Experience, Realization, View, Practice and Fruition

[xabir2005]

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/12/experience-realization-view-practice.html

Experience, Realization, View, Practice and Fruition

Posted by: An Eternal Now

 

 

Here's something I just added to my e-book.

 

I was trained in these 3 aspects and Thusness asked me to write something clearer about 'experience, realization and view' and synchronistically I actually had the same thought on that day. I think I'm going to add this as one of those preface chapters before I start with the journal section in my e-book.

 

So the 3 aspects I'm talking about are:

1. The Experience

2. The Realization

3. The Implications of View

 

However, for the sake of this article and benefit for readers, I will add two more:

4. The Practice

5. The Result/Fruition

 

... so this is going to be a very long article... I can feel it as I am writing now, hehe. Oh and one more thing: I put Practice after the first three instead of dealing with practice in the first part because I want people to know what they are doing their practice for, and the reason why they are doing those practices, how those practices result in realization and their effects on View. You will understand as you read further.

 

This article documents my insight and experience and journey. Even though whatever I said is authentic, spoken from experience, accurate, it is not meant to be an authoritative map for everyone - not everyone goes through these insights in the same linear fashion (the Buddha only teach people to realize Anatta and Shunyata in the traditional Pali texts and did not talk about Self-Inquiry or Self-Realization, for instance), however it is true that all traditions of Buddhism (provided that there is right guidance and training) will eventually result in these various kinds of insights and experience, despite going through a different path or practice.

 

It should also be understood that when people talk about "no-self", it could imply a number of things... from impersonality, to non-dual, to anatta. In worse case it is being misunderstood as dissociation (I, the observer, dissociates from phenomena as not myself). Therefore, we should always understand the context of 'no self' that is being said by the practitioner or person and not always assume that the 'no self' must be the same as the 'no self' you have in mind. Due to lack of clarity, very often 'anatta' is confused with 'impersonality', or 'anatta' with 'non-duality'. They are not the same even if there may be overlaps or aspects of each in one's experience. One must be careful to distinguish them and not confuse one with another.

 

I will now start explaining 'experience'.

 

There are a number of important experiences related to our true nature:

1. Pure Presence/Witness

 

This is the case when practitioners have experienced a pure radiance of presence, awareness, in the gap between two thoughts. Having recognised this pure presence-awareness, one tries to sustain this recognition in daily life. In daily life, one may sense this as a background witnessing presence, a space-like awareness in the background of things. It is felt to be something stable and unchanging though we often lose sight of it due to fixation on the contents of experience or thoughts (like focusing on the drawing and losing sight of the canvas). This is related to the 'I AM', but still, this is the experience, not the realization.

2. Impersonality

This is the case when practitioners experienced that everything is an expression of a universal cosmic intelligence. There is therefore no sense of a personal doer... rather, it feels like I and everything is being lived by a higher power, being expressed by a higher cosmic intelligence. But this is still dualistic – there is still this sense of separation between a 'cosmic intelligence' and the 'world of experience', so it is still dualistic.

 

I experienced impersonality after the I AM realization, however some people experience it before I AM realization. Theistic Christians may not have I AM realization (it depends), however through their surrendering to Christ, they can drop their sense of personal doership and experience the sense of 'being lived by Christ', as in Galatians: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.". This is an experience of impersonality that may or may not come with the realization of I AM.

3. Non-dual into One Mind.

 

Where subject and object division collapsed into a single seamless experience of one Naked Awareness. There is a difference between a temporary non-dual experience and non-dual insight. Explained later.

4. No-Mind

Where even the naked Awareness is totally forgotten and dissolved into simply scenery, sound, arising thoughts and passing scent. This is the experience of Anatta, but not the realization of Anatta. Explained later.

5. Sunyata (Emptiness)

 

It is when the 'self' is completely transcended into dependently originated activity. The play of dharma. There is a difference between this as a peak experience and the realization of emptiness/dependent origination. Explained later.

 

 

 

Next is the 'Realization':

1. The Realization of I AM

Having an experience of witnessing, or a state of pure presence, is not the same as having attained self-realization - in that case the practitioner can be said to have an experience, but not insight/realization. I have had experiences of Presence and Witnessing consciousness since 2007, but not the realization until February 2010 after almost two years of self-inquiry practice.

 

Self-realization is attained when there is a certainty of Being - an irrefutable and doubtless realization of Pure Presence-Existence or Consciousness or Beingness or Existence as being one's true identity. There is nothing clearer or undoubtable or irrefutable than You! Eureka. One realizes the luminous essence of mind but is unable to see it as all manifestations under differing conditions (that would be non-dual and beyond).

 

In this phase of insight one sees all thoughts and experiences as coming from and subsiding within this Ground of Being, but the Beingness as a noumenon is unaffected by the comings and goings of phenomenon, like the movie images passing through the screen, or the waves coming and going within an unchanging ocean. Seeing a subtle distinction between the Noumenal and Phenomenal, one clings to the pure thoughtless beingness (which is non-conceptual thought) as one's purest identity, as if it is the true unchanging self or ground Behind all things - one clings to a formless background source or witness of phenomena.

 

Since view of duality and inherency is strong, Awareness is seen as an eternal witnessing presence, a pure formless perceiving subject. So it is seen that I am here, as an eternal unchanging Witness/Watcher of the passing thoughts and feelings, I simply witness but is not affected by, nor judges that one sees - nonetheless there is a separation between the Observer and the Observed. A true experience is being distorted by the mind's tendency at projecting duality and inherency (to things, self, awareness, etc)

 

Also, in my experience the I AM experience after the initial realization is tainted with a slight sense of personality and locality. That is, even though the mind knows how to experience Presence beyond all concepts, the mind still cannot separate Presence from that slight and subtle sense of personality, until about two months after the realization, that sense of a localized witness completely dissolved into a non-localized, impersonal space of witnessing-awareness-presence (but still dualistic and 'background'). At this level, the I AM is separated from Personality, and it is seen as if everything and everyone in the world share the same source or same space, like if a vase breaks, the air inside the vase completely merges with the air of the entire environment such that there is no sense of a division between an 'inside space' or an 'outside space', such that everything shares the same space, as an analogy of all-pervading presence. This all-pervading presence, though stripped of any sense of a locality or a sense of personality, still pertains to the thought level (non-conceptual thought). One does not experience the same 'taste' in the other sense doors - like sight, sound, smell, taste, touch. Nevertheless, if this experience of 'all-pervading presence' is sustained, it can lead to an oceanic samadhi experience.

 

 

p.s. (updated) Just one day after writing this chapter, I found a book by the same name as mine, 'Who am I?' by Pandit Shriram Sharma Archaya. He distinguishes the Soul, the Inner Self/the Inner Witness/the 'Nucleus of your World', from the Universal Self or the Omnipresent Supreme Being which is the supreme source of even that Inner Self and everything else in the world. He says that one has to realise the Inner Self first before realizing the unity or oneness of that Inner Self with that Universal Self, Atman=Brahman.

 

This is precisely what I'm talking about - the difference between the initial experience and realization of I AM (as the inner Self), then the maturation into the Universal I AM. This is the difference between Thusness Stage 1 and 2. In the Universal I AM, it is just this "unified field" in which "everything belongs to everyone", and that in this phase "A Yogi is one whose individuality has been consciously united (merged) with the cosmic Self." Everything and everyone is impersonally expressed and lived by this pervasive source, as stated by him, "particles of universally pervasive intelligence and energy, cosmic consciousness [Chetna] and life, are activating infinite systems, forms and forces of this cosmos."

2. The Realization of Non-Dual, into One Mind

 

Having an experience of non-duality is not the same as having a realization... for example, you may have a temporary experience where the sense of separation between experiencer and experience suddenly and temporarily dissolves or there is the sense that subject and object has merged... temporarily. I had such experiences since 2006 (I had a number of similar experiences since then in following years, differing in intensity and length), the first time I had it was when looking at a tree - at that point the sense of an observer suddenly disappeared into oblivion and there is just the amazing greenery, the colours, shapes, and movement of the tree swaying with the wind with an amazingly intense clarity and aliveness as if every leaves on the tree is crystal-like. This had a lot of 'Wow' factor to it because of the huge contrast between the Self-mode of experience and the No-Self mode of experience (imagine dropping a one ton load off your shoulders, the huge contrast makes you go Wow!) This is not yet the realization of non-duality... the realization that separation has been false right from the beginning... there never was separation.

 

When non-dual realization (that there never was subject-object duality) arise, non-dual experience becomes effortless and has a more ordinary, mundane quality to it (even though not any less rich or intense or alive), as everywhere I go, it is just this sensate world presenting itself in an intimate, non-dual, clean, perfect, wonderful way, something that 'I' cannot 'get out of' even if I wanted to because there is simply no illusion and sense of self/Self that could get out of this mode of perceiving, and there is nothing I needed to do to experience that (i.e. effortless), something that has no entry and exit. In the absence of the 'huge contrast' effected in a short glimpse of non-dual experience prior to insight, there is less of the 'Wow' factor, more of being ordinary, mundane, and yet no less magnificent and wonderful.

 

You also become doubtless that the taste of luminosity experienced in I AM is exactly the same taste in all six entries - sights, sounds, smell, taste, touch, thought. So now you realize the "one taste of luminosity" and effortlessly experience pure luminosity and presence-awareness in and as the transience. You realize that the I AM (nonceptual thought) that you realized and experienced is simply luminosity and NDNCDIMOP (non-dual, non-conceptual, direct, immediate mode of perception) in one particular state or manifestation or realm, by no means the totality, but by not realizing this you reified one state into the purest and most ultimate identity (a note however: the ‘one taste’ spoken in Mahamudra tradition is not just one taste of luminosity but the one taste of the union of luminosity and emptiness), and thus you no longer "choose" or have "preference" on a purer state of presence to abide, since you see that I AM is no more I AM than a transient sound or sight or thought, everything shares the same taste of luminosity/awareness, and of non-duality. Here the tendency to refer back to a background is reduced as a result of this seeing..

 

Hence merely having temporary non-dual samadhis are *not* enlightenment... why? The realization that there never was separation to begin with, hasn't arisen. Therefore you can only have temporary glimpses and experiences of non-dual... where the latent dualistic tendencies continue to surface... and not have seamless, effortless seeing.

 

And even after seeing through this separation, you may have the realization of non-dual but still fall into substantial non-duality, or One Mind. Why? This is because though we have overcome the bond of duality, our view of reality is still seeing it as 'inherent'. Our view or framework has it that reality must have an inherent essence or substance to it, something permanent, independent, ultimate. So though everything is experienced without separation, the mind still can't overcome the idea of a source.

 

There is no overcoming the idea of an ultimate metaphysical essence, something unchanging and ultimate, even with insight into the non-duality of subject and object. With this view of inherency, Awareness is seen as inherent, even though previously it was as if things were happening 'In' Awareness but now all manifestations ARE Awareness, or rather, Awareness is manifesting 'AS' everything (rather than things happening 'IN' Awareness which would be dualistic). Awareness is not apart from manifestation.

 

Nonetheless, the mind keeps coming back to a 'source', a 'One Naked Awareness', a 'One Mind' which manifests as the many (All is Mind - everything is You! The trees, the mountains, the rivers, all You and yet not You - no duality or division of subject and object), and is unable to break-through and find the constant need to rest in an ultimate reality in which everything is a part of... a Mind, an Awareness, a Self.... Or one tries to be non-dual by attempts to reconfirm the non-dual or one mind (thinking the sound and sights is You, trying to subsume everything into Mind, trying to be nondual with or intimiate with sights and sounds) which is another form of effort arising due to ignorance – the ignorance of the fact of anatta that always already, seeing is just the seen, no seer, and therefore no effort or attempts to reconfirm is necessary. All effort is due to the illusion of ‘self’.

 

What this results in is a subtle tendency to cling, to sink back to a ground, a source, or attempt to reconfirm, and so transience cannot be fully and effortlessly appreciated for what it is. It is an important phase however, as for the first time phenomena are no longer seen as 'happening IN Awareness' but 'happening AS Awareness' – Awareness is its object of perception, Awareness is expressing itself as every moment of manifest perception.

 

It should be understood that even in this phase, at the peak of One Mind, one will have glimpses of No Mind as *temporary peak experiences* where the source/Awareness is temporarily forgotten into 'just the scenery, the taste, the sound, etc'. Very often, people try to master the state of No Mind without realizing anatta, thus no fundamental transformation of view can occur.

 

Since no fundamental change in view has taken place (the view is still of 'inherent Source'), one can still fall back from that peak experience and reference back to the One Awareness. That is, until you see that the idea itself is merely a thought, and everything is merely thoughts, sights, sounds, disjoint, disperse, insubstantial. There, a change of view takes place... the result of,

 

3. The Realization of Anatta

 

Here, experience remains non-dual but without the view of 'everything is inside me/everything is an expression of ME/everything is ME' but 'there is just thoughts, sight, sound, taste' – just manifestation.

 

More precisely (as it is realized for me in October 2010 when I was doing Basic Military Training): in that moment of seeing, you realize that the seeing is JUST the experience of scenery! There is no 'seer is seeing the secenery' - the view of 'seer seeing the seen' is completely eradicated by the realization that 'in seeing ALWAYS just the seen, Seeing is just the seen'. In seeing, always just the shapes, colours, forms, textures, details of manifestation. The illusion of agency is seen through forever.

 

BUT... this is not the end of story for anatta and no-agency. The initial entry into Anatta for me was the aspect of Thusness's Second Stanza of Anatta, however the First Stanza was not as clear for me at the moment (for some people, they enter through the first stanza, but for me and those focusing on non-dual luminosity, insight comes through second stanza first). The two stanzas of Anatta can be found in http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html

 

Few months later, even though it has already been seen that ‘seeing is always the sights, sounds, colours and shapes, never a seer’, 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, like 'The actual world right here and now', which I can 'ground myself in', like I needed to ground in something truly existing, like I needed to return to being actual, here, now, whatever you want to call it. At that point when I detected this subtle movement I instantly recognised it to be illusory and dropped it, however I still could not find a natural resolution to that.

 

Until, shortly maybe two weeks later, a deeper insight arose and I saw how Here/Now or something I can ground myself in doesn't apply when the "brilliant, self-luminous, vivid, alive, wonderful textures and forms and shapes and colours and details of the universe", all sense perceptions and thoughts, are in reality insubstantial, ephemeral groundless, disjoint, unsupported and spontaneous, there was a deeper freedom and effortlessness. It is this insight into all as insubstantial, ephemeral, bubble-like, disjoint and self-releasing manifestations that allows this overcoming of a subtle view of something inherent. There is no observer observing something changing: simply that the "sensate world" is simply these disjoint manifestations without anything linking each sensation to another, without some inherent ground that could link manifestations, so manifestations are 'scattered'. Somewhere this time, Thusness wrote me a post in blog: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/02/putting-aside-presence-penetrate-deeply.html

 

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 an ‘Actual World Here/Now’, or a Mind, or an Awareness, or 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 – an insight which breaks a subtle clinging to an inherent ground, resulting in greater freedom.

 

Only one who realizes anatta and thus becoming a stream entrant will start to understand the purpose of Buddhist practice.

 

Buddhist practice is not about being lock-in to a most special or ultimate state of consciousness. Due to the false view that there is some inherently existing ultimate Self or state, such a spiritual aspirant may see the ultimate spiritual goal as permanent abidance in that purest unchanging state or reality or Source. This is actually a practice at grasping, not letting go, and therefore will not reach the Buddhist goal of the cessation of all clinging and afflictions (Nirvana).

 

The Buddha's teachings on the other hand teaches us to realize no self, no me, no mine, in anything - including 'awareness', 'consciousness'. It does not mean consciousness is denied but the inherency of consciousness is seen through. One sees that the notion of agency, or an ultimate awareness observing or manifesting things is an illusion... in seeing there is just the seen without seer, no agent, no source behind things. So there is not 'awareness and manifestation' and not even 'awareness manifesting as everything' since 'awareness' is only 'manifestation'. There is no 'The Awareness', rather it is deconstructed into the six constituent streams of consciousnesses therefore vastly different from the monistic kind of non-duality (One Mind) - rather there are the visual, auditory, nasal, gustatory, tactile, and mental consciousness, all are processes of activities manifesting according to causes and conditions (such as the sense organ, the sense object, and all kinds of various causes and conditions). So all experiences are constantly self-releasing because there is no 'inherent view', the view of something inherent, that causes us to grasp, abide, cling to.

 

In short, what this realization entails is the deconstruction of 'Awareness' into the six streams of dependently originated consciousness, without a cognizer, through the realization that in seeing always just the colours, shapes and forms, and in hearing always just the sounds (the diverse appearance of manifestation). There is just a process and stream of activities of knowing without knower, and each manifestation of cognizance is distinct, disjoint, it is just a diverse display of manifold rather than a collapsing of multiplicity into Oneness such as in the case of One Mind.

 

When the sense of self/Self is sufficiently deconstructed, you also begin to experience everything as being a stream of activities that dependently originates. You directly see and experience everything as the activity resultant of the interaction of the entire universe of causal conditions... the total exertion of the universe, the totality of causes and conditions, gives rise to this moment of manifestation. Effectively, there is no self, no universe, no solidity, and all there ever is is an interdependent process of causes and conditions meeting to give rise to an activity, followed by another interaction that gives rise to more activities, ad infinitum.

 

Therefore, dependent origination allows us not only to see "just manifestation" as in anatta, but also to see "manifestation" as the dynamic interdependent process of ungraspable, unlocatable, and empty (yet vivid, dynamically manifesting) activities. However, without anatta, without the utter and complete deconstruction and removal of the sense of self/Self, we will not be able to experience everything as the total exertion of all causal conditions. It is only when the sense of self/Self is totally relinquished that we can experience ourselves AS this causal process, without any sense of an agency or personality. Therefore, the insight and experience of dependent origination requires the full maturation of Anatta and No-Mind as a requisite.

 

Anatta and dependent origination are therefore linked, but not the same. You can realize anatta but not realize dependent origination, but you cannot truly experience and realize dependent origination without anatta (i.e. through dualistic and inherent thought or view). For example, normally we view ourselves as actors, and doers, of our bodily action and speech. We think we are a controller of our thoughts, feelings, and experiences. When we realize anatta, this doer, controller, perceiver, agent is seen to be false and illusory - there never was an agent. This makes it possible for us to penetrate deeper into 'how' manifestation occurs? At this point, an intuitive seeing happens - whatever manifests, manifests as an activity via causality, the sound of 'da da da' on the keyboard does not come from ME, they are not MINE, but the words formulating in the mind, leading almost instantly to a physical movement and action to press the buttons on the keyboard, leading instantly to a manifested auditory experience of the 'da da da' sound.... one seamless impersonal, interdependent and causal process of activities, manifesting upon the aggregation of causes and conditions, subsiding due to the fading away of causes and conditions. One cannot even say that the 'da da da' is the sound of the keyboard any more than it is the sound of the words formulating in my mind - it is just this single causal, impersonal process of activities happening without any agency or source (be it internal or external), happening entirely by causal aggregation.

