Certainty of Being

last SG · 2010-04-21T15:16:13+00:00

If you find out what is a non conceptual thought, what is the essence of the mind at rest, it may be revealed that it is that same powerful presence and cert...

An Eternal Now SG

On the contrary, Richard says that everybody has had PCEs some point in their lives before.

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Richard: A PCE is when one’s sense of identity temporarily vacates the throne and apperception occurs. Apperception is the mind’s perception of itself … it is a pure awareness . Normally the mind perceives through the senses and sorts the data received according to its predilection; but the mind itself remains unperceived ... it is taken to be unknowable. Apperception is when the ‘thinker’ and the ‘feeler’ is not and an unmediated awareness occurs. The pure consciousness experience is as if one has eyes in the back of one’s head; there is a three hundred and sixty degree awareness and all is self-evidently clear.

This is knowing by direct experience, unmoderated by any ‘self’ whatsoever. One is able to see that ‘I’ and ‘me’ have been standing in the way of the perfection and purity that is the essential character of this moment of being here becoming apparent. Here a solid and irrefutable native intelligence can operate freely because the ‘thinker’ and the ‘feeler’ is in abeyance. One is the universe ’s experience of itself as a human being ... after all, the very stuff this body is made of is the very stuff of the universe. There is no ‘outside’ to the perfection of the universe to come from; one only thought and felt that one was a separate identity.

Apperception is something that brings the facticity born out of a direct experience of the actual . Then what one is (‘what’ not ‘who’) is these sense organs in operation: this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me. Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for ‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world – the world as-it-is – by ‘my’ very presence.

To get out of stuckness and induce a Pure Consciousness Experience one gets off one’s backside and does whatever one knows best to activate delight. From the position of delight, one can vitalize one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all ... and then one can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being alive. Then one is no longer intellectually making sense of life ... the wonder of it all drives all intellectual sense away. Such delicious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté (which is the closest one can get to innocence ) the nourishing of which is essential if the charm of it all is to occur. Then, as one stares intently at the world about by glancing lightly with caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is ... and I am the experiencing of what is happening. But try not to possess it and make it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared.

When one remembers a PCE – or precipitates another – then one is well on the way to freedom ... this is what actualism is all about. Scattered along the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom are as many PCEs as one may need ... repeated peak experiences may very well be brought about on maybe a daily basis with constant application of reflective and fascinated contemplation . In such pure contemplation, ‘I’ cease seeing and seeing takes place of its own accord. ‘I’ can never be here now in this actual world for ‘I’ am an interloper, an alien in psychic possession of the body. ‘I’ do not belong here.

All this is impossible to imagine which is why it is essential to be confident that the actual world does exist. This confidence is born out of knowing, which is derived from the PCE, and is an essential ingredient to ensure success. One does not have to generate confidence oneself – as the religions require of one with regard to their blind faith – the purity of the actual world bestows this confidence upon one. The experience of purity is a benefaction. Out of this blessing comes pure intent, which will consistently guide one through daily life, gently ushering in an increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more self-less. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric. Eventually the moment comes wherein something definitive happens, physically, inside the brain and ‘I’ am nevermore.

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RICHARD: As a generalisation, pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) are more prevalent in childhood and the memory is tucked away in an area of the brain not normally accessed. Because a PCE has no emotional/ passional qualities whatsoever – there is no affective being present to record the memory in its affective memory banks – it cannot be remembered in the normal way (reverie, reminiscence, nostalgia, and so on).

Also, ‘I’ can have a vested interest in disremembering a PCE as it could very well be the beginning of the end of ‘me’.

Mostly PCE’s happen for no demonstrable reason at all – as in being a serendipitous event – and quite often occur in everyday surroundings doing everyday things such as washing the dishes (for instance) and can be quite brief ... I can recall being on a farmhouse veranda at age eight, looking into the glistening white of a full glass of milk in the early morning sunshine, when it happened for the entity within.

Often in my early childhood there would be a ‘slippage’ of the brain, somewhat analogous to an automatic transmission changing into a higher gear too soon, and the magical world where time had no workaday meaning would emerge in all its sparkling wonder ... where I could wander for hours at a time in gay abandon with whatever was happening.

