Differences between dualism and non-dualism

[forestofclarity]

2 hours ago, stirling said:

I think these are more about the phenomena of realized beings at the moment of death than enlightenment, and there is no reason in my mind that they couldn't be completely true, though I have no personal experience with such things. 

 

So do Zen masters go into thukdam or manifest rainbow bodies? Theravada arhats? Jains? Christians?

[forestofclarity]

19 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

what did I predict about rationalizations....  it's telling that a god had to get after the Buddha for his recorded doubts

 

I do think that what the historical Buddha allegedly taught in the Suttas and Abhidhamma and what is taught in Mahayana non-dual teachings do not appear to be the same. 

[stirling]

12 minutes ago, forestofemptiness said:

So do Zen masters go into thukdam or manifest rainbow bodies? Theravada arhats? Jains? Christians?

 

I honestly don't know... but why not? Definitely there are famous encounters of incorruptible, or corruption-resistant Buddhist teachers in China, and Christian saints and martyrs. 

[blue eyed snake]

1 hour ago, Mark Foote said:

the basic technique is to stress a person out, bright lights, pain, sensory deprivation, starvation, disease.  Sargant's description of what happens, what happened in the kind of mind-washing they did in Korea is what's amazing:  he says that one day the subject of the stress just wakes up believing in whatever was suggested to them.  It's not like they consciously decide to change their belief--they experience a complete, sudden and involuntary change in the foundation of their belief system.

 

yes, and this is what many chronically ill people like Jeff Foster experience on a daily base, day after day, week after week, year after dreary year. The body gets sensitized to light and sound, a soft voice is perceived as a knife in the brain, as is soft light. So you lay still in a darkened room with hardly any visitors. That's the deprivation part. The gut does not want to function anymore thus apart from pain starvation sets in, systemic inflammation ruins the rest, it's not rare to have bouts of paralysis come. That is the illness part

 

As doctors in general  do not believe your illness has an organic base you are left to your own devices. You get told that it's all in your head, that it's psychosomatic, that you should get out of bed and exercise. Not only doctors do that, its most of your surroundings. That's the brainwashing. Many of these patients start to wonder whether they really ' make it all up'. They are gaslighted into believing they are not ill.

 

 

[silent thunder]

Local awareness recalls an epiphany related to suffering that occured in the midst of many years of chronic pain.  This body had a condition that caused debilitating pain for years and years.  It remained undiagnosable for much of that time.  The pain left the body consigned to a chair, or walking with a cane on the 'good days'.  Some days the suffering was seemingly insurmountable as the pain was inescapable and this body is immune to morphine and most commercial pain killers.

 

Eventually the following realization settled in awareness and remained.  This body will experience discomfort.  This body may experience pain.  This does not mean there must be suffering. 

 

From that moment on, suffering ceased, though sensation of pain continued for several years.. 

 

Grateful to report eventual diagnosis, two surgeries and the intervention of a TCM healer brought me full mobility and pain free health again.  But in this awareness' experience, suffering is not caused by pain, suffering is a crisis of perception.  It is of the mind.

[blue eyed snake]

1 hour ago, dwai said:

That might be so. Goes to show the role of the mind in the experience of pain. See, pain is not suffering. Suffering is resistance to pain. If someone accepts that there’s pain, it can be transformed.

 

hmmm...pain, especially pain in the extremities is sort of the 'easiest' to deal with in the range of illness-related things. Shortlived but big pain is 'easier' then chronic, no end in sight sorts of pain. Precisely because you know it will end. That toothache is much better to endure when you know you'll be at the dentist tomorrow.

 

meditation and the like can be of enormous help when dealing with pain and a dysfunctional body, without it  I would not be sitting and typing here. But there are things that can happen in bodies that, imho, are not open to be diminished much by the methods you are talking of.

 

 

[blue eyed snake]

59 minutes ago, forestofemptiness said:

 

So do Zen masters go into thukdam or manifest rainbow bodies? Theravada arhats? Jains? Christians?

 

yes, there are stories of incorruptible catholic saints, their bodies dd not decay after death like thukdam.

some of them sound legit, others less so

[blue eyed snake]

9 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

Eventually the following realization settled in awareness and remained.  This body will experience discomfort.  This body may experience pain.  This does not mean there must be suffering. 

 

I am so glad your condition changed and you can now enjoy it.

