from Mr. H sent 4 hours ago
Now this was very helpful, such a difference when you talk to me directly.
As for your 1st message, I do understand and practice this all, including daily meditation for years.
Your 3rd and 4th messages were the most helpful in my understanding of what kind of state you mean, and also what kind of state you don't mean. This way I have an idea of what to look for. I suppose there is a complete rewiring taking place here, and when it's complete, it just establishes a new model of reality where it needs no further tending to. But do tell me this, do you ever enter the state of flow? If you're not familiar with the term, it means being so fully immersed in what you're doing that you completely lose track of time and context, meaning the mind switches into autopilot, but a productive autopilot. Do you experience this still? It's hard for me to imagine that there is any awareness of reality or flow itself while in flow, as opposed to only retrospectively after it has happened. Sure, there may be an underlying "new model" that pervades everything, but is it always mindfully known to be the case? Do you ever yield to the mind so fully, for productive behavior, that mindfulness of reality temporarily subsides?
Regarding your 6th message, I do intellectually understand this and pretty much everything you say, I am able to experience reality in this way, as I am able to experience it with a "background" as well. I am in a phase of inquiry as to whether atman or anatman appears to be truer, but assuming one or the other, I can experience either to one extent or another, meditate on it, and contemplate it.



Soh To: Mr. H

I know the flow state you're talking about. After anatta is realized, you are always fully immersed and you don't need to chase flow states.

It is as Thusness said before, " John Tan wrote recently:


“I think we have to differentiate wisdom from an art or a state of mind.
In Master Sheng Yen’s death poem,
 
Busy with nothing till old. (无事忙中老)
In emptiness, there is weeping and laughing. (空里有哭笑)
Originally there never was any 'I'. (本来没有我)
Thus life and death can be cast aside. (生死皆可抛)
 
This "Originally there never was any 'I'" is wisdom and the dharma seal of anatta. It is neither an art like an artist in zone where self is dissolved into the flow of action nor is it a state to be achieved in the case of the taoist "坐忘" (sit and forget) -- a state of no-mind.
 
For example in cooking, there is no self that cooks, only the activity of cooking. The hands moves, the utensils act, the water boils, the potatoes peel and the universe sings together in the act of cooking. Whether one appears clumsy or smooth in act of cooking doesn't matter and when the dishes r out, they may still taste horrible; still there never was any "I" in any moment of the activity. There is no entry or exit point in the wisdom of anatta.”" - excerpt from https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2021/07/anatta-is-dharma-seal-or-truth-that-is.html


So the key is really to realize anatta as a dharma seal. Otherwise a state of no mind will always be merely a state to achieve, that can be entered or left, like flow states. Right now I am always fully immersed in the action (to be clear, there is no 'I' to be fully immersed with the action, there is only the action, the action is everything and is the full immersion but I think you get what I mean), like the action of typing and words appearing on the screen, it is completely actionless action, non-action-action, wei wu wei, which is not to say that there is no intention or action, but that the gap between actor and act, doer and deed has been refined till none (Effortlessly, naturally, after anatta insight) in the single act where total action without actor-act is non-action.

In short... When the gap between actor and action is refined till none, that is non-action and that non-action is total action. Whether this total action is understood as the natural way will depend on whether the insight of anatta has arisen. Anatta is the insight that allows the practitioner to see clearly that this has always been the case. I think it was Frank Yang (who makes very interesting videos about his anatta insight and other practical advise, see for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t8KvdMtT4A&ab_channel=FrankYang -- although I wouldn't call that 'full enlightenment', just stream entry or realisation of anatman or Thusness Stage 5) who said after anatta, it's always flow state, which you never leave. Or something like that. It becomes a natural state.

You asked about mindfulness. What is mindfulness in this case? In relation to actions, activities, and even thinking? Mindfulness does not mean stepping back as a watcher. A watcher is a delusion. There is no watcher. In the seeing just the seen, seeing is always already and only the seen, without a seer, just like wind is ever just the blowing and just another word for blowing, not the agent of blowing, and lightning is just another word for flash, never was there two, thunder is simply another word for roaring and is not some invisible agent that creates the roaring. In hearing, only sound, no hearer or hearing besides sound. So on and so forth. Contemplate this way in direct experience until it is realised as clear as day.


So to answer your question directly, "It's hard for me to imagine that there is any awareness of reality or flow itself while in flow, as opposed to only retrospectively after it has happened."