 

4. The Realization of Emptiness (Shunyata)

 

Effectively with the realization of Anatta, the substantiality of any self/Self is totally seen through. There is no such thing as a 'self' or an ultimate 'Self' with the capital S at all - always, in seeing just sights, in hearing only sounds, in sensing - just tactile sensations. Manifesting and liberating upon inception... moment by moment. Once seen, there is no longer any more clinging to some ultimate Source or metaphysical essence/substance. Instead, one finds delight in the direct revelation of the sensate world moment by moment, seeing, hearing, tasting, all wonderful, all marvellous, how alive... words can never capture it, the practitioner is no longer concerned with concepts and contents, but instead 'grooves' in the minutest details of every sensation. Freedom from sense of self/Self is very freeing and blissful.

 

However, having said so much, there is a danger of reifying the sensate world into an actual, substantial, tangible, inherently existing objective universe. This is the phase after the realization of Anatta, and before the realization of Shunyata. At this phase, it is as Thusness have said, "Before the insight anatta first arose, you still risked the danger of seeing the physical as inherent and truly existing. Therefore there is a period that you are lost, unsure and AF [Actualism/Actual Freedom - a teaching that aims to eradicate all sense of self/Self and emotions] seems appealing - a sign that you have not extended the insight of emptiness to phenomena though you kept saying twofold emptiness.", and after Shunyata it is more like "There is just aggregates that are like foams, bubbles, ethereal having all the same taste without substantiality and implicitly non-dual. No sense of body, mind and the world, nothing actual or truly there."

 

So what is the realization of Shunyata?

 

When observing a thought in the beginning of June 2011, observing where it came from, where it goes to, where it stays, it's discovered (again, a eureka moment) that the thought is utterly illusory (and likewise all forms and sense perception are the same)! Empty! No-arising, no-staying, no-cessation! Insubstantial! Coreless! Substanceless! Hollow! Unlocatable! Without an origin! Without a destination! Cannot be pinned down! Cannot be grasped! Cannot be found! And yet, as empty as it is, still, like a magician's trick, an apparition, an illusion, vividly manifesting due to interdependent origination out of nowhere, in nowhere! How amazing it is! A sense of wonder and bliss arose in light of this realization, a newfound freedom and liberation. And as wonderful as it sound, there is still nonetheless a growing dispassion to the entire show - it is like a TV show, and when you see that your whole life is like a TV show - utterly empty of any substance, you can no longer become so passionate about it. You see it as it truly is - a dream-like movie playing out. This is the arising of true dispassion and non-attachment.

 

It should be understood that everything is dream-like, mind-only, in the sense of Emptiness is not the same as Substantial Non-duality of One Mind.

 

It is now seen that everything is really no different from a thought - as in as baseless and empty as a projected thought like a dream, though it doesn't literally mean everything (including sense perceptions) are mere figment of imagination or projection (if you stop thinking, illusory perceptions still manifest due to natural dependent origination). Since everything is dream-like and illusory, they are fundamentally no different from a thought or a dream, and it is in this sense we can say that everything is mind-only. So all is mind in terms of emptiness signifies this dreamlike nature, vastly different from all is mind from substantialist perspective.

 

So in short, there is a very big difference between substantialist non-dual of One-Mind and what I said here. In this experience, there is no background reality. It is NOT 'The world is illusory, only Brahman is Real'. It is not about the background Awareness (there is no awareness apart from manifestation!) but rather the foreground aggregates that I am talking about - A thought. Everything is as insubstantial and illusory as a thought or a dream. There is just the aggregates that are like foams, bubbles, ethereal, having all the same taste (of luminosity and emptiness) without substantiality and implicitly non-dual. No sense of body, mind and the world, nothing actual or truly there or here.

 

Anatta (firstfold emptiness, pertaining to self/soul) makes clear many of the Buddha's teachings about anatta, especially Bahiya Sutta, Anattalakkhana Sutta, and so on. Whereas this realization of Shunyata (as in secondfold emptiness, pertaining to objects) makes clear another set of teachings by Buddha such as the Phena Sutta, and the Mahayana Sutras like the Heart Sutra and Prajnaparamita Sutras.

 

The realization of twofold emptiness is traditionally (in Mahayana traditions) deemed as the basic criteria for realizing the first bhumi Bodhisattva in the path to Buddhahood, whereas the realization of anatta (no subjective self) is the realization of stream-entry in the path to Arhantship.

Implication of Views

 

The implication of views wasn’t very clear to me until more recent months (some time after I realized Anatta and Shunyata), when I began to see that what was causing grasping, clinging, the wrong way of perception, sense of self and so on was actually the latent view of inherency and duality. Even though previously realization has arisen that clearly done damage to such views, the impact of views in our experience and living wasn’t fully clear until more recently.

 

What is view? View is a deeply held notion, belief, position, stance, with regards to the reality of self and objects. This view has direct implications on how we view things - how we form a mental conception of self and things which causes grasping and contraction. When you want to cut ignorance, you go for its roots, not cut off its leaves and branches. In this analogy, sense of self/Self is its manifest form (leaves and branches) in the form of a sense of contraction, alienation and self-grasping in the form of craving and emotions, while the latent view is its roots.

 

As an example: if you view that your self abides in the heart center, then you may sense a contraction in the heart center, if your belief/position is that your self abides in the head, you may sense a contraction or clinging there, as well as that sense of alienation from the sensate world at large, a sense that there is this seer behind the eyes looking outwards at the world in a distance. That felt-sense of contraction and alienation, that sense of self/Self, is its manifest form, while the self-view/position/belief/ignorance is its root. This is why we cannot successively get rid of the sense of self/Self by will and effort without effectively cutting off self-view from its root through a paradigm shift via realization. There times of peak experiences which everyone has experienced some time in their lives (usually in childhood) where the sense of a self/Self goes into temporary abeyance and there is just the sensate world, magnificent and wonderful, untainted by any sense of self or emotional contents, just the pristine purity and clarity of the sensate world at large. Yet most of us tend to forget those moments, and continue our lives not transformed by such experiences at all. Why is that so? Our self-view is intact, and no amount of glimpses of PCE (Pure Consciousness Experience) or NDNCDIMOP (non-dual, non-conceptual, direct, immediate mode of perception) is fundamentally going to transform us unless we cut off the roots of ignorance.

 

It should be understood that these latent tendencies or view of inherency and duality runs so deep down in our psyche that it is not merely a matter of conceptual belief but a deeply rooted, habitual way of perceiving things through a particular paradigm or framework... so deep and habitual that it cannot be removed even if one has come to an intellectual conclusion or inference that the doctrine of anatta and emptiness is actually something that makes more sense than the view of duality and self. For instance, I myself have faith and am convinced intellectually about the truth of anatta and emptiness way before I had a direct experiential realization that effectively resulted in the liberation of false view. But I can say in those years where I remain a mere intellectual or conceptual conviction or inferred understanding of this matter, I do not experience any sense of a freedom from self-contraction, from afflictive emotions, and so on... all these come from tendencies so deeply latent that it cannot be resolved by a mere intellectual transformation of views and beliefs (such as by training yourself in the Madhyamaka reasonings). For false view run far deeper into our psyche that require you to truly realize things from experiential awakening/knowledge and vision of things as they are.

 

Also, a lot of people think 'The Right View is No View' which is true since all metaphysical views pertain to false views of existence and non-existence, however the way they go about resolving the problem is by 'forgetting all concepts'. They think that by suspending all beliefs, by forgetting all concepts and sitting quietly in a state of pure awareness, somehow merely by that, they can overcome false views. Let me offer something for you think about: every day we go into a state of deep sleep where all our beliefs, concepts, views, thoughts are temporarily suspended. But when we wake up, what happens? We are as ignorant as ever. Our framework of viewing self and reality is still the same. We still experience the same problems, the same sufferings, the same afflictions. This analogy should clearly show you that sustaining a state of non-conceptuality or mastering a state of 'forgetting the self' is not going to result in a fundamental change or transformation or effortless seeing, unless true wisdom and insight arises. I shall offer two more analogies which are related: a person deluded as to see a rope as a snake, will live in fear, trying to tame the snake, trying to get rid of the snake, escape from the snake. Maybe he managed a way to distant himself from the snake, yet the belief that the snake is still there is nevertheless going to haunt him. Even if he managed to master the state of forgetting the snake, he is nonetheless in a state of delusion. He has not seen as it truly is: the snake is simply a rope. In another analogy, the child believes in the existence of santa claus and awaits eagerly for arrival of his presents on Christmas day. One day the parents decide that it's time the child be told the truth about santa claus. To do this, beating the hell out of the child is not going to work. You simply need to tell the child that santa claus doesn't truly exist. In these analogies, I try to showcase how trying to deal with the problem of false views through means of 'forgetting conceptuality, forgetting the self' is as useless or deluded as 'trying to forget the snake, trying to tame the snake, trying to beat the hell out of the child' when the simple, direct and only true solution is only to realize that there is only a rope, and that santa claus isn't real. Only Awakening liberates us from a bondage that is without basis.

 

Without the right contemplation and instilling of right view, you can 'sit quietly in pure awareness' for an entire lifetime without waking up. I cannot stress this point enough because this is a very prevalent erroneous understanding - even someone at the I AM level of realization will talk about non-conceptuality, non-conceptual Presence-Awareness and think it is final. Same goes for other stages. By overemphasizing on non-conceptuality, they will miss the subtler aspects of insight, they will fail to grasp right view, they will fail to tackle the subtler imprints and mental framework of viewing dualistically and inherently. They will not even see their framework of perceiving self and things as false that is causing some subtle effort and clinging (to a Self or to an actual ground here/now or to an actual world), just like you will never see your dream as a dream until well... you wake up.

 

As Zen writer and speaker Ted Biringer says, "Accurate understanding is not authentic realization. At the same time, authentic realization can hardly be expected to occur without accurate understanding. And while an absence of "right understanding" almost excludes the possibility of authentic realization, the presence of "wrong understanding" excludes even the slimmest hope of success. If we aspire to realize what Zen practice-enlightenment truly is, then, as Dogen says, "We should inquire into it, and we should experience it." To follow his guidance here we will need to understand his view of what "it" is that needs to be inquired into, and who the "we" is that is to do the inquiring."

Non-conceptuality does not mean non-attachment. For example when you realize the I AM, you cling to that pure non-conceptual beingness and consciousness as your true identity. You cling to that pure non-conceptual thought very tightly – you wish to abide in that purest state of presence 24/7. This clinging prevents us from experiencing Presence AS the Transience. This is a form of clinging to something non-conceptual. So know that going beyond concepts does not mean overcoming the view of inherency and its resultant clinging clinging. Even in the substantial non-dual phase, there is still clinging to a Source, a One Mind – even though experience is non-dual and non-conceptual. But when inherent view is dissolved, we see there is absolutely nothing we can cling to, and this is the beginning of Right View and the Path to Nirvana – the cessation of clinging and craving.

 

So as you can see, non-conceptual, even non-dual experience does not liberate - so we have to use the intellect to understand right view, and then investigate it in our experience. This is like a fire that in the end burns up the candle it is burning on, consuming itself in the process, leaving no trace even of itself. In other words, conceptual understanding of right view, coupled with investigative practice, results in true realization that dissolves concepts leaving non-conceptual wisdom - but without that process of investigating and trying to understand right view, merely remaining in a state of non-conceptuality isn't going to help you get free. People who fear engaging in thought, trying to understand the right view, challenging their views and understanding of things, are unfortunately going to stick with their own deluded framework of perceiving things.

 

Now having diverted our attention so much, let us return to the subject at hand.

 

There are two kinds of views (with sub categories):

1. View of Subject-Object Duality

 

The view of subject-object duality is prevalent in everyone up to the realization of I AM. If you have not realized I AM, it is felt as a sense of alienation, separation, distance, between I as a subjective perceiver inside my head looking at the world 'outside' from a distance.

 

Having realized the I AM, one no longer doubts one's Existence, Pure Presence, Consciousness. It cannot be unseen, because luminosity is the unconditioned characteristic or essence of mind that can never be removed from sight. In that moment of realization, there is no longer any doubts as it is a direct non-conceptual realization of a fundamental fact of reality.

 

Yet, due to the taints of dualistic view, this luminosity is abstracted from other experiences (from sense perceptions, thoughts, etc). Due to the view that there is a subjective self, or observer, apart from the perceived objects, there is always this split between Me, the Observing Awareness, and 'that' - the observed objects. Even if one perceives Awareness to be an infinite background container and manifestations to be finite appearances popping in and out of this background container awareness like waves on the ocean, there is always this split between 'awareness' and 'contents of awareness'. Contents of awareness appears 'in' awareness, but is not awareness. The view that Awareness is a container for phenomena but is not a phenomena is a kind of dualistic view/position/stance that is unfounded, but in ignorance taken to be true. This is the subject-object dualistic division. When one realizes non-duality, one no longer sees awareness as the background container of appearances.

 

However even though dualistic bond is gone and one no longer sees distance, separation, inside or outside, but an intimacy with everything, nonetheless there can still be the bond of inherency - seeing Awareness as something inherent (independent, unchanging), a subtle clinging to the view of a Subjective Self even though usually seen as impersonal [in fact probably seen to be universal] and furthermore without subject-object division: 'IT' is inseparable from, and manifesting itself as, all appearances.

2. View of Inherency

The view of inherency is twofold: the view that a subjective self [whether personal or universal], and the view that objects/phenomena have intrinsic, objective substantiality (whether gross such as 'a tree', or subtle, such as elemental existence of atoms).

 

All metaphysical views come down to 'is' or 'is not'. Either something exist, or something does not exist. The former is eternalism, the latter is nihilism. Both views are extremes and to be rejected according to Buddha.

 

What is subjective self? Self is seen as being an unchanging subject - in other words, moment by moment, the objects of the field of experience come and go, but there is this unchanging subject or Self that remains unchanged and independent of the objective field of things and events. There is something that is me (what I feel as subjectively existing, unchanging and independent), and something that is not me (that which is experienced apart from myself). The former is subjective self, the latter is the objective pole.

 

For example, the view that there is a self in here, in this body, that remains unchanged even as the body undergoes birth, growing, ageing, and so on, even death for some (view of eternalism - a soul remains unchanged and continues into eternity even after death) or perhaps only in this life (view of annihilation - the self ceases upon death) constitutes the view of a subjective self or soul. If you were to lose your hand, you still feel "I am the same old me". That view that the self remains unchanged pertains to the stance or position of an existent self.

 

However, exactly how we view subjective self can get more complicated than that, and this view changes and transforms accordingly, it differs from person to person, and depends also on your spiritual practice and experience (if you have one).

 

The view of what Self is can be very coarse or subtle. For most people, their view of self is not very clear - if you ask them do you think you exist? They will say 'yeah, of course I do'. If you ask them, do you feel you exist as a self? They will say 'yes, of course I FEEL [perceive/project/believe/sense] that I do exist'. But if you ask them, where you located? They usually cannot answer you immediately. They may give you vague answers like, well, I'm here, of course. But if you probe them where is the 'here' they refer to, they need to think. They aren't sure (unless they have contemplated about it before). You ask them, are you located in your hands, your legs, and so on? Doesn't seem like likely candidates since if you remove your hands or legs, you still feel like you're there, unchanged - in other words hands and legs are seen as possessions (mine) rather than self (me). As they try to pinpoint where the Self is, usually some will point to the center behind the eyes inside the head, or somewhere in the heart region. Depending on where they cling to as their seat of the Self, they will feel some tension, tightness, and contraction to that region of self.

 

Also, regardless of where you pinpoint your self to be at, there is always this ongoing sense of alienation from the sensate world at large, a sense that there is this seer behind the eyes looking outwards at the world in a distance. This clinging to a subjective self veils us from having an intimate, non-dual, non-conceptual, direct, immediate mode of perception of the sensate world as it is. It keeps "us" in a distance (there will always be a sense of distance when there is a sense of a separate self).

 

This view of self transforms when you undertake practice of self-inquiry. At the moment of self-realization, the view of Self completely undergoes a life-changing shift. There is this undoubtable insight of what Consciousness IS, what Existence IS, what Presence IS. And this Consciousness is undoubtably present, intimate, YOU, closer than your breathe. This undeniable fact of BEING is taken to be the true self. It has nothing to do with the body, nothing to do with the world... so the previous views of a self being inside the body or having to do with a body is overthrown. Rather, all experiences (including the body and mind) are seen to be happening TO a background pure existence-consciousness... and soon (for me in two months) it becomes the ultimate impersonal container of everything - the trees, the door, the floor, the birds, the mountains, everything is not happening outside of me, but is all happening in one universal space - Consciousness doesn't belong to me any more than it belongs to the door or the cat's, it is all just One Existence, One Life expressing itself in every form and being.

 

At this point the view of Self becomes more impersonal - you see that this entire universe is simply an expression of this impersonal, universal space, and that this universal source is what you truly are. So again, the view of Self shifts accordingly to your progression in insight and experience. Still, the view of Self is tight - coarse in fact, because now you have a very solid (rather than vague) sense of what You are, in contrast to the uncertainty of what Self is before Self-Realization.

 

This view can potentially be a hindrance to progress because if you cling too tightly to the view that this I AM or Beingness (which actually simply is a manifestation pertaining to the non-conceptual thought realm) is your truest identity, something most special and ultimate, you will crave or cling very tightly to it. This will prevent non-dual from being experienced in other sense doors and experiences.

 

But if you are able to let go of this clinging, focus on advancing the I AM in terms of the four aspects and with the right pointers and contemplation, your practice progresses and you will come to a point of realization that Awareness/Consciousness/Existence has never been separated in terms of a subject and an object. This is the point where dualistic view is removed (as mentioned earlier) but not the inherent self view yet. All perceptions, experiences, manifestations, sights and sounds are completely non-dual with Consciousness. In other words, they are not happening TO or IN Consciousness, but AS Consciousness. Consciousness is itself taking shape and experiencing itself as the mountains, the rivers, everything IS Consciousness in expression, everything is Consciousness, All is Mind. At this point, the view of Self shifts again - now it is no longer a Subjective Witness, the sense of a subjective Witness completely dissolves... into One Mind, an indivisible/undivided field of Consciousness expressing itself as everything. The view of Self at this point takes this One Mind, this undivided One Naked Awareness to be the Self. Even though it is indivisible from everything, expresses itself in everything, nevertheless this One Awareness is unchanging and truly existing. Non-duality at this point is understood not as no duality (in which case there is absolutely no Subject, not even an unchanging Awareness), but as the inseparability of subject and object, a collapsing of dualities into Oneness. As an analogy, Awareness is seen to be an unchanging mirror, which nevertheless cannot be separated or divided from the contents in the mirror - Awareness and the contents of Awareness are completely One - there is only One seamless field of experiencing - the One Naked Awareness. Even though seamless, even though not seen as anything personal or separate, Awareness is still seen as an unchanging Subjective Self manifesting itself as the field of experience. So this seamless One is now deemed as the Self.

