Showing posts with label Lucky7Strikes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lucky7Strikes. Show all posts
Taken from Dharma Conection

John Ahn:

Yes, there is no entity. But that is only half of the equation. One has to understand that there is also no contact. To me this is the distinction in the two phrases of anatta. Although we understand that in seeing there is no seer, it may not be as clear that in seeing, only the seen. So it's understood that there is really never any such thing as contact. No meetings ever take place. The experience of the human condition is revealed to be merely a series of impressions: sounds, colors, tactile sensations, smells, tastes, and symbols (meanings and conventionalities).

Impressions have no reality to them, they arise with conditions and disappear with conditions. We have to see this as impressions and not through dualistic cognition. Its impressions seeing impressions liberating impressions.

I do not have full experience with undirection. But so far in my path, the undirection comes when there is total unbinding at the deepest layers of habit, especially at the level of sensations which constitute embodiment. It's a mistake to somehow seek out undirection, because it is the ending of action. If one is still inclined to a state of decisions, actions, and effort, then thinking one is in a spontaneous state is a huge deception. Much practice is needed to undo the habitual patterning of embodied energy, which will continually create sense of physicality and relationships. If you are in a state of relationships, of this, that, here, now, etc then there will always be a a direction. To believe otherwise is, in my opinion, deceiving oneself.

Hence, sadhana.

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Yes, but there is an element you are missing imo. The second phrase of the anatta insight is to see the dimensionless stand alone texture of awareness as sights, sound, taste, smell, touch, and concept. The self has to be deconstructed by seeing that there is merely manifestation, otherwise there is always a reference to a separateness. Whether it is watcher, I am, void, samadhi, or any other experience seen as more true than the flowing appearance.

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And yes, there is no such thing as sense base and sense data in direct experience. Its all just arising and ceasing according to conditions.

If we don't apply the principle of dependent origination, we fall in "that-ness" which is how subject hides in object. In reinforcing no-self, the self hides in the effort and objectification, believing that there is no longer any engagement, but just "that." This is a subtle mistake because you can't just get rid of me from "me and that." Me and that are co arising. When the trifold structure of "me, that, and, me and that (action + contact)" dissolve upon insight, there is a very different experience of the sense spheres in that they begin to lose dimension.

They have to form, abiding, boundary, size, duration, etc. It is merely arising then gone like rainbows appear when there is light and water. The entire human experience is the arising and disappearing of such impressions as the 6 tastes. Anyway, that's just my experience and analysis.

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In experience there is really no such thing as internal or external. That is just conventional framework of mind. You never experience anything internally or externally. There are only impressions of the sense spheres. Which at first is unbelievable because the framework of locality, individuality, and embodiment is so strong.

The teachings of how sense spheres arise dependently upon contact are to point to their emptiness which as an effect liberates one from the inherent view. This teaching really doesn't seem that important at first. Like, "hey, ok, so what? It's obvious stuff happens causally upon interaction..so why is there all this emphasis on dependent arising?"

But it takes a different effect when contemplated from the perspective of nondual experience and seeing the cause of how duality arises, namely through the view of inherence. The clear nondual visual field is experienced (as pointed out by Goran's post above) but it is not liberated into its empty nature. So contemplating its dependent arising is important here.
John Ahn wrote in Dharma Connection:

It is a bit chilly outside today and I do not want to go outside. So I would like to share a bit on anatta and what I have been going through:

In my experience so far, there is a great distance between the initial insight into anatta and its actualization. I would say much of the difficulties actually come from the latter phase.

There are a few groups I have seen online that have shared the experience of selflessness but mostly, I realize now, they are talking about impersonality. So either physicality or divine consciousness becomes the direction of development. Anatta is not like that..its is truly the full emergence of the scenery that is the sound, sensation, taste, vision, etc. When inner and outer begin to dissolve, all appearances begin to share an equal taste of direct pristiness. Pristiness as in, this very sound, it has no past, future, or context..even the understanding of dependent origination does not escape this direct pristiness, let alone pure consciousness.

Anatta is great simplicity. There is no need to elaborate so much on its workings or its larger implications. Just this sound...that is enough, and one will not experience anything truer. Make your entire being like the sound of the bird chirping...direct, ephemeral and without center. It is a magnificent scenary painting itself effortlessly .

