Sherab Dorje wrote:Again, like I said earlier on: WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TERM NON-DUALITY?
Non-duality of what for crying out loud???
I've always taken it to be like the above sutta, simple a rejection of polarities as being a path to truth, i'm not sure that's not 'correct' though.
That is an absence of extremes, possibly a characteristic of non-duality, but not non-duality per se.
Osho wrote:"Hope that helps.
No, not really.
"My religion is not deceiving myself." Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE
"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss." The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
That is an absence of extremes, possibly a characteristic of non-duality, but not non-duality per se.
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That seems like a possibly arbitrary distinction to me, the whole point (for instance) of Madhyamaka logic to my understanding is that freedom from extremes is what leads to a "non dual' state - the exhaustion of dualistic concepts.
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease
Sherab Dorje wrote:Again, like I said earlier on: WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TERM NON-DUALITY?
Non-duality of what for crying out loud???
Malcolm wrote:It depends on what you mean by nondual. There are three kinds of non dualism. One is cognitive non dualism, i.e., everything is consciousness, for, like example Yogacara. The second is ontological nondualism, i.e. everything is brahman, god, etc. The third is epistemic nondualism, i.e., being, non-being and so on cannot be found on analysis and therefore do not ultimately exist.
The indivisibility of the conditioned and the unconditioned is based on the third. We have only experience of conditioned phenomena. Unconditioned phenomena like space are known purely through inference since they have no characteristics of their own to speak of. When we analyze phenomena, what do we discover? We discover suchness, an unconditioned state, the state free from extremes. That unconditioned state cannot be discovered apart from conditioned phenomena, therefore, we can say with confidence that the conditioned and the unconditioned are nondual. The trick is which version of nonduality you are invoking. This nonduality of the conditioned and unconditioned cannot apply to the first two nondualities for various reasons.
The pertinent difference being 'non-dual' [tib. gnyis med, skt. advaya], versus 'non-duality' [tib. gnyis med nyid, skt. advaita]. The former is the proper view of non-dual for the buddhadharma (freedom from extremes), the latter is what you find in the sanātanadharma and the neo-nondual spin-offs.
Malcolm wrote:It depends on what you mean by nondual. There are three kinds of non dualism. One is cognitive non dualism, i.e., everything is consciousness, for, like example Yogacara. The second is ontological nondualism, i.e. everything is brahman, god, etc. The third is epistemic nondualism, i.e., being, non-being and so on cannot be found on analysis and therefore do not ultimately exist.
The indivisibility of the conditioned and the unconditioned is based on the third. We have only experience of conditioned phenomena. Unconditioned phenomena like space are known purely through inference since they have no characteristics of their own to speak of. When we analyze phenomena, what do we discover? We discover suchness, an unconditioned state, the state free from extremes. That unconditioned state cannot be discovered apart from conditioned phenomena, therefore, we can say with confidence that the conditioned and the unconditioned are nondual. The trick is which version of nonduality you are invoking. This nonduality of the conditioned and unconditioned cannot apply to the first two nondualities for various reasons.
Thank you for that , now we only have to define which type of non-duality each of the people taking part in this discussion are talking about (and especially the OP).
"My religion is not deceiving myself." Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE
"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss." The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
Johnny Dangerous wrote:That seems like a possibly arbitrary distinction to me, the whole point (for instance) of Madhyamaka logic to my understanding is that freedom from extremes is what leads to a "non dual' state - the exhaustion of dualistic concepts.
Not really arbitrary because if you define non-duality as overcoming the subject-object dichotomy then where do the four extremes come into play?
"My religion is not deceiving myself." Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE
"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss." The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
Far as I understand they don't..."non dualism", being just another synonym should be beyond the scope the tetralemma, shouldn't it? The four extremes are just an extension of fundamental dualistic notions..as are notions of subject and object.
Not taking this from anything of course, I have no idea..it's just what makes sense to me. Isn't a fundamental part of Madhyamaka negation of the four extremes anyway..i.e exhausting all possibilities?
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease
I'd like to throw a fourth version non-duality in the basket, where phenomena which are observed are observed as they are, but mental evaluation as "extreme", "mediocre", etc. is absent.
Even if it becomes conscious that in the mind there exist some kind of scale, because it has been conditioned into it, and the observed phenomenon on this scale resides at a particular place, that thought is dismissed, if it may arise. It is probably not possible to get rid of the evaluating mind except by death. But what one can do is not create meaning from its automated processes.
Johnny Dangerous wrote:That seems like a possibly arbitrary distinction to me, the whole point (for instance) of Madhyamaka logic to my understanding is that freedom from extremes is what leads to a "non dual' state - the exhaustion of dualistic concepts.
Not really arbitrary because if you define non-duality as overcoming the subject-object dichotomy then where do the four extremes come into play?
The four extremes come into play because 'non-dual' in the context of the buddhadharma is denoting the inseparability of dharmin and dharmatā. The non-arising (unconditioned) nature of conditioned phenomena is never found apart from the conditioned phenomena in question. When that non-arising is recognized then it is intimately known that phenomena never arose in the first place and are thus free from extremes. Only so called conditioned entities can accord with the extremes of existence, non-existence, both or neither.
Johnny Dangerous wrote:As to who is the best current teacher of non-duality, well..I think you know that already Dzogchungpa: http://tuttejiorg.wordpress.com/
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There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
We all know non duality means one without a second. So the world and the sense of I are not separate. To wake up is to see that 'we' exist only because the mind thinks us into creation.
We may meditate for years but the ripe fruit then suddenly falls from the tree. Ahhh! We may well ask why did we have to have to go through all the hardship and discipline for years; apparently this is what was needed? Of course this is all hindsight how come, why, why, why?
The (neo-)advaita concept (and concrete meditation experience) called "non-duality" has nothing to do with buddhism. And for Dzogchenpas: "Yermed" isn't "non-duality".
Last edited by thigle on Thu Mar 27, 2014 8:30 am, edited 1 time in total.