For those in a phase of non-dualism view, here is what I think is a useful essay by Theravadan scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi on non-duality and dhamma.

[For "map users" I personally think this non-dualism view, untempered by knowing actual plurality of objects --- appears to come up during 2nd path and is part of the conceit recognized till 4th. And it comes with its own dissatisfaction until tempered with just knowledge of things as they are without pervasive overlay nor substrate unifying nature. That is my own observation so far.]



http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/bps-essay_27.html


by
Bhikkhu Bodhi
© 1998–2013


One of the most challenging issues facing Theravada Buddhism in recent years has been the encounter between classical Theravada vipassana meditation and the "non-dualistic" contemplative traditions best represented by Advaita Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism. Responses to this encounter have spanned the extremes, ranging from vehement confrontation all the way to attempts at synthesis and hybridization. While the present essay cannot pretend to illuminate all the intricate and subtle problems involved in this sometimes volatile dialogue, I hope it may contribute a few sparks of light from a canonically oriented Theravada perspective.

My first preliminary remark would be to insist that a system of meditative practice does not constitute a self-contained discipline. Any authentic system of spiritual practice is always found embedded within a conceptual matrix that defines the problems the practice is intended to solve and the goal toward which it is directed. Hence the merging of techniques grounded in incompatible conceptual frameworks is fraught with risk. Although such mergers may appease a predilection for experimentation or eclecticism, it seems likely that their long-term effect will be to create a certain "cognitive dissonance" that will reverberate through the deeper levels of the psyche and stir up even greater confusion.

My second remark would be to point out simply that non-dualistic spiritual traditions are far from consistent with each other, but comprise, rather, a wide variety of views profoundly different and inevitably colored by the broader conceptual contours of the philosophies which encompass them.

For the Vedanta, non-duality (advaita) means the absence of an ultimate distinction between the Atman, the innermost self, and Brahman, the divine reality, the underlying ground of the world. From the standpoint of the highest realization, only one ultimate reality exists — which is simultaneously Atman and Brahman — and the aim of the spiritual quest is to know that one's own true self, the Atman, is the timeless reality which is Being, Awareness, Bliss. Since all schools of Buddhism reject the idea of the Atman, none can accept the non-dualism of Vedanta. From the perspective of the Theravada tradition, any quest for the discovery of selfhood, whether as a permanent individual self or as an absolute universal self, would have to be dismissed as a delusion, a metaphysical blunder born from a failure to properly comprehend the nature of concrete experience. According to the Pali Suttas, the individual being is merely a complex unity of the five aggregates, which are all stamped with the three marks of impermanence, suffering, and selflessness. Any postulation of selfhood in regard to this compound of transient, conditioned phenomena is an instance of "personality view" (sakkayaditthi), the most basic fetter that binds beings to the round of rebirths. The attainment of liberation, for Buddhism, does not come to pass by the realization of a true self or absolute "I," but through the dissolution of even the subtlest sense of selfhood in relation to the five aggregates, "the abolition of all I-making, mine-making, and underlying tendencies to conceit."

The Mahayana schools, despite their great differences, concur in upholding a thesis that, from the Theravada point of view, borders on the outrageous. This is the claim that there is no ultimate difference between samsara and Nirvana, defilement and purity, ignorance and enlightenment. For the Mahayana, the enlightenment which the Buddhist path is designed to awaken consists precisely in the realization of this non-dualistic perspective. The validity of conventional dualities is denied because the ultimate nature of all phenomena is emptiness, the lack of any substantial or intrinsic reality, and hence in their emptiness all the diverse, apparently opposed phenomena posited by mainstream Buddhist doctrine finally coincide: "All dharmas have one nature, which is no-nature."

The teaching of the Buddha as found in the Pali canon does not endorse a philosophy of non-dualism of any variety, nor, I would add, can a non-dualistic perspective be found lying implicit within the Buddha's discourses. At the same time, however, I would not maintain that the Pali Suttas propose dualism, the positing of duality as a metaphysical hypothesis aimed at intellectual assent. I would characterize the Buddha's intent in the Canon as primarily pragmatic rather than speculative, though I would also qualify this by saying that this pragmatism does not operate in a philosophical void but finds its grounding in the nature of actuality as the Buddha penetrated it in his enlightenment. In contrast to the non-dualistic systems, the Buddha's approach does not aim at the discovery of a unifying principle behind or beneath our experience of the world. Instead it takes the concrete fact of living experience, with all its buzzing confusion of contrasts and tensions, as its starting point and framework, within which it attempts to diagnose the central problem at the core of human existence and to offer a way to its solution. Hence the polestar of the Buddhist path is not a final unity but the extinction of suffering, which brings the resolution of the existential dilemma at its most fundamental level.

When we investigate our experience exactly as it presents itself, we find that it is permeated by a number of critically important dualities with profound implications for the spiritual quest. The Buddha's teaching, as recorded in the Pali Suttas, fixes our attention unflinchingly upon these dualities and treats their acknowledgment as the indispensable basis for any honest search for liberating wisdom. It is precisely these antitheses — of good and evil, suffering and happiness, wisdom and ignorance — that make the quest for enlightenment and deliverance such a vitally crucial concern.

At the peak of the pairs of opposites stands the duality of the conditioned and the Unconditioned: samsara as the round of repeated birth and death wherein all is impermanent, subject to change, and liable to suffering, and Nibbana as the state of final deliverance, the unborn, ageless, and deathless. Although Nibbana, even in the early texts, is definitely cast as an ultimate reality and not merely as an ethical or psychological state, there is not the least insinuation that this reality is metaphysically indistinguishable at some profound level from its manifest opposite, samsara. To the contrary, the Buddha's repeated lesson is that samsara is the realm of suffering governed by greed, hatred, and delusion, wherein we have shed tears greater than the waters of the ocean, while Nibbana is irreversible release from samsara, to be attained by demolishing greed, hatred, and delusion, and by relinquishing all conditioned existence.

Thus the Theravada makes the antithesis of samsara and Nibbana the starting point of the entire quest for deliverance. Even more, it treats this antithesis as determinative of the final goal, which is precisely the transcendence of samsara and the attainment of liberation in Nibbana. Where Theravada differs significantly from the Mahayana schools, which also start with the duality of samsara and Nirvana, is in its refusal to regard this polarity as a mere preparatory lesson tailored for those with blunt faculties, to be eventually superseded by some higher realization of non-duality. From the standpoint of the Pali Suttas, even for the Buddha and the arahants suffering and its cessation, samsara and Nibbana, remain distinct.

Spiritual seekers still exploring the different contemplative traditions commonly assume that the highest spiritual teaching must be one which posits a metaphysical unity as the philosophical foundation and final goal of the quest for enlightenment. Taking this assumption to be axiomatic, they may then conclude that the Pali Buddhist teaching, with its insistence on the sober assessment of dualities, is deficient or provisional, requiring fulfillment by a nondualistic realization. For those of such a bent, the dissolution of dualities in a final unity will always appear more profound and complete.

However, it is just this assumption that I would challenge. I would assert, by reference to the Buddha's own original teaching, that profundity and completeness need not be bought at the price of distinctions, that they can be achieved at the highest level while preserving intact the dualities and diversity so strikingly evident to mature reflection on the world. I would add, moreover, that the teaching which insists on recognizing real dualities as they are is finally more satisfactory. The reason it is more satisfactory, despite its denial of the mind's yearning for a comprehensive unity, is because it takes account of another factor which overrides in importance the quest for unity. This "something else" is the need to remain grounded in actuality.

Where I think the teaching of the Buddha, as preserved in the Theravada tradition, surpasses all other attempts to resolve the spiritual dilemmas of humanity is in its persistent refusal to sacrifice actuality for unity. The Buddha's Dhamma does not point us toward an all-embracing absolute in which the tensions of daily existence dissolve in metaphysical oneness or inscrutable emptiness. It points us, rather, toward actuality as the final sphere of comprehension, toward things as they really are (yathabhuta). Above all, it points us toward the Four Noble Truths of suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the way to its cessation as the liberating proclamation of things as they really are. These four truths, the Buddha declares, are noble truths, and what makes them noble truths is precisely that they are actual, undeviating, invariable (tatha, avitatha, anannatha). It is the failure to face the actuality of these truths that has caused us to wander for so long through the long course of samsara. It is by penetrating these truths exactly as they are that one can reach the true consummation of the spiritual quest: making an end to suffering.

In this sequel to the previous essay, I intend to discuss three major areas of difference between the Buddha's Teaching, which we may refer to here as "the Ariyan Dhamma," and the philosophies of non-duality. These areas correspond to the three divisions of the Buddhist path — virtue, concentration, and wisdom.

In regard to virtue the distinction between the two teachings is not immediately evident, as both generally affirm the importance of virtuous conduct at the start of training. The essential difference between them emerges, not at the outset, but only later, in the way they evaluate the role of morality in the advanced stages of the path. For the non-dual systems, all dualities are finally transcended in the realization of the non-dual reality, the Absolute or fundamental ground. As the Absolute encompasses and transcends all diversity, for one who has realized it the distinctions between good and evil, virtue and non-virtue, lose their ultimate validity. Such distinctions, it is said, are valid only at the conventional level, not at the level of final realization; they are binding on the trainee, not on the adept. Thus we find that in their historical forms (particularly in Hindu and Buddhist Tantra), philosophies of non-duality hold that the conduct of the enlightened sage cannot be circumscribed by moral rules. The sage has transcended all conventional distinctions of good and evil. He acts spontaneously from his intuition of the Ultimate and therefore is no longer bound by the rules of morality valid for those still struggling toward the light. His behavior is an elusive, incomprehensible outflow of what has been called "crazy wisdom."

For the Ariyan Dhamma, the distinction between the two types of conduct, moral and immoral, is sharp and clear, and this distinction persists all the way through to the consummation of the path: "Bodily conduct is twofold, I say, to be cultivated and not to be cultivated, and such conduct is either the one or the other" (MN 114). The conduct of the ideal Buddhist sage, the arahant, necessarily embodies the highest standards of moral rectitude both in the spirit and in the letter, and for him conformity to the letter is spontaneous and natural. The Buddha says that the liberated one lives restrained by the rules of the Vinaya, seeing danger in the slightest faults. He cannot intentionally commit any breach of the moral precepts, nor would he ever pursue any course of action motivated by desire, hatred, delusion, or fear.