The main difficulties of fully actualizing this realization come from latent tendencies. You can actually view much of spirituality in this context of getting rid of impulses that have been engraved into you body, mind, energies, emotions due to the ignorance of selfhood. And these bonds run deep. The so called direct path groups who justify all modes of livelihood by saying its anyway just a selfless workings of the universe, expressions of divinity, etc...do not have an understanding or experience of anatta, or the intellect has twisted it. The more apparent anatta becomes, the stronger one will begin to feel the dualistic bonds. Since when it is the mere scenery..how can it desire? How can it posess? Simply sit, and the magnficence is there, simply walk, and it is such a subtly beautiful play of movement, the ground, the air.

Yet then the impulses come in many forms and with such strength. The scenery often becomes an unconscious drive to posess and to achieve. And the knowing is there that these are remnants of the past, now more amplified than even before, because the floodgates are being opened up as self control dissolves into naturalness. And here one faces troubles...how should I cope with the urge of the senses? These defilements? This ugliness? And it is ugliness all the way through. Do not justify them via the mind. When the sublimeness of mere scenery begins to soak all experience...the whole egoic story begins to look really ugly. But it still comes...heh..from very deep within the sense of purpose and desire (for anything) is carved in there. It is what drives anyone to move and act, otherwise, simply sitting..directionless..complete.

And the ugliest of all is the effort towards buddhahood. I want to become a Buddha! Lol. Really, the sky is more Buddha than a statue or a picture. This chair is more of a temple then anywhere else.

Letting these bonds work themselves out, while not deviating from the realization of anatta, is my current path. And it will take a lifetime since that bond..it is what drives our lives in one direction over another. But always, every action should be to dissolve purpose and direction. Fulfilling one`s destiny or whatever, is to release oneself these self imposed purposes...until one can become like the winds and the sun, where nothing is done but everything is accomplished.

Anyway..some sharings...
Some excerpts from TheTaoBums forummer Lucky7Strikes. He is 20 years old like me. He had gone a long way in a short amount of time, and was very willing to let go of his deeply held beliefs and recently had insight into non-dual and experienced No-Mind.

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...No-self is not seductive. I see that it is as reality truly is. It didn't make sense to me because I didn't understand it, or I tried to understand it without direct experience. The very act of "trying to make sense of it" is a mistaken approach to understanding a direct insight. And since my experience was governed by the attempt to make sense of it, it is not whole, it is not sincere. (By the way, your thinking of "categorical framework" is yet another "categorical framework.") But explanations in Buddhism have been as direct as anything I have come across. You can't get much direct than that.

I speak mainly of my own mistakes in approach to Buddhism in the previous paragraph and believe that you are encountering similar problems. But I can only speak from my experience, so I am doing that. ^_^

After considering many aspects of Buddhist thought I discarded it for the dual model of Consciousness and Object because of the problem of "free will" (but that is another discussion). Like you, I tried to make sense of it, which was a mistake and when it didn't make "sense" to my liking, I couldn't agree with it. But during meditation, Kunlun, etc, I realized that the very concept of Background or Watcher was very detrimental to exploring and evolving into newer ground of experience that my body (I was not consciously doing this) was trying to break through (Kunlun does this through two aspects). It was as if I had let go of thoughts, but then clung to a state of consciousness that was supposedly behind those thoughts, a new "entity" of sorts. There was a dropping of thoughts only to come to another level of "thoughts." I felt that the progress I was making through Kunlun and meditation was continually shifting and challenging this "ground."

So for sometime I gave to the mantra "thinking, but no thinker, sound but no hearer on and on, free will be damned :D " And immediately everything fell into alignment. There was nothing holding my practice in the sense of "goals" (higher state, purer state of consciousness and such) or a crash between through/ground, evolution/identity. The act itself was all there was. Really all aspect of practice changed when I delved into this switch in perception, and not only was there no longer a division between me "practicing" and not practicing, but every waking hour was truly practice itself! There was no need to "stabilize" any state, but simply recognize thoughts and thoughts, walking as walking, wanting to sit as sitting, sitting as sitting, etc.

So I hope you give it a try. It's quite a new opening.

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And here is the precise problem of interpreting reality dualistically as phenomenon and Consciousness. Experience is always non-dual. Why? Because when we try to investigate its duality, already another experience arises. We can never ascertain the duality of experience, because upon seeing duality, we see the new non-dual "duality" and not the original experience (itself also non-dual) attempted to be investigated. Hence we can never perceive the original experience and analyze it, but only transform it into a new experience.