 

When we come to the realization of Anatta, the last vestige of (Subjective) Self-View collapses, resulting in what Buddha calls Stream-Entry and the eradication of self-view (sakkayaditthi). At this point, NOTHING at all - not even Consciousness can be deemed as a Self. And how is this so? By seeing Awareness, deemed as Self, as also not-self, in the manner of 'in seeing always just the seen', 'seeing is just the experience of sight' - not I, not me, not mine, only a selfless process of self-luminous activities without agency. You know self-view has been overthrown when there is through experiential knowledge and vision that there is no self to be found inside or apart from the process of five aggregation. There is simply no You in reference to what is seen and experienced in any manner (to, in, etc) - in seeing just the seen. At this point you see as the suttas state, that the aggregation cannot be said to be happening TO a self, IN a self, nor can it be deemed a self exists IN the aggregates (like a soul located inside the body). As the Buddha explains, "But, lady, how does self-identity not come about?"

 

"There is the case where a well-instructed disciple of the noble ones — who has regard for noble ones, is well-versed & disciplined in their Dhamma; who has regard for men of integrity, is well-versed & disciplined in their Dhamma — does not assume form to be the self, or the self as possessing form, or form as in the self, or the self as in form." in Udana Sutta, and in Bahiya Sutta he says "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."

 

Once the Subjective Self-View has been dissolved through anatta realization, the view of objective existence still occurs. Even though there is no view or sense that there is a seer seeing the red flower - only the experience of the red flower, nevertheless the view of objective existence is that the sensate world we experience actually references an objectively existing world, such that if I close my eye, the red flower I previously saw is actually still truly existing out there in a substantial manner. Perhaps, for more intellectual people, they can adopt a more agnostic kind of view with regards to the world - perhaps it is real, perhaps it is unreal, but whether the world truly exists out there however cannot be known by me. Or perhaps, they can even adopt the view of emptiness (through inference and study on emptiness teachings), yet without true experiential realization, the view of objective existence cannot be dissolved... just as even if you adopt the view of anatta through inference (through analogies such as the Chandrakirti's sevenfold reasoning), nonetheless as I said earlier, with this inferred understanding you will still experience clinging to the sense of self, a sense of contraction and alienation despite the intellectual acceptance of the doctrine, until you have resolved this matter through direct experiential insight.

 

However, to get a sense of how this view of objective existence is actually untenable, with the example of the red flower I said earlier as an example (that whether I close my eyes, the red flower truly exists out there), consider this: If we were to observe a red flower that is so vivid, clear and right in front us, the “redness” only appears to “belong” to the flower, it is in actuality not so. Vision of red does not arise in all animal species (dogs cannot perceive colours) nor is the “redness” an inherent attribute of the mind. If given a “quantum eyesight” to look into the atomic structure, there is similarly no attribute “redness” anywhere found, only almost complete space/void with no perceivable shapes and forms. Whatever appearances are dependently arisen, and hence is empty of any inherent existence or fixed attributes, shapes, form, or “redness” -- merely luminous yet empty, mere appearances without inherent/objective existence.

 

When realization is experientially realized, the entire sensate world, including all thoughts, are seen to be completely empty of any inherent objective existence. You can no longer believe or view objects as having an independent core or substance out there. There is simply no way of clinging at sensate world in terms of 'the flower exists in this way' - there is no more clinging to objects and characteristics or objects as possessing certain characteristics, no longer false views about being able to locate or pin down an actuality of objects, no more grasping them as truly existent. Everything appears as completely illusory yet vividly appearing, having a magical quality (literally 'appearing like magic') to them.

In Conclusion

 

Non-conceptuality, or even non-duality of subject and object does not mean non-attachment. As Thusness says: non-dual luminosity is blissful, but not liberating. Many people think the non-conceptual Presence of I AM, or the non-conceptual and non-dual luminosity free of subject and object is liberation. It is not.

 

You can also see from my explanations above on 'view of inherency' that the view of duality is simply a subset of the view of inherency (one particular way the self is seen - as a separate subject), and removing the view of duality does not mean removing all views of inherency (having relinquished the view of a dualistic self or a perceiver separate from objects, you can still cling to a unified self or One Mind).

 

The complete dissolution of views pertaining to duality and inherency (therefore Right View is No View) is what results in non clinging, because all clinging have their basis in taking self and things as true existents, as something to cling on to. For example to be able to cling on to something, you must be able to establish something which you can cling to. To be able to cling to the sense of self, the view of self must be in tact, to be able to cling to objects, the view of objective existence must be in tact... in the same way that in order to cling or crave after santa claus, you must believe in the existence of santa claus, to fear the snake in the rope, you must truly be deluded enough to perceive the rope as a snake. All views are mental proliferations, all mental proliferations cause suffering. As Nagarjuna says, "Not known from another; peaceful; lacking proliferation with proliferations; non-conceptual; undifferentiated — that is the characteristic of reality." A fully awakened person (a Buddha) who never leaves a state of equipoise on reality does not have views, does not even have concepts and thoughts. His or her actions and speech arise spontaneously out of pure wisdom, not through relying on imagination, fabrication, concepts or conventions. His state can never be conceived through the conceptual intellect.

The Practice

 

I think the topic of Practice is dealt with more in-depth in other sections of the e-book, therefore I am going to skim through this portion here.

 

There are many kinds of practices one can engage in in order to give rise to realization. There are neo-Advaita teachers who teach that "no practice is necessary, no realization is needed", I say bullshit to that. As long as ignorance, false view of reality is in effect, we are going to experience suffering, afflictive emotions, sense of self, self-contraction and all that. Even though there never was truly a self and all these are a result of pure delusion, nonetheless, unless we wake up, we can never be liberated from suffering. There are "pure now-ists" that say, all thoughts of awakening are a dream, your true self is fully evident Here and Now. Well that's ok as a pointer - but to take it as a suggestion that no practice or no realization is necessary? Bullshit again, and even though your true nature is fully evident in the present, unless you realize it, it is as useless as a diamond hidden under a beggar’s pillow unnoticed - the beggar is still going to be poor, perhaps for his entire life, which is tragic to say the least. Then there are some of those teachers who think that "there is no practice guaranteed to lead to realization". Well in a sense yes, I cannot guarantee if you will realize your true nature today, tomorrow, one year, or ten years. Nobody can. If some teacher guarantees you that you will certainly attain awakening if you follow him for two years, he's outright lying and probably a fraud trying to buy followers through false promises. This is not to say that awakening within two years is impossible or even farfetched (far from it as I myself took less than two years of self-inquiry to attain Self-Realization) - but there simply cannot be guarantees like this. There is no fixed or guaranteed timeframe for awakening like there are fixed timeframe for graduation from a university.

 

But what I can say is that whatever I practiced, I am confident if done sincerely with right understanding, will surely lead to awakening. You simply cannot apply any formulas like 'today you study this, tomorrow you study that, the following day you'll get your certificate' to awakening. But those teachers who didn't offer a method simply aren't offering people any solution at all - as if their own awakening happened by chance. (They may say that practice and meditation is as useful/useless as walking down the beach since awakening can happen in both instances) In that case their awakening is completely useless and not beneficial to anyone else, and it is a waste of time trying to understand what they say since they don't offer you a solution or method or way where you too can wake up. Well, perhaps you might say, their 'method' is simply to keep repeating the same things over and over again and then someday perhaps, you will finally get it. Well, good luck with that, because it is my experience that merely listening is insufficient - a form of contemplation, investigation, is what is necessary (from my experience) to effectively result in true realization. You may listen to the same doctrine over and over again, and totally get it intellectually and score 100/100 on a 'non-duality exam' (like I did way before I had any real realizations), but no transformation can happen unless you truly see it for yourself, and that is by investigating and contemplating on them yourself in your own experience.

 

The reason some of those teachers utter bullshit that puts down practice and realization is because of their lack of clarity. They don't know how to help you awaken - but I know how to. Sorry if this sounds kind of arrogant, but I assure you it is not, it is just honesty in stating some plain facts for those sensible enough to see it. As a matter of fact, there are many teachers out there who also offer valid methods and ways and practices that can effectively lead to realization. I am far from the only one that talk about practice (lots of teachers and practitioners talk about it - especially in Buddhism, and even traditional Advaita) - I am only explaining one way, a way that worked for me.

 

When I talk about practice, I often mention that practice has two types: direct path, and gradual path. Of course I don't mean there are only two types of practices in the world, in reality there are countless kinds of practices (though they do still fall under the category of either direct or gradual) from practitioners following countless lineages and teachers and traditions (in Buddhism there is this saying that there are 84000 Dharma Doors to awakening, 84000 being merely a metaphorical number signifying countless, Dharma Doors can mean practices and gateways to realization), most of which I am not familiar of. I say: more power to them, and go for whatever works. If that practice works for you, or resonates with you, go for it. I am not selling you something and saying that you MUST follow the method I offer (remember: I am not a guru, just someone offering his two cents based on personal experience), or that somehow only this method is going to work, or that this method is THE TRUE AND ONLY way. It is not. It is just one of the many ways... but one that has worked very effectively for me and many others. To me my way is the best way, but this is entirely subjective - to someone else whose other ways worked for them, their way is the best way, and so on. To make a 'one for all' statement is to become biased since it does not allow for alternatives.

 

So what exactly is direct path? What is gradual path?

 

Direct path does not mean if you take up this practice, you will attain awakening today or tomorrow (it took me 1 year 10 months of self-inquiry to realize I AM and a couple of months more to realize the further stages of insights, which nonetheless I don't consider too long, and I consider the time I took to realize these stuff as not so surprising given the directness and effectiveness of the direct path contemplation). It is direct, because the practice focus on a form of very direct contemplation on the nature of self and reality that results in a direct realization of the nature of reality. It does not focus on cultivating experiences (such as merely experiencing awareness, presence, space-like awareness, or any other aspects of experience that becomes natural and implicit after realization). Rather, it goes right to the core of things, very quickly resulting in a direct realization of our true nature.

 

As an analogy I consider self-inquiry (Who am I? that leads to I AM realization), Zen koans (but I'm not a Zen master so can't offer more insights on that), contemplation on non-dual (where does awareness end and manifestation begin, where is the border between awareness and manifestation, etc), contemplation on anatta like Bahiya Sutta (in seeing always just the seen) or Thusness's two stanzas of anatta, contemplating on where thought arise from, where thought abides and where thought goes to (effective for shunyata insight), all these are forms of direct path contemplation.

 

As for gradual practice: for example, practicing 'Awareness Watching Awareness', turning the light of awareness upon itself and so on is a gradual method that focus on the experience of I AM but eventually can lead to realization after the experience has matured and stabilized. Even stuff like Kundalini can result in I AM experiences of cosmic consciousness, and that too is a gradual path practice (though one I am not familiar with).

 

Vipassana practice and mindfulness practice (experiencing the minutest details of the senses as clear as can be) as Thusness and I understand it can result in Anatta realization in a more gradual manner.

 

But I should say, when I advice people on how to move from non-dual to anatta, I always advice both direct path contemplation and also the practice of vipassana and mindfulness. So it is not always an 'either/or' case. In a way both can support each other. Without a clear sense of non-dual luminosity, it is also hard for a real effective contemplation on Bahiya Sutta. Without any prior experience of non-conceptual Pure Presence, it is also not easy for self-inquiry to be so effective as one will be looking into conceptual thoughts for answers rather than looking at the reality of their non-conceptual Presence. For example Ch'an Master Hsu Yun focus primarily on self-inquiry, but also talks in one instance about 'turning hearing inwards to perceive one's self-nature', which is basically the practice of 'Awareness Watching Awareness' that Michael Langford talks about. The main focus however, if you want to practice direct path, is to focus on inquiring 'Who am I?'

 

My practice and the practice I advice is going to differ according to your aims, and where you are in your practice. By that I mean for example, when I had no inkling about what my real nature is, I took up the practice of self-inquiry to realize the I AM. But after the I AM, you should focus on the four aspects of I AM. To move into non-dual, the practice is not self-inquiry any more. You can put self-inquiry aside. Instead you should focus on the four aspects, in my case with impersonality first, then later emphasis shifted to the aspect of intensity of luminosity (practice shifts from experiencing luminosity as the background Source to experiencing luminosity as the foreground sensate world and aggregates - sights, sounds, bodily sensations and so on), plus with a particular form of contemplation that challenges the view of boundaries, subject and object, inside and outside. After arising insight into non-dual, you should then investigate into anatta like in Bahiya Sutta (in seeing just the seen). After anatta you should investigate on the 'disjoint, unsupported', as well as contemplate on Shunyata. So again these kind of practices and contemplations differ according to the phase of practice you're at. You should shift your practice as you progress - otherwise if after Self-Realization you get stuck on trying to abide in the I AM 24/7, you cannot progress into further stages of freedom and effortlessness that require deeper realizations. Some people get stuck in I AM for their whole lives not knowing there is anything further in spirituality. So do not stagnate for too long. Know the maps, know where you are and know how to practice accordingly, and your path will be faster and you will attain liberation more quickly. But if you have not gotten into any of these stuff, it's best to begin and focus on self-inquiry with the aim of Self-Realization. More practical advice on this subject can be found in the Conversations on Self-Inquiry section of the ebook.

 

Apart from these direct path contemplations, daily practice of meditation (both in sitting and daily lives) is helpful, if not for gaining enough mental stability and calmness for true insights to arise, but also to develop the quality of tranquillity and deep samadhi (which will not easily arise without disciplined daily sittings, regardless of whether you have awakened to your true nature or not). In tranquillity, you learn how to drop your attachment to your body and mind, to all thoughts. This leads to tranquilizing of all mental and bodily agitations so that you can enter into a state of meditative absorption which can be very blissful. In meditation, you learn to let go of everything - mind, body, life, teachings, concepts, worries, concerns, agitations, basically Everything. During those days when I practiced Self-Inquiry, Thusness taught me to dedicate sessions everyday apart from self-inquiry, to the practice of Dropping, which is the tranquillity practice I talked about. Of course we should practice letting go in everyday lives as well, but dedicating fixed periods for sitting meditation is also important. In fact, the whole purpose of Buddha's teachings is to teach us how to let go - of everything, relinquishing all clinging and craving. To be able to do this, there must be insight and tranquillity. As the Buddha said, both insights and tranquillity in tandem is what allows complete liberation from afflictions to take place - both are necessary, both are required. But I do not focus too much about meditation in this book (not that it is not important - far from it), because I wish to focus more on the insight front and leave the details of meditation for other books which have elucidated on those topics far better than I. As an intro, you should read Dakpo Tashi Namgyal's "Clarifying the Natural State" and his more detailed and technical "Mahamudra: The Moonlight" along with Thrangu Rinpoche's commentaries on these texts in books "Crystal Clear" and "Essentials of Mahamudra". All these books are full of deep meditative insights and experiences from clearly awakened masters.

 

In Buddhism, we say that a person who wishes to attain awakening and liberation should master three fronts: morality, samadhi, and insight/wisdom. This e-book focuses on the insight/wisdom front, but by no means implying that morality and samadhi are unimportant. However, many other books have dealt with these topics to a much greater degree than I, and I do not have something better to offer than them in this regards. But basically, if you have truthfulness, harmlessness and generosity in your life, this is going to be of beneficial help to your pursuits in samadhi and wisdom, because a mind attached to lying, harming, and selfishness is going to cause afflictive hindrances (hatred, guilt, greed, and other mental disturbances or hindrances) preventing true samadhi and insight from arising. The cultivation of virtue itself can also cause a wholesome joyous mind, and a joyous mind or a mind imbued with good mental qualities like loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity is conducive to the cultivation of concentration and insight. The cultivation of virtues also result in merits, which are an important requisite for awakening, a topic I shall not elaborate here but is already explained in other forum threads such as http://sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/409161?page=1#posts-9963001

The Result/Fruition

 

You may be wondering, what is all these fuss about? Why should I bother with these stuff? Why get awakened? What is the results out of this? Is there any practical transformations in life?

 

There are many "awakened persons" who say there are no perceivable differences apart from perhaps having a sense of resolving these stuff, the end of seeking, the end of false notions about self, maybe more clarity in life.

 

But to me, in my experience, when you have sufficiently deep insight and experience, a far more profound and life-changing transformation takes place.

 

As spoken in the other chapter in the e-book on maps of awakening, speaking from experience, I can report a gradual emotional transformation or attenuation after the initial insight into anatta. I shall not repeat the details here but summarize them.

 

Here's what I know can be attained through deep awakening (at this moment these are the ones more apparent to me but as time progresses there could be more):

 

- a permanent freedom from all delusions of pertaining to the view of an existing self or object

- freedom from any sense of self, separation, alienation from the world, self-contraction

- freedom from attachment to a sense of a body-mind, drop off body-mind - no more inside and outside or any kind of boundaries and weight

- freedom from craving, anger, fears, sorrow, attachments, or any afflictive emotions

- pure bliss and wonder and delight in the intimate and intense aliveness of every moment's experience due to effortless and perpetual NDNCDIMOP: non-dual, non-conceptual, direct, immediate mode of perception of reality

- deep sense of wakefulness, clarity and aliveness

- sleep need reduced by up to half, wakefulness and alertness increased very much

- thought activity decreases, discursive thoughts lessens tremendously, replaced by NDNCDIMOP

- thoughts that do arise self-releases without trace

 

According to Buddha, when you achieve full awakening in the Hinayana level (the attainment of personal liberation, Arhantship), it also confer things like 'ending the cycle of rebirth' in the literal sense of not having to be reborn again and again in this world of suffering - but then I shall not dwell into this, understanding that not all readers may accept such a doctrine (I do - and past lives are something that can be recalled in meditation so to me it is more than just a theory or a belief, furthermore scientific research like those by Dr. Ian Stevensons backs rebirth). If you are into Mahayana like I do, my aim is to attain full Buddhahood for the sake of benefitting mass sentient beings which is not merely personal liberation - Buddhahood confers things like great compassion, mastery of skillful means in teaching, omniscience, mastery of supernatural powers and the ten virtues (paramis) and so on. I am not a Buddha - just learning and practicing to be one.

 

Anyhow, the effects of awakening I have currently observed are the natural result of having discovered a true and accurate way of perceiving things, freed from the view and sense of self and objects, resulting in just the NDNCDIMOP of the sensate world as it is. It should be understood that you should not focus on removing emotions head on, or removing thoughts head on, or removing sense of self head on. Why? If you do not go for the roots, but try to cut off the branches, then you leave the root intact. Your delusion is intact even if you managed to 'get rid of the sense of self' (just like your delusion is intact even if you managed to distant yourself from the illusory snake that actually is a rope). But once you cut off the root ignorance, the branches are dealt with, or they naturally fall away easily. So when realization occurs, you honour realization first, understanding that there is no liberation from afflictions without first liberation from ignorance via true knowledge and vision of things as they are. You don't sit in meditation all day trying to cultivate 'thoughtlessness'. You don't try sitting in meditation all day to 'get rid of the self' or 'get rid of emotions'. These are naturally dealt with in the maturation of true insight and experience. They are a natural result of clarity.

 

Also, if self-view and sense of self is not relinquished, people generally treat 'letting go' as a form of dissociative practice. 'I' or the 'witnessing awareness' dissociate from 'my feelings', as if there are two things that can separate from each other. This simply strengthens the delusion of self, leading to more clinging, not liberation.

 

This is why Thusness warned a long time ago: "...When one is unable to see the truth of our nature, all letting go is nothing more than another form of holding in disguise. Therefore without the 'insight', there is no releasing.... it is a gradual process of deeper seeing. When it is seen, the letting go is natural. You cannot force yourself into giving up the self... purification to me is always these insights... non-dual and emptiness nature...."

 

Even if you are able to achieve a state of letting go to a high degree and you enter into samadhi, this is merely a temporary state where afflictions are temporarily in abeyance or suppressed. This is ok - but keep in mind they are merely suppressed, not uprooted. Only wisdom in tandem with samadhi can uproot afflictions permanently.

 

One last thing: Buddha teach practice (such as the four foundations of mindfulness, seven factors of awakening, and so on) from his awakened experience, sort of like working backwards for sentient beings, translating his experience into practices. In other words, the experience of pure alertness, clarity, equanimity, and so on... are qualities natural in one's experience after realization, but before realization they are difficult to be experienced effortlessly (though that doesn't mean we shouldn't practice to experience them).

 

It should be known that there is a difference between practice after realization and the practice before realization. After realization, practice is effortless, without any attempt to modify experience - just resting in the natural equipoise on reality. Such can also be spoken of as 'non-meditation' since it is not really effortful practice. It should be understood however that only an awakened person can experience 'non-meditation', an unawakened person attempting to do 'non-meditation' will only fall under the power of their own conditioning. For example they may mistake lazing around and day-dreaming with 'non-meditation', which is a tragedy. The conditioning here means falling into the magical spell of duality, the stories about 'me' and 'the world', the stories of 'I', 'me', and 'mine'. An awakened person who realizes the nature of reality is able to overcome his view of inherent and duality, because there is no deluded views about 'I', no 'mine', and no 'other' (objects), the awakened person does not give rise to delusion and attachment (therefore requires no effort or antidote) and is naturally and effortlessly authenticated by the unity of luminosity and emptiness (Buddha-nature) in the midst of their life, not just in sitting meditation. For such a practitioner, all thoughts and perceptions are in a state of self-releasing or self-liberation, no effortful practice or antidote is necessary because what self-releases does not cause harm or delusion. Due to the view of emptiness naturally being authenticated in daily life, a person does not grasp on 'I', 'me', 'mine' and 'things', and due to non-grasping, there is also no need to make special effort to 'let go' - there is no problems (attachment due to inherent view) that need to be remedied.

 

As an analogy: a person suffering hallucination may imagine there to be a beautiful paradise in front of him, so he chases after the mirage experiencing craving, attachment, and suffering. Because of his sickness, the person needs to be treated with an antidote - some kind of medication to prevent the outbursts of mania. Such is the dilemma of sentient beings. Seeing things as real and inherent, we grasp and crave after them, but an awakened person knows better - there is no person, nor object that is real - everything is illusory. Having no delusions about it, such a person does not give rise to grasping and naturally no remedy is needed. Such an awakened being is also not delusioned about there being a 'special state' that he therefore craves after (after all, everything is empty) - he is not seeking after some nice transcendental experience, therefore no effort is required, but is simply liberated on the spot. The need for effort and meditation only arise when one feels some suffering, deviation, or distraction that requires 'antidote', but for one who effortlessly rests in the equipoise on reality, does not require antidote, meditation and effort. But until then, meditate hard, practice hard to awaken (and it doesn't mean after awakening you don't need to sit, but it becomes effortless without agenda or attempt to modify our experience - even the Buddha does regular sitting meditation just because it is healthy and promotes well-being). Do not underestimate the power of our karmic conditioning - it affects our every moment experience until awakening.

 

Also, before realization, it is truly difficult to experience things like 'the luminosity of the textures and forms of manifestation', 'non-dual, non-conceptual, direct, immediate mode of perception' and things like that. As Thusness said to me before, to stress on these things to people is to cause them more unnecessary frustrations. They simply cannot see it, even though we (after realization) see it all the time - we can't even unsee it. So the practical thing is not to emphasize these things to them again and again, but advice them to set aside time every day to meditate, practice mindfulness, practice contemplation. Eventually when realization arises, these qualities become effortless. But you can't tell them to experience mindfulness 24/7 - that is just not possible. It would be very good already if they can experience pure clarity in their relatively brief period of sitting meditation, let alone for the entire day.

 

But after Anatta, it seems that this brilliant non-dual luminosity is very effortless - I don't need to practice anything to be in NDNCDIMOP or the pure consciousness experience. I don't need to practice 30 minutes of mindfulness or meditation to reach a state of pure consciousness or NDNCDIMOP. Every ordinary and mundane experience even in daily life and non-meditation setting is already implicitly so. Before awakening, such experiences seem hard to attain, and are rare and intermittent, requiring much effort in practicing mindfulness and meditation, but after awakening it becomes realized and experienced as the natural state, experienced in real-time in everyday living.

 

Like Simpo said, "IMO, before the insight of no-self, it is quite hard to not get caught at the content level. This is because, before the non-dual, non-conceptual experience/insight, one does not know how 'not getting caught' in the content is like."

 

That is why insight is important. But don't worry if you don't experience all those qualities before awakening - it is very difficult to, but it becomes natural after insight, so just focus on insight.

Edited January 7, 2012 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

I'm going to publish my e-book some time late next year.

[Lucky7Strikes]

In all seriousness you should go and burn (or in this case, erase) your e-book. Forget about all this for a year and type it out again. You have so much unnecessary language piled up in the database. And why would you torture someone into reading all this repetitive and wordy essay? Just let them read Thusness 7 stages. It's much more direct and clear.

 

In my opinion, all this is written for yourself and thusness, to show that you went through what you did. Maybe there's some deep need within you to prove that you have done so, to say "yes, I get it now. I get what Thusness has been telling me all these years." Consider practicing insight practices into yourself and not reality. Who exactly is this book written for? And what is the origin of that urge? I mean, where are the chronicles of personal struggles on the path to enlightenment? This is what's blatantly missing from all of your writings. They are incredibly impersonal, and that's why Seth thinks you are a robot. In all these writings about what you went through there is not one iota of personal detail.

 

Consider the time I asked you why you were into spirituality and enlightenment. And your answer was some textbook bullshit about "I want to save all sentient beings and become an omniscient Buddha." That's not an answer. No one is born with that idea, the Buddha wasn't born with that motivation. Spiritual motivation is a byproduct of suffering, and suffering is something that is rooted deeply within by attachments, desires, longings, i.e. very personal stuff. And all this is such an impersonal presentation of something that is supposed to be profoundly intimate.

 

To quote someone else, 95% of the Path is dealing with these blockages and it's not easy. The I AM or Anatta stuff is very minor compared to unhashing your own subconscious. It's very irnoic that you title your "journal" "who am I?" and even by the 20th page we don't know why you went on this journey, your hopes, fears, attachments, vanities, loves, sacrifices, pitfalls, etc. as in...the things that make us human. The blatant absence says more about you than hundreds of analytical differences you draw between I Am, anatta, or whatever.

 

Edit: I do recall one detail you mentioned in a discussion once. About how at one time you were in awe of spiritual masters, but upon approaching Thusness' methods they seemed no longer that special.

Edited December 18, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[xabir2005]

In all seriousness you should go and burn (or in this case, erase) your e-book. Forget about all this for a year and type it out again. You have so much unnecessary language piled up in the database. And why would you torture someone into reading all this repetitive and wordy essay? Just let them read Thusness 7 stages. It's much more direct and clear.

 

In my opinion, all this is written for yourself and thusness, to show that you went through what you did. Maybe there's some deep need within you to prove that you have done so, to say "yes, I get it now. I get what Thusness has been telling me all these years." Consider practicing insight practices into yourself and not reality. Who exactly is this book written for? And what is the origin of that urge?

 

I mean, where are the chronicles of personal struggles on the path to enlightenment? This is what's blatantly missing from all of your writings. They are incredibly impersonal, and that's why Seth thinks you are a robot. In all these writings about what you went through there is not one iota of personal detail.

 

I mean, where are the chronicles of personal struggles on the path to enlightenment? This is what's blatantly missing from all of your writings. They are incredibly impersonal, and that's why Seth thinks you are a robot. In all these writings about what you went through there is not one iota of personal detail.

Thusness 7 stages are a good and concise summary but doesn't talk about the details of the view, realization, experience, practice, and fruition. Well actually, the realization and experience is pretty well stated there, but there are other stuff or aspects.

 

Whatever I wrote is dedicated to interested seekers out there. I've received many commendations from people from various places who have benefitted from my e-book, many have feedbacked to me that they found inspiration from them, and even treating it as their practice guidebook. One Zen priest and teacher (who himself realized anatta) said to me privately that "I must say that you and Thusness are now the only practitioners that I am aware of who have not only mastered these stages, but are also able to explain them clearly in a step-by-step manner."

 

If you don't see value in it, well that's too bad. Maybe its not for you. I wrote it knowing fully well that it is not meant for everyone - not everyone might resonate with it. I don't know if my mom would be interested in it. If I write something that appeals more to the masses like Eckhart Tolle, that would be great too, but thats not the purpose of my e-book. I would be happy to direct people to Eckhart Tolle or other more popular spiritual authors if I feel they would benefit more from that sort of books or direction. I gave my mom two Eckhart Tolle books (Chinese translation), which she really liked alot. I didn't show her my e-book because firstly she only reads Chinese and secondly I'm not too sure if she'll be interested in the hardcore, technical, sort of practitioner's journal and ebook (well she might but I don't know). Likewise, I don't think she will appreciate some other 'hardcore, technical' sort of e-books like Daniel Ingram's Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha or Ven Buddhaghosa's Visudhimagga, for example. I don't recall Dakpo Tashi Namgyal's technical Mahamudra meditation book talk about their personal details... or some of the Dzogchen or Zen or Theravada books talk about their personal details... Ok you might say, since its an e-journal, you should talk about it. Well... I did, well at least some, but maybe its true I need to write more 'personal details' (I'll have to think about that one, thanks for sharing your honest opinion/feedback/comment). Or perhaps 'meditation diary' is a more suitable or less misleading term.

 

My original intention was to to focus my e-book entirely on the different insights and experiences I've gone through and how I got them. My e-journal is not a journal about my personal life - well not primarily, but my spiritual insights and experience. I may not be the best writer in the world - I may not write as interestingly or appealingly as Eckhart Tolle or some other popular writers, but whatever I wrote is genuine and based on what I've seen and experienced.

Consider the time I asked you why you were into spirituality and enlightenment. And your answer was some textbook bullshit about "I want to save all sentient beings and become an omniscient Buddha."

It might be bullshit to you, but it might not be bullshit to someone else.

 

Take for example, this guy, whose sole intention in seeking for a solution for suffering was to save the entire world from suffering (though he 'quits'): http://ruthlesstruthdotcom.blogspot.com/2011/11/i-quit.html

 

That's not an answer. No one is born with that idea, the Buddha wasn't born with that motivation. Spiritual motivation is a byproduct of suffering, and suffering is something that is rooted deeply within by attachments, desires, longings, i.e. very personal stuff. And all this is such an impersonal presentation of something that is supposed to be profoundly intimate.

Funny... You may be motivated by suffering. I know many people have... its true. I've read many spiritual teachers who are awakened due to intense suffering (Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, etc etc)

 

But really, this is not my own experience. Did Ramana Maharshi self-realized due to intense suffering? No he didn't, it just spontaneously happened when he was 16 years old through a spontaneous spiritual experience and he just went into deep samadhi bliss for the next few years.

 

So how a person enters into spirituality differs according to each person, you cannot just assume your own experience applies to everyone.

 

I can tell you: I had no intense suffering in this life that I can remember. My life is quite ok. That is why in my ebook, in the 'Who am I' section, that people usually get into spirituality in their 30s, 40s, 50s after they gone through suffering, disillusionment, depression, whatever. But here I am, just 21, and with an *unexplainable* interest in spirituality. Logically speaking, I should be more interested in computer games, in girls, or in getting money, whatever... than spirituality. logically speaking, there is no reason for me to be interested in spirituality bcos I don't have any crisis or intense suffering, but somehow I just am interested.

 

Well if you really want a better answer to that: I can say, firstly, its partly due to my glimpses of experience along the path (if you had a glimpse of paradise, wouldn't you want it back?), its also partly due to the what I've learnt from books that really gives me the impression that it has some life transforming (and afterlife transforming, or liberation) effect that its worth getting into, its partly due to the genuineness of Thusness's compassion and guidance to me which I am eternally grateful, so many factors all coming together... that spurs my interest in this spiritual path. But really, I didn't get into Buddhism due to 'intense suffering'. I honestly hadn't, and I don't want to (and can't) make up stories to make things sound more interesting.

 

Thats why I might not make an interesting book about my personal life - I mean maybe if my life had been a wreck, a catastrophe, and how through spirituality and awakening I was able to extricate myself from my life situation and suffering and depression etc... that might make an interesting life story cum spirituality book. But my life (story) ain't that interesting or roller coaster like. I'm sure if you asked Ramana Maharshi to write that kind of book, he couldn't. But if you ask him about self-inquiry, how to attain self-realization and so on, his guidance and teaching is the best you can get.

To quote someone else, 95% of the Path is dealing with these blockages and it's not easy. The I AM or Anatta stuff is very minor compared to unhashing your own subconscious. It's very irnoic that you title your "journal" "who am I?" and even by the 20th page we don't know why you went on this journey, your hopes, fears, attachments, vanities, loves, sacrifices, pitfalls, etc. as in...the things that make us human. The blatant absence says more about you than hundreds of analytical differences you draw between I Am, anatta, or whatever.

 

Edit: I do recall one detail you mentioned in a discussion once. About how at one time you were in awe of spiritual masters, but upon approaching Thusness' methods they seemed no longer that special.

Yes. I had a faith 'crisis' once. But I don't think I want to talk about it in my e-book due to my respect for those teachers. Edited December 18, 2011 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

By the way I'm aware of the repetitive nature of the e-book... I'm intending to cut down unnecessary stuff because its too long anyway (450 pages). I'll have to find time to do a thorough editing.

Edited December 18, 2011 by xabir2005

[Lucky7Strikes]

Thusness 7 stages are a good and concise summary but doesn't talk about the details of the view, realization, experience, practice, and fruition. Well actually, the realization and experience is pretty well stated there, but there are other stuff or aspects.

No, everything you write in the book can be traced back to Thusness' stages and the other two articles on anatta and realization. Your fruition is merely, "oh it feels good" and adds nothing. The effortless vs. effort aspect is all over Thusness's stuff. You simply have nothing to add, and imo just create all the unnecessary clutter to what is already written.

 

Whatever I wrote is dedicated to interested seekers out there. I've received many commendations from people from various places who have benefitted from my e-book, many have feedbacked to me that they found inspiration from them, and even treating it as their practice guidebook. One Zen priest and teacher (who himself realized anatta) said to me privately that "I must say that you and Thusness are now the only practitioners that I am aware of who have not only mastered these stages, but are also able to explain them clearly in a step-by-step manner."

It surely doesn't seem like it. Or you are way out of touch in regards to what successful communication is. 450 pages of repetitive and self serving essay doesn't appear to be written for the so-called other seekers. Reading through doesn't give me the sense that it is written for that purpose, there is no reaching out to the reader, there is just self congratulatory bullshit language weeding through the same road Thusness outlines.

 

If you don't see value in it, well that's too bad.

Why is that too bad? Because you value it and hold it in esteem? To people who are not interested in spirituality I do not say to them "too bad, you don't get to experience the things I do." Not at all. Spirituality is and should be a very personal matter, and your approach is not like that at all. It is universally enforcing, as in, "my way is the truth, and yours is not. I know the true bliss, whereas you do not." This is imposing.

 

Maybe its not for you. I wrote it knowing fully well that it is not meant for everyone - not everyone might resonate with it. I don't know if my mom would be interested in it. If I write something that appeals more to the masses like Eckhart Tolle, that would be great too, but thats not the purpose of my e-book.

This is just apologetic crap. You say "it is not meant for everyone" with an idea in the back of your mind that your way is actually the true method, that it goes beyond "oh the inferior I AM stages of Tolle."

 

I would be happy to direct people to Eckhart Tolle or other more popular spiritual authors if I feel they would benefit more from that sort of books or direction. I gave my mom two Eckhart Tolle books (Chinese translation), which she really liked alot. I didn't show her my e-book because firstly she only reads Chinese and secondly I'm not too sure if she'll be interested in the hardcore, technical, sort of practitioner's journal and ebook (well she might but I don't know). Likewise, I don't think she will appreciate some other 'hardcore, technical' sort of e-books like Daniel Ingram's Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha or Ven Buddhaghosa's Visudhimagga, for example. I don't recall Dakpo Tashi Namgyal's technical Mahamudra meditation book talk about their personal details... or some of the Dzogchen or Zen or Theravada books talk about their personal details... Ok you might say, since its an e-journal, you should talk about it. Well... I did, well at least some, but maybe its true I need to write more 'personal details' (I'll have to think about that one, thanks for sharing your honest opinion/feedback/comment). Or perhaps 'meditation diary' is a more suitable or less misleading term.

I see, then it's not a journal or inquiry into who am I. It's an instructional guide to enlightenment based on Thusness's teachings. It's as pompous as Ingram's conceited Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, in which he approaches things very similarly as you do. He categorizes all of Buddhism into how he sees it without any experience in the sects and methods he criticizes. He believes his destination is final, shoving things into his "cycle" mode just as you do into the 7 stages. "Hardcore." And what, everything else is "softcore"? See the value you are adding to your own path above others?

 

BUddhaghosa and Namgyal's texts are in a different time period and written to instruct their students, to leave a guideline for their respective lineages. They're like official documents to a school. Also Visudhimagga, at least parts of it, is also disputed to have been written after Buddhaghosa. You are not in that position. And Zen is very personal. Zen is not a set of a, b, c instructions, but a struggle between the master and his student to achieve a heart mind connection of understanding. Shouldn't you know that from your relationship with Thusness?

 

My original intention was to to focus my e-book entirely on the different insights and experiences I've gone through and how I got them. My e-journal is not a journal about my personal life - well not primarily, but my spiritual insights and experience. I may not be the best writer in the world - I may not write as interestingly or appealingly as Eckhart Tolle or some other popular writers, but whatever I wrote is genuine and based on what I've seen and experienced.

It might be bullshit to you, but it might not be bullshit to someone else.

It has nothing to do with your writing skills. It has to do with its missing heart.

 

Take for example, this guy, whose sole intention in seeking for a solution for suffering was to save the entire world from suffering (though he 'quits'): http://ruthlesstruthdotcom.blogspot.com/2011/11/i-quit.html

[/quuote]

I don't get how this is relevant.

 

Funny... You may be motivated by suffering. I know many people have... its true. I've read many spiritual teachers who are awakened due to intense suffering (Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, etc etc)

Funny, the first noble truth is that life is unsatisfactory, it is suffering. But suffering is not the right word as its connoted in our usual usage of it, like as in pain. Pain may be a part of it.

 

But really, this is not my own experience. Did Ramana Maharshi self-realized due to intense suffering? No he didn't, it just spontaneously happened when he was 16 years old through a spontaneous spiritual experience and he just went into deep samadhi bliss for the next few years.

You are not Ramana Maharshi. Your spiritual experiences were not spontaneous. They were fed to you by Thusness.

