Someone wrote:

I generally like your posts
But why not stop here at the first sentence..?

Realize Anatta...!


Your next line
:
Self- luminous thought
Sight
And Sound does it...!

If you've got there
What need for analysis..



I replied:

Anatta does not necessarily result in the realization of emptiness-appearance, it leads to vividness of forms without a background. At this point 'awareness' is realized to be none other than manifestation. Everything becomes hyper real and vivid and alive without an observer, or seer. But there may be no insight into dependencies or the emptiness of phenomena.

By seeing dependencies of whatever appears, one sees the absence of intrinsic existence of a phenomena and the seamless exertion of a phenomena.


...

The dissolution of subject object/observer-observed division leads to hyper vividness of phenomena - sights, sounds etc are the very vividness of mind, the nondual aspect of luminous clarity, but not necessarily the empty nature of mind/phenomena. Subject object division dissolved can end up in 1) subsuming everything into Awareness, which still leaves traces of ‘nondual Awareness’ by not seeing its empty nature clearly, subsuming all into pure subjectivity like Vedanta 2) dissolving subjectivity completely but falling into subtle reification of aggregates/world/actual flesh and blood body, like actual freedom teachings, 3) empty clarity and total exertion. Mahamudra and dzogchen teachings stress more on the empty clarity aspect and Soto Zen ala dogen stresses more on total exertion aspect.

Nondual clarity and emptiness should be complemented for further refinement. There are two aspects to emptiness/dependent origination in direct experience, the illusion like taste of non-arising phenomena and the total exertion of a given phenomenon. Both require penetrating insights into dependent origination.

A (any given phenomenon) is not A (empty) but the whole universe as A (total exertion). When seeing the moon reflection on the water, the whole sky, moon, mind, body, self, eyes, seeing, transcended (not A) and exerted as moon reflection (therefore A). Through deep wisdom into dependent origination/emptiness, in the ongoing actualisation of mere appearance, existence is negated without thinking, appearance is realized to be empty and self liberated on the spot.
 
 
5 Responses
  1. Anonymous Says:

    How to experience the anandamaya kosha(bliss)?


  2. Soh Says:

    Anandamaya Kosha is not the bliss of your real nature.

    The bliss of your real nature is revealed in various degrees according to the depth of your realization.

    As Thusness wrote in 2007,

    "Like samatha meditation, each jhana state represents a stage of bliss associated with certain level of concentration; the bliss experienced from insight into our nature differs.

    The happiness and pleasure experience by a dualistic mind is different from that experienced by a practitioner. “I AMness” is a higher form of happiness as compared to a dualistic mind that continuously chatters. It is a level of bliss associated with a state of ‘transcendence’ – a state of bliss resulting from the experience of “formlessness, odorless, colorless, attributes and thoughtlessness’. No-self or non-dual is higher form of bliss resulted from the direct experience of Oneness and no-separation. It is related to the dropping of the ‘I’. When non-dual is free from perceptions, that bliss is a form transcendence-oneness. It is what I called transparency of non-duality."


  3. Soh Says:

    For the initial realization of Awareness or the I AMness, self inquiry is a good way.


  4. Anonymous Says:

    How is one to deal with thick vasanas(tendencies) obstructing the light of atman ?


  5. Soh Says:

    All phenomena are empty-clarity without duality, the way we relate with phenomena through delusion -- conceiving subject-object duality, inherent existence of self and phenomena, is itself the vasanas or tendencies and causes all kinds of grasping, desire, aversion, fear and suffering.

    They are released through realization. Samatha meditation (calm abiding) that temporarily stops thoughts from arising does not release vasanas, they just temporarily suppress them.