:14 AM] John Tan: Is this true in ur experience?

[7/11/22, 1:26:40 AM] John Tan: If yes y and is no y?

[7/11/22, 1:55:49 AM] Soh Wei Yu: lol so different

[7/11/22, 1:56:08 AM] Soh Wei Yu: anatta and twofold emptiness is direct insight into emptiness of inherent existence and duality simultaneously

[7/11/22, 1:56:26 AM] Soh Wei Yu: also why objectless awareness

[7/11/22, 1:56:30 AM] Soh Wei Yu: sounds like those awareness practice

[7/11/22, 1:56:36 AM] Soh Wei Yu: and very different from mahamudra also

[7/11/22, 1:56:59 AM] John Tan: Lol👍 so what r the issues?  Y is mipham saying that?

[7/11/22, 1:57:00 AM] Soh Wei Yu: "At that point, is the observer—awareness—other than the

observed—stillness and movement—or is it actually that stillness and

movement itself? By investigating with the gaze of your own awareness,

you come to understand that that which is investigating itself is also

no other than stillness and movement. Once this happens you will

experience lucid emptiness as the naturally luminous self-knowing

awareness. Ultimately, whether we say nature and radiance, undesirable

and antidote, observer and observed, mindfulness and thoughts, stillness

and movement, etc., you should know that the terms of each pair are no

different from one another; by receiving the blessing of the guru,

properly ascertain that they are inseparable. Ultimately, to arrive at

the expanse free of observer and observed is the realization

of the true meaning and the culmination of all analyses. This is called

“the view transcending concepts,” which is free of conceptualization,

or “the vajra mind view.”

"Fruition vipashyana is the correct realization of the final conviction of the nonduality of observer and observed."

Khamtrul Rinpoche III. The Royal Seal of Mahamudra: Volume One: A

Guidebook for the Realization of Coemergence: 1 (p. 242). Shambhala.

[7/11/22, 1:57:49 AM] Soh Wei Yu: I think he is distinguishing the nominal ultimate and non nominal ultimate.. forgot the term

[7/11/22, 1:59:54 AM] John Tan: He is but y he can't get that "absence" of inherent existence can also dissolve "duality"?

[7/11/22, 2:00:25 AM] John Tan: In fact much easier.

[7/11/22, 11:13:02 AM] Soh Wei Yu: Im not sure why.. why do you think?

[7/11/22, 11:14:32 AM] John Tan: Use ur experience to see through and tell me.

[7/11/22, 11:15:22 AM] John Tan: How is it diff from ATR approach?

‎[7/11/22, 3:01:18 PM] Soh Wei Yu: ‎image omitted

[7/11/22, 3:01:37 PM] Soh Wei Yu: To me this part is emphasizing reverting to the I AM to have initial realization of nondual presence

[7/11/22, 3:14:39 PM] John Tan: Not exactly

[7/11/22, 10:52:30 PM] Soh Wei Yu: mipham sees inherent existence as negated through analytical reasoning path

[7/11/22, 10:52:47 PM] Soh Wei Yu: whereas AtR begins with stanzas, so inherent existence is seen through in direct path like mahamudra:

[7/11/22, 10:53:31 PM] Soh Wei Yu: https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2018/08/thrangu-rinpoche-on-nature-of-mind.html

Thrangu Rinpoche:

In the Vajrayana there is the direct path to examining mind. In everyday life we are habituated to thinking, "I have a mind and I perceive these things." Ordinarily, we do not directly look at the mind and therefore do not see the mind. This is very strange because we see things and we know that we are seeing visual phenomena. But who is seeing? We can look directly at the mind and find that there is no one seeing; there is no seer, and yet we are seeing phenomena. The same is true for the mental consciousness. We think various thoughts, but where is that thinking taking place? Who or what is thinking? However, when we look directly at the mind, we discover that there is nobody there; there is no thinker and yet thinking is going on. This approach of directly looking in a state of meditation isn't one of reasoning, but of directly looking at the mind to see what is there.

