"Non-dual" misnomer

[Mark Foote]

22 hours ago, Daniel said:

 

Is this how you perceive conversations with me?

 

If so, please be honest and say so.

 

Daniel, take it easy!  That was a response to Nungali quoting Slick's "White Rabbit".

[Nungali]

15 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

Daniel, take it easy!  That was a response to Nungali quoting Slick's "White Rabbit".

 

I should have said

 

" tell them a red-wine drinking

cat - apillar has given you the call .

Go ask Apech

when you feel 10 feet tall ."

[Mark Foote]

23 hours ago, Daniel said:

 

  23 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

I think the simultaneity is something that comes out of meditative experience

This also makes perfect sense to me.  Simultaneity is, imo, one of the most important concepts for clear awareness of reality.

 

When I consider simultaneity, it is inherently dual.  If it is non-dual, it cannot be simultaneous.

 

The quote from my latest post in my last response to you, that was just intended to provide context for the paragraph before the close.  I think your eyes glazed over when you saw the verbiage, and I don't blame them, but I think they missed this:

 

Action can come entirely out of the placement of attention, a placement out of necessity in the movement of breath.  The experience can be like hypnotic suggestion, where action takes place without a will to act on the part of the subject--"your hand is picking up the cup, your arm is bringing the cup to your lips"--when that happens, there are "no latent conceits that I am the doer, mine is the doer, with regard to the consciousness-informed body" (as Gautama said).  There is no conception of the cup, of the nature and role of the cup, of the significance of the action with regard to the cup--the experience is empty of those things, there is only emptiness.  When habit and volition return, there is the cup, the nature and role of the cup, and the significance of the cup. 

Sometimes when you think that you are doing zazen with an imperturbable mind, you ignore the body, but it is also necessary to have the opposite understanding at the same time. Your body is practicing zazen in imperturbability while your mind is moving.--Shunryu Suzuki

Suzuki said "at the same time", but I believe that refers to an openness to the placement of attention of necessity and an openness to action out of placement even as habit and volition control activity.
 

 

Non-duality is an experience of action, or more correctly an experience of the cessation of "doing something" in action, cessation first in speech, then in the body, and finally with regard to thought.  When there is no "I am the doer, mine is the doer", there is no duality.
 

[stirling]

 

Quote

Clarity is also one of those words which non-dualist Dzogchenis like to use - as if it means something in itself without reference to what is clear to what.

 

You might be thinking of the term "Clear Light" here, which specifically refers to the "nature of mind" or the primordial awareness. It's not actually as obscure as it sounds. Most people have glimpses of the "nature of mind" every day, but would need pointing to it to understand or recognize what it is. 

 

Quote

I think the first thing to say is that the philosophical position or 'view' of non-duality is not a denial of those dualities - although I admit it can sound like that on first hearing.  The denial of dualities would actually be monism.  The term 'non-dual' is chosen deliberately to show that it is not a monism.

 

Yes! Exactly - this is what is meant by the "two truths" doctrine. The nature of things is naturally free of dualities, and yet the dualities are still possible to see and interact with. Duality isn't seen through, only understood to be illusory. 

[Daniel]

7 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

Non-duality is an experience of action, or more correctly an experience of the cessation of "doing something" in action, cessation first in speech, then in the body, and finally with regard to thought.  When there is no "I am the doer, mine is the doer", there is no duality.

 

So not simultaneity, more like auto-pilot?  A robotic, thoughtless, autonomous reaction like blinking?

[Daniel]

5 hours ago, stirling said:

The nature of things is naturally free of dualities, and yet the dualities are still possible to see and interact with. Duality isn't seen through, only understood to be illusory. 

 

Sounds like denial to me...

[Daniel]

13 hours ago, Apech said:

Yogacara which means literally something like 'yoga path' is sometimes also called citta-mattra, which means 'mind only' or 'mere mind'.  In this school it would be fair to say that primacy is given to the realisations of practitioners that everything is mind. 

 

It is a preference?  Primacy is given, but there is no philosophical reason?

 

13 hours ago, Apech said:

One way of thinking about it is that in a world of plusses and negatives i.e. polarity and plurality there is also a zero.

 

You probably know how my brain works well enough to know that I would strongly object to this as non-dual.  

 

13 hours ago, Apech said:

they are ephemeral and lack any enduring 'self' or existence in and of themselves but are just appearances in a chain of causal connection - like links in a chain which have no use on their own (if you try to extract them the whole chain falls apart).

 

Yes, I'm familiar with this argument, but, from my point of view is is completely lacking merit.  The links in the chain have inherent existence.  If they did not, then extracting them would have no effect.  The fact that the whole chain falls apart when any link is removed proves the inherent existence **and significance** of each and every link in the chain.  If the links did not have significance they couuld be extracted and have no effect on the chain.  All phenomena are links in a chain of causal connection.  Therefore all phenomena is significant and has inherent reality.