 

Also, I'm not talking about intense suffering. It doesn't have to be suffering. That is a very difficult word, what "suffering" is. It can take many forms, but I guess you can say it's something that compels one to transition, the urge to transform one's current life into a different mode of being.

 

I can tell you: I had no intense suffering in this life that I can remember. My life is quite ok. That is why in my ebook, in the 'Who am I' section, that people usually get into spirituality in their 30s, 40s, 50s after they gone through suffering, disillusionment, depression, whatever. But here I am, just 21, and with an *unexplainable* interest in spirituality. Logically speaking, I should be more interested in computer games, in girls, or in getting money, whatever... than spirituality. logically speaking, there is no reason for me to be interested in spirituality bcos I don't have any crisis or intense suffering, but somehow I just am interested.

How can you propose to say you have any spiritual insight when you do not understand firsthand what suffering is? What the anxiety that lies under most human beings has its roots in? You dismiss it as "whatever." It doesn't have to be intense crisis or suffering, your obliviousness to it reveals how out of touch you are with basic humanity that underlies all this spiritual exercise.

 

Well if you really want a better answer to that: I can say, firstly, its partly due to my glimpses of experience along the path (if you had a glimpse of paradise, wouldn't you want it back?), its also partly due to the what I've learnt from books that really gives me the impression that it has some life transforming (and afterlife transforming, or liberation) effect that its worth getting into, its partly due to the genuineness of Thusness's compassion and guidance to me which I am eternally grateful, so many factors all coming together... that spurs my interest in this spiritual path. But really, I didn't get into Buddhism due to 'intense suffering'. I honestly hadn't, and I don't want to (and can't) make up stories to make things sound more interesting.

 

Thats why I might not make an interesting book about my personal life - I mean maybe if my life had been a wreck, a catastrophe, and how through spirituality and awakening I was able to extricate myself from my life situation and suffering and depression etc... that might make an interesting life story cum spirituality book. But my life (story) ain't that interesting or roller coaster like. I'm sure if you asked Ramana Maharshi to write that kind of book, he couldn't. But if you ask him about self-inquiry, how to attain self-realization and so on, his guidance and teaching is the best you can get.

Yes. I had a faith 'crisis' once. But I don't think I want to talk about it in my e-book due to my respect for those teachers.

It has some life transforming effect you saw in books so you went ahead and did it? Why then you might just be a some crazy voodoo cultist worshipping flying monsters by now if Thusness has been someone different! One does not simply decide to transform one's life out of passing interest. There must be something that propels him/her out of their current states of existence. If just mere interest leads a person to a religion or a way of life, that person is very ungrounded and is a mere victim.

 

Again, it doesn't have to be a wreck, a depression. The very fact that you are seeing it in terms of "oh if it's not a roller coaster, it's not worth sharing" reveals a lot about your take on how to communicate spiritual experiences and ideas with others. I do not believe that's what dukkha is. You seem simply out of touch with your own humanity.

 

Why don't you talk about the faith "crisis"? Respect for teachers? You can always make their names up. That's such a phony excuse. You have always been so reluctant to be vulnerable.

 

Ramana Maharshi didn't write a 450 page e-book. I find it hilarious you have tried to rely on Maharshi as a comparable example to yourself.

[Lucky7Strikes]

Thusness 7 stages are a good and concise summary but doesn't talk about the details of the view, realization, experience, practice, and fruition. Well actually, the realization and experience is pretty well stated there, but there are other stuff or aspects.

No, everything you write in the book can be traced back to Thusness' stages and the other two articles on anatta and realization. Your fruition is merely, "oh it feels good" and adds nothing. The effortless vs. effort aspect is all over Thusness's stuff. You simply have nothing to add, and imo just create all the unnecessary clutter to what is already written.

 

Whatever I wrote is dedicated to interested seekers out there. I've received many commendations from people from various places who have benefitted from my e-book, many have feedbacked to me that they found inspiration from them, and even treating it as their practice guidebook. One Zen priest and teacher (who himself realized anatta) said to me privately that "I must say that you and Thusness are now the only practitioners that I am aware of who have not only mastered these stages, but are also able to explain them clearly in a step-by-step manner."

 

It surely doesn't seem like it. Or you are way out of touch in regards to what successful communication is. 450 pages of repetitive and self serving essay doesn't appear to be written for the so-called other seekers. Reading through doesn't give me the sense that it is written for that purpose, there is no reaching out to the reader, there is just self congratulatory bullshit language weeding through the same road Thusness outlines.

 

If you don't see value in it, well that's too bad.

Why is that too bad? Because you value it and hold it in esteem? To people who are not interested in spirituality I do not say to them "too bad, you don't get to experience the things I do." Not at all. Spirituality is and should be a very personal matter, but your approach is not like that at all. It is universally enforcing, as in, "my way is the truth, and yours is not. I know the true bliss, whereas you do not." This is imposing.

 

Maybe its not for you. I wrote it knowing fully well that it is not meant for everyone - not everyone might resonate with it. I don't know if my mom would be interested in it. If I write something that appeals more to the masses like Eckhart Tolle, that would be great too, but thats not the purpose of my e-book.

This is just apologetic crap. You say "it is not meant for everyone" with an idea in the back of your mind that your way is actually the true method, that it goes beyond "oh the inferior I AM stages of Tolle."

 

I would be happy to direct people to Eckhart Tolle or other more popular spiritual authors if I feel they would benefit more from that sort of books or direction. I gave my mom two Eckhart Tolle books (Chinese translation), which she really liked alot. I didn't show her my e-book because firstly she only reads Chinese and secondly I'm not too sure if she'll be interested in the hardcore, technical, sort of practitioner's journal and ebook (well she might but I don't know). Likewise, I don't think she will appreciate some other 'hardcore, technical' sort of e-books like Daniel Ingram's Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha or Ven Buddhaghosa's Visudhimagga, for example. I don't recall Dakpo Tashi Namgyal's technical Mahamudra meditation book talk about their personal details... or some of the Dzogchen or Zen or Theravada books talk about their personal details... Ok you might say, since its an e-journal, you should talk about it. Well... I did, well at least some, but maybe its true I need to write more 'personal details' (I'll have to think about that one, thanks for sharing your honest opinion/feedback/comment). Or perhaps 'meditation diary' is a more suitable or less misleading term.

I see, then it's not a journal or inquiry into who am I. It's an instructional guide to enlightenment based on Thusness's teachings. It's as pompous as Ingram's conceited Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, in which he approaches things very similarly as you do. He categorizes all of Buddhism into how he sees it without any experience in the sects and methods he criticizes. He believes his destination is final, shoving things into his "cycle" mode just as you do into the 7 stages. "Hardcore." And what, everything else is "softcore"? See the value you are adding to your own path above others?

 

BUddhaghosa and Namgyal's texts are in a different time period and written to instruct their students, to leave a guideline for their respective lineages. They're like official documents to a school. Also Visudhimagga, at least parts of it, is also disputed to have been written after Buddhaghosa. You are not in that position. And Zen is very personal. Zen is not a set of a, b, c instructions, but a struggle between the master and his student to achieve a heart mind connection of understanding. Shouldn't you know that from your relationship with Thusness?

 

My original intention was to to focus my e-book entirely on the different insights and experiences I've gone through and how I got them. My e-journal is not a journal about my personal life - well not primarily, but my spiritual insights and experience. I may not be the best writer in the world - I may not write as interestingly or appealingly as Eckhart Tolle or some other popular writers, but whatever I wrote is genuine and based on what I've seen and experienced.

It might be bullshit to you, but it might not be bullshit to someone else.

It has nothing to do with your writing skills. It has to do with its missing heart.

 

Funny... You may be motivated by suffering. I know many people have... its true. I've read many spiritual teachers who are awakened due to intense suffering (Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, etc etc)

Funny, the first noble truth is that life is unsatisfactory, it is suffering. But suffering is not the right word as its connoted in our common usage of it, it's no pain, but pain may be a part of it to some.

 

But really, this is not my own experience. Did Ramana Maharshi self-realized due to intense suffering? No he didn't, it just spontaneously happened when he was 16 years old through a spontaneous spiritual experience and he just went into deep samadhi bliss for the next few years.

You are not Ramana Maharshi. Your spiritual experiences were not spontaneous. They were fed to you by Thusness.

 

Also, I'm not talking about intense suffering. It doesn't have to be suffering. That is a very difficult word, what "suffering" is. It can take many forms, but I guess you can say it's something that compels one to transition, the urge to transform one's current life into a different mode of being.

 

I can tell you: I had no intense suffering in this life that I can remember. My life is quite ok. That is why in my ebook, in the 'Who am I' section, that people usually get into spirituality in their 30s, 40s, 50s after they gone through suffering, disillusionment, depression, whatever. But here I am, just 21, and with an *unexplainable* interest in spirituality. Logically speaking, I should be more interested in computer games, in girls, or in getting money, whatever... than spirituality. logically speaking, there is no reason for me to be interested in spirituality bcos I don't have any crisis or intense suffering, but somehow I just am interested.

How can you propose to say you have any spiritual insight when you do not understand firsthand what suffering is? What the anxiety that lies under most human beings has its roots in? You dismiss it as "whatever." It doesn't have to be intense crisis or suffering, your obliviousness to it reveals how out of touch you are with basic humanity that underlies all this spiritual exercise.

 

Well if you really want a better answer to that: I can say, firstly, its partly due to my glimpses of experience along the path (if you had a glimpse of paradise, wouldn't you want it back?), its also partly due to the what I've learnt from books that really gives me the impression that it has some life transforming (and afterlife transforming, or liberation) effect that its worth getting into, its partly due to the genuineness of Thusness's compassion and guidance to me which I am eternally grateful, so many factors all coming together... that spurs my interest in this spiritual path. But really, I didn't get into Buddhism due to 'intense suffering'. I honestly hadn't, and I don't want to (and can't) make up stories to make things sound more interesting.

 

Thats why I might not make an interesting book about my personal life - I mean maybe if my life had been a wreck, a catastrophe, and how through spirituality and awakening I was able to extricate myself from my life situation and suffering and depression etc... that might make an interesting life story cum spirituality book. But my life (story) ain't that interesting or roller coaster like. I'm sure if you asked Ramana Maharshi to write that kind of book, he couldn't. But if you ask him about self-inquiry, how to attain self-realization and so on, his guidance and teaching is the best you can get.

Yes. I had a faith 'crisis' once. But I don't think I want to talk about it in my e-book due to my respect for those teachers.

It has some life transforming effect you saw in books so you went ahead and did it? Why then you might just be a some crazy voodoo cultist worshipping flying monsters by now if Thusness had been someone different! One does not simply decide to transform one's life out of passing interest. There must be something that propels him/her out of their current states of existence. If just mere interest leads a person to a religion or a way of life, that person is very ungrounded and is a mere victim.

 

Again, it doesn't have to be a wreck, a depression. The very fact that you are seeing it in terms of "oh if it's not a roller coaster, it's not worth sharing" reveals a lot about your take on how to communicate spiritual experiences and ideas with others. You seem simply out of touch with your own humanity.

 

Why don't you talk about the faith "crisis"? Respect for teachers? You can always make their names up. That's such a phony excuse. You have always been so reluctant to be vulnerable, to be open. Write about all this bliss you are feeling. Where do you feel it, how does it transpire?

 

Ramana Maharshi didn't write a 450 page e-book. I find it hilarious you have tried to rely on Maharshi as a comparable example to yourself.

 

Your version of how you present yourself is mostly very strange. Who writes a 450 page book out of just interest? Debate for 30+ pages for ideas that, well he is just interested in? Dedicate an entire blog to a man's teachings...well, just because it's an interest? This is not the same type of interest one may develop in playing the piano, it's more like an active decision to devote oneself to an environmental cause, or a dedicated religious devotee. They have reasons behind their passion. And your path has not been spontaneous. Thusness coddled you through 5-6 years under his doctrine due to your intense attachment to him and his methods. Your story of yourself is unconvincing.

Edited December 18, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[gendao]

AMAZING journal/thesis, xabir2005!!!

 

I applaud the high intellectual technicality of your white paper here, and implore you NOT to dumb it down IN ANY WAY for the "Oprah Book Club" masses..

 

There's already plenty of material on that level...with more rigorous analyses like this desperately lacking in supply.

 

And if anyone wants some "human idiocy," then they can simply turn on their boob tubes for a dose of the Kardashians or Jersey Shore. Again, no short supply of people acting like primitive primates in this society.

 

I do have a question about another statement you had made, though? How did you take refuge at age 2???

(despite my being Buddhist and having taken formal refuge in Buddhism since I was 2 - I definitely do not limit my learnings to Buddhism)

[Lucky7Strikes]

There's already plenty of material on that level...with more rigorous analyses like this desperately lacking in supply.

Do pop cultural "primates" make you feel superior? What's wrong with Oprah?

 

Dumb it down? Have you read through the journal next to Thusness' stuff? It's a mess of a copy.

 

If you like rigorous analysis go to the philosophy section in the bookstore. There's plenty of rigorous analysis there. It's not lacking, you should maybe not look at Kadashians for that analytical stuff.

Edited December 18, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[gendao]

Do pop cultural "primates" that make you feel superior? What's wrong with Oprah?

Oprah caters to Middle American soccer moms, not hardcore spiritual practitioners. Nothing wrong with that - it's just a different audience (and thus level of material).

 

I'm not saying you can't enjoy Eckhart Tolle (in fact, I do myself)...but I think there are a growing number of seekers also looking for more technically advanced material, too.

 

The cool thing about Thusness and xabir2005, is that they are directly reinterpreting ancient sutras in our modern context and their own personal experiences. That's both a valuable translation and renewal of these traditions to help pave the road for those who wish to follow them in the here and now.

 

So, I guess my question is - what's wrong with his academic presentation and it NOT being "dramatic enough" for the "Oprah Book Club?" Why is THAT the benchmark for books in this country?

 

I mean, I wouldn't mind personal anecdotes, either. But if he's already at 450 pages...that's probably the first fluff I would cut out.

Edited December 18, 2011 by vortex

[Lucky7Strikes]

Oprah caters to Middle American soccer moms, not hardcore spiritual practitioners. Nothing wrong with that - it's just a different audience (and thus level of material).

 

I'm not saying you can't enjoy Eckhart Tolle (in fact, I do myself)...but I think there are a growing number of seekers also looking for more technically advanced material, too.

 

The cool thing about Thusness and xabir2005, is that they are directly reinterpreting ancient sutras in our modern context and their own personal experiences. That's both a valuable translation and renewal of these traditions to help pave the road for those who wish to follow them in the here and now.

 

So, I guess my question is - what's wrong with his academic presentation and it NOT being "dramatic enough" for the "Oprah Book Club?" Why is THAT the benchmark for books in this country?

 

I mean, I wouldn't mind personal anecdotes, either. But if he's already at 450 pages...that's probably the first fluff I would cut out.

Because his path is not intellectual. It's not academic.

 

I'm not looking for drama. I'm looking for context. Every individual has their own context for understanding, as in HOW they have managed to arrive at an understanding, their view. And since Xabir's stuff is the same as Thusness' there is no personal context to any of it. It's just, "I did what Thusness said would be the right thing to do. And now I'm am like him."

 

I'll reply more in detail later on. But Xabir is a fantastic character study because he is so oblivious of himself through all this. He can't describe his relationship to spirituality besides the word "interest." How amazing is that for someone who write a repetitive, an almost obsessive, treatsie that essentially copies his teacher's? I'm not questioning Xabir's realization or how enlightened or clear minded he is. It's there are a lot of missing holes to his story that I would like to fill in, if possible, together with him.

Edited December 18, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[Aetherous]

Yesterday I had a good idea for a Sunday morning cartoon:

 

An enormous mountain made out of words, and a true spiritual seeker who finally reaches the top, after a long journey...who experiences disappointment that there is no wise teacher up there...just himself standing on a big pile of words.

[xabir2005]

I already said it all.

 

The context or motivation or drive has been faith (in the very beginning) followed by glimpses of spiritual experience which showed me a taste of what is possible - sort of like a glimpse of paradise so you desperately want it back.

 

I believed in buddha's words and yes if I had not met Thusness and known about Buddha and buddhism, I would be in a completely different position today. I might even be worshipping flying monsters. Do understand that I am born in a fortunate circumstance because I got acquinted with Buddhism at a young age. (Off topic, but I guess I chose to be born in this family (if you believe in rebirth) to continue my practice - my mother was seeking hard to conceive a son for a long time, and sought advice from a deity, and the deity in divination told my mother to chant Amitabha Sutra for 12 days, very soon after that I was conceived and my mother had a dream. Perhaps my antarabhava saw it fitting to be born in the family of a sincere practitioner? Plus I have vague past life memories of having learnt under a tibetan guru, possibly ... Hmm, I don't want to discuss until I have clearer memories)

 

Had I not been born in a Buddhist family, I probably would have no idea what Buddhism is now because I haven't had any crisis or intense suffering in life that would have turned me to seek solace in spirituality. I did not find spirituality through an intense search in life for meaning or solace like many people. I already found dharma through my mother who led me to Buddhism at a young age, and later Thusness. Plus, I started learning since 2004 (through thusness's guidance to other people who had realized the I AM etc) that lots of people have awakenings so enlightenment isn't just for some rare few. This is quite interesting and empowering to say the least.

 

The discovery of the freedom, peace, aliveness, bliss, wonder of Presence since very early days many years ago was was also part of what got me into all these stuff. Plus with Thusness's guidance, pointers, I was able to progress very fast.

 

As for Eckhart Tolle, I didn't intend to say he has reached the summit of what is developmentally possible in spirituality. The summit is Buddhahood. I am just saying not everyone might resonate with my style of writing or other "hardcore" stuff, which is why this is not meant for all audiences, and I think no book could though indeed some are more appealing to the masses.

 

And yes those who aren't into spirituality unfortunately will miss out some great stuff and that's a fact to me - can't deny a fact.

 

By the way I have to thank vmarco for sharing a good link:

 

http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j22/gurupandit.asp?page=3&ifr=srch

 

KW: Let me just say that in a student who's got a really bad case of boomeritis—which is to say, pretty much any cultural creative out there, all fifty million strong—the internal stance is, "I'm holding on to my position and nobody can tell me what to do. My state, just as it is, has the same worth as any other." And that stance effectively aborts any real transformation.

 

And so, for example, most of the people involved with what I call Boomeritis Buddhism even deny the importance of satori or Enlightenment or Awakening. Because that's saying some states are higher than others—and we shouldn't be judgmental. But guess what? Some states are higher. And so the entire raison d'etre of Buddhism gets tossed out the door because it offends the pluralistic ego. Yikes!

 

AC: So the whole point is that with boomeritis, real radical transformation is against the rules.

 

KW: Yes. Well, it has to be.

 

....

 

AC: And of course, the great tragedy in all this is that the higher dimensions of human potential are often being left out of the picture.

 

KW: I've watched this up close. I've watched the human potential movement for about thirty years. The great promise of the human potential movement was very straightforward—there are higher human potentials. Now the problem is that the green meme, the mean green meme, the boomeritis version, got hold of that and said, "Wait a minute. You're saying there are higher potentials, so does that mean I'm lower? Because that can't be right." All of a sudden it implied a judgment, and nobody's allowed to be higher because that means somebody else is going to be lower. And you're not allowed to call anybody lower; therefore nobody's allowed to be higher.

