A new article by our moderator Longchen:
http://www.dreamdatum.com/new-phase.html
It's been a while since I wrote the last article of this series.
There are some new changes to my state of being. I will attempt to
document them here.
Essentially, at this stage, I am beginning to experience the
benefits of Enlightenment. It is a new phase but it is not the end.
In fact, this phase simply marks the beginning of establishing
non-duality into more tricky areas of life. It is just the
beginning and many more challenges lie ahead.
Life as we know it, is extremely complex and varied in its
manifestations. The 'Sense of self' overrides non-dual recognition
most of the time and very very easily. It is an unconscious and
automatic way of relating and dealing with life's
complexities.
Initially, we establish non-dual awareness in the easier areas of
life. This is mainly in the solitary based activities. They include
activities such as walking, eating, seeing and sitting. During
these non-dual moments, there is only the act of doing the
activities without the feeling of volition. There is a luminous and
spacious quality to them.
In this new phase, one is better able to 'maintain' non-dual
awareness in other types of activities. The nondual recognition can
be felt better amidst more complex activities. Life experience
begins to take on a new way of seeing. It feels like life
experience merely is, without seeing it through the sense of self.
This is not an accurate translation but is the closest that I can
think of. Viewing life through a 'sense of self' is different from
that of experience via non-dual mode.
In dualistic experience, we tend to 'zoom' into what we see or
percieve (with our senses) and immediately label certain portion of
perceptions (including thought imageries) as 'objects' or 'subjects
of attention'. In another word, we think that what we percieved as
objects and 'point of attention' are self-existing objects,
concepts or entities. The sense of self then arises to try to
modify what is being 'labelled'. This creates the tension that is
being felt at the bodily level, giving rise to the experience of
discomfort. Once we have come to this point, non-duality will not
be felt in real-time.
One point that I have observed: Non-dual awareness is more easily
felt in an open space environment than in a enclosed one. This
should not be the case, but it is. By right, there shouldn't be a
difference at all as non-duality is the basis of reality. However,
our mind is so used to cogniting dualistically that dualistic
labelling is occuring in an unknowing manner. In an open space
environment, the mind is aligned to the spacious nature of Non-dual
Presence. In an enclosed environment, our mind will unknowingly and
subconsciously labelling the features of that environment. We will
tend to subconsciously label the walls and objects that are seen by
the sight vision. This cause the mind to 'forget' the non-dual
nature. However, in this phase of spiritual development, this
subconscious habit of labelling is also lossing its grip, thus
resulting in non duality being able to be experienced even within
an enclosed environment.
Also, additionally, the 'sense of self' or egoic mind is beginning
to lose its power to condition. There is the experience of rising
and falling wave in one's consciousness. When a tension arise, the
self-recognition of the tension allows it to fall away on its own
accord. At times, when all bodily tensions fall away, there is no
sense of being a physical form. This rising and falling wave
sensation is different from using the mind to reason itself out of
a predicament. When we use the mind to reason, it is characterised
by the need to know an answer or find a solution. The desire in
wanting to know the answer or finding a solution is itself a
dualistic project of the mind onto a potential future scenario.
There is no equanimity in that state.
In this new phase, one is also able to enter into a state of deep
rest while fully awake. This includes stationary sitting and
standing positions. The mind can come to a most blissful rest. This
is one of the benefit of Enlightenment. The bliss is not something
that a pre-enlightened mind can experience on a recurring
basis.
One important point to note: We tend to think that Enlightenment is
an attainment. This is not entirely true. Enlightenment is simply a
concept. It is a non-attainment. The egoic mind or sense of self
can only understanding way of relating and achieving in terms of
striving. However, the state of non-dual awareness cannot be
recognised in the striving. That is why Enlightenment cannot be
achieved by striving. Therefore it is a non-attainment. Ironically,
non-attainment is such a struggle to achieve.
OK, that all I can think of and write about this topic. I will
revise and improve this article where the need arises.
For your necessary ponderance. Thank you for reading.
Yes Longchen,
It has been quite some time. Just to share with you some of
my views.
When non-dual insight arises initially, practitioner has found
the ‘pathless path’ and is more capable of entering non-dual
presence in daily movement naturally and effortlessly. When
non-dual presence is initially experienced beyond ‘sitting’ almost
naturally and effortlessly, a ‘false impression’ will arise in
practitioner that there is no need to ‘meditate’. We should
not mistake this as the non-meditation state. This is partly
due to a common misconception that if a person is able to
experience non-dual presence while in movement, he should logically
be able to sustain non-dual presence in ‘sitting’. In actual case,
it is just the reverse; sitting becomes more of a problem.
Before the ‘arrival of the wave like sensation’ my experience is
that we will not be able to ‘sit’ in great contentment in non-dual
presence. It is a ‘transparent-numb-like feeling accompanied
with a wave-like sensation’ due to thorough dropping like the
practice of the second door. Practitioner no more engage in
mental reasoning to explain anything. There is a clear
understanding it is futile to reason anything as it does not help
more than creating more unrest. We enter into great rest when
there is complete willingness to drop even that ‘conscious’
portion. Whether there is consciousness or no-consciousness
is of no more importance. The urge to remain subsides.
But bear in mind this ‘wave-like momentum’ is still subject to
wearing out. We should keep from engaging in negative
activities or involve in negative conditions and continue to build
on the thoroughness of dropping to complement this non-dual
luminous presence. I have bad experiences. We must
continue to sit and drop thoroughly.
From my experience, to go further working on the below 3 points
will help:
1. To go further at this juncture, it is important to
continue to drop, drop, drop and drop. But this dropping will
only produce its magical effect with the arising of non-dual
insight, that there is no-self, the entire idea of self is
learnt.
2. Not to engage in negative activities and
conditions. Work diligently in seclusion to build up the
strength.
3. Next we need to build enough ‘merits’. This is
important but mostly not understood due to our inherent/dualistic
mind; a mind that is ‘bond’ seeing things in terms of entities
cannot understand that how by creating ‘merit’ can help in the
progress of our non-dual luminous presence. It is not within
the framework of dualistic and inherent mind to understand.
It is not in understanding; it is in the actual workings.
Just my 2 cents. Hope it makes sense! :)