 

13 hours ago, Apech said:

By the way I am just writing this off the top of my head -

 

I really appreciate it.  It sounds like there is a preference, a choice made, to erase the Prakriti / Purusha distinction, but there does not seem to be any good reason to do this unless I speculate on the underlying mechanism of the meditative practice which you seemed to rightfully discourage.  I am not a meditator.  I contemplate.  I can only guess at what is happening there based on what I am reading of others experiences. 

 

Edited November 10, 2023 by Daniel

[Apech]

3 hours ago, Daniel said:

 

It is a preference?  Primacy is given, but there is no philosophical reason?

 

It's yogacara and therefore the union of one's mind with its original nature through meditative absorbtion reveals it's nature which is ineffable etc.

 

3 hours ago, Daniel said:

 

You probably know how my brain works well enough to know that I would strongly object to this as non-dual.  

 

 

I don't know anything about how your brain works.

 

3 hours ago, Daniel said:

Yes, I'm familiar with this argument, but, from my point of view is is completely lacking merit.  The links in the chain have inherent existence.  If they did not, then extracting them would have no effect.  The fact that the whole chain falls apart when any link is removed proves the inherent existence **and significance** of each and every link in the chain.  If the links did not have significance they couuld be extracted and have no effect on the chain.  All phenomena are links in a chain of causal connection.  Therefore all phenomena is significant and has inherent reality.

 

That as is said up to you.  It is a metaphor only and shouldn't be stretched too far.

 

3 hours ago, Daniel said:

 

I really appreciate it.  It sounds like there is a preference, a choice made, to erase the Prakriti / Purusha distinction, but there does not seem to be any good reason to do this unless I speculate on the underlying mechanism of the meditative practice which you seemed to rightfully discourage.  I am not a meditator.  I contemplate.  I can only guess at what is happening there based on what I am reading of others experiences. 

 

 

It's not about erasing the distinction it is about resolving the 'ontological gap' which having two absolutes produces.  This leads to ignorance and attachment and therefore more suffering.

 

In the final result Buddhism is soteriological and not a philosophical system - the view is there to support one's conduct and practice that's all.

 

 

[Giles]

1 hour ago, Apech said:

In the final result Buddhism is soteriological and not a philosophical system - the view is there to support one's conduct and practice that's all.

 

 

Interesting:

 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soteriology

 

Thank you @Apech

 

[Daniel]

Me too.  Thank you @Apech.

[Daniel]

4 hours ago, Giles said:

 

Interesting:

 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soteriology

 

Thank you @Apech

 

 

As soteriology, it explains a lot, doesn't it?  Especially the appeal in the west for those who are coming from a Christian background.  I wonder how many buddhists would object to this label?

[Daniel]

6 hours ago, Apech said:

Buddhism is soteriological

 

If so, this would explain the desire to extend "non-dual" into literal as opposed to metaphor by western adherents?    

[Apech]

59 minutes ago, Daniel said:

 

As soteriology, it explains a lot, doesn't it?  Especially the appeal in the west for those who are coming from a Christian background.  I wonder how many buddhists would object to this label?

 

 

If you have followed my 'Unpopular Opiinions' thread you will see in my OP the idea that most western Buddhists are really Christian.  There is an appeal to (especially Catholics) who have lapsed or lost their belief in God to move to Buddhist 'spirituality without God' - or at least that is what they think.  Quite often you will hear this as the stated reason for their Buddhism - that it is atheist spirituality.  This is of course nonsense.  Buddha was not atheist in any way similar to Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens et al.  In fact there are plenty of gods in Buddhas view.   And you also have people who label themselves secular Buddhists - who have taken Buddhism and stripped it of all the difficult parts and made up their own system.  This is even more of a laugh because the idea of religious versus secular is Christian.

 

What is interesting about this though is the 'interference' that comes through from Judeo-Christian thought into those who profess Buddhism in the West.  Culture as they say is incommunicable - in other words you can't quite say what it is even to yourself.  And so a whole host of views and attitudes come across with the western Buddhist from their natural culture.  I think this explains the big struggle with non-self, emptiness and non-duality which are not at all natural to a Christian mind which firmly embeds dualities such as good and evil.  The other great poison is 'wokeness' but that's another story.

 

Personally even though I was not brought up religious at all, my father was an atheism humanist and quite skeptical of anything vaguely mystical - I had to go through a long period of deconstrution and self examination to even decide if I was a Buddhist at all.  There are times when I'm still not sure ... but with practice find the uncertainty helpful.

[Apech]

1 hour ago, Daniel said:

 

If so, this would explain the desire to extend "non-dual" into literal as opposed to metaphor by western adherents?    

 

 

No ... goodness no!  the chain is a metaphor not the non-duality.  Deary me.