Source: Shentong and Rangtong

[7/11/22, 10:53:57 PM] Soh Wei Yu: to me analytical path alone wont have the sort of sudden awakening like anatta

[7/11/22, 10:54:32 PM] Soh Wei Yu: maybe like what you said "Actually anatta is a good direct method of pointing, analysis can later be used to support this direct experiential insight.  Not easy for the path of analysis to trigger such insight.  It will have to have a sudden leap or break-through much like koan"

[7/11/22, 10:55:09 PM] Soh Wei Yu: without that sudden leap of breakthrough, the understanding of emptiness is still inferential and wont be able to breakthrough duality in a direct realization of the nature of consciousness

[8/11/22, 1:21:33 AM] John Tan: Very good.  U must see the difference.  The method of pointing is the issue, not the view.

 A sub chapter of Stage 5 from the longer AtR Guide:

Anatta as Dispersing into Multiplicity + Spontaneous, Disjoint and Unsupported

Anatta stanza two leads to dispersing of Presence into/as multiplicity, while Anatta stanza one leads to spontaneous, disjointed and unsupported nature of arising. This leads to dissolvteacher in Thailand. He began by drawing the followinging even the grounding into ‘Here/Now’, which will be an issue if one focuses solely on the second stanza of anatta (like many Actual Freedom and Zen teachings that I’ve seen which keeps emphasizing on being grounded in Here/Now).

On the dispersing of Presence as multiplicity:

“In many of your recent posts after the sudden realization of anatta from contemplating on Bahiya Sutta, you are still very much focused on the vivid non-dual presence. Now the everything feels ‘Me’ sort of sensation becomes a daily matter and the bliss of losing oneself completely into scenery, sound, taste is wonderful. This is different from everything collapsing into a “Single Oneness” sort of experience but a disperse out into the multiplicity of whatever arises. Everything feels closer than ‘me’ due to gaplessness. This is a natural [state after anatta]” - John Tan, 2011

“It looks your Bahiya Sutta experience helped you see awareness in a different way, more .... empty. You had a background in a view that saw awareness as more inherent or essential or substantive?

I had an experience like this too. I was reading a sloka in Nagarjuna's treatise about the "prior entity," and I had been meditating on "emptiness is form" intensely for a year. These two threads came together in a big flash. In a flash, I grokked the emptiness of awareness as per Madhyamika. This realization is quite different from the Advaitic oneness-style realization. It carries one out to the "ten-thousand things" in a wonderful, light and free and kaleidoscopic, playful insubstantial clarity and immediacy. No veils, no holding back. No substance or essence anywhere, but love and directness and intimacy everywhere...” - Greg Goode, Greg Goode on Advaita/Madhyamika (http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2014/08/greg-goode-on-advaitamadhyamika_9.html)

“Although Bhāviveka doesn’t struggle that much, he is quite clear:

“Since [the tīrthika position of] self, permanence, all pervasiveness and oneness contradict their opposite, [the Buddhist position of] no-self, impermanence, non-pervasiveness and multiplicity, they are completely different.” – Kyle Dixon, 2020

“Bhāviveka demonstrates the proper way to view buddhanature:

The statement "The tathāgata pervades" means wisdom pervades all objects of knowledge, but it does not mean abiding in everything like Viśnu. Further, "Tathāgatagarbhin" means emptiness, signlessness and absence of aspiration exist the continuums of all sentient beings, but is not an inner personal agent pervading everyone.” – Kyle Dixon, 2021

"Therefore to see that all dusts are primordially pure from before beginning is the whole purpose of maturing the insight of anatta. The following text succinctly expresses this insight:

...According to Dogen, this “oceanic-body” does not contain the myriad forms, nor is it made up of myriad forms – it is the myriad forms themselves. The same instruction is provided at the beginning of Shobogenzo, Gabyo (pictured rice-cakes) where, he asserts that, “as all Buddhas are enlightenment” (sho, or honsho), so too, “all dharmas are enlightenment” which he says does not mean they are simply “one” nature or mind.