In the sphere of meditation practice or concentration, we again find a striking difference in outlook between the non-dual systems and the Ariyan Dhamma. Since, for the non-dual systems, distinctions are ultimately unreal, meditation practice is not explicitly oriented toward the removal of mental defilements and the cultivation of virtuous states of mind. In these systems, it is often said that defilements are mere appearances devoid of intrinsic reality, even manifestations of the Absolute. Hence to engage in a programme of practice to overcome them is an exercise in futility, like fleeing from an apparitional demon: to seek to eliminate defilements is to reinforce the illusion of duality. The meditative themes that ripple through the non-dual currents of thought declare: "no defilement and no purity"; "the defilements are in essence the same as transcendent wisdom"; "it is by passion that passion is removed."

In the Ariyan Dhamma, the practice of meditation unfolds from start to finish as a process of mental purification. The process begins with the recognition of the dangers in unwholesome states: they are real pollutants of our being that need to be restrained and eliminated. The consummation is reached in the complete destruction of the defilements through the cultivation of their wholesome antidotes. The entire course of practice demands a recognition of the differences between the dark and bright qualities of the mind, and devolves on effort and diligence: "One does not tolerate an arisen unwholesome thought, one abandons it, dispels it, abolishes it, nullifies it" (MN 2). The hindrances are "causes of blindness, causes of ignorance, destructive to wisdom, not conducive to Nibbana" (SN 46:40). The practice of meditation purges the mind of its corruptions, preparing the way for the destruction of the cankers (asavakkhaya).

Finally, in the domain of wisdom the Ariyan Dhamma and the non-dual systems once again move in contrary directions. In the non-dual systems the task of wisdom is to break through the diversified appearances (or the appearance of diversity) in order to discover the unifying reality that underlies them. Concrete phenomena, in their distinctions and their plurality, are mere appearance, while true reality is the One: either a substantial Absolute (the Atman, Brahman, the Godhead, etc.), or a metaphysical zero (Sunyata, the Void Nature of Mind, etc.). For such systems, liberation comes with the arrival at the fundamental unity in which opposites merge and distinctions evaporate like dew.

In the Ariyan Dhamma wisdom aims at seeing and knowing things as they really are (yathabhutananadassana). Hence, to know things as they are, wisdom must respect phenomena in their precise particularity. Wisdom leaves diversity and plurality untouched. It instead seeks to uncover the characteristics of phenomena, to gain insight into their qualities and structures. It moves, not in the direction of an all-embracing identification with the All, but toward disengagement and detachment, release from the All. The cultivation of wisdom in no way "undermines" concrete phenomena by reducing them to appearances, nor does it treat them as windows opening to some fundamental ground. Instead it investigates and discerns, in order to understand things as they are: "And what does one understand as it really is? One understands: Such is form, such its arising and passing away. Such is feeling... perception... formations... consciousness, such its arising and passing away." "When one sees, 'All formations are impermanent, all are suffering, everything is not self,' one turns away from suffering: this is the path to purity."

Spiritual systems are colored as much by their favorite similes as by their formulated tenets. For the non-dual systems, two similes stand out as predominant. One is space, which simultaneously encompasses all and permeates all yet is nothing concrete in itself; the other is the ocean, which remains self-identical beneath the changing multitude of its waves. The similes used within the Ariyan Dhamma are highly diverse, but one theme that unites many of them is acuity of vision — vision which discerns the panorama of visible forms clearly and precisely, each in its own individuality: "It is just as if there were a lake in a mountain recess, clear, limpid, undisturbed, so that a man with good sight standing on the bank could see shells, gravel, and pebbles, and also shoals of fish swimming about and resting. He might think: 'There is this lake, clear, limpid, undisturbed, and there are these shells, gravel, and pebbles, and also these shoals of fish swimming about and resting.' So too a monk understands as it actually is: 'This is suffering, this is the origin of suffering, this is the cessation of suffering, this is the way leading to the cessation of suffering.' When he knows and sees thus his mind is liberated from the cankers, and with the mind's liberation he knows that he is liberated" (MN 39).

Publisher's note
The Buddhist Publication Society is an approved charity dedicated to making known the Teaching of the Buddha, which has a vital message for people of all creeds.

Founded in 1958, the BPS has published a wide variety of books and booklets covering a great range of topics. Its publications include accurate annotated translations of the Buddha's discourses, standard reference works, as well as original contemporary expositions of Buddhist thought and practice. These works present Buddhism as it truly is — a dynamic force which has influenced receptive minds for the past 2500 years and is still as relevant today as it was when it first arose.

Buddhist Publication Society
P.O. Box 61
54, Sangharaja Mawatha
Kandy, Sri Lanka

Provenance: ©1994-95 Buddhist Publication Society. BPS Newsletter cover essays nos. 27 (2nd mailing, 1994) & 29 (1st mailing, 1995). This Access to Insight edition is ©1998–2013.
Terms of use: You may copy, reformat, reprint, republish, and redistribute this work in any medium whatsoever, provided that: (1) you only make such copies, etc. available free of charge and, in the case of reprinting, only in quantities of no more than 50 copies; (2) you clearly indicate that any derivatives of this work (including translations) are derived from this source document; and (3) you include the full text of this license in any copies or derivatives of this work. Otherwise, all rights reserved. For additional information about this license, see the FAQ.
How to cite this document (one suggested style): "Dhamma and Non-duality", by Bhikkhu Bodhi. Access to Insight, 4 April 2011, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/bps-essay_27.html . Retrieved on 18 August 2013.

This essay is his way of saying "my religion is better than your religion", and "my religion is closer to what I believe the Buddha taught, therefore it is better". And in order to achieve his objective, he creates a distorted and one-sided view of non-dualism.



His mischaracterisation and misunderstanding of non-dual approaches (at least zen) appears to stem from picking up on only one half of the non-dual equation - "form is emptiness", and is missing out the "emptiness is form" part. I take non-dual to not mean "only one (emptiness)."

Oh yes, just to nitpick, while he says that a belief in a self is a delusion, there is a complex unity of five aggregates which gets reincarnated. Sounds suspiciously like a self to me.

Hi SF,

I don't think it is being said one religion is better than another, but would you excerpt the phrases that you feel point to this?

I do think the author says for himself that he
a) "(...)cannot pretend to illuminate all the intricate and subtle problems involved in this sometimes volatile dialogue, I hope it may contribute a few sparks of light from a canonically oriented Theravada perspective"; and

b)"(...) insist(s) that a system of meditative practice does not constitute a self-contained discipline. Any authentic system of spiritual practice is always found embedded within a conceptual matrix that defines the problems the practice is intended to solve and the goal toward which it is directed. Hence the merging of techniques grounded in incompatible conceptual frameworks is fraught with risk. Although such mergers may appease a predilection for experimentation or eclecticism, it seems likely that their long-term effect will be to create a certain "cognitive dissonance" that will reverberate through the deeper levels of the psyche and stir up even greater confusion."

So, in summary, the author aims to provide an understanding of a subject in the field in which he is a scholar.

Since practitioners here often use a Theravadan model of paths and the Pali canon, and there are sometimes accounts of "non-dual" experience/view, I think it's a useful essay to have here, the input of a scholar-pracitioner in the Theravadan field.

So this thread arrives as a practice consideration, not a wrestling match I have noted my own personal views.

Would you share more on your personal views/experience?
When you write
What do you take non-dual to mean?
And what is more than "only one (emptiness)" to you?
And what makes your plural emptinesses correlate to non-dual?
(That's a little funny; without your clarification, it seems you're saying there's more than one emptiness and that houses a non-dual view. : )

In other words:
Why add the idea "non-dual" to objects empty of permanent existence (emptiness, anicca, anatta)?
Does that serve the object or the human and how?


To me, this thread is not ideological fluff; there is a real consequence to holding and applying any view without knowing why experientially and carefully.

This often comes up in any buddhist ontology class regardless of tradition! =]
If you want to continue this and khandhas and coming into being, we could. Perhaps just add paragraph headers, e.g.. khandhas and non-duality?

This is totally what I got out of it too..pulpit pounding philosophical diatribe showing the flaws of other religions including any Buddhists who are not the morally superior canonically oriented Theravada perspective. No I will not excerpt the phrases that I feel point to this. I would instead recommend that you reread it and see if it is possible for you to see this perspective.

I would like to ask phenomenologically what is the difference between abiding in nonduality and (insert Buddhist accepted word to refer to a state of this-
"When, Bahiya, for you in the seen is merely what is seen... in the cognized is merely what is cognized, then, Bahiya, you will not be 'with that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'with that,' then, Bahiya, you will not be 'in that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'in that,' then, Bahiya, you will be neither here nor beyond nor in between the two.")
Is there a word? If not then it seems fruitless to try to compare and find commonalities and greater understanding of this phenomenon.
~D

Hi D-


So are you, as you say, "non-dual" with the author's "philosophical diatribe" and how?

Or are you separate and dualistic with the author's "philosophical diatribe" and how?


When objects are seen to be empty of permanency, what is added by calling all objects also non-dual?

Meaning: Why should a person add "non-dualness" to anicca and anatta?

Are you and I one or two?

Exactly. Is there an assertion of taking this and saying this is that, that they are non-dual? That this and that -- are not aren't these two phenomena equally subject to anicca and anatta?


___
Question of individual speech: When objects are simply conditioned of anicca and anatta and, knowing this, what are the worthwhile reasons to add also getting upset and/or speaking harshly of the author here?

Form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form. Form itself is emptiness, emptiness itself form.



Neither not one nor not two.

I can't really say much more, as if I actually understood what this meant from an experiential perspective then I would be be
enlightened.

As for a practice point - if you think you understand non-duality (and/or think you are enlightened) by grasping one half of the equation (usually the form is emptiness bit), then you are missing something.

SF


Who is writing your posts?
Are you writing your actual posts? Am I writing your actual posts? Or are we writing your actual posts?


Can you and I both be composite entities (composed of aggregates)?
Can you and I have in common there being nothing permanent about either of us?
Can you and I smile and each other and say, "You, too, huh? You're an impermanent composite entity? Ah, enjoy it and spend it friendily; it will be nice that way."

Now, what happens when someone (a new party) comes up and says, "You two are non-dual? You are a non-duo"
What is the new party adding by this?
What is helpful or true in this addition?



Agreed, there is a shared experience/phenomena being created between us.
But did plurality of phenomena go somewhere?
Why does the new party add "You two --- even we three --- all of it, we are non-dual."
Did plurality of phenomena need to be dispelled? If so, why?
Is the urge to dispel plurality a synthetic assertion based on affective need to be "closer to someone"?
Is the urge to dispel plurality an assertion that points to dissatisfaction with being separate (who is writing your threads? We are clearly separate, but we are agreeing as separate composite entities to share here together our separate experiences despite that we are a duo/plural objects.)
Why isn't it anicca, anatta, non-dual?




SF How is this saying "non-dual"? How is this saying "not two"? It is just saying form is not emptiness. It is also saying emptiness is form. Where is non-dual? Where is that syncretism?