And yes, I agree with that, (although only up to a point)

 

 

[liminal_luke]

Almost all of us have suffered deeply -- or will soon -- and it can feel good to sit in the presence of someone who can sit with us in quiet acknowledgement of the depth of our suffering.  Someone who can sit with us without getting anxious (so we don't have to caretake them), someone who won't try to make our suffering go away.  So often we "help" others because they make us feel uncomfortable; we help them so that we'll feel better.  The first thing any would-be helper needs to learn is how to quiet this compulsion to help and just sit in openness and acceptance of someone else's experience.  It could be that as you sit together you'll both discover that pain doesn't have to lead to suffering.  Or maybe not.  The powerful thing is not to know, not to need things to be one way or the other, to let life unfold as it will.

Edited May 11, 2022 by liminal_luke

[dwai]

When I was 18 years old, I developed a very severe case of asthma.  Whatever I ate, I’d throw up most of due a persistent cough and heavy phlegm. I dropped about 15 kilos of weight in a matter of two months. Concerned neighbors would ask my parents  what has happened for me to to look and feel so sick.  
 

I would often end up in the hospital as back in those days in India, rescue inhalers didn’t really work very well, and I’d be given oxygen and nebulized medication. It would also often involve getting intra-muscular injections.
 

When I first started having  the asthma episodes, every thing irritated me. I’d be angry and lash out any thing remotely annoying during that time. My parents and sister were absolute saints to put up with that. 

 

One day my grandfather pulled me aside and said, “next time when you get an attack, think about how much energy you’re wasting on getting angry, lashing out, etc. instead, just focus breathing, don’t let your mind get riled up. It was a big help - I knew my situation wasn’t easily curable (many doctors had said I’d have to live with the condition).
 

Maybe it’s easier when we’re young and we don’t know any better. After I started training karate, it changed me - my lung capacity increased, my strength and stamina increased, and I’d still have continue to get asthma attacks, but it became part of my life.

 

Strange thing is, it didn’t slow me down one bit. I’d go from the hospital in the night to college in the morning, playing music in my band, performing shows on stage, hanging out with friends, and so on.

[Apech]

22 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

Almost all of us have suffered deeply -- or will soon -- and it can feel good to sit in the presence of someone who can sit with us in quiet acknowledgement of the depth of our suffering.  Someone who can sit with us without getting anxious (so we don't have to caretake them), someone who won't try to make our suffering go away.  So often we "help" others because they make us feel uncomfortable; we help them so that we'll feel better.  The first thing any would-be helper needs to learn is how to quiet this compulsion to help and just sit in openness and acceptance of someone else's experience.  It could be that as you sit together you'll both discover that pain doesn't have to lead to suffering.  Or maybe not.  The powerful thing is not to know, not to need things to be one way or the other, to let life unfold as it will.

 

Hey back off Nostrodamus!

[Michael Sternbach]

3 hours ago, stirling said:

Enlightenment is ALSO seeing that the sense doors are empty. Phenomena arise where they not at any locality. 

 

Sorry, that makes no sense to me. 

 

The linked Wikipedia article didn't really clarify what is meant either.

 

Are you suggesting that perceived reality is somehow just an illusion?

 

If so, I would not agree. Usually, what our senses register is real enough - and there is much more out there than meets the eye.

 

All claims regarding the 'emptiness' of the senses I heard so far struck me as pretty  fruitless abstractions.

 

3 hours ago, stirling said:

There are a number of terms that are used for the oneness/wholeness/emptiness and its characteristics including consciousness, perception and awareness. Of these, awareness in my opinion feels the most accurate. To me, perception and consciousness imply an awareness and something that is apperceived by it. Each is incorrect because of the duality and implied mechanism.

 

That would not seem to hold true for all encompassing vision, however. The latter transcends the usual subject/object distinction.

 

3 hours ago, stirling said:

What there is, in my opinion, is a simple awareness that permeates all. 

 

Alright, maybe we are about to find some common ground after all.

 

3 hours ago, stirling said:

Reality (setting aside for a moment what is or isn't a universe) is infinite, but not in the conventional sense of being full of innumerable things and going on forever. It is infinite in that it cannot be made finite. It has no boundaries. It is also indefinable since it exists independent of all attempts to create incomplete artificial conceptual divisions; ultimately there AREN'T any, such divisions only exist in the conceptual constructs of the mind.