So if there was a background called "Consciousness" and the foreground, the two would need to present themselves as one. But our daily experiences are different! From moment to moment a different experience arises! The table, the chair, hunger, thought of "what is consciousness?" all arise in their difference. So there is no point to ascribing a one unifying term to call these experiences as one, if we do so, we are discarding the very basis of language which is to discern and sort through differences.

You are still thinking in the definitive dual aspect of phenomenon and consciousness. There is no such division in experience. The division is made only upon a senseless label like saying wind is separate from blowing.

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D: The description of the tissue box might not be the direct experience of it, but you have experienced tissues boxes and you will know what is being referred to (say you formulate a mental image of a tissue box while reading about it). That means it is within the bounds of name and form (nama rupa). Therefore, it is a phenomenon. Consciousness is not like a tissue box. You can neither give it a form nor a description. Why don't you try? Again, Awarenss (which is a result of conscious' interaction with objects) is not the same as Consciousness.

Lucky7Strikes: If you read my post again, its purpose was to show you that no phenomena such as "tissue" box can be established. That in fact when I form a mental image of it, it will not be the tissue box, but its mental image and that when I see a tissue box, it will be a vision and not the box, that if I touch it, it will be the sensation of cardboard and not tissue box, and so on. In fact, no tissue box can be found.

Likewise, when we return to what you said about phenomena being able to be describe, there is no such phenomena to be described at all. The description itself is already the non-dual phenomena. What you are not understanding is that there is no solidified "it" to begin with, everything is fleeting without boundary nor definition. There is only conventional usage of language, but we must understand them to be conventional symbols and not accurate indications of reality.

I'm not sure where I mentioned the difference between awareness and consciousness and why you brought it up. But I will answer that with what you wrote to Bob, that you are too "fixated on words to understand."

D: :) Everything in our material universe has a beginning and an end (they are temporal). Pure Consciousness (the True Self) has no beginning or end. I agree that Consciousness is Luminous Emptiness...and I also agree that in experience they are inseparable from it's objects... but that is not all. That is not what the Turiya state shows....Consciousness stands and exists in it's own light without any objects (go back to the gap between thoughts)

BTW, have you wondered why it is called "luminous"?

Lucky7Strikes: Before stating that everything in the material universe has a beginning and an end, one should first investigate whether there is such thing as a material universe, and the very concept of beginning and end, and whether these ideas are conventional communicative tools or hold to reality, as in whether the symbols match the actual experience.

You don't agree on the usage of the word emptiness or consciousness, so agreement on the term "consciousness luminous emptiness" doesn't mean much here. :P .

Luminosity is simply the pure quality, the self-aware clarity of moment to moment arising of any experience. It points to direct experience without a line between "background" or "foreground" Just this, now.

The gap between thoughts is simply experiencing another experience that is without thoughts. There is nothing special about it at all. You think, then you taste, then think again. There the tasting was the gap. If you are then going to say, "no, simple pure consciousness between the aggregates, form, thoughts, etc," then it is formless consciousness as it is. And then we have another experience after that, yes? So what's so special about it? (This is kind of off topic, but I also want to metion: Didn't the world in your view come about from this so call Absolute Self? Why? Why did all this suffering come from this absolutely pure source that is eternally blissful? Does it play games with our suffering? That's kind of cruel don't you think?)

We love saying "beyond, beyond, beyond" but the truth must be applicable this very moment as it is in whatever state there is. That this Consciousness in beyond time, that it is beyond space, beyond description, beyond this and this and this. Xabir writes about "I Am" ness, but then you refuse to acknowledge that it can be described, and you even wrote above that it cannot be experienced. Why not see reality as it is right at this moment and let the idea of the Ultimate rest? We should be investigating our wrongly held assumptions and not creating a demi-God concept of "beyondness" over and over again as if trying to attain a godly state. Simply see each moment in its non-dual arising, it unlocatability, and be free in it. Why create more unnecessary struggle? It is the "soul"s game, the ego's play. 

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This is the eternal nature of impermanence, not eternal "stillness." When the notion of "witness" is discarded, we experience stillness in movement because we perceive it without a center, without a reference point. We also experience movement in stillness because equanimity that arises from seeing phenomena as empty.

In fact, the position you take above is detrimental to meditative progress because the seeker continues to try to find states that are "absolutely still," clings to it, believes it to be ultimates, sees phenomena as rising in it. I do not know what your practice consists of, but if it is finding states without thought, I'd suggest that is a method towards insight and not trying to reach a "still" state.

I'm not sure how many times the importance of luminous aspect has been stressed in these discussions. The experience has not be dismissed, but incorporated.

Bob, I think you are confused at the application of terms as characteristics or nouns. Luminosity is not a noun, it is not a thing, it is a characteristic. Like "roundness" or "roughness" Because everything I see in a particular room is round, I do not think to myself "ah ha!" there is "roundness" behind the object! But rather the object is displaying a characteristic of roundness and so on. 

This problem arises because of seeing dualistically as "perceiver" and "perception." It is a similar problem of objectifying certain way or moments of perception and discriminating one as perceiver and other as perceived, kind of like saying, hearing "taste", or touching "sound." Of course, this is impossible, what is actually happening is the mind and language symbolizes them in order to relate them in non sensical manners.

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That's exactly right. I am not I. There was no "I" to begin with. Only the flowing of consciousness-phenomena in various forms, there is typing, there is speaking, there is breath, just like a rock that falls to earth by gravity, does my consciousness function from moment to moment according to laws, habits, nature, and harmony.

There is no confusion. Even your confusion is the expression of luminous emptiness expressing itself by the very laws of this universe. Please (I say this with real respect) note that what you wrote above addresses nothing that I wrote, but is just a pure re assertion of your views. Discussions like this is often difficult to carry out and again, fruitless.

Buddhism does not dismiss that each momentary experience is luminous, that is is aware. And awareness is the very nature of the phenomena being expressed and perfectly non dual. There is no "seer" and no "objective phenomena." There never was. So although I say there is the action of typing, speaking, and breath, it is different than when these activities are experienced as bare sensations. The habitual symbols we use to label typing as "typing" or speaking as "speaking" in the mind drop off. This is what I am beginning to experience more and more than in the past when I, like you (in a desperate attempt to preserve my free will, the pride of struggle, etc.).

I too desperately wanted there to be the absolute, the God, the holy, but it limits the mind to solidifying experiences and states of consciousness or bliss. Any "absolute" term, be it no-self, Self, This, That, is a limitation and a grasping.

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I think you misread my post. I used "hearing taste" and "touching sound" to show the mistaken way of viewing a perceiver. I'm not hiding behind concepts. It is these concepts that greatly hinder actual practice. Any identification or solidification through symbolic terms such as "consciousness" or "book" or "chariot" in a continous manner (of course, this is beneficial to certain states of practice, kinda like "noting") is a limitation on oneself.

You can call consciousness as beyond phenomena all day. But it just doesn't make sense. Tell me what that experience is. Is it blissful? Then the feeling of bliss is its phenomena. Is it empty? Than formlessness is its phenomena. Is it nothing? Than it is no conscious. Is it pure? Than it's purity is its phenomena. Searching for this ultimate state or identifying it, glorifying it, is like dreaming the impossible goal, an imagination that is worst, it is imagining the impossible, so you will never be satisfied no matter what stage of practice you arrive at.
 
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Sure Dwai, you can say that last part too. But in my opinion, you have to apply it in a different manner as it is easily susceptible to dualistic misunderstanding. You see phenomena and consciousness as different things so the last edition also wouldn't make sense. It contradicts your very first sentence.

There is no denying there is the continual "taste" of consciousness from one event to another. Indeed, there is no experience without the consciousness aspect. Let's say you look at the desk and it is brown. Then you see the window as white. Then you see the sky as blue. Do you think "ah, it is the background of "color" or the doing of "color" that is producing all these various colors? Probably not. Color is an continuous aspect of the varying phenomena, not an agent or a substream.

But what I wrote above is just what Xabir has written over and over to you. You refuse to open your mind to an alternative due to attachment to tradition.
By Lucky7Strike from TheTaoBums:

I used to think that the dichotomy of observer dependent on the observed held true, but all such distinctions themselves do not hold. Phenomena and awareness are one not because they are two elements, but both are characteristics of any experience in itself. Experience has always been non dual. Neither phenomena nor awareness can be found.