The path of anatta and emptiness is truly the path of total
uncontrivance. Isn't it so? If in our mind we have an image of what
awareness, or what our practice should be like, there will be
contrivance -- trying to get back to a supposed inherent space of
awareness, background, etc, or what we think awareness is or should
be based on a captured memory -- we will unconsciously contrive to
get back to a 'state', except we don't see it as a state, we don't
see the contrivance involved -- we see it as inherently existing
changeless Self -- inherently so.
In anatta, truly there is zero movement -- the zero movement is
not to rest in a state of immutable 'Being' which is still a form
of grasping and caging of clarity. The zero movement is from not
moving a step away from the spontaneous manifestation of
transience, not holding back, no essence or substance hiding
anywhere. Because there is absolutely no changeless self/Self
behind anything, there is absolutely no fixed manner
awareness/experience is, everything is absolutely fluid and
vanishing and there is constant renewal. Every moment is utterly
new and completely unpredictable, therefore naturally there is
resting in the unpredictable spontaneity of
appearance/manifestation/activity rather than with something
familiar -- holding back to something familiar is merely clinging
to a reification based on memory. We don't fixate on something
transcending waking, dream and deep sleep, we simply let waking be
waking, dream be dream, deep sleep be deep sleep, in its actual
condition or luminous-wisdom-display. The qualities of deep and
intense clarity, transparency, bliss, naturally manifest without
contrivance in spontaneous manifestation without any trace of
self/Self. If we try to contrive a state of clarity, if we try to
contrive the spaciousness, the transparency, the bliss, that won't
do -- we are merely caging clarity, holding back to a self.
And we don't let the luminous-wisdom-display blind us from
afflictive dependent origination. What is this karmic propensities?
It is really just your very face -- experience -- as it is! There
is nothing beyond, behind, or within karmic propensities -- the
very delusionally shaped experience. It's like seeing those picture
puzzles, at first it seems like black random shapes, yes? And then
suddenly you saw "aha! there's a cow in there" and from then on,
you cannot unsee that cow anymore. It's no longer black random
shapes, there's clearly a cow very prominently shown in the
picture. Now, this analogy has been used as representing
'awakening' -- a sudden shift of perception from ignorance to
wisdom, seeing things as it is. However, this analogy is also
perfect for the total exertion of karmic propensities. Whereas
previously you see a rope, suddenly rope becomes 'meaningful', now
you see it as a snake, and it seemingly can't be unseen. Your
mental conditioning has shaped the way you perceive and experience
those 'black, random colours' into something truly solid and
inherently existing in a certain manner. It is a magical 'creation'
of a new experiential reality, the total exertion of our mental
conditioning. That is like our delusional vision of self and
inherent existence. It is our very experience itself shaped by
karmic propensities into our very apparent reality. That is how
delusion and karmic propensities manifest in our experience --
there is nothing hiding behind our experience influencing
experience (some people may believe there is a hidden
'subconscious' pulling the strings on experience) or inside the
very delusional appearance -- and just that is the total exertion
of our afflicted conditionings. And this is no different from
emptiness of self, the subject, where it is seen there is no
inherent self/awareness/subject behind or within or beyond the very
manifestation... but emptiness of self can be applied to all other
things including 'karmic propensities'.
And likewise there is nothing behind, beyond, nor arising,
abiding, and ceasing in the pure luminous-wisdom-display of our
pure sensory experience. All things are ultimately empty of
inherent existence, or real arising, and simultaneously its
emptiness of inherent existence allows us to see its conventional
reality that is the total exertion of all conditions. The two
truths are inseparable, what dependently originates is
fundamentally non-arising, and the emptiness of something reveals
its conventional reality. When we have the view of the
inseparability of two truths, to see the total exertion of
appearance is also to see its non-arising, to see its fundamental
non-arising is to see the very appearance as mere appearance of
total exertion without anything created or existing
behind/beyond/within the appearance. Though sometimes we skew
towards one side of the two truths.