 

The notion of infinity is indeed a loaded one. There is surely more to the concept than just space that goes on forever (or time, in which case we would speak of eternity). It's actually a metaphysical concept, although its properties can be studied in rigorous scientific ways.

 

Anthrosophical mathematicians believe that that kind of study helps expand the mind towards an understanding of transcendence. A truly effective approach in my personal experience.

 

For instance, it's easy to see that, with increasing diameter of a sphere, its curvature decreases. It follows that, if the sphere were expanded to infinity, its curvature would reach zero. In other words, the sphere would become a flat plane.

 

Now if you were located at the centre of that sphere (which you  couldn't help being, anyway, because its centre would be everywhere at all), that flat plane in infinity would surround you in every direction. Mind you, without any corners - it would still be a sphere!

 

Some simple geometric exercises  demonstrate that this infinite sphere does exist. You could not lay a finger on it anywhere. It can not be fully grasped by the finite mind, either, to be sure. But contemplating it does serve to stretch the imagination. 

 

This notion is also in keeping with contemporary cosmology, BTW, which states that space is most likely flat, overall - i.e., infinite.

 

3 hours ago, stirling said:

A star is a fantastic example of an artificial conceptual division. Where is the edge of a star if it depends on its own gravity, the relative gravity of other bodies, the various items of its composition, and countless other factors for its existence? It cannot exist within the artificial limits we make it mentally fit into. We give a star its own designation as a separate thing, but in those moments where you take in the entire field of the sky in wonder, and the mind is quiet and empty, how many stars do you recognize? Do you see stars, or just the expanse of the panorama? This is far closer to the truth.

 

The question of setting exact boundaries, alright. Yes, any object exists in a plethora of all pervasive influences, connecting it to countless other objects. And yet it has certain boundaries making it distinct from others (e.g., the Coulomb force in particle physics).

 

This ultimately boils down to a matter of perspective, I would say.

 

3 hours ago, stirling said:

Can we understand the consciousness of such a thing? There is nothing separate out there there to have any consciousness of its own.

 

I beg to differ!

 

I actually once got an inkling of the unimaginable information processing that is constantly happening in our Sun when I was in a contemplative state. That was one of the most exhilarating and joyful experiences I ever had in my life! There was a strange familiarity involved, too, as though it invoked an old memory. Impossible to put it into words, though.

 

This filled me with awe and left me painfully aware of how limited my oh so linear human mind really was in comparison to the consciousness of a star.

 

3 hours ago, stirling said:

Indeed, YOU don't really have any consciousness of your own - you mistake your self-referential thoughts and chatter for a person on a planet that has important things to do.

 

Well, my awareness of that was my only solace at the time, actually. 

 

I don't look at the individual personality as an illusion. I do consider it an open system of sorts, though, and ultimately interconnected with All That Is.

 

Not exactly one with it, in the sense that the universal field of consciousness would exist, whereas my individual personality would be somehow unreal. And yet not-two.

 

I am aware that most Buddhists may disagree with me on this. In fact, already argued about the question as a twenty-year-old lad with a Zen priest in Kyoto's Sosenji, until he gave up and moved on with his lecture. 

 

It seems unlikely that we will be able to fully resolve the issue now to everyone's satisfaction.

 

3 hours ago, stirling said:

Under it all there is just awareness of phenomena, and yet simultaneously we all shop for food, go to the toilet and fall asleep while watching TV. 

 

[Michael Sternbach]

3 hours ago, dwai said:

Felt in the mind, lit up by consciousness. Yes, no one denies the role of the mind. No-mind is a misnomer for a non-grasping mind. 

That might be so. Goes to show the role of the mind in the experience of pain. See, pain is not suffering. Suffering is resistance to pain.

 

There is only so much anyone can take (with exception of a few most extraordinary yoga masters and the like perhaps).

 

3 hours ago, dwai said:

If someone accepts that there’s pain, it can be transformed. My teacher had to undergo knee replacement surgery, and was given strong painkillers (narcotic) to alleviate the pain. One day he forgot to take the painkiller. So he described it as “continuous waves of excruciating pain flooding through his body”. Next what he told me was, “I accepted the pain, and directed it into my spiritual heart. The pain was transformed into bliss.” 

 

Nice.

