xabir2005

Why has this become an issue of authority? I did not make a statement without explanation... the verses from Visudhimagga is already very clear... the reason why a God cannot exist, is because everything interdependently originates.

Once you realize the nature of reality, you'll have direct insight into how a God is impossible. You'll realize this: "Mere suffering is, not any sufferer is found The deeds exist, but no performer of the deeds: Nibbana is, but not the man that enters it, The path is, but no wanderer is to be seen." "Everywhere, in all the realms of existence, the noble disciple sees only mental and corporeal phenomena kept going through the concatenation of causes and effects. No producer of the volitional act or kamma does he see apart from the kamma, no recipient of the kamma-result apart from the result. And he is well aware that wise men are using merely conventional language, when, with regard to a kammical act, they speak of a doer, or with regard to a kamma-result, they speak of the recipient of the result. No doer of the deeds is found, No one who ever reaps their fruits; Empty phenomena roll on: This only is the correct view. And while the deeds and their results Roll on and on, conditioned all, There is no first beginning found, Just as it is with seed and tree. ... No god, no Brahma, can be called The maker of this wheel of life: Empty phenomena roll on, Dependent on conditions all." ~ Visudhimagga

No... Gradual practice of clearing thoughts to reveal a state of awareness, no realization The body is a bodhi tree The mind is a bright mirror Always diligently polish this mirror so that dust may never collect. Self-Realization Bodhi is originally without a tree The mirror is also without a stand Originally there is not a single thing Where is there a place for dust to collect? (5th patriarch wiped off the above poem with his shoes, and told him to meet him again that night) Non Dual Realization (That night:) Knowing what his message meant, in the third watch of the night I went to his room. Using the robe as a screen so that none could see us, he expounded the Diamond Sutra to me. When he came to the sentence, "One should use one's mind in such a way that it will be free from any attachment,"[1] I at once became thoroughly enlightened, and realized that all things in the universe are the Essence of Mind itself.

It is not "I don't exist" It is, there is no "I" that can be pinned down in or outside the five aggregates to begin with, much less to exist or not exist

I see you like to quote from great western vehicle. I find the founder to be rich in experience of jhanas. However, it is clear he did not realize no self. Maybe a temporary experience where the sense of self goes into abeyance, but not as a realization or insight into no self.

To Andy: In that case may I suggest you try self-inquiry, a direct path to self-realization and the initial direct realization of what Awareness is. After you matured that experience and insight, you may continue to investigate on 'no self'. See my e-journal/e-book which contains pointers and instructions on self-inquiry: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-e-booke-journal.html

Have you discovered and realized what that awareness is or are you still in the process?

No. 'self' is a belief. What is self-evident is life: seeing, hearing, smelling. The notion 'I am seeing the tree', 'I am hearing the bird' is an AFTERTHOUGHT to a direct experience... it is an assumption, an inference. It is not based on evidence. The 'you' that sees does not exist. There is just seeing.

My assumptions are mere assumptions, so correct me if I am wrong. And yes I do not disagree that Buddha's teachings are mostly gradual. But look at Bahiya Sutta, Bahiya woke up instantaneously by contemplating 'in seeing just the seen'.

So you do not have the view of a self?

Speaking from experience, there is nothing delusional about that. What is illusional is your notion of self. Try finding it, it cannot be found, yet you believe it exists.

There is nothing intellectual about no self. It is a truth you either see or not... it is deeply experiential. In the seeing just the seen, in the hearing just the heard, once this is realized there is nothing more direct and experiential than This. However, I do agree that Ciaran could learn to be more patient.

