Anatta experience ?

General discussion, particularly exploring the Dharma in the modern world.
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Panegalli
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Anatta experience ?

Post by Panegalli »

Hello everyone. I'm practicing meditation regularly lately, and I've been having an experience, which I''ll try to explain through a "funny" picture that is in the internet:



First look at this duck:

Image



and then to this picture:


Image





Now look at the duck again.


Now aply this reasoning with every object that you sense and you will get what I'm experiencing.Also, now talking about vision, there seems to be a lack of spacial perspective sometimes, like things are not three-dimensional but just "stamped". Did anyone here ever had a similar experience?
dude
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Re: Anatta experience ?

Post by dude »

Oh yeah, and the implications are huge.
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flowerbudh
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Re: Anatta experience ?

Post by flowerbudh »

When I first experience anatta about a year ago, I thought I was having a derealization episode. How did you have yours?
Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without. - The Buddha
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Qing Tian
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Re: Anatta experience ?

Post by Qing Tian »

What exactly does pattern recognition have to do with anatta? :thinking:
“Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.”
Panegalli
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Re: Anatta experience ?

Post by Panegalli »

Qing Tian wrote:What exactly does pattern recognition have to do with anatta? :thinking:
The break of conceptual perception has something to do with anatta as I see it. I actually made a question about this experience to Venerable Yuttadhammo in this video at 9:47


phpBB [video]
Panegalli
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Re: Anatta experience ?

Post by Panegalli »

flowerbudh wrote:When I first experience anatta about a year ago, I thought I was having a derealization episode. How did you have yours?
Hmm, I didn't feel like I was having a derealization episode, I don't remember the first time I had, but I think it started happening with faces. I just recently had the "spacial perspective death" episode, the first time it happened I was looking to the corner of a building, it looked just like two distorted rectangles, it didn't seem 3D at all.
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Anatta experience ?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Look up these terms:
Pareidolia
Apophenia
.
.
.
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
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futerko
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Re: Anatta experience ?

Post by futerko »

PadmaVonSamba wrote:Look up these terms:
Pareidolia
Apophenia
.
.
.
Image
Panegalli
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Re: Anatta experience ?

Post by Panegalli »

PadmaVonSamba wrote:Look up these terms:
Pareidolia
Apophenia
.
.
.
Yes, I'm familiar with these terms, it is common in pareidolia to see faces in some place where there is no face, but in this case it was the opposite, sometimes there was a face and I just saw a bunch of unrelated objects.
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Astus
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Re: Anatta experience ?

Post by Astus »

Realising that there is no self means simply the recognition of the lack of a substantial being. In fact, there never has been any self anywhere, it is only an idea, a feeling that there is a self. There is no self in any sensory experience, or even in our thoughts and emotions. So, to experience no self does not mean a new experience, it is the recognition that there has never been any being/actor/thinker/feeler/perceiver as all there is is experience (five aggregates, six sense gates) and all experience is impermanent (etc.). But it's the same experience as always. The difference lies in the wisdom of seeing them for what they actually are.
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
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futerko
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Re: Anatta experience ?

Post by futerko »

Panegalli wrote: ...sometimes there was a face and I just saw a bunch of unrelated objects.
Who saw them? :tongue:
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Anatta experience ?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Panegalli wrote:
PadmaVonSamba wrote:Look up these terms:
Pareidolia
Apophenia
.
.
.
Yes, I'm familiar with these terms, it is common in pareidolia to see faces in some place where there is no face, but in this case it was the opposite, sometimes there was a face and I just saw a bunch of unrelated objects.
I think this is quite common. It is among many artists I know, and in some art classes you are trained to see this way.
After teaching English as a second language for many years, I now have a similar experience with hearing,
where I break down what people say into distinct, separate syllables
and this sometimes makes it hard for me to understand what people are saying.
I can't cite a specific occurrence of this,
but its like if you say "Definitely"
I might hear it as "deaf in Italy".

Rowling uses this word breakdown in Some of the Harry Potter stories.
.
.
.
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
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seeker242
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Re: Anatta experience ?

Post by seeker242 »

Panegalli wrote:
Qing Tian wrote:What exactly does pattern recognition have to do with anatta? :thinking:
The break of conceptual perception has something to do with anatta as I see it. I actually made a question about this experience to Venerable Yuttadhammo in this video at 9:47
I think he gives a good answer. :) It's not insight into anatta but the "breaking things down into component parts" is what can lead to insight into anatta. If that "breaking things down into component parts" can be applied to what is called "your self". However, breaking a duck down into component parts I personally don't see as being all that useful because ducks don't have anything to do with anatta. They're just ducks! :D
One should not kill any living being, nor cause it to be killed, nor should one incite any other to kill. Do never injure any being, whether strong or weak, in this entire universe!
invisiblediamond
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Re: Anatta experience ?

Post by invisiblediamond »

This happens to yogis. Mila saw vaginas on boulders. Yeshe Tsogyal saw penises around her cave. I noticed everything is like this

Image

This is part of the nidana of fabrications in the pratichasamupada. When you see that perceptions are based on the heaps, then you quickly gain the four arahat paths.
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