xabir2005

LOL... thanks. But I think I won't stay for long, retiring earlier than you...

Yes, awareness is certainly not limited to sitting sessions or focusing on awareness to the exclusion of all things. It's always accessible, whether washing dishes, doing your work, going about your daily life, are all activities happening in awareness. And this awareness, the I AMness, feels exactly the same regardless what we are experiencing: whether experiencing calmness, or thoughts, or mundane activities, experiences simply come and go and THAT to which whatever is happening, 'feels' the same, being timeless and unmoving. It is the unchanging nature of mind. Whatever we experience, simply ask "to whom", self inquiry is not limited by a fixed setting and time. Funny I was writing the same stuff a week ago, just sharing in another forum... However that said, the I AM realisation is still not the same as realising Anatta and Non-Duality. Even though it's seen everything is experienced 'in' awareness (an all-container), there is no realisation of everything 'AS' awareness without the slightest division, there is always the tendency to sink back into the background witnessing space, the source. By saying 'separation', I'm refering to this, I'm not saying that the I AM can only be accessed in the absence of all phenomena during samadhi or absorption or something. However what I'm trying to point out especially to alfa is that experiencing non-dual as a state or passing experience is not realising that non-dual as what is 'always so'. To one that has realised non-dual as the ever present nature of consciousness, one can NOT enter or exit non-dual consciousness. Therefore it is 'pathless'. Always already, there is no observer divided from observed. Consciousness is seen always AS sounds, sights, sensations, NOT behind sounds, sights, sensations. Non-duality is not an experience... though prior to insights and realisation, one still appears to experience entry and exit. Consciousness does not depend on non-dual experiences, rather, consciousness IS non-dual. When this is realised, it is called 'enlightenment'. If one speaks about seeming entering and exiting nondual experiences, it is evident that the nature of consciousness has not been realised... for me as I have said, I only had experiences, but not the 'realisation'. Also compare Stage 2, 3 and 4: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/200...experience.html p.s. I thought you said something about training students..

Take your time So do Vajrayana/Tibetan and Zen/Mahayana.

Dropping the "I" can give rise to the experience. The first time, well actually not really the first time... but my first intense non dual experience was a result of my spontaneous, curious, contemplation of "What is it like to be dead?" I pretended with my whole being to be dead. And then I really 'died'... there is no longer a "me" but the whole universe is there! Just the whole universe. Pure existence. Seeing floor, just floor-ness. Everything is 'existing', or rather 'presenc-ing' without a separate me or observer. There is totally no distance between seer and seen. There is pure consciousness, the whole universe is consciousness, but not a 'me' who is conscious. Total nondual absorption. And then after a minute or so... the "me" comes back, like an entity looking out from my head. Then the experience came again the next day or two, and then after that intermittently at times in longer gaps. I have had some strong non dual glimpses since then, but they come and go. This is still not the realisation of Anatta/No-Self. As my friend Thusness said: Insight that 'anatta' is a seal and not a stage must arise to further progress into the 'effortless' mode. That is, anatta is the ground of all experiences and has always been so, no I. In seeing, always only seen, in hearing always only sound and in thinking, always only thoughts. No effort required and never was there an 'I'.

Not a 'thing' just means not something graspable, permanent, solid, but rather is fluxing, everchanging, and arising dependent upon various conditions thus having no inherent, independent existence. It's definitely possible to have intense non-dual experiences that come and go. But it's not realisation. Realisation is permanent, i.e. seeing Anatta as having always been so, as a Dharma seal, nature of reality, and not as a stage. As I just told forestofsoul:

Good points and I have to admit you're mostly right. And yeah I'm 19. I'm not saying I'm any more experienced than you... I said 'I'm practicing' but not 'I'm enlightened'. I am still trying to stabilize the glimpses or recognition of I AM. I think what you are practising is a sort of witnessing by resting on awareness itself. Certainly, the Thai Forest Tradition (where Ajahn Chah is in) has more emphasis on this method than say, the Mahasi Sayadaw or other insight traditions. I also have had some very intense non-dual experiences where experiencer and experienced totally merges, but they are passing states with entry and exit. Not so much of insight or realisation. Mostly I still recognise awareness as the pure sense of being, witness, background space. p.s. what are you teaching/training?