Anatta is precisely the realization of what awareness truly is. Under the state of delusion, we think that awareness is something outside of the flow, watching the flow as a watcher. That's the delusion. In truth, thoughts think and sound hears. The observer has always been the observed. Awareness has always been merely the flow itself, never was it ever outside the flow, not even for a moment. Never was, except in one's delusions. No watcher was ever needed nor did it ever exist, the process itself knows and rolls as Venerable Buddhaghosa writes in the Visuddhi Magga. Everything is self-luminous, self-known, self-knowing. The quality of knowingness is not denied, it is just no longer reified into a ghostly background behind manifestation but is simply the luminous manifestation, as Thusness said years ago, "The key towards pure knowingness is to bring the taste of presence into the 6 entries and exits. So that what is seen, heard, touched, tasted are pervaded by a deep sense of crystal, radiance and transparency. This requires seeing through the center.", "“Geovani Geo to me, to be without dual is not to subsume into one and although awareness is negated, it is not to say there is nothing.

Negating the Awareness/Presence (Absolute) is not to let Awareness remain at the abstract level.  When such transpersonal Awareness that exists only in wonderland is negated, the vivid radiance of presence are fully tasted in the transient appearances; zero gap and zero distance between presence and moment to moment of ordinary experiences and we realize separationn has always only been conventional.

Then mundane activities -- hearing, sitting, standing, seeing and sensing, become pristine and vibrant, natural and free.” – John Tan, 2020"



I know what you're going to say next. You're going to say, but I'm missing the point. Because the awareness that you can't imagine being simultaneous with being in the flow is not the sort of 'knowingness' but the sort of "time and context" and so on, or in other words, mind information as opposed to merely non conceptual sensory and bodily actions, correct?

But that is only because you are looking from the perspective of a peak experience of no-mind, where you enter into a state of total mental silence and self-transcendence in an activity, for example. But in anatta, every moment is so, whether in silence or noise, stillness or activities, and remembering mental information is just as much part of the flow as any other moment of manifestation, thoughts are equally Buddha-nature, radiant and empty thoughts without a thinker or a watcher. No-mind is no longer a state with an entry and exit, it is natural and effortless. In that very act of skiing, just the skiing, in the act of driving, just the driving, no agent, no actor, no watcher besides. And in the act of remembering or thinking, just thought! Not any different from all other activities and experiences. So that's how things are or have been since anatta realization. There is no split or gap between mundane activities, stillness, programming, work, or walking, driving, or sitting meditation. All activities, even the chaos of complex mental activities and worklife, can become an ongoing actualization of buddha-nature or practice-enlightenment. You still need to sit in meditation diligently though, but for another reason which I partly explained earlier but its best to learn from a teacher and guidance of someone deeply awakened.

On the subject of mindfulness, this is a key practice in Buddhism. In 2012, I quoted from Walpola Rahula in his very highly recommended book What the Buddha Taught https://www.amazon.com.au/What-Buddha-Taught-Pb-Rahula/dp/0802130313 :


10/20/2012 11:27 AM: AEN: "Mindfulness, or awareness, does not mean that you should think and be conscious 'I am doing this' or 'I am doing that.' No. Just the contrary. The moment you think, 'I am doing this,' you become self-conscious, and then you do not live in the action, but you live in the idea 'I am,' and consequently your work too is spoiled.
"You should forget yourself completely, and lose yourself in what you do. The moment a speaker becomes self-conscious and thinks 'I am addressing an audience,' his speech is disturbed and his trend of thought broken. But when he forgets himself in his speech, in his subject, then he is at his best, he speaks well and explains things clearly.
All great work -- artistic, poetic, intellectual or spiritual -- is produced at those moments when its creators are lost completely in their actions, when they forget themselves altogether, and are free from self-consciousness.
10/20/2012 11:27 AM: Thusness: All past/present/future tendencies, ignorance, wisdom is in this one thought...
10/20/2012 11:30 AM: AEN: This mindfulness or awareness with regard to our activities, taught by the Buddha, is to live in the present moment, to live in the present action (this is also the Zen way which is based primarily on this teaching.) Here in this form of meditation, you haven't got to perform any particular action in order to develop mindfulness, but you have only to be mindful and aware of whatever you may do. You haven't got to spend one second of your precious time on this particular 'meditation': you have only to cultivate mindfulness and awareness always, day and night, with regard to all activities in your usual daily life. These two forms of 'meditation' discussed above are connected with our body."
10/20/2012 11:30 AM: Thusness: Yes...and insight of anatta opens the gate.
10/20/2012 11:32 AM: AEN: Ic..
10/20/2012 11:33 AM: AEN: Delma tells me today her total exertion has stabilized
10/20/2012 11:34 AM: AEN: "Interesting times. Nondual is becoming more and more stable. I don't understand it, but just reading your material and deeply contemplating it seems to have tremendous affect. Yesterday while driving home from work and walking to my house, there was just walking, just driving. This was is what is becoming more and more sustained.

I do follow your advice and follow the breath without counting. Then there is only breath. It's more effortless these days. So, thank you.
10/20/2012 11:34 AM: AEN: luminosity, but not awareness as a thing or entity. just the senses, experienced as independent streams. It's the walking experience which seems different and sustained. No one is walking. At first this would be experienced with a bit of effort, but it's becoming more natural and the feeling of it always having been this way is there."
10/20/2012 11:38 AM: Thusness: Quite good

- www.awakeningtoreality.com/2012/10/total-exertion_20.html

.....

In short, in the very immersion in the vivid act of losing yourself in the activity that you call 'being in the zone/flow', or even in the midst of thinking -- there is just that act, just that thought, self-luminous and empty thought without a thinker/watcher, actualizing the seal of anatman, and the inseparability of luminosity and emptiness, that in itself is mindfulness. On the contrary, if we experience clarity but reify it into a changeless self under the power of ignorance and karmic propensities into a watcher, a background, that is called not being mindful, losing sight of the three dharma seals -- anicca, dukkha, anatta. Losing sight of right view. Mindfulness is remembering right view experientially. And realization of anatman is the beginning of the realization of right view, to be further extended later on in terms of dependent origination and emptiness.

More comments on mindfulness:

Although the practice of mindfulness was first taught by Buddha, it is usurped and misinterpreted by people who do not understand Buddhism. I mean it's fine they use the term mindfulness in their own ways, but it is just not mindfulness in the context of Buddhism. Most people think of mindfulness in the way of being an atman, a Watcher, a background, this is not how Buddha taught.

As I wrote over a decade ago:


 I will discuss one of the most popular technique the Buddha said could lead to the attainment of Anagamihood and Arahantship in as little as 7 days and at most 7 years (of course you must be seriously practicing it with a background of right view and understanding, otherwise you can't possibly have right mindfulness to begin with, which is why not everyone who meditates become enlightened so quickly), which is the Four Foundations of Mindfulness found in the Satipatthana Sutta (which I highly recommend everyone to read) which is according to Wikipedia the most popular Buddhist text. In that technique, one is mindful/aware of every sensation. You may think ‘oh this is probably some typical Witnessing technique found even in common self-help books to dissociate from all forms and experiences in order to transcend to the formless Self or Watcher’, BUT notice that the Watcher is nowhere mentioned in the sutta (and any other Pali sutta for that matter) and more importantly: the Buddha’s repeated expression in the sutta of "observing the body in the body," "observing the feelings in the feelings," "observing the mind in the mind," "observing the objects of mind in the objects of mind." Why are the words, body, feelings, mind, and objects of mind repeated? Why ‘observe the … IN THE ….’? It means you are living and experiencing IN and AS the sensations, and not observing the sensations in and as an observer/watcher and the sensations are not meant to be disassociated from in order to get to an ultimate reality or transcendental Self!

The Buddha's method of contemplating anatta therefore is for practitioners to have direct experience and contemplation of pure sensations as in Bahiya Sutta, 'in seeing just the seen, in hearing just the heard'* WITHOUT the filtering of the conceptual mind, the false sense or conception of a self, or the passions and afflictions that causes all manners of craving and aversions for the sensations, so that insight and realization can arise, so that true liberation and abandonment can take place, and it is only in this context that contemplating anatta can be understood. And this is the insight meditation taught by Buddha himself, which, at least in the Pali canon, is considered as the most direct path to liberation (however note that the term 'direct path' is used differently by me in my e-book).

*Bahiya Sutta said, "Then, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bahiya, there is no you in terms of that. When there is no you in terms of that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress." 

- www.awakeningtoreality.com/2011/10/anatta-not-self-or-no-self_1.html

----


Lastly you said "I am able to experience it with a "background" as well", well that is not the pure experience of the I AM. A background is only experienced when one is outside of the authentication of the pure Beingness or Presence, and the mind captured that image of a foreground moment of pure presence and turn it into a background.

Many people have described it this way in case you haven't noticed, except they didn't realise the nature of it: sometimes the thoughts and 'stuff' of their lives recede into the 'background' and instead the I AM they realized would come to the foreground and they would experience with vivid intensity just Awareness Aware of Itself as Itself, as the pure foreground and sole reality that is I AM/Pure Beingness. But at other times, the I AM appears as sort of there in the background, while thoughts and other stuff take up the foreground position, yet the stillness and presence underlying all the other thoughts and activities that's going on, an undercurrent of peace and stillness and presence still goes on like the canvas for the forms to take place.

That should actually give you a hint. In the very pure authentication of I AM, it actually is a foreground experience, it never was a background except when captured by the mind and reified into an underlying substratum behind other foreground experiences (making it dualistic). This prevents the authentication of Pure Presence in the midst of all forms and activities.

We're not denying the pure Presence or the pure sense of Existence that seems 'formless', it is just the Mind door or the subtle aspect of the mental realm, the subtle clear light. But it too is a foreground manifestation, and no more ultimate and special or luminous than any other thought, sight, sound, scent, sensation, colors, smells, all equally intensely vivid and radiant and empty -- Buddha-nature. It is just a misunderstanding of its nature, the ignorance, the power of karmic conditioning which makes the 'background' appear so real and ultimate, that turns it dualistic and prevents the actualization of buddha-nature in all forms. It is misapprehending the nature of awareness.

Perhaps you can go through these excerpts again in light of this understanding:



In 2009:

“(10:49 PM) Thusness:    by the way you know about hokai description and "I AM" is the same experience?
(10:50 PM) AEN:            the watcher right
(10:52 PM) Thusness:    nope. i mean the shingon practice of the body, mind, speech into one.
(10:53 PM) AEN:            oh thats i am experience?
(10:53 PM) Thusness:    yes, except that the object of practice is not based on consciousness. what is meant by foreground? it is the disappearance of the background and whats left is it. similarly the "I AM" is the experience of no background and experiencing consciousness directly. that is why it is just simply "I-I" or "I AM"
(10:57 PM) AEN:            i've heard of the way people describe consciousness as the background consciousness becoming the foreground... so there's only consciousness aware of itself and thats still like I AM experience
(10:57 PM) Thusness:    that is why it is described that way, awareness aware of itself and as itself.
(10:57 PM) AEN:            but you also said I AM people sink to a background?
(10:57 PM) Thusness:    yes
(10:57 PM) AEN:            sinking to background = background becoming foreground?
(10:58 PM) Thusness:    that is why i said it is misunderstood. and we treat that as ultimate.
(10:58 PM) AEN:            icic but what hokai described is also nondual experience rite
(10:58 PM) Thusness:    I have told you many times that the experience is right but the understanding is wrong. that is why it is an insight and opening of the wisdom eyes. there is nothing wrong with the experience of I AM". did i say that there is anything wrong with it?
(10:59 PM) AEN:            nope
(10:59 PM) Thusness:    even in stage 4 what did I say?
(11:00 PM) AEN:            its the same experience except in sound, sight, etc
(11:00 PM) Thusness:    sound as the exact same experience as "I AM"... as presence.
(11:00 PM) AEN:            icic
(11:00 PM) Thusness:    yes”

“"I AM" is a luminous thought in samadhi as I-I.  Anatta is a realization of that in extending the insight to the 6 entries and exits.” – John Tan, 2018

“The Absolute as separated from the transience is what I have indicated as the 'Background' in my 2 posts to theprisonergreco.

84. RE: Is there an absolute reality? [Skarda 4 of 4]
Mar 27 2009, 9:15 AM EDT | Post edited: Mar 27 2009, 9:15 AM EDT
Hi theprisonergreco,

First is what exactly is the ‘background’? Actually it doesn’t exist. It is only an image of a ‘non-dual’ experience that is already gone. The dualistic mind fabricates a ‘background’ due to the poverty of its dualistic and inherent thinking mechanism. It ‘cannot’ understand or function without something to hold on to. That experience of the ‘I’ is a complete, non-dual foreground experience.

When the background subject is understood as an illusion, all transience phenomena reveal themselves as Presence. It is like naturally 'vipassanic' throughout. From the hissing sound of PC, to the vibration of the moving MRT train, to the sensation when the feet touches the ground, all these experiences are crystal clear, no less “I AM” than “I AM”. The Presence is still fully present, nothing is denied. -:) So the “I AM” is just like any other experiences when the subject-object split is gone. No different from an arising sound. It only becomes a static background as an afterthought when our dualistic and inherent tendencies are in action.

The first 'I-ness' stage of experiencing awareness face to face is like a point on a sphere which you called it the center. You marked it.

Then later you realized that when you marked other points on the surface of a sphere, they have the same characteristics. This is the initial experience of non-dual. Once the insight of No-Self is stabilized, you just freely point to any point on the surface of the sphere -- all points are a center, hence there is no 'the' center. 'The' center does not exist: all points are a center.

