David Hall's Non-Duality Blog
My name's David Hall. I'm the creator of this web site and its content. I live in Wales in the UK.
I developed the Celtic design software KnotWorker, I create electronic music as Goldcup7, and I've written books on spirituality and non duality.
Hope you enjoy this Non Duality blog. New blogs are added on Fridays.
Please use the Contact page if you have any questions or would like me to discuss a topic.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Spiritual Symbols and Patterns
In the material world we can find patterns that point to the spiritual. One of those patterns is the Hollow. We find it naturally occurring in plant stems such as bamboo, in bones, in lungs, the cavity of the mouth, cave formations, and at the heart of wind formations such as hurricanes and tornadoes. Humankind also uses the hollow in wind instruments, where the flow of air through a hollow tube with hollow outlets creates sounds of different frequencies. Pipework, containers, bottles and cups, even trains, ships and planes have a hollowness about them. The well-known sacred sound, Om or Aum, refers to the Hollow.
What is the spiritual significance of the Hollow? It hints at the empty space at the heart of the universe, the heart of our being. Buddhists call it emptiness or void. Eckhart Tolle calls it Spaciousness. It is the Sacred Spaciousness at the heart of our being. Our nature is not the apparent outer hardness of the human form. We are the Sacred Spaciousness that perceives the apparent outer form.
Within the Sacred Spaciousness there is no inside our outside. The heart of our being is a complete Singularity. The apparently outside world appears through the use of opposites. So the hollow is expressed as an empty circle, an empty interior with a circular boundary. Without the use of the opposites the Spaciousness cannot be expressed or perceived. You see, the hollow that we can say is the heart of our being has no limits, no boundaries. It is an Infinite One. When considered from the outside material viewpoint we can say it is at the heart of our being. But in the heart there is no inside or outside.
It is the Singularity that seems to be the heart of the world, yet it is not limited by the world. It is not devoid of life. It is pure, complete life, by which the opposites of life and death are known. Ultimately it is within the Singularity that this interplay of opposites, of inside and outside, alive and not alive, stillness and motion, plays out.
All sentient beings have this same centre. There is only one Infinite Singularity. It is the heart of the world of many, the heart of the world of opposites. We are not the play of opposites. We are the Sacred Spaciousness.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Spirituality
What is Non Attachment? Why is Non Attachment important? The simple answer is that it is our nature to not be attached. But let's explore and understand that better.
Non Attachment, or Detachment, is an important element of Buddhism. The aim is to bring about peace by letting go of attachments to objects, people, thoughts, and feelings. There is good reason for this. The Buddhist tradition focuses on how suffering is experienced due to these attachments. The Buddha became free from suffering and free from attachments, or rather the Buddha realised the true nature which is not attached and is without suffering.
When you recognise that reality is a Singularity it explains this. There is nothing other than the Singularity. So who or what is there to be attached to? That is the realisation of enlightenment, that there is no other. Non Attachment is the way to live in harmony with the true nature of being.
When we live by false concepts of separation, we consider ourself to be separate, and suffering ensues. By feeling attached to people, objects, thoughts or emotions, we strengthen the sense of being separate from them. We seem to get caught in the push and pull of the world.
Our true nature is without limits. There is not truly a border where we end and something else begins. Let go of these attachments and just be. It is the pure nature of our being just to be.
How do we practise this Non Attachment? By letting go. Let go of the importance of objects. Let go of depending on people for happiness. It does not mean that we should reject people and objects. On the contrary, by dropping attachment and boundaries we become more at one. Our interactions with objects, people, feelings and emotions become less selfish. When we let go we loosen the ties that bind. We realise our freedom. The clash between me and others fades. There is only an infinite oneness. It wipes out all boundaries of separation and attachment.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
The human sense of being a separate limited self comes from the perception of distance and limits. The mind feels that it is at the centre of perception. The sense of distance spans outward from 'itself'. Through sight it perceives distance. Through sound it perceives distance, and also to a certain extent through touch. Even with our eyes closed we can perceive where our hands and feet are, and they are perceived as being a distance outwards from our centre of awareness.
This 'centre' or heart of awareness is not strictly accurate. It may be a conceptual point where all perceptions are known and where dimensions seem to be perceived from, but it is a relative centre dependent on the apparent outer shell. The mind has a sense that it is in the head, where the eyes see from and the ears hear from. But this is an assumption. Truly, if you reach out with the mind you will not find any limits.
Similarly, the mind can assume identity with the body and can feel that it is within the body. This is based on the faulty assumption that the body's limits are firm and impervious. But we know that the body or indeed any physical matter is not impervious. Matter gives an appearance of solidity, but we know that radiation can travel through matter that seems to be solid. For example, x-rays are used to examine bones within the body, and ground penetrating radar is used to analyse buried structures beneath the soil.
Back to the human being. There is a sense of being within, because we perceive these apparent limits, the outer shell of the head and body, and the distance away from us that things appear. As I've mentioned elsewhere in these blogs and in my books, our perception of distance is always right here. We may recognise that, but there is still the sense of 'here' being within the human form.
Truly, this point 'here' is not enclosed. It is a spaceless space, within which the sense of inside and outside is experienced. We experience this sense of being within the apparently limiting human form from a field of open awareness. We perceive the imaginary limits of the heart and the whole from here, from nowhere.
So, although the spiritual seeker learns to look within to 'know thyself', it is found that there is no within. The heart of being is not a centre, because there are no limits to define it. But in seeking this heart of being we realise that there is no inside or outside, and that there is no divide that separates the heart and the whole. It is in realisation of the Infinite One that the sense of being a separate limited self falls away.
This is what is called enlightenment, self realisation, or nirvana, where the illusory separate self is "snuffed out". Maya, or the illusion of separation, is rooted out at the source and reality is perceived clearly as it is. The limits that seemed to define the separate self disappear, and it is revealed that there is no identity. Pure formless aware being.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
Where do I begin? Where do I end? I know that the body has no clear limits. It is always changing. If I look closely at its supposed limits I find there are none. The body is like a flowing quality of the planet. It comes from the planet, interacts with the planet, and returns to the planet, all the while remaining as a quality of the planet. Its apparent limits are not true.
I see this body without limits. I also perceive the mind. I perceive thought in the form of words, sounds and images, like internal perceptions of the mind. These also have no limits. They appear in the mind and disappear in the mind. Yet they are not inside me. I perceive them.
I also perceive the sense of identity. I perceive the mind talking to itself, thinking about me, my and mine. But that's not me. Sometimes it feels that it's me. Sometimes I observe it, so it cannot be me. If I can see a supposed identity of me, then who am I witnessing this?
Is it the same me that observes the mind thinking about me? I ascertain that I do not perceive a me thinking about me. I perceive the workings of the mind, thoughts that think they are me, thinking that identifies as a limited separate being. I perceive this.
Where and who am I, if not this false identity that is perceived? I perceive the changing mind, body and world. I am not that. I perceive the windmills of the mind. I am like the still point around which the windmill turns. I am here. There is nowhere that I can perceive that I am except here. Wherever it seems I go, I am here. I perceive the change of time. I am now.
I am the point of here and now around which the windmill of the mind and world turns. Yet I am not a point. I am no space, no time. I am formless perceiving form. I am.