Defining and describing non-duality

[guest_of_logic]

There you are with your labels, ready to pounce like a vulture.

David, the label is yours. You introduced it in the title of the thread, "Deaf to non-duality". I'm simply requesting that you define that which you assert Alex and I to be deaf to.

The way I use the term "non-duality" is exactly the same as the way Lao Tzu used the word "Tao", or the way Jesus used the word "God", or the way the Buddha used the word "nirvana".

That's not very useful, because different people have different interpretations of what those men meant by those words. It would have been more useful if you had included your interpretation of what they meant by those terms, because I'm interested in how you specifically define and describe the term "non-duality". You seem to be ignoring my repeated request to explain how the semantics of the components of the term relate to the overall meaning that you ascribe to it (which duality/dualities are you negating, and how/why do you negate that duality/those dualities?), which puzzles me, because it seems to me to be a perfectly sensible question, and one that would quite probably lead us to the specific definition that I'm seeking from you.

[David Quinn]

Sorry, no can do.

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[guest_of_logic]

Why not?

[David Quinn]

I can't explain it any more than I have. You need to find that switch inside you that will allow you to suddenly see it.

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[guest_of_logic]

Let's try a different approach, then: what according to you is DUALITY?

[David Quinn]

Any movement.

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[guest_of_logic]

So non-duality is stillness?

[David Quinn]

Already you're moving.

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[guest_of_logic]

And you're dodging. Why won't you engage meaningfully? I've said I'm not here in this thread to get into an argument about your definition of non-duality. I just want to know what it specifically is, and explore it a little.

[David Quinn]

I'm still pointing directly at it. Can't you see it?

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[guest_of_logic]

You're not pointing, you're waving your hands around inanely. Directness would have been answering my repeated questions to you on semantics.

[David Quinn]

Hahahahaha!

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[guest_of_logic]

What's so funny?

[cousinbasil]

You cannot define nonduality, because a definition entails something of the form A=A. In other words, you can at best describe it, which he has already done. For me, I may conceive what David is pointing to, but I cannot perceive it. It is by nature ineffable, which is a funny enough word when you think about it.

moving always expressed in a recent post something I have long believed to be true: if you name it, the process of attachment has already begun, it being a "thing" as used in this forum. This is the very meaning behind "In the Beginning, there was the Word."

[Tomas]

whether that means fighting those Queenstown bar hags

He hasn't figured out how to stay out of his worldly haunts. His intellect is on a level with bar hags?

Give up the booze, Laird. Non-duality, indeed!

[skipair]

I'm just trying to get some clarity on how the term is being used.

The way I use the term is to have it mean seamless causation. The thing we always talk about here! I pretty much love it.

Try to get me to boot camp, though, and you WILL experience some irrepressible aggression. ;-)

Hahaha! Awesome.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Laird,

Reasoning operates within duality, meaning we automatically divide reality up into things, and try to understand how the world works by describing how things appear to us, and how they seem to relate to each other. Dualistic thinking divides the "Me" from "everything else out there" All empirical knowledge hinges on our ability to do this. However, the implications of non-duality is that the division between things is actually not there, and we create the divisions for mere convenience to navigate through the world, and make sense of the world.

Moreover, the truth of the matter is that "you" are all movement, interior and exterior. From the sound of the bird flying overhead, to the television buzzing, or the walls in front of you. All that is part of "you" just as much as the thoughts to masturbate, or the thoughts to call someone, or anything within the mind. Non-duality is understood when the thinker starts to be critical of everything happening within the mind, without identifying it as part of the identity, while realizing that all exterior movement is just as much part of consciousness as all interior movement. Such an understanding severs the grip of the ego that solely identifies with cognition, and sets up a firm boundary between the world out there, and the thinking happening within the brain. Such an understanding is the beginning of a relationship with emptiness or the infinite.

[jufa]

Laird,

Reasoning operates within duality, meaning we automatically divide reality up into things, and try to understand how the world works by describing how things appear to us, and how they seem to relate to each other. This is very logical reasoning Ryan R., but lack the understanding and information how we automatically divide the reality up into things. Is it true or not to operate within anything, there must be an infiltration into the fibers and mechanics of that something which does not separate that which has been infiltrated, but use the house which that which infiltrates is hosted by? Reasoning from the outer primeter is another story

Dualistic thinking divides the "Me" from "everything else out there" All empirical knowledge hinges on our ability to do this. Dual thinking does indeed make one assume it is me prattle, me manipulate, me manipulated by ones who believes their outer objective vision is a divide. But in reality of comprehension, what is seem from ones dual mind of ego, and believed to be outside of one is impossible because what is outside of one could not be an object of awareness also in ones mind simultaneously unless one cannot comprehend that outside and that within are one and the same. Think about it. It the reality of anything is out there, then that reality cannot be a function of the mind also. The link is? Therefore empirical thoughts does not make such an assumption based on intellectual theories, concepts, opinions, nor ideas. Empirical knowledge is based on observation and experience, and to observe and experience links ones outer objective vision to that of ones inner subjective feelings, thus there also can be no divide.

However, the implications of non-duality is that the division between things is actually not there, and we create the divisions for mere convenience to navigate through the world, and make sense of the world. Here you are on the right track with the exception that there is no implication of dualities existence except in thought. So what is actually created is a bedrock of our own interpretation, and because they are the product of our thinking, the navigation is always between our thinking this is that, and that is this. No division ever occur.

Moreover, the truth of the matter is that "you" are all movement, interior and exterior. From the sound of the bird flying overhead, to the television buzzing, or the walls in front of you. All that is part of "you" just as much as the thoughts to masturbate, or the thoughts to call someone, or anything within the mind. Non-duality is understood when the thinker starts to be critical of everything happening within the mind, without identifying it as part of the identity, while realizing that all exterior movement is just as much part of consciousness as all interior movement. Such an understanding severs the grip of the ego that solely identifies with cognition, and sets up a firm boundary between the world out there, and the thinking happening within the brain. Such an understanding is the beginning of a relationship with emptiness or the infinite.

Life does not move. Consciousness does not move. Ones soul does not move. What move is one belief of having different experience at different interval of their living within the SILLNESS OF LIFE. The very instant an experience occur within ones life it is no more because "The Moving Finger writes. Having Writ, Moves on." But this movement has nothing to do with man except as an activity within consciousness. Wherever man is, man is in Conscious Union With The Activity of His Thoughts. Ones thoughts are never cognizant of anything but what is within the storehouse of his soul. When is man divided from himself? and when does man move beyond his conscious to spliit his being into two? When is man's memory not the singleness of the thought of his mind? Duality does not exist even as an illusion for even an illusion is a singular of thought, as all offset human interpretation and awareness.

Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength - jufa

[Dennis Mahar]

Dualistically speaking that was extremely funny David and hit like a sledgehammer.

[David Quinn]

Glad you appreciated it.

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[Dennis Mahar]

Glad you appreciated it.

Sure did. pure gold. Thanks.
It comes out best in inquiry just like it did there I reckon.
Comes out of the supplicants earnest querying.

[Pam Seeback]

Laird, when you are still, and I do mean still...

[Dennis Mahar]

Occam's Razor disarmed by Rapier Wit.

[guest_of_logic]

You cannot define nonduality, because a definition entails something of the form A=A.

If a word can be used meaningfully, then it can be defined, because a definition is nothing more than an encapsulation of a word's meaning.

The way I use the term is to have it mean seamless causation.

Thanks mate, finally something very clear - exactly what I've been looking for. That seems to be what Kunga means by it too.

However, the implications of non-duality is that the division between things is actually not there, and we create the divisions for mere convenience to navigate through the world, and make sense of the world.

Thank you, too, Ryan - that's also very clear. See, David? It's not that hard to speak clearly on this topic.

Basically what I'm getting from this is that you guys use the term non-duality to refer to the house philosophy's perspective on the arbitrariness of boundaries and the implications of that perspective.

Non-duality is understood when the thinker starts to be critical of everything happening within the mind, without identifying it as part of the identity, while realizing that all exterior movement is just as much part of consciousness as all interior movement.

OK, so from this I'm getting that you're again talking about the arbitrariness of boundaries and the fact that causes from "outside" the mind have effects "inside" the mind. This is similar to Skip's and Kunga's notion of seamlessness which also implies arbitrary boundaries.

So yeah, I see now that as the term "non-duality" is used here it's just referring to parts of the house philosophy with which I'm already very familiar.

Laird, when you are still, and I do mean still...

No can do - I've had too much caffeine.

Seriously, though, please go ahead and explain this stillness if you care to.

[David Quinn]

Ah, the vulture has struck and all it has in its beak is a carcass .....

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