There is no self, much less 7 Billion selves. But yes, there are (almost - as a minority have awakened) 7 billion beings deluded into the view of self. It is via latent tendencies... from young we are conditioned and learnt to view self and things as being inherently existing. Coincidentally, I just read this from Ven Gunaratana just now: http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe1-4.html From the Buddhist point of view, we human beings live in a very peculiar fashion. We view impermanent things as permanent, though everything is changing all around us. The process of change is constant and eternal. As you read these words, your body is aging. But you pay no attention to that. The book in you hand is decaying. The print is fading and the pages are becoming brittle. The walls around you are aging. The molecules within those walls are vibrating at an enormous rate, and everything is shifting, going to pieces and dissolving slowly. You pay no attention to that, either. Then one day you look around you. Your body is wrinkled and squeaky and you hurt. The book is a yellowed, useless lump; the building is caving in. So you pine for lost youth and you cry when the possessions are gone. Where does this pain come from? It comes from your own inattention. You failed to look closely at life. You failed to observe the constantly shifting flow of the world as it went by. You set up a collection of mental constructions, 'me', 'the book', 'the building', and you assume that they would endure forever. They never do. But you can tune into the constantly ongoing change. You can learn to perceive your life as an ever- flowing movement, a thing of great beauty like a dance or symphony. You can learn to take joy in the perpetual passing away of all phenomena. You can learn to live with the flow of existence rather than running perpetually against the grain. You can learn this. It is just a matter of time and training. Our human perceptual habits are remarkably stupid in some ways. We tune out 99% of all the sensory stimuli we actually receive, and we solidify the remainder into discrete mental objects. Then we react to those mental objects in programmed habitual ways. An example: There you are, sitting alone in the stillness of a peaceful night. A dog barks in the distance. The perception itself is indescribably beautiful if you bother to examine it. Up out of that sea of silence come surging waves of sonic vibration. You start to hear the lovely complex patterns, and they are turned into scintillating electronic stimulations within the nervous system. The process is beautiful and fulfilling in itself. We humans tend to ignore it totally. Instead, we solidify that perception into a mental object. We paste a mental picture on it and we launch into a series of emotional and conceptual reactions to it. "There is that dog again. He is always barking at night. What a nuisance. Every night he is a real bother. Somebody should do something. Maybe I should call a cop. No, a dog catcher. So, I'll call the pound. No, maybe I'll just write a real nasty letter to the guy who owns that dog. No, too much trouble. I'll just get an ear plug." They are just perceptual and mental habits. You learn to respond this way as a child by copying the perceptual habits of those around you. These perceptual responses are not inherent in the structure of the nervous system. The circuits are there. But this is not the only way that our mental machinery can be used. That which has been learned can be unlearned. The first step is to realize what you are doing, as you are doing it, and stand back and quietly watch.

Ciaran has changed in behaviour for the better, recently. He also had deepened his understanding of the power of latent tendencies (the 'fictional self'). No, it's not about surrendering but deeply realising the falsity of a self... that there is in seeing just the seen, no seer, in hearing just the heard, no hearer. But yes after seeing the falsity of it, you are naturally inclined to open completely to everything without conceptual filtering and the filter of the sense of a self. Maybe this explains it: (Thusness) Hi Simpo, How have you been getting on? I am planning for my retirement. I think after stabilizing non-dual experience and maturing the insight of anatta, practice must turn towards ‘self-releasing’ and ‘dispassion’ rather than intensifying‘non-dual’ luminosity. Although being bare in attention or naked in awareness will help in dissolving the sense of ‘I’ and division, we must also look into dissolving the sense of ‘mine’. In my opinion, dissolving of the sense of ‘I’ does not equate to dissolving the sense of ‘mine’ and attachment to possessions can still be strong even after very stable non-dual experience. This is because the former realization only mange to eliminate the dualistic tendency while the latter requires us to embody and actualize the right view of ‘emptiness’. Very seldom do we realize it has a lot to do with our ‘view’ that we hold in our deep most consciousness. We must allow our luminous essence to meet differing conditions to realise the latent deep. All our body cells are imprinted and hardwired to ‘hold’. Not to under-estimate it. :-) There are two points. The "you don't exist" is his original realization. More recently, he realized something new. He became awed at the power of the latent tendencies (though he didn't realized it was latent tendencies) which he calls the 'real fictional self' - See http://brazenclarity...-and-stuff.html Let's not assume that because he appears brutal in his approach at hammering certain things at people, it therefore means he is a 'miserable human being'. I doubt he is. His ruthless approach has been successful and helped many people become awake. Sometimes to wake someone up, rather than indulging in people's crap and let them dream on, you need to give them one tight slap. Let's not forget that Zen masters of the old do beat the crap out of their students, sometimes, and it just so happens many students woke up right then.