 

So the whole human potential movement got derailed and, as we're saying, was replaced by this therapeutic self-expression, self-acceptance movement, which is fine as far as it goes, but which absolutely catastrophically prevents higher transformation. That's exactly what happened. And what I hear you calling for is the reawakening of this capacity and this desire to have a really radical transformation. The reawakening of the notion that there are higher potentials. And that means we have to awaken discriminating awareness, start making judgments about our own contracted state, and enter a relationship with a teacher who has some awareness of these higher possibilities.

Edited December 19, 2011 by xabir2005

[Lucky7Strikes]

I already said it all.

On the contrary you haven't said much and everything here in this post is fairly new. Only now you are beginning to reveal yourself, and imo not only on here, but to yourself as well. Take a more introspective look at what you wrote below.

 

The context or motivation or drive has been faith (in the very beginning) followed by glimpses of spiritual experience which showed me a taste of what is possible - sort of like a glimpse of paradise so you desperately want it back.

 

I believed in buddha's words and yes if I had not met Thusness and known about Buddha and buddhism, I would be in a completely different position today. I might even be worshipping flying monsters. Do understand that I am born in a fortunate circumstance because I got acquinted with Buddhism at a young age. (Off topic, but I guess I chose to be born in this family (if you believe in rebirth) to continue my practice - my mother was seeking hard to conceive a son for a long time, and sought advice from a deity, and the deity in divination told my mother to chant Amitabha Sutra for 12 days, very soon after that I was conceived and my mother had a dream. Perhaps my antarabhava saw it fitting to be born in the family of a sincere practitioner? Plus I have vague past life memories of having learnt under a tibetan guru, possibly ... Hmm, I don't want to discuss until I have clearer memories)

 

Had I not been born in a Buddhist family, I probably would have no idea what Buddhism is now because I haven't had any crisis or intense suffering in life that would have turned me to seek solace in spirituality. I did not find spirituality through an intense search in life for meaning or solace like many people. I already found dharma through my mother who led me to Buddhism at a young age, and later Thusness. Plus, I started learning since 2004 (through thusness's guidance to other people who had realized the I AM etc) that lots of people have awakenings so enlightenment isn't just for some rare few. This is quite interesting and empowering to say the least.

So your faith is based on nothing more than the influence of your upbringing and your family (christians, muslims, hindus profess their own "glimpses" of faith just as you might have had with Buddhism). Not only that, you believe your birth to be divinely inspired, and "choosing" your birth hints that you think you are already a high level practitioner or even a Bodhisattva. You were ordained at 2, and since 14 trusted your view of reality to a man named Thusness. Your mother told you stories of how divine your birth was in the Buddhist context, and hey, why question it when antarabhava is supposedly your guide?

 

Replace all this with any other religion or belief system and we just have another indoctrinated child. Have you looked into believers of other religions who, as strongly as you do, believe very dearly in the truth of their upbringing and faith? And see that they are true, as silly as seeing the face of Jesus on a damn toaster? Ah but to you it isn't belief, it's an issue of direct insight, which is more frightening because your awareness of life has shifted to a different way of experiencing. Your logic that supports your way of experiencing is still largely based on faith, and using logic, we can construct a completely different way of experiencing life, whether with a "self" or "Self" or as Jesus or mind/body/spirit. People much more intelligent than you or me have done so. The mind can transform itself in multitudes of ways, and just because you tend to experience it in the way you believe is the right way or the blissful way, it does not make it the truth.

 

I think you are in a deep hole. I wish you could throw away all Buddhism related ideas and start from a blank slate and see where you end up. I don't think you've ever considered an alternative way, an alternative truth, your entire life. Which is honestly frightening.

 

The discovery of the freedom, peace, aliveness, bliss, wonder of Presence since very early days many years ago was was also part of what got me into all these stuff. Plus with Thusness's guidance, pointers, I was able to progress very fast.

There are many ways of attaining freedom, peace, aliveness, bliss, wonder, etc. all the things you enlisted in "fruition" are all not that impressive. Do not think that your way is the only way to have arrived at these joys. Energy practice, different religious devotions or other forms of belief systems can get you there. But i don't think you would know this. This is what's missing from you, is that empathy of other's mind and its workiings out of context from Buddhism. You cannot see things outside of that paradigm, and of course not. How can you when you've been repeatedly, and literally repeatedly, been under its influence since you are fourteen, right when our cognitive understanding of the world is truly evolving? That is the age of doubt, rebellion, questioning. But instead you comfortably adopted the ideas thrown at you without questions.

 

It makes a lot of sense that for a long time when you posted here you just plastered bits of quotes here and there to support yourself. You own logic behind your beliefs, as I have seen in discussion between you, GIH, Vaj, tco, me, dwai have been very lacking. At the end of the day all you could really say was, "the Buddha says it here" followed by, "and I see it that way too." Never have I once seen you engage in a discussion in a socratic manner of delving into questions solely within the question's context. It's unfortunately always tied to Buddhism for you.

 

As for Eckhart Tolle, I didn't intend to say he has reached the summit of what is developmentally possible in spirituality. The summit is Buddhahood. I am just saying not everyone might resonate with my style of writing or other "hardcore" stuff, which is why this is not meant for audiences, and I think no book could though indeed some are more appealing to the masses.

 

And yes those who aren't into spirituality unfortunately will miss out some great stuff and that's a fact to me - can't deny a fact.

The summit is not Buddhahood. Eckhart Tolle is doing what Eckhart Tolle is doing. He is not trying to become a Buddha like you. So get that out of your head that we are all trying to become Buddhas. Maybe he is not even trying to reach this "summit of spirituality." You see how you just drag everyone into your categories and views?

 

I will reply more on this post and the quote you posed below.

Edited December 19, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[Lucky7Strikes]

http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j22/gurupandit.asp?page=3&ifr=srch

 

KW: Let me just say that in a student who's got a really bad case of boomeritis—which is to say, pretty much any cultural creative out there, all fifty million strong—the internal stance is, "I'm holding on to my position and nobody can tell me what to do. My state, just as it is, has the same worth as any other." And that stance effectively aborts any real transformation.

 

And so, for example, most of the people involved with what I call Boomeritis Buddhism even deny the importance of satori or Enlightenment or Awakening. Because that's saying some states are higher than others—and we shouldn't be judgmental. But guess what? Some states are higher. And so the entire raison d'etre of Buddhism gets tossed out the door because it offends the pluralistic ego. Yikes!

 

AC: So the whole point is that with boomeritis, real radical transformation is against the rules.

 

KW: Yes. Well, it has to be.

 

....

 

AC: And of course, the great tragedy in all this is that the higher dimensions of human potential are often being left out of the picture.

 

KW: I've watched this up close. I've watched the human potential movement for about thirty years. The great promise of the human potential movement was very straightforward—there are higher human potentials. Now the problem is that the green meme, the mean green meme, the boomeritis version, got hold of that and said, "Wait a minute. You're saying there are higher potentials, so does that mean I'm lower? Because that can't be right." All of a sudden it implied a judgment, and nobody's allowed to be higher because that means somebody else is going to be lower. And you're not allowed to call anybody lower; therefore nobody's allowed to be higher.

 

So the whole human potential movement got derailed and, as we're saying, was replaced by this therapeutic self-expression, self-acceptance movement, which is fine as far as it goes, but which absolutely catastrophically prevents higher transformation. That's exactly what happened. And what I hear you calling for is the reawakening of this capacity and this desire to have a really radical transformation. The reawakening of the notion that there are higher potentials. And that means we have to awaken discriminating awareness, start making judgments about our own contracted state, and enter a relationship with a teacher who has some awareness of these higher possibilities.

No shit. Ken Wilbur and Andrew Cohen thrive off of the hierarchy model. They are the self professed western Gurus of our time demanding devotion from students for financial and egocentric gains. Are you not aware of criticism often directed at them for manipulation of students and abuse of their status as infallible teachers?

 

I disagree with their little jack off session here. Spirituality has no set hierarchies. It is the right of the individual to choose his path, to choose how his or her mind interacts with the world and affects it. And their mind's biases will lead them to that end.

 

IMO, not everyone wants to be a Buddha. Has that ever crossed your mind? If someone offers them enlightenment, freedom from the ego, they might just as well say no. I want to watch tv instead! Some people like having their egos, they like their Jesus, or they prefer to experience life through an all pervasive creator. What exactly is the higher or the lower human potential when people want different ends, different experiences? Bliss and pleasure mean different things for people. Some people like pain more than pleasure. And people always change too. The Buddha is not inherently better than someone who is watching tv and scratching his balls. It's only a matter of personal mind construct. In the universe, they are just two living beings.

 

Acknowledging the inherent freedom of life and respecting that in each individual is necessary for peaceful coexistence. No inner "snickering" at someone else, oh because they don't feel the bliss that you do! We can always offer alternative ways of life, how we can each choose to live in a certain way as to truly respect someone else's conscious interpretations. To me no conscious mind can be omniscient of that which it cannot perceive. It can understand itself, how it views things, and why it sees things in that way, and transform, but ultimate omniscience is logically impossible. We share and participate in life that is very mysterious. You cannot prove that which is beyond your consciousness. It's logically untenable. You can only do best for yourself and offer others your own ways. That's it. Life is a mystery you cannot solve. If you solved all of it, that would be the most tragic event.

Edited December 19, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[xabir2005]

On the contrary you haven't said much and everything here in this post is fairly new. Only now you are beginning to reveal yourself, and imo not only on here, but to yourself as well. Take a more introspective look at what you wrote below.

Mere elaborations of my basic statement that my path and motivation lies mostly in faith and experience.

So your faith is based on nothing more than the influence of your upbringing and your family (christians, muslims, hindus profess their own "glimpses" of faith just as you might have had with Buddhism). Not only that, you believe your birth to be divinely inspired, and "choosing" your birth hints that you think you are already a high level practitioner or even a Bodhisattva. You were ordained at 2, and since 14 trusted your view of reality to a man named Thusness. Your mother told you stories of how divine your birth was in the Buddhist context, and hey, why question it when antarabhava is supposedly your guide?

Antarabhava is not a guide. Antarabhava means intermediate body, or the being in bardo state, i.e. my 'soul' or in more Buddhist sounding terms, 'rebirth-consciousness' or 'linking-consciousness'. I don't mean to say I am a divine avatar, a special being taking birth to 'save other beings'... That is the least of my intention to convey and to me, the least empowering idea - that my enlightenment is already 'predestined' and that I am just a Messianic god coming to save 'lost souls'.

 

I am just an ordinary person who with interest, guidance, and practice, was able to realize this. I am not any more special than anyone else. I think this is a far more empowering notion - that every ordinary person like myself is able to achieve this, not some special avatars. And anyway I don't think I am some emanations of a great Bodhisattva, if I were, I would not have fallen under the chains of afflictions (before my awakening anyway). I am really just an ordinary person in almost every ways - except that I was able to find a way that leads to liberation. But I can't deny that I have some karmic connections to dharma from previous lifetimes. This karmic connection and probably intention or aspiration to attain awakening probably has influenced my birth in a conducive environment for dharma practice.

Replace all this with any other religion or belief system and we just have another indoctrinated child. Have you looked into believers of other religions who, as strongly as you do, believe very dearly in the truth of their upbringing and faith? And see that they are true, as silly as seeing the face of Jesus on a damn toaster? Ah but to you it isn't belief, it's an issue of direct insight, which is more frightening because your awareness of life has shifted to a different way of experiencing.

But as a matter of fact, it is not a matter of faith anymore after I had direct insight. But yes my journey did have its beginning with faith.

Your logic that supports your way of experiencing is still largely based on faith, and using logic, we can construct a completely different way of experiencing life, whether with a "self" or "Self" or as Jesus or mind/body/spirit.

As a matter of fact this is not true.

 

Why? Because my experience is not constructed - it is a realization that deconstructs, not constructs. It sees through illusions, not add constructs to perception. It wakes you up from your dream of unicorns (i.e. illusion of self and objects as being independent or existent), frees you from ALL metaphysical constructs and beliefs and positions.

 

I have to repeat this again because it basically sums it up:

 

"The great 11th Nyingma scholar Rongzom points out that only Madhyamaka accepts that its critical methodology "harms itself", meaning that Madhyamaka uses non-affirming negations to reject the positions of opponents, but does not resort to affirming negations to support a position of its own. Since Madhyamaka, as Buddhapalita states "does not propose the non-existence of existents, but instead rejects claims for the existence of existents", there is no true Madhyamaka position since there is no existent found about which a Madhyamaka position could be formulated; likewise there is no false Madhyamaka position since there is no existent found about which a Madhyamaka position could be rejected."

 

...

As Thusness have said in A casual comment about Dependent Origination

 

Dependent Origination is too a raft; it is like the stick that stirs the fire and is eventually consumed by fire without leaving any trace.

 

Loppon Namdrol have said elsewhere:

 

"In other words, right view is the beginning of the noble path. It is certainly the case that dependent origination is "correct view"; when one analyzes a bit deeper, one discovers that in the case "view" means being free from views. The teaching of dependent origination is what permits this freedom from views."

 

People much more intelligent than you or me have done so. The mind can transform itself in multitudes of ways, and just because you tend to experience it in the way you believe is the right way or the blissful way, it does not make it the truth.

I no longer have beliefs of a metaphysical sort (pertaining to existence of self, reality, etc) - beliefs are unexamined positions, but what if you have a direct insight and realization that all such positions are entirely illusory. You no longer have beliefs. This is what Buddha calls Stream Entry, which also means the end of Self-View - sakkadayaditthi. It also ends doubt and attachment to rites and rituals. The ending of these fetters is a permanent attainment - and the realization is permanent, once seen cannot be unseen.

I think you are in a deep hole. I wish you could throw away all Buddhism related ideas and start from a blank slate and see where you end up. I don't think you've ever considered an alternative way, an alternative truth, your entire life. Which is honestly frightening.

As I said before:

 

If someone else is able to point me to a deeper experience apart from what I have already experienced and is able to give valuable pointers to my practice, of course why not? I'll be glad to learn whatever I can. I am not as close minded as you think. I visit bookstores to find books from true practitioners often. I don't say "I am the most enlightened person in the world" or "no one is more enlightened than me".

 

But what's seen is seen - you cannot convince me of something there is no doubt or illusion about due to my experiential realization. For example, you cannot tell me 'self exists' - this is bullshit, as illusory as the notion of a santa claus or a rabbit with horns. I've already woken up from that dream and there is nothing you can say that can make me go asleep again - what's seen cannot be unseen. Try as you may, you are like convincing someone who woke up from a nightmare that the monster he saw actually is real - it simply will not work.

 

p.s. Something I wrote to someone a few weeks ago:

 

"Anyway, on a sidenote, this is all part of the process - when I was in I AM phase, what really drew my attention (despite my being Buddhist and having taken formal refuge in Buddhism since I was 2 - I definitely do not limit my learnings to Buddhism) was really those Advaita teachings, Ramana Maharshi, modern teachers like John Wheeler, some Zen teachings like Ch'an Master Hsu Yun on self-inquiry and so on. Then when I got to non-dual, much of the neo-Advaita teachings, some Zen teachings and so on start to attract me a lot. When I initially got to Anatta (or even slightly before), the AF teachings really interest me a lot - I started reading a lot of their articles. Why? Because we are all drawn to different teachings based on our experience. When something we read resonates our understanding, experience, and so on, when we feel a heart-to-heart recognition of the message in it, we will naturally be drawn to it.

 

After undergoing more deeply the twofold emptiness, what draws me is the suttas, the sutras, the traditional teachings of the Buddha, etc. Who knows what may draw my attention or attract me in the future - I don't know. But right now, it seems that a lot of the traditional teachings are really clear, speaks to my heart, etc. I'm not saying you should start reading sutras (maybe you already had) - in fact if you want to realize I AM, I will not tell you to read Buddhism, for example I passed a friend all my Advaita books because he wanted to realize I AM. So that is where you start. So if you want to attain AF, then go for it and practice AF, but don't limit yourself to AF. As I hadn't limit myself to Hinduism, to AF, or even Buddhism, I am able to utilize whatever resonates with me at that moment, and that may change as my practice progresses and moves on."

There are many ways of attaining freedom, peace, aliveness, bliss, wonder, etc. all the things you enlisted in "fruition" are all not that impressive. Do not think that your way is the only way to have arrived at these joys. Energy practice, different religious devotions or other forms of belief systems can get you there. But i don't think you would know this.

Of course I know this. When I said 'Presence', I didn't have Buddhism in mind (well of course Buddhism talks about it too and profoudly but I didn't have Buddhism in particular in mind). In fact as I said - Advaita was what interested me in those days. In fact before Advaita, Eckhart Tolle's teachings interested me a lot. I find the Power of Now (found it in early 2006) very practical and inspiring and life transforming, a great text that has great power to transport readers to a deep state of Presence. These experiences has in turn inspired me to really go deeper into spiritual practice. Having this in my memory, I have recommended his stuff to many people including my mother and some others. I have attended all the lessons Oprah held with Eckhart in 2008. Unfortunately his teachings are too commercialized nowadays.

 

So anyway, I never said only Buddhism can lead to true life transforming spiritual experiences. I think all religions should have their own ways and practices and are worth learning. However there are aspects of Buddhism that is peculiar or special. And to quote Buddha's own words which matches my observation thus far:

 

The Buddha said,

 

12. "Though certain recluses and brahmans claim to propound the full understanding of all kinds of clinging... they describe the full understanding of clinging to sensual pleasures, clinging to views, and clinging to rules and observances without describing the full understanding of clinging to a doctrine of self. They do not understand one instance... therefore they describe only the full understanding of clinging to sensual pleasures, clinging to views, and clinging to rules and observances without describing the full understanding of clinging to a doctrine of self."* - http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.011.ntbb.html

 

*"8. This passage clearly indicates that the critical differentiating factor of the Buddha's Dhamma is its "full understanding of clinging to a doctrine of self." This means, in effect, that the Buddha alone is able to show how to overcome all views of self by developing penetration into the truth of non-self (anatta)."

 

All views of self lead to suffering (clinging, effort, seeking, desire, craving, and other forms of suffering). If you were to achieve mastery of samadhi and abide as the I AM 24/7, which can have profound life transforming effects, nonetheless you cannot overcome the subtle clinging and achieve liberation. Even if you sit in samadhi bliss all day, this is not the same as liberation - as Buddha left his previous teachers who were masters at samadhi and had their own insights.

 

When you achieve higher insights, your clinging lessens and disappears, your effortlessness increase.

 

You also see how deeper insights are a natural progression of your original experience - the I AM is not denied, but now experienced in all manifestations in all conditions, effortless and spontaneous, without any attempts to re-confirm or any effort needed to sustain any experience.