Anything falling short of this realization cannot be said to be Buddhist's enlightenment and it is also what your Taiwanese teacher Chen wanted you to be clear when he spoke of the "equality of dharma" as having an initial glimpse of anatta will not result in practitioners seeing that phenomena are themselves primordially pure." -  John Tan, 2011, Realization, Experience and Right View and my comments on "A" is "not-A", "not A" is "A"

“All Buddhas and all things cannot be reduced to a static entity or principle symbolized as one mind, one nature, or the like. This guards against views that devaluate the unique, irreplaceable individuality of a single dharma.” - Hee-Jin Kim, Flowers of Emptiness, p.257

“Gensha Shibi once said, “The whole universe throughout all its ten directions is the One Bright Pearl.” You need to clearly recognize the converse, which is that the One Bright Pearl is the whole universe throughout all its ten directions.”

- Zen Master Dogen, https://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Dogen_Teachings/Shobogenzo/058jippo.pdf

Mahamudra has a similar teaching as Dogen on 'multiplicity':

"The medium One Taste is when this tarnish has dissolved: the conviction of savoring and clinging to multiplicity as being one taste. You have actualized the resplendent indivisibility of perceptions and mind in which the perceived is not held as being outside and mind is not held as being inside.

The greater One Taste is when you realize multiplicity as being of one taste and you experience one taste as being multiplicity. Thus, everything subsides into the original state of equality."

"You have perfected the strength of One Taste if whatever you encounter is experienced as the expression of this original state of equality. You have not perfected its strength if one taste isn't experienced as multiplicity because of retaining the bind of a remedy." - Dakpo Tashi Namgyal, Clarifying the Natural State

John Tan and Soh very much likes and resonates with the teachings of Mahamudra and Soto Zen (Dogen’s lineage) very much as they are about the full-blown actualization of anatta, with different emphasis on emptiness (Soto Zen emphasizing +A, Mahamudra emphasizing the -A in general). If you resonate with the teachings, Soh highly recommends finding a good teacher, guru or sangha to get acquainted with/receive teachings from the lineage and participate in communal practice.

On “multiplicity”, post-anatta when one penetrates into emptiness, there is no one or many:

“[13/3/16, 2:15:15 PM] John Tan: When the "one" dissolves, so too must the "many".  How is it that the "one" or "many" can dissolve?  Because both are unreal and purely conventional.  If either are real, then changing and dissolving will be impossible.”

On the spontaneous, disjoint and unsupported nature of arising aspect of anatta:

“This experience is radically different from One Mind that is non-dual. It is not about stillness transparency and vividness of presence but a deep sense of freedom that comes from directly experiencing manifestation as being disjoint, spontaneous, free, unbounded and unsupported. Re-read the first stanza – an excerpt:

1. The lack of doer-ship that links and co-ordinates experiences. Without the 'I' that links, phenomena (thoughts, sound, feelings and so on and so forth) appear bubble-like, floating and manifesting freely, spontaneously and boundlessly. With the absence of the doer-ship also comes a deep sense of freedom and transparency. Ironical as it may sound but it's true experientially. We will not have the right understanding when we hold too tightly 'inherent' view. It is amazing how 'inherent' view prevents us from seeing freedom as no-doership, interdependence and interconnectedness, luminosity and non-dual presence.” - John Tan, 2011

“In the beginning... when I had the sudden realization by contemplating on Bahiya Sutta, there was a very clear realization of 'in the seeing just the seen' - the second stanza of Anatta in John's article... seeing, hearing, is simply the scenery, the sound, it is so clear, vivid, without dualistic separation (of subject and object, perceived and perceived)... there never was, there is only the music playing and revealing itself. The scenery revealing itself...

It is very blissful, the luminosity is very clear and intensely felt. Yet it became a sort of object of attachment... somehow, even though luminosity is no longer seen as a Self or observer, there is still a sense of solidity that luminosity/presence is constantly Here and Now. A subtle tendency to sink back into substantialist non-dualism is still present.

