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Non-duality
misecmisc1
I am a HinduIndia Veteran
Hi All,
what is this non-duality? or in other words, what is this oneness of all things? i see a chair in a room, but i and chair are different things. if we take it to matter and consciousness, then matter and consciousness are different things. So is there something like non-duality, or oneness, which is referred to in spiritual teachings? How to experience non-duality? Any ideas please. thanks in advance.
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I see non-duality as experiential, not as some kind of metaphysical statement. I think it is about being fully grounded in the present, mindfulness practice is a good route.
You and chair are different things. But a chair and a chair (inanimate, non-sentient compounded objects) are the same, just as you and another human being, are the same.
You are not a chair, a chair is not you.
You are every human being, and every human being is you.
I struggle with this on one level, but happily believe and accept this on another.
MY task, is to even up the difference....
I found Thich Nhat Hanh's inter-being to be quite profound in this area... He explains that there is no such thing as an independent object or being. Within the chair there live the wood that makes up its pieces, the glue that binds it together, the woodcrafters who made it, their lunch, the trees where the wood came from, the water and sunlight that fed those trees, and so on.
So in effect, we as human beings contain our ancestors, the air we breathe, the trees who make that air, the food we eat and so on. We are not independent beings, but integral parts of a much greater whole.
Our minds, too, inter-are with other minds, through speech and the writing and other media that we absorb. Even something as simple as posting on a public forum and being read there means that your thought and my thought intermingle. My day might not have been the same, but for this forum post.
Good points @kerome, I had not taken the comparison to that extent, because I was simply thinking on an immediate-perception level.
Reminds me of when a Tibetan Buddhist was trying to explain emptiness to me by using the example of the parts of a "table".
Teacher: "If I remove the legs from the table, what am I left with?"
Me: ( all innocent ): "A table top?"
I iz wikid.
inter-being or inter-relatedness seems understandable, but @Kerome we still are different - right? where is the oneness here - or - where is the non-duality here? or what is oneness here?
Every single thing is a unique aspect and expression of the same process. Every single sentient being is a new perspective on the old scene.
Even "oneness" doesn't explain it because the label implies a finished work and borders. If we are "one" there must be a border between "one" and "not-one".
I think duality is an illusory tool and nothing bad. Like the love of money is bad, not money itself... Kind of sorta.
You can visualize togetherness using logic but to actually feel it, I'd suggest walking meditation both before and after logical discourse.
Non-duality and emptiness are two legs of the Zen stool. Buddha-nature is the third, by the way. All three are needed and you must comprehend one to understand the others.
Non-duality speaks to mental constructs we use to make sense of the world and assign relative value to things. Our minds assign dual and opposite qualities to something and then place that object, concept, or thing on this sliding scale of opposite qualities.
Tall or short. Hot or cold. Good or bad. Safe or dangerous. Us or them. Important or not. The entire world is seen in relation to this dualism. You're a white man walking down a street and see someone walking toward you. Is this person safe or dangerous? Well, is he young or old, big or small, black or white? Are you in a safe or dangerous neighborhood? You assign the situation a set of dualistic values and act accordingly. Of course it's all relative. The black man approaching you is doing his own dualistic sorting, and when you cross the street to avoid him, he puts you at the far end of his own scale of racist or non-racist.
This process of using a dualistic approach to sorting out the world around you has some big, obvious problems. You see the world in relation to "us and them" and "friend and enemy". Our own past President at one time claimed he could sort the nations of the world into "evil and non-evil" and the dualistic mind insists on one or the other. You're either for us or against us. You're either part of the solution or part of the problem. It takes a messy, complicated world and vastly oversimplifies all issues and conflicts.
But reality is intrinsically empty of such qualities as good and evil. People are just people, events are neither good nor bad in itself, and the universe is not divided between your life and everything else happening. Your needs are not on the important end of the scale while everyone else's needs are unimportant. See beyond these dualistic labels and you comprehend emptiness and begin to glimpse Buddha Nature. The world is. The universe is. You are. Anything beyond that is illusion. Handy illusion, perhaps. Illusion nontheless.
Hope this helps.
When the above is reduced to just "chair" and that's it! There's no "I see" some thing. There's no making of "I see" to begin with.