 

As I told Thusness:

 

I just realized that the four aspects of I am are not just four aspects of I am

 

They are also four aspects of non dual

 

Four aspects of anatta

 

Four aspects of shunyata

 

Etc

 

Those four aspects are refined in every phase

 

as an example: seeing through the need to abide in non dual and dropping it - notice the tendency to reconfirm nondual by giving rise to thoughts like "the sound is as much you as the thought", seeing how ridiculous it is when always already in seeing just sound, in thinking just thought, all thoughts to reconfirm nondual arise due to falsely perceiving there to be a self to be nondual with "that" which turns into one mind and worse still it presumes there to be a subtle split that needs to be resolved when that notion of separation is entirely illusory. The entire movement to become nondual is illusory when anatta is fully seen and all self notions are dropped

 

Intensity of luminosity in non dual - peak is in "no cold no heat", no mind, pure transparency, luminosity as textures and shapes and forms and all details of manifestation

 

Effortlessness - when all latent views are replaced with right views then there's effortlessness of nondual

 

Impersonality - even in nondual and anatta, impersonality must be matured

 

Etc...

 

Thusness replied me,

 

This I have told u. I have told u that later u will understand. (though I didn't remember him telling me - not that he didn't as I'm sure he has, but when I heard it then, I probably didn't understand it at all)

 

He also said,

 

U must also understand that the four aspects are conveyed to u so that in

the event u got lost In "I Amness", they can lead u back to the deeper

insight of anatta n DO.

 

So as you can see, each arising insight leads to greater freedom and liberation, greater effortlessness, greater bliss.

This is what's missing from you, is that empathy of other's mind and its workiings out of context from Buddhism. You cannot see things outside of that paradigm, and of course not.

I had seen things from that paradigm. For example when I'm in I AM, to me I took I AM as unchanging, independent, permanent etc... because it really felt that way due to my paradigm and experience. But through contemplation my view progressed. You need to read my e-book. Edited December 20, 2011 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

No shit. Ken Wilbur and Andrew Cohen thrive off of the hierarchy model. They are the self professed western Gurus of our time demanding devotion from students for financial and egocentric gains. Are you not aware of criticism often directed at them for manipulation of students and abuse of their status as infallible teachers?

 

I disagree with their little jack off session here. Spirituality has no set hierarchies. It is the right of the individual to choose his path, to choose how his or her mind interacts with the world and affects it. And their mind's biases will lead them to that end.

 

IMO, not everyone wants to be a Buddha. Has that ever crossed your mind? If someone offers them enlightenment, freedom from the ego, they might just as well say no. I want to watch tv instead! Some people like having their egos, they like their Jesus, or they prefer to experience life through an all pervasive creator. What exactly is the higher or the lower human potential when people want different ends, different experiences? Bliss and pleasure mean different things for people. Some people like pain more than pleasure. And people always change too. The Buddha is not inherently better than someone who is watching tv and scratching his balls. It's only a matter of personal mind construct. In the universe, they are just two living beings.

 

Acknowledging the inherent freedom of life and respecting that in each individual is necessary for peaceful coexistence. No inner "snickering" at someone else, oh because they don't feel the bliss that you do! We can always offer alternative ways of life, how we can each choose to live in a certain way as to truly respect someone else's conscious interpretations. To me no conscious mind can be omniscient of that which it cannot perceive. It can understand itself, how it views things, and why it sees things in that way, and transform, but ultimate omniscience is logically impossible. We share and participate in life that is very mysterious. You cannot prove that which is beyond your consciousness. It's logically untenable. You can only do best for yourself and offer others your own ways. That's it. Life is a mystery you cannot solve. If you solved all of it, that would be the most tragic event.

Yes. Buddhism sees this from the perspective of ending suffering, clinging, craving, afflictions or in more positive terms the highest and eternal bliss (buddha: nibbana is the highest bliss), greater wisdom, clarity, etc.

 

While this may seem to be a good goal for most people (almost nobody wants suffering and almost everyone wants to be happy) you may be right that not everyone may agree to such a goal. Some people may want suffering - I don't know. To these people, I have nothing to say - Buddhism may not resonate with them.

 

Buddhism also sees this in terms of truth, insight, realization - what it teaches are truths that can be seen and realized. Of course, some may choose to remain ignorant, but from the perspective of dharma, ignorance is no good since ignorance leads to suffering. (12 links)

 

I am aware of things said about Andrew Cohen, but Ken Wilber? Not too sure. KW has described himself as more of a 'pandit' (scholar) than a 'guru' (spiritual teacher or master) despite his spiritual experiences and insights. Some people even sees him as a philosopher. But I don't really like commercializing teachers - KW seems a bit too commercialized.

Edited December 20, 2011 by xabir2005

[Informer]

Are you saying that your broke through nothing?

[xabir2005]

Are you saying that your broke through nothing?

?? not sure what you're asking, perhaps you can rephrase?

 

I broke through ignorance, delusion, suffering, afflictions, .... etc etc

 

This led to many benefits like

 

- a permanent freedom from all delusions of pertaining to the view of an existing self or object

- freedom from any sense of self, separation, alienation from the world, self-contraction

- freedom from attachment to a sense of a body-mind, drop off body-mind - no more inside and outside or any kind of boundaries and weight

- freedom from craving, anger, fears, sorrow, attachments, or any afflictive emotions

- pure bliss and wonder and delight in the intimate and intense aliveness of every moment's experience due to effortless and perpetual NDNCDIMOP: non-dual, non-conceptual, direct, immediate mode of perception of reality

- deep sense of wakefulness, clarity and aliveness

- sleep need reduced by up to half, wakefulness and alertness increased very much

- thought activity decreases, discursive thoughts lessens tremendously, replaced by NDNCDIMOP

- thoughts that do arise self-releases without trace

[Lucky7Strikes]

Mere elaborations of my basic statement that my path and motivation lies mostly in faith and experience.

Antarabhava is not a guide. Antarabhava means intermediate body, or the being in bardo state, i.e. my 'soul' or in more Buddhist sounding terms, 'rebirth-consciousness' or 'linking-consciousness'. I don't mean to say I am a divine avatar, a special being taking birth to 'save other beings'... That is the least of my intention to convey and to me, the least empowering idea - that my enlightenment is already 'predestined' and that I am just a Messianic god coming to save 'lost souls'.

According to what you wrote, antarabhava is in your mind what guided you to this birth, and gave you "fortunate" circumstances in a Buddhist family and karmic links. You believe you are an avatar of that, you do believe you are a special being, that's the definition of someone believing himself to be special: that it differentiates you from others in the form of a privilege. You might not consciously believe that to the degree of a Messiah, but there is clearly a construct within you that says these things.

 

These are all beliefs by the way.

 

I am just an ordinary person who with interest, guidance, and practice, was able to realize this. I am not any more special than anyone else. I think this is a far more empowering notion - that every ordinary person like myself is able to achieve this, not some special avatars. And anyway I don't think I am some emanations of a great Bodhisattva, if I were, I would not have fallen under the chains of afflictions (before my awakening anyway). I am really just an ordinary person in almost every ways - except that I was able to find a way that leads to liberation. But I can't deny that I have some karmic connections to dharma from previous lifetimes. This karmic connection and probably intention or aspiration to attain awakening probably has influenced my birth in a conducive environment for dharma practice.

You cannot deny, you cannot affirm. These are words that stem from belief, which you later state that you do not have any of.

 

Your claims to ordinariness sounds just like false humility after what you wrote about your mother giving you a blessed birth, fortunate dream involving prayers, being a continuation from a bardo state, being naturally gifted with conditions for the dharma. To me your claims to ordinariness sound like a mere apologetic stance. The obvious fact here is that you are not ordinary. Anyone can see that from a 450 obsessive, paradoxically an almost self-obsessive book, written by a 21 year old who believe he is now enlightened. And you know this! You know you are not ordinary and now you pretend as if you were. Or you are totally out of touch with what ordinariness is, or yourself.

 

But as a matter of fact, it is not a matter of faith anymore after I had direct insight. But yes my journey did have its beginning with faith.

Direct insight to you. Keep that in mind. It was within your awareness that you had a direct transformation.

 

As a matter of fact this is not true.

 

Why? Because my experience is not constructed - it is a realization that deconstructs, not constructs. It sees through illusions, not add constructs to perception. It wakes you up from your dream of unicorns (i.e. illusion of self and objects as being independent or existent), frees you from ALL metaphysical constructs and beliefs and positions.

Deconstruction is another form of construction. Those words mean only what they do in relation to one another. But ultimately both are movements of the mind, its transformations. Constructiveness can seem dense and deconstruction less so, but both are transitions. What do you wake up to when you awake from unicorns? Horses? And what makes you believe horses are any realer than unicorns?

 

"ALL metaphysical constructs, and beliefs, and positions"? Don't bullshit yourself. Everything you wrote above is bound in those. Being free from all metaphysical constructs and beliefs and positions is just another position. It might seem like you no longer experience held beliefs, or certain cyclical habits such as your mind returning to the notion of a "self," but that's just a habit now thrown away. Beliefs condition experience, give rise to new habits. You have just chosen to experience life more spontaneously and freely. It doesn't make it any more true or false than a man living with a "self."

 

I have to repeat this again because it basically sums it up:

 

"The great 11th Nyingma scholar Rongzom points out that only Madhyamaka accepts that its critical methodology "harms itself", meaning that Madhyamaka uses non-affirming negations to reject the positions of opponents, but does not resort to affirming negations to support a position of its own. Since Madhyamaka, as Buddhapalita states "does not propose the non-existence of existents, but instead rejects claims for the existence of existents", there is no true Madhyamaka position since there is no existent found about which a Madhyamaka position could be formulated; likewise there is no false Madhyamaka position since there is no existent found about which a Madhyamaka position could be rejected."

 

...

As Thusness have said in A casual comment about Dependent Origination

 

Dependent Origination is too a raft; it is like the stick that stirs the fire and is eventually consumed by fire without leaving any trace.

 

Loppon Namdrol have said elsewhere:

 

"In other words, right view is the beginning of the noble path. It is certainly the case that dependent origination is "correct view"; when one analyzes a bit deeper, one discovers that in the case "view" means being free from views. The teaching of dependent origination is what permits this freedom from views."

 

I no longer have beliefs of a metaphysical sort (pertaining to existence of self, reality, etc) - beliefs are unexamined positions, but what if you have a direct insight and realization that all such positions are entirely illusory. You no longer have beliefs. This is what Buddha calls Stream Entry, which also means the end of Self-View - sakkadayaditthi. It also ends doubt and attachment to rites and rituals. The ending of these fetters is a permanent attainment - and the realization is permanent, once seen cannot be unseen.

Please don't quote these things. Speak from your own mind and not borrowed words. We are not speaking about Buddhism. We are speaking about you because I think it's far more interesting to delve into who you are than these doctrines. Can't you differentiate Buddhism from yourself anymore?

 

If someone else is able to point me to a deeper experience apart from what I have already experienced and is able to give valuable pointers to my practice, of course why not? I'll be glad to learn whatever I can. I am not as close minded as you think. I visit bookstores to find books from true practitioners often. I don't say "I am the most enlightened person in the world" or "no one is more enlightened than me".

 

But what's seen is seen - you cannot convince me of something there is no doubt or illusion about due to my experiential realization. For example, you cannot tell me 'self exists' - this is bullshit, as illusory as the notion of a santa claus or a rabbit with horns. I've already woken up from that dream and there is nothing you can say that can make me go asleep again - what's seen cannot be unseen. Try as you may, you are like convincing someone who woke up from a nightmare that the monster he saw actually is real - it simply will not work.

You don't understand the foremost things about illusion. Illusion does not negate something's existence. If a billion people believed in unicorns and dreamed of them, how can you say there are no unicorns with any certainty? If a person was under the fear of a monster in his dream and that fear was experienced, what is to say that monster is any less real than a tiger you might run into in real life?

 

You are very close minded. Of course, close mindedness is a taboo in our age. Your second paragraph here basically says "I am very open minded, but you cannot change my mind from what I've seen"!! That's the very definition of close mindedness, the unwillingness to change.

 

"Anyway, on a sidenote, this is all part of the process - when I was in I AM phase, what really drew my attention (despite my being Buddhist and having taken formal refuge in Buddhism since I was 2 - I definitely do not limit my learnings to Buddhism) was really those Advaita teachings, Ramana Maharshi, modern teachers like John Wheeler, some Zen teachings like Ch'an Master Hsu Yun on self-inquiry and so on. Then when I got to non-dual, much of the neo-Advaita teachings, some Zen teachings and so on start to attract me a lot. When I initially got to Anatta (or even slightly before), the AF teachings really interest me a lot - I started reading a lot of their articles. Why? Because we are all drawn to different teachings based on our experience. When something we read resonates our understanding, experience, and so on, when we feel a heart-to-heart recognition of the message in it, we will naturally be drawn to it.

All along you were just making yourself climb Thusness's ladder. Your interest in Advaita mirrors his interest in advaita. All the vocabulary and methods of thinking you use are based on those stages. Remember when you first introduced ruthless truth? You didn't like that site because oh it "resonated with you" but because you wanted to deepen your convictions in anatta, which happened to be the next stage in the Thusness ladder. Don't bullshit yourself. These teachings didn't draw you within their own context, but only because they were in line with your intellectual and personal commitment to Thusness' teachings. They seem "true" to you because they agreed with you already believed in. You were never opened to the idea of an alternative beyond that. Your entire spiritual journey is just this one directional effort to become, confirm, and experience the ideas of Thusness.

 

After undergoing more deeply the twofold emptiness, what draws me is the suttas, the sutras, the traditional teachings of the Buddha, etc. Who knows what may draw my attention or attract me in the future - I don't know. But right now, it seems that a lot of the traditional teachings are really clear, speaks to my heart, etc. I'm not saying you should start reading sutras (maybe you already had) - in fact if you want to realize I AM, I will not tell you to read Buddhism, for example I passed a friend all my Advaita books because he wanted to realize I AM. So that is where you start. So if you want to attain AF, then go for it and practice AF, but don't limit yourself to AF. As I hadn't limit myself to Hinduism, to AF, or even Buddhism, I am able to utilize whatever resonates with me at that moment, and that may change as my practice progresses and moves on."[/i]

You should just give them link to Thusness and tell that that's what you followed. Of course the Buddha's teachings "resonate" with you next. It's what's on the next step.

 

So anyway, I never said only Buddhism can lead to true life transforming spiritual experiences. I think all religions should have their own ways and practices and are worth learning. However there are aspects of Buddhism that is peculiar or special. And to quote Buddha's own words which matches my observation thus far:

I know it sounds bad to say "I think buddhism is the best and better than all the other religions out there. It will lead you furthest in terms of human potential" but you should say that since it's what you believe, instead of a half assed disclaimer before it, "oh I think all religions are great" with an asterick next to it saying, "but Buddhism is best."

 

So as you can see, each arising insight leads to greater freedom and liberation, greater effortlessness, greater bliss.

I had seen things from that paradigm. For example when I'm in I AM, to me I took I AM as unchanging, independent, permanent etc... because it really felt that way due to my paradigm and experience. But through contemplation my view progressed. You need to read my e-book.

Yes, remind yourself that is your your own consciousness' paradigm. And it still is and always will be.

Edited December 20, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[Lucky7Strikes]

Yes. Buddhism sees this from the perspective of ending suffering, clinging, craving, afflictions or in more positive terms the highest and eternal bliss (buddha: nibbana is the highest bliss), greater wisdom, clarity, etc.

 

While this may seem to be a good goal for most people (almost nobody wants suffering and almost everyone wants to be happy) you may be right that not everyone may agree to such a goal. Some people may want suffering - I don't know. To these people, I have nothing to say - Buddhism may not resonate with them.

 

Buddhism also sees this in terms of truth, insight, realization - what it teaches are truths that can be seen and realized. Of course, some may choose to remain ignorant, but from the perspective of dharma, ignorance is no good since ignorance leads to suffering. (12 links)

You are so naive. I like Informer's question. What did you break through? Illusions, suffering, craving? From what I remember your greatest attachment your entire life has been to the dharma and Thusness. What suffering did you have to break through when there wasn't much of it in the first place? What craving did you sacrifice?

 

That statement "almost nobody wants suffering and almost everyone wants to be happy" is a completely meaningless statement when you toss it out there as an ultimatum. Wow. Nice insight there. I think it shows your lack of understanding into the basic polarities that divide a person's life. It's a complex issue, but to you it's just simple. Do what the Buddha says and that's happiness. See things in other terms then it's suffering. They are categorical terms that are widely different for an individual, the objects of preference and non-preference. Just as your peference to experience life without habitual clinging to a self is another categorical section in your experience of "happiness."

 

Buddhism ends suffering for Buddhists or potential Buddhists. Same with clinging. Same with happiness. Buddhism doesn't make a dog happy does it. A dog treat does.

 

This is like tossing an Eckhart Tolle book to someone newer to spirituality. Of course, consciously you tell yourself, "people are at different stages," or "he needs to experience the I AM stage." But all this in the greater context his understanding is partial to what you have progressed through, namely, anatta, emptiness, d.o. because you see these as ultimatums. So when you approach a person there will always be subconsciously that hierarchical divider in you. Or even more pompously you will give the dog his dog treat only to snicker that he is in fact an inferior existence of a dog, that eventually his "sufferings" would need to e assuaged in rebirth towards this universal goal that everyone should have to become a Buddha. It's inevitable that this is there since you believe your experience to be "truth" to other's "illusions."

 

The way you choose to preach about spirituality just ruins the sheer diversity of the human experience.

 

Chogyam Trungpa mentioned spiritual materialism when he came to the U.S. This is more of spiritual bigotry. The nice smile and a bit of condescension behind it. No honest engagement. Just a new hierarchy and fixed paradigm hidden behind what seems like a freeflow experience "without constructs."

Edited December 20, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[xabir2005]

 

You cannot deny, you cannot affirm. These are words that stem from belief, which you later state that you do not have any of.

I do not have metaphysical beliefs pertaining to views of inherent existence of a self or of phenomena. All my beliefs deal with conventional truths and not absolutes.

Your claims to ordinariness sounds just like false humility after what you wrote about your mother giving you a blessed birth, fortunate dream involving prayers, being a continuation from a bardo state, being naturally gifted with conditions for the dharma. To me your claims to ordinariness sound like a mere apologetic stance. The obvious fact here is that you are not ordinary. Anyone can see that from a 450 obsessive, paradoxically an almost self-obsessive book, written by a 21 year old who believe he is now enlightened. And you know this! You know you are not ordinary and now you pretend as if you were. Or you are totally out of touch with what ordinariness is, or yourself.

 

I forgot to mention, my mother had another dream when my sister was given birth. It involves Guan Yin (Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva) giving her a baby girl wrapped in pink towel and a red packet with $4, and when she was born she thought "it looked exactly like it was in my dream". Her birth was not requested by prayers or divination though. Interestingly, in recent years, my mother heard from a friend in our local sangha that she had almost an exactly same dream while giving birth to a boy except it is a baby boy wraped in white towel being passed to her by Avalokitesvara. My mom even thought of letting my sis meet with that guy, but no relationship worked out. That was some years ago. My sister is married now, not interested in spirituality currently though is a Buddhist by belief.