Later on, I came to realize that luminosity, presence itself, is ungraspable without solidity. Much like the first stanza of Anatta in John’ article. There is no luminosity inherently existing as the 'here and now'... presence cannot be found, located, grasped! There is nothing solid here. There is no 'here and now' - as Diamond Sutra says, past mind is ungraspable, present mind is ungraspable, future mind is ungraspable. What there is, is unsupported, disjoint thoughts and phenomena... There is only the ungraspable experiencing of everything, which is bubble like. Everything just pops in and out. It's like a stream... cannot be grasped or pinned down... like a dream, yet totally vivid. Cannot be located as here or there.

Prior to this insight, there isn't the insight into phenomena as being 'scattered' without a linking basis (well there already was but it needs refinement)... the moment you say there is a Mind, an Awareness, a Presence that is constant throughout all experiences, that pervades and arise as all appearances, you have failed to see the 'no-linking', 'disjointed', 'unsupported' nature of manifestation.

The luminosity and the emptiness are inseparable. They are both essential aspects of our experiential reality and must be seen in its seamlessness and unity. Realizing this, there is just disjoint thoughts and phenomena arising without support and liberating of their own accord. There is nothing solid acting as the basis of these experiences and linking them... there is just spontaneous and unsupported manifestations and self liberating experiences. Simpo_ described it well recently:

Will like to add that, in my experience, no-self is a more subtle insight than non-duality.

Usually, we see a continuity of mental formation... well... my experience is that it is not always so. The streams of thought seems to be linear but it is not.. To my experience, it is the fast movement of thoughts that give the impression of continuity of self.

Now... thoughts can appear and disappear and they do not have to be linear... 'Simpo' the name pop up and disappear... another image appears and disappears... all of them are not self... just appearance, sensations, etc... and we cannot say they arise from a base or sink into the base. There is no base (as far as I see it)... just this ungraspable appearing and disappearing.

Without this realization, one can never hope to understand this phrase in Diamond Sutra:

Therefore then, Subhuti, the Bodhisattva, the great being, should produce an unsupported thought, i.e. a thought which is nowhere supported, a thought unsupported by sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or mind-objects.

应无所住而生其心

This is the phrase that got 6th Ch'an Patriarch Hui-Neng his great enlightenment after the 5th Patriarch explained it to him.” - Soh, 2011

“...Just as Zen Master Dogen puts it: firewood does not turn into ashes, firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood while ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, while at the same time ash contains firewood, firewood contains ash (all is the manifestation of the interdependent universe as if the entire universe is coming together to give rise to this experience and thus all is contained in one single expression).

The similar principle applies not just to firewood and ash but to everything else: for example you do not say summer turns into autumn and autumn turns into winter - summer is summer, autumn is autumn, distinct and complete in itself yet each instance of existence time contains the past, present and future in it. So the same applies to birth and death - birth does not turn into death as birth is the phenomenal expression of birth and death is the phenomenal expression of death - they are interdependent yet disjoint, unsupported, complete. Accordingly, birth is no-birth and death is no-death... Since each moment is not really a starting point or ending point for a entity - without the illusion and reference of a self-entity - every moment is simply a complete manifestation of itself. And every manifestation does not leave traces: they are disjoint, unsupported and self-releases upon inception. This wasn't Dogen's exact words but I think the gist is there, you should read Dogen's genjokoan which I posted in my blog.” - Soh, 2011, The Unborn Dharma - http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/06/the-unborn-dharma.html 

“A thought is "Unsupported" because it does not arise in dependence upon anything else, not "caused" by another thought ("mind-objects") and of course not "produced" by a thinker, which the Bodhisattva realizes does, not exist. Such an "unsupported thought", then, is prajña, arising by itself nondually.

