By purposely not reflecting and returning to what the eyes see, again and again, the mind loses its power (through dis-use), and ideation ceases to dominate one's attention. AT (attending thoughts without following them, getting invested in them, or believing them) can be just as effective, but I suspect that beginners would find AT more difficult than ATA.
As a practical matter, I would probably suggest breath-counting or breath awareness exercises to most beginners because most beginners have such busy minds that other practices are simply too difficult to pursue. In fact, most beginners even find ATA very difficult.
I would think that observing the observer would be equally difficult, but who knows? Different people respond to different approaches, and I usually recommend that folks experiment with lots of different methodologies. Like anyone who's been on this path a while I know that students will continually misunderstand what's going on until the structures of thought supporting a sense of selfhood collapse. Until that happens I just keep pointing in the same direction using different words to say the same thing. I would start a student off with breath awareness exercises, and then proceed to ATA, AT, shikan taza, koans, etc. and play it by ear depending upon what happened and what they asked me.
As a practical matter, I would probably suggest breath-counting or breath awareness exercises to most beginners because most beginners have such busy minds that other practices are simply too difficult to pursue. In fact, most beginners even find ATA very difficult.
I would think that observing the observer would be equally difficult, but who knows? Different people respond to different approaches, and I usually recommend that folks experiment with lots of different methodologies. Like anyone who's been on this path a while I know that students will continually misunderstand what's going on until the structures of thought supporting a sense of selfhood collapse. Until that happens I just keep pointing in the same direction using different words to say the same thing. I would start a student off with breath awareness exercises, and then proceed to ATA, AT, shikan taza, koans, etc. and play it by ear depending upon what happened and what they asked me.