 

3 hours ago, dwai said:

I asked him how he did it. He said that he transformed it by transmuting yang to yin. He had this surgery at the age of 74. Was up and about in a week, and was back doing tai chi and meditation in 6 weeks. The doctors were dumbstruck at the rate of his recovery.

 

Even nicer yet. 

 

3 hours ago, dwai said:

I described above one way of doing it. First thing is to not let the mind attach to the pain, and make up stories of victimhood. That’s what a mind with Self realization can do. 

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa developed throat cancer towards the end of his life. He couldn’t eat or even swallow properly. He was not one bit bothered by it and continued in his “blissful” way through out. Of course, one could criticize this as hagiography, but we have enough anecdotes of old masters who were able to do this. 

I know people who’ve fasted for 40-45 days straight. While that’s not desirable, it can be done. 

 

Yes, to keep going without food that long can be done. But without water? Nah.

 

(Let's not forget, you are still in the desert and have neither.)

 

3 hours ago, dwai said:

If someone gives me one, I will joyfully eat it  

 

Oh my. 

 

Alright, if you are not beyond that kind of carnal desire, here you go:

 

 

3 hours ago, dwai said:

PS: if I’ve not said it enough time, nondual realization doesn’t  have to make one super human, it just opens up ways to not live out their mind’s compulsive tendencies. That is a huge thing in and by itself. One can be “more comfortable in their own skin”,  if they are not limited mentally by compulsions. 

 

[Mark Foote]

3 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:

 

I do think that what the historical Buddha allegedly taught in the Suttas and Abhidhamma and what is taught in Mahayana non-dual teachings do not appear to be the same. 

What I have read from the Abhidhamma has caused me to stick to the sutta and vinaya for Gautama's teachings (not that I follow the rules of the order, just that there are teachings and history there).  Abhidhamma--chicken soup without the chicken.

As near as I can tell the teachings that emphasize the mind alone, rather than mindfulness that includes the mind, came out of India many centuries after the Gautamid.  

I should make clear than when I say body, feelings, mind, and mind-states, I'm referring to the elements of Gautama's way of living, the mindfulness that made up his way of living.  It's different from the declension in Sattipathana--it's Anapathana.  For example, his "mindfulness of feelings" consisted of these four elements:
 

Thus (one) makes up (one’s) mind:

 

Feeling the thrill of zest I shall breathe in. Feeling the thrill of zest I shall breathe out.

Feeling the sense of ease I shall breathe in. Feeling the sense of ease I shall breathe out.

 

(One) makes up one’s mind:

 

Aware of all mental factors I shall breathe in. Aware of all mental factors I will breathe out.

Calming down the mental factors I shall breathe in. Calming down the mental factors I shall breathe out.

 

(SN V 312, Pali Text Society Vol V pg 275-276; tr. F. L. Woodward; masculine pronouns replaced, re-paragraphed)

I make the explanation this way:

 

To the extent that calm in the stretch of ligaments and relaxation in the activity of muscles reflects the extension of balance from the base of consciousness*, a certain zest and ease emerges.

 

Where Woodward has “aware of all mental factors”, Horner has “experiencing the activity of thought”. Where Woodward has “calming down the mental factors”, Horner has “tranquillising the activity of thought”.

 

I myself find an awareness of the senses that locate the mind (equalibrioception, graviception, proprioception, and oculoception), and of the range of these senses, provides a good approximation to “mental factors”.

(The Early Record)
 

*"The base of consciousness" is a reference to the term koun Franz used to describe the mind away from the head.  

Not so simple, the "body-feelings-mind-mental states" in sixteen elements.  Always, in connection with the breath in, or the breath out.

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

7 hours ago, awaken said:

 

關於烏肝兔髓已經說過無數次了

 

都在這個論壇當中

It has been said countless times about black liver and rabbit marrow

in this forum

 

但是只要各位把非二元對立放在思想當中討論，那就等於是緣木求魚，找不到答案的

 

非二元對立不存在思想當中，不存在生活當中，只存在於心靈的方向，特別是修煉狀態

 

Your forum is composed of many, many posts.  Can you pick out one or two in particular, with regard to black liver and rabbit marrow?

[Bindi]

8 hours ago, stirling said:

 

I appreciate that this is hard to talk about but want to clarify that IF Maharshi was realized it wouldn't be a "choice" as you think of it. It would be more like this:

 

There would be awareness of a single thought arising in the mind. The thought might be "I choose to abide in Atman". This thought would likely come AFTER abiding in Atman had occurred. Ramana would know with absolute clarity that no person had a made a choice and that there had never been a choice to make... that the thought "I choose to abide" is hilarious nonsense that refers to nothing and no-one.

