Can you pls explain Dualistic thinking according to Buddhism? Is it wrong to hav dualistic thoughts?

zenmyste

I cant seem to fully grasp the concept of it.

Is it wrong to think there is 'night' and 'day' , good and bad, highs and lows, yin and yang, life and death etc etc

Why should we get rid of dualistic thinking? Whats the harm in it?

Floating_Abu

Buddhism does not ask us to get rid of anything, except our greed, hatred and delusion ie. with the root of ignorance.

Once that job is done, you can pick up and keep whatever you like IMO

Ditto 'dualistic thinking' -- if it is truly clarified, noting that being able to move away from its grasp also allows much more interesting and open investigation of 'life' and its dynamics

IMO

Abu

Invincible_summer

Buddhism isn't referred to as the "Middle Way" for giggles or a cool catchphrase...

I don't know if Buddhism aims to "get rid" of dualistic thinking as much as guide the practitioner to see the grey in between as well. As in, there's black, there's white, but look at all the wonderful grey! Heh.

I think the harm in dualistic thinking is that it pits everything against a polar opposite when the world doesn't always work that way. It creates "Others," enemies, etc. "You're either with us or against us" vs "I agree with some of what you say, but disagree with other parts - let's come to an understanding."

Floating_Abu

It also encourages its practitioners to see that a human is not really a 'human', if not then what? A tree is not only a tree, without the labels, what do you see?

William Blake:
How do you know but every bird that cuts the airy way, is an immense world of delight, closed by your senses five?

Seest thou the little winged fly, smaller than a grain of sand?
It has a heart like thee, a brain open to heaven and hell,
Withinside wondrous and expansive; its gates are not closed;
I hope thine are not.

taiyaki

All thought is dualistic.

Meaning if I say for instance the color red, red can only exist in relationship to all the other colors.

Good & evil. Right & left. Happy & unhappy. Etc. etc.

Now thinking itself is framed in such a manner, but it isn't necessarily the dualistic thinking which causes all the problems.

It is the aversion, attachment, and ignorance that is added onto what the words point to.

But lets talk experiential. Most human beings experience life dualistically. The body and mind here perceives the external world out there. This is the result of ignorance, aversion, and attachment in the form of setting up reference points of subject here and object out there.

But lets look even closer. What is dualism based on? First a single reference point is posited. Which is I, my, me. From this single reference point the other is instantly made. Well I is only in relationship to other than I. You couldn't be I unless there was other, vice versa.

But notice in your direct experience. The "I" is merely a thought. Where is the present thought? Gone. So what are you, when you do not formulate an idea about yourself?

Investigation into this moment without making reference points of this and that. What is left? Nothing conceptual, nothing fabricated.

It's worth examining.

federica

I cant seem to fully grasp the concept of it.

Is it wrong to think there is 'night' and 'day' , good and bad, highs and lows, yin and yang, life and death etc etc

Why should we get rid of dualistic thinking? Whats the harm in it?

This is not 'dualistic thinking'. this is just observation of opposites...

dualistic thinking means that life is illusory, nothing is permanent, everything changes and is made up of perceptions - but if we stand on a drawing pin, it still actually hurts...

It's a real pin, and a real foot - even though the foot is not the same foot as yesterday, nor will it be the 'same' foot, tomorrow....

Cinorjer

I cant seem to fully grasp the concept of it.

Is it wrong to think there is 'night' and 'day' , good and bad, highs and lows, yin and yang, life and death etc etc

Why should we get rid of dualistic thinking? Whats the harm in it?

This is not 'dualistic thinking'. this is just observation of opposites...

dualistic thinking means that life is illusory, nothing is permanent, everything changes and is made up of perceptions - but if we stand on a drawing pin, it still actually hurts...

It's a real pin, and a real foot - even though the foot is not the same foot as yesterday, nor will it be the 'same' foot, tomorrow....

Agree with @zenmyste. Non-duality can be tricky. We're saying there is no ultimate distinction between opposites, but only arbitrary or relative lines drawn. However, our minds treat the world as if such handy thumbnail descriptions actually describe reality. Thus dualistic thinking equals samsara.

For survival and immediate purposes, the world can be divided into things that are harmful and things that are safe. Things that are good to eat and things to avoid eating. Activity that feels good and actions that bring pain. And so on. Dualistic thinking. Not bad, not good, but how our minds work and even though it's sloppy and prone to mistakes, a person can get by.

The problem is, this same mental habit is carried further to assigning people as good and evil, and us versus them, and mine versus yours, and so on. We end up dividing the world into catagories of those worthy of our compassion and those other people. Dualistic thinking.

Dakini

I cant seem to fully grasp the concept of it.