Gold has a point also and so do you. What I would like to say is that emptiness does not deny the crystal clarity of manifestation -- in seeing, hearing, smelling, etc... the 'luminosity' (vivid awareness) and 'emptiness' must be seen as inseparable union. Both are equally important. It's only the clinging to objectification of something into an entity, or clinging to the subject that is a problem. Like Thich Nhat Hanh said, you can't speak of 'wind' apart from its 'blowing'. There is no graspable thing called 'wind', it is a dynamic movement, totally ungraspable, yet vivid and clearly present. There is no perceiver, only perception. Or better yet: only perceiving, with no perceiver and no'thing' perceived. Similarly, phenomena is better described as phenomena-ing, though I don't think this word exists.

Strictly speaking non-dual experience isn't exactly 'objects without subject'. Not only is 'subject' empty, the 'object' is empty as well. Because what is sensed is not being observed from the viewpoint of a separate observer, there is no objectification of what is sensed or a splitting off of something from the rest. It is just a non-dual 'flowing' experience of various phenomenality (sights, sounds, sensations, etc) occuring in seamless wholeness without objectification nor is there a subject/observer. And because everything is dependently originated, everything is empty of any independent or inherent existence, but that is another topic. As Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh puts it: "When we say I know the wind is blowing, we don't think that there is something blowing something else. "Wind' goes with 'blowing'. If there is no blowing, there is no wind. It is the same with knowing. Mind is the knower; the knower is mind. We are talking about knowing in relation to the wind. 'To know' is to know something. Knowing is inseparable from the wind. Wind and knowing are one. We can say, 'Wind,' and that is enough. The presence of wind indicates the presence of knowing, and the presence of the action of blowing'." "..The most universal verb is the verb 'to be'': I am, you are, the mountain is, a river is. The verb 'to be' does not express the dynamic living state of the universe. To express that we must say 'become.' These two verbs can also be used as nouns: 'being", "becoming". But being what? Becoming what? 'Becoming' means 'evolving ceaselessly', and is as universal as the verb "to be." It is not possible to express the "being" of a phenomenon and its "becoming" as if the two were independent. In the case of wind, blowing is the being and the becoming...." "In any phenomena, whether psychological, physiological, or physical, there is dynamic movement, life. We can say that this movement, this life, is the universal manifestation, the most commonly recognized action of knowing. We must not regard 'knowing' as something from the outside which comes to breathe life into the universe. It is the life of the universe itself. The dance and the dancer are one." About those emotions: Emotions lessen, pass through quickly, aren't sticky, lesser dualistic reactions, but not the same as emotions not arising, so I do agree with you on that point.

Yes, practise is important, but how do you know I am not practicing? Having right view is just as important, otherwise we will get stuck at certain experiences. Sorry if I had earlier on misunderstood what you wrote. Anyway, observing the characteristic of anatta is not by the means of rejection as in Advaita and one does not separate the watcher from the process of phenomenality as a result of this practise. Vipassana is not the same as dissociative witnessing (though many may understand it that way). The purpose is not to discard the transient experiences, the purpose is to experience the transience's 'knowing' quality yet not making up a self nor pertaining to self ('mine'). When observing anatta you just observe all sensations arising on their own in a natural causal fashion -- e.g. hearing sound happening on its own naturally without being a separate 'me' or 'mine' nor a 'hearer' separate from sound, bodily sensation happening in the same way, thoughts happening in the same way. When this is directly experienced this gives rise to non dual experience and insight, such that everything is 'aware where it is' without a separate cognizer. This is the same as what the Buddha instructed in the Satipatthana Sutta (the Sutta which is used as a basis for Vipassana practise), 'observe the sensation IN the sensation'. He didn't say 'be the watcher of the sensation', suggesting he is not talking about dissociative witnessing. All sensations are self-aware where they are. As Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh said, As I said earlier I'm not trying to imply that therefore, observing Anatta need to be superior to self inquiry, or you're doing it wrong, nothing of that. I was just hoping to clarify some misconceptions that might arise. In fact one cannot have the I AM awakening or a quick glimpse of pure presence through Vipassana or observing the three characteristics, but this path will also eventually lead to realisation of no-self and non-dual awareness. This is the gradual path. As someone on another forum (not Thusness) said rightly regarding the difference between practises that focus on the I AM and Vipassana: "Any kind of investigation of phenomena precludes non-dual practice (at least in the moment of investigation). You're either doing one or the other. Investigation (vipassana) takes as object the changing phenomena of mind and body and finds the 3 characteristics, including no-self. Vipassana depends upon time. Without time, one could not speak of change. Non-dual practice focuses on that which is prior to the arising of time, i.e. awareness itself. Awareness always looks the same; without time there is no change. It's an important distinction to make" On the other hand the direct path (emphasized in Zen, Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Advaita etc.) requires awakening to the 'I', and then the whole path is just the unfolding of this pure presence. One then does a koan, or practise vipassana, to bring the background awareness (the 'Self') into all foreground sensations to give rise to non-dual insights. But either way, gradual (vipassana) or direct (first through self inquiry, awareness watching awareness, etc. leading to the 'I AM' insight, etc.), if gone all the way results in the same realisations.