 

 

Again - this isn't Maharshi's choice here. Imagine if a handful of mentos fell into a bowl of cola. The mentos would froth up and over the bowl making a mess. There was a reaction, but only because all of the necessary elements combined in one moment of their own accord to make it happen. So it is with non-dual understanding. The conditions are Maharshi, thieves and ashram. The character "Maharshi" is naturally predisposed to kindness, so he wishes to spare other beings needless suffering. He wasn't afraid of the thieves so he remained. 

 

 

The non-dual is present with duality. Feelings and emotions still arise in a realized "person", but don't belong to anybody. They come and go, like everything that is seen or felt.

 

There ARE no non-dualists. Nobody chooses to realize how things are. A non-dualist doesn't have to do anything to shore up understanding. It isn't a practice or a position one takes on how things are. There is no-one to have preferences or choose.

 

Your arguments are the same as when this thread started and you are positing the same kinds of scenarios. Is it that we have failed in trying to explain this to you? Maybe you are (understandably) afraid and angry about the idea that your "self" or the universe of duality isn't real in the way you think it is, or that this premise challenges your belief system? I don't mind if you don't buy it, or that you choose to believe something else, but I do think we all want to be understood, perhaps?

 

I'm still curious about what your belief system is called and who some of the major proponents or figures might be. Did you share that and I missed it?

This post describes the first stage of my belief system

Finding true yin in yang and finding true yang in yin. A nondualist has no need to be digging around in dualism hoping to find anything there because they have leapt ahead to the great prize of nonduality. BUT… What if there is a prize to be found in duality first, to really make your basket full? 
 

To me Yin has its own beauty and true Yin is very powerful, Yang has its own beauty and true Yang is very wise. Sure once found True Yin and True Yang need to be disidentified from, but they keep operating without me being in control, and without their operating I would be less. Beyond True Yin and True Yang, there is the prize of actual nondual bliss, but having practiced and strengthened the ability to disidentify from limiting states, this too will be disidentified from.
 

This dual path I tread can only be dismissed as folly by the nondualist, at best necessary folly for my own development stunted as it is, but I will never be persuaded that the currently popular path to nonduality is anything but a dead end. We can discuss our differences, but we are highly unlikely to ever agree. 
 

 

[doc benway]

3 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

Almost all of us have suffered deeply -- or will soon -- and it can feel good to sit in the presence of someone who can sit with us in quiet acknowledgement of the depth of our suffering.  Someone who can sit with us without getting anxious (so we don't have to caretake them), someone who won't try to make our suffering go away.  So often we "help" others because they make us feel uncomfortable; we help them so that we'll feel better.  The first thing any would-be helper needs to learn is how to quiet this compulsion to help and just sit in openness and acceptance of someone else's experience.  It could be that as you sit together you'll both discover that pain doesn't have to lead to suffering.  Or maybe not.  The powerful thing is not to know, not to need things to be one way or the other, to let life unfold as it will.

 

Preach on:

 

Several of us are pointing to ‘being with what is, as it is.’  Open to it fully through all senses, including thoughts and feelings. Do not engage or elaborate. Do not change it. Be with it and settle in. We can practice this with our own pain - mental, energetic, and physical, as well as others.’ Trust that when action is necessary, it will be there and be appropriate. If we are interested in non-duality, I believe this is the point. Being with everything that comes to us, as it is. Allowing it to enter, abide , and move through our experience. Noticing when we react and slowly beginning to identify more consistently with the spacious awareness rather than the endless, finite objects, including EVERYTHING written in this thread and forum, especially this. This is meditation that grows into conduct and fruit. 

 

Eventually we may get a sense that experience isn’t coming in, it is going out… there are practices that focus on this like sky and sun gazing and 7 weeks in a dark room. 

 

The instant we refer to Non-duality and all related matters, if we are not describing and referring to our personal experience with this ‘being with’ we are simply conceptualizing. It doesn’t matter if we are pro or anti-dual. Everything we can possibly say misses the mark, what we are referring to is un-imputable. The instant we turn our attention inward and begin to observe without interference (wu wei), we are already connecting to what we are trying unsuccessfully to conceptualize and in a far more meaningful way.

