Existence must necessarily be embedded with consciousness. Not in a mystical, universal or transcendental way, but merely in a functional and operational manner. Without consciousness, no single phenomenon, no matter how "insentient", can ever interact with its context in a causal and coherent way.
Consciousness is, very naturally, of the nature of being conscious - of knowing or perceiving. A formless, "contentless" or pure consciousness - like the one envisioned in some mystical traditions - wouldn't be able to manifest its own nature of knowingness, due to the absence of known objects. 
With the impossibility of any type of unmanifest or formless awareness - one devoid of known content -, we realize that consciousness is intrinsically of the nature of experiencing or perceiving. What would an unconscious consciousness amount to? Thus, there is no unobserved reality, for reality is always conscious of itself. Consciousness and experience arise simultaneously, in mutual dependency.
Again, there is no cosmic mind omnisciently perceiving all. This view is merely pointing to the intrinsic intelligence of life, requiring that every single particle is aware of what is happening in its immediate context.
So, we understand that existence is of the nature of consciousness (or information, intelligence, etc.); and consciousness is of the nature of experience (or manifested luminosity, perception, etc.) - no matter how subtle or insentient it may appear to be. 
Existence = Consciousness = Experience. Therefore, beyond experience, there is nothing.
Of course, when I turn around, the table is still there, even if I'm not observing it. Why? Because something else is - even if that something is believed to be insentient, like the space, floor or any objects touching, or interacting with, the table.
However, every phenomenon is interpreted/observed/known differently, in accordance with its different perceiving subjects. A sheet of paper interprets fire one way (burning); a rock in another (heating up); water in yet another (extinguishing the fire). So no truly established thing exists objectively, only its many subjective interpretations.
There is no solipsism - since there is not only one mind. But there is no external reality either, since everything arises merely as an interpreted object of a perceiving awareness - no matter how subtle such aware entity is (it could be space itself or any subatomic particle). One last time, this awareness is not some aggrandized, transpersonal cosmic mind or entity, but the mere nature of phenomena.



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Soh Wei Yu
Soh Wei Yu André A. Pais Nice post expressing the anatta insight.

But when conventions are implemented, will confusion arise?
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André A. Pais
André A. Pais Confusion arises when conventions are taken as pointing to something substantial and truly establish, instead of mere arisings dependent on conditions and imputation.
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Soh Wei Yu
Soh Wei Yu Btw when has the insight of anatta arisen for you?
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André A. Pais
André A. Pais Ive been playing with it for the last couple of years, after having experiences of awareness à la Advaita (I Am & One Mind) and its subsequent grasping...

Inspired by buddhist thought (and your own writings), I started questioning awareness' previousl
y unquestioned status.

Rob Burbea played an important role and one day I finally understood that the knowing aspect of experience, by its very nature, must be impermanent and thus empty of any fixed reality. I suddenly realized that awareness could never be like a mirror, but a fluid knowing instead.

That was the initial insight. Later I started studying Madhyamaka.

However, and using your stages and labels, I have had insights and experiences concerning I Am, One Mind and Anatta (probably Sunyata too), but Im still to land on a stable realization.
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John Tan
John Tan André, ever enquire into y sound arises under right conditions when a bell is hit, y form arises under right conditions when eyes r opened?

Why the designation “chariot” on basis of its parts? Why must sense of self arise on the basis of aggregates?


Or can they not arise?
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André A. Pais
André A. Pais Well, John, I've thought about and contemplated those things, often inspired by the sensorial experiments of Stian.

But I don't exactly know how to answer "why"?


I know that things MUST arise when the complete set of conditions is met. There is no choosing or analysing. When I knock on the table, if all the conditions are there, sound will inevitably arise - there is no self making it arise, nor is there a way that a self could prevent it from arising.

The same happens with every phenomena in the 6 sense spheres. When this is, that is. When this ceases, that ceases. Idappaccayata.

Why? Not clear to me. I've been investigating some things and I've come to the insight that existence is not some type of stillness, but it is movement instead. That movement can have different names: transience, impermanence, cause-and-effect, conditionality, information, experience, consciousness, time, interpenetration, beING, etc.

Some of those terms become more interesting when understood under the light of movement, instead of still beingness. Consciousness is one of those terms. Being itself and existence too. My first insight into the emptiness of consciousness arose when its fluidity was grokked. Consciousness, in order to know, must change and flux. I had an Advaita background, so I was very used to thinking of awareness as a still and unchanging background.

What I wanna say with all this is that for me existence is movement or transience. In this sense, when the conditions are present, things have no other option but to move into the next configuration, informational structure or instance of being. It's like cause-and-effect exerts a force that pushes things into each other, in a totally automatic and selfless way.
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"Why the designation “chariot” on basis of its parts?" I dunno either. I think it's merely a useful convention, a short way of saying "the colection of parts and materials that when arranged like this functions in a very specific way".

But it is possible to perceive such collection and not impose on it the label "chariot", I believe. Bare, "pure" perception is free of conceptual elaboration. It is, however, not unfabricated, for whatever arises in consciousness is already fabricated by the knowing mechanisms of awareness itself. To know or perceive is to fabricate.

"Why must sense of self arise on the basis of aggregates?" Well, the self is imputed in dependence on the aggregates, so they must be there for the arising of a sense of self. However, like the example of the chariot, the aggregates may be present without any sense of self - like in a spiritual insight, experience or realization.

There is a degree of fabrication that is inevitable, as I see it - the fabrication inherent to perception or knowing itself. Perhaps Buddhas are able of transcending it. Perhaps that's what is mean by the term "cessation", where one sees reality as it is because one sees nothing!

But the mental imputation that is done at the level of conceptuality can be overcome, by, logically and experientially, seeing through the conceptual net that fabricates and envelopes experience, reverting perception to its bare, or simplest, mode.
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John Tan
John Tan Yes André, the purpose is not so much of an answer but to trigger the mind to look seriously into it's own nature. The nature of mind in contrast to what we think isn't independent, self and changeless. It is as u observed, selfless, empty, this is, that is, this ceases that ceases.

I am not against Adviata as I too begin with it. The direct taste of pure Awareness is precious and invaluable except the idea of an ultimate ground is a true disservice and misleading. In fact the problem of all problems.

U mentioned:

"My first insight into the emptiness of consciousness arose when its fluidity was grokked. Consciousness, in order to know, must change and flux"

I sincerely hope this insight of urs already turned direct and unmediated.

In direct insight of anatta, when the illusion of an ultimate background (Self) disappears without remainder, knowingness is/are Forms.

When there is no background, everything turns foreground and pure knowingness (not intellect) in it's true state, is just colors, forms, lights, shapes, sound, taste, smell...Is mountains, stars, the fragrance of flower, is chipping bird, is everything.

Therefore Knowingness is always seen, touched and tasted; counter intuitively, what not seen are objects, what not seen are our ideas of what knowingness is when seen to b of true existence.

When things r seen to b truly existing, it creates a state of dual, everything becomes fuzzy as neither subject nor object can be found.

It is in this relative state dependent arising steps in to allow the mind to see dependencies and emptiness to free us from extremes.

May not be in line with ur thoughts but nice sharing.

I got to go.

Happy journey!
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