Non-duality
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
Understanding the world and human actions in terms of good and bad is a dualistic approach. The human mind distinguishes between what it feels or believes is good or bad, on an individual level and a cultural level. Something happens and the human mind or society has an opinion or view on whether it is good or bad. But this defining of good and bad is relative to the human perspective.
To use a tough example, if a crocodile ate a human that would generally be deemed bad from the human perspective, but quite acceptable and good from the crocodile perspective. Or if a human eats a chicken, that is often considered good in human culture, but from the chicken's perspective this is bad. So the point here is to highlight that our concepts of good and bad are not universally accurate. They are dualistic perspectives of what Just Is. By that I mean that the universe or existence just is. It isn't good or bad, and ultimately nothing really is good or bad from the universal perspective.
One of the controversial aspects of the Non-Duality understanding is that nothing is done. That is, what appears to happen just appears to happen. There isn't a doer of actions. Actions just seem to happen. Some may suggest that this allows for cruel, unkind or evil actions to be justified. But that's not the case. Non-Duality does away with cruelty and evil by the recognition that there is only One. The One has no evil intent because there is no other to cause harm to, to be jealous of, to be angry against, or to be in competition with.
So it doesn't mean that someone who believes in Non-Duality can justify cruel actions by saying, "There is no me who does anything." It means that cruel actions do not arise where there is clear knowing of Non-Duality , because there is no sense of a separate self that is the cause of cruelty, jealousy, evil, greed and competition. Without the sense of a separate self cruel or evil actions cannot arise. In Non-Duality teaching the aim is to drop the sense of being a separate self.
Non-Duality is the Way of No Way. It is the Action of No Action. Sometimes this can be misunderstood, as a way of shirking responsibility. But the greatest responsibility is to find out who you are. The greatest good that can be brought to the world is the realisation that Pure Goodness is the nature of Being. The core nature of Being can't really be described in terms of good or bad, but having experienced what seems bad, evil and wrong, we can say that Being is Pure Goodness. Goodness beyond the dualistic terms of good and bad.
In Non-Duality we don't point at others and say they are evil. We don't even point at actions and say they are wrong. In human terms, relatively speaking, people may act in evil ways and do actions that can be considered wrong. But that is only relatively speaking. In Non-Duality there are no others to point at, or one who points. In accurate Non-Duality terms there is only What Is. No harm is done to the Infinite Being within which this play of harming and healing appears. No force can ever cause a rift in the Infinite Indivisible One.
What we understand as good and right must be that which is the natural state of Being. Pure Being is wholly good and right, beyond any concept of other, beyond any seeming duality of opposite terms. It is the Singularity or Oneness that has no other. It is the high standard of what is good and right. So in human society goodness ought to be that which pertains to oneness. That doesn't mean one group of society dominant over another. It means the recognition of the Oneness of the Whole, without other. None are outside of this Pure Oneness, even those that may be considered as bad or evil by human society.
So ultimately there is no morality dilemma. Your true nature is neither good nor bad, but Pure Goodness is a good description of it. You are not the doer of actions or the thinker of thoughts, yet thoughts and actions are perceived. You are not the judge of others. There are no others. Your nature is truly Non-Judgemental. You do no harm. You are Perfect Peace. Recognising this Perfect Peace within the human mind brings about a clarity and cleansing to the human form, so that Pure Goodness of Being filters through into this apparent world of opposites.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
Can the Infinite be understood intellectually? Some may say it's impossible. But it is possible to have a limited understanding of the Infinite intellectually. We can understand the Infinite in finite terms, but we can't understand anything in infinite terms - there are no infinite terms. Even the word 'Infinite' uses the term 'finite'. We say it is not finite. It is un-limited. It is un-bounded. It is in-divisible.
Our whole intellectual understanding and knowledge base is founded on finite terms. We use measurements for time, distance, weight, energy etc. These measurements intellectually divide up the indivisible. Time isn't really made of segments. Time is the continual flow of change. But intellectually we measure it in segments of second, minutes, days, years etc. Similarly with distance. Distance isn't really split into segments of metres, miles, kilometres etc. These finite measures are used by the human mind to understand portions of infinity.
What we have is an infinite world being understood in finite terms. These finite terms can be useful but never truly accurate. Humanity can develop a great intellectual understanding of the universe in finite terms, and that's useful, but it needs to be recognised that it will never be wholly accurate. Any theory about the universe, reality and existence will be inaccurate. It's just that some are less inaccurate than others. Knowledge is seemingly limited.
There is a difference between knowledge and knowing that may be overlooked. We may have knowledge about how to make a spaghetti bolognese, but there is a knowing of this knowledge. The knowing of knowledge is the same knowing of feelings, sensations and perceptions. When a bird is seen to fly past, a car is heard driving by, or a train of thought flows by, these are known in the same way that knowledge is known. There is a Knowing. This Knowing, in Non-Duality terms, is Aware Being. It is the Awareness or Consciousness in which the world is perceived. It is the Formless that perceives form.
