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The 5 thieves, kaam(sexual desire) krodh(raging anger) lobh(greed) moh(worldly attachement) hankar(pride/ego), Mara or Maya The materilisitc, hedonistic. When we are born we cry, because the 5 thieves attack, they attack 24/7 even when we sleep, our only saviour is the congregation of saints, only the truest saints can save us.
Sometimes we can see the spirtual, and our thoughts evovle so strong they manifest into reality, and seem physical
Painting by a chinese master painter
Found these 2 images on the net of Green Tara which is so beautiful. Shifu said they originate from cravings in a cave. Anyone who has more info of the paintings, kindly let me know. Thanks
Extracted from ‘The Buddha Speaks of Amitabha Sutra with commentaries of the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua’ page 58 & 63
(Page 58)
Then Ananda said, “We have always lived with you, Buddha, but when you enter Nirvana, where are we going to live?”
Shakyamuni Buddha said, “When I go to Nirvana, all Bhikshus, Bhikshunis, Upasakas, and Upasikas should dwell in the Four Applications of Mindfulness: Mindfulness with regard to the body, feelings, thoughts, and dharmas.
1) Contemplate the body as impure. If you know that the body is impure, you won’t love it, and without love there will be no attachment. Being without attachment is freedom. So first of all,regard the body as impure.
2) Contemplate feelings as suffering. Feelings are all a kind of suffering, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant, for pleasant feelings are the cause of unpleasant feelings.
3) Contemplate thought as impermanent. Thoughts shift and flow and are not permanent.
4) Contemplate dharmas as devoid of self.”
(Page 63)
The Four Applications Of Mindfulness
1) Contemplation of the body as impure. Everyone sees his body as extremely precious. Because you think it is real, you are selfish and profit-seeking. Without a body, there would be no selfishness.
We think our bodies are real and actual. Being selfish, we create offenses and commit evil deeds. We cannot let go of the affairs of the world and calculate on behalf of our bodies all day long, looking for good food, beautiful clothes, and a nice place to live— a little happiness for the body. On the day we die, we are still unclear. “My body is dying,” we moan. “How can it do this to me?” At that time we know that our bodies are unreal, but it’s too late, too late for our regrets.
Ultimately, is the body real? Stupid people think so, but wise people see it merely as a combination of the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. It is not ultimate.
“Then,” you ask, “what is ultimate?”
Our own self-nature is
bright and all-illumining;
Our own-self-nature is
perfect and unimpeded.
It is nowhere and nowhere is it not;
to the end of empty space,
it exhausts the Dharma Realm.
Our bodies are temporary dwellings where our self-nature comes to live for a time. But the person dwelling in the hotel is not the hotel, and in the same way, his body is not him. The traveler who thinks that he is the hotel is mistaken. If you know that the body is just like a hotel, you should seek that which dwells within it, for once you have found it, you will recognize your true self.
From the time of birth, the body is impure—a combination of its father’s semen and its mother’s blood. The child grows up with greed, hate, stupidity, pride, and doubt. He commits offenses, creating the karma of killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and taking intoxicants and drugs. Offense-karma is created because of the body. But is the body such a precious thing after all? No.
A precious jewel is pure and undefiled, without stain or the slightest trace of filth. Our bodies, on the other hand, have nine apertures which constantly secrete impure substances: tears from the eyes, wax from the ears, mucus from the nose…
There are religions whose members eat mucus. They say that they are “smelting the cinnabar.” They also eat tears and ear wax thinking that these filthy substances are precious jewels. Isn’t that pitiful?
Two ears, two eyes, and two nostrils make six holes. The mouth is full of phlegm and saliva. That’s seven holes. Add the anus and urinary tract and you have nine. Would you call this pure? Everyone knows that excrement and urine are unclean and, if you don’t believe it, just try seasoning some fine food with a tiny pinch of excrement. No one will eat it. People will want to vomit instead because it is unclean. Would you call this body, dribbling filth from nine holes, a jewel? If it’s a jewel, why do such vile things flow from it?
If you don’t bathe for a week, you itch and squirm and a thick crust forms on your body. Where did it come from? Soon you stink with an odor even a dog finds repulsive. What is the advantage of having a body? Contemplate the body as impure. If you see how filthy it is, do you still love it? Are you still attached? What’s the use of loving such a dirty thing?
“Then can I stab myself? Can I kill myself?” you ask.
No. That’s not necessary. You must borrow this false body and use it to cultivate the Truth. The self-nature dwells within the body. You entered the body of five skandhas and the yin and yang merged in a combination of purity and filth which is your body. If you cultivate, you can go up, and attain purity. If you do not cultivate you will go down, create offense karma, unite with the filth, and turn into a ghost.
Go up. Become a Buddha. Whether or not you cultivate is up to you, however. Nobody can force you to cultivate.
The Venerable Ananda thought that because he was the Buddha’s cousin, he didn’t need to cultivate. He thought that the Buddha would just give him samadhi. But the Buddha couldn’t do that, and so it was not until after the Buddha’s Nirvana, when Ananda was about to edit the Sutras, that he finally certified to the fourth Stage of Arhatship and realized that he could not neglect cultivation.
Be mindful that the body is impure, don’t be so fond of it, and don’t take it as a treasure.
You say, “I can’t stand criticism. I can’t stand it.”
Who are you?
“If they hit me, I can’t bear it. It hurts!”
Really? If you put your attachments down and see through them, there is neither pain nor not pain. Who is in pain? What, exactly, hurts? If someone hits you, pretend that you bumped into a wall. If someone scolds you, pretend that they are singing a song or speaking Japanese. How can they scold you if you don’t understand them?
“Are they speaking Spanish or Portugese? French? German? I’ve never studied languages so I don’t understand…” They can scold you, but it’s nothing. In general, once you see through, break, and put down the attachment to your body, you win your independence.
Contemplate your body as impure. Don’t regard it with so much importance. It’s not important.
Contemplate feelings, thoughts, and dharmas as impure also.
2) Contemplate feelings as suffering. Feelings may be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral; from the point of view of the three sufferings, unpleasant feelings are the suffering within suffering, pleasant feelings are caught up in the suffering of decay, and neutral feelings are the suffering of process. Wake up! Everything you enjoy is a form of suffering. If you know that pleasure is suffering, you will not be attached to it. I often say:
Enduring suffering puts an end to suffering;
Enjoying blessings destroys blessings.
If you endure your suffering, it will pass. If you enjoy your blessings, they, too, will pass. Contemplate feelings as suffering.
The body, thought, and dharmas are also suffering. Although there are Four Applications of Mindfulness, you can divide them up; each of the four characteristic qualities, impurity, suffering, impermanence, and the absence of self, can be applied to the body, to feelings, to thoughts, and to dharmas, making sixteen applications in all.
3) Contemplate thoughts as impermanent. The Vajra Sutra says, “Past thought cannot be obtained, present thought cannot be obtained, and future thought cannot be obtained.” All your thoughts are unobtainable. They flow without stopping and so they are impermanent. The body, feelings and dharmas are also impermanent.
4) Contemplate dharmas as without self. Basically, since there are no dharmas, from whence cometh the self? The self is a combination of four elements and the five skandhas—a creation of form dharmas. Outside of the four elements and the five skandhas there is no self. So contemplate dharmas as being without a self.
The Four Applications of Mindfulness are very wonderful. If you investigate them thoroughly, understand and dwell on them, you will be unattached and will attain true freedom. If you’re attached, you can’t be free. Why? Because you’re attached! So dwell in the Four Applications of Mindfulness. Dwell and yet do not dwell.
http://buddha-inside.blogspot.com/2009/04/four-applications-of-mindfulness.html
Sitting is hard. Sometimes you feel good, but often you feel a little stiff or sore. You don’t notice how it affects your life. You get busy. Stuff comes up. Somehow daily sitting becomes less of a priority. Somewhere along the line you pick up the saying that “a few moments of mindfulness each day is good enough”. “Good Enough” is different to “Good”. We need to Keep Sitting.
The mantra of “Keep Sitting” has been ringing in my head for months. I started making short cuts and excuses. I observed myself making these short cuts and excuses. Now I’m re-learning a lot of lessons. It feels like beginner’s mind all over again. I’m re-finding the importance of a solid daily practice.
I thought that because I observed it all, it was fine. That it’s okay, I’m living the Dharma, more so than sitting it. The mind, however, is a bit like a leaky boat. If we don’t empty the water out, eventually it’ll sink.
Meditation is how we remove water from our boat. Part of living, is there is always going to be holes. What we can, and do with meditation is help ourselves. As we keep sitting water empties from boat, and as a result the boat, our mind, starts handles better. Less baggage means our boat is less effected by the waves. It sails more so than it sink. If we stop sitting, however, the water starts seeping in again, and the boat starts sinking again.
Through sitting, we engage and enhance life. Nothing is isolated in this world. Everything is related and connected. Our practice is constantly manifested in the world. How we act, how we react. We are our practice. Keep Sitting. I’m off to sit now.
At times, we all struggle with practice. In this world, nothing is permanent. Everything is constantly changing, including our ability to sit…Smile upon your imperfect nature.
http://themiddleway.net/2008/11/06/keep-sitting/
Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. If you are not capable of generating that kind of energy toward yourself – if you are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of protecting yourself – it is very difficult to take care of another person.
http://www.rossirossi.com/gade_gods/index.html
I think support from friends and family are very important. In our journey in life, it’s a tedious process everyday. We want to share our happiness and sorrow. We hope they will lent us their strength when we are weak. We want their knowledge when in doubt. We want their their approval when we done something right. Without them, it is not easy.
i would like to take this moment to thank everyone i know. For without you, i may not be here…
Dear bro and sis, in our daily pratice, we also learn to be thankful for the enlighenment and guidance from all the buddhas, bodhisattvas, heaven deities and heavenly protectors during our journey of cultivation. In turn, we will give them our spiritual support. (thinking the tons of people streaming into the temples to recieve their blessing)
I sometimes also gives spiritual support to our shifu. He is knowledgable and always giving but he is still a human (last time i checked). He still gets sick and tired. Sometimes, it’s because we exhausted him. He has his challenges also. Most of the time, it’s beyond our means and understanding. i sincerely wish him good health and smooth journey ahead.
Cheers!
During our journey of cultivations, we will meet lots of challenges to test our faith and wisdom, i think. These are hurdles created by the demons to stop or slow down out journey to achieve enlightenment. there are lots of different hurdles that one will experience both internally and externally.
Internal hurdles include feeling lazy to do meditation, thinking too much, falling asleep during meditations, cramps and pain during meditation etc.
External hurdles includes work, lost of meditation centre, technology and cravings, friends and family.
It’s is very hard to immediately identify our hurdles when we experience one. It’s is even harder to view it with a clear transparency wisdom and accepting it with understanding. How can i be cool and cheery when my boss or customers shouts and scolds us. Will we be even thankful for the scolding?
i always remind myself whatever happens, demons are nearby to disturb our cultivation and sometimes even make us commit offences in the 5 precepts. It’s not easy, but through continuous training, it’s possible. Slowly, the hurdles will become bigger and more tricky, but every step i take forward, the light in front of me will be brighter and closer.
So, what challenges did you face today?
Article written by: Thusness/PasserBy
Wonder why but of late, the topic on anatta kept surfacing in forums. Perhaps ‘yuan’ (condition) has arisen. -:) I will just jot down some thoughts on my experiences of ‘no-self’. A casual sharing, nothing authentic.
The 2 stanzas below are pivotal for leading me to the direct experience of no-self. Although they appear to convey the same stuff about anatta, meditating on these 2 stanzas can yield 2 very different experiential insights — one on the emptiness aspect and the other, the non-dual luminosity aspect. The insights that arise from these experiences are very illuminating as they contradict so much our ordinary understanding of what awareness is.
There is hearing, no hearer
There is seeing, no seer
In hearing, just sounds
In seeing, just forms, shapes and colors.
Before proceeding any further, it is of absolute importance to know that there is no way the stanzas can be correctly understood by way of inference, logical deduction or induction. Not that there is something mystical or transcendental about the stanzas but simply the way of mental chattering is a ‘wrong approach’. The right technique is through ‘vipassana’ or any more direct and attentive bare mode of observation that allows the seeing of things as they are. Just a casual note, such mode of knowing turns natural when non-dual insight matures, before that it can be quite ‘efforting’.
The two most obvious experiences from this initial glimpse of the first stanza is the lack of doer-ship and the direct insight of the absence of an agent. These 2 experiences are key for my phase 5 of the7 phases of insights.
1. The lack of doer-ship that links and co-ordinates experiences.
Without the ‘I’ that links, phenomena (thoughts, sound, feelings and so on and so forth) appear bubble-like, floating and manifesting freely, spontaneously and boundlessly. With the absence of the doer-ship also comes a deep sense of freedom and transparency. Ironical as it may sound but it’s true experientially. We will not have the right understanding when we hold too tightly ‘inherent’ view. It is amazing how ‘inherent’ view prevents us from seeing freedom as no-doership, interdependence and interconnectedness, luminosity and non-dual presence.
2. The direct insight of the absence of an agent.
In this case, there is a direct recognition that there is “no agent”. Just one thought then another thought. So it is always thought watching thought rather than a watcher watching thought. However the gist of this realization is skewed towards a spontaneous liberating experience and a vague glimpse of the empty nature of phenomena — that is, the transient phenomena being bubble-like and ephemeral, nothing substantial or solid. At this phase we should not misunderstand that we have experienced thoroughly the ‘empty’ nature of phenomena and awareness, although there is this temptation to think we have. -:)
Depending on the conditions of an individual, it may not be obvious that it is “always thought watching thought rather than a watcher watching thought.” or “the watcher is that thought.” Because this is the key insight and a step that cannot afford to be wrong along the path of liberation, I cannot help but with some disrespectful tone say,
For those masters that taught,
“Let thoughts arise and subside,
See the background mirror as perfect and be unaffected.”
With all due respect, they have just “blah” something nice but deluded.Rather,
See that there is no one behind thoughts.
First, one thought then another thought.
With deepening insight it will later be revealed,
Always just this, One Thought!
Non-arising, luminous yet empty!
And this is the whole purpose of anatta. To thoroughly see through that this background does not exist in actuality. What exists is a stream, action or karma. There is no doer or anything being done, there is only doing; No meditator nor meditation, only meditating. From a letting go perspective, “a watcher watching thought” will create the impression that a watcher is allowing thoughts to arise and subside while itself being unaffected. This is an illusion; it is ‘holding’ in disguise as ‘letting go’. When we realized that there is no background from start, reality will present itself as one whole letting go. With practice, ‘intention’ dwindles with the maturing of insight and ‘doing’ will be gradually experienced as mere spontaneous happening as if universe is doing the work. With the some pointers from ‘dependent origination’, we can then penetrate further to see this happening as a sheer expression of everything interacting with everything coming into being. In fact, if we do not reify ‘universe’, it is just that — an expression of interdependent arising that is just right wherever and whenever is.
Understanding this, practice is simply opening to whatever is.
For this mere happening is just right wherever and whenever is.
Though no place can be called home it is everywhere home.When experience matures in the practice of great ease,
The experience is Maha! Great, miraculous and bliss.
In mundane activities of seeing, eating and tasting,
When expressed poetically is as if the entire universe meditating.Whatever said and expressed are really all different flavors,
Of this everything of everything dependently originating,
As this moment of vivid shimmering.
By then it is clear that the transient phenomena is already happening in the perfect way; unwinding what must be unwinded, manifesting what must be manifested and subsides when it is time to go. There is no problem with this transient happening, the only problem is having an ‘extra mirror’, a reification due to the power of the mind to abstract. The mirror is not perfect; it is the happening that is perfect. The mirror appears to be perfect only to a dualistic and inherent view.
Our deeply held inherent and dualistic view has very subtly and unknowingly personified the “luminous aspect” into the watcher and discarded the “emptiness aspect” as the transient phenomena. The key challenge of practice is then to clearly see that luminosity and emptiness are one and inseparable, they have never and can never be separated.
On the second stanza
For the second stanza, the focus is on the vivid, pristine-ness of transience phenomena. Thoughts, sounds and all transient are indistinguishable from Awareness. There is no-experiencer-experience split, only one seamless spontaneous experience arising as thinker/thoughts, hearer/sounds, feeler/feelings and so on. In hearing, hearer and sound are indistinguishably one. For anyone that is familiar with the “I AM” experience, that pure sense of existence, that powerful experience of presence that makes one feel so real, is unforgettable. When the background is gone, all foreground phenomena reveal themselves as Presence. It is like naturally ‘vipassanic’ throughout or simply put, naked in awareness. From the hissing sound of PC, to the vibration of the moving MRT train, to the sensation when the feet touches the ground, all these experiences are crystal clear, no less “I AM” than “I AM”. The Presence is still fully present, nothing is denied. -:)
Division of subject and object is merely an assumption.
Thus someone giving up and something to be given up is an illusion.
When self becomes more and more transparent,
Likewise phenomena become more and more luminous.
In thorough transparency all happening are pristinely and vividly clear.
Obviousness throughout, aliveness everywhere!
It will be obvious by then that only the deeply held dualistic view is obscuring our insight into this experiential fact. In actual experience, there is just the crystal clarity of phenomena manifesting. Maturing this experience, the mind-body dissolves into mere non-dual luminosity and all phenomena are experientially understood as the manifestation of this non-dual luminous presence — the key insight leading to the realization that “All is Mind”.
After this, not to be too overwhelmed or over-claimed what is more than necessary; rather investigate further. Does this non-dual luminosity exhibits any characteristic of self-nature that is independent, unchanging and permanent? A practitioner can still get stuck for quite sometimes solidifying non-dual presence unknowingly. This is leaving marks of the ‘One mirror’ as described in the stage 4 of the 7 phases of my insights. Although experience is non-dual, the insight of emptiness is still not there. Though the dualistic bond has loosen sufficiently, the ‘inherent’ view remains strong.
When the ’subject’ is gone, experience becomes non-dual but we forgotten about the ‘object’. When object is further emptied, we see Dharmakaya. Do See clearly that for the case of a ‘subject’ that is first penetrated, it is a mere label collating the 5 aggregates but for the next level that is to be negated, it is the Presence that we are emptying — not a label but the very presence itself that is non-dual in nature.
For sincere Buddhist practitioners that have matured non-dual insight, they may prompt themselves why is there a need for Buddha to put so much emphasis on dependent origination if non-dual presence is final? The experience is still as Vedantic, more ‘Brahman’ than ‘Sunyata’. This ’solidity of non-dual presence’ must be broken with the help of dependent origination and emptiness. Knowing this a practitioner can then progress to understand the empty (dependently originated) nature of non-dual presence. It is a further refining of anatta experience according to the first stanza.
As for those “I AMness” practitioners, it is very common for them after non-dual insight to stay in non-dual presence. They find delight in ‘chop wood, carry water’ and ’spring comes, grass grows by its own’. Nothing much can be stressed; the experience do appear to be final. Hopefully ‘yuan’ (condition) can arise for these practitioners to see this subtle mark that prevent the seeing.
If we observe thought and ask where does thought arise, how does it arise, what is ‘thought’ like. ‘Thought’ will reveal its nature is empty — vividly present yet completely un-locatable. It is very important not to infer, think or conceptualise but feel with our entire being this ‘ungraspability’ and ‘unlocatability’. It seems to reside ’somewhere’ but there is no way to locate it. It is just an impression of somewhere “there” but never “there”. Similarly “here-ness” and “now-ness” are merely impressions formed by sensations, aggregates of causes and conditions, nothing inherently ‘there’; equally empty like ‘selfness’.
This ungraspable and unlocatable empty nature is not only peculiar to ‘thought’. All experiences or sensations are like that — vividly present yet insubstantial, un-graspable, spontaneous, un-locatable.
If we were to observe a red flower that is so vivid, clear and right in front us, the “redness” only appears to “belong” to the flower, it is in actuality not so. Vision of red does not arise in all animal species (dogs cannot perceive colours) nor is the “redness” an inherent attribute of the mind. If given a “quantum eyesight” to look into the atomic structure, there is similarly no attribute “redness” anywhere found, only almost complete space/void with no perceivable shapes and forms. Whatever appearances are dependently arisen, and hence is empty of any inherent existence or fixed attributes, shapes, form, or “redness” — merely luminous yet empty, mere appearances without inherent/objective existence.
Likewise when standing in front of a burning fire pit, the entire phenomena of ‘fire’, the burning heat, the whole sensation of ‘hotness’ that are so vividly present and seem so real but when examined they are also not inherently “there” — merely dependently manifest whenever conditions are there. It is amazing how dualistic and inherent views have caged seamless experience in a who-where-when construct.
All experiences are empty. They are like sky flowers, like painting on the surface of a pond. There is no way to point to a moment of experience and say this is ‘in’ and that is ‘out’. All ‘in’ are as ‘out’; to awareness seamless experience is all there is. It is not the mirror or pond that is important but that process of illusion-like phenomenon of the paint shimmering on the surface of the pond; like an illusion but not an illusion, like a dream but not a dream. This is the ground of all experiences.
Yet this ‘ungraspability and unlocatabilty’ nature is not all there is; there is also this Maha, this great without boundaries feeling of ‘interconnectedness’. When someone hits a bell, the person, the stick, the bell, the vibration of the air, the ears and then the magically appearance of sound — ’Tongsss…re-sounding…’ is all a seamless one happening, one experience. When breathing, it is just this one whole entire breath; it is all causes and conditions coming together to give rise to this entire sensation of breath as if the whole of universe is doing this breathing. The significance of this Maha experience is not in words; in my opinion, without this experience, there is no true experience of ‘interconnectedness’ and non-dual presence is incomplete.
The experience of our empty nature is a very different from that of non-dual oneness. ‘Distance’ for example is overcome in non-dual oneness by seeing through the illusory aspect of subject/object division and resulted in a one non-dual presence. It is seeing all as just ‘This’ but experiencing Emptiness breaks the boundary through its empty ungraspable and unlocatable nature.
There is no need for a ‘where-place’ or a ‘when-time’ or a ‘who-I’ when we penetrate deeply into this nature. When hearing sound, sound is neither ‘in here’ nor ‘out there’, it is where it is and gone! All centers and reference points dissolve with the wisdom that manifestation dependently originates and hence empty. The experience creates an “always right wherever and whenever is” sensation. A sensation of home everywhere though nowhere can be called home. Experiencing the emptiness nature of presence, a sincere practitioner becomes clear that indeed the non-dual presence is leaving a subtle mark; seeing its nature as empty, the last mark that solidifies experiences dissolves. It feels cool because presence is made more present and effortless. We then move from “vivid non-dual presence” into “though vividly and non-dually present, it is nothing real, empty!”.
The experience of Maha may sound as if one is going after certain sort of experience and appears to be in contradiction with the ‘ordinariness of enlightenment’ promoted in Zen Buddhism. This is not true and in fact, without this experience, non-dual is incomplete. This section is not about Maha as a stage to achieve but to see that Sunyata is Maha in nature. In Maha, one does not feel self, one ‘feels’ universe; one does not feel ‘Brahman’ but feels ‘interconnectedness’; one does not feel ‘helplessness’ due to ‘dependence and interconnection’ but feels great without boundary, spontaneous and marvelous. Now lets get back to ‘ordinariness’.
Ordinariness has always been Taoism’s forte. In Zen we also see the importance of this being depicted in those enlightenment models like Tozan’s 5 ranks and the The Ten Oxherding Pictures. But ordinariness must only be understood that non-dual and the Maha world of suchness is nothing beyond. There is no beyond realm to arrive at and never a separated state from our ordinary daily world; rather it is to bring this primordial, original and untainted experience of non-dual and Maha experience into the most mundane activities. If this experience is not found in most mundane and ordinary activities then practitioners have not matured their understandings and practices.
Before Maha experience has always been rare occurrence in the natural state and was treated as a passing trend that comes and goes. Inducing the experience often involves concentration on repeatedly doing some task for a short period of time for example,
If we were to breathe in and out, in and out…till there is simply this entire sensation of breath, just breath as all causes and conditions coming into this moment of manifestation.
If we were to focus on the sensation of stepping, the sensation of hardness, just the sensation of the hardness, till there is simply this entire sensation ‘hardness’ when the feet touches the ground, just this ‘hardness’ as all causes and conditions coming into this moment of manifestation.
If we were to focus on hearing someone hitting a bell, the stick, the bell, the vibration of the air, the ears all coming together for this sensation of sound to arise, we will have Maha experience.
…
However ever since incorporating the teaching of dependent origination into non-dual presence, over the years it has become more ‘accessible’ but never has this been understood as a ground state. There seems to be a predictable relationship of seeing interdependent arising and emptiness on the experience of non-dual presence.
A week ago, the clear experience of Maha dawned and became quite effortless and at the same time there is a direct realization that it is also a natural state. In Sunyata, Maha is natural and must be fully factored into the path of experiencing whatever arises. Nevertheless Maha as a ground state requires the maturing of non-dual experience; we cannot feel entirely as the interconnectedness of everything coming spontaneously into being as this moment of vivid manifestation with a divided mind.
The universe is this arising thought.
The universe is this arising sound.
Just this magnificent arising!
Is Tao.
Homage to all arising.
Lastly, when these 2 experiences inter-permeate, what is really needed is simply to experience whatever arises openly and unreservedly. It may sound simple but do not underestimate this simple path; even aeon lives of practices cannot touch the depth of its profundity.
In fact all the subsections — “On Stanza One”, “On Stanza Two”, “On Emptiness”, there is already certain emphasis of the natural way. With regards to the natural way, I must say that spontaneous presence and experiencing whatever arises openly, unreservedly and fearlessly is not the ‘path’ of any tradition or religion — Be it Zen, Mahamudra, Dzogchen, Advaita, Taoism or Buddhism. In fact the natural way is the ‘path’ of Tao but Taoism cannot claim monopoly over the ‘path’ simply because it has a longer history. My experience is that any sincere practitioner after maturing non-dual experiences will eventually come to this automatically and naturally. It is like in the blood, there is no other way then the natural way.
That said, the natural and spontaneous way is often misrepresented. It should not be taken to mean that there is no need to do anything or practice is unnecessary. Rather it is the deepest insight of a practitioner that after cycles and cycles of refining his insights on the aspect of anatta, emptiness and dependent origination, he suddenly realized that anatta is a seal and non-dual luminosity and emptiness have always been ‘the ground’ of all experiences. Practice then shift from ‘concentrative’ to ‘effortless’ mode and for this it requires the complete pervading of non-dual and emptiness insights into our entire being like how “dualistic and inherent views” has invaded consciousness.
In any case, care must be taken not to make our empty and luminous nature into a metaphysical essence. I will end with a comment I wrote in another blog Luminous Emptiness as it summarizes pretty well what that I have written.
The degree of “un-contrivance”,
Is the degree of how unreserved and fearless we open to whatever is.
For whatever arises is mind, always seen, heard, tasted and experienced.
What that is not seen, not heard and not experienced,
Is our conceptual idea of what mind is.Whenever we objectify the “brilliance, the pristine-ness” into an entity that is formless,
It becomes an object of grasp that prevents the seeing of the “forms”,
the texture and the fabric of awareness.
The tendency to objectify is subtle,
we let go of ’selfness’ yet unknowingly grasped ‘nowness’ and ‘hereness’.
Whatever arises merely dependently originates, needless of who, where and when.All experiences are equal, luminous yet empty of self-nature.
Though empty it has not in anyway denied its vivid luminosity.Liberation is experiencing mind as it is.
Self-Liberation is the thorough insight that this liberation is always and already is;
Spontaneously present, naturally perfected!
PS:
We should not treat the insight of emptiness as ‘higher’ than that of non-dual luminosity. It is just different insights dawning due to differing conditions. To some practitioners, the insight of our empty nature comes before non-dual luminosity.
For a more detailed conceptual understanding of Emptiness, do read the article “Non-Dual Emptiness” by Dr. Greg Goode.
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