Now as I have posted with "Dream Walker" in another thread, sustaining non-dual as a view is entrapping; where is it? Why among the three characteristics is there not anicca, anatta, and non-dual?

So while it can cause suffering to take objects up with the expectation of permanency, it also causes suffering to take up objects in the expectation of non-dual. Especially if someone doesn't know why they are doing that.

To assert "non-dual" view, one might do well to substantiate the claim, particularly if one thinks holding that objects are non-dual is freeing.


Else, when a person cannot say why they hold/insist on "non-dual" view and/or becomes harshly speaking, then it looks to me that a naturally arising loneliness/dissatisfaction in human nature is insisting that plural objects be non-dual, that one is not alone/separate; "we are non-dual". Rather, plurality is exciting and there is a shared experience of impermanence that can be alarming and exciting. This is why meditative/contemplative study exists across traditions, secular and religious.

But I do get being human includes a lot of feeling alone, separate and fearing/concern for one's end of existing, fear.aversion of being alone in life and alone in death, fear/aversion of such separation continuing infinitely even. A non-dual view would sooth this. If this is the issue, do we not relate differently to this human nature with the meditative practices, metta, and vipassana, just sitting, observing, also laughing with friends?

There is so much authentic impermanent togetherness and separateness of plural objects (we composite entities, if you like) with metta, friendliness whatever the tradition, golden rule. Why assert a gloss of non-dual?

So I think when a person asserts non-dual, again, they may be able to explain that or re-examine what they are asserting.

In a Buddhist context, nonduality refers to the absence of inherent distinction between phenomena arbitrarily designated "self" and those designated "other". It can be used to describe worldviews in which 1) all phenomena are innately self, 2) all phenomena are innately not-self, or 3) phenomena in moment-to-moment experience are neither self nor not-self, such that no fixed position regarding "self" will conform to reality. If you're 1st path or above you're aware on some level that #3 is least productive of suffering, although Buddhist schools have leaned to #1 and #2 throughout history. It's much easier to sell Buddhism to laypeople if you posit the existence of a true self. In the case of contemporary, nominally Theravadin example Wat Phra Dhammakaya, the true self is taken to be the mindstream of an arahat, which they choose to call "dhammakaya". In other words, the 'true self' is the enlightened mind-process that no longer engages in acts of selfing or "becoming".

The nondual should be distinguished from the monist claim that all reality arises from a fundamental ground; this fundamental ground is taken to be somehow "more real" than reality, even though no fundamental ground can be discovered in moment-to-moment experience. It's a consequence of the same cognitive error that leads to theism: the belief that individual events appear to have causes, so Everything (or "the all-in-the-all") must have a first cause or at least an underlying sustaining factor. It's turtles all the way down.

Advaita Vedanta is both nondual and monist: the atman (soul) unites with Brahman (undifferentiated supreme reality). Tantric/Mahayana/Vajrayana Buddhism is nondual but not monist. Bodhi compromises his argument by conflating the Buddhist conception of the nondual with Vedic monism. The Mahayana and Vajrayana are incredibly diverse, and modern teachers claiming to be affiliated with those schools occasionally make monist claims. Bodhi's argument is a powerful refutation of those deviant philosophical strains, but Mahayana and Vajrayana "as a whole", or as classically conceived by the realized meditation masters who inspired them, escape the range of his critique.

When objects are seen as nondual, what is added by calling all objects empty of permanency?

Meaning: Why should a person add anicca and anatta to "non-dualness"?

Let me throw out the idea that non-dual is a term used for a particular aspect of the phenomenon of the concept of no-self.
I am experiencing no-self today. Hmmmm...sounds kinda strange. Couldn't people depending on their understanding miss what is being conveyed? How can we be more semantically accurate? Ideas?


When a person starts bagging on other religions it reminds me why I seek what Buddha sought not what his followers think. It doesn't matter what religion the person is, when they think their brand is the best and use this to disparage others even if they are well meaning they limit themselves to a narrow belief system. I am not upset but saddened. If I spoke harshly please forgive me, it is not my intent to disparage the person himself.

Here is a quote from Daniel
Is non-dual experience an illusion

Katy, it seems like you are getting hung up on this phrase "non-dual" and what it means. Who are these people holding/insisting on a "non-dual" view, or saying that objects are "non-dual"? I don't you think you get many highly realized zen masters going around asserting that their views are "non-dual". If you could describe and discuss their view logically in words, then it would be a lot easier to understand and a lot more people would be enlightened. I don't admit to understanding what the perspective that philosophers might inadequately label as "non-dual" really means, Bikkhu apparently doesn't understand it, and I don't think you understand it either, and even if we did, I don't think we could have a coherent discussion about it anyway.

Hi Matthew Horn,
For which "a Buddhist context" do you speak?
From memory of your reading the author just yesterday, what does the author report about nondualism in the Theravadan buddhist context?

In which of your three categories of "nonduality" do you place the khandhas?

Matthew, I'd like to be clear that we are speaking with the same conceptual framework. Therefore, when you define awareness levels as associated with "paths" here, do you refer to the four-path Theravadan model of the MN 22?

I cannot join in this statement as a) I've never studied how easy it is to sell Buddhism. If you know your own statement to be factually accurate --- a process of applying vitakka and viccara (suffusive investigation, which can be called mastery of the first concentrated state, dhyana, in Anapanasati) --- then you would have expressed a substantial conclusion with right speech.

b) I have wise friends in the "true self/Atman" traditions and I often admire their conduct and discipline; in short, I have seen no easy sales in their camp either

But perhaps your investigation was thorough, direct, and then perhaps you then speak rightly.


I am unfamiliar with this; regardless, you diverge to "true self" versus dualism.

The view of dualism does not need to go into may interpretations to be juxtaposed to khandhas, dhammas.


Please do with the aim of intelligible succinctness.

Odd, in viewing the khandas, I would not at all say theism is a cognitive error at all.
What I can say in account of my own experience is that there are areas of the mind that experience God/Godhood; this has occurred to me out of the blue in meditation.

Apparently, the experience is so common it is studied in labs. Reports of Godhood/God occur enough that one can consider that the mind may create Godhood/God or the mind has the capacity to detect Godhood/God. I can say no more than that at present if I appreciate the consequences of using honest and knowledgeable speech.


To be clear, you are calling these strains deviant, not the author. Having sat in the same multi-day Mahayana classes with the author, his attendance struck me as very attentive and respectful. So I'd like to be clear here, that you would like the author's point to be " a powerful refutation of those deviant philosophical strains" but that seems to re-fold his writing into a new origami figure, if you will, not what he is presenting: a clarification.

Hi SF,

This thread was inspired by the person who refers to themselves as walking in a dream, Dream Walker, as he replied to a post yesterday inspired by the concept of nondualism. This person is also trying to understand khandas. This person is also making path claims in the Theravadan system.

So, I located a 2011 article on khandas, dhammas and the conceptual view of nondualism as presented by a Theravadan scholar (I'm not sure he calls himself that, but publically he is called this often in addition to his doctorate in the Western tradition) and placed it in its own thread. If the person who considers themselves walking in a dream was attracted to it, they would react to it. And so it has gone.

But, generally, phrases like "non-dual" do come up from time to time here and elsewhere (see Dream Walker's link to a teacher, for example). And some people can express this experience for themselves, while other people parrot and cite, a weak proxy for actual experience.

I have no problem with the experience of non-dualism and can say my mind has experienced nonduality in a few ways, including at a sensory level in single-pointedness, and a sensory level in open awareness, in the form khandha isolated, in a conceptual framework as in "the apparent conditions of our existence are so common, it's silly to view another as too different from me."

What I think is key is the experience of khandhas start to show what is the actuality of being alive and from these interactive components, one can start to see how are phenomena experienced and what do we/i/you bring into being.

Complicated accounts of nondual are complicated creations... dhammas; it is like going to an advance fractal quilting class. If creating fractally-based quilts alleviates suffering, then, yes, do that.

Aka: if making a complicated explanation -- or if making an "ambitious" goal as Dream Walker's video presenter presented several times --- out of a mental-perceptual phenomena like nondual is helpful, okay. But what I think actually becomes helpful is seeing that is the nature of consciousness with the aggregates to create and to interact with phenomena. And all these creations -- phenomena -- do arise and pass, change... But in that phenomena is also a tremendous playground --- if the creations are not upheld/held unwholesomely, including with greed or conceit --- and it can be wholesome and without suffering (creating literature, clean travel, peaceful governance, origami satellites, THIS thing in a forest , dinner, glass of water...). I don't know if alligators and other sentients can do this, but humans studying themselves and their thoughts and feelings -- can greatly abate giving rise to suffering, and theres not need to strain that "this phenomena prevails," such as the "ambitious" state of nondual (to borrow from Dream Walker's link in Robin's thread). It seems all phenomena arise and pass; why does the teacher Dream Walker points to need to promote that one phenomena of nondual to "ambitious" heights?

Else, there is studying phenomena and knowing nondual as one of many phenomena --- arising from humanness, the capacities of humanness, which may be called in one system, khandhas and these phenomena are not more true, not less, but dhammas, objects subject to arising and passing, anicca. So if we are a lab equipped with detection equipment (khandhas) then nondual is a dhamma that can be studied.

And if there is a phenomena that works well for you, alleviates suffering (prayer, worship, nondual/complicating talks about this, exercise, study of cosmos, study of garden, family life, tantra, religious life/scriptures, some combination) and works well for others around you to alleviate suffering and does not give rise to it, then it can be helpful, benevolent and accurate to do well and to follow that dhamma, that phenomena, with excellent devotion.



______________
Should students working in/making claims in a Theravadan system be taught to go for or choose for themselves to seek this particular phenomena nondual? I do not think so. I personally think this system of meditation serves to teach observation of all arising and passing phenomena and I think this is what the article points to, this distinction of the Theravadan meditative tradition and what this meditative tradition is said by a scholar to present in the Pali canon.

So in this system I can study dhammas --- emotional, physical, conceptual phenomenal (or however you may merge those as not-separate and/or add to the list).

In this system, to study what is life, what is being alive, what phenomena is arising and passing, what phenomena am I bringing into being? And to enjoy that study without hindering others, to enjoy it with others -- that to me has weighed well on how suffering and dissatisfaction are brought into being by me or my environs. So I start to have a one-person say in it as well as the increasing capacity for no-say observation -- as I am inclined, as I may be able to experiment. And it's not long before dying



__________
[Many edits in the hour after initial post. I may cut it down if I feel it's uselessly repetitive]

Okay, if there are any readers, please know I had an hour (or 59 minutes) of numerous edits in that "8/20/13 10:44 AM as a reply to sawfoot _" post.

Edit: All of my responses are in bold.



MH: I'm arguing that the Mahayana as a whole does not deviate from early Buddhist teachings on 1) not-self and 2) the absence of a fundamental ground, whereas Bodhi's essay does ascribe those beliefs to non-Theravadin schools and then attempts to refute them. I'm saying that Bodhi successfully refutes deviant monist schools of Buddhism, but the majority of Mahayana and Vajrayana teachings don't fall into this range. I don't see the relevance of Bhikku Bodhi's behavior at a meditation class. I'm sure he was respectful, but that doesn't rule out the possibility that he has serious disagreements with what he believes to be Mahayana doctrine, as the essay implies.

MH: I'd like to say, it's really useful to be able to discuss the teachings in a casual, non-dogmatic atmosphere where it's OK to play with various assumptions, make mistakes, and give ground. I don't mean to attack Bhikku Bodhi or any tradition's authority. Unless I'm allowed to challenge the fundamental assumptions of the essay, however, it's impossible to have an honest discussion.



MH: Regarding your statement above, a) I don't think I should have to puzzle out every implication of my forum posts while I'm absorbed in a hard 1st jhana, and b) whatever you may think of my argument, it's a wacky ad hominem to accuse me of wrong speech in a genial forum discussion about Buddhist philosophy and metaphysics. Do you really hold yourself to the same standards whenever you post here?

Hi Matthew,

I am looking forward to reading you and appreciate our conversation.

Could you first change your formatting to show what you have written versus what I wrote? Currently, your formatting attributes to me your own thinking.

Also, I have a lot to do from today through next Monday, so while i squeezed in several comments these past two weeks, I may need several days/a week to reply thoughtfully/with investigation to you/others here in the coming week.

Thank you,
Katy

I've added a note at the top of the post indicating that all of my new statements are bolded, and fixed a formatting error that showed one of your statements in bold. Otherwise I've preserved the formatting of your last post. I'm looking forward to your response.

This is the easiest and most practical comment I consider in your post to which I can reply today:

Yes. This forum announces itself to be pragmatic dharma, that we can go forward holding ourselves to a gradual process of skillful conduct, part of the progress of insight as shown by conduct changes in the "paths" people here may claim.

In our human world our countries and resources and governance and adaptation and law, the skill and intention of speech and listening and what arises in those intentions bears huge consequences.

You and I, we didn't start this meditative practice yesterday. We have some exposure to dukkha nanas, their effluents and their release and the trainings to abate unwholesome mind states and to develop beneficial mind states.

So while a person steeped in dukkha nanas without release rightly posts a "Fuck Off" thread, you and I and others --- if we are responding to other threads and professing some experience of jhana training, it is quite reasonable here that there should be obvious evidence of pragmatic results.

It is called sometimes "the progress of insight" so what happened yesterday or in a prior post can be subject to useful change (aka: wholesome skill development born of practice).

But, yes, my/your cushion practice should bear obviously pragmatic results.

And the consequences of right speech benefit me/you first and foremost --- such as reducing states of remorse---
And build beneficial habits in a social community: facilitating studious exchange, dissolving possessiveness/conceit of ideation, opening safe and harmless avenues to exchange and consider, much like a free-form orchestra.

Again, it's a gradual progress of insight, but I still hold myself and claimants here in the pragmatic community to progress, especially the progress of their/my own claims.

I would appreciate you taking a moment to just properly format the speech for what is yours. Will it take more than three minutes to format your own actions accurately as well as accommodate your partner in this conversation?

Hi Matthew,

In truth, no one will find you yet accused of wrong speech in this thread. Your mind is the first to assert this accusation and perhaps you do assert that. I don't know.

I have taken in your own words and said, "But perhaps your investigation was thorough, direct, and then perhaps you then speak rightly" when you claim how it is easier to sell buddhism.

If we have basic jhana skill, then we have or we are developing pragmatic and related daily-life behaviours, knowing their obvious benefits to our own selves and to others. Hence, right speech starts with the first step: is what I am/you are saying true? Or am I/are you tweaking information to serve own interests. Again, no one has yet accused you of wrong speech, but your mind has introduced it.


So with apologies for delay, I hope to read your other thoughts this crazy week and during breaks and that we can share usefully from our direct studies.

Best wishes,
Katy

I thought the previous formatting was clear enough, but I've added initials at the beginning of each line to indicate who's speaking.



Emphasis mine below:


"would have expressed a substantial conclusion with right speech" implies that I either 1) didn't express a substantial conclusion or 2) engaged in wrong speech or 3) both.

Since we're talking about a little-studied set of phenomena, I don't have access to statistics to back up every claim I make. This lack of information forces me to draw inferences from my knowledge of a limited set of meditators and my limited understanding of human nature. That's a given for many discussions on this forum. I believe interesting and useful avenues of inquiry would be cut off if we were forced to rely on well-studied, established domains of knowledge to make points in every discussion.

If you feel I shouldn't introduce speculative premises at all, that's a valid rule I can observe, although it makes the discussion less interesting. But if you have a substantive disagreement with my speculation based on *your speculation*, please provide a counterargument.

The fact that another meditator disagrees with you, or doesn't unpack an argument to your satisfaction, doesn't mean that individual doesn't do enough jhana practice or has failed to think things through. The fault could lie with your powers of comprehension, although, as I've argued, it's inappropriate to recommend personal improvement or better meditation practice to your interlocutor - "a process of applying vitakka and viccara (suffusive investigation, which can be called mastery of the first concentrated state, dhyana, in Anapanasati)" - in a highly abstract discussion of Buddhist philosophy.

Hi Matthew:

Me:
Okay, when I use the hypothetical conditional tense, that is what I mean actually: if you know your own statement to be true, then you would have expressed a substantial conclusion with right speak. As I don't know your mind or intent, then only you know what you said and it if is true. It is a broad statement to express knowledge of what sells buddhism, so I think it's okay to posit hypothetically that surely you wrote this with thought and evaluation.

And this is why I started the sentence with "I can't join in this statement". I simply don't know about that, what sells buddhism. I like that good practice is payment for teaching, so I don't know much about buddhist sales and how buddhist sellers may drive that process. As you choose and offer to speak on it without any provocation, you would know truly about your own statements, yes?

So perhaps your mind is on the defense for reasons I don't know, but I think if you/I read each other without mental hindrances and we're checking for those obscurations (e.g.,ill-will, worry, sloth) then the reading may be clearer and our respective understanding.

That said, I hope you were able to read the author's essay without mental hindrance.

Also, to be clear, I do not think anyone needs to be in jhana to post here nor did I say that. What I can say that is if anyone here is advising on the jhana trainings here in this expressly pragmatic dharma community, then it is reasonable to look for evidence in one another for practical outcomes: such as an abatement over time of mental hindrances when reading and replying.

A primary objective of samatha training is reducing the mental hindrances to clearly seeing and one trained in this can actually expect hindrances to lessen over time in regular situations.

And I do hope newbies to the site can see that for themselves via the actions of people like us who've been here for awhile are gradually developing the progress of insight, which clearly shows wholesome changes in conduct and this is indeed how the Theravadan paths are marked.


Okay, Matthew, bye for now and thanks,
Katy

Well, perhaps you already know the buddhist parable of the arrow and its message in regards to making speculative comments.

So it's your choice to speculate or not.

I do ask myself about them when I make them (e.g., do I have time for it, and is it worthwhile?) and I do tend to query people when people assert speculative comments, too.

The essay is perfect! You argue that he has an opinion yet you your self have one too. Why can't he posit his opinion. He is quite equitable about that. At the start Bodhi, presents the three arguments and explains their difference. Then he proceeds to argue for the Theravada view of Nibbana, and why shouldn't he!

Personally I practice in a Theravada style but am very Mahayana and Dzogchen in my view, bodhisattva vow and all. But what the do I know? but if I can come back for a non-dual experience of service great!
There is a dilemma, 'in the frame work and its relationship to the practice', he may be arguing for that and beyond what i'm willing to agree, as person who is a fusion practitioner. But Bodhi's issue is of relevance, (frame work is in relationship to the practice) even if the whole argument doesn't fit my sensibilities, and I don't wish to be that cautionary.

Bikkhu Bodhi is great, don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Need there be only one certain truth? Or maybe, there are some truths that though true are more true in relation to their thesis and antithesis. Amongst those more difficult to frame truths, there become issues of significance. ie that is a good argument, and that other argument is also a good argument, but there is this still this problem there that can 't be resolved or i'm not convinced of either argument in its totality, but can't resolve their dichotomy in a zen paradox because they two argument don't actually agree.
Read some Ken Wilber, learn to think from different perspectives rather that bias attachments!

ps I have far from read all this thread, so if I'm off the money sorry, as i have merely skimmed some bits, i'm not arguing for the details but the metta idea, of integral value within different frame works; this is not a subjective argument where every thing is equal either! It is one of values within different frame works.

TC all. Neem.

HI D,

I think you have this summer posted that you are a 2nd path practitioner keen to "pop" (to use your word) 3rd path, yes? And in paths is it correct to understand that you are using Theravadan modeling for your path markers?

[Because of our previous conversations and posts, I continue below with the understanding that you still make use of the Theravadan system as the basis of your application of and claim of paths, that this has not changed in a few weeks. But please correct if I am wrong.]

So, in looking over your interests as posted this summer and your requests for help (including interest in khandhas, path, maps, non-dual and some suggestions made to you by others (such as knowing sensations as sensations, knowing cycles as cycles...as dhammas, aka: as just phenomena)) --- I posted this essay by a Theravadan scholar-monk as they touch your points of interest.

But I did not call your attention to the thread. Your attention went to the essay, your volition and your sense of self responds to it. To me, that's useful and it turned out then to have been apt to post the essay with your requests/goals basically as my motivator.

These personal attractions to/attractions against are great personal maps for what one will be working on in the coming year; I have often found this to be true for me anyway.


Anyway, in Theravadan systems --- the context from which you obtain a basis for claiming 2nd path and in which you do make the claim --- there are three characteristics considered true for all phenomena in our realm of experience, our cosmos:
[indent][indent]that all phenomena are impermanent (anicca),
that there is no permanent self (anatta) and
that this instability of phenomena is a stress...[/indent] [/indent]
...(which points to a human desire for stability of certain phenomena, particularly gratifying phenomena, including ideation).

There is not a fourth or alternate characteristic known as "nondual" in this tradition wherein you choose to presently identify your self and your progress of insight.

But I agree that one should never take this blindly; one studies and re-studies always for one's direct understanding, sharing with others to look for gaps and unknowns/openings in understanding. A great benefit of the DhO!

So the person Gotama (also known as the Buddha after his realization) noted eight steps to take to free oneself from the stress.

I would not tell anyone this is a superior path because I can only say it is a useful system for me and people can be the judge of that system for themselves; and you have clearly adopted the Theravadan framework for yourself as you use their framework to define your experience ("2nd path"). So...

...where in the Theravadan system --- the basis and context for your claims of "path" experience --- are you getting non-dual as an enduring characteristic of phenomena. And is nondual, like sensations and cycles, another phenomena itself subject to the three characteristics?

It is just a question for you as you work in the Theravadan system.


When I have seen "nondual" arise as a concept and/or experience in me and when I see others stand on it or promote it to others, particularly as an "ambitious" goal deliberately (sur)mounting others (as did your video presenter that you linked in Robin's thread), I also may query it; "Is that 'nondual' a characteristic of all phenomena or is that 'nondual' a phenomena, arising and passing?", for example. And certainly, is that naturally occurring dhamma (phenomena) 'nondual' something worthy of "ambitious" up-taking/promotion?

So best wishes in your/my/our studies. I am glad you're here sharing; it helps me study, too




______________________
Some of my own points of reference: I started in a theistic tradition with polytheistic and buddhist early childhood friends and so I am still well at home there; in teens through 20s I worked with soto zen tradition and still love to learn in this tradition (did not have any chance to study rinzai); in 30s I was able to briefly study Lam Rim Chenmo and some of the Himalyan buddhist writings and I still recite some of them today, still learn from its teachers. I cannot see not learning from all of these traditions. My professional trainings are in the so-called "sciences" and some are applied sciences. I cannot see not learning from this training and its teachers.

So I personally have no feeling of there being a superior system and cannot find that view either in the author's essay. What I do value is the study of seeing things as they apparently are, looking to be accurate (within dynamic processes, which means "accuracy" is always a moving target ), looking to query my own logic, training this mind to be less obscured by affective and physical hindrances (ill-will, passion, laziness/fatigue, doubt-worry-restlessness).

I honestly think that all that happens with both Buddhists and nondualists is that they penetrate the constructed self, and perhaps also penetrate object permanence.

They then commit the ontological fallacy, erroneously translating their phenomenological experience into conceptual assertions about reality.

When you compare the resultant concepts -- bam! -- they collide. But that doesn't point to anything, except perhaps the limits of conceptual thinking.

There's a longer explanation in chapter 1 of my essay. If you have a Kindle or an epub reader, I would gladly email you a copy. There's also an excerpt from chapter 1 on Youtube.

Katy, the pragmatic/MCTB 4-path model doesn't correspond to the Theravadan fetter model. Dream Walker's claim to 2nd path derives from Daniel Ingram's interpretation of the Visuddhimagga in MCTB; it has no implicit reliance on the Theravada*. Even if DW were following the Theravada religiously, the fact that the concept of nonduality doesn't appear in the Theravada has no bearing on whether a selfless experience of phenomena can rightly be called 'nondual'.

Since you champion "pragmatic dharma" in this thread, it's worth noting that Kenneth Folk uses nondual experience as the 2nd and 3rd gear practices of his "3-Speed Transmission" insight meditation system. Nondual experience isn't part of the Theravada, but it's a primary teaching of a pragmatic dharma founder. Appeals to authority aren't just a bad form of argument, they fall apart when a tradition's individual teachers inevitably disagree. You're better off asking whether abiding in a nondual mind-state is a useful practice for awakening. If so, what's the problem with calling selfless experience 'nondual' as a practice tool?

I love Bhikku Bodhi and the essay is a great refutation of Eastern philosophical monism, but monism =/ nondual experience.

*As a side note, it's truly disappointing that advanced Theravadan meditators aren't aware, or can't admit in public, that the sutta fetter model doesn't line up with the Visuddhimagga's implied map (access to nirodha-samapatti at 3rd path). I get that ultraconservative nonmeditator religious strains would react badly to this admission (see the pragmatic dharma threads on the Dhammawheel forum for a preview), but the truth should override loyalty to dogma.

Edit: I'm claiming that the Visuddhimagga paths don't line up with the sutta fetter model, not that "sutta arahatship" is impossible.

Okay, so when you write:
Does this comes from the Visuddimaga?

And do you think nondual is subject to anicca?

Do you think that nondual arises and passes, like the khandas and their actions? In what khandha does nondual arise/make itself known for humans?



Please show me, Matthew, that I have even once said that nondual is bad or wrong. I would appreciate you showing me that I negate it's existence or demote it at all.

I am clear: it is a dhamma, arising and passing. Clearly subject to one of the characteristics -- anicca -- as nondual perception is part of consciousness, which consciousness itself ceases and can easily be experienced in one's experience of the khandhas.

As such any possession of or ambition for such impermanent phenomena, too, is subject to arising and passing and so the grasping of this unreliable phenomena causes dukkha and this deflation of one's beloved object of consciousness is clearly inspiring ambitiousness, quarrelsomeness, contentiousness, harsh/sad feeling in its proponents -- as they say for themselves.





Maybe you would start a thread on this. I don't know about this at all.

Okay, then if you are correct in speaking for Dream Walker, then he would have entered a thread outside of his own tradition to contentiously rapproach a teacher in another tradition about that teacher's clarification of 'nondual' in the Theravadan system and then declines to substantiate his own emotions--

and observes that that teacher in a tradition to which Dream Walker would not be studying/using (if you are correct) has stated (regardless) that the teacher-author is

Again, unsubstantiated opinion.

And in their uncertainly of emotion, they have some question about if they need forgiveness and have asked for it under those vague, conditional terms: if disparaging happened. So exactly what is said to happen to the mind of a 2nd path claimant under the Visuddimaga?
Are the five mental hindrances and the jhana therapies not included or included in the Vissudimagga and part of its paths, Matthew?

Regardless, Dream Walker questions if he speaks harshly and notes he is feeling...



Indeed, it has been translated that:
from: Kalaha-vivada Sutta: Quarrels & Disputes


Is possession of/ "ambition of" this nondual worth insult and contention?


As I wrote, this thread was set up for "For those in a phase of non-dualism view, here is what I think is a useful essay by Theravadan scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi on non-duality and dhamma"

To see how the proponents of nondualism entered here, contentiously, disparagingly, sadly -- it speaks to a condition/a dhamma/ a phenomena that -- in their own words --- causes dukkha from the very first grasping.

Hi Derek,

I found your site and videos. I look forward to looking at them soon.

Katy

You seem to know a lot about the grasping going on in others' minds...maybe this thread belongs in the Powers section. Feel free to engage with the substance of my or DW's arguments whenever you like.

DW clearly put effort into his posts and their content deserves a thoughtful response. Likewise, I'm flabbergasted that you would quote the suttas to accuse me of arguing in bad faith. I'm saying what I truly think about the essay, trying to be clear and to the point. I've engaged with the essay at a philosophical level because it's an essay about Buddhist philosophy.



If you want to discuss Dream Walker's "mental hindrances" and need for "jhana therapies" please create a new thread. DW's mental state has zero relevance to this discussion of Bhikku Bodhi's essay. I think DW offered criticism of the essay in good faith. It's incredibly condescending to claim that people need to meditate better or more (or that they lack realization) because they disagree with you in a thread that you created to invite discussion.

Hi Matthew,

Does it take dishonesty or ignorance or placation or what to re-write (falsely construe) what someone has already said for themselves? I take people at their chosen words and actions as a matter of respect unless they are ill, intoxicated.

When a person makes disparaging comments about an author and refuses to substantiate them -- and makes high claims about their meditative skill (let alone 'attainment'), it is quite worth calling out and questioning their own words. Just as if a mechanic says they repaired a car by spitting on it: question that.

Where are you accused by anyone of arguing in bad faith, Matthew?

MH: Here are passages where you attack the author of a statement instead of criticizing the statement itself:
KS: "Else, when a person cannot say why they hold/insist on "non-dual" view and/or becomes harshly speaking, then it looks to me that a naturally arising loneliness/dissatisfaction in human nature is insisting that plural objects be non-dual, that one is not alone/separate; "we are non-dual". Rather, plurality is exciting and there is a shared experience of impermanence that can be alarming and exciting. This is why meditative/contemplative study exists across traditions, secular and religious."

MH: So you're claiming Dream Walker is lonely and dissatisfied because he believes phenomena can be described as "nondual". Earlier in the thread DW defined the "nondual" as shorthand for the Buddha's description of totally mindful experience in the Bahiya sutta. We're dancing around different definitions of the term "nondual". Here are the definitions:
1. Bodhi's essay argues that nonduality is a non-Theravada monist (in this context, monist = "everything arises from and returns to an undifferentiated supreme reality" + "the supreme reality is more real than sensory reality") crutch for ignoring the actual plurality and differentiation of phenomena.
2. I agree with Bodhi that there's no concept of the nondual in Theravada Buddhism, but unlike Bodhi, I don't believe Mahayana nonduality is a form of monism.
3. Dream Walker argues that the Mahayanist concept of "nondual experience" is stealthily present in the Pali Canon as the ideal mindfulness that the Buddha describes to Bahiya, so Theravada talk about the Bahiya sutta and "abiding in voidness" are different terms for the Mahayana applications of emptiness, suchness, and nonduality.

The argument hinges on the difference between these three definitions.

Here are some more ad hominems:
KS: "In our human world our countries and resources and governance and adaptation and law, the skill and intention of speech and listening and what arises in those intentions bears huge consequences.

You and I, we didn't start this meditative practice yesterday. We have some exposure to dukkha nanas, their effluents and their release and the trainings to abate unwholesome mind states and to develop beneficial mind states.

So while a person steeped in dukkha nanas without release rightly posts a "Fuck Off" thread, you and I and others --- if we are responding to other threads and professing some experience of jhana training, it is quite reasonable here that there should be obvious evidence of pragmatic results."

KS: "To see how the proponents of nondualism entered here, contentiously, disparagingly, sadly -- it speaks to a condition/a dhamma/ a phenomena that -- in their own words --- causes dukkha from the very first grasping."

MH: I guess I'm contentious in the sense that I'm contending in favor of a certain definition of "nondual", as is Dream Walker. Whatever you think of our conduct, I really just want to know what you think of those definitions.

Reference to thread 2nd path equanimity
I am using all available information to make a best effort attempt to place myself on the "progress of insite"/MCTB/vimuttimagga model of progress/stages of enlightenment. As I said earlier I seek what Buddha sought. I am open to all paths that bring me closer to this goal especially where there are commonalities.

Fom the thread I linked to above -2nd path equanimity

I don't know if we have moved forward on this problem of semantics. Unless we can agree on what we are pointing to, how do we know that we are talking about the same thing? If non-dualness is the same as aspects of no-self phenomenologically then it would make sense to leave it out of the three characteristics. But when we say non-dual are we specifying a particular aspect within no-self? I kinda think this goes to the root of the problem. Thoughts?


For clarity, thread link - Shinzen's 3rd Key Moment?
Well from Shinzen's apparent point of view and from Daniel's apparent point of view....they seem to be saying it's pretty awesome...

This seems like something worthy of "ambitious" up-taking/promotion to me. Again we have a semantic problem with what they are pointing to as being so awesome.

My best wishes to you also,
~D

This is very well thought out....I would love to see the excerpt.
Could you link to the youtube?
Thanks,
~D

Hi Matthew,

Sure. When Dream Walker makes his first foray into a thread and his first comments on a teacher are this,
Dream Walker: I feel no need to pretend that Dream Walker has offered a thoughtful response: what he's offered is contentious, without skill and without beneficial speech. He is harshly speaking, showing the state of his own mind and what he is or is not getting out of his meditative practice. In short, he is insulting to his own capacity as a healthy human and secondarily a rude, contentious contributor as his first action.

Is contentious, insulting speech beneficial, true, timely speech with the spirit of well-being?

Is Dream Walker helped by being told by you that are you helping him or keeping him hindered in his contention-making mind, insulting conduct? I have learned repeatedly instead that it helps if careless, insulting conduct is directly queried and reflected back to the person so that they can face what they have said, what they are deliberately and willfully creating, and how and the consequences of their speech/actions and the feelings that gave rise to them.

Did I not reply, "Exactly", Matthew?


Matthew, please consider that only you are calling yourself contentious and only you have accused you of bad faith argumentativeness. You did not enter someone's thread insultingly describing an author and their writing as your first post. You can say that I am calling you those adjectives, but if you insist that your view of yourself is mine then your action here is at best erroneous and at worst your choice would be one of ill-will, that you insist I call you these things when I do not.

I correctly refer to Dream Walker as contentious because his words were (unless he is ill or intoxicated), and his mind and feelings preceding his words and he could not restrain his insulting, contentious description. Thus I raised the sutta on agrumentativeness because argumentativeness and discord is what happens when a person deliberately introduces insulting conduct.

In holding to him to his own conduct, he has the chance to see what he is creating -- and he can decide to approach this thread in another way, a wholesome way, such as a mature thinker exhibiting a maturing, developing and friendly practice. He has expressed wanting help in his practice and he is getting honest feedback on his conduct and his conduct here certainly shows where his practice can develop (right speech).

I/you/others often have to pass through this. If our conduct along the paths were beautiful and peaceful, there'd be no need. It's best to be honest about what people have and are creating, particularly when behaviour is obviously rude and careless.

Already his new post shows a new tone which is not focused immediately on insulting an author, rather he has found some focus on the topics. And no doubt he will remember how entering a convesation insultingly bore consequences. His actions give rise to conditions that reflect the mind of the actions.

We learn to know this:
causes and conditions,
thus all suchness arises.
Our thoughts, our feelings, our actions
are causes and conditions
therefore one practices
generousity,
ethical discipline,
patience,
joyous perserverance,
meditative stabilization and
wisdom.

Or whatever list of paramis one uses from any tradition: they are actual tools to apply or to ignore.

So what we have done so far is useful and even beneficial if it affects changes in conduct, and now maybe the topic of the thread can be addressed?

I will gladly email you the entire essay if you have a Kindle or epub reader. My email is my first name, middle initial "A", then last name, all as one word with no dots or spaces, at yahoo dot com.



The reading of the excerpt from chapter 1 is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q28WL0ARzQc

Hi D--

Okay, I look forward to looking at this new post of yours next week. For the time being I have to work on other things through Monday.

Best wishes,
Katy

I wonder what the Mahayana followers would say about the context of Nirvana or Samsara in the above argument?

Hi Richard,
I think there are as many opinions on this as there are minds.

So, to avoid the time and consequences of speculative speech on "what the Mahayana followers would say about the context of Nirvana or Samsara in the above argument" I think it'd be practical to focus on what we are directly experience/wanting and/or testing for ourselves.

And so much for my waiting till Monday night...

So the author of the essay makes the point that the Pali Canon does not house a nondual view nor espouse dualism, rather actuality which is composed of distinctions and plurality and "to uncover the characteristics of phenomena, to gain insight into their qualities and structures."

And this site and its de facto reference text for many people, MCTB, regularly refers to those three characteristics of phenomena, the necessity of knowing them in all phenomena.

Is the "nondual" experience Dream Walker is wanting, is that nondual subject to "3C conditioning" (arising and passing away)?

Dream Walker, you are asking what should nondual be called if not "nondual".
Well, if "nondual" is unconditioned, neither arising nor passing away, then shouldn't it be called Nibbana?

And if nondual is unconditioned, then it would be Nibbana/nirvana; so what does a teacher/person in nibbana cause by changing language to a word that has no basis in the tradition and/or training that freed them?

Otherwise, if it is conditioned, "nondual" arises and passes away; then who would promote conditioned phenomena over unconditioned?

What I was getting at was if Mahayana practitioners who practice well in their tradition will they see the same thing as a well trained Theravada practitioner even if they are calling it different or do different practitioners get different results? If the article is getting at Samsara being treated as something that is no-different in result as Nirvana. Is this a good argument or is it a misunderstanding of Mahayana practitioners who really mean that emptiness is everywhere (even in Samsara) and aren't advocating greed, hate and delusion. So many misunderstandings and arguments come from unclear terms or different contexts. The only split I've heard described to me that was major is that Buddhists find reality to be quite unreal and AF'rs feel reality to be very real. Of course the word "real" or "unreal" can't absolutely be answered because physics hasn't explored all this reality yet, but that's how some people are reporting how they feel when they practice.

I agree that what we actually experience and can test is what each of us will benefit from more than argumentation because that's all in the realm of concept. As you question "who is typing?" brings things back into focus.

Ultimately if we are creating thought-formations of "non-dual" as a concept to cling to then we've lost the plot. No matter the tradition we are in, are we creating disassociated thought-selves pretending to experience sensation or are we treating the analysis as another experience to look at?

{editing}

{Hi Jake!, I'm sorry, I took this down while you replied to try to rein in my own focus and to focus on practical consequences of this thread}

Hmm, I've done a fair amount of study and practice in Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions. My understanding (personal, experiential as well as historical) as to why a term like 'non-dual' would be introduced to describe the unconditioned is that, in the earlier spreading of the teachings, there is a socio-cultural context of monasticism linked to a conceptual framework that divides conditioned experiences from unconditioned nibanna. However, practitioners, both monastic and non-monastic, were discovering that 'worldy life' and conditioned phenomena are literally non-separate from the unconditioned, and there is no particular lifestyle that must be followed in order to awaken, and no rejection/renunciation of *all conditioned pheonema* neccessary for awakening.

So the mahayana and vajryana critique of theravada dualism is based in an experience of the *non-duality* of the unconditioned and conditions, that the unconditioned isn't in a relationship with conditions but is a characteristic of them. That's why for example Thic Nhat Hanh (in one of his books... can't rememebr which..) says the Three Characteristics of phenomena are impermanence, no-self and nirvana. You see, from this point of view, 'suffering' is defnitely and emphatically *not* a characteristic of phenomena but rather the felt-effects of believing in a delusory view of phenomena.

Also, in Maha and Vajrayana there is a trend towards a more inclusive stance to ordinary social relations and lifestyles being possible for serious practitioners and masters.

Also, this critique points out that when the suffering that arises when phenomena are misapprehended is conflated with phenomena in general then the natural response is to valorize a goal of transcending all pheomena (in final liberation). From a mahayana point of view this is unnecessary, since phenomena as they arise and pass are already 'marked' with nirvana, peace. The pragmatic distinction between different ways the mind operates (i.e., mode one: attributing characteristics such as permanency and self to phenomena erroneously, vs. mode two: not making such attribution) is very important to maha and vajrayana mind training, to practice. HOwever, from the point of view of fruition, or realization, there is insight into the irrelevancy of how phenomena are manifesting to the fact that all phenomena (even those of supposed suffering) are marked by peace of the unconditioned.

I've experienced this insight, and i admit that it to is certainly not to be clung to. Just like insight into impermanence and no-self and suffering, this insight is impermanent, not a self, and productive of suffering if clung to or resisted.

I think all that Mathew and some of the others are trying to point out is that, although the article is very good in many ways at describing theravada practice and view, and although it makes some interesting points that can be generalized to other practice systems, it also includes what appears to be a paper tiger argument against Maha and Vajrayana Buddhism by attributing to those schools views more properly attributed to Vedanta.

Hello Richard,
Schism section:
Yes. Definitely.

I see that the author acknowledges he is not going to capture the entirety of Mahayana or Advaita views and I see that the author acknowledges this and that he is focusing on “nondual” teachings as distinct from his knowledge of the Pali Canon wherein “nondual” is not needed nor found as part of the teachings on Nibbana.

As a teacher, The author, being a teacher, I speculate that he is often asked about or presented with nondualism questions or comments so he probably, as a Theravadan scholar, knows an essay on this is in order, that students coming to Theravadan Buddhism can be clearly told what is written in the Pali Canon and “nondual” view is not part of the Theravadan
system training towards Nibbana, the complete extinguishment of greed, hatred and delusion and a resulting peace.

There's a lot in there to discuss if we would want to go into how virtue, concentration and wisdom arise in several Buddhist traditions, but in the spirit of avoiding deliberate schism-making, I tend to think each tradition has its own high standards and each tradition has
[indent]A ) persons who breach those areas' traditional standards harmfully and
B ) persons who breach those areas' traditional standards beneficially,
C ) persons who adhere to those areas' traditional standards unskillfully, and
D ) persons who adhere to those areas' traditional standards beneficially.
[/indent]
In short, for me, no tradition (buddhist, secular, theistic, polytheistic, actualist, [something else here]) that has a innate ability to produce virtue, concentration and wisdom flawlessly or we wouldn’t be here. A tradition’s effective teaching depends on the effective teacher. A teacher positions themselves as knowing; a student positions themselves as seeker/learner.




Word choice/meaning/etymology section:
"Nondual" literally means “consisting of not-two”.
[indent]That raises the question consisting of “not two” what?
And this ambiguity has already been noted, nondual means different things to different people and different “camps”.
So if one is choosing a teacher who teaches “nondual” one could:
[indent]--- ask “What does that mean?”, “What are you teaching?” or
---just determine that they like the teacher/what the teachers says and take what comes. [/indent][/indent]

"Blown out/extinguished" is a literal translation of Nibbana and it specifically refers to one having blown out greed, hatred and delusion.
[indent]But it easily has “ineffable descriptions, too: here’s accesstoinsight page on Nibbana where “[d]eep, Vaccha, is this phenomenon, hard to see, hard to realize, tranquil, refined, beyond the scope of conjecture, subtle, to-be-experienced by the wise.[/indent]





Dhammas/Nibbana section:
Yes. That's a personal point for me in this thread.

And here is where it can be very hard for a student --- who is clearly obscured by or addicted to their own continuous “wanting” to determine if a teacher is offering just a concept (a conditioned phenomena, a dhamma) in a charismatic manner or if a teacher is an effective help in the student’s sincere desire for nibbana.

Further, when a student is "wanting" so much and is so dissatified with their own practice, spectacular accounts become an inviting distraction versus sitting with and doing the work for oneself.

So Dream Walker's wants to clarify: what's another name for "nondual"?
The answer to his question is:
[indent]1) Is “nondual” being used as another word for Nibbana? He could ask Mr. Young that and let us know or just find out for himself. Have greed, hatred and delusion "gone out" and is that obvious?
2) Then one could ask what is caused by using a new noun ("nondual") to express "nibbana", and
3) why would a teacher depart from the language of the tradition that helped them?[/indent]


Consequences:

So investigation into a teacher/teaching is part of a seeker's basic investigation, without which a seeker is following impatiently their own strong desires and the consequences can follow the causes.

So if I were Dream Walker and if I were attracted to the video and the teacher he is linking, and if I were hungry for what I saw there, then I'd find it practical to ask the teacher if they are living something conditioned or unconditioned, if it is Nibbana or not.

Then DW would just have to know he is “wanting” and somehow make sure his teacher is free of also wanting, ill-will, and delusion. It is extremely hard for students to determine that in the presence of teacher-charisma/intellect and student's-own-desires. So best wishes in that.


Yet, being in the presence of a good teacher, even for one moment, is immeasurable. And these people with remarkable conduct, remarkable concentration, remarkable good will are everywhere, not necessarily enlightened or in such a paradigm as the "enlightenment paradigm".

gotcha-- no problem Katy

Hi Jake, I can't speak to nor frame truthfully a historical context, but I can say that, yes, there is no separation from phenomena, but in what the human mind applies.

And that the author above has stated in their capacity that Theravadan systems do not teach "dualism" as you have written. I leave that disagreement alone, lack knowledge of the Pali Canon to join your assertion of "Theravadan dualism" nor to know truly if the Thervadan author-scholar is correct. If you have stated there is a Theravadan dualism, surely you must know it through your study of the Pali canon, and you can abide speaking truthfully.

To say it briefly what you've written above and without positing histories, I would repeat a basic Theravadan point: there is teaching the nature of all dhammas, that all dhammas are conditioned by anicca, anatta, dukkha.

But...


Here is the essay by Thich Nhat Hanh "The Practice of Looking Deeply Using Three Dharma Seals: Impermanence, No Self and Nirvana". Just like the Theravadan, Thay reminds that an idea is not nibbana; these are dhammas.

(So back to Dream Walker, he has to determine what the teacher he's attracted to knows: an idea delivered with charisma and intellect or nibbana).

And, yes, and the Theravadan school agrees here, too (as do other schools of Buddhism that would teach the four truths): What is transformed in the four noble truths? Not anicca, not anatta, but dukkha. Dukkha ceases and its cessation is also the transformation of Nibbana.

And this I can only see in occasional practice. An example commonly had is that sometimes even sensory pain transforms to just sensation or even to bliss sensation.

Really? I'd say both Theravadan and Mahayana school do seem to allow for "ordinary social relations and lifesyles." For example, here is the Theravadan thera Nyanponika on sex: "Of his lay followers [Buddha] did not expect sexual abstinence. To them he advised restraint and mindfulness, and avoidance of giving excessive nourishment to sex desire. Here, if anywhere, a middle path between unrestrained indulgence and enforced repression was apt."

Okay, well, I guess I alone don't see that. I enjoy in any of these traditions and when I read this Theravadan-view essay the author is acknowledging his own limitations and highlighting that "nondual" is not part of Theravadan training towards nibbana, that it includes knowing what are dhammas as they are, knowing they're subject to three seals. If there is a caution in there about fabricating "nondual" as a blinder to the plurality of actuality then it is the same caution as Thich Naht Hahn's in my opinion: to be careful of adding ideas to actuality and clinging to ideas versus actual realization.

So as people have raised this desire for "nondual" in the DhO again recently, this is the dialog: investigating nondual and insuring that it is not a "thing", an "idea", an "ambition", something other than nirvana.

"Nondual" takes a lot of words to explain. I appreciate that Thich Naht Hahn can plainly use the word "Nibbana". He is easy to understand and straight-forward as I've found the Pali Canon to be in the little I've read of it. These are also easy metrics when looking for/away from a teacher.

Jake- Thanks : )

Hi Katy,
my impression of Theravada dualism isn't based so much on Sutta study as observations of Theravada culture, on this board and elsewhere; I don't think it's controversial to say that there are strains of that culture which are pretty life-negative, sex-negative, emotion-negative and so on. I think this comes from a ambiguity in Theravada doctrine, namely, equating suffering with no-self and impermanence as a characteristic of phenomena, when it clearly isn't. Be that as it may, I agree wholeheartedly with the point that nonduality can easily be an idea superimposed on diversity. But this is simply not my impression of most Maha and Vajrayana teachings, at all, nor of my experience with nondual fruitions.

As to language that various teachers use, I think different folks resonate with different baLnces of the pragmatic and poetic in language.

Hiya Jake,

First -- do you want me top remove my excerpted comments of your post you made (before you knew I edited it)?

I just realized in copying your comment, that I didn't see that you fully removed your reply!

I cannot see the forest for the trees sometimes...

What makes you say it is ambiguous? The suttas (e.g. the Anatta-lakkhana Sutta) spell it out pretty clearly that:

1) form is impermanent
2) what is impermanent is dukkha
3) what is dukkha is not fit to be regarded as mine, i, my self
4) thus form should be regarded as not mine, not i, not my self

The same for all the khandas. So, at the very least, according to the Pali Canon, which the Theravadans aspire to be close to, all phenomena that fall into the category of form, feeling, perception, volition, or consciousness, are painful. Where's the ambiguity?

---
1)
2)
3)
4)

Hi Jake,

Wow, I just don't see this as a Theravadan issue, but that all traditions risk being repressive/excessive --- that's natural in a dynamic system, hence the value of training oneself diligently.

And I see that citing a Theravadan elder on this doesn't affect your view

<whispers>
Jake, there are Theravadan laypeople out there having good seeeeeeexxxxxxx.
<end of whispering>

<laughing>
<whispers>
Probably monastics, too, if the vinaya is an indicator...
<end of whispiering, still laughing>



But I already wrote about that above, so no need to go into again.

lol
well I agree lots of cultures are weird about sex; but if you're ultimate practice goal is to end all phenomena then that's pretty sex negative, life negative and so on.

Claudiu, I guess I said 'ambiguous' to give the BOD that in some cases it is spelled out that dukha is a mental fabrication that can be stopped without stopping everything else but on the whole I agree wit you that Theravada is down on phenomena

Good morning, Jake!
(It's so beautiful here this morning. I'm pretty sure you all are having the same lovely, cool sunny start of the day there).



So "goal is to end all phenomena"? Is this from a sutta reference? If so could you provide it?
For myself, as I have understood the work of meditative study, is to try to see things as they are knowing that a) the tools of my sense perception are constantly changing, b) the tool of my consciousness is also changing unless the mind enters a kind of deep stillness, which is equanimity (4th shamatha jhana, as I see it, but I still consider that a conditioned intake), and c) the object or phenomena that is being observed is changing.

Second,
If there's a chance you are using 'ambitious' because I repeated it often, for me the word comes up here because I am calling into focus a word the video presenter in Dream Walker's link used several times. It was important to that presenter to speak several times to the ambition-worthy nature of his superior state of nondual, that his version of "nondual" surmounts/goes beyond the previous versions of people's "nondual".

And I do want to deal with that presenter, because a) that video is important enough to Dream Walker to raise a couple times. Dream Walker, to me, you are in a very ardent, excellent phase of practice (or "rigorous" I think you may have said elsewhere) and I admire and respect this as a peer human in the meditative study. I also know that I and others challenged (respectfully and with the intent of causing benefit) your object of strong focus a few weeks back -- some seemingly complex map-mapping -- so you may be feeling the restlessness of mind that comes when such an object of focus is dissolved a little. With the volume of energy/earnest mental investigation/need to direct/need to "get it" that comes up before path moments, you could be inclined to release some of that intense energy and dedication to a teacher's self-described superior ideas, versus keeping your mind on your own excellent practice. Dream Walker, you are, I think, a family man, so I do sometimes assume your spare time may be less than my own. So...perhaps needlessly protective, I have also hoped that some of this thread will just provide you some outlet for that energy, but allow you to dig back into your own excellent practice, to take Daniel's practice recommendations if you resonant with them. Plainly speaking, I think your own investigations of yourself are excellent, rigorous, and that if you may be redirecting practice energy to a teacher's superior-nondual claims, I wonder if that is a waste of the energy that has arisen in you on account of your own work. I know that energy can cause tension (so I exercise more actually at certain times in meditation). On the other hand, what do I know, D? Meh. Also, I think you could probably get to path with your map-mapping, not because the map would be correct, but because it wrings your mind out...one just risks in that effort believing oneself for too many years and delaying the proper, releasing collapse of such ideation, IMHO, which is why I think Daniel has referred your study to sensations, sensations, sensations. But...you know, if you follow Mr. Young or someone else, you're doing what you need and what is best for you. I respect and understand your choice in that regard.

and b) I feel two red flags in this superior-nondual claim and advert because he also has a so-called paper tiger there:

One: This red flag is about the teacher. The other nondual people he claims to go beyound cannot respond to him. And this claim of having a superior nondual state has the potential effect of creating more hunger in already-hungry-for-release students for a new ultra-nondual. and he expressly and several times notes his version of "nondual" is an ambitious goal/worthy of ambition. (I'm paraphrasing here slightly. So if anyone feels I have not captured his use of "ambitious" rightly, please help me correct how I represent his own presentation of himself.) It is a red flag to me when any teacher needs to create a demoted teaching in order to make their subject extra-special.

Two: The other red flag: without clearly calling this nondual nibbana AND while presenting it as a superior phenomena worthy of ambition, it seems that this state is a dhamma --- a temporary mental state that arises and passes. So it may be like the off-cushion version of jhanas. That can be very useful, wholesome training --- a wholesome phenomena seen for what it is can be very, very useful for training the mind and for how one conducts themselves in the world. But a person who calls themselve a teacher in buddhism should be able to say, in my opinion, whether they are experiencing nibbana or not. That is a duty to their students, their students' efforts, their students' literal payments, or their students' dana, and to the dhamma (though dhamma polices itself in kamma...).

So in the Bodhi article I equally appreciate the author acknowledges his limitations and acknowledges his own clear preference for his system, and that several of you have observed the writer lacks footnoting/citations for his statement on others and thus a paper tiger also emerges. I agree: presenting one's interlocutor as an un-cited object in this way --- without specific examples, without respecting their view/own study with careful study and citation --- invites proper logical scrutiny: what does any teacher get out of presenting paper tigers? And why do students over-look this? And is it only pre-stream-enters who overlook these red flags because at that stage we are vulnerable and seeking some shelter/family/system/relief and have not come into the first small stage of perceptual autonomy/understanding the conditions of our mental labratory?

So to narrow this thread for a moment, Dream Walker, do you know if the man you cite and the video you are recommending in the forum, which man describes his life as an ongoing and superior-to-others'-nondual-experiences experience, do you know if he would also confirm this as nibbana or does he know?


[also, a friend has recommended I pick up Strunk and White again to help form more organized and succinct posts so I will. I absolutely welcome all of you to help me in training me to be clearer if it's your inclination and skill. I know C C C recently did this for Daniel...]

[To be very clear, any readers, mine is not an attack on the teacher Dream Walker has linked; when I was struggling with myself in what are called (9.) Knowledge of Desire for Deliverance (muncitu-kamyata-ñana), (10.) Knowledge of Re-observation and (patisankhanupassana-ñana) and (11.) Knowledge of Equanimity about Formations (sankhar'upekkha-ñana) at least one of his videos was very helpful to me. So I am grateful, too, that this teacher Dream Walker has linked has presented himself and his practice online freely.]

Ah gotcha. It seems ultimately one has to come to terms with this fact, that at least in the Pali Canon the goal is pretty life-denying. Anything impermanent is dukkha, be you enlightened or not, and the five khandas cover just about everything that can be experienced. Combine this with the fact that the ultimate goal is to stop the round of rebirths so that this lifetime is the final one - so that when you die you finally die for good, entering Paranibanna instead of getting reborn - and it becomes clear it's not a practice with "enjoying life" being anywhere near a priority, if not an active distraction from the goal.

I have been looking forward to coming back to the thread while reading other threads asserting "the source" and/or "non-dual". Hiking this weekend with a visiting friend gave me the impetus: shady, lush mountain forest, old hardwoods, new small softwoods, berries, moss, mulch --- like a plant-based mirror mirroring the productivity of mind and phenomena. It arrived well after a month of renewed daily meditation and orientation for daily sati (not perfect, just sincere, alert efforts).

I find it so useful that this long ago teacher Gotama saw so much phenomena of mind, and trained in stimulating the mind wholesomely (jhana (dhyana)), noted ten unanswerable questions as a result of his study, and developed like many great humans an ethical conduct well-suited for his species, then firmly gave the advice to let go of attachments, even to let his Dhamma go, to possess not even the dhamma of Dhamma once it's cleaned out the mind of attachments to what are temporary phenomena, unsatisfactory bases, unreliable handholds on a short cliff of the moment of life.

I pulled up an old video today that I think many on the DhO have seen: Michael Persinger putting the "God helmet" on Michael Shermer so that Shermer experienced several odd mental states provoked by stimulating the temporal lobes: http://www.michaelshermer.com/1999/09/out-of-body-experiment/

Watching it and knowing the funny things that may arise in meditation or under stress or elation, I know my brain, too, has perceived several odd things. I cannot say I believe or disbelieve any of these odd things, only that the experiences seemed actual, not dream-like. If I had not encountered at least moderately skilled meditators along the way --- people who weren't necessarily "teachers" but just people brave enough to study their own lab conditions even when lab conditions were profoundly hard --- I might have taken up strong narratives about these phenomena, I might have tried to reify one of these states into a permanent condition, a source, a syncretism.

Dhammas. Plurality. There is so much satisfaction in the wonder of just all this stuffness. It is fundamentally satisfying to study the stuff and not shoe-horn any of it into a framework of meaning. Time is better spent 1) learning about the stuff or just observing it/me and 2) cultivating habits that are suitable to the stresslessness of human and the habitat and sentients with whom we co-depend.

Anyway, it's nice to have a personal lab practice to study each foundation of my perception as a human: body, mind, feelings and objects (dhammas*) in order to see for oneself what each foundation of being can present as experience and how each foundation interacts, where little stories arise and gratify briefly and where no story and care-ful conduct satisfy.


_______________
*dhammas: scholar translators face a challenge to translate it from several angles. Here are the footnotes on "dhammas" from the monk and university professor Analayo in his book, "Satipatthana: The Direct Path To Realization":

Hi Katy,

As you were quoting Ven. Analayo, it reminded me of this quote from the same source, on non-duality, and its relevancy to this thread. The very last sentence from the below quote (bolded by me), I think is a very good summary of non-duality in regards to Buddhadhamma.



Analayo (2010) p.262. Satipatthana: The Direct Path to Realization. Windhorse Publications.

Hi Katy,

Sorry if its not getting to the heart of your post, but I would just point out that the "God Helmet" has been reasonably well debunked now - in that the electrical fields used are unlikely to be strong enough to affect the brain, and his experiments haven't been well replicated.

http://www.skepdic.com/godhelmet.html

Though it doesn't really matter so much, as people are obviously capable of having trippy experiences in those contexts (with high expectations and sensory deprivation etc...), and of course, while meditating...

In regard to the odd experiences feeling actual, not dream-like - that tells us something about the origins of those experiences - i.e. more primary sensory cortex - but that perception of actuality doesn't tell us they are actual - by definition a hallucination is an experience that has the appearance of reality, as opposed to our experiences of dreams or imagery. But at the end of the day, all our experiences are not "actual" - they are just fabrications of reality built by our brains. As you say, we can create stories about them and reify them but we should not hold onto them too tightly.

HI Sawfoot,

It is in the thread, so it is part of the heart of it. I am glad you put in your thoughts and conveyed with friendliness. That's truly the heart of the challenge as a social species whose individual members inherently suffer fear and anger around survival, status in a group, safety... Yeah, absolutely, Sawfoot. I think you already noted perhaps indirectly that I certainly didn't say otherwise. In the decades of research, it seems to me that we've learned not to make nor accept erroneous or irrelevant conclusions in research. Just because it could be induced --- the apparent perception of God or a unitive mental perception in some number of people out of a thousand research subjects, say --- and through chemical or mechanical or psychological means, does not at all speak to whether there is or is not God or a unitive substrate actually underlying all perception or existence.

Anyway, back to asserting experience of dhammas and unitive experience and "non-dual", acknowledging that "non-dual" is described by many people in many different ways.

My own experience is that knowing phenomena just as they are -- including the phenomena that seem to make up "me" --- is profoundly satisfying and wonderful. Even in horrendous circumstances, the only helpful thing I can see is to be trained in studying conditions as they are presenting and knowing one always influences events in some degree.

But to know things as phenomena alone, there is for some people first a preliminary challenge to know oneself as an animal and meet its animal needs (water, shelter, food). Then there is a challenge to know oneself as a social species' member and to know ones needs for community, herd-safety and companions. Then there is a challenge to know oneself alone, through a) one's bodily experience and as that changes in ways that are not always pleasant nor under our control, b) through knowing oneself as a mind --- vast garden of thought-flora arising and decaying even in sleep (dreams) --- and that, too, being vulnerable to the degradation of sickness, age, and/or peer pressures as well as own fears of existence and death, and c) through knowing oneself as having arising and passing feelings that give rise to sensations and consequent craving-gratification cycles quite similar to a drug addict and learning to be composed and restrained in the presence of cravings, and d) through knowing oneself as able to with other rich phenomena and lives -- we're back to the beginning again: a being engaging in an environment with others.


I can say a devastating hazard in claiming any view as correct is to generate divisiveness, anger and fear. So if one is practicing or teaching any understanding and their students come forward insultingly, then it is a message about the stressfulness of that student and/or the teaching and/or the teacher.



In my mind, sanghas and mindfulness centers become less about the potentially endless personal quest for samadhi moments/developing a unitive view and more about giving introspection its due space for study, while pro-actively preparing the student to become outrospective wholesomely, to contribute to reducing stress in communities, to care about and supporting naturally well-functioning habitat as well-being cannot survive in a "gated mental state" any more than a gated community. Every religious tradition and secular ethics has this concept.

So I raised this thread for one person in particular who was admittedly mapping topics about which they had no experience and starting to profess to others the value of "non-dual" and to crave some experience they heard of in others. I have been in similar shoes and have heard the same mentioned by others. So a thread to which one individual pulled themselves, becomes a thread to which several people at least also relate. I think usefully. It supports investigation, study, dialog, exposes causes of unwholesome action that can be treated as a result of being "day-lighted".

Personally, knowing dear people in the theistic traditions, in secular ethics communities, in various buddhist schools, I do not mind how people resolve their peaceful conduct; any of the tools can be used like an olive branch for swatting another or sharing.

Thank you, Chris. I love that book because of the author's meticulous standard of documentation and writing. Having met some of the "rock stars" of dharma I can say some of our great teachers in all the traditions are very thoughtful about what they say and how and they seem to have a personal basis, not mere ratiocination (a word he uses... ).

My only point about citing Ven. Analayo on this point, which does directly respond to this thread --- and I am glad you put it here -- is only that if one has trained with similarly excellent teachers in other traditions, then there is likely another book out there that is as well documented and will give good conviction to, say, there being substrate or storehouse consciousness, a source, a unitive coherence to existence. For example, I'm thinking of how much I like the Tibetan buddhist philosopher Tsongkhapa's documentation, for example. As we are blogging in a largely Theravadin community, it is less likely someone will present a great documentation of, say, esoteric zen.

So, for me, I like to invite dialog sometimes with people starting to claim attainments to see how they attest for themselves what they are doing/craving/professing/mapping, what they are professing or actually studying. If they truly have something that lowers suffering, I will learn something and be able to pass it on. But I can learn either way, little by little.

Anyway, so how one presents the experience of non-dual or clarity in regards to dhammas, one can look from the outside and ask, "Is that way or person showing a reliable abatement of suffering or 'medicating' suffering?" It's okay to medicate it, as long as one is still asking, "How does this suffering start? Do I keep it in motion?" An understanding of dhammas and/or non-dual is only what one actually understands through their own investigation and experience and usually over time.

Thank you, Chris.