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And some commentary on the above
This is reminiscent of the Bahiya Sutta - the training referred to here is the bare attention of mindfulness:
"Then, Bāhiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bāhiya, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.1.10.than.html
Even when you understand that you're looking at the world from a dualistic viewpoint, then what do you do about it? I suppose in one way or another, every school of Buddhism attempts to drag our minds from the dualistic extremes to the middle way. It's the "Right View" part of the 8-Fold Path. In Zen, we meditate on Emptiness. I think other schools use the term "impermanence".
Buddha used dualism as a tool and his body as a vehicle of the dharma to help awaken more of us to the logic of compassion.
There are various approaches, including anatta, sunyata, anicca and paṭiccasamuppāda.
I think the challenge is to develop direct insight, rather than it being merely an intellectual exercise. Close observation of experience is how I approach it, aka mindfulness.
NB
anatta = not-self
sunyata = emptiness
anicca = transience
paṭiccasamuppāda = dependent arising or conditionality
Outstanding insights
An experience of oneness as opposed to duality is possible. In Buddhism the temporary, changing and empty nature of 'Buddha Nature' and enlightenment is stressed.
Some of us who are familiar with and know these experiences, struggle to convey them. We know that mindfulness and meditation make the experience more likely. We know they result in compassion and wisdom.
We have to in a sense, relax our attachment to opinions, separation, inner 'my', 'me', 'mine'. We have to look at the very nature of our experience and its arising. Hence practice.
Well, let me see if I can bend the principle - and your mind - a little further
If you inter-are with all your ancestors and everything that caused them to make you who you are, can you still say exactly what a human being is? Your reality stretches far back into the distant reaches of time, and inter-relates with many many other humans. If you in practice are but a humble part of the Whole, you could say you are like a unique snowflake, but still like many other snowflakes, and deeply connected to them. There is a definite one-ness in that.
Duality is falling into a category, conventionality or labels. Non-duality is an experience to discover and to further explore. It is a property of emptiness and I believe the eighth jhana describes it. Neither perception nor non-perception is non-duality. Hearing no hearer, seeing no see-er etc.
The Eighth Jhana: Neither perception nor non-perception
The eight and ninth jhanas are difficult to discuss because they are so hard to describe in much the same way nibbana is hard to describe. This is because they are such heightened levels of concentration and of the Path itself, that they must be experienced. There is also very little to discuss with the eighth and ninth jhanas, since the perception levels have become so fine and so subtle. You enter the eighth jhana by letting go of the sense of no-thingness and enter a very natural, calm place. In the eighth jhana there is very little recognition of what is happening, but you are also not totally unaware of what is happening. There is such a peaceful state and you have gone beyond the duality of perception nor non-perception that it is easy to be fooled that you have experienced full enlightenment. But there is still more to do.
http://www.dhammawiki.com/index.php?title=9_Jhanas#The_Seventh_Jhana:_No-thingness
Also, it is important to realise that often there are many more ways of classifying things than in opposing pairs. The first is the halfway house of a sliding scale - light and dark exist within a continuum of shades of twilight. The second is that often opposing pairs exist together with many other equal partners, for example black and white co-exist with red and blue. It is in fact really difficult to think of two things which are real, not abstract, and still a pure duality. So by looking a little deeper, you can train the mind to view things in more complex ways that just duality.
This discussion also isn't entirely complete without mentioning neti-neti - a useful concept even if it isn't strictly Buddhist. It is a Sanskrit term for a Vedic method of inquiry into the nature of self and the universe. It is a way of excluding ever more, by going not this, nor that, until it arrives at the authentic I. During this process all dualities drop away.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neti_neti
I don't believe in opposites, just complimentary aspects of the same thing.
Up and down are complimentary aspects of directionality for example.
The only true opposite for apple is no apple but no apple is just a concept just as the idea of opposites.
Yin is considered the opposite of yang but the only opposite of the yin yang is no yin yang.
As far as I remember, what I heard in a dhamma talk given by a Zen teacher, the instruction for zazen, which Dogen taught in Fukanzazengi was: Think not-thinking. How do you think not-thinking? Non-thinking.