 

 

[Mark Foote]

16 hours ago, Daniel said:

 

  On 11/9/2023 at 9:00 AM, Apech said:

Yogacara which means literally something like 'yoga path' is sometimes also called citta-mattra, which means 'mind only' or 'mere mind'.  In this school it would be fair to say that primacy is given to the realisations of practitioners that everything is mind. 

 

It is a preference?  Primacy is given, but there is no philosophical reason?

 

 

Yogapedia provides a definition of “dhyana” based on the Sanskrit roots of the word:
 

Dhyana is a Sanskrit word meaning “meditation.” It is derived from the root words, dhi, meaning “receptacle” or “the mind”; and yana, meaning “moving” or “going.”
 

(dhyana, dec. 9 2017, “Yogapedia”, authorship not ascribed; https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/5284/dhyana)

 

Dhyana could therefore be said to translate literally as “mind moving”.
 

The sixth patriarch of Zen in China pointed directly to the mind moving, in a case from the “Gateless Gate” collection:
 

Not the Wind, Not the Flag
 

Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: “The flag is moving.”

The other said: “The wind is moving.”

The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He told them: “Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving.”

 

 

To me, what the sixth patriarch said was, pay attention to the singularity of self-awareness that moves, not to the flag or the wind.
 

(Not the Wind, Not the Flag)

 

Again, it's an experiential thing.  The "mind" only moves freely in a state that Gautama described as the fourth concentration.  I've described the free placement of attention out of necessity in the movement of breath, and the feeling of the activity that takes place without "doing something".  As I've written previously:

 

The difficulty is that most people will lose consciousness before they cede activity to the location of attention–they lose the presence of mind with the placement of attention, because they can’t believe that action in the body is possible without “doing something”:
 

It’s impossible to teach the meaning of sitting. You won’t believe it. Not because I say something wrong, but until you experience it and confirm it by yourself, you cannot believe it.
 

(Kobun Chino Otogawa, “Embracing Mind”, edited by Cosgrove & Hall, pg 48)

 

 

Or as Shakespeare wrote in "Hamlet":

 

HORATIO:
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange.

 

HAMLET:
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

 

 

Quote

 

... I am not a meditator.  I contemplate.  I can only guess at what is happening there based on what I am reading of others experiences. 

 

 

 

… Just before I fall asleep, my awareness can move very readily, and my sense of where I am tends to move with it. This is also true when I am waking up, although it can be harder to recognize (I tend to live through my eyes in the daytime, and associate my sense of place with them).

 

… when I realize my physical sense of location in space, and realize it as it occurs from one moment to the next, then I wake up or fall asleep as appropriate.

 

(Waking Up and Falling Asleep)

 

 

When a presence of mind is retained as the placement of attention shifts, then the natural tendency toward the free placement of attention can draw out thought initial and sustained, and bring on the stages of concentration:

 

… there is no need to depend on teaching. But the most important thing is to practice and realize our true nature… [laughs]. This is, you know, Zen.

 

(Shunryu Suzuki, Tassajara 68-07-24 transcript from shunryusuzuki.com)

 

Find the seat and put on the robe, and afterward see for yourself.
 

("Zen Letters, Teachings of Yuanwu", tr J.C. Cleary &Thomas Cleary p 65)

 

 

 

 

Edited November 10, 2023 by Mark Foote

[liminal_luke]

To me, both Christianity and Judiasm are as "non-dual" as anything Buddhist.  What is the cross if not the crossing of Yin and Yang lines resulting in the non-dual Christ-iness emanating from the center?  What is the Star of David if not the alchemical mixing of Yin and Yang represented by intersecting triangles?  It's the same basic stuff wherever you turn -- Daoism, Christianity, Judiasm, Buddhism .  They all got it: how reality is both dual (ten thousand things) and one (wu wei) at the same time  Two truths.  Dualism and non-dualism together, neither perspective more important than the other.  Perhaps the most important thing is to be able to "bridge" these two seemingly incompatible views, to see the dualism in the non-dual and vice versa.

 

All of life is a very narrow bridge  And the most important thing is not to be afraid at all.

- Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

Edited November 10, 2023 by liminal_luke

[Apech]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

To me, both Christianity and Judiasm are as "non-dual" as anything Buddhist.  What is the cross if not the crossing of Yin and Yang lines resulting in the non-dual Christ-iness emanating from the center?  What is the Star of David if not the alchemical mixing of Yin and Yang represented by intersecting triangles?  It's the same basic stuff wherever you turn -- Daoism, Christianity, Judiasm, Buddhism .  They all got it: how reality is both dual (ten thousand things) and one (wu wei) at the same time  Two truths.  Dualism and non-dualism together, neither perspective more important than the other.  Perhaps the most important thing is to be able to "bridge" these two seemingly incompatible views, to see the dualism in the non-dual and vice versa.

