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Understanding Ati

From Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia
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Fundamentally the experience of Ati is the experience of awareness which is free or beyond habitual reference point. Dogen Zengi calls this “forgetting the self.” All of our Buddhist practice is based on the view of “forgetting the self.” “Forgetting” is a brilliant way of expressing this.

In shamatha practice we forget the self by returning again and again to a neutral reference point. We use the outbreath as the neutral reference point. The whole practice is to recollect the present again and again. We synchronize our body and mind when we come back to the breath. When we do this for real we create discontinuity in the habitual chain reaction of self. This creates a gap in the continuity of habitual reference point and when we do that enough we “forget the self.” What happens after that is that we then begin to experienceself-existing reality.” The 10,000 things are awakened – to use Dogen’s terms. Trungpa Rinpoche called this maha-vipashyana which is really the essence of “crazy wisdom.” Once the process of ego is broken then our experience of outer and inner phenomena manifests as self-existing wisdom. Each yana expresses this differently and in our experience of the nine yana path a student develops through these experiences progressively.

Trungpa Rinpoche talks about Ati as the experience of “no man’s land,” or being in outer space. It is very important to realize that from habitual mind’s point of view the experience of the space of nonreferential awareness is threatening and terrifying. This is why Samaya and devotion are so important. Our path is to familiarize ourselves with this experience which is the true nature of our mind and the true nature of reality.

The world of ego depends on ignorance, speed and klesa or conflicting emotions. All our formal practices are designed to interrupt this process. We have many methods for doing this from the simple practice of shamatha/vipashyana to the practice of unbiased compassion found in the Bodhisattva yana; to the yidam and guru yoga practices in the Vajrayana which depend upon recognition of chinlapblessings. There are also the togal practices and practices based on sexual bliss. The lives of the 84 mahasiddhas of India are famous for illustrating the many unconventional methods which became their “sadhanas” integrating their idiosyncrasies with the profound practice of “forgetting the self.” Trungpa Rinpoche’s method involved drinking vast quantities of alcohol.



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