Recently I got to speak with an enlightened master and ask what enlightenment is.

[Wayfarer]

Isn't that enough/everything?

 

We are not enlightened unless we have awakened to Buddha-Nature/God. IT has an actual presence and expression. What we are is IT but our lack of experiencing IT is what causes us to act in ways that are unnatural and ultimately harming.

 

So you could say, isn't it enough to know I am God? No. Because saying it is not the same as experiencing and then understanding it and until this happens every action and thought is viewed through the lens of wrong view and as a consequence we 'DO', we strive, we achieve, we want, we like, we dislike, we hope, we search for purpose and so on. When what we want is to 'BE'. No matter where we live, our whole society and culture is tainted and afflicted by this wrong view - the opposite of Buddha's first teaching; Right View. We cannot be Awareness/Conscious unless we are aware and conscious. While being aware/conscious does not alter what we are, it certainly affects what we do and how we be.

 

To our head it may be enough to know on an intellectual level but at our heart, our core, IT calls for its voice to be noticed and while ignored we cannot know happiness or lasting peace.

 

Heath

Edited June 2, 2012 by Wayfarer

[gatito]

We are not enlightened unless we have awakened to Buddha-Nature/God. IT has an actual presence and expression. What we are is IT but our lack of experiencing IT is what causes us to act in ways that are unnatural and ultimately harming.

 

So you could say, isn't it enough to know I am God? No. Because saying it is not the same as experiencing and then understanding it and until this happens every action and thought is viewed through the lens of wrong view and as a consequence we 'DO', we strive, we achieve, we want, we like, we dislike, we hope, we search for purpose and so on. When what we want is to 'BE'. No matter where we live, our whole society and culture is tainted and afflicted by this wrong view - the opposite of Buddha's first teaching; Right View. We cannot be Awareness/Conscious unless we are aware and conscious. While being aware/conscious does not alter what we are, it certainly affects what we do and how we be.

 

To our head it may be enough to know on an intellectual level but at our heart, our core, IT calls for its voice to be noticed and while ignored we cannot know happiness or lasting peace.

 

Heath

 

I think that what I was trying to get at is that if you "know it" rather than "believe it" then it is enough/everything.

 

If you only believe it then it isn't enough and the belief cause further separation. (Although, strictly speaking there is no separation.)

[Thunder_Gooch]

So don't worry, when you die you will go to heaven..excuse me, you'll become enlightened (again)!

 

Excuse me, but that sounds to me like BS from a guy who knows not what he's talking about!

 

 

What I got out of talking with him is that enlightenment is a state of nonexistence, and unobserved experience.

So as you existed prior to birth and after death was the natural state of this nonexistence.

[Thunder_Gooch]

Suffering alone exists, none who suffer;

The deed there is, but no doer thereof;

Nirvana is, but no one seeking it;

The Path there is, but none who travel it."

-Buddha quoted from the (Visuddhimagga) The Path of Purification sutra

[gatito]

What I got out of talking with him is that enlightenment is a state of nonexistence, and unobserved experience.

So as you existed prior to birth and after death was the natural state of this nonexistence.

 

Emptiness is not nothing.

[styrofoamdog]

So little of this thread has any bearing on the actual practice of the Dharma in meditation, and most of the comments here are speculation. What was spoken by this teacher is correct to some extent, but if you do not actually follow that path and cultivation the realization of these truths, then it's just a poison. Again, no matter how enlightened someone is, if they give you instructions, and you do not actually carry through with them, then your practice is in vain. No intellectual understanding can take the place of true realization through practice.

[xabir2005]

Thusness/PasserBy's Seven Stages of Enlightenment

[Wayfarer]

Thusness/PasserBy's Seven Stages of Enlightenment

 

Hey Xabir,

 

An interesting link. At the time of writing the blog this person seems to me to have had deep experiences but has yet to awaken.

 

This can be noticed due to their explanation of object, subject and all things intrinsically share the same essence. If there is only Oneness how does difference appear? If all is a permanent Suchness how can change occur? If there is not-two how can an essence be shared? An awakened person can answer this.