 

When I worked at the Maryland Shock Trauma unit in the 80’s and 90’s we had a saying, words to live and work by…

 

Just fucking do it

         ~ Attila Poka

 

Preach off

[dwai]

4 hours ago, Michael Sternbach said:

 

There is only so much anyone can take (with exception of a few most extraordinary yoga masters and the like perhaps).

 

 

Nice.

 

 

Even nicer yet. 

 

 

Yes, to keep going without food that long can be done. But without water? Nah.

 

(Let's not forget, you are still in the desert and have neither.)

 

Well, then the body will go. Not much can be done about it...unless... someone gave me a tub of ice cream!

4 hours ago, Michael Sternbach said:

Oh my. 

 

Alright, if you are not beyond that kind of carnal desire, here you go:

 

 

 

I read that as "caramel" desire  

 

[doc benway]

 

Quote

This dual path I tread can only be dismissed as folly by the nondualist, at best necessary folly for my own development stunted as it is, but I will never be persuaded that the currently popular path to nonduality is anything but a dead end. We can discuss our differences, but we are highly unlikely to ever agree. 

 

I practice a path that is unequivocally non-dual but I don't dismiss you or your path. 

If non-dual teachings don't resonate with you, best to honor that and move on.

I would suggest that everyone's path is folly at some level until we see through it. 

And yet it is important to be true to your authentic self and what it needs to grow in the moment. 

I suspect there is some karmic connection between you and non-dual teachings, otherwise you would not be this engaged. Sometimes we can be very resistant to something we need, sometimes we don't need it but it draws us. FWIW, when I encounter something that doesn't make sense to me but seems to be catching my attention, I let it be. I stay open to the fact that it may be of benefit to others and the possibility that at some point it may click with me. There are things like that throughout the spiritual teachings for me, dual and non-dual alike.

 

 

[Bindi]

10 hours ago, steve said:

 

Preach on:

 

Several of us are pointing to ‘being with what is, as it is.’  Open to it fully through all senses, including thoughts and feelings. Do not engage or elaborate. Do not change it. Be with it and settle in. We can practice this with our own pain - mental, energetic, and physical, as well as others.’ Trust that when action is necessary, it will be there and be appropriate. If we are interested in non-duality, I believe this is the point. Being with everything that comes to us, as it is. Allowing it to enter, abide , and move through our experience. Noticing when we react and slowly beginning to identify more consistently with the spacious awareness rather than the endless, finite objects, including EVERYTHING written in this thread and forum, especially this. This is meditation that grows into conduct and fruit. 

 

Eventually we may get a sense that experience isn’t coming in, it is going out… there are practices that focus on this like sky and sun gazing and 7 weeks in a dark room. 

 

The instant we refer to Non-duality and all related matters, if we are not describing and referring to our personal experience with this ‘being with’ we are simply conceptualizing. It doesn’t matter if we are pro or anti-dual. Everything we can possibly say misses the mark, what we are referring to is un-imputable. The instant we turn our attention inward and begin to observe without interference (wu wei), we are already connecting to what we are trying unsuccessfully to conceptualize and in a far more meaningful way.

 

When I worked at the Maryland Shock Trauma unit in the 80’s and 90’s we had a saying, words to live and work by…

 

Just fucking do it

         ~ Attila Poka

 

Preach off

This ‘being with’ is what I and at least one other have been doing as our main practice for years, especially being with emotions as they are, not running from them or dismissing them, but this is not nonduality to me, this is straight out and unapologetically honouring  the feeling level. As far as I know there is no common spiritual path that honours the value of emotions, not Buddhism, not neidan, I didn’t think nonduality did but maybe I stand to be corrected. Don’t nondualists say “it’s just a story”, emotions are illusory. I have heard the nondual critique that therapists view their clients as needing therapy because they see them as “broken.” The nondualist doesn’t need therapy because nothing is broken, everything is perfect and it always has been exactly as it is. That’s nondualism. This ‘being with’ is something else, maybe nonduality 200, a broader and more humane nonduality that doesn’t flippantly devalue the emotional. 
 

 

[forestofclarity]

10 hours ago, Bindi said:

A nondualist has no need to be digging around in dualism hoping to find anything there because they have leapt ahead to the great prize of nonduality

 

Duality should not be confused with polarity. Polarity can often be a big part of nondual traditions. In fact, there is polarity because there is a shared continuum. 