Is it wrong to think there is 'night' and 'day' , good and bad, highs and lows, yin and yang, life and death etc etc

Why should we get rid of dualistic thinking? Whats the harm in it?

This is not 'dualistic thinking'. this is just observation of opposites...

dualistic thinking means that life is illusory, nothing is permanent, everything changes and is made up of perceptions - but if we stand on a drawing pin, it still actually hurts...

It's a real pin, and a real foot - even though the foot is not the same foot as yesterday, nor will it be the 'same' foot, tomorrow....

Please help me with this. How is realizing that life is illusory, dualistic thinking? How is experiencing pain dualistic thinking? It sounds like there's important insight in here, but I'm not getting it.

Gui

IMHO, dualistic thinking is simply believing the illusion that you and not-you are separate. There is only everything. Once we accept as reality that you and not-you is the same and we keep this acceptance in our mind, your everyday life is lived with a new viewpoint and compassion arises of it's self.

ozen

Buddhism isn't referred to as the "Middle Way" for giggles or a cool catchphrase...

I don't know if Buddhism aims to "get rid" of dualistic thinking as much as guide the practitioner to see the grey in between as well. As in, there's black, there's white, but look at all the wonderful grey! Heh.

I think the harm in dualistic thinking is that it pits everything against a polar opposite when the world doesn't always work that way. It creates "Others," enemies, etc. "You're either with us or against us" vs "I agree with some of what you say, but disagree with other parts - let's come to an understanding."

Good answer.

And it's ironic isn't it, that religion so often polarizes the world.

how

I usually experience dualistic thought through the concept of myself as something separate from the rest of existance. It is the basis of ego centric reason. It is a natural learned binary response to lifes phenomena. It is an inherently adversarial approach that is not supported by spiritual meditation or understanding. It binds our views and options to some very limiting polarities of thought. It doesn't acknowledge the reality between those extremes nor their relativity to everything else. It is just an either/or mentality that hinders the development of acceptance, compassion, love, tenderness & benevolence

David

Before enlightenment, rivers were rivers and mountains were mountains.
During enlightenment, rivers are no longer rivers and mountains are no longer mountains.
After enlightenment, rivers are once again rivers and mountains are once again mountains.

person

This optical illusion is a good example of dualistic vs ultimate. The 2 tiles are ultimately the same shade. We view them in relation to the other tiles around them though, so they seem different. This is kind of how we dualistically view the world all the time. We say the water is hot when its only in comparison to something else that we can really say that, we think the quality of 'hotness' is something that is in the water. If our point of reference is a piece of metal glowing hot from being in a fire then the hot water is now cool so it can quench the heat of the metal. Ultimately it is the same temperature, but we give a quality that we innately view as existing within the water, this belief that these relative designations are ultimate is dualistic thinking.

pegembara

Take this example of dualism between life and death & the problems caused by not seeing things as they are.

As soon as we are born we are dead. Our birth and our death are just one thing. It's like a tree: when there's a root there must be branches, when there are branches there must be a root. You can't have one without the other. It's a little funny to see how at death people are so grief stricken and distracted and at birth how happy and delighted. It's delusion, nobody has ever looked at this clearly. I think if you really want to cry it would be better to do so when someone's born. Birth is death, death is birth; the branch is the root, the root is the branch. If you must cry, cry at the root, cry at the birth. Look closely: if there was no birth there would be no death. Can you understand this?

Ajahn Chah: Our Real Home

"For Buddhism, the dualism between life and death is only one instance of a more general problem, dualistic thinking. Why is dualistic thinking a problem? We differentiate between good and evil, success and failure, life and death, and so forth because we want to keep the one and reject the other. But we cannot have one without the other because they are interdependent: affirming one half also maintains the other. Living a "pure" life thus requires a preoccupation with impurity, and our hope for success will be proportional to our fear of failure. We discriminate between life and death in order to affirm one and deny the other, and, as we have seen, our tragedy lies in the paradox that these two opposites are so interdependent: there is no life without death and--what we are more likely to overlook--there is no death without life. This means our problem is not death but life-and-death."

Master Dogen

Jason

I cant seem to fully grasp the concept of it.

Is it wrong to think there is 'night' and 'day' , good and bad, highs and lows, yin and yang, life and death etc etc

Why should we get rid of dualistic thinking? Whats the harm in it?

I suppose it all depends on who you ask, or from which perspective your looking at the issue. For example, there are a lot of 'dualistic' concepts in Buddhism, such as the distinction between skillful and unskillful actions, and these sorts of distinctions are important/useful. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu puts it, "To think of 'skillful' and 'unskillful' desires is dualistic and judgmental. You don't want non-dualistic mechanics working on your car, or non-dualistic surgeons operating on your brain. You want people who can tell what's skillful from what's not. If you really value your happiness, you'll demand the same discernment in the person most responsible for it: yourself" ("Pushing the Limits"). That's just one way of looking at it, though.