Edited June 4, 2012 by Wayfarer

[Wayfarer]

Duplicate post sorry

Edited June 4, 2012 by Wayfarer

[xabir2005]

Hey Xabir,

 

An interesting link. At the time of writing the blog this person seems to me to have had deep experiences but has yet to awaken.

 

This can be noticed due to their explanation of object, subject and all things intrinsically share the same essence. If there is only Oneness how does difference appear? If all is a permanent Suchness how can change occur? If there is not-two how can an essence be shared? An awakened person can answer this.

At the time of writing, Thusness has awakened. The person who helped him post that, who is myself, has not yet awakened (until 2010).

 

"object, subject and all things intrinsically share the same essence" is Thusness Stage 4 insight. At this phase, one experiences everything as the gapless (without subject-object division) non-dual luminosity, but forms views like "everything is the mere expression of one awareness". At this point, one realizes that all differences are merely the One Mind or expressions of One Mind/one awareness. This is already different from the merely static oneness at the I AM (stage one) phase which is experienced as a static background behind all change (dualistic), but stage 4 is not yet the realization of anatta and emptiness. One is still unable to overcome the view of an ontological essence of awareness, so one sees awareness as having a static/unchanging and dynamic aspect simultaneously or inseparably. One still sees awareness as truly existing, independent, unchanging - the marks of the view of inherency (yet simultaneously dynamic), like a mirror's changing reflections are inseparable from the changeless surface of the mirror. This is not yet "no mirror" of stage 5.

 

When you go to Stage 5, even "One Mind", Awareness, etc is deconstructed. In other words, instead of seeing "the ocean and the waves are all the same essence which is water", you deconstruct water or h2o itself by realizing that "water" has no fundamental ontological essence and is a mere imputation on two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom co-dependently arising.

 

Similarly at stage 5 we realize "One Mind", Awareness is just an imputation on the process of phenomenality, and there is nothing permanent (static or unchanging) about suchness: Buddha-Nature is Impermanence as Zen Master Dogen and Patriarch Hui-Neng puts it. There is no one awareness, awareness is merely imputed on six streams of consciousness dependently arising (which Alex R. Weith explained well in http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/10/zen-exploration-of-bahiya-sutta.html ). No watcher is needed or exists, the process itself knows and flows. In seeing, just the seen, no seer. In hearing just the heard, no hearer. But not only that, at Stage 6 we begin to see everything - from self, awareness, to objects as mere imputation like "water" is a mere label, imputation, convention for a conglomerate which themselves are free of essence or substance or true existence that can be pinned down in any way.

 

I.E. No "essence or existence of car-ness" can be pinned down as the wheel or apart from the wheel or any other car parts.

 

In other words, there is No oneness, only a diversity, only difference, and yet those difference are also empty and insubstantial.

 

The difference between One Mind and No Mind is described by Richard Herman:

 

"Yes, it is the absolute "elimination of the background" without remainder. It is the affirmation of multiplicity, not dispersion, but multiplicity. The world references nothing but the world. Each thing is radiant expression of itself. There is no support, no ground. No awareness. No awareness.

 

"All dharmas are resolved in One Mind. One Mind resolves into...."

 

There is the radiant world. just the radiant world. No awareness.

 

That is the Abbott slapping floor with his hand. The red floor is red. Spontaneous function."

 

 

P.s. There is however still a difference between no mind as a peak experience, and the realization of anatta, as I described in my article http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/12/experience-realization-view-practice.html

Edited June 5, 2012 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

This is a good video illustrating what I talked about: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2012/05/is-there-you.html

[xabir2005]

[Wayfarer]

Hello again Xabir,

 

I am not as technically adept (in a religious sense) as I find these 'stages' and so on quite complicated. I agree with much of what you have written but don't agree at all with what Julian Baggini says. So here, based on my experiences are the 'stages' as I see them and I would love to know of more as despite these experiences I find I am learning more every day.

