Thank you very much for sharing this.
For a very beginner, could please kindly advise how I should
come to experience and understand No-self, Emptiness and
Spontaneous Perfection? Where and how should I start? I need a
really concise practice to do so that I could have a glimpse
experience of it to understand it better. How did you start
understanding them?
I'm not the author of the article (the other moderator Thusness
is), I'm not quite sure if he is replying and I hope he is but just
giving some comments here...
If you are a Vajrayana practitioner... you can receive Mahamudra
and Dzogchen instructions from your teacher if they do teach
that.They are very effective practices for gaining realisation. I
don't know too much about other Vajrayana practices in general and
it depends on whether your guru wishes to teach that also.
The book 'Clarifying the Natural State' by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal,
a 14th century Mahamudra master, is also a good read.
What I can share here, is from the general perspective of
Vipassana (insight) practice. To practice Vipassana properly first
we have to have the establishment of the right views. We should
have the right view first, then the right path (practices) and then
fruition can result.
For example, our ordinary way of viewing ourselves and the world
is as solid entities, very dualistic. That means, I perceive myself
and the world as separate -- hence the duality of Subject and
Object. I am the agent, the experiencer, doer, of things. I am not
the sound -- the sound is 'out there' and I am the perceiver 'in
here', hence setting up a duality. And the things I see, hear, etc
have inherent existence. That is the way ordinary people view the
world and themselves -- dualistically and inherently.
Hence, we have to establish the right understanding of Dependent
Origination, of Emptiness and No-Self... then we should proceed
with a correct path, a practice, so that we can realise and
experience these truths ourselves.
This path should be a non-conceptual path -- which means the
practice is about bare attention, observing in direct experience
the nature of mind or reality... instead of through logical
analysis or conjecture. The nature of reality exhibits itself fully
in each moment of experience... whether we see it or not is another
matter.
Through Vipassana, we must feel the vivid clarity in all
manifestation, all experiences... through mindful awareness.
Whatever manifest is totally vivid, luminous and clear -- yet at
the same time ungraspable, empty, impermanent. With deep clarity we
are able to see through the apparent solidity of sensate reality to
perceive its arising and subsiding nature. We should bear in mind
the dharma seals while practicing Vipassana (such as impermanence,
suffering, no-self)... be mindful that this is the characteristic
of every experience.
We can also experience the no-self nature of each experience --
everything is happening on its own accord, sound/hearing is
happening on its own accord, seeing/sight is happening on its own
accord... same for thoughts, taste, smell, touch.... and there is
no observer or controller apart from that experience. So in the
Satipatthana Sutta we are taught to observe the sensation IN the
sensation -- that means each sensation are aware where they are,
without a separate self or observer apart from them... nor is there
any self or solidity in them -- for they are just sensations
arising and vanishing according to conditions, being dependently
arisen are empty of any inherent existence.
This is a good read for a beginner: http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe13.html