So is this Without Thinking (which is referred in above commentary) the same as Non-thinking, which Dogen taught to do in zazen? please clarify. thanks in advance.
Here is my take on non duality ie. no separation between subject and object.
"I" see a chair. "I" hear a bell. That is the default mode where the subject is the one who sees or hears. (subject existing independent of the object)
The Buddha taught that the reality is eye see, ears hear under the right conditions eg. light, functioning vision, contact, attention etc.
The zen teaching says without a listener is there sound of a falling tree. (Answer is no)
But turning that around, without sounds where can the listener be.
Can there be thinker without thoughts or a knower without the known? No separation.
"Neti-neti" is very similar to the refrain in the suttas, "this is not me, this is not mine, this is not myself", as applied to experience through the sense bases. Except that in Hinduism there is something left, the seer, Atman...which seems very similar to the innate knowing of mind in some Buddhist schools.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svasaṃvedana
That's just it... As the question is begged, who proclaims "This is not me"?
Yes, there is an "inner knowing". I think in Buddhism this awareness would be considered a quality of mind rather than an essence observing. So we would talk about it as prajna or jnana, rather than as Atman. It took me quite some time to understand the difference!
I think Ajahn Chah used to refer to it as "one who knows", though he didn't mean this as an "essence" who knows.
Note the refrain in the Dhammapada, "sabbe dhamma anatta", which means all phenomena lack self-hood, including Nibbana. And in the Heart Sutra, the bodhisattva uses prajna wisdom to see the emptiness of the aggregates - so he uses wisdom, not Atman.
Yaoshan's "Non-thinking" and the "without thinking" above are both "Hishiryo".
Is this basically non-conceptual awareness?
Well said @SpinyNorman
These may seem subtle nuances but they are very practical instructions, as you say resulting in a mind quality
We engage in a dualistic but practical introspection ... neti-neti. Recognising the inherent emptiness of the dualistic experiencer and object results in a settled mind quality. Such a quality manifests as a singular/wholistic unity ...
"One night I was sitting in meditation outside in the open air — my back straight as an arrow — firmly determined to make the mind quiet, but even after a long time it wouldn't settle down. So I thought, "I've been working at this for many days now, and yet my mind won't settle down at all. It's time to stop being so determined and to simply be aware of the mind." I started to take my hands and feet out of the meditation posture, but at the moment I had unfolded one leg but had yet to unfold the other, I could see that my mind was like a pendulum swinging more and more slowly, more and more slowly — until it stopped.
... the mind was in a state of awareness absolutely and solidly still, seeing clearly into the elementary phenomena of existence as they arose and disbanded, changing in line with their nature — and also seeing a separate condition inside, with no arising, disbanding, or changing, a condition beyond birth and death: something very difficult to put clearly into words, because it was a realization of the elementary phenomena of nature, completely internal and individual.
the moment when the mind let go of everything was a clear awareness of the elementary phenomena of nature, because it was an awareness that knew within and saw within of its own accord — not something you can know or see by wanting.
For this reason the Buddha's teaching, "Sabbe dhamma anatta — All phenomena are not-self," tells us not to latch onto any of the phenomena of nature, whether conditioned or unconditioned."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/kee/inward.html#anatta
"Unconditioned" is tricky. As you'll know in the suttas "the unconditioned" is an epithet for Nibbana. I used to think of "the unconditioned" as a noun, like an absolute to be discovered or connect with - but that would make it like Atman/Brahman, and then "sabbe dhamma anatta" wouldn't make sense because it includes the unconditioned ( Nibbana ). And of course sunyata is not compatible with absolutes like Atman/Brahman.
So now I see "unconditioned" as an adjective, not a noun, descriptive of a quality of mind.
To be honest I don't think this stuff is always explained very well in Theravada schools, it only really clicked when I went back to the Heart Sutra and prajna. I recited the Heart Sutra daily for many years so I am somewhat familiar with it.
What I find is that strong mindfulness naturally dilutes the sense of "me" - just focussing on present experience, more awareness, less thought.
Perhaps it is thinking itself that creates self-view? "I think, therefore I think I am".
Anyway, I don't think non-duality is some profound mystical experience or realisation, it's actually very ordinary and natural.
"Be Here Now" as some old hippy used to say.
Tee Hee.