 

1) Through the practice of stillness we settle our mind and energy and eventually notice a different feeling emerge within us (stomach, solar plexus area). This feeling expresses itself as a deep pool of stillness. I think Thusness described it as something like a void.

 

2) Through silent contemplation we become more aware of our innate-wisdom which speaks to us from a different place than the thoughts that arise from our head, our thinking though I am not saying the two are different.

 

3) The same feeling expressed in our self can be noticed outside of us. So we are in effect awakening to a kind of Presence that 'feels', appears, seems the same as that within us - then we realise what is inside and outside is the same. This is not something in our core - there is no core. So this is why (to me) the ancients would point unawakened people to inanimate objects to realise the presence of what is still, what is settled. And it is why I said 'look to clouds to notice IT' essentially when one realises IT, then knows IT is everywhere, that notion of IT disappears as there is nowhere else it can go - unless you are stuck there I guess?

 

4) Though there is not a difference between outside and inside the awakened person can still believe that even though he or she is One, there is still yet a Holy Presence that is in communication with them - even if this is a holiness that is not apart from them. This point dissipates as the feeling of sacredness is replaced by a knowing one is ordinary. There is no difference between the enlightened and unenlightened - the two do not exist as such. No foreground, no background, no other, no self.

 

5) In knowing that all is permanent and nothing changes; that what is holy is what is ordinary and what is empty is what is full the mind lets go of this 'knowing' as holding on to it becomes pointless. Consequently, such a person then regards the world with, I don't know, a blankness, a not-seeing or not engaging with. So take for instance a stream that begins to freeze; an unawake person sees the water and the ice and makes judgements based on those connections, an awakened person knows that the water and ice or not different and although both are seen the response to either is not different, finally, the person who goes beyond both looks at water and sees water and observes ice as ice but responds to neither. This is going beyond distinctions while noticing difference through the lens of no-difference.

 

6) Such a person being at ease with the world becomes care-free and innocent. I see this almost like how a cat views the world - it sees change but pays no attention to it. Such a person remains settled whatever the action as their thoughts and peace remain undisturbed.

 

Ultimately, such a person has gone through these stages a) knowing distinctions do not occur and all is one b ) if there is only oneness any ideas of that 'oneness' create something other than what it is and eventually thoughts of this also vanish and c) the world of change is viewed but without any sensation or attachment to it - hence trees are green, mountains are white but they are what they are, what it is. Thoughts of oneness have gone, thoughts of self have gone, ideas of holiness have vanished, ideas of permanence/impermanence are not considered.

 

Please fill in any gaps (or someone else lol) or add where I go next as there is so much more to this experience than what we have been discussing here and it is all wonderful.

 

Heath

Edited June 5, 2012 by Wayfarer

[xabir2005]

What you wrote is not bad, but still you are still extrapolating from the view and experience of one mind to the eventual experience of no mind, it is still not the direct realization of anatta. (explained the terms here: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/12/experience-realization-view-practice.html )

 

Also, at the experience of one mind, or at the peak of one mind, the practitioner will intermittently experience the peak of non dual which is no mind - where all notion or sense of a oneness/one awareness, source, etc is dissolved into "just the scenery, scent, taste, etc". Therefore one may then know intuitively that this is his/her destiny.

 

However, what they do not know is that what leads to true effortlessness and seamlessness is the realization of the twofold emptiness, which dissolves the false View that prevents true effortless and seamlessness.

 

When we say "everything is an expression of Presence/Awareness", we already have an idea of an inhgerent existence despite being seen as one, inseparable, from all that is.

 

But when we investigate on Bahiya Sutta as Alex Weith described in http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/10/zen-exploration-of-bahiya-sutta.html

 

That article is a must-read, it was truly well written.

 

We discover that self, Self, Presence, Awareness, Buddha-nature, whatever you want to call it, is just an imputation.

 

Effectively, contemplating the Bahiya Sutta leads to bahiya sutta leads to the deconstruction of the subjective pole by realizing that "awareness", perceiving, self are all imputed on just the sights and sounds and transient experiences - there is no inherent existence whatsoever.

