Is non-duality actually a fundamental truth, or just another philosophy?

[wandelaar]

@ steve

 

I consider it perfectly possible to intellectually realize the probable correctness of non-duality as a world view. In fact that is how I see it. And that could be called a kind of realization. On a small scale there is the experience of flow. Such episodes happen often enough when one gets absorbed in some satisfying activity. I have those experiences quite often. Besides that there is the grand experiential realization where the sense of being a person apart from the world temporarily disappears. I don't remember having had such a grand non-dual realization. But I can imagine how it would be for somebody who experientially discovers that there is no fundamental boundary between ourselves and the outside world apart from the line between them that we ourselves draw. It could be an existential shock and result in a feeling of liberation and/or intense fear. How the realization will work out overall depends on the character and world view of the person having the experience. I don't think I'm likely to have a grand non-dual realisation because I already accept non-duality as the most likely basic structure of the world, so the element of shock will be missing.

 

It's all a question of psychology. Nothing mysterious about it.

Edited August 18, 2018 by wandelaar

[voidisyinyang]

3 hours ago, Bindi said:

 

 Similar to the moment Ramana understood that he was immortal spirit, yet he still took decades doing something.

Quote

 

Just as [movie] pictures can be made visible by a reflected light, and only in darkness, so also the world pictures are perceptible only by the light of the Self reflected in the darkness of

avidya

(ignorance). The world can be seen neither in the utter darkness of ignorance, as in deep sleep, nor in the utter light of the Self, as in Self-realization or

samadhi.

 

(Ramana Maharshi, GR, 57.)

Quote

People want to see the Self as something. They desire to see it as a blazing light, etc. But how could that be? The Self is not light, not darkness, not any observed thing. The Self is ever the Witness. It is eternal and remains the same all along….Sages say that the state [or place] in which the thought ‘I’ [the ego] does not rise even in the least, alone is Silence [mouna] or Self [swarupa]. [That] silent Self alone is God; Self alone is the jiva; Self alone is this ancient world….Attending unceasingly and with a fully [concentrated] mind to Self, which is the non-dual perfect reality, alone is the pure supreme Silence;

—Ramana Maharshi

Quote

The realm without entry is the impetus behind the famous spiritual cultivation...which involves listening to sound to trace it hearing back to its source....highly recommended for our world by the Buddha....return the function of hearing-consciousness to the consciousness skanda and then fathom the stillness or emptiness within to realize the self-nature and attain Tao. ...If you analyze sound to the smallest slice of time, you will not find any sound at all, but just empty silence.

Bill Bodri (and master Nan, Huai-jin)

[doc benway]

10 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

@ steve

 

I consider it perfectly possible to intellectually realize the probable correctness of non-duality as a world view. In fact that is how I see it. And that could be called a kind of realization. On a small scale there is the experience of flow. Such episodes happen often enough when one gets absorbed in some satisfying activity. I have those experiences quite often. Besides that there is the grand experiential realization where the sense of being a person apart from the world temporarily disappears. I don't remember having had such a grand non-dual realization. But I can imagine how it would be for somebody who experientially discovers that there is no fundamental boundary between ourselves and the outside world apart from the line between them that we ourselves draw. It could be an existential shock and result in a feeling of liberation and/or intense fear. How the realization will work out overall depends on the character and world view of the person having the experience. I don't think I'm likely to have a grand non-dual realisation because I already accept non-duality as the most likely basic structure of the world, so the element of shock will be missing.

 

It's all a question of psychology. Nothing mysterious about it.

 

Very nice to hear your position and thank you for sharing that.

If you feel that your intellectual and psychological grasp of non-duality is working for you, I certainly will not dispute that.

Intellectual and conceptual realization do have value but I don't know that they bring one closer to the "grand experiential realization" as you put it. Some can study and practice for decades without direct realization, others have spontaneous realization with no preparation. As mentioned elsewhere, I have a friend who had such an experience at 8 years of age. To me there is an element of grace or karma involved. 

My suspicion is that when you have a direct non-dual realization, the "shock" will be no less for your current understanding. 