After then practice move from 'concentrative' to 'effortlessness'. That said, after this initial non-dual insight, 'background' will still surface occasionally for another few years due to latent tendencies...

86. RE: Is there an absolute reality? [Skarda 4 of 4]
To be more exact, the so called 'background' consciousness is that pristine happening. There is no a 'background' and a 'pristine happening'. During the initial phase of non-dual, there is still habitual attempt to 'fix' this imaginary split that does not exist. It matures when we realized that anatta is a seal, not a stage; in hearing, always only sounds; in seeing always only colors, shapes and forms; in thinking, always only thoughts. Always and already so. -:)

Many non-dualists after the intuitive insight of the Absolute hold tightly to the Absolute. This is like attaching to a point on the surface of a sphere and calling it 'the one and only center'. Even for those Advaitins that have clear experiential insight of no-self (no object-subject split), an experience similar to that of anatta (First emptying of subject) are not spared from these tendencies. They continue to sink back to a Source.

It is natural to reference back to the Source when we have not sufficiently dissolved the latent disposition but it must be correctly understood for what it is. Is this necessary and how could we rest in the Source when we cannot even locate its whereabout? Where is that resting place? Why sink back? Isn't that another illusion of the mind? The 'Background' is just a thought moment to recall or an attempt to reconfirm the Source. How is this necessary? Can we even be a thought moment apart? The tendency to grasp, to solidify experience into a 'center' is a habitual tendency of the mind at work. It is just a karmic tendency. Realize It! This is what I meant to Adam the difference between One-Mind and No-Mind.” - John Tan, 2009, excerpt from Emptiness as Viewless View and Embracing the Transience https://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/04/emptiness-as-viewless-view.html

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One last thing, I sent this to someone recently, you might want to check out the links, especially the one by Zen teacher Alex Weith:

In Cula-sihanada Sutta (MN 11) -- The Shorter Discourse on the Lion's Roar {M i 63} [Ñanamoli Thera and Bhikkhu Bodhi, trans.] - http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.011.ntbb.html , the Buddha declares that only through practicing in accord with the Dhamma can Awakening be realized. His teaching is distinguished from those of other religions and philosophies through its unique rejection of all doctrines of self. [BB]

…

Dzogchen teacher Acarya Malcolm Smith said,

"What you are suggesting is already found in Samkhya system. I.e. the twenty four tattvas are not the self aka purusha. Since this system was well known to the Buddha, if that's all his insight was, then his insight is pretty trivial. But Buddha's teachings were novel. Why where they novel? They were novel in the fifth century BCE because of his teaching of dependent origination and emptiness. The refutation of an ultimate self is just collateral damage."

Dzogchen teacher Acarya Malcolm Smith explains why Dzogchen view and basis is different from that of Advaita Vedanta in this compilation of his writings in this page: http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2014/02/clarifications-on-dharmakaya-and-basis_16.html

...

Zen teacher Alex Weith said well in his well written writings that I compiled here http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/10/zen-exploration-of-bahiya-sutta.html :

What I realized also is that authoritative self-realized students of direct students of both Ramana Maharishi and Nisargadatta Maharaj called me a 'Jnani', inviting me to give satsangs and write books, while I had not yet understood the simplest core principles of Buddhism. I realized also that the vast majority of Buddhist teachers, East and West, never went beyond the same initial insights (that Adhyashanti calls "an abiding awakening"), confusing the Atma with the ego, assuming that transcending the ego or self-center (ahamkara in Sanskrit) was identical to what the Buddha had called Anatta (Non-Atma).

It would seem therefore that the Buddha had realized the Self at a certain stage of his acetic years (it is not that difficult after all) and was not yet satisfied. As paradoxical as it may seem, his "divide and conquer strategy" aimed at a systematic deconstruction of the Self (Atma, Atta), reduced to -and divided into- what he then called the five aggregates of clinging and the six sense-spheres, does lead to further and deeper insights into the nature of reality. As far as I can tell, this makes me a Buddhist, not because I find Buddhism cool and trendy, but because I am unable to find other teachings and traditions that provide a complete set of tools and strategies aimed at unlocking these ultimate mysteries, even if mystics from various traditions did stumble on the same stages and insights often unknowingly.

…

Another dharma teacher who underwent similar journey from Vedanta realization to Buddhist realization is Archaya Mahayogi Shridhar Rana Rinpoche, you can read about his bio and articles here: https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/search/label/Acharya%20Mahayogi%20Shridhar%20Rana%20Rinpoche

Recently shared the following article by Dalai Lama a few times again with others when discussion came up.