m0rl0ck wrote:I got that impression. There are an entire series of koans that are followed in an order. They cant all be about non-duality can they? I dont think you know what you are talking about on this subject and that you are misleading people.
Then please, by all means, correct my statements. It is not helpful to simply say that I am wrong.
alan... wrote:interesting. i posted a thread about non duality in theravada but it was largely inconclusive.
so the way you view non duality it's more literal than my version of it.
I don't have a view on non-duality any more than I have a view on transubstantiation - neither religious/philosophical concept is relevant to my practice.
i think what i meant to say was that i learned about non duality in fragments and now am trying to fit the ideas into a theravada frame work. not that it is a theravada view, but that i'm looking from inside theravada and trying to make sense out of non duality. in which case my version is likely plain wrong in the sense of it according with the mahayana view of the term.
My point is that non-duality is a concept which can't be made sense of through Theravada because Theravada is a religious system that affirms duality, or at the very least does not care about the concept of non-duality in any real way.
further there are points that can be made that make duality more complicated. for example left cannot exist without right, up without down, light without dark, sight without eyes, and so on. one exists only because of another, this can go on and on until it includes the whole universe and we are back to all being one thing. a non dual reality. for one to exist, all must exist, for all to exist, one must exist.
Yes, but there is a very big difference between concepts like direction, location, etc. and the actual realities of which the Buddha spoke.
one could also notice that we only think dualistically because we think in terms of past and future even though in reality all that exists is right now. if there is only this single moment then whatever is happening is the one and only thing that exists. all together. this is in accord with the
bahiya sutta as i read it. so there is a kernel of the idea of non duality in that sense in theravada scripture. but this is again probably not the mahayana understanding of the doctrine.
This is not non-duality; it is a non-conceptual awareness of ultimate reality,
a reality in which the Buddha affirmed there are boundaries and divisions and separations between things. Even if I feel the felt only as the felt, upon feeling a rock, I will feel something of a different quality than a pillow because that pillow's quality is ultimately different. It is true that the pillow and the rock do not ultimately exist, but it is not true that they are the same or that the divisions which separate them are somehow unreal ultimately.
Gain and loss, status and disgrace,
censure and praise, pleasure and pain:
these conditions among human beings are inconstant,
impermanent, subject to change.
Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.
His welcoming and rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
- Lokavipatti Sutta
Stuff I write about things.