I've not yet met anyone who did not consider such an experience earth shattering and life-altering, even folks well versed in the conceptual dimension.

[wandelaar]

It will probably be the same as with near death experiences. There are people who consider them as mere effects of a dysfunctional brain, and they will not draw any spiritual conclusions from having had such experiences. And then there are others who interpret them from a religious perspective and will come away with the conviction of the immortality of the soul, the existence of heaven and/or of hell, etc. So the overall effect strongly depends on ones personality and world view.

 

There is also the difference between sudden and gradual enlightenment. Apparently there are (at least) two roads.

Edited August 18, 2018 by wandelaar

[Wu Ming Jen]

All things do their works without slightest complaint, they give born to others without claiming ownership. they do things without telling others what they have done, and they retire when their job is done. Because of their retirement, their achievement is eternal.

 

-> look at the nature, plants live their lives without complaint, they give birth without claiming ownership, they do things without the on-going need to inform others what they have done, and they retire when their job is done (flower wither after spreading pollen, fruit wither/eaten/carried away to spread seed, a lot of plants die every winter).  As they have no attachment to the temporary (flower, fruit, plant), they remains at one with their real nature, which beyond and not subjected to the temporariness of the phenomenal changes.

 

What benefit is there to adopt this state of nonduality? Laozi explains, a wise sage is like plant in the nature, it comes to the world, live, grow, blossom, fruit, and die, without attachment to any specific stage in life, any need to claim any process being “i”, and any need to tell everybody about their achievement. Because of their non-attachment to all this transitory, they remains at one with their real nature. which is everlasting and beyond changes.

[wandelaar]

1 minute ago, Wu Ming Jen said:

All things do their works without slightest complaint, they give born to others without claiming ownership. they do things without telling others what they have done, and they retire when their job is done. Because of their retirement, their achievement is eternal.

 

-> look at the nature, plants live their lives without complaint, they give birth without claiming ownership, they do things without the on-going need to inform others what they have done, and they retire when their job is done (flower wither after spreading pollen, fruit wither/eaten/carried away to spread seed, a lot of plants die every winter).  As they have no attachment to the temporary (flower, fruit, plant), they remains at one with their real nature, which beyond and not subjected to the temporariness of the phenomenal changes.

 

Very interesting! I have created another topic especially about what we can learn from nature:

 

 

[rideforever]

48 minutes ago, Wu Ming Jen said:

All things do their works without slightest complaint, 

 

No this is incorrect.  Why do roses have thorns ?   
Who do you think the plant is trying to do ?
And many plants secrete subtle poisons.   
Why do they do that ?
That's one reason we cook vegetables btw.

 

Vegetarians imagine plants don't mind.
But they obviously do mind, otherwise they would not protect themselves.

 

It's easier to live in a Bambi story, but life is not boring or stupid.
It requires much more of you.

 

Human apes, their No1 desire is to eat a fat meal and fall asleep.

 

I am not sure if intelligence is something people are interested in, but :
When you talk of non-dual or dual .... who are you talking about exactly ?
Some fool walking around Times Sq with a camera round his neck ?
Or a realised being.
Because they are different, and they are different because their state is different.
Their insides are different.
So when you discuss Duality Non-Duality ... who is it you are talking about ?
Hello ... does anyone understand what I am saying here ??
 

 

 

[Michael Sternbach]

5 hours ago, Marblehead said:

Only drips.  Wait!  I mean, only drops.  Individual drops.  But we view many drops as a river and, of course, the river most often flows to the sea.  (Some flow into land-locked lakes.)

 

But we don't normally make these distinctions.  We look at the many drops flowing and call them collectively a stream or a river.

 

And we don't say Marbles' fingers are typing, we say Marblehead is typing.

 

 

 

What about the riverbed? Isn't it part of the river too? Arguably, it is even its fundamental part. The water that is variably flowing through it being secondary to it as its content.