 

In seeing, always just the sights, colours and shapes - "seeing" is just an imputation for the conglomerate of direct experiences without a seer/experiencer. In the same way "car" is imputed on a conglomerate of parts - wheels, door, window, engine, etc... There is no truly, inherently, existing thing called "car" that can be pinned down anywhere. "Car" is just an imputation and the same applies to "Awareness", "Self", etc.

 

Thus Vajira Sutta states,

 

"What? Do you assume a 'living being,' Mara?

Do you take a position?

This is purely a pile of fabrications.

Here no living being

can be pinned down.

 

Just as when, with an assemblage of parts,

there's the word,

chariot,

even so when aggregates are present,

there's the convention of

living being.

 

For only stress is what comes to be;

stress, what remains & falls away.

Nothing but stress comes to be.

Nothing ceases but stress."

 

"Self" is similarly a convention for the five aggregates, "consciousness" for the six consciousnesses, which all dependently originates.

 

Even when we realize anatta ala bahiya sutta, this is only the first emptying... Do not think it is the end. It corresponds to point number 1 of the following points that Thusness wrote to Taiyaki:

 

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2012/06/advise-for-taiyaki.html

 

Last year, a forummer from the NewBuddhist forum penetrated within a year the realization of I AM to non dual and anatta. He is an avid reader of this blog.

 

Thusness wrote the following pointers for him:

 

"There are several points that maybe of help to Taiyaki:

 

1. First there must be a deep conviction that arising does not need an essence. That view of subjective essence is simply a convenient view.

 

2. First emptying of self/Self does not necessarily lead to illusion-like experience of reality. It does however allows experience to become vivid, luminous, direct and non-dual.

 

3. First emptying may also lead a practitioner to be attached to an 'objective' world or turns physical. The 'dualistic' tendency will resurface after a period of few months so it is advisable to monitor one's progress for a few months.

 

4. Second emptying of phenomena will turn experience illusion-like but take note of how emptying of phenomena is simply extending the same "emptiness view" of Self/self.

 

5. From these experiences and realizations, contemplate what is meant by "thing", what is meant by mere construct and imputation.

 

6. "Mind and body drop" are simply dissolving of mind and body constructs. If one day the experience of anatta turns a practitioner to the attachment of an 'objective and actual' world, deconstruct "physical".

 

7. There is a relationship between "mental constructs", energy, luminosity and weight. A practitioner will experience a release of energies, freedom, clarity and feel light and weightless deconstructing 'mental constructs'.

 

8. Also understand how the maha experience of interpenetration and non-obstruction is related to deconstructions of inherent view.

 

9. No body, no mind, no dependent origination, no nothing, no something, no birth, no death. Profoundly deconstructed and emptied! Just vivid shimmering appearances as Primordial Suchness in one whole seamless unobstructed-interpenetration."

Edited June 7, 2012 by xabir2005

[Wayfarer]

Thanks for the reply Xabir and I appreciate the effort you have made. Sadly not all of what I have read speaks to me of my experiences (and I mean some of the more basic/beginning stuff). Perhaps this is why I turned to Taoism rather than Zen/Buddhism which (sorry everyone) I find over complicates what is simple.

 

So at the risk of sound simplistic and I appreciate to Xabir and people of the Awakening store website will not agree but I know for sure I am learning something new all the time, so I am not dismissing anything either.

 

There is a key difference between the author's experience (in your first link) and mine (and I am not in anyway denying or trying to diminish those experiences). I cannot understand how I AM can be noticed but an idea of self still remains. Maybe this comes down to interpretation. As alluded to already I noticed a presence which I believed (but didn't know for certain) was my true-self within me however I knew for sure when I noticed I AM in a cloud and knew (whether you agree?) Oneness and Nothingness is same - no matter what distinctions we give to concepts and stages there actually are none. When I say 'see' in a cloud I don't mean a ME seeing an IT, I looked, I saw, I felt, I knew, I understood instantly. This Noticing is not the same as looking at an 'other' in the same way perhaps that a person who hears their conscious mind thinking believes it is not different than them. So I best explain things as follows:

 

When the Source is realised, while nothing has changed, the person that was you becomes the Source (which they were anyway but without realising). As there is nothing other than the Source and nothing beyond it that can look at it and name it essentially neither IT, or other than IT, exist - but I find that doesn't help anyone to notice it or develop understanding, so we have to say 'look here', 'focus within' etc etc. The YOU that has NOTICED is no longer yet remains unchanged, WE do not merge with something or be like a drop falling into a great ocean (and become lost by it) we BECOME IT, we become what we already were - the void that doesn't exist and is empty of distinctions. Words, words, words, how frustratingly limiting!!! We BECOME nothing. But we were that anyway before we realised.

 

Okay, I doubt we will see eye-to-eye but I accept that. What I have learned in the years since noticing is that there 'appears' to be many different ways of realising and then bringing and deepening that understanding.

 

So here is a toast to us all, all on the path, all interested in the same thing. If you want to reply Xabir I will read with interest but I am conscious we have swamped this forum message and likely given people headache.

 

Take care my friend and I will keep a keen interest on the website blog you have introduced me to and I sincerely look forward to learning new things.

 

Best wishes,

 

Heath

Edited June 7, 2012 by Wayfarer

[xabir2005]

Thanks for sharing your experiences... What you described is the I AMness realization. It is that direct, doubtless instantaneous realization. It is not a disappearance... it is the big Self - instead of identifying with the small self, one realizes oneself as the infinite self. Merges is probably not a good term.

Edited June 10, 2012 by xabir2005

[Informer]

Emptiness is not nothing.

 

Is emptiness nothink?

[gatito]

Is emptiness nothink?

 

No.

[Informer]

No.

 

Incorrect. The correct answer is yes, no, yes and no and neither yes or no. Please refer to the Heart Sutra:

 

The Heart Sutra.

Translation by Edward Conze

 

Homage to the Perfection of Wisdom, the Lovely, the Holy!

 

Avalokita, The Holy Lord and Bodhisattva, was moving in the deep course of the Wisdom which has gone beyond. He looked down from on high, He beheld but five heaps, and he saw that in their own-being they were empty.

 

Here, Sariputra, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.

Here, Sariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness; they are not produced or stopped, not defiled or immaculate, not deficient or complete.

 

Therefore, Sariputra, in emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness; No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind; No sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to: No mind-consciousness element; There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to: there is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. There is no cognition, no attainment and non-attainment.

 

Therefore, Sariputra, it is because of his non-attainment that a Bodhisattva, through having relied on the Perfection of Wisdom, dwells without thought-coverings. In the absence of thought-coverings he has not been made to tremble, he has overcome what can upset, and in the end he attains to Nirvana.

 

All those who appear as Buddhas in the three periods of time fully awake to the utmost, right and perfect Enlightenment because they have relied on the Perfection of Wisdom.Therefore one should know the prajnaparamita as the great spell, the spell of great knowledge, the utmost spell, the unequalled spell, allayer of all suffering, in truth - for what could go wrong? By the prajnaparamita has this spell been delivered. It runs like this:

 

Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an awakening, all-hail!

http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/emptiness.html

[gatito]

Incorrect. The correct answer is yes, no, yes and no and neither yes or no. Please refer to the Heart Sutra:

 

How do you know that your interpretation of the Heart Sutra is correct?

[Informer]

I don't know that it is, I think it is and will continue to think it is until evidence is found to the contrary.

[gatito]

I don't know that it is, I think it is and will continue to think it is until evidence is found to the contrary.

 

Where is the best place to look for evidence?

[Informer]

Exactly.

 

Ask the question while you "Innersmile" at the "third eye".

Edited June 12, 2012 by Informer

[gatito]

Exactly.

 

Ask the question while you "Innersmile" at the "third eye".

 

Good luck with that one.

 

Let me know how you get on.

[Informer]

Good luck with that one.

 

Let me know how you get on.

 

 

Doing that would not provide truth to you, for you can only find this truth within and first hand.