nonduality

30 Oct 2021 02:15 - 15 Feb 2024 04:37
Open in Logseq
    • Seems positively dangerous to me. A mind-destroying ideas as Minsky called them. Thought is based on distinctions and differences, and if you eliminate them you basically eliminate the possibility of cognition.
      • This is called the "but muh distinctions" response.
      • The answer I think is that it isn't about eliminating distinctions (that would itself be dualistic), but recognizing their true nature. As forms they are marked by emptiness. Not quite real and not quite unreal.
      • If you are doing it right, nondualism does not produce mindless catatonia, but rather a more playful and exuberant view on life, as you recognize its true nature.
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      • – from Vimalakirti Sutra which has a whole chapter devoted to declarations like the above.
      • “Nonduality” (advayatva) = “Middle Path” (madhyamapratipat) = freedom from extremes of being and nothingness (antadvayavivarjita). For numerous references, see Lamotte, pp. 301-302, n. 1.
    • Aro - Form, emptiness, and non-duality
      • Nonduality is experienced as the nature of Mind — in which thought and the absence of thought are no longer mutually exclusive. This is ro-gÇig – the one taste.
    • from j Feb 15
      • What is non-duality anyway? | Tom Das
        • Because non-duality points to something that already is here but is not clearly seen, when it is clearly seen the freedom that results is recognised to have always existed. This freedom is not a specific state of mind or a specific way of being but is ever-present regardless of states of body or mind (or environment). It could be said that it is understanding that leads to freedom, but freedom is beyond even understanding, understanding also being something that can come and go. Freedom cannot be put into words, it is unique, ever-present, already here and all that is.
      • Jesus and non-duality | Tom Das
        • In non-dual teachings, the basic teaching is that the sense of self that we presume ourselves to be is a fiction. What remains after this is seen is a mysterious and ordinary sense of ‘divine oneness’. One ramification of this teaching is that we can learn to see that we are not the authors of our own actions even though we appear to be. This is known as non-doership. This teaching is often stated explicitly in non-dual traditions such as Advaita Vedanta, Zen, Dzogchen and Taoism.
      • This was all from Tom Das : nonduality and I wrote a comment
        • I liked that, even though it runs right into self-contradiction (something that is basically impossible to avoid when talking about an idea as elusive as nonduality):
        • Non-duality says we don’t need to fundamentally change anything, we just need to better understand our present situation.
        • Well -- sorry, that is a change. If we "need to better understand our present situation", then hey, things aren't perfect; we are trying to turn ourselves into improved versions rather than actually accepting the way we are now.
        • That's OK. If this was standard western logic, it would all collapse when it contradicted itself, but it is something else. The paradoxical nature of nondualism is a plus, because it reflects a more fundamental aspect of reality than logic.