Just the scenery

Jui SG

Hello everyone, seemed to have got a realization and since AEN asked me to share my experience, here's a long post starting from the first "sighting" of awareness. Any advice, admonishments, please do post a reply. Please definitely post if this realization is delusion in disguise. Thanks in advance!

I was originally just keeping bare attention on all sensations trying to see if there's a "self" anywhere. Somehow though, I experienced from time to time something underneath these sensations, a "something" (that I realised was what people referred to as awareness) that's seems to be receiving and acknowledging sensation.

This awareness eventually became felt as being switched on pretty much all the time. There's no getting away from it at all because it's always present. Essentially, if I had to say what I was, I was this awareness, and this awareness is constantly looking out into the world waiting to acknowledge all sensory input. Eventually there was another development where I realised everything experienced was in the here and now. Time and distance was only inferred through a series of experience via awareness rather than directly i.e. a string of "now"s and "here"s processed into time and distance. All past experiences can only be invoked from here and now.

Also at this point, the experience of awareness is something like this: "Aware of muscle tension", "Aware of the song of the birds", "Aware of the sound of the cars driving past". Essentially I was breaking things apart, where "awareness of this sensation" was not "awareness of that sensation".

The separation of an awareness "receiving" sensation was gradually removed starting from one day when my back started acting up while showering. I began to wonder "which part of being aware of the backache is not in being aware of water on skin?" And then, eventually it just became "There is just one awareness, and every sensation is in this awareness". Awareness encompasses the backache, as is the water on skin, the blinking, forming only one picture. The experience of "awareness receiving sensation" also became "awareness IS sensation", because there are no gaps at all separating the experiencer and the content of experience. Awareness has now become some kind of source where everything is the work of awareness.

Throughout the whole ordeal I had refused to believe in an actual source, an agent. There is no source in any form, so even if the experience tells me otherwise, there was no reason to believe it was true. So I begin looking at the question: "Is there an awareness outside of these sensations?" which led to this a few days back:

Without sensation, there is no awareness. Awareness is not a solid entity, rather it is like a quality of sensations, just like saying that water is wet. Which also explains why I have never experienced being aware of literally nothing. Even in the dead of the night I hear some kind of "low frequency noise" (hopely you all know what I mean here), even with my eyes closed I see blackness. Even while dreaming, awareness is there, if not it's impossible to recall dreams. Can't remember I've dreamt? That's ok, doesn't mean there was no dream and awareness wasn't present, it's not like liberated people will suddenly develop photographic memory and can remember every waking experience.

Sensations are always changing moment to moment, and thus awareness is changing moment by moment. Not a source, just a quality, forever changing. Everything happening is now seen as scenery, and life is just scenery after scenery playing now, becoming like a movie. A pretty great movie too!

Dharmadhatu SG

Very nice, thanks for sharing. You have a very clear style of writing too.

An Eternal Now SG

Great jui! Great work well done... and very nicely expressed.

simpo_ SG

Hi Jui,

Congrats :)

Thank you for sharing.

An Eternal Now SG

Thusness said your initial insight should complement with stability of experience.

I personally think it may be a good idea to spend time meditating and practicing. Vipassanic clarity in all six senses, and non-dual opening.

Jui SG

Nice, help me thank Thusness will you? :D

Can you explain practicing "vipassanic clarity in all six senses and non-dual opening"? Not quite sure of what is mean here. I was thinking that Thusness's advice pretty much meant that I should be meditating anyway, either sitting or just in active daily life.

An Eternal Now SG

Yes practice in both sitting and daily activities.

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.sg/2007/05/different-degrees-of-non-duality.html

1. Perception still lingers but there is a clear understanding that there is no-self apart from manifestation. Practice clarity from insight meditation will help. Clarity from all 6 doors – eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, consciousness.

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.sg/2008/01/ajahn-amaro-on-non-duality-and.html

Has always been so! Fearlessly and completely open up to forms, shapes, colors, sound, scent and so forth. No 'You', just that! :-)

http://www.sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/419870?page=1

Ck: john, how to practise vipassana in daily life?
Thusness: just observe every sensation.
Thusness: until one day u are able to experience "emptiness as form".
Thusness: then it becomes effortless.
Thusness: Truthz u cannot imagine the bliss when one clearly experiences that.
Thusness: but there is no point to over stress anything.
Thusness: :)
Ck: Thusness just observe every sensation... give me an eg?
Thusness: when u breath, u don't have to care what is the right way of breathing, whether u breath hard or soft, smooth or fine...just experience as much clarity as u can...just that experience...regardless of what it is like.
Thusness: same for all other experiences.
Ck: wot abt sound? hows it?
Thusness: when u hear, just the sound...the totality of the sound. There is no how but just to do away with all abitrary thoughts. Hear the sound as clear as u can be.
Ck: then wot abt thots?
Ck: thots r v sticky :(