[wandelaar]

The riverbed also moves. See:

 

 

[Limahong]

50 minutes ago, Wu Ming Jen said:

All things do their works without slightest complaint, they give born to others without claiming ownership. they do things without telling others what they have done, and they retire when their job is done. Because of their retirement, their achievement is eternal.

 

Hi Wu Ming Jen,

 

Perhaps not all things go about their works thus - for example human beings.

 

Having exemplified thus - there are human beings who "do their works without slightest complaint... without claiming ownership...  without telling others what they have done, and they retire when their job is done". They do their works close to Nature.

 

In Nature there is "no attachment to the temporary... they remains at one with their real nature...".

 

I associate Nature with wu-wei and silence - IT is not concerned with arguments, comparisons, divisions...

 

- Anand

 

[Wu Ming Jen]

27 minutes ago, rideforever said:

 

No this is incorrect.  Why do roses have thorns ?   
Who do you think the plant is trying to do ?
And many plants secrete subtle poisons.   
Why do they do that ?
That's one reason we cook vegetables btw.

 

Vegetarians imagine plants don't mind.
But they obviously do mind, otherwise they would not protect themselves.

 

It's easier to live in a Bambi story, but life is not boring or stupid.
It requires much more of you.

 

Human apes, their No1 desire is to eat a fat meal and fall asleep.

 

I am not sure if intelligence is something people are interested in, but :
When you talk of non-dual or dual .... who are you talking about exactly ?
Some fool walking around Times Sq with a camera round his neck ?
Or a realised being.
Because they are different, and they are different because their state is different.
Their insides are different.
So when you discuss Duality Non-Duality ... who is it you are talking about ?
Hello ... does anyone understand what I am saying here ??
 

 

 

You must have missed the point of the story of nature. you have "the plant is trying to do". that is silly..."Vegetarians" are you talking about people? " live in a Bambi story", are you talking about people? "Human apes" are you talking about people?

 

I am talking about nature in the story not how your mind would like it to be. You do cover a lot of ground seeing one thing and jumping to another that is amazing. 

[rideforever]

10 minutes ago, Wu Ming Jen said:

 

 

You are simply wrong.   You say all things do their life without complaint or claiming ownership.   But the obvious reality is that plants try to kill those who feed on them because they claim ownership to their own life.   All creatures do and they fight to the death to claim ownership not only of their own lives but their territory and possessions.

 

The only thing that is given is fruit because of reciprocal maintenance.   That is given freely because it also helps the plant, that is the only thing.

 

Human have a really weird interpretation of nature like it's a fairy story where "everything is in harmony".   Yes, it's a kind of harmony bloody war of eating each other alive and killing each other's children and fight to the death.   The plants do not have our kind of consciousness so it has a different feeling to it.   

 

The plants are unconscious (in fact sub-conscious).   And this feels dreamy like all asleep.   And perhaps that is where you would like to be, asleep.   Well perhaps it's not far to go !!!

 

Humans are too dumb to notice the poison barbs the plants are stick out to kill anyone who tries to feed.   It spoils their dream.

 

 

 

Edited August 18, 2018 by rideforever

[dwai]

23 hours ago, steve said:

 

In my view, non-duality is not a philosophy or intellectual assertion.

It is certainly impractical and generally unhelpful to contemplate.

When experienced directly it carries a depth of certainty that is unshakable, whether or not it is a fundamental truth.

Yet, the way to directly experience is paved by contemplation and meditation  

 

[silent thunder]

How Wolves change Rivers

 

How wolves, eagles, insects, grass, bison, caribou, soil and prevaling weather systems/rain/snowfall are as much a part of Yellowstone rivers as each drop of water that comprises what we like to normally distinguish as 'the river'.

 

From an intellectual perspective, based on my perceptions, I can readily assume and intellectually argue that I am one, separate, independent being and claim logical truth.

 

Yet on another scale, the microscopic scale, I am not one being at all, but a collective of many tribes comprised of trillions of individual cell beings each with a birth, life and death... all carrying out functions, making mistakes, achieving results. 

 

In some areas of my healthy body, great battles are waged on a tiny scale, filled with the most violent behavior, which is the natural essential means of acquiring nutrition for overall vitality and health.