It is this Infinite Knowing in which the apparently finite knowledge of the infinite appears. Nothing is truly finite. All seemingly finite things appear in the Indivisible Infinite. Time is not divided. Space is not divided. Forms flow continually from this to that, without ever truly being divided into this or that. We have knowledge in finite terms, but the Truth is Infinite.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
In ancient Chinese philosophy there is an understanding of opposites in the world, with the Yin and Yang forces or qualities. But these opposites were considered to appear within the Supreme Ultimate (Taiji), which is a Perfect Inexpressible Singularity. Let’s explore and understand what this means.
So we know that this seems to be a World of Opposites. There are opposites qualities such as light and dark, good and bad, clear and clouded, moving and still, truth and lies. But these are not the Truth. They have some relative truth, but they are not the Absolute Truth. So words spoken or written may be close to or far from the Ultimate Truth, but words can never be the Truth. The reason that words can’t be the Absolute Truth is because they are expressions dependent on opposites and relativity.
It’s useful to really understand this. In the world all words are less than true, all movement is illusory, all clarity is less than perfect, all goodness is less than perfect purity, and all light is darker than Pure Light. So even though the opposites may appear to be like and unlike the Supreme Ultimate, the Absolute, Reality, they are inevitably less than it. They are less than the Ultimate because they are expressed in the seemingly divided World of Opposites.
It seems as if the world has fallen out of the paradisiacal state of Pure Perfection. It seems that the Supreme Formless Singularity has been divided to create a world of forms and opposites. So all that appears in the world is less than Perfection. What the world has to offer will never suffice. Even the most beautiful is less than perfection. Even the kindest of people is less than the Selflessness of the Supreme Singularity.
This is why the Supreme Ultimate can also be called the Great Extremity, or the Supreme Superlative. It is the Highest of the high and low. The Greatest of the good and bad. The Purest of the pure and tainted. This world is like an expression of the Supreme Ultimate by means of contrasting opposites, those like it and unlike it. But they are never really it. The expression always falls short of Truth and Reality. The Reality is imperceptible, as there is no other, no separation, no division of what is and what isn’t. There only seems to be a division of the Supreme Ultimate. It is Pure Unseen Perfection. Perfect Clarity. Formless Being.
But there is a seeming paradox. The world that appears seems to be less than the Whole, less than the Supreme Ultimate. But it isn’t. There is only the Whole, only the Supreme Ultimate. The seeming paradox is that although the world is to be understood as being less than the Supreme, it is also to be recognised that there is only the Supreme. There is never more than or less than the Supreme Singularity. The opposites are illusory in nature. Oneness is never divided in two. The world only seems to be a World of Opposites.
I could say it is the Supreme Singularity reflecting within itself. But all statements about it will be less than the Truth. The closest we can actually come to describing the Supreme Ultimate is by saying nothing.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
In the Zen tradition of Non-Duality it is stated that there is One Mind. But what is the mind? It can't really be defined. No nouns can really be defined. The reason being that Infinity is the reality behind the seeming limits of the world.
So defining the mind is impossible. People generally have a vague assumption of what the mind is, and this assumption is generally accepted and shared by people to different degrees. That means that people have an idea of what the mind is, and some people have similar ideas about it, but there is still a vagueness. There is the materialist view that matter is the main stuff of the world, and that the human form evolved with a brain that creates the mind. But the Non-Duality understanding is very different to the materialist.
Truly all we can know about the world, the human form and the brain is known in the mind. We can't know anything without the mind - that aware, knowing, perceiving ability. The mind can be considered as a focusing of sensation and perception. We could say the mind is a qualityless, spaceless space in which thoughts, sensations and perceptions appear. Thinking appears in the mind. Hearing, seeing and all other sensing appears in the mind. The whole world appears in the mind. What seems to be outside and inside all appear in the mind.
The human mind generally has a sense of limitation, being a centre point at the heart of perception. We can say that the mind is that seemingly limited field in which a viewpoint of the world is perceived. But the perceived world is not separate from the mind. Neither is perceiving. It can be recognised that the mind is perceiving an appearance of centralisation. It doesn't mean that this centralisation is true or real. That's just how it appears. The belief of this centralisation develops the sense of a limited, separate self - me and the world. This belief also appears in the mind.
We can go deeper. We can perceive this sense of identity. We can perceive thinking. We can perceive the body's sensations and its perceptions, which include the appearance of the world. We don't really perceive limits to the mind. The edge of the mind can't be found. Indeed, the mind only imagines its limitations.
In Non-Duality understanding there is only Awareness or Consciousness. In Zen this is the One Mind. The seemingly limited mind is perceived in Awareness. There is One Awareness. We could say it is like a central pool from which all mind streams flow. But truly there is no centre. There is only One Mind, giving the appearance of centre and outer. There is no inside and outside. These opposites seem to appear in the mind, but there is no true limiting that divides the mind. The 'outer' world can never be experienced outside of the mind, because there is no outside of the mind.
All that is is One Mind. Even the term 'Mind' isn't it, but it's a way of trying to describe it. Even 'One' isn't accurate. Truly there is no number. There is just What Is.