Hui Neng's grandson in the Dharma, Ma-tsu, reinforces Hui Neng and the Diamond Sutra: "So with former thoughts, later thoughts, and thoughts in between: the thoughts follow one another without being linked together. Each one is absolutely tranquil". [24] That each such "unsupported thought" is absolutely tranquil is a new point, although probably implied by Hui Neng's term "thoughtlessness". So when one loses sense of self and completely becomes an unsupported thought, there is the Taoist paradox of wei-wu-wei, in which action and passivity are combined: there is the movement of nondual thought, but at the same time there is awareness of that which does not change. That is why such an experience can just as well be described as "thoughtlessness". The later Ch'an master Kuei-shan Ling-yu referred to this as "thoughtless thought": "Through concentration a devotee may gain thoughtless thought. Thereby he is suddenly enlightened and realizes his original nature". [25] "Thoughtless thought" is not a mind empty of any thought: "one thought is thoughtless thought."

            An important parallel to this is found in the writings of a modern Advaitin, Ramana Maharshi:

The ego in its purity is experienced in the interval between two states or between two thoughts. The ego is like the worm which leaves one hold only after it catches another. Its true nature is known when it is out of contact with objects or thoughts. You should realize this interval as the abiding, unchangeable Reality, your true Being... [26]

The image of the ego as a worm which leaves one hold only after catching another might well have been used by Hui Neng and Ma-tsu to describe the way in which thoughts are apparently linked up in a series. The difference is that Mahayana Buddhism encourages the arising of "an unsupported thought", whereas Ramana Maharshi understands unchangeable Reality as that which is realized only when it is out of contact with all objects and thoughts. This is consistent with the general relation between Mahayana and Advaita: Nirguṇa Brahman is so emptied of any attribute ("neti, neti,...") that it becomes impossible to differentiate from Śūnyatā. "It is difficult indeed to distinguish between pure being and pure non-being as a category". (S. Dasgupta). [27] But there is still a difference in emphasis.

Mahāyāna emphasizes realizing the emptiness of all phenomena, whereas Advaita distinguishes between empty Reality and phenomena, with the effect of devaluing the latter into mere māyā.

            The image of a worm hesitant to leave its hold was used in a personal conversation I had in 1981 with a Theravada monk from Thailand, a meditation master named Phra Khemananda. This was before I discovered the passage from Ramana Maharshi; what Khemananda said was not prompted by any remark of mine, but was taught to him by his own teacher in Thailand. He began by drawing the following diagram:

Each oval represents a thought, he said; normally, we leave one thought only when we have another one to go to (as the arrows indicate), but to think in this way constitutes ignorance. Instead, we should realize that thinking is actually like this:

Then we will understand the true nature of thoughts: that thoughts do not arise from each other but by themselves.” ~ Zen teacher David Loy, Nondual Thinking

An article on anatta from the monk who drew the diagram can be found here.

Also, some recent writing by Daniel on Vipassana in DhO:

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/11355316

“JC said "why the need to experiment with all sorts of practices? Why the need for the switch to Zen, Vajrayana, prayer, Catholic devotional practices, martial arts, magickal practices, and so on?

Why not just continue to observe exactly what's going on in the present moment and see the Three Characteristics?

Well, it could be enough, sort of. The Three Characteristics are profound, very profound, staggeringly profound, and not easily grasped in their entirety. It seems perfectly reasonable to grasp them in their entirety by observing them, but there is a problem, actually, that last line contains a bunch of problems that are not obvious until you see them clearly.

I will go by the words in that last line to illustrate the problem.

"Continue": there is no continuing. There is nothing to continue, no past that could be continued, no future to continue into, and this moment is entirely ungraspable. No sensation could ever actually grasp or continue. Everything is fresh but perfectly ephemeral. The notion of continuing, from a high insight point of view, is a serious problem. Instead, there has to be a deep non-grasping, a perfect and flawless appreciation of non-continuing, a deep never could be a continuing, a deep nothing could ever be continuing, a deep sense of not only discontinuity, but of the utter flowing, vanishing, empty transience of anything that seemed to be able to continue. One must figure out how to go beyond continuing, beyond grasping, beyond that strange mental illusion that such a thing could ever occur or have occurred.

"Observe": there is no observing. There can be no observing. There is nothing that can observe at all. Everything is just occurring where it is, naturally, straightforwardly. There is no observer. There can't be any observer. There never was any observer. Deeply understanding this is required. There never was any observation. Observation can't finally do it. One must figure out how to shift out of observing to just phenomena occurring.

The qualifier "in the present moment" is a problem in some way. This almost always involves some subtle or gross pattern of sensations that we refer to mentally when we say "now", or "the present", which are not actually stable, not actually a present, not actually anything but more empty transience, yet we make them seem like a stable present. This is very subtle, deep, profound. Even "the present" doesn't withstand scrutiny, and we must be careful with this sticky concept, as it can itself become a sort of a solidified thing, part of the illusion of continuity, observation, practitioner, etc.

So, while it is true that deeply comprehending emptiness, non-continuity, non-observation, and even non-present, can occur by just continuously observing this present moment, we must be careful, and sometimes it takes people shifting out of their trench of "good practice" to do something that is out from good practice and instead is just the unfolding empty wisdom dharma. Various people find various methods to make this subtle shift, and one size definitely does not fit all, so best wishes sorting out what will help you work out your salvation with diligence.

Daniel

One could just say that each transient moment, however it is, naturally understands its ungraspable, discontinuous, ephemeral, non-existent, empty nature, straightforwardly, perfectly.

However, one must be careful not to idealize or intellectually reify any of those concepts and qualifiers, and instead this is something that is purely perceptual.

It applies to every transient moment, regardless of any other consideration of the specific qualities of that moment.

All that said, I did, as my last push, go back to the Three Characteristics and Six Sense Doors, just those, but at a level of extremely high precision, inclusiveness, and acceptance, and found that effective. Yet, the place I had gotten to that seemed to make it effective was a radical disenchantment and dispassion towards with everything “I” had attained, everything “I” was, everything “I” could become, everything “I” could experience, and how to arrive at such a place varies a lot by the person.” - Daniel M. Ingram

John Tan wrote to me after my deepening insight into the first stanza of anatta that dissolved the grounding into here/now, about 5 months after the initial insight into anatta.

“John: it is insight into anatta and DO then you lose all dualistic and inherent view and what's left is simply dharma… I do not want you to fall back to Awareness. when you do not experience 'disjoint and unsupported' with clarity, you will fall back. when you are able to mature the disjoint and unsupported experience then there is no holding to Awareness… it is just a word. what is actual is just simply this luminous activity or ceaseless activity. so you know what I meant about AF (Actual Freedom) not talking about liberation last time?

it is more on stanza 2. direct apprehension… flesh and blood of this body… all these are trying to get grounded much like in the here and now. though tarin talk about that recently [Soh: letting go of the grounding in Here/Now], I cannot see the clarity of insight. but I do not want you to go around making noise...

you just have to 'taste' this directly and realize whether it is true or not. only when a practitioner mature the 'disjoint' and 'unsupported' realization, the 'grounding' can then be gone. otherwise it is only 'talk'. :P so you must realize it, have a glimpse of this truth, then you know the 'how' of proceeding

how many months already after your insight of anatta?

Soh:    about 5” - Conversation with John Tan, 2011

“(6:56 PM) Thusness:    now experiencing no-mind as focus attention is different from experiencing no-mind in a disjoint and unsupported manner.

what is the difference?

(6:57 PM) AEN:    as focus attention still has some level of effort because there is a need to sustain the ground... no mind in a disjoint and unsupported manner is just constant opening and releasing without effort and without ground

(7:00 PM) Thusness:    well said...

so what is the sensation like?

(7:00 PM) AEN:    disjoint and unsupported manner is like a sensation of not staying anywhere... ephemeral, bubble like phenomena arising and passing without traces

(7:02 PM) Thusness:    the key word is 'freedom'

or liberating” - Conversation with John Tan, 2011