Cinorjer

I cant seem to fully grasp the concept of it.

Is it wrong to think there is 'night' and 'day' , good and bad, highs and lows, yin and yang, life and death etc etc

Why should we get rid of dualistic thinking? Whats the harm in it?

I suppose it all depends on who you ask, or from which perspective your looking at the issue. For example, there are a lot of 'dualistic' concepts in Buddhism, such as the distinction between skillful and unskillful actions, and these sorts of distinctions are important/useful. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu puts it, "To think of 'skillful' and 'unskillful' desires is dualistic and judgmental. You don't want non-dualistic mechanics working on your car, or non-dualistic surgeons operating on your brain. You want people who can tell what's skillful from what's not. If you really value your happiness, you'll demand the same discernment in the person most responsible for it: yourself" ("Pushing the Limits"). That's just one way of looking at it, though.

And here is the paradox that makes non-duality so hard to pin down and leads to the original and valid question. Duality is woven into the sutras and the teachings, and even saying duality is bad causes the mind to say, "But aren't good and bad dualistic catagories? Then we logically can't even say dualism is good or bad."

And the sutras have a lot to say about good and evil. Read the Dhammapada and you're immersed in a sea of dualistic "this is good and this is evil". Does that mean dualism is OK when the dharma uses it, but not when we use it? How do you folks handle the paradox?

DairyLama

Why should we get rid of dualistic thinking?

This is an interesting discussion, but I don't feel we have a clear definition of "dualistic thinking". What exactly did you have in mind?

David

Duality to me, is a tool we use. A labeling system.

If Buddha eliminated dualistic thinking he would not have been able to communicate.

pegembara

The point is to let go of dualistic thoughts once the illusion is seen through but not before.

Some more examples of "non-dualistic" perception:

Wanting what’s good, without stop:
That’s the cause of suffering.
It’s a great fault: the strong fear of bad.
‘Good’ & ‘bad’ are poisons to the mind,
like foods that enflame a high fever.
The Dhamma isn’t clear
because of our basic desire for good.
Desire for good, when it’s great,
drags the mind into turbulent thought
until the mind gets inflated with evil,
and all its defilements proliferate.
The greater the error, the more they flourish,
taking one further & further away
from the genuine Dhamma.

Ajahn Mun’s Ballad of Liberation from the Five Khandhas

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

Hsin Hsin Ming

Jason

And here is the paradox that makes non-duality so hard to pin down and leads to the original and valid question. Duality is woven into the sutras and the teachings, and even saying duality is bad causes the mind to say, "But aren't good and bad dualistic catagories? Then we logically can't even say dualism is good or bad."

And the sutras have a lot to say about good and evil. Read the Dhammapada and you're immersed in a sea of dualistic "this is good and this is evil". Does that mean dualism is OK when the dharma uses it, but not when we use it? How do you folks handle the paradox?

I don't think there's really any paradox since Buddhism isn't a strictly nondualist philosophy. There are schools that definitely take a more nodualist position, but I personally don't the idea of oneness or non-duality has as much of a place in Buddhism as many believe. The Buddha that's presented in the Pali Canon, for example, is all about making distinctions when appropriate and useful (e.g., Snp 3.12), and ultimately transcending ideas of oneness, duality, and plurality altogether. In one essay by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, for example, he argues that from the Buddhist point of view:

The idea that spiritual life is a search for unity depends on the assumption that the universe is an organic whole, and that the whole is essentially good. The Canon, however, consistently portrays the goal of the spiritual life as transcendence: The world—which is synonymous with the All (SN 35:23)—is a dangerous river over which one has to cross to safety on the other side. The state of oneness or non-duality is conditioned (AN 10:29): still immersed in the river, unsafe. In reaching nibbana, one is not returning to the source of things (MN 1), but reaching something never reached before (AN 5:77): a dimension beyond all space and time. And in attaining this dimension, one is not establishing a new identity, for all identities—even infinite ones (DN 15)—ultimately prevent that attainment, and so have to be dropped.

Just one perspective to take into consideration, at any rate.

I_AM_THAT

I cant seem to fully grasp the concept of it.

Is it wrong to think there is 'night' and 'day' , good and bad, highs and lows, yin and yang, life and death etc etc

Why should we get rid of dualistic thinking? Whats the harm in it?

Personally I do not feel this is wrong or even harmful thinking; However I do believe there will be a point in time when you may understand that there is no difference in 'night' and 'day', 'male' and 'female', or 'right' and 'wrong'. After all, all is emptiness and emptiness is all.

"Step into the Void... But touch it lightly"

driedleaf

I agree with @ourself that they are just labels.

