User1249x wrote: ↑Thu Jul 12, 2018 6:04 amdoes one duality equal another? Are the concepts of "up and down" same as "positivity and negativity", "success and failure", "right and wrong", "good and bad", "born and unborn", "made and unmade"? You are not making much sense and it is not clear what actual point you are making and if you have a point.
I find this old transcript of Buddhadasa, who used to have some kind of obsession with Hindu non-duality. You can argue with the old monk:
What about when you laugh and when you cry, when positivism makes you laugh and when negativism makes you cry. Have you ever examined this matter? When we really see things as they are there is no longer these positives and these negatives to make us laugh or cry.
We can just observe whatever takes place without this laughing and crying. Or are you worried that would not be any fun, that it would not be very enjoyable, that it may be boring or something?
Take a good look. This is the happiness that is lokutara, above the world, to not have to laugh or to cry at ‘positive’ or ‘negative’; to no longer laugh or cry about worldly conditions.
Is this the kind of happiness you are interested in?
Oops, here is the lot:
Another way to explain lokutara is to be above the misunderstanding of duality.
The world is full of dualistic things because the world is full of foolish people. Foolish people understand there are dualistic things – good and bad, winning and losing, positive and negative and so forth. This is a misunderstanding.
In reality all things are the same. Good and bad is the same, positive and negative is the same. It is just a process of the law of idappaccayata.
Idappaccayata means ‘because this exists, this arises; because this disappears, this disappears’. More simply it is the law of cause and effect or the law of conditionality.
This process or flow of causes and effects, of idappaccayata, is all there is. There is neither good nor bad, neither positive nor negative.
Fools misunderstand this fundamental reality, discriminate things as ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ and then are trapped by this misunderstanding
To be lokutara, above the world, is to realise how things truly are, that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is the same thing and then to be free if those dualistic misunderstandings that lead to attachment, indulgence, selfishness and all of the problems we have discussed.
So lokutara, ‘being above the world’, is being above the misunderstanding of dualism, of duality, that there are pairs of opposites such as ‘positive’ and ‘negative’.
Examples
A simple example that should be easy for all of us to understand is the example of hot and cold. ‘Hot’ and ‘cold’ are not are dualistic opposites as most people think. If we have learned anything about science we realise that hot and cold are just differences in temperature and that ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ are not absolutely true.
For example in a lump of ice there is just a certain amount of temperature. Or in the sun there is just a different level or degree of temperature.
The words ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ are not absolutely true, they only have relative meaning. There are really just differences or changes in temperature.
Or ‘day’ and ‘night’. A child thinks ‘day’ and ‘night’ are completely different but really ‘day’ and ‘night’ is just the same thing, it is just time, just differences in time, ‘changing time’.
There is no absolute truth to ‘day’ and ‘night’.
When someone sees the world this way, instead of getting caught in the dualisms and making things into opposites, one is no longer trapped in ‘left’ or ‘right’ and the mind is in the middle, free and unattached. This is the mind or the life that is above the world, to be no longer caught up in duality, no longer caught up in ‘hot’ and ‘cold’, ‘left’ or ‘right’, and so forth. This is the way of life to be in the middle, to above the world, to be free of worldly conditions. Then none of those conditions can deceive the mind into attachment, selfishness and suffering.
Or there is the pair of ‘gaining’ and ‘losing’. This is another dualism that exists in worldly minds, that there is ‘gain’ and ‘loss’. Such a thing does not really exist. There is merely the stream or flow of idappaccayata.
When certain conditions exist then this result arises or when these conditions exist there will be this result or this effect. It all just depends on conditions and causes that lead to certain effects and this process of cause and effects just keeps flowing onward and onwards . There is nothing that is ‘gaining’ or ‘losing’. These are just words, dualities, illusions created within worldly minds.
People say ‘this is profit’ , ‘that is loss’ and then they get all excited about these things.
It is really just the flow of cause and effect. Seeing things in this way is to be above the world, to be no longer be trapped in these dualistic conditions.
What about when you laugh and when you cry, when positivism makes you laugh and when negativism makes you cry. Have you ever examined this matter? When we really see things as they are there is no longer these positives and these negatives to make us laugh or cry.
We can just observe whatever takes place without this laughing and crying. Or are you worried that would not be any fun, that it would not be very enjoyable, that it may be boring or something?
Take a good look. This is the happiness that is lokutara, above the world, to not have to laugh or to cry at ‘positive’ or ‘negative’; to no longer laugh or cry about worldly conditions.
Is this the kind of happiness you are interested in?
When there is no positivism and no negativism, then there is what we call sunnata - voidness.
Voidness is when there is no more positive and negative, when there is no more dualism. When the mind is free of all those dualistic illusions, then there is Voidness or sunnata.
Can any of you fit or classify Voidness as positive or can you classify Voidness as negative?
Sunnata is neither positive nor negative. It is beyond, above, surpassing both positive and negative.
This is the meaning of Nibbana or Nirvana , which is unsurpassed Voidness . Nibbana is the supreme Voidness that absolutely transcends ‘positive’ and ‘negative’, that is free, void, empty of all dualism.
Perceiving Voidness and Setting Out On The Path To Nirvana
When the mind perceives Voidness; when the mind sees or realises Voidness; then mind itself is void; because when the mind is realising or seeing voidness it doesn’t see anything that it can be attached to as ‘good’ or ‘bad’; there is nothing to grab onto as ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ and so the mind then is void as well.
When the mind is void, that is the supreme happiness, there is no happiness that comes even close to this truest most genuine happiness of voidness. This is the happiness of freedom, when the mind is completely liberated from all the things that have power over it, that influence it, that trap it, which push its buttons and so forth.
This is the highest happiness, the happiness of Voidness.