Thusness: thoughts seldom arise if the practice is correct. If it arises, then not to chase after its meaning. Not to answer urself what it means, not to dwell in 'what'...then u will resort to just the moment of awareness.
Ck: when i try to be just openly aware, i notice that i jump from sense to sense
Ck: like one moment hearing, then touch, etc
Thusness: that is okie.
Thusness: our nature is so.
Ck: wots the rite way to do it
Thusness: don't think that u should concentrate.
Thusness: ur only duty is to sense with as much clarity as possible.
Ck: and for all the sensations, i dun dwell in the 'what'?
Thusness: ur mind is looking for a way, a method
Thusness: but what that is needed is only the clarity.
Thusness: however because our mind is so molded and affect by our habitual propensities, it becomes difficult what that is direct and simple.
Thusness: just stop asking 'how', 'what', 'why'.
Thusness: and submerge into the moment.
Thusness: and experience.
Thusness: i prefer u to describe.
Thusness: not to ask how, what, why, when, where and who.
Thusness: only this is necessary.
Ck: ok
Thusness: if u practice immediately, u will understand.
Thusness: if u entertain who, what, where, when and how, u create more propensities and dull ur own luminosity.

An Eternal Now SG

p.s. the practice of non-dual opening is my advise, though that was also Thusness’s advise for me.

An Eternal Now SG

Just a sharing:

Shobogenzo Kai-in-zanmai: [Note: three periods, ‘…’ , indicate omitted material]

The Buddha said:
Only of real dharmas is this body composed.
The moment of appearance is just the appearance of dharmas;
The moment of disappearance is just the disappearance of dharmas.
At the moment when these dharmas appear we do not speak of the appearance of self.
At the moment when these dharmas disappear we do not speak of the disappearance of self.
An instant before, an instant after: instant does not depend on instant;
A dharma before, a dharma after: dharma does not oppose dharma.
Just this is called samadhi, state like the sea.

The concrete moment of this “sea-like samadhi” is just a concrete moment “only of real dharmas,” and it is expression of the truth of “sole reliance on real dharmas.” This moment is said to be “this composed body.” The integrated form that is “composed” of “real dharmas,” is “this body.” We do not see “this body” as “an integrated form”: real dharmas compose it. This composed body has been expressed as the truth as “this body.”

“The moment of appearance is just the appearance of dharmas.” This “appearance of dharmas” never leaves “appearance” trailing behind.
…
“Appearance” is inevitably a concrete “moment” having arrived; for “the moment” is “appearance.”
…
It is “appearance” that is itself already a “moment,” and it never fails to disclose the naked skin, flesh, bones, and marrow.

Pegembara SG

Sensations are always changing moment to moment, and thus awareness is changing moment by moment. Not a source, just a quality, forever changing. Everything happening is now seen as scenery, and life is just scenery after scenery playing now, becoming like a movie. A pretty great movie too!

Sadhu.

"Now suppose that a magician or magician's apprentice were to display a magic trick at a major intersection, and a man with good eyesight were to see it, observe it, & appropriately examine it. To him — seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it — it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in a magic trick? In the same way, a monk sees, observes, & appropriately examines any consciousness that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near. To him — seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it — it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in consciousness?"Seeing thus, the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones grows disenchanted with form, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with perception, disenchanted with fabrications, disenchanted with consciousness. Disenchanted, he grows dispassionate. Through dispassion, he's released. With release there's the knowledge, 'Released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'

An Eternal Now SG

Hi Pegembara, what you quoted is on Sunyata, but Jui is expressing his initial insight into anatta.

That means his experience is still resting on the first two points of this: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.sg/2012/06/advise-for-taiyaki.html

As Thusness pointed out to you here http://sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/424358?page=2

There are 2 additional points that I think are important:

1. Anatta is not Sunyata

2. Although whatever arises is empty of inherent essence, it must also be understood that it is vividly clear, present and luminous. The passing scent, the taste, the scenery, the arising sound, the arising thought...these magical appearances are themselves primordially pure, they are the Dharmakaya.

Just my 2 cents.

Jui SG

...And more things to read. Haha!

It's been slightly more than a week since the realization, and I realised that it's actually possible to not do anything with it, i.e. still act dysfunctionally/selfishly/dick-ishly, just that now that there's much greater clarity that the dysfunctional momentum doesn't get too far before it's stopped. Old habits die hard I suppose. There's so much work left to do.

An Eternal Now SG

Yes. It is a gradual process, it may be good to revisit some of the posts and advises by Thusness in this forum from October 2010 onwards, as those advises are relevant for me after the initial insight, and should also be relevant for you as well.

He also discussed about how to remove the remaining fetters.

An Eternal Now SG

This article is also good and prevents one from falling into certain pitfalls: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.sg/2011/08/disease-of-non-conceptuality.html

An Eternal Now SG

Tommy McNally writes quite well and also talked about the body-mind drop off that I told you that day:

Westchinago SG

emei 4 faced buddha