 

All of life is a very narrow bridge  And the most important thing is not to be afraid at all.

- Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

have you read the catholic catechism?

[liminal_luke]

4 minutes ago, Apech said:

have you read the catholic catechism?

 

No.  Would it lead me to a different conclusion?

[Mark Foote]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

... reality is both dual (ten thousand things) and one (wu wei) at the same time.
 

I've been trying to make that  point, exactly--the opposite of dual is wu wei, "doing nothing yet everything is done".   The cessation of habit and volition in action, not the cessation of action.  Not going to fit neatly in a philosophy .

[Apech]

39 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

No.  Would it lead me to a different conclusion?

Maybe.  Someone open minded like you might be able to see the connections across different religions - but that kind of puts you outside all of them doesn’t it?  I tried quite hard to be a Christian but just found that I think like a Buddhist and while I admire a lot of Christians - there seems to be a very odd and dualist world view at the heart of it.

[liminal_luke]

2 minutes ago, Apech said:

Maybe.  Someone open minded like you might be able to see the connections across different religions - but that kind of puts you outside all of them doesn’t it?  I tried quite hard to be a Christian but just found that I think like a Buddhist and while I admire a lot of Christians - there seems to be a very odd and dualist world view at the heart of it.

 

It's not that everything is exactly the same.  Certainly each of the religions I named have very different "flavors," different cultural traditions, different notions of right and wrong, etc.  And I'd wager that most Christians, Jews, etc....would disagree on my take on things.  But I believe there's a mystical heart at the center of most of the world's great spiritual paths where things converge.  At a very high level, "enlightened" masters in the various traditions can recognize each other because they are all responding to the same real thing.

[Apech]

2 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

It's not that everything is exactly the same.  Certainly each of the religions I named have very different "flavors," different cultural traditions, different notions of right and wrong, etc.  And I'd wager that most Christians, Jews, etc....would disagree on my take on things.  But I believe there's a mystical heart at the center of most of the world's great spiritual paths where things converge.  At a very high level, "enlightened" masters in the various traditions can recognize each other because they are all responding to the same real thing.

i watched a podcast in which a very nice gentle catholic said that Buddhist and Muslim say that Jesus is a liar (in his claim to be the son of god) - I put a comment that I had never heard any Buddhist say any thing like this and he replied that he was just using colorful language.  But I don’t think he is the only Christian who feels like this in their hearts.

[liminal_luke]

1 minute ago, Apech said:

i watched a podcast in which a very nice gentle catholic said that Buddhist and Muslim say that Jesus is a liar (in his claim to be the son of god) 

 

I don't think Jesus is a liar, I think he's a metaphor.  So, ya know, never mind me.

[old3bob]

5 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

To me, both Christianity and Judiasm are as "non-dual" as anything Buddhist.  What is the cross if not the crossing of Yin and Yang lines resulting in the non-dual Christ-iness emanating from the center?  What is the Star of David if not the alchemical mixing of Yin and Yang represented by intersecting triangles?  It's the same basic stuff wherever you turn -- Daoism, Christianity, Judiasm, Buddhism .  They all got it: how reality is both dual (ten thousand things) and one (wu wei) at the same time  Two truths.  Dualism and non-dualism together, neither perspective more important than the other.  Perhaps the most important thing is to be able to "bridge" these two seemingly incompatible views, to see the dualism in the non-dual and vice versa.

 

All of life is a very narrow bridge  And the most important thing is not to be afraid at all.

- Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

 

that sounds a lot like new age thinking that melts everything into a big comfortable pot...thus interprets things how it wants to regardless of various religious scriptures and many teachers that do not do the same.  I don't care if a Christian Church (or other ways) are new age like as long as they advertise themselves as being so --- since they can not really have it both ways.  So either use the Bible as it is or toss its black and white differences and then substitute their own and different written and spoken teachings.  So no, Jesus or the Buddha are not an incarnations of Vishnu or whatever new agers may come up with that can easily result in offending multiple religious' schools.  (and its people in the earth realm,  although if one goes to the absolute realm such differences disappear even though that should not be forced on anyone as new agers tend to do)

[Bindi]

Just along the lines this thread is taking, I think Jesus was a phenomenal person, my small gripe would be that he didn’t go beyond the framework of the Judaism he was brought up in, but he was a groundbreaker and he couldn’t get everything right. Also nothing against Jews, but Judaism has its limitations, just as Christianity and Buddhism do. 
 

Mixing up spiritual metaphors, I find an echo of reality in the Neidan child, which I see as the produce of yin qi and yang qi or “Shiva and Shakti”, I think a couple of people, specifically Jesus and the founder of neidan, got to this point, and gained real powers. Personally speaking I don’t think the Buddha got to any real point, I think he came to an intellectual conclusion that was still mind based… just putting it out there ya know 🙃