Realization is a good word and so is 'intuitive insight'. Of course there is a difference between intellectual and direct non-conceptual knowledge.

That's right. You can see Daniel's mapping of the 4 stages to Arhatship in terms of non-dual/no-self realisations. Only at Arhatship is the Self thoroughly, completely, seen through. This is the opening of the Wisdom Eye. http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/200...tenment-by.html

Sorry if I have misunderstood anything you said. At the same there is no separation between underlying awareness and phenomena, no observer/observation apart from observed. In the beginning phases of insight, Awareness may be seen as the background space behind everything, the witness or observer of everything, i.e. a transpersonal Self. But later, non-dual awareness is realised, which has no reference point, either personal or transpersonal. There is no self, big, small or otherwise. It knows Itself. There is no localized sense of knowing standing apart from what is known. There's just the entire phenomenological world, which is self-aware. Everything, the scenery, the sound, the taste, the sensation of the floor, the smell, even the thought is 'aware' where they are without a separate experiencer. Thus, no 'self' not only means no identification with personality -- it means there is really no observer and no transpersonal Self or Witness either! No experiencer! In seeing tree there is just tree, no seer. In hearing sound, just sound, no hearer. Everything is self-shining consciousness. As I mentioned earlier my friend has discussed the phases of insights he went through in Thusness/PasserBy's Seven Stages of Experience David Carse: "There is only One. There is not ever in any sense many, or even two. All perception of distinction and separation, of duality, and therefore of what is known as physical reality, is a mind-created illusion, of the nature of a dream. What you think you are, a separate individual entity, is part of this illusion. You are not the doer of any action or the thinker of any thought. Events happen, but there is no doer. All there is, is Consciousness. That is what You truly are." David Carse: After the jungle, there is an intensely odd and very beau-tiful quality to the experience of life. In one sense I can only describe everything, all experience, as having a certain emptiness. This is the sense in which everything used to matter, to be vital and important, and is now seen as unreal, empty, not important, an illusion. Once it is seen that the beyond-brilliance of Sat Chit Ananda is all that is, the dream continues as a kind of shadow. Yet, at the same moment that all of what appears in the dream is experi-enced as empty, it is also seen as more deeply beautiful and perfect than ever imagined, precisely because it is not other than Sat Chit Ananda, than all that is. Everything that does not matter, that is empty illusion, is at the same time itself the beyond-brilliance, the perfect beauty. Somehow there is a balance; these two apparently opposite aspects do not cancel each other out but complement each other. This makes no 'sense,' yet it is how it is. There is one tradition within Advaita which says that maya, the manifestation of the physical universe, is over-laid or superimposed on Sat Chit Ananda. I'm no scholar of these things, and can only attempt to describe what is seen here; and the Understanding here is that there is no question of one thing superimposed on another. Maya, the manifestation, the physical universe, is precisely Sat Chit Ananda, is not other than it, does not exist on its own as something separate to be overlaid on top of something else. This is the whole point! There is no maya! The only reason it appears to have its own reality and is commonly taken to be real in itself is because of a misperceiving, a mistaken perception which sees the appearance and not What Is. This is the meaning of Huang Po's comment that "no distinction should be made between the Absolute and the sentient world." No distinction! There is only One. There is not ever in any sense two. All perception of distinction and separation, all perception of duality, and all perception of what is known as physical reality, is mind-created illu-sion. When a teacher points at the physical world and says, "All this is maya," what is being said is that what you are seeing is illusion; what all this is is All That Is, pure Being Consciousness Bliss Outpouring; it is your perception of it as a physical world that is maya, illusion. Dr. David Loy (a different david, a Zen Teacher and Philosopher): [T]his phenomenon can be described either as