Does that mean dualism is OK when the dharma uses it, but not when we use it? How do you folks handle the paradox?

It is only a paradox within conventional understanding. We only need to understand that all things are impermanent, stressful, and not-self to transcend through the labels.

ozen

We should probably distinguish between a perceived difference and a polarity. The former is benign while the latter is oppositional. Needless to say, religions stand in opposition to many things. Because religions are necessarily oppositional there is no paradox.

Jeffrey

When a sheep eats grass it thinks 'this is me in here and I am getting the grass out there'. That is dualistic thinking.

When we think the world is frustrating and 'poor me' is trapped that is dualistic thinking. And when you believe the world is against you it is like punching tar. You keep getting more and more stuck.

The antidote is to examine your notion of 'me' and 'it'. This initially produces a lot of stress because it shakes the world up, kind of like cognitive dissonance.

ozen

When a sheep eats grass it thinks 'this is me in here and I am getting the grass out there'. That is dualistic thinking.

No, that's just weird thinking, especially for a sheep.

When we think the world is frustrating and 'poor me' is trapped that is dualistic thinking. And when you believe the world is against you it is like punching tar. You keep getting more and more stuck.

Yes, oppositional.

Jeffrey

When a sheep eats grass it thinks 'this is me in here and I am getting the grass out there'. That is dualistic thinking.

No, that's just weird thinking, especially for a sheep.

When we think the world is frustrating and 'poor me' is trapped that is dualistic thinking. And when you believe the world is against you it is like punching tar. You keep getting more and more stuck.

Yes, oppositional.

I don't agree that it is a weird thought to think there is a world that you are attracted, aversek and neutral towards. The second paragraph echos the first paragraph. This is from my Lama's dharma talk so I may have it right?

ozen

Well, for one thing sheep don't have a sense of self like we do. For example, a sheep does not have the ability to recognize itself in a mirror. In fact most animals lack this capacity. I imagine because it's not important for them and they developed in a different way. But in any case, it would be weird, in my opinion, for a person to think 'this is me in here and I am getting the grass out there'. Where exactly would the grass stop being "out there" and when would it be "me in here"?

person

Well, for one thing sheep don't have a sense of self like we do. For example, a sheep does not have the ability to recognize itself in a mirror. In fact most animals lack this capacity. I imagine because it's not important for them and they developed in a different way. But in any case, it would be weird, in my opinion, for a person to think 'this is me in here and I am getting the grass out there'. Where exactly would the grass stop being "out there" and when would it be "me in here"?

I don't think this inside/outside thinking is a conscious thought process. It's more of an innate sense of the world. I think sheep or even bugs have this basic self grasping attitude. When presented with an object 'out there' they either move toward it or away from it depending upon how they percieve it effecting them 'in here'.

Jeffrey

Well, for one thing sheep don't have a sense of self like we do. For example, a sheep does not have the ability to recognize itself in a mirror. In fact most animals lack this capacity. I imagine because it's not important for them and they developed in a different way. But in any case, it would be weird, in my opinion, for a person to think 'this is me in here and I am getting the grass out there'. Where exactly would the grass stop being "out there" and when would it be "me in here"?

Well if it is an enlightened sheep it doesn't have a sense of self. The attachment and aversion mean that we are getting something. For example I think ozen is 'out there' and 'Jeffrey' is in here. Self isn't only a cerebral cortex phenomena. It is in fact not tied to brain but rather to sentience. At some point this doesn't make sense, like a paramecium. I can see why you think a sheep doesn't have a sense of self though. But in mahayana Buddhism animals are sentient beings.

ozen

So you define sentience by having a sense of self?

Jeffrey

No because you can be enlightened. So a Buddha is sentient but realizes that the skhandas are not self. You could say a Buddha has a self, but that self is like space on a co-ordinate system where they touch into all of these samsaric realms and bring enlightenment.

DairyLama

We say the water is hot when its only in comparison to something else that we can really say that, we think the quality of 'hotness' is something that is in the water. If our point of reference is a piece of metal glowing hot from being in a fire then the hot water is now cool so it can quench the heat of the metal. Ultimately it is the same temperature, but we give a quality that we innately view as existing within the water, this belief that these relative designations are ultimate is dualistic thinking.

Yes, but to use a less extreme example our skin receptors are capable of distinguishing hot from cold, it's a basic physical response. So it seems quite valid for us to label these sensations hot and cold, similarly the sensations of pleasure and pain. So it seems that for physical sensations at least dualistic thinking is a valid description.

ozen

No because you can be enlightened. So a Buddha is sentient but realizes that the skhandas are not self. You could say a Buddha has a self, but that self is like space on a co-ordinate system where they touch into all of these samsaric realms and bring enlightenment.

You believe enlightenment is not having a sense o self?