My personal experience is to realize anatta first, then anicca and dukkha becomes clearer. IMO this is better since Anicca can be understood in a wrong way (i.e. disassociatively) if Anatta realization has not occurrede. Anicca in particular has a very different significance after realizing anatta. It is not the same as observing the arising and passing in vipassana... rather it becomes the realization of everything as being insubstantial, bubble-like, dream-like, disjointed, unsupported, and self-releasing. Without a base, every sound, thought, etc, self-releases without leaving traces... p.s. read (especially part 3) this article: http://awakeningtore...d-non-dual.html

Traits are not me, not mine. If they were me, if they were mine, I can say "I don't want this trait, I want that trait"... you can choose and control. But nope, traits arise due to conditions, they are not me, not mine. As for 'define me', they are merely that - convenient definitions and labels but do not point to an actual findable thing. See http://www.aimwell.org/Books/Suttas/Anattalakkhana/anattalakkhana.html Yes, it's unfindability and ungraspability points to its emptiness. Just like the word 'weather' cannot be located as an entity anywhere but is a mere label collating a conglomerate of weatherly phenomena such as wind, clouds, rain, snow, ever changing moment to moment. No such actual thing as a 'weather' can be located anywhere - it is a mere label collating various ever-changing phenomena. You can't say 'weather does not exist' or 'weather exist' - both do not apply to something that cannot be found and yet is referring to a conglomerate of undeniably appearing phenomena. Those phenomena do not exist in and of themselves, but arise in dependence on other phenomena. This applies to 'self' as well.

Beautiful. But is there even a 'you' that is apart from that in the first place? Is there a 'you' that becomes a part of it? Or is there always already just... The sound of children playing. Birdsong. The feeling of rain as it hit the skin. The smell of trees. Thoughts arising and passing away. The constant movement inside the body. To have seamless and effortless experience, right view is important. If we do not completely replace the 'inherent and dualistic view', it will just pop up and disturb all the beautiful experiences you described. My 2 cents

Hmm... I don't think I've spoken anything about Buddhism here. That said, non-Buddhists have also seen through the illusion of self. An example: http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/18512-ruthless-truth/ It is about discovering a fact through your own investigation... it has nothing to do with conditioning.

Basic Military Training: (the video makes it appear like it's really easy - my field camp was much worse but still fun when you look back at it haha) Which might be tough at times, and I can recall Thusness saying something like... he was encouraging and reminding me to practice (through the dreams).

Scenery delighting scenery. Music enjoying music. I am not a spiritual being having a human experience. But the universe experiencing itself as a human being. ........... Finger types, sound hears. Finger stops typing, sound stops hearing. An intrically interconnected and impersonal process is what the universe is.