 

Anyway who knows what those dream stuff may signify.. My dharma teacher speculates the $4 implies 'the four stages of enlightenment to Arhantship'. I have no idea what the $4 means or if it has any meaning. Such things are difficult (at least for me, who has no experience with dream interpretation) for me to understand. I should mention however that I have many prophetic dream images about events that happens the next day - it happens so often that I have become familiar with them and would instantly recognise the dream to be prophetic and inform my friend about it, and lo it happens (totally unexpected events that I saw with very high precision in dream). But discussing about this would be going off topic.

 

But anyway it seems highly plausible I have a karmic connection with Buddhism in my past life, if not for my own memories, and some other reasons I do not want to talk about. I think 'practitioners taking birth with intention or spiration to continue their spiritual path in next life' is not that uncommon.

Deconstruction is another form of construction. Those words mean only what they do in relation to one another. But ultimately both are movements of the mind, its transformations. Constructiveness can seem dense and deconstruction less so, but both are transitions. What do you wake up to when you awake from unicorns? Horses? And what makes you believe horses are any realer than unicorns?

The right view of anatta, dependent origination etc are like a fire that burns on a candle, not leaving anything, not the candle, not the fire. There is no positions or proliferation left.

 

p.s. luminosity and manifestation is not denied, but it is also not established. three kayas inseparable.

"ALL metaphysical constructs, and beliefs, and positions"? Don't bullshit yourself. Everything you wrote above is bound in those. Being free from all metaphysical constructs and beliefs and positions is just another position.

No. Waking up from a dream does not necessitate more dreaming.

It might seem like you no longer experience held beliefs, or certain cyclical habits such as your mind returning to the notion of a "self," but that's just a habit now thrown away.

Yes, but by insight. Not by samadhi, not by intentional effort at getting rid of it - for example if you thought the rope was a snake, you want to tame the snake, get rid of the snake, whatever. But once you see a rope as a rope, no more effort to 'tame the snake' is needed - there is no snake.

[xabir2005]

Beliefs condition experience, give rise to new habits. You have just chosen to experience life more spontaneously and freely. It doesn't make it any more true or false than a man living with a "self."

Actually it does - since one is living with an illusion and one is not.

Please don't quote these things. Speak from your own mind and not borrowed words. We are not speaking about Buddhism. We are speaking about you because I think it's far more interesting to delve into who you are than these doctrines. Can't you differentiate Buddhism from yourself anymore?

I have direct insight and experience into some of the things Buddhism talks about, and quotations may sometimes express something in my mind very well.

You don't understand the foremost things about illusion. Illusion does not negate something's existence. If a billion people believed in unicorns and dreamed of them, how can you say there are no unicorns with any certainty? If a person was under the fear of a monster in his dream and that fear was experienced, what is to say that monster is any less real than a tiger you might run into in real life?

As an experience, it is undeniable (not as in undeniably existing, but undeniably appearing as an experience). But as a statement that the tiger exists independently with substance is utterly delusional - in the case of a unicorn, it is simply a mind image, an imagined thought, and there is no substance or actuality to them. Similarly - try finding the substance or core of a foam, a mountain-ness in a mirage, a reality behind a magician's trick, the moon-ness of the moon reflected on water, etc. No such thing at all.

 

You are very close minded. Of course, close mindedness is a taboo in our age. Your second paragraph here basically says "I am very open minded, but you cannot change my mind from what I've seen"!! That's the very definition of close mindedness, the unwillingness to change.

When you see that the entire framework of a seer seeing the seen is entirely false and as illusory as the belief in santa claus or the moon is made of green cheese (the latter analogy is more plausible since the moon can be seen by a glance), there is no question of willingness or unwillingness to change since it is no longer a matter of belief or disbelief - you simply have no possibility of believing in that illusion again, because now you SEE, not believe. You realize that 'self' is simply a mentally imagined false construct due to a false framework. Never can you be in doubt any more.

All along you were just making yourself climb Thusness's ladder. Your interest in Advaita mirrors his interest in advaita. All the vocabulary and methods of thinking you use are based on those stages.

Almost the same, yet not entirely or exactly the same. Thusness did not heard about Bahiya Sutta until I think more recent years - at least not when he realized anatta (I may be wrong but there is no indications that he did). He did not realize anatta through contemplating Bahiya Sutta. So while the path I took is rather similar to his, slight details may differ. Oh and I don't really cultivate Thusness Stage 3.

Remember when you first introduced ruthless truth? You didn't like that site because oh it "resonated with you" but because you wanted to deepen your convictions in anatta, which happened to be the next stage in the Thusness ladder.

I'm not sure what you mean. I think I only knew about RuthlessTruth after my anatta insight. Or I might have my dates wrong... but its around the time. I think ActualFreedom had an influence on me too - the emphasis on cultivating PCE may have some influence about my shift in practice.

 

Don't bullshit yourself. These teachings didn't draw you within their own context, but only because they were in line with your intellectual and personal commitment to Thusness' teachings. They seem "true" to you because they agreed with you already believed in. You were never opened to the idea of an alternative beyond that. Your entire spiritual journey is just this one directional effort to become, confirm, and experience the ideas of Thusness.

There are lots of time that despite all that Thusness tells me, my view has shaped into very dualistic and inherent sort of framework - I am starting to cling to Awareness as something independent and unchanging and 'background' because it really seems like this is my experience. But through further pointers by Thusness, reminders, and my own investigation, I was able to break through all these views and attain deeper realization. All these are not just about beliefs, but real time investigation and challenging of all my views until realization occurs and they are completely seen through. Belief by itself doesn't help - you can believe in anatta and emptiness for 30 years and not get enlightened. You can understand Thusness and get 100/100 on exams, but unless you practice and do investigation, you will never realize or awaken. Many are experts of emptiness by reasoning via Madhyamaka and yet their understanding remain intellectual or inferred. I have a number of friends who have quite a good understanding of Thusness's writings, anatta, emptiness, but they haven't realized it for some time. I too have gone through that phase.

You should just give them link to Thusness and tell that that's what you followed. Of course the Buddha's teachings "resonate" with you next. It's what's on the next step.

I have already placed many links in my e-book. Thusness taught me far more than what he posted in the blog, anyway. I have compiled like thousands of pages of conversations with him in chat logs. What he wrote in the blog is only a small portion of what I've learnt from him. Not that I'm saying I am a master of his thoughts or a Thusness expert... I believe there are still stuff I haven't seen or experienced. I'm still learning.

 

It's not 'whats on the next step' - it is that so far the suttas are the clearest texts that really speak about my own realization.

I know it sounds bad to say "I think buddhism is the best and better than all the other religions out there. It will lead you furthest in terms of human potential" but you should say that since it's what you believe, instead of a half assed disclaimer before it, "oh I think all religions are great" with an asterick next to it saying, "but Buddhism is best."

I am a Buddhist, not a universalist or a Christian or a Hindu for a reason. Even Buddha says Buddhism/his teachings is the best (as I quoted earlier about the lion's roar) but I don't just agree with him due to faith, but it has also been my own observations that his depth and insight and clarity is truly deep and rare. You see, I think it is a given that I am a Buddhist because I think Buddhism is best. I do not need to overemphasize this point because I think its a given and overemphasizing this is not going to make everyone happy. I'm sure there are others who think Taoism or Hinduism is best which is why they chose to be Taoists, Hindus, whatever - thats fine with me. I feel no urge to evangelise theseadays. Plus it's a bit pointless to say "I think Buddhism is best" without explaining the "why", and when the "why" is explained (and not only explained but also understood, experienced, realized) then it would not be necessary to have said "I think Buddhism is best". Those who see things to the end will decide for themselves. As Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche says, Dzogchen is not about accepting something, it's about discovering something.

 

But your statement "I think buddhism is the best and better than all the other religions out there. It will lead you furthest in terms of human potential" does express my stance of things, even if I may not emphasize it unnecessarily (just like I don't emphasize Buddhism is best to my Christian real-life-friends, because it probably doesn't lead anywhere, and anyway I seldom talk about religion outside internet)

Edited December 20, 2011 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

You are so naive. I like Informer's question. What did you break through? Illusions, suffering, craving? From what I remember your greatest attachment your entire life has been to the dharma and Thusness. What suffering did you have to break through when there wasn't much of it in the first place? What craving did you sacrifice?

 

That statement "almost nobody wants suffering and almost everyone wants to be happy" is a completely meaningless statement when you toss it out there as an ultimatum. Wow. Nice insight there. I think it shows your lack of understanding into the basic polarities that divide a person's life. It's a complex issue, but to you it's just simple. Do what the Buddha says and that's happiness. See things in other terms then it's suffering. They are categorical terms that are widely different for an individual, the objects of preference and non-preference. Just as your peference to experience life without habitual clinging to a self is another categorical section in your experience of "happiness."

Your happiness may be complicated, but my bliss is simple. It is simple because it does not require fulfilment of many things - in fact it does not depend on gratification of craving but rather it is a result of letting go of self, of things. The more you let go, the more bliss and liberation you feel - this is an actual, observable thing, not a theory or a hypothesis. You can actually see it for yourself - it is very very predictable, as predictable as the eight states of jhana - by entering into deeper states of jhanas, the bliss, joy, and the types of mental factors changes according to your depth of absorption and depth of tranquility. Similarly, in anatta, the experience due to letting go of self/Self is predictable. The bliss is predictable, the liberation is predictable, and all you have to do is to realize anatta and experience it.

 

The bliss I am talking about is simple - I mean bliss, as an actual experience. Through letting go of self, and experiencing the luminosity of mind, this is very blissful. Like entering samadhi is blissful... but this is a natural samadhi. Now merely ordinary seeing, ordinary hearing is very blissful. Just like you do not need to interprete what liberation feels like - you know it when it comes, when you lift a load off your shoulders and you feel that release, this is how it feels like. You know it when you experience it. When you don't know, it means you haven't experienced it. It is not dependent on the satisfaction of craving (therefore it is not the short-lived happines of say, satisfying your urge of eating an ice cream) - rather it is the natural bliss as an actual experience due to the falling away of craving, of sense of self, of clinging.

 

All that is quite obvious and needs no interpretation. Everyone knows what bliss is when it comes. But the bliss from anatta is pretty intense. The lack of clinging, the experience of anatta, this is blissful and everyone can know it. This kind of happiness is not dependent on gain and loss of material stuff or temporary sensual gratifications.

Buddhism ends suffering for Buddhists or potential Buddhists. Same with clinging. Same with happiness. Buddhism doesn't make a dog happy does it. A dog treat does.

Buddhism ends all kinds of afflictions for those who practice it. By mental afflictions, I mean stuff like anxiety, fear, anger, jealousy, desire, depression, ignorance, etc etc. Anyone can do it - provided they have the conditions to (such as being human, meeting the right teacher, etc).

 

A dog? Unfortunately not - Buddha's audience is primarily for humans (also some devas according to suttas). I'm afraid a dog may not understand the teachings of Buddha, so a dog is a being that does not have conditions to learn dharma. But most of us can.

 

A dog treat temporarily satisfy the urge or desire of a dog, but does not permanently end his suffering or permanently uproot its afflictions. So of course you cannot compare this with Liberation. I'm talking about liberation, which is universally experienced to be the ending of suffering, afflictions, and also according to Buddha, the ending of samsaric births.

 

Buddhism deals with ultimate happiness and liberation... of course also more mundane ones, as it does teach people how to cultivate merits for a better future life, or how to live the current life well and happily (Buddha gives advices on many mundane issues too). Of course, Buddhism does not deal with everything.... Buddha did not taught modern science or medicine or whatever, since his concerns are not focused on that, more on the four noble truths, more on spiritual.

This is like tossing an Eckhart Tolle book to someone newer to spirituality. Of course, consciously you tell yourself, "people are at different stages," or "he needs to experience the I AM stage." But all this in the greater context his understanding is partial to what you have progressed through, namely, anatta, emptiness, d.o. because you see these as ultimatums. So when you approach a person there will always be subconsciously that hierarchical divider in you. Or even more pompously you will give the dog his dog treat only to snicker that he is in fact an inferior existence of a dog, that eventually his "sufferings" would need to e assuaged in rebirth towards this universal goal that everyone should have to become a Buddha. It's inevitable that this is there since you believe your experience to be "truth" to other's "illusions."

I believe the Buddhahood is the ultimatum of spirituality. Why do I believe? Because I have no direct knowledge of Buddhahood. I have not experienced Buddhahood. But I have faith in Buddha, partly due to confidence from my direct experience - how it completely lines up with what the Buddha taught, how deep and profound was Buddha's insights... that by inferrence surely, what the other stuff I've not seen but have been said by Buddha, must be true too.

 

However what I do know from experience (without any need of inference) is this: as my insights progressed, there is deeper freedom experienced, deeper liberation experienced, greater effortlessness, greater clarity, lesser clinging, lesser afflictions, etc etc... greater insight into the nature of reality. Therefore this is of course a very obvious progress in my path. And I say - without anatta, emptiness, etc, you cannot achieve maximum effortlessness, maximum clarity, etc. Even in I AM due to belief in purest identity of I AM it is clung to tightly and practice aims at achieving 24/7 abidance in a purest state of presence - a form of contrivance and effort. In non-dual, though lesser effort and greater seamlessness with the manifold manifestation, still there can be subtle habit to reconfirm a source, an attempt to be nondual, etc, which are again subtler but still present effort, clinging, ignorance. And so on... so as I said, greater freedom, lesser effort, greater clarity, greater bliss, lesser clinging, lesser suffering, lesser afflictions (in their various forms)... greater results with the deepening of insight into the way things are. Which is why this is worthwhile for me. This is why while there is no strict one-for-all linear hierarchy of things, it does not mean there is no observable progress. Ultimately, all Buddhist paths that aims at liberation, i.e. the total ending of suffering, clinging, craving, etc must lead to twofold emptiness, to the qualities mentioned above.

 

Believe me - or not, I am only stating my experience, just see for yourself.

Edited December 20, 2011 by xabir2005

[Lucky7Strikes]

I do not have metaphysical beliefs pertaining to views of inherent existence of a self or of phenomena. All my beliefs deal with conventional truths and not absolutes.

Conventional truths are framed within an absolute view of the world and it needn't be clearly outlined by the conscious mind. Always. Most people take this for granted because they do not delve into the constructs of their awareness (this is where perhaps you should actually do vipassana). It may not be a perfect picture, or even logical, mostly it is unquestioned and accepted. But for any sort of conventional view or comprehension of our surroundings to make sense, the mind must have an ultimate belief in the world and its orders. Just because you don't think about it consciously, does not mean your metaphysical belief is not present.

 

You are clearly not awakened if you do not see the relationship between the absolute and conventional beliefs and how they are really the same ocean at different depths. You can't have shallowness without depth and vice versa.

 

I forgot to mention, my mother had another dream when my sister was given birth. It involves Guan Yin (Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva) giving her a baby girl wrapped in pink towel and a red packet with $4, and when she was born she thought "it looked exactly like it was in my dream". Her birth was not requested by prayers or divination though. Interestingly, in recent years, my mother heard from a friend in our local sangha that she had almost an exactly same dream while giving birth to a boy except it is a baby boy wraped in white towel being passed to her by Avalokitesvara. My mom even thought of letting my sis meet with that guy, but no relationship worked out. That was some years ago. My sister is married now, not interested in spirituality currently though is a Buddhist by belief.

 

Anyway who knows what those dream stuff may signify.. My dharma teacher speculates the $4 implies 'the four stages of enlightenment to Arhantship'. I have no idea what the $4 means or if it has any meaning. Such things are difficult (at least for me, who has no experience with dream interpretation) for me to understand. I should mention however that I have many prophetic dream images about events that happens the next day - it happens so often that I have become familiar with them and would instantly recognise the dream to be prophetic and inform my friend about it, and lo it happens (totally unexpected events that I saw with very high precision in dream). But discussing about this would be going off topic.

 

But anyway it seems highly plausible I have a karmic connection with Buddhism in my past life, if not for my own memories, and some other reasons I do not want to talk about. I think 'practitioners taking birth with intention or spiration to continue their spiritual path in next life' is not that uncommon.

So you believe that you are gifted. And also that Buddhist deities have bless your family and the birth of you and your sister. Whether you truly believe this is true or a hallucination doesn't matter because clearly you, as a devote Buddhist, accept these auspicious signs. Also it seems that you have prophetic abilities which you likely attribute to Buddhist practice. Do you still truly believe that you are an ordinary individual? I don't think so. You may not flaunt it. That would be too easy especially considering an upbringing in Buddhist ethics of humility. As you did above, you probably tell people that you are very ordinary or like to be seen that way. But I doubt you truly believe this. You believe, behind all the false humility, that you are extraordinary, special, blessed, and gifted.

 

The right view of anatta, dependent origination etc are like a fire that burns on a candle, not leaving anything, not the candle, not the fire. There is no positions or proliferation left.

Nothing disappears into thin air. Not even your imagination. No energetic formation dies. A fire that burns the candle together make the smoke that dissolve into the atmosphere. It may become clouds, it may become mist. Similarly a belief cannot be destroyed. It is always transformed as a river does down a bank, taking different shapes, dissolving varying materials. It may be as dense and clogged as a rock or as abstract as thin air. But there is never a nothing. Even nothing takes its definition from the existence that came before, or the potential for existence in the vaccuum. It is erroneous, imo, to see this as a belief vs. no belief, as you seem to see it. I think you do see it in those extreme terms, as faith vs. no-faith, as you used that word in the previous post. It's rather a spectrum of seeming opposites, a degree of faith, and their seeming opposition is not absolute.

 

No. Waking up from a dream does not necessitate more dreaming.

Unicorns and monsters are very real in their imaginative existence. Your consciousness gives them life in a dream. You become joyous from seeing one in a dream, the sensation is there, the vision is there. It is experienced, just as the fear of the monster. And when you awake it does not disappear. The idea is very much alive within you. It can be communicated to others as well. It is indeed very real. You say you have no metaphysical positions, but here you are revealing that in your conscious interpretation of the world the dream world is less real than the daily world. I'm not saying it isn't. But do you see how you do have a certain metaphysical filter for life? That you cannot be without one?

 

Yes, but by insight. Not by samadhi, not by intentional effort at getting rid of it - for example if you thought the rope was a snake, you want to tame the snake, get rid of the snake, whatever. But once you see a rope as a rope, no more effort to 'tame the snake' is needed - there is no snake.

How can you have such little insight into your own mind for someone who claims to be awakened? That metaphor has another level of depth to it. The snake is still there and it has nothing to do with the rope in the first place. It is present within the mind, along with all the associations put around it: the fear of its venom, its shape, look, behavior, potential effects on your body, the slipperiness, the eyes. The snake does not come alive to the person because of the rope, but because of his mind. The rope is just a trigger that coincides with one of these associations. It's not that important whether the rope is really a snake or not.

 

The idea is what lets you interact with it. If you had no idea of it, then the snake"ness" would be meaningless; you wouldn't recognize a snake at all. And it is still very much alive within even if someone has turned on the lights revealing a mere rope, its not gone or affected. If you contemplate deeper into this idea of a snake you come to understand what understanding is, how that snake is present within you. Then you do not tame the snake nor do you get rid of it, you comprehend your relationship to it. As a side effect that original fear may be assuaged, but that's not the point. The point of the metaphor is for you to see how you are always within the scope of your mind and its ideas, and how they are very much real and alive as anything you experience.

Edited December 21, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes