forestofemptiness Posted August 14, 2021 10 hours ago, freeform said: The strength of it is that it’s a simple model. It’s like a powerful solvent, like taking turpentine to an intricate oil painting - however intricate the forms, whatever the myriad colours, nothing can withstand the solvent properties of the logic - and you’re able to dissolve it all into one homogenous brown blob. It is important to understand that non-duality has many meanings and expressions, according to not only the tradition but the understanding of the teacher. For instance, it could be argued that physical materialists are non-dualistic in that everything reduces to matter. But there is also non-reductionistic non-dualism, and Buddhist type non-dualism which points to "beyond extremes" rather than some sort of monism. Generalizations of course have their place, but often they tend to be broader than the data points should allow. 3 hours ago, stirling said: Buddhism does not explain this explicitly, but the prajna/wisdom of enlightenment reveals that such questions don't make sense anymore. That's not necessarily true-- different versions have "creation stories," such as recorded in Kongtrul's Myriad Worlds. 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
