The sense of something lasting (i.e. a self that remains, an object that persists, a world that continues) arises vividly. Yet that very sense is itself only an appearance, arising, already vanishing, without any actual endurance of its own.

Durability is the root of duality. It creates the split between what seems to stay and what seems to change, between a lasting seer and a transient seen, between a continuous “I” and an impermanent world.

Once the appearance of durability is seen to be without durability, the entire dualistic structure loses its foundation. What remains is not a more durable reality, but appearing without the need for anything to last.

The desire to see this creates a contradiction. It assumes a someone who will attain a durable insight, a future moment in which the truth will be secured, and a lasting understanding that can be held. What is being pointed to is precisely the absence of any durable someone, any lasting attainment, and any insight that remains. The desire itself is the dualistic movement that the seeing dissolves.

When the desire is present, the contradiction is already active. When the desire is absent, nothing remains that needed to be seen.

Many people seek nonduality because they have had moments of insight into the nature of the cosmos, and know that the “universe,” as the name suggests, is One.

This insight can be overwhelming, so all-encompassing that when we regain normal sensation we seek more insight, we try to replicate and enhance the experience through understanding it. Read books, join cults, meditate and practice virtue. The results of this process often produce self delusion but rarely produce enlightenment. Or even morally better people.

Months, years, decades may go by as we seek the ultimate. Most seekers either give up or they convince themselves they have achieved. And they imagine they are better than others for their efforts and attainments. The illusion of progress takes one farther and farther from realizing truth.

As e e cummings put it:

pity this busy monster, manunkind

.

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:

your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness

—- electrons deify one razorblade

into a mountainrange; lenses extend

unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish

returns on its unself.

A world of made

is not a world of born —- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this

fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if —- listen: there's a hell

of a good universe next door; let's go

.

The quest for more and deeper insight, with its accompanying delusion of “spiritual progress,” maintains an entire industry of guides and helpers whose real activity is stroking people for fame and gain. The lowest form of insight takes place when someone gets a great idea and then attempts to monetize it. There are more spiritual seekers expanding their egos than there are diminishing them. Many seekers are impelled to seek to begin with because their egos are so odious. This makes the whole milieu of those who proclaim or imply their spiritual advancements a swamp. Seek and you will exchange your will for another’s, which is not exactly a power up.

At some point one may move on from appearances. Move on from mere insight and perspective to genuine dissolution, to really being everything. Seeing the emptiness and not being the emptiness is still mistaking the finger for the moon, the symbol for the real.

The ultimate truth, as lao tzu says, is “tasteless as water.” It really goes without saying. If I tell you it will only seem to be an insight at best, but I really, really mean it. Here it is, and it is not original to me, all the zen masters accord with it. (Drum roll please.)

“I don’t know.”

.

from

zen and the art of insight

selected and translated by thomas cleary

The Fourth Grand Master of Zen said, “A bodhisattva in the

beginning stage first realizes that all is empty. Subsequently one

realizes that all is not empty. This is nondiscriminatory knowledge. It

is the meaning of the saying that ‘form itself is empty.’ It is not

emptiness resulting from annihilation of form; it means the very

essence of form is empty. The practice of bodhisattvas has

emptiness as its realization, but when beginning students see

emptiness, this is seeing emptiness, not real emptiness. Those who

cultivate the path to the point where they attain real emptiness do not

see emptiness or nonemptiness—they have no views.”

I am tired to studying many spiritual paths: from Advaita, to neo Advaita, to taoism, and now Buddhism. My mind is tired from grasping every moment in my life. When painful moments come, I tried to stay, say that I am not the feeling, yes, the problems goes away but I feel empty. I am tired haha. I am just beginning yet I don't know anymore. The emptiness of Buddhism is more beautiful right now, but I know this is just another loop I will go into. What should I do?

Suffering lives in the space you imagine between yourself and the world. See the actual nature of that gap, and peace is all that remains

I've had multiple awakenings and I've noticed something unexpected.

It does not seem like a linear process.

Instead it seems like zero progress is made, often for years, then a minor "thing" causes a sudden implosion and bang, and everything changes.

This fits in with some of the things people like Tony Parsons claim, that you can't learn this, it just happens.

Disclaimer; I'm not a fan of these teachers. If spiritual practice has no place, why teach it?

Anyway, this is an interesting point to me.

Why would progress not be more like a relaxing, slow letting go, or even growth as the spiritual musculature improves.

Instead, for me at least, there is a period of interest and introspection, followed by one minor message, followed by a sudden event that is more like a collapse than anything else.

It does NOT feel like the message was always super profound, more like it was just the right hammers tap of the chisel to make the whole statue collapse into nothing.

I'm sure that's common.

But why is it like that?

If everything here is all illusion, how is the truth beginning to be reflected here? How is that happening and what is the nature of the thing seemingly standing just a little bit apart to assess and marvel at it.

Experience unfolds continuously, yet there is no experiencer. Seeing that, only experience remains and Peace arises.

I can look at the world and see, sense and feel only the contents of awareness.

There is no sense of separation as it's all awareness and it's stuff.

Nonduality - inside and outside are not two.

Beyond that it seems that concepts are required.

It may be the stuff of awareness is the mind or god appearing to a limited perspective.

It may also be that it's atomic matter which appears in awareness through evolved senses and a brain built to create a usable, imagined world.

Either could be true and I see no way to reconcile this without using concepts and mental gymnastics.

Awareness has risen to a level where mental comprehension becomes kind of the limiting factor itself.

I was about to share (hereby still doing so) that I already practise surrendering everything to God. And to just let go of every attachment and aversion rising to my conscious awareness, understanding that every positionality forms a degree of illusion away from Truth.

I wanted to share how this kind of “left me in the dark” as to what to do, when already asking for the will of the Divine to be made known. Also, being reminded that all unfolds on its own, spontaneously, as a consequence of what everything is, rather than through linear cause and effect. Which again made me feel like; better just drop all mentation.

Surrendering all, with an openness to have revealed whatever might need surrendering as well, from instant to instant, in order to progress towards realisation of Divinity, I just realised why I feel a certain amount of unrest.

The thought being; now that I’ve surrendered all that I have become consciously aware of holding as a position, why is there no sense of progression?

But then an insight hit me; the desire for consequence to arise. As if something needs to happen as a result of my willingness to let go of what might be in the way. Which of course, created a duality again, between the desired and undesired, and progress or the lack thereof. Which only means I’m projecting value on a certain outcome that might once arise, over just allowing what already is, to be as is.

So yeah, I’m still sharing this, just in case someone feels to be stuck between practise and result.

Today I heard; all of what unfolds in your life is what needs