2 minutes ago, Bindi said:

As far as I know there is no common spiritual path that honours the value of emotions, not Buddhism

 

Not so. Emotions are divine expressions of the enlightened mind. They are used to great effect in Tantra. 

 

1 minute ago, Bindi said:

The nondualist doesn’t need therapy because nothing is broken, everything is perfect and it always has been exactly as it is.

 

I think this is a bit of a straw man. Just because everything is perfect as it is doesn't mean you don't do anything. If you need therapy, you get therapy. If people need help, you help them. It just doesn't alter your essential nature. The varieties of actions are expressions of innate compassion. Nonduality is dynamic. 

[awaken]

12 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

Your forum is composed of many, many posts.  Can you pick out one or two in particular, with regard to black liver and rabbit marrow?

 

這個論壇的主題是非二元對立

不適合在這裡講烏肝兔髓的細節

你隨便找一個我講過烏肝兔髓的主題

然後在裡面發問

這樣會比較好

The topic of this forum is non-binary opposition

It is not suitable to talk about the details of black liver and rabbit marrow here

You can find any topic I've talked about with black liver and rabbit marrow

Then ask questions in

it would be better

 

沒有列入五蘊的空是毫無意義的

就像沒有光而自稱開悟也是毫無意義的

in addition
Emptiness that is not included in the five aggregates is meaningless

Just as self-proclaimed enlightenment without light is meaningless

 

[Bindi]

21 minutes ago, steve said:

 

 

I practice a path that is unequivocally non-dual but I don't dismiss you or your path. 

If non-dual teachings don't resonate with you, best to honor that and move on.

I would suggest that everyone's path is folly at some level until we see through it. 

And yet it is important to be true to your authentic self and what it needs to grow in the moment. 

I suspect there is some karmic connection between you and non-dual teachings, otherwise you would not be this engaged.
 

 

I was very engaged in trying to bring Jeff’s dark side to the light for the well-being of this forum. It is with a similar intention that I am engaged in the examination of nonduality. I very much doubt there’s some karmic connection to either Jeff or nonduality. Our chief DB’s neidanist said he thought I had a karmic connection to a certain period in neidan because I didn’t agree with him, instead valuing Yin and Yang both. Is karma the only reason anyone has a problem with anything? 

 

21 minutes ago, steve said:

Sometimes we can be very resistant to something we need, sometimes we don't need it but it draws us. FWIW, when I encounter something that doesn't make sense to me but seems to be catching my attention, I let it be. I stay open to the fact that it may be of benefit to others and the possibility that at some point it may click with me. There are things like that throughout the spiritual teachings for me, dual and non-dual alike.

 

 

If only I could be a nondual Jeffian light blob and stop troubling y’all. 

[Apech]

53 minutes ago, Bindi said:

 

I was very engaged in trying to bring Jeff’s dark side to the light for the well-being of this forum. It is with a similar intention that I am engaged in the examination of nonduality. I very much doubt there’s some karmic connection to either Jeff or nonduality. Our chief DB’s neidanist said he thought I had a karmic connection to a certain period in neidan because I didn’t agree with him, instead valuing Yin and Yang both. Is karma the only reason anyone has a problem with anything? 

 

I respect your refusal to accept non-dual gobbledegook.  What I haven't seen on this thread is a satisfactory explanation of exactly what 'non-dual' means as everyone confuses it with 'oneness' which is much easier to understand.  I tried to find a proper definition online and it wasn't there (or maybe buried on page 987 of google search).  If someone upholds the reality of karma then everything that happens (except enlightenment perhaps) is karmic - so it is given that anything that crosses your path is karmic.

 

53 minutes ago, Bindi said:

If only I could be a nondual Jeffian light blob and stop troubling y’all. 

 

We could then form the International Non-dual Federation of Light Blobs.

[old3bob]

I'd say shrinking other people (and non-dual and dual concepts) or putting them in a cast iron boxes is not going to solve the ages old quandaries that many of us find our selves in,  so it comes down to each their own,  for trying to do otherwise with our dharma whatever it may be  burns energy that is better spent on, "Know thy self" by any and all means possible that help us.  Btw Spirit uses any and all means possible to help beings, including the incredible power of unconditional Love which is impossible to box in!