This is something I wrote weeks ago in another forum, but I felt it might be of relevance here as well. -------- I saw some writings in facebook and online articles (commonplace, really) about 'I am not my body, I am the deathless Presence/Absolute/Awareness' and this triggered me to write a post about this... I was living in the state named as 'enlightenment' by Richard since February 2010 since the my self-realization culminating from almost two years of self-inquiry practice, and since Feb '10 I went from being identified as a formless Presence, and later to a seamless Awareness that unites every experience into a seamless field in which subject and object are inseparable and everything is simply seen to be inseparable expression of that single field of awareness (August 2010, onwards). At that time I see myself as being a bodiless, birthless and deathless, transcendent Self, a metaphysical Absolute, God, Awareness, etc.... because my view had it that Presence, Awareness has an independent, permanent, inherent existence. In September, while I was busy doing my BMT, I had a dream*... of awakened beings whose bodies were semi transparent. I immediately intuited that, to deepen my experience I have to undergo what is known as a 'body-mind drop-off' to experience total transparency... I also asked him, What are You!? That semi transparent being gestured non-verbally and it was very clear what it meant: this sensate body. Two weeks later I got it... the realization of Anatta arose, and also, the body-mind construct dissolved... there is no longer the sense of a solid object 'in here'... the body is merely disjointed sensations and perceptions that we link up into a feeling, a conjured mental construct of a solid entity with forms and shapes being a stable, solid entity 'here'... that is merely an illusion.... yet at the same time, it is not the dissociative experience of 'I am not my body' I had even much earlier on. I am not a grandiose universal consciousness, rather, I am this sensate, flesh and blood body only (which is nothing solid, but an ever-dynamic, fresh, sensate experience of being this body, being these sense organs seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching and thinking)... I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being, interacting with other fellow beings in a process of interconnectedness (as contrast to oneness) without agency or control and the illusion of being an Identity, a Soul, a Feeler, Seer, Observer 'inside my body' looking outwards at the world... has dissolved. And neither is the world seen as being subsumed or contained in an all-subsuming Awareness... And awarerness is now realised to be more of an effect rather than a cause or source: cognizance depends on body and its sense organs for its manifestation... It is a dependently originated manifestation, in contrast with the previous state where the entire universe is seen to be a mere projection of awareness/consciousness, which is seen to be a single unchanging, unifying and universal source. There is absolutely nothing immortal and metaphysical about consciousness/awareness. I am the seeing, the hearing, which means in the seeing is JUST the seen... the scenery... in hearing is just the sound... there is no such thing as a perceiving nor controlling agent.... perceiving is just the perceived. This is the insight of anatta. This was what I basically realized after contemplating on bahiya sutta. Awareness, the seeing, is just the seen! There is nothing metaphysical and 'absolute' about Awareness... there is no 'The Awareness' or 'One Awareness'... there is pure awareness of sight, pure awareness of hearing, etc... to pure awareness of thought. There are six kinds of pure awareness corresponding to the six senses (five senses + mental activities). Awareness is nothing transcendental or metaphysical, it is precisely the activities, the manifestation... The process itself rolls and knows without a knower. Without an identity, that separates and distances 'me' from 'the world', I am in intimacy with all things actual... with the floor, the chairs, the trees, and so on. The sun feels as close as my breath. The entire universe is experienced as alive, wonderful, delightful, a fairy-tale like paradise. It is now seen that there is no two entities, one called body and one called spirit. Our universe is not made of entities, but activities and processes. All there is is this body, and it is not that there is a body 'in here' in contrast with the environment 'out there' - our perception of a body is simply a bunch of disjointed sensations and perceptions not seperated from, and forms part of the environment... The perceptual environment made of various sensations and perceptions. The clinging to a construct and sense of a solid body 'in here' dissolves without denying or disassociating from the actuality of the bodily sensations (the body reveals itself to be a luminous and transparent field of aliveness), and there is a sense of being transparent and intimate with the entire environment, without any sense of and inside or outside, and this is what is known in Zen as the 'mind-body drop'. Nowadays there are rarely any authors that have clear insight into anatta, most just stop at I Am (realization of the formless Presence, taken to be one's purest Identity), and the deepest most go is substantialist non-dual (subject-object collapsed into oneness, all forms subsumed into a single field of awareness), the realization of anatta (I.e. The seeing IS the seen, in hearing just the heard, etc) and for this I am greatly indebted to Thusness's guidance. The least I could do is to share what I know and experience and hopefully it can be of help to someone else. * Thusness later revealed that my dreams manifested due to his intention for me to know certain important issues crucial for my next phase of insight... And that he could manifest dreams to me due to our deep connection. He also does seem to have an uncanny ability to know accurately what is the 'next step' for another person, and even exactly when will those insights occur for that person. I had a number of such spiritual dreams during my BMT phase (possibly because I hardly had much time to talk with Thusness during that period) of profound significance regarding my spiritual practice that helped me to understand a lot of what I am going through and was very helpful... now not much anymore and Thusness often visits me... physically, not in dreams, haha.

