A few thoughts about Non Duality

I recently cranked out another chap­ter in my newest book, which, by the bye, is com­ing out by July of next year, this chap­ter con­cern­ing Non Dual­ity.

It’s, to me any­way, and odd lit­tle con­cept, and eas­ily misunderstood.

Let’s begin with dual­ity.

A way of think­ing of dual­ity is that one only knows some­thing as it is com­pared to its oppo­site — sort of ‘this’ / ‘not this.’

For exam­ple, take height. Short and tall are rel­a­tive con­cepts. In other words, there is no char­ac­ter­is­tic ‘tall’ that is a part of what is being described. To put this another way, Michael Jor­dan is tall - com­pared to the ‘national aver­age,’ and to those shorter than he is. He is short com­pared to peo­ple taller than he.

This flies in the face of the deep west­ern desire to label things — to come up with a rigid list — and (most impor­tant! — a per­ma­nent list.

Thus, in dual­ity, there are ONLY oppo­sites — good OR bad, right OR wrong, tall OR short.

Non dual­ity is not at all inter­ested in lists. Non dual think­ing is that all things are every­thing, all the extremes and every­thing else in between.

West­ern­ers try to sneak around the con­cept of non dual­ity by say­ing, “I’m not a blank and white thinker. After all, things are really shades of gray.”

Many peo­ple I know tend to see them­selves as ‘free thinkers.’ In a sense, they are fix­ated on ‘free think­ing’ just as firmly as some­one who thinks there is only one answer. Exam­ple; athe­ists have just as much faith in their belief as do the ‘the­ists’ they are criticizing.

Non dual­ity,

on the other hand, (he writes with a smirk) is about loos­en­ing ones grip on one note being. Life becomes a dance. You notice that you are judg­ing, labelling, box­ing things up, and you have a breath and let go of the def­i­n­i­tions. In this let­ting go process, your expe­ri­ence expands, and you see that what­ever is going on has many aspects, all equally true.

Any­thing Goes?

Now, to west­ern minds, that can sound an awful lot like “any­thing goes.” And in a sense, it is, as any­thing is how things are.

The other day, I was watch­ing a friend get her shorts in a knot over office pol­i­tics. She was upset­ting her­self, and she really wanted every­one else to ‘see the light.’
In other words, to see it her way.
I was think­ing that they prob­a­bly felt the same about her view.

This Leads to Sev­eral Approaches

• One approach to this is to fight to get oth­ers to accept your view as right.
• Another approach is to com­plain and give up.
• A third approach is to accept that ‘every­thing goes, and here I go.’ Non dual­ity accepts that this is the way it is. Dif­fer­ent views, each seen as ‘right’ by the holder. I choose to act as I choose to act, with­out ref­er­ence to lists or to the behav­iour of others.

Or, as Gandhi put it,
“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

Far too often, all we hear are lec­tures about what’s wrong, bad, stu­pid. I would much rather see an exam­ple of ele­gant, full bod­ied, ded­i­cated, and clear liv­ing.

Gandhi again: “Always aim at com­plete har­mony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at puri­fy­ing your thoughts and every­thing will be well.”

Notice that the three har­mo­nious states (thought, word, deed) are per­sonal. Puri­fy­ing your thoughts is non-dual think­ing — not right, not wrong, but rather, ‘thought.’

The Tao — Embrac­ing the Non-Duality

Here’s the first line of the Tao te Ching: (see this trans­la­tion)

1. The Way (the Tao) that can be fol­lowed is not the eter­nal Way.
The name that can be named is not the eter­nal name.
The name­less is the ori­gin of heaven and earth
While nam­ing is the ori­gin of the myr­iad things.
There­fore, always desire­less, you see the mys­tery
Ever desir­ing, you see the man­i­fes­ta­tions.
These two are the same—
When they appear they are named dif­fer­ently.
This same­ness is the mys­tery,
Mys­tery within mys­tery;
The door to all marvels.

The Dao dif­fer­en­ti­ates between nam­ing and being. Notice, how­ever, that there is no sense that one state is bet­ter than the other.

What’s being said is this: The Tao (we might think ‘cos­mic, cre­ative, unseen energy) is that which brings the uni­verse about. This uni­verse has sub­stance, but lacks def­i­n­i­tion. Nam­ing (labelling, judg­ing) brings about ‘thing-ness’ — stuff exists, as soon as it is labeled, as sep­a­rate items.

Exam­ple: A baby has no sep­a­rate­ness and iden­tity until a par­ent pokes it and says, “You are Susie!” In west­ern thought, dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion from par­ent is a key task of infancy. This is done by label­ing, “me, not me.”

Desire­less Desire

When we are desire­less, we see the energy’s flow every­where. When we desire, we fix­ate on the thing we desire, and the essence of ‘all else’ goes background.

Here’s the joke (the mys­tery.) When we name or desire, noth­ing essen­tial has changed. Essence (the Tao) is there all the time, like Muzak in an ele­va­tor. When we drop the nam­ing and desir­ing, we fall into the essence.

It’s a game. That’s all.

I men­tioned a few issues ago the “Com­plaint Free World Cam­paign.” The book and bracelets arrived last week. The idea is sim­ple. If you com­plain, gos­sip, or crit­i­cize out loud, you move your pur­ple bracelet to the other arm. The goal is to go 21 days with­out complaining.

My favourite moment so far: I was work­ing on the com­puter and some­thing hap­pened, and I com­plained out loud to the computer!

Any­way, I’m find­ing that I’m down to one or two ‘slips’ a day. At this rate, I’m guess­ing 3 months to get to 21 days in a row.

Now, here’s the part I inter­est myself over. Yes­ter­day, I found myself writ­ing snippy, abrupt e-mails, some­thing I don’t do much. I notice, today, I’m feel­ing hard-done-by. Annoyed. At the same time, I’m feel­ing much more at peace, as I study and write about stuff I like, as I hang out with Dar dur­ing the snow­storm. It’s almost as if my ‘ego’ is notic­ing this addi­tional ‘calm,’ and is toss­ing in more drama.

So far, I have held these expe­ri­ences together, at the same time, and just let them be. I am unaware of judg­ing what I am doing. On the other hand, I am labelling what I am doing. One is one thing, the other is the other, and this is what I am doing. Until I choose some­thing else.

You are not a ‘one way, one note’ being. You are who­ever and what­ever you choose, what­ever and who­ever you turn your atten­tion to. And at the same time, you are also every­thing else you are — this stuff is sim­ply ‘in the background.’

Per­haps the best sea­sonal gift you can give your­self is to appre­ci­ate the mys­tery, and ded­i­cate your­self to har­mony of thought, word, and deed.

It’s cer­tainly One Way…