As the insight of Anatta clarifies and deepens, I have become aware how much the context of the lineage I was connected to at the time of the “event” was affecting the way I would speak and process it. Looking back at it, the realization was kind of fusing with the lineage, for a moment, and it did not exactly serve the truth of the insight. It had to penetrate through layers of conditioning within spirituality and disentangle itself to be able to mature further.
Immersing in silence has been fruitful as everything naturally settles, assimilates and harmonizes. There is an amazing interplay between Shadow and Emptiness. The more the emotional body and trauma clears out, the more Emptiness begins to blossom. It all resolves through deepening insight so it's an exquisite dance, ongoing interpenetration. All I can say is that everything is so worth it. Just one taste of This and I would give my life for it, over and over again … even This being nothing at all.
Emptiness seems to be a wonder of its own that opens up beyond Anatta. This is different from the formless immersion into Nothingness that I experienced after the release which lasted about a year or two. I have been meditating on the Heart Sutra deeply. What gradually reveals is rather astonishing, incommunicable and familiar.
Form is emptiness; emptiness also is form. Emptiness is no other than form; form is no other than emptiness.
There is a whole new wave of inquiry and contemplation moving through. A whole new flavor of empty radiance that is becoming salient.
I recently discovered a blog called Awakening to Reality. The 7 stages from Thusness and the pointers for Emptiness feel quite resonant. I can recognize the fundamental insights he describes in my own journey (being in the midst of wondrous cycles of refinement). I will go through them here shortly, you can also read my article Fundamental Stages of Realization in which I share my experience from stages 1-5, culminating in Anatta.
I will discuss Anatta more in detail, the insights that unfold with the deepening, as well as some challenges I encountered at stage 3.
Thusness stages:
The experience / realization of I Am
The experience / realization of I Am Everything
Entering the State of Nothingness — dissolution of ‘I’
Presence as Mirror Bright Clarity — breakthrough to Anatta
No Mirror Reflecting — realization of Anatta
The Nature of Presence is Empty — realization of Emptiness
Presence is Spontaneously Perfected
Note that this model is radical in a sense that most nonduality teachings cover only stages 1-2, presenting the realization I Am Everything as Ultimate Reality. This is often experienced as “What I am is God”, “All there is is one infinite nondual fluxing principle, Awareness, experiencing its own energetic modulations within itself while remaining by its nature untouched and uncolored by these modulations”. Note that however marvelous and precious this experience is, it is NOT the Ultimate. In my opinion, mistaking this phase for the original state is one of the major delusions within spirituality. Some people get stuck in I Am for decades, not knowing there is anything further.
Some rare teachings cover the stage 3 beyond/prior to I Am — Meister Eckhart referred to it as the Godhead, Nisargadatta as the Absolute, Ramana as the Self. These teachings are great but tend to be obscuring in their own way as they present the realization as the “end”. They also have a somewhat transcendental flavor to them. The realization of the Absolute is a massive breakthrough for sure and in a certain sense a permanent end of something, a permanent end of seeking and separation I would say. Now you're dead, basically. But the truth is, it is also the beginning of the real work in many ways. It’s kind of misleading to suggest that if you have this breakthrough, that’s it, now you're “done”.
Within the tradition I used to practice when the event occurred (Big Shift, or Big Release, for the lack of better words) this stage was called shambhava samavesa, meaning immersion in Supreme Absolute, or immersion in Infinite Pure Potential. This is a somewhat accurate description, yet the teachings had some weaknesses that I will address here shortly.
A major drawback was that the teacher I was connected with had not gone through the shift firsthand, and was not able to relate experientially to the unfolding. It is not really possible to intuit the immensity and totality of the Reality collapse, the sensory rawness and empty intensity of pure nondual formlessness which wipes out duality like faint dust on the ceiling and establishes itself as the new normal. At the same time, having made it all the way through to “the other side”, I found it impossible to remember or really understand that there had ever been anything but This. In my perspective everyone was living This. When fully realized, there is nothing more self-evident than This. I permanently lost the capacity to differentiate between enlightened and unenlightened state, which was initially a bit disorienting.
This is a root letting go, a thorough rewiring and transmutation on all levels of being as Totality moves in and takes over in a very visceral and physical manner. In short, there is no control. It’s also a truly gentle, subtle and organic unfolding, but suffice to say, if you are going through this I recommend finding someone who has walked the path before, as it can be helpful to have access to such a resource. Look for someone with whom you feel genuinely safe, who is trustworthy, has no agenda, is familiar with the trans-conceptual plunge and the deep shadow work that comes with the dissolution of the identity structure.
Another drawback in the teachings I was connected with was substantial nonduality. Here Void is understood as some sort of infinite substratum, background, unmanifest Ground which the manifested activity is ever arising from and subsiding into. Emptiness has been reified to a kind of metaphysical essence that everything is being “made of” or “originated from”. The realization is seen as something that adds more volume to identity: “Now you are one with not only the manifest universe but the unmanifest as well”. However, after the insight into Anatta this view makes no sense, and released.
In dzogchen, which is a view that aligns with my experience, they do at times talk about Emptiness as the original womb/matrix, and I quite like it. I often use myself the phrase ‘dynamic primal space’. After contemplating these matters, I think if we understand this ‘matrix of super spaciousness’ as dependent origination, self-liberation & total exertion (not as ontological substratum) there needs to be no contradiction.
In my experience, what stage 3 is essentially about is the dissolution of the identity structure itself, an energetic unwinding and release in undifferentiated boundless Reality; an irreversible undoing which feels more like a loss than a gain. What this actually means is that now you feel and sense everything unfiltered, without compartmentalization, which is rather unspeakable. In many ways the term liberation seems to lose its meaning here, and people at this stage tend to say things like “there is no liberation”, “liberation for who and from what?”. However, as this paradigm shift settles — and it has a beautiful way of doing that — a whole new realm of discovery opens up.
In stage 3, the experience of the Relative is like foam shimmering on the surface of Oceanic Nothingness which remains forever unborn, undying, and unaffected by that which comes and goes. Note the emphasis on the Absolute as primary reality — the Relative is seen as dependent and grounded on the Absolute Source while the Absolute is seen as the autonomous Ground, the Immovable Unborn Subject, although inseparable in any actual manner from the immanent energetics and activity. This is a rather Brahmanic (or Parabrahmanic) state and it took about a year in my experience.
Note also the subtle distinction between the Absolute and the Relative. They are clearly not-two, there is an intoxicating taste of Oneness, yet they have not yet fully imploded into each other — you will know the difference when this happens.
To conclude, it is rare to find pointers for the territory beyond the stage of Nothingness, and I ended up discovering some of them instinctually, through trial and error, as the realization naturally unfolded.
Okay, going back to Thusness map now. Stage 4 onwards it’s all about full immersion in transient display and sensory fluidity and nothing on the Subject.
Anatta
For me the initial Anatta experience occurred a few months after stages 2, 3 & 4 blew wide open with an otherworldly wave of bliss. It took a couple of years to clarify though as stage 3 was thoroughly immersive, as described above.
What happens in Anatta is that the Absolute fully and permanently collapses into transient flux. The Subject collapses into ‘pure objectivity’ which, unveiled, has the nature of empty effulgence, effortless no-agency, spontaneous no-action, self-liberation.
The Relative is the Absolute.
There is nothing behind the arising and passing. The source is none other than the appearance. Sound, sensing, color, fragrance, taste and thought are blazing with non-local, timeless immediacy and aliveness — with Mirror Bright Clarity, No Mirror Reflecting. There is no process in which phenomena emerge from Awareness (or Void) and subside back into it. Everything simply is and is not, both and neither, vividly here and not here, neither arising nor ceasing.
Reality has always been Anatta. There is no awareness apart from phenomena, no presence apart from pure spontaneity. All collapse into natural simplicity.
The freedom from 'pure awareness uncolored by its own colorings' remains and releases into deeper boundlessness. The 'no trace' quality is here recognized as the nature of phenomenal flux itself, rather than belonging to an independently existing awareness-field, which is now seen as something 'superimposed' on the actual sense data. Awareness need not to be negated, what is seen clearly is its lack of inherent reality. The position of awareness as something primary and autonomous in regards to the transient display collapses. This is the most subtle dualistic split, and the source of the most subtle (one could say 'nondual') sense of self. When this split is seen to have never existed in the first place, Anatta is realized.
Thus, the luminous display of phenomena is liberated. All there is is the delightful dance of pure colorings which is by its nature crazy wild uninhibited. This is when the insight into Emptiness begins to dawn and all clinging to an inherent view, essence or position — no matter how universal, transparent, nonconceptual — is released.
Shunyata
In Emptiness there is No View, No Concept, No Mind.
When all views are seen to be empty, they are none other than This.
When concepts are seen to be empty, they are none other than This.
When the mind is seen to be empty, it is none other than This.
Being empty means empty of inherent existence — there is no essential, fixed or independent way in which anything is. There is no way things actually are — and there are no things to begin with! Reality is not real, yet everything is radiant, vivid and great beyond measure. The superb profundity/simplicity of This is inexpressible and ungraspable.
It becomes finally obvious that any form of clinging — whether it be to self or Self or No Self or Presence or Awareness or Absolute or Nonconceptuality or Here or Now — will obstruct the natural, effortless dynamism of self-liberating This.
All clinging is essentially fear based on misconception. We see something that is not there.
All clinging is rooted in taking something to be actually existing.
Let’s allow this to sink in.
A thought appears —
Empty of self — Anatta!
Empty of agency — sheer spontaneity!
Empty of ‘mine’, ‘my experience’ — yet undeniably immediate!
Empty of ‘other’ — nonreferential! marvelous!
Empty of substantial existence — centerless! cannot be found!
Empty of nonexistence — magically present!
Empty of in or out — dimensionless!
Empty of here or there — zero-distance!
Empty of time — there is no past, no now, no future!
Empty of beginning or end — try to find boundaries, you can’t!
Empty of essence — luminous! taste it!
Empty of origin — baseless! groundless!
Empty of individuality — total exertion! great beyond measure!
Empty of fabrication — uncontrived! that’s it!
Empty of conceptualization — cannot be grasped!
Empty of confines and therefore non-dual, non-local, uni-local —
PHAT
You fly into the sky-matrix and vanish.
Let’s allow this to sink in.
Maya is none other than Buddha-mind.
The same Mind that creates the illusion of something actually being there — an optical illusion, really — is the one that sees through the illusion.
When this is seen clearly, inception and release are simultaneous. Contraction is openness. Holding is letting go. Reality magically self-liberates like a snake unwinding its own knots.
The Mind is samsara. The Mind is nirvana. They merge, and vanish. This is the seeing that liberates.
But the nature of the Mind itself is empty. It cannot be seen.
Let’s allow this to sink in.
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