The process started a year ago. Through contemplating the question 'Before birth, Who am I?' for almost two years with a deep desire to resolve the matter of the truth of my Being, there suddenly arose the insight into the essence of existence, being, presence. This is a direct insight into something undeniable and unavoidable. For the first time I realized what presence, luminosity, awareness actually is, directly and non-conceptually without intermediary. And I realize that to be my very essence, in which there is no division between 'me' and 'it' - I am That, the self-knowing presence. It is so clear and undoubtable that there arose a certainty of Being, something more undeniable and intimate than the breath, and if anything it is the only 'thing' that cannot be denied. At this phase, the construct of duality and the construct of inherency still remains strong. As such, I see 1) an inherent awareness 2) awareness is the ultimate observer of objects, and I am that all-pervading awareness, I am not the objects - the objects are objects happening to/in awareness, and awareness is like a vast container for them to arise and subside. This phase continued for the next six months where I deepened the insight and experience of I AMness in terms of the insight and experience of impersonality, where everything is seen to be the spontaneous manifestation and doings of an impersonal source. It feels like I am being lived by a higher power. Due to the experience of impersonality, there is the impression that consciousness is universal and everyone comes from the same source. There is also the refining of that insight and experience in terms of the intensity of luminosity, seeing through and dissolving the need to abide, and effortlessness. So these four aspects are the 'refining factors of the realization of I AM' and is what eventually led to further non-dual insights. That said, in the I AM realization phase, due to the lack of insights, I was skewed into trying to abide more and more as the I AM and trying to make this abidance constant. In August, while dancing in a nightclub and just immersing myself into the movement, the music, and sensuousness of everything, I experienced non-duality very intensely and effortlessly as the sense of self just dropped off. Although I have had non-dual glimpses (lasting only a few moments usually), this was different as it became very effortless and constant. Everything was very intense, blissful, and luminously present - and it was not because of alcohol or mind-altering drugs... the subsidance of the sense of dualistic construct is very blissful, and this bliss and clarity did not just stop - it became a perpetual experience in daily life. Now, Awareness is seen to be seamless by nature. I no longer see and experience Presence and Awareness as a formless background to everything. In fact, it is seen that there is no division between the observer and the observed - I am the seeing, the hearing, the smelling, the tasting, the touching, everything arising moment to moment, there is no separate self or experiencer, there is only that - and that is non-dual presence. However, the construct of an inherent awareness is still strong, and as such, I see 1) an inherent awareness 2) awareness is not divided with all manifestations. In other words, I see everything as the manifestation of the same aliveness/awareness, and Awareness is seen as a seamless undivided field of being in which everything is equally an expression of, and not other than, this field of aliveness/awareness/consciousness. As such, the purpose of practice is no longer geared towards achieving a constant, 24/7 abidance in the purest state of Presence, the Self. Rather, seamless and effortlessness is discovered to be totally non-dual and seamless with/AS all manifestations, rather than abiding in a purest formless Presence. At this point, I keep questioning myself, "Where does awareness end and manifestation begin?" and the answer to this is a non-conceptual, borderless, centreless, seamless field of undivided presence in which everything is included AS non-dual presence. In October upon the contemplation of Bahiya Sutta while I was marching (was enlisted last year for a mandatory two year military service), I realized Anatta. The contemplation of 'in the seeing just the seen, in the hearing just the heard' as Buddha instructed Bahiya triggered that realization. As such, I no longer see an agent that perceives, i.e. an Awareness. I realized that there is no agent that perceives at all, no subject to be found. In seeing, there is only just the seen, the scenery - the seeing IS the seen, the seeing IS the scenery. There is just scenery - and that alone is the seeing. There is no seer, no agent, no perceiver behind perception. Only always just perception without