no-consciousness or as all-consciousness. Early Buddhism chooses the former, claiming that consciousness is nothing more than all those things that are experienced. Sankara opts for the latter, insisting that all those things are the manifestations of consciousness. Buddhism says there is no self, there is only the world (dharmas); Sankara says the world is the Self. To say that there is no self, or that everything is the self, are then equally correct - or false, depending on how one looks at it. Both descriptions amount to the same thing. What is clear in each case is that there is no longer a duality between an object that is observed and a consciousness that observes it, or between the external world and the self which confronts it. ... Both are attempts to describe nonduality, and because each makes absolute a relative term, neither is more or less satisfactory than the other. ... Just as our usual understanding of experience is dualistic, so is the language that expresses this understanding. An attempt to describe the nondual experience will naturally tend to eliminate one or the other term. ... So there are two paradoxes; to shrink to nothing is to become everything, and to experience everything as One is again equivalent to nothing ... States are everchanging and can be lost, can't they? Anything gained can be lost. And anything that can be lost is not ultimately 'valuable'. Including altered states of consciousness. What the 'enlightenment traditions' are pointing out is 'what is already the case'. It is our every moment ordinary awareness. Do you for a moment stop seeing, hearing, etc? Awareness cannot stop functioning, is already always the case and is not the result of development or cultivation, but whether we notice it is another matter. Awareness is always already spacious, only pinpointed fixation on particular patterns of thoughts and feelings makes us 'feel' constricted. Awareness is always already non-dual, due to deep conditioning we are always projecting subject-object separation. Awareness is also not the same as focused attention or concentration. Awareness is effortlessly happening right now, whether you like it or not, and whether you are paying attention or not. When causes and conditions is, manifestation is, when manifestation is, Awareness is. Naturally, sounds are effortlessly being heard, smells are effortlessly being smelled, even if the smell or sound is unpleasant and you try to avoid it, it's being awared. While paying attention to the breath, something still hears sounds. That is Buddha-Nature. It is the sum of all our parts, that which sees, hears, feels and tastes all at once as One Reality. Before you think that this awareness is a 'thing' -- a Mirror or a Witness, it's not separate -- it's just sound hearing, scenery seeing, it's not a something tangible (a Mirror or a Witness) yet is vividly manifesting. Hence: awareness is not experienced through the result of contrived effort, but is self-evident when the mind is at rest, through relaxing one's pinpointed fixation to our mind and body or any particular objects, opening up to the vast vivid openness (which is already the case) through which all phenomena flows through without obstruction. States are conditioned, awareness is unconditioned. Whatever you experience doesn't affect the presence of awareness. Being confused doesn't make awareness any less. Being calm, relaxed, or 'enlightened' doesn't make awareness any more. I like what John Astin said: "We often think that the appearance of certain things such as distress, seeking, struggling, or confusion is somehow evidence that awareness is not here. But actually everything that appears, regardless of its content, is the vivid proof of awareness, every appearance the perfect evidence that awareness is here." So what is enlightenment if not an altered state? It's simply the realisation of what already and always is.

There is a true Buddhist story about Angulimala who killed 999 persons and was on the way to the 1000th (to kill his mother) when the Buddha stopped him, converted him into a monk, and he eventually attained enlightenment and liberation in that lifetime. It's an interesting story. If you are truly repentant, there is hope.

Many of the scriptures talk about 1250 Arhats just attending Buddha's discourse alone. (there were probably many others not present) So the number was in the thousands. Indeed and that's sad..

Here's an experiential account: Thusness/PasserBy's Seven Stages of Experience

(sorry there was an error, double posted)

Watch 29:45 onwards, explains the topic starter's question very well. (the whole video is very good too)