As soon as it passes away, we say, "I am seeing." You are not seeing; you are just thinking, "I am seeing." This is called conditioning. Because our mind is conditioned, when we hear the sound, we say, "I am hearing." But there is no hearer waiting in the car to hear the sound. Sound creates a wave, and, when it strikes against the eardrum, ear consciousness is the effect. Sound is not a man, nor a woman; it is just a sound that arises and passes away. But, according to our conditioning, we say, "That woman is singing and I am hearing." But you're not hearing, you are thinking, "I am hearing." Sound is already heard and gone. There is no "I" who heard the sound; it is the world of concept. Buddha discovered this in the physical level, in the mental level: how everything is happening without an actor, without a doer - empty phenomenon go rolling on.
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Whatever we see, it is I, me, a man, a woman.
Experiencing the many through oneself is delusion. Experiencing oneself through the many is satori.
Writes Hakuin, “Mind and the objects of mind are one and the same; things and oneself are not two.” All phenomena from the highest to the lowest, animate or inanimate, subtle or gross, are your own original, true and pure aspect. If you continue to look everything becomes an aspect of your self and your self becomes an aspect of everything.
What you quoted can be understood as One Mind, it is not the description of anatta.
See what Thusness wrote in "The myriad things advance and confirm the self" and what should have been a better translation in http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/03/realization-experience-and-right-view.html
Hi Eternal Now,
My name is Javier and I am from Holland. Great link. I have been trying to figure out if I am the doer in life by doing rather silly experiments like:
- I am now going to raise my hand up in the air
- I am, whenever I want, going to wiggle my foot
Althought sometimes the action doesn't happen at all after having a thought I have glimpses of there being actions withouth thoughts most of the time.
So after 6 years of seeking for this doer/free will, The head hurts and I am resting in non doing.
Awareness sounds a concept to me. If I take a look right now I see things happening, like sounds, music, humming, coughing, swallowing, blinking of the eyes, another thought saying I am doing it all.
So there is no realisation and it really really feels like I need to stop investing effort in trying to find out what life is all about. So it is a paradox. First there was seeking for non doership. Now effortly something. NOthing shows up besides glimpses.
Can you shed your opinion about how to understand if life is doing or if I am doing life?
I downloaded your book and I think it explains a lot.
Hi Javier,
You are a sincere seeker but not to get obsessed with desire of "when will realization happen to me?" Patience is important, the most important for your part is to instill right view, and with right practice and contemplation, the realization will arise in due time. While practicing and contemplating, do not practice with expectations or unnecessary desires, but with a keen interest in discovering the truth.
In actual fact all of us experience the original, unsullied and pure moment of naked awareness (such as hearing or seeing something before analyzing or thinking about it) from time to time, but as you rightly pointed out, it is often quickly obscured and overshadowed by "another thought" that arises which seems to say I am doing everything, that imputes or conceives of a fictitious self or label over the original naked experience.
Indeed, this deeply rooted karmic conditioning to conceive of a self keeps manifesting in thoughts, therefore the first step in practice is to be bare, naked, stripped off the symbolic and conceptual layer and simply be bare and naked in pure awareness. Then follow by a form of contemplation that investigates and penetrates into the truth of anatta.
An advise I often give which in my experience is a highly effective method for realizing no-self: "spend quality hours (or however much time you can afford) everyday practicing being naked in awareness (whether in sitting meditation or in movement), which is to say hear the sounds as clear as can be in its pristine clarity and vividness… observe/experience the minutest details of sensations in its crystal clarity and aliveness, the sights, smells, taste, touch. Then contemplate and notice the fact that “there is no experiencer behind experience, just the experience” or “in seeing just the shapes, colours, forms, no seer”... this can eventually lead to non dual experience and insight.”
One more thing: no-self or anatta is not just non-doership. Non-doership is just one aspect of anatta, not its entirety. It is not yet the realization of no agency. Realization of anatta arises when you see that the framework of there being a seer seeing the seen is false, that always already, in seeing always just the sight, shapes, forms and colours vividly manifesting without an observer/seer. In hearing just sounds, no hearer. Always already so.
Thanks An Eternal Now,
Something showed up here. When there is a resting in non doing. You can't even call it a verb, cause it implies action. Something shifted. It is pivoting like a madman between seeing that actions happen while the I is not involved and then the identificion with thought creating selfish actions.
I will take a look at6 right view again without trying to expect that something will happen.
Thanks
Have a great day