perceiver. Everything is just happening. There is no "seamless field of aliveness" because aliveness is simply these everchanging and ungraspable sensations arising and subsiding each moment. Just thoughts, sensations, sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, that's all. Phenomena manifesting. The entire process itself rolls and knows, there is no knower. There is no Awareness that is one with its perceptions. There is just perception, the perception itself is its knowing. Because there is always only arising phenomena, there is no such thing as 'unicity'. There is no awareness to be united with objects, no mirror that is one with its reflections. There is no subject to begin with that could be inseparable with its objects. There is always only phenomena. Few months later, I began to notice this subtle remaining tendency to cling to a Here and Now. Somehow, I still want to return to a Here, a Now, which I found to be a subtle illusory yet hypnotic conceptual image that represents 'Presence'. In reality, Presence is empty and non-local. It cannot be located, it cannot be found, it cannot be pinned pointed even as 'here' or 'now'. It cannot be grasped in any way, because there is no core or essence to Awareness. There is always only dependently originated appearances, that alone is Presence, and that is unlocatable, ungraspable, unfindable in any way whatsoever. Therefore we must not only dissolve the construct of "Who", even the more subtle construct of a "Where" and "When" must be dissolved for true liberation. When this is seen, the subtle tendency to seek an inherent source/awareness/presence is then allowed to be dropped, and in place of that seeking tendency is the effortless and natural spontaneous manifestation of interdepedent origination. Soon afterwards, there is the realization that 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 on its 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. Therefore, this ‘disjoint, unsupported, bubble-like, non-solid, spontaneous, self-releasing’ nature of activities is revealed as a further progression from the initial insight into Anatta which is still skewed towards non-dual luminosity and being grounded in the ‘Here/Now’. So... that's the story so far anyway. I claim no finality, and in fact, am pretty sure more insights are going to unfold in time to come. And since I see reality as a process, I do not make neo-Advaitic claims like 'oh the time bound story is just relative stuff and actually all there is is Here/Now' - there is no inherently existing 'Here/Now' at all, there is just phenomena rolling on its own accord and telling its story but without a self at the center claiming ownership of the process (and yet using personal pronouns is unavoidable for convenient communication - I don't want to sound like a weirdo for using impersonal pronouns) And yet since reality/phenomena is as ungraspable as lightning strikes, no phenomena including enlightenment could be captured or clung to. So I always refer back to what Zen Master Dogen wrote: To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever. Lastly, I see enlightenment as nothing mystical. It is simply the lifting of veils to reveal subtler aspects of reality. Once we lift conceptual thoughts, we discover I AM. Once we lift the bond of duality, we experience and discover non-dual awareness. Once we lift the bond of inherency, we experience and discover the absence of agent and an wonderfully luminous yet empty universe occuring via dependent origination. This is it... in short. For a much longer e-journal/e-book you can see http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-e-booke-journal.html And for a much shorter version of a path quite similar to mine (by Thusness who I consider one of my teachers): http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html

Even though there is technically nothing and no one to cling to, ignorance conjures something and someone. With the ignorance as condition, with pleasurable and displeasurable sensations as condition, with craving as condition, clinging arises. Not comprehending the insubstantiality of perceptions, we cling to pleasurable sensations and experience aversion to unpleasurable sensations. Not comprehending arising and passing, we cling to things as permanent. Not comprehending no-self, we cling to 'I' and 'mine'. Without these delusions, everything self-liberates. Since everything arises via dependent origination, no agent exists to cling, to crave. Clinging arises, no actual clinger, craving arises, no actual craver, yet clinging and craving arises dependent on ignorance, the sense or illusion of self. That is why realization and insight is important... all clingings, cravings, and passionate feelings(fear, anger, etc) are intrinsically related to the sense of self/Self.