 

Perspective and intellectual assumptions about perception make it pretty obvious that I am one human.  Until my perspective shifts.

 

Notions of self and separate, individualness break down at certain levels of the very small and the very large.

 

Scale up perspective to the solar system and I as a human, disappear entirely and there is just one ball of mostly water we refer to as Earth.  Is this separate?  Or is it also part of a unfied process of gravitational rotation about the sun and its fellow planets?  On the galactic scale, our planets all disappear as well, refined to simple point of twinkling light, in a spiral of lights.

 

When as rider poignently shared, I go to shit... am I alone in there?  Am I one being shitting?  Or five trillion beings fluidly processing in a unified process observable as a pattern that gives rise to the notion of a separate self, dependent upon a particular mode of perceiving?

 

Is the fruit that I'm shitting out not with me, intrinsically is the rain and the sunlight utilized by the tree to grow the fruit not with me?d even after I shit out my fruit and walk away, are we disconnected? 

 

Any longer I experience one fluid flowing process in living.  How I interpret that process depends on my current level of perspective and my filters of perception, the tools through which I interpret the fluid vibration of the one unified process of life.

[dwai]

48 minutes ago, rideforever said:

 

No this is incorrect.  Why do roses have thorns ?   
 

Why do cowboys have sad sad songs?

[rideforever]

Just now, dwai said:

Why do cowboys have sad sad songs?

 

Why ?
I assume because they are sad and it's cold and their ass hurts and nobody loves them, and it's beans for dinner ?

[Bud Jetsun]

Before experiencing a non-dual state, it's something explainable with psychology verbiage. 

 

After experiencing a non-dual state, it's something so beautiful and awe inspiring, all the labeling or explanations seem as useful as using a thimble to scoop up an ocean. 

 

Unlimited Love, 

-Bud

[Limahong]

4 minutes ago, dwai said:

Yet, the way to directly experience is paved by contemplation and meditation

 

Paved by wu-wei and silence - as in Nature?

 

Paved = provided.

[dwai]

Just now, Limahong said:

 

Paved by wu-wei and silence - as in Nature?

 

Paved = provided.

Yes. However there are two aspects imho . One is the direct apperception. This comes in an instant when one is ready (various means). The other is reconciling the local mind to that direct apperception (contemplation, meditation and releasing old patterns of conditioning). 

[Limahong]

6 minutes ago, rideforever said:

I assume because they are sad and it's cold and their ass hurts and nobody loves them, and it's beans for dinner ?

 

 

 

[silent thunder]

can anyone point to out one thing that is separate?

life is a fluid system, unified, conditions arise

environment and organism are not separate... they are co-arising. 

environment brings about organisms... organisms comprise the environment.

 

A tree is just it's form?  Leaves, bark, heartwood and roots?

 

What of the insects and birds that live in it?

What of the soil, in which is grows?  Can a tree exist separate of this? 

What of the sunlight which provides energy and nourishment?

 

What exists in independence and separation?  I've yet to encounter that.

[Limahong]

Just now, dwai said:

two aspects

 

Tao is One with Nature.

[wandelaar]

6 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

From an intellectual perspective, based on my perceptions, I can readily assume and intellectually argue that I am one, separate, independent being and claim logical truth.

 

This is a forced way to blame logic and intellectual understanding! Actually I think the rest of your post is very good and to the point, and there is no reason why logic and intellectual understanding are limited to the "I am one"-perspective and would be unable to take the other perspectives you mentioned.

[Limahong]

4 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

A tree is just it's form?  Leaves, bark, heartwood and roots?

 

A leaf will not fall down from its tree twice.

 

It just falls...

[silent thunder]

sure does...

and when the leaf lands, it never lands in the wrong spot.

 

miracle of miracles

 

the atoms of my body were once a star exploding in a supernova

 

this planet that was once boiling oceans of liquid stone, is now mothers of all manner of beings giving birth.

 

perspective and perception responsible for notions of duality and unity?