I will have to not think about that.
My experience is the attachment or preference to our thoughts/thinking/being in other words tight ass thinking, manifests as separation/suffering/dukkha.
In a sense we do not identify or cling to our opinions, thinking, certainty of consciousness etc.
As I said to the Buddha only this morning, 'one of us must die!'
Actually, thinking about my own experience ( doh! ) it seems to be strong feelings that increase the sense of "me". Or at least the tendency to over-identify with them.
I certainly had that with anger in the past, though not recently, it kind of flames up from within. But I also had a long experience with sadness not so long ago and that seemed to settle all over and around me like a great blanket.
Ordinary/unordinary
Natural/unnatural
Be Here Now/Be Here Later
Nope still dual.
Non-duality is nothing to do with word games.
I wasn't being serious, but I still do think its not that easy to reach/attain, even "natural" and "ordinary" for that matter.
I see awakening as gradual and progressive rather than sudden.
I don't know. I guess that would depend on what one's conception is regarding "non-conceptual awareness", LOL
It's hard to wrap mind around wisdom detecting wisdom.
Where does buddhanature fit into this?
I understand it as the potential for enlightenment.
Prajna is a quality of mind, clear knowing. Prajna doesn't see itself, it sees emptiness.
From my view, emptiness is the same as potential.
I'm honestly not trying to be argumentative so forgive me for pressing...
It seems to me that a quality of mind would be inherent in any sentient being and so without the point of view to become untainted by, there would be no knowing.
No mud, no lotus.
Unless there is a universal knowing but then we're looking at Atman again.
I would even expand on "gradual" and spread it out over lifetimes if needed. Some things may be easily understood, but a different story to apply and put to use.
I think prajna has a universal quality, but then so does joy or anger. That doesn't make it an absolute like Atman/Brahman. But there has to be somewhere for it to arise, and that is the mind.
I think you could look at the mind as a container or space within which various qualities can be present, or not ( see the 3rd frame of satipatthana, states of mind ).
You could say either that prajna results from practice, or that it is always present and is revealed by practice ( Buddha nature? ).
Exactly.
So without sentient beings and duality, there is no knowing or prajna but only the potential for it.
To me this implies that although the seer trains to be one with the seen, there is still someone who trains to see.
I can dig that but is it present without individuality as individuality is an expression of prajna or buddha nature or is it the other way around? If there is no beginning then I guess it could be both and neither in a way. More inter-dependence.
I'm really not sure.
I think if given infinite and beginningless time, with all the infinite possibilities playing out in all the infinite ways, potential or emptiness will eventually catch a glimpse of itself.
From my experience, Buddha Nature, Atman ( is that like batman without being
) are not something that is 'not non dual'. They are not another thing that conventional mind can attach to, interpret, experience as separate or even speak of [mega lobster fail on that one].
It seems that a mind is required to experience all of this stuff, so it's something experienced by individuals. I don't think prajna is some kind of essence floating around, that would be more like Hinduism.
Yes and this is where I don't bother with beliefs or faith. Sometimes one makes more sense and sometimes the other wins out.
I think we're launching into the usual esoterical orbit now and elevating non-duality into the mystical realm. Duality plays out all around us. Right now in the USA we have white people blaming all black people for the killing of some police last night, and obviously other people blaming all police for the killing of nonthreatening black people. Dualism feeds on itself.
Non-dualism is not the opposite of dualism, because that would just add a layer to the problem. That would mean judging the police force and black protesters to be equally at fault. Non-dualism is not judging at all and just wanting the shooting to stop. People are shooting each other. Just stop!
It's not easy to practice non-duality when the world, or more precisely the loud voices that want to rule it, are yelling at you to pick sides. For the history of humanity, one tribe has been killing the other and tribal leaders have been cheering us on from the safety of their fortified camps. Dualism is a current that sweeps us all along the stream of life, while we ignore the sound of the waterfall getting louder. Non-duality means letting go of your cherished opinions of who are the bad guys and who are the good guys, and see people who need to stop hurting each other.
I agree. It's at least partially about seeing through the concept of opposites.
I just see people killing people.
This really helped me become more aware of the experiential non-duality that is. From p. 211 of Thich Nhat Hanh's Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: