Trying to understand duality

[Ancestor]

I've been watching Leo's videos for about a year and reading about the topic of duality and trying to understand it. I have two questions:

1. Is everything a duality?

2. Why is non-dual thinking considered more "spiritually enlightened" then dualistic thinking?

 

[Johnny5]

Everything that is finite "exists" only by virtue of being one thing and not some other thing. Which also means that its existence is at least in part determined by what it's not. And yet, it is always comprised of other things, defined in terms of other things, dependent upon other things to exist at all. In fact if you take away its causes and constituents, no thing remains. So one thing is never just one thing, nor even ever an actual thing in itself. As the saying goes, if you want to bake an apple pie from scratch, you first have to create the universe.

That's one way of getting at the equivalence of finiteness, relativity, contingence, differentiation, and indeed duality. Each of those terms immediately imply all the rest.

And then there's the strictly mental categories that have no direct physical referent, such as good/bad, tasteful/disgusting, etc. In fact what you discover is that physical categories don't actually exist "out there" and at bottom it's all mental categories.

Non-duality is nothing other than the refutation of duality, meaning that all duality can only ever be illusory.

Nondual thinking is a contradiction in terms, there is no such thing. But what is generally meant by it is that one is fluid and flexible in their use of mental categories, precisely because they know none of them are ultimately true.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Johnny5

[Vittorio]

To reply to all your questions in depth, I suggest you to watch following Leo's videos:
 

(part 2 and 3 are optional)

 

 

Edited August 17, 2020 by Vittorio

[Nahm]

2 hours ago, Ancestor said:

1. Is everything a duality?

2. Why is non-dual thinking considered more "spiritually enlightened" then dualistic thinking

No. 

It’s not. That’s a dualistic thought about what is nondual. 

Thinking describes a thinker of thought in action, which has never occurred.

[Ancestor]

Thanks for the replies, all are helpful, I'm quite new at this and I find it very interesting.

I understand there is no non-dual thinking now, makes sense.

Can you explain more about "all duality can only ever be illusory"?

Can you explain more about mental categories ultimately not being true?

Are you saying that because finite things only exist in a duality, there is no foundation to build on, therefore reality is not real?

 

 

 

[Vittorio]

19 minutes ago, Ancestor said:

Thanks for the replies, all are helpful, I'm quite new at this and I find it very interesting.

I understand there is no non-dual thinking now, makes sense.

Can you explain more about "all duality can only ever be illusory"?

Can you explain more about mental categories ultimately not being true?

Are you saying that because finite things only exist in a duality, there is no foundation to build on, therefore reality is not real?

 

 

 

Just watch the videos I linked you they are helpful! 

[Nahm]

3 hours ago, Ancestor said:

I understand there is no non-dual thinking now, makes sense.

Can you explain more about "all duality can only ever be illusory"?

Can you explain more about mental categories ultimately not being true?

Are you saying that because finite things only exist in a duality, there is no foundation to build on, therefore reality is not real?

Not, two. 

A thought is like a book. A book is a book. Also, you can open it up, and get lost in it. Which is fine, because you didn’t actually get lost, because it’s just a book. Same for life. Get lost in it all ya like, because you actually can’t. Always actually safe and sound, vibrationally appearing, as life. You are you. These words are the same. This is you. If you like, you can play pretend, that it isn’t you. That’s there’s me. Saying something.

[zeroISinfinity]

1 hour ago, Nahm said:

Not, two. 

A thought is like a book. A book is a book. Also, you can open it up, and get lost in it. Which is fine, because you didn’t actually get lost, because it’s just a book. Same for life. Get lost in it all ya like, because you actually can’t. Always actually safe and sound, vibrationally appearing, as life. You are you. These words are the same. This is you. If you like, you can play pretend, that it isn’t you. That’s there’s me. Saying something.

Can't be. Really ? 

[Mu_]

@Ancestor

On 8/17/2020 at 6:15 AM, Johnny5 said:

Everything that is finite "exists" only by virtue of being one thing and not some other thing. Which also means that its existence is at least in part determined by what it's not. And yet, it is always comprised of other things, defined in terms of other things, dependent upon other things to exist at all. In fact if you take away its causes and constituents, no thing remains. So one thing is never just one thing, nor even ever an actual thing in itself. As the saying goes, if you want to bake an apple pie from scratch, you first have to create the universe.

That's one way of getting at the equivalence of finiteness, relativity, contingence, differentiation, and indeed duality. Each of those terms immediately imply all the rest.

And then there's the strictly mental categories that have no direct physical referent, such as good/bad, tasteful/disgusting, etc. In fact what you discover is that physical categories don't actually exist "out there" and at bottom it's all mental categories.

Non-duality is nothing other than the refutation of duality, meaning that all duality can only ever be illusory.

Nondual thinking is a contradiction in terms, there is no such thing. But what is generally meant by it is that one is fluid and flexible in their use of mental categories, precisely because they know none of them are ultimately true.

This is really well said, the only thing I'd clarify is about "illusion" which also answers your secondary questions.  But first a few things need to be said first and understood perhaps.

Now you may have noticed by now that words some how mean something to you as you read this sentence and all the sentences you encounter, magical isnt it, and even when you don't understand what your reading, there's still understanding of the experience "not understanding".  Curious isn' it dont rush to define how (theres philosophies and theories you could invest your life reading since theres a ton of them which may never get you to the actual reason), just notice how there's consciousness of "whats happening", pretty much all the time.  For now lets just call it a part of your being-ness, and there are others that in time you may begin to notice, integrate and in so the experience of experience and being in time will change.

Now "illusion" is just a word, however most minds will hear this and interpret it to mean something, like a lot of westerners hear it and think "Oh, its just illusion, its not real, nothings important, non of this is real, its just a dream right, a thought, a empty thing", feelings of meaninglessness and sometimes idea's and desires to just not give a shit about anything will manifest.  This isn't what the insight of @Johnny5 is saying.  The information is just an unraveling of what a lot of minds and materialists assume about the outside/inside world is.  It should leave a big question mark of unknown, perhaps mysteriousness to experience or atleast eventually as you work through your unique reaction to letting this information in.

@Johnny5 post is also not saying nothing is real.  "Nothing is real" is just words experienced as you read them.  If there was TRUELY nothing, there would be no anything to experience, and there would be no experience or stuff to experience about.  Since your new you have not encountered books or people saying a lot about something called "nothingness", and perhaps this is a good thing because a lot of them like to make claims about there is actual "nothing" when its actually either pointing to a experience/insight or an ideology which is often misquoted.

[Johnny5]

1 hour ago, Mu_ said:

The information is just an unraveling of what a lot of minds and materialists assume about the outside/inside world is.  It should leave a big question mark of unknown

 ? Thank you, yes that's the intention. In my opinion it's generally more helpful to unravel "wrong knowing" than to "explain how it is" (except insofar as such explanations may help someone do their own unraveling). Not only is "explaining how it is" rather impossible, but it's also prone to becoming just another belief system.

Explanations need a frame of reference, and generally speaking ones existing frame of reference tends to only get in the way. Because that's where the obstacles reside. And that's why straight-up explanations are often misunderstood, or not understood at all.

So to me "the path" is always subtractive, hence Via Negativa, Neti Neti, etc. Even if that's ultimately just another device. No one ever needs to wake up, but everyone could always do with fewer obstacles. Development clarity and insight are automatic in the absence of obstacles, they are a natural consequence of being alive in the absence of unnatural barriers. Just like you don't need to pull on grass to make it grow. So addressing obstacles is usually the crux of what I try to do, for myself as well as anyone I talk to about this.

To quote Jed McKenna, the only construction required is that which facilitates demolition.

Or at least, that's one way of framing the approach.

 

7 hours ago, Ancestor said:

I understand there is no non-dual thinking now, makes sense.

Until everything turns out to have always been nondual...  ? 

 

7 hours ago, Ancestor said:

Can you explain more about "all duality can only ever be illusory"?

Can you explain more about mental categories ultimately not being true?

Are you saying that because finite things only exist in a duality, there is no foundation to build on, therefore reality is not real?

Therefore reality can't exist in the way that it seems to exist, yes. Foundationlessness would be another equivalence of duality, relativity, finiteness, etc. In short, strange-loopy.

But that is part of the illusion, in truth the foundation that's always been hidden in plain sight is consciousness. In other words when you go looking for the foundation of reality, the only possible candidate turns out to be consciousness. And to go one further, it's not even a foundation because there is nothing else apart from consciousness.

Which is why all duality can only ever be apparent, not true. Nonduality appearing as duality without actually being duality. Hence illusory. Consciousness pretending to be not consciousness. Some people like to say that nonduality is so flippin' nondual that it includes duality. I think that's a misleading word game, although it may help against overly exclusionary tendencies, so sure fine why not.

"Real" is subject to interpretation or redefinition. It's often said that reality is both real and unreal. Personally I'm not a big fan of those kinds of word games, I don't see the value in them except perhaps as cute little tests of comprehension. Tests of your ability to do "nondual thinking", I suppose. And also because it's equally false to stick to one side. Real and unreal is just another duality/mental category.

Mental categories are false in the sense that they purport to refer to something pre-existing outside of itself, when they actually don't. So basically they are lies, albeit useful lies. They are how you create past, future, other, and indeed self. They are like a thin layer of narrative draped over an underlying structure, like a secondary layer of apparent duality.

Together with the fuel of emotional energy, they form the "gestalts" that make your reality (including especially yourself) seem convincingly solid and objective, and differentiated. That emotional energy is what's refered to as attachment, and where the real work of disillusionment is done. The result being undifferentiated (nondual) consciousness. Even though of course differentiation is also illusory and consciousness has actually always been nondual.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Johnny5

[Ancestor]

So there's no foundational concept in reality? What's the closest we can get to that?

[Johnny5]

30 minutes ago, Ancestor said:

So there's no foundational concept in reality? What's the closest we can get to that?

Not sure what you mean, could you rephrase?

[Carl-Richard]

On 17.8.2020 at 11:20 AM, Ancestor said:

1. Is everything a duality?

"Everything" is a thing, and all things are dual. However, The Absolute, the "totality" of every "thing" (the whole), is non-dual.

A duality is infact simultaneously non-dual: each part is only defined relative to the other, and therefore they're necessarily a whole; one, not two; non-dual.

In an attempt to avoid confusion, we tend to distinguish between these seemingly contradictory perspectives by referring to them as "relative" and "absolute". From the relative perspective, all dualities are two, but from the absolute perspective, all dualities are one.

 

On 17.8.2020 at 11:20 AM, Ancestor said:

2. Why is non-dual thinking considered more "spiritually enlightened" then dualistic thinking?

A thought is a duality. Thoughts only exist relative to non-thoughts. Therefore, from a relative perspective, "non-dual thinking" is an oxymoron. From an absolute perspective, everything is non-dual, including thoughts, but it doesn't help very much speaking about it that way, because all forms of intellectual inquiry happen in the relative domain.

Edited August 18, 2020 by Carl-Richard

[Ancestor]

10 hours ago, Johnny5 said:

Not sure what you mean, could you rephrase?

What is the most foundational concept of all the known concepts and is it a duality?

So for everything that exists there is something it is not? What about thing? What is a non-thing?

 

[Johnny5]

1 hour ago, Ancestor said:

What is the most foundational concept of all the known concepts and is it a duality?

I'd use the terms concept and mental category interchangably for these purposes. There's no end to them so there's no real point in splitting hairs with them, except as a "thorn to remove another thorn". Other than that you could go around in circles forever and never get anywhere, as most people end up doing. There is no foundational concept, no starting symbol that you don't pick for yourself. There's just a great big semantic web. Just like a dictionary.

That said there are some significant ones for the purposes of waking up, some of which might be considered foundational in that sense. Self being the most notorious one. Others examples being fear, time, space, doership, attachment, subject, object, other, etc. There's a great big web of those as well and the distinctions aren't as clear-cut as it may seem. But you find that out by investigating them and trying to pin them down. That's the thorn thing again. In other words you don't engage with them because there's any truth to be found there, but to untangle the mess so you can see it for what it is.

 

1 hour ago, Ancestor said:

So for everything that exists there is something it is not?

For every finite thing there would have to be, or it wouldn't be finite. If it has boundaries, it has definition, shape, form. That is form in the broadest sense of the word, it need not be physical but the principle remains the same. Some ostensibly inherent characteristics that sets it apart from other things. In short, attributes.

But no boundary can exist all by itself, it always has two sides. The side that is included in the definition, and the side that is excluded from it. That's exactly what makes it a thing. A thing is always a particular thing as distinct from some other particular thing, or there wouldn't be a thing there.

A boundary is always defined and shaped not only by what is included, but also by what is excluded. They go hand in hand, without both sides there can be no boundary. Nothing ever gets a shape all of its own accord, everything is always largely shaped by the environment, i.e. by what's outside of the boundary. So, ironically, that makes the excluded part at least as important as the included part.

In buddhism this is called dependent origination. Without an environment for a thing to exist in, the thing can not exist at all. Without a universe, you can't have apple pie. The environment represents the necessary causes and conditions for the thing to arise in the first place. So in that sense the environment is the negative image of the thing.

This also means that the thing is a necessary and unavoidable consequence of the environment. You can't have that particular environment without that particular thing in it. They go together, as Alan Watts puts it. And of course the environment itself is made up of things, each of which have their own causes and conditions without which it could never have existed, and so on forever. That is called infinite regression and is one way of getting at the impossibility of objective reality, and of inherently existing things. This is the crux of the buddhist emptiness philosophy. The philosophy isn't truth, it is a device for deconstructing the false.

Incidentally, that's why the absolute must be without attributes, boundaries, differentiation, etc. It can never be "this particular way" as opposed to "that particular way". You can already see how that would make it dualistic, i.e. relative. And now you can also see how that would make it finite.

 

1 hour ago, Ancestor said:

What about thing? What is a non-thing?

What about it? You tell me... ? 

[Leo Gura]

13 hours ago, Ancestor said:

So there's no foundational concept in reality? What's the closest we can get to that?

Reality is not a concept.

You need to get out of concepts altogether to access the highest understandings. The entire domain of concepts is like one grain of sand on a beach. Don't limit yourself to that one grain.

Reality is Infinity. But Infinity is not a concept. I mean actual Infinity, not your idea of it. Your idea of Infinity is not the same as Infinity itself, just like your idea of an elephant is not an elephant itself.

[Red-White-Light]

@Leo Gura Do a Joe Rogan podcast, please!

[Carl-Richard]

13 minutes ago, Red-White-Light said:

@Leo Gura Do a Joe Rogan podcast, please!

Would be way too controversial and way above Joe's poor head.

[humanProcess]

@Carl-Richard If he can get 5-meo-dmt into it . And people start getting endogenous release of 5-meo and getting non dual. Wowa! Could be a very nice move.

[zeroISinfinity]

Since it is not a concept guess what you can feel it. 

Reality is Infinite Love. 

But don't listen to me I am just brutally honest may hurt your feelings. 

Edited August 19, 2020 by zeroISinfinity