They were the pre-school years: soon such experiences would occur of a weekend ... so much so that I would later on call them ‘Saturday Morning’ experiences where, contrary to having to be dragged out of bed during the week, I would be up and about at first light, traipsing through the fields and the forests with the early morning rays of sunshine dancing their magic on the glistening dew-drops suspended from the greenery everywhere; where kookaburras are echoing their laughing-like calls to one another and magpies are warbling their liquid sounds; where an abundance of aromas and scents are drifting fragrantly all about; where every pore of the skin is being caressed by the friendly ambience of the balmy air; where benevolence and benignity streams endlessly bathing all in its impeccable integrity.

This magical world is what occasions me to write like this:

• [Richard]: ‘When one walks naked (sans ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) in the infinitude of this actual universe there is the direct experiencing that there is something precious in living itself. Something beyond compare. Something more valuable than any ‘King’s Ransom’. It is not rare gemstones; it is not singular works of art; it is not the much-prized bags of money; it is not the treasured loving relationships; it is not the highly esteemed blissful and rapturous ‘States Of Being’ ... it is not any of these things usually considered precious. There is something ultimately precious that makes the ‘sacred’ a mere bauble.
It is the essential character of the infinitude of the universe – which is the life-giving foundation of all that is apparent – as a physical actuality. The limpid and lucid purity and perfection of actually being just here at this place in infinite space right now at this moment in eternal time is akin to the crystalline perfection and purity seen in a dew-drop hanging from the tip of a leaf in the early-morning sunshine; the sunrise strikes the transparent bead of moisture with its warming rays, highlighting the flawless correctness of the tear-drop shape with its bellied form. One is left almost breathless with wonder at the immaculate simplicity so exemplified ... and everyone I have spoken with at length has experienced this impeccable integrity and excellence in some way or another at varying stages in their life.
This preciosity is what one is as-one-is – me as I am in actuality as distinct from ‘me’ as ‘I’ am in reality – for one is the universe’s experience of itself’.

An Eternal Now SG

Experience, Realization, and View

Our paradigm, view, insights, experiences, affect our every moment perception of life, self, the universe. Speaking from experience, this is what a seeker might go through:

Duality

Generally every normal non-spiritual person sees himself as a subject, self, perceiver, doer, which is a psychic entity conceived as locating inside the body - be it inside the head behind the eyes or in the heart or some other locations.

This conceived psychic entity causes a sense of alienation as 'I' am inside my body, looking outwards at the world through my eyes, ears, etc. I am self-contracted, separated from the world out there, and so experience is divided into 'inner' and 'outer'. Reality consists of three components: I, the seer, sees the world out there. (Seer, seeing, seen) I, the doer, does the deed (Doer, doing, done). All these actions, and perceptions, are felt to have occured by virtue of this psychic entity residing inside my body, which I call Me.

This mentally conceived sense of alienation from a separate objective world resulting from the perceived existence of a separate self and psychic entity residing within this body-mind results in all manners of passionate feelings such as fear, anger, craving, malice, sorrow, and all forms of destructive undertakings endemic in our world: war, murder, torture, rape, domestic violence, corruption and so on.

Basically it comes down to this: craving (craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, and craving for extermination), which arises due to the view of there being an inherently existing self alienated from the world, whereby the self must always get away from unpleasant experiences and chase after pleasant experiences, in search for happiness and the attenuation of suffering, not knowing this process of craving is precisely what causes suffering.

Self-Realization, Partial Duality

By the practice of contemplating on the Source of experiencing ("Who am I?", "Who is the Source?"), we trace the radiance back to the essence of mind-consciousness. At the moment where the seeker reaches the pinnacle of his self-inquiry, one has a non-dual, non-conceptual, direct, immediate perception of the self-luminosity of mind's Presence. The self-felt certainty arising from the non-dual, non-conceptual, direct, immediate mode of perception (NDNCDIMOP) of mind's luminosity leads to a self-felt certainty that results in utter conviction of having touched the essence of being and existence. As all doubts pertaining to the nature of one's identity can no longer linger, one's self-inquiry into 'Who am I' comes to a closing conclusion. Being absolutely intimate as a sheer sense of Presence, Beingness, and Existence, shining in plain view prior to conceptual sullying, it is nevertheless immediately reified due to the paradigm and view of duality and inherency, even though in itself it is a non-dual perception.

What it is reified into is a grander entity than the psychic entity conceived as locating in the body as previously conceived. Though the psychic entity located inside the body, aka. the ego, is now being released through seeing the falsity of a personal self, the Identity remains intact at large, now expanding to become a Metaphysical entity transcending space and time, the grand, impersonal, and universal Self that is birthless and deathless. Due to the view of duality still largely being intact - Presence and Awareness is also seen as the Eternal Witness, an impartial and unchanging watcher of all phenomena that passes. 'I' am God, the ground of being, the source of all animate and inanimate objects, the universal consciousness underlying all my manifestations which comes and goes like waves in the ocean of Being.

All along not knowing that what they have realized is simply an aspect of luminosity pertaining to non-conceptual thought, a manifestation of mind-cognizance, and is as such nothing ultimate or special (as compared to any other manifestations).

Non-Duality

Via the contemplation into the absence of a separate self or the seamlessness of awareness and its contents, a direct and experiential realization that the subject-object separation and dichotomy is illusory arises. Everything is experienced at zero-distance in the absence of the bond of dualistic psychic construct.

Nevertheless at the beginning, as the insight of non-duality arises but not the insight into no-inherency, one ends up falling into:

Substantial Non-duality

- subject-object dichotomy collapses, and is subsumed, into inherent oneness

- due to the view of inherency (that reality must have 'existence' located somewhere and somewhen, even if it is Here and Now), the vivid 'realness' of non-dual luminosity is being treated as something Absolute, as having inherent, independent and unchanging existence, and is being reified into Noumenon (in contrast to illusory phenomenon), and as being the ultimate non-dual Self

- the intimacy experienced via the collapse of subject-object dichotomy is being referenced to a grandiose all-pervasive Self ("I am Everywhere and I am Everything")

- all phenomena are seen to be illusory projections of a single underlying source, such that all phenomena are self-expressions of the single nature of Awareness, as depicted by the analogy of the mirror and its reflections - reflections as such do not have an objective, independent existence outside the mirror - and in fact only the Mirror is seen to have absolute, independent, inherent existence - only the Mirror is Real, and the appearances are only Real as the Mirror

- appearances are inseparable from the Source, and yet the Source is independent of appearances

Insubstantial Non-duality

- also known as the arising insight into anatta, it is seen that seeing, cognizing, awareness is precisely and only what is seen, heard, tasted, touched, manifesting

- the intimacy experienced via the lack of separation has no frame of reference due to the lack of something inherent - in the seeing is just the seen, in the hearing is just the heard, there is no True Self of any sorts - the world only references itself without an agent

- there is no grandiose, universal consciousness, only individual bodies and mindstreams interacting with each other due to interdependent origination, without any conceived 'underlying oneness behind multiplicity' - absolutely no identity remains, even the notion that "I am you and you are me" is seen as absurd

- there is no such thing as 'seamlessness of awareness and contents' or 'inseperability of awareness and its contents' - for awareness IS the process and activities of cognizance only, there is no such thing as 'awareness + its contents'

- seeing, cognizing, awaring never exists as nouns pointing to a noumenon but as verbs collating various activities of cognizance - what is seen, heard, taste, touch, are activities manifesting on its own accord with the presence of requisite conditions and factors via interdependent origination, without an agent, perceiver, controller, doer

- further penetration into anatta reveals that all phenomena are disjoint, unsupported, unlinked, bubble-like, insubstantial, dream-like, and self-releasing - there is absolutely nothing, not even an Awareness that underlies two thoughts, two manifestations - in fact there is not even two thoughts as such, just this thought, which spontaneously self-releases upon inception leaving absolutely no traces

- there is absolutely no collapsing of subject-object dichotomy into a base existing somewhere, even as a Here/Now - there is no linking base or source at all, only the experience of dispersed-out and de-linked multiplicity

- all manifestations are intrinstically luminous and vivid yet insubstantial and vanishes without a trace upon inception like drawing pictures on water manifests vivid appearances that does not leave trace - no existence of any sorts can leave traces when reality is a dream-like process with no inherent existence, like an illusion but not an illusion

Almond Cookies SG

On the contrary, Richard says that everybody has had PCEs some point in their lives before.

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Also, ‘I’ can have a vested interest in disremembering a PCE as it could very well be the beginning of the end of ‘me’.

This magical world is what occasions me to write like this:

Pls explain in clearer simpler layman terms.

No offense to you though.

Almond Cookies SG

I have a feedback.

I do worry about the people who visited your blog.

They might get confused.

Please also use simpler and layman terms in your blog and keep everything simple.

I went to your blog and find It too chim and advanced.

An Eternal Now SG

Pls explain in clearer simpler layman terms.

No offense to you though.

Ok.

PCE: Pure Consciousness Experience.

What it means: Suddenly, the sense of self dissolves. For a moment you don't feel like 'You' are a self inside your body, looking outwards at the world, through your eyes. For a moment, 'You' go into abeyance - 'You' dissolve.

Suddenly it is like seeing, hearing takes place on its own accord - the tree being seen is itself the seeing. There is no distance between a seer and seen, because there is no conceived seer at that moment, so there is absolute intimacy with everything. Everything is experienced as being alive and wonderful.

Who has it: everybody has it, but most people had it in childhood, and have forgotten. Due to the lack of emotions and feelings in a PCE event that can be easily registered in memory, you may have a hard time remembering it. But if you try to recall you may suddenly remember.

Note: PCE is not realization of Anatta. It is a temporary peak experience.

Almond Cookies SG

Ok.

PCE: Pure Consciousness Experience.

Note: PCE is not realization of Anatta. It is a temporary peak experience.

Yes. I got this experience. I looked at a tree. There was only the image of tree nothing else and no observer looking at It.

It's a short experience. The sense of self quickly returns.

The experience abt a few seconds.

An Eternal Now SG

Yes. I got this experience. I looked at a tree. There was only the image of tree nothing else and no observer looking at It.

It's a short experience. The sense of self quickly returns.

The experience abt a few seconds.

Ah.. that's great. When did that happen? Were you practicing something? Or did it just happened?

An Eternal Now SG

It is important to remember a PCE.

Richard:

Almond Cookies SG

It is important to remember a PCE.

Richard:

A few years ago in a park.

An Eternal Now SG

A few years ago in a park.

Great. Your case is very similar to mine. My first PCE was also with a tree... lol. I was sixteen then, about five years ago.

Almond Cookies SG

Great. Your case is very similar to mine. My first PCE was also with a tree... lol. I was sixteen then, about five years ago.

Oh.

An Eternal Now SG

Which Path Should I Choose?

I am often asked what practice suits them. Theravada, Advaita, Zen, Tibetan, self-inquiry, direct path, gradual path, direct contemplation, vipassana, it's all so confusing. How do they know which path to take?

My answer is, basically, discern for yourself (or if you meet a master or teacher who can advise you that'll be helpful too).

For me, I chose to go through the path to realize I AM... as I am influenced by Advaita, Zen, etc. If you are influenced by Zen, Advaita, etc, I will recommend self-inquiry to you. But self-inquiry is not suitable for all and sundry: it depends on the person's inclinations.

If you are strictly Theravada you might not be interested. However Kenneth Folk is an exception and is a mix of various traditions: Theravada, Zen, Advaita, Tibetan, etc.

Direct path, self inquiry, all feels right to me... as in it resonates with me. Its more interesting than entering many many stages of nanas and jhanas, that's why I practiced it - the path that stresses on the Immediate truth rather than gradual development. After self-realization I switched to direct contemplation on non-dual and anatta (e.g. Bahiya Sutta style contemplation).

Almond Cookies SG

My answer is, basically, discern for yourself (or if you meet a master or teacher who can advise you that'll be helpful too).

If you are strictly Theravada you might not be interested. However Kenneth Folk is an exception and is a mix of various traditions: Theravada, Zen, Advaita, Tibetan, etc.

Direct path, self inquiry, all feels right to me... as in it resonates with me. Its more interesting than entering many many stages of nanas and jhanas, that's why i practiced it - the path that stresses on the Immediate truth rather than gradual development. After self-realization I switched to direct contemplation on non-dual and anatta (e.g. Bahiya Sutta style contemplation).

I am deeply attracted to the koan sound of one hand clap.

So maybe zen school.

seeker8 SG

Message by AEN

To seeker: sorry no advertising of Dhammakaya materials are allowed in this forum. See our rules and regulations.

As I wrote in reply to your other post,

Sorry, this forum does not recognise the organisation of Wat Dhammakaya and its teachings.

Dhammakaya teaches visualisation and mistaken certain accomplishment of their visualization with true realization and liberation.

An Eternal Now SG

See http://www.buddhismaustralia.org/cults.htm

An Eternal Now SG

Scenery delighting scenery.

Music enjoying music.

I am not a spiritual being having a human experience.

But the universe experiencing itself as a human being.

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Finger types, sound hears.

Finger stops typing, sound stops hearing.

An intrically interconnected and impersonal process is what the universe is.

An Eternal Now SG

The Non-contingent Joy Not Born Out of Stimulus

Participant 1: How would you convince someone about the visible fruits of the Buddhist practice here and now?

Me: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.02.0.than.html

Participant 1: Hmm I'm thinking of something more relevant to a westerner lol, they would be sceptical about super powers etc. Furthermore, how to convince a westerner that it is possible to transcend suffering? Where does suffering come from?

Me: Supernatural powers are only a small part of the visible fruits mentioned in the sutta

Participant 1: Ya but I don't want to give him a sutta to read.

Me: You can summarise the sutta. Suffering arises due to ignorance, attachments and cravings.

Participant 1: From this notion of a self right? From a subject-object dichotomy.

Me: Yes but not just subject-object dichotomy. Various forms of attachment to self.

Participant 1: Such as?

Me: Duality is part of the sense of self. It is removed in Thusness Stage 4. At Thusness Stage 5 realization of Anatta, the 'I' agent is gone. But the 'mine' attachment lingers. There are many degrees of attachment to 'I'.

Participant 1: Hmm but, for westerners who enjoy sense pleasures, how would you convince them?

Me: Every pleasure deriving from sensual stimulus is impermanent and thus ultimately unsatisfactory. However there is a joy that does not depend on the senses. It does not come from sensory stimulus. It does fade with the absence of sensory stimulus. In fact, speaking from experience, you can experience deep joy and equanimity even if your body is experiencing very unpleasant sensations. By tranquilising bodily and mental formations, giving rise to bliss and joy, centering the mind in samadhi, one is able to overcome all bodily hindrances and experience deep clarity, joy and equanimity even in the midst of unpleasantness. You will not experience aversion to life, and a non-contingent joy manifests. A non-contingent perfection and purity lies right there even in the midst of pleasant/unpleasant sensations.

Joy that arise non-contingent on senses is the joy arising from abandonment. When you abandon the body, the mind, and the self, joy naturally arises. This can happen via two ways. Either via opening, though that is more for insight practitioners after certain realization like anatta, or it is via absorption like the practice of jhanas. When you practice insight meditation in daily life, you experience joy and delight even in ordinary seeing and hearing in mundane activities.

But it is not joy born out of sensory stimulus. For if that were the case, the joy would be contingent and unsatisfactory. Rather, it is the joy arising when you drop your self and simply immerse in direct experience.

Participant 1: Why are we reborn after realizing not-self?

Me: We are reborn due to latent tendencies. When you overcome sensual attachments, cravings and aversions, you no longer have the cause for rebirth in the sensual realms. That is the anagami level. If you overcome even subtle cravings for jhanic existence, then you have destroyed the cause of birth even in these subtler realms.

An Eternal Now SG

Just had a conversation with Thusness yesterday and he allowed me to post it in my e-book after he helped me edited a little.

The Magic of Empty Luminosity

Thusness: the songs (in luminousemptiness.blogspot.com) are truly enlightening.

Thusness: When we see the mind’s nature, there is nothing to hold. As there is nothing unchanging to ground. Phenomena is itself mind, so how is ‘mind’ unchanging? The purpose of the realization is to realize that all is mind.

Me: When I was reading this article and his commentaries “Reflections on Niguma - Vajra Verses of Self-Liberating Mahamudra – Reflections” ( http://luminousemptiness.blogspot.com/2008/11/niguma-vajra-verses-of-self-liberating.html ) … and it suddenly clicked, and I was amazed at how the thoughts are magical appearances without location, origin and destination, or arising and ceasing, or abidance…

Thusness: from sound, taste to phenomena

Me: And everything… thoughts and everything else are just like unreal, though vivid. Yeah, it’s like… all are just mind’s illusions, and mind is located nowhere.

Thusness: No, all is mind, not mind’s illusion.

Me: Sorry yeah that’s what I meant… mind is itself the appearance which are like illusions.

Thusness: The purpose of no-mind is to realize that all is mind so that we can experience mind directly, otherwise how is sound, taste, and all phenomena, mind? Therefore when we see thoughts and observe its whereabout, its origination, we see it all has the same nature… we then realize, it is mind. The five aggregates all share the same taste.

Me: Same nature = emptiness?

Thusness: Yeah.

Me: I see. Yeah… it is mind, cos they are all luminous appearances without an iota of objective reality.

Thusness: Behind and in front, in and out… we see nothing, find nothing, and locate nothing… yet vividly present, luminous and clear… always only empty phenomena. All is ever so magical and releasing. J When we see substantiality in Awareness, what is seen is illusion. For there is nothing graspable, locatable, findable. How is ‘unchangingness’ possible? Therefore the quintessence is to realize the empty nature of whatever arises and rest upon nothing. Mind uncontrieved is the true essence of practice.

Me: Yeah, nothing whatsoever, even Awareness can be found… and on the 2^nd blog post I read “Reflections on Niguma - Vajra Verses of Self-Liberating Mahamudra – Reflections” ( http://luminousemptiness.blogspot.com/2008/11/niguma-vajra-verses-of-self-liberating.html ), and just really read it through (with some investigation and contemplation), I didn’t really spent too much time trying to figure it out… I read carefully, investigated the origin, place of abidance, and destination of thoughts, and it just occurred to me that thought is a magical appearance. Then, I spent the next few days reading all his blog posts… all the way back to late 2007. I haven’t read his 2004-early 2007 entries. I think all his stuff are great.

Thusness: Yes. What you have not realized in the past is ‘magical’.

Me: Yeah, out of nowhere, in nowhere, going nowhere, yet vivid and apparently real.

Thusness: The key is in dwelling in the “magic” of the natural state J

Me: I see…

Thusness: Then there will be true wonder as you always ‘wrote’ :P lol

Me: What do you mean?

Thusness: You have been writing about ‘wonder and presence and beautiful’ about manifestation. What is the difference with what you realized?

Me: Previously, it was about the wonder, presence, and beauty of vivid presence and awareness as transience. Now, it is about wonder about the magical nature of presence as vivid and empty.

Thusness: It means how marvellous is the functioning… as manifesting, ‘real’, yet illusory. Empty luminosity.

Me: Yeah.

Thusness: Now when anger arise, it is a magical display. It is this ‘magic’ that is releasing. If you cannot understand, then there will be staying and attachment. There is nothing dull in releasing.

Me: I see…

Thusness: Describe how you feel about this realization?

Me: When I saw that… I was amazed, marvelled, and felt very blissful… but then soon later a deep compassion arose, cos someone burnt an ant with his lighter... and I was like, so the universe is unreal and sentient beings are a magical appearance... yet compassion has to arise... without a subject or object... it’s part of the magical display.

Thusness: No. You should not say it is ‘unreal yet’.

Me: It’s not unreal, as it is clearly and vividly manifesting, yet not really out there.

Thusness: When you say it is not really out there, it is always not true… then, you are subsuming all as One. It is not really out there, yet nothing in here. It is just the nature. You do not subsume anything into One.

Me: Yes… there is nothing in here as well. There is always only a display of magical luminous apparition… there is nothing out there, as in there is no core to things, apart from the mere appearance.

Thusness: Yes. When we talk about the magical display, it is about the ‘functioning’, it is not about subsuming anything.

Me: I see… Yeah it’s not about subsuming, it’s more about… thoughts and all sensory experiences cannot be found anywhere, cannot be located in anywhere, yet amazingly ‘it’ appears…

Thusness: Yes… only the nature and essence of whatever arises. Not to collapse all into this mind and all external phenomena as appearances. That would be wrong understanding.

Me: Hmm… but Mahamudra talks about that right?

Thusness: Not exactly sure.

Me: I mean they talk about all as mind. I think it’s ok to say all is mind, except it is not One Mind, not a cosmic mind, but an individual mindstream.

Thusness: Yes.

Me: I think we can exchange ‘mind’ with ‘experience’… all are mere luminous experience/apparition.

Thusness: Yes. There is only experience.

Me: I see… oh by the way, I just suddenly remembered something Namdrol said about realizing emptiness, though I can’t remember exactly what it was that he said, I just found the quote:

At base, the main fetter of self-grasping is predicated upon naive reification of existence and non-existence. Dependent origination is what allows us to see into the non-arising nature of dependently originated phenomena, i.e. the self-nature of our aggregates. Thus, right view is the direct seeing, in meditative equipoise, of this this non-arising nature of all phenomena. As such, it is not a "view" in the sense that is something we hold as concept, it is rather a wisdom which "flows" into our post-equipoise and causes us to truly perceive the world in the following way in Nagarjuna's Bodhicittavivarana:

"Form is similar to a foam,
Feeling is like water bubbles,
Ideation is equivalent with a mirage,
Formations are similar with a banana tree,
Consciousness is like an illusion."

...

"In other words, right view is the beginning of the noble path. It is certainly the case that dependent origination is "correct view"; when one analyzes a bit deeper, one discovers that in the case "view" means being free from views. The teaching of dependent origination is what permits this freedom f
views. The teaching of dependent origination is what permits this freedom from views."

Thusness: The real purpose is the ‘freedom’ from ‘inherent’ view and then releases itself from any forming of ‘views’ so that the magic of functioning can be realized and directly experienced. However during the journey, there is always attachment here and there… therefore the ‘emptying of emptiness’. We go through step by step in dissolving the knot of ‘inherency’ till we see that ‘mind’ is the full embodiment of the immediate marvelous activity. Just eating, seeing, sensing, tasting, thinking...simply sound, thoughts, scenery and scents. Nothing within and without, only this spontaneous miraculous functioning, an interplay of dharma. When we entertain conceptual knowledge and seek unchanging Awareness or Self, the marvelous ‘interconnectedness’ of functioning is being misunderstood as ‘something’ being transformed into ‘something’ as if ‘winter’ has been transformed into ‘spring’.

It is also important to take note not to ascribe the functioning to a ‘higher’ power. That is because of ‘a thought of personality’ that creates the confusion. If there is no attachment to a self, identity, personality, then the functioning itself is marvellous without reification, or any form of personification.

Also, to truly get into this ‘magic’ of functioning, the doing away of the ‘how’ is also important. It arises when we penetrate and look deeply the where-about of anything. Just magical appearances.

Me: Yeah… Now, I realize my practice sort of switched a lot into penetrating and looking deeply into the non locality of everything… it’s like what Buddha taught in Phena Sutta, “That's the way it goes: it's a magic trick, an idiot's babbling. It's said to be a murderer.[1] No substance here is found. Thus a monk, persistence aroused, should view the aggregates by day & by night, mindful, alert; should discard all fetters; should make himself his own refuge; should live as if his head were on fire — in hopes of the state with no falling away.”

Thusness: Yes, until the mind becomes uncontrived and groundless. If we stay on with the Self, unchanging awareness, we will not be able to realize the essence in the teachings of emptiness. The purpose is not to get attached to the ‘non-inherent’ view either.

Me: Yeah, it’s like what Namdrol said,

As such, it is not a "view" in the sense that is something we hold as concept, it is rather a wisdom which "flows" into our post-equipoise and causes us to truly perceive the world in the following way in Nagarjuna's Bodhicittavivarana:

"Form is similar to a foam,
Feeling is like water bubbles,
Ideation is equivalent with a mirage,
Formations are similar with a banana tree,
Consciousness is like an illusion."

Thusness: It is to completely dissolve all ‘inherent’ view so that we can realize and experience directly, the magic of empty luminosity.

An Eternal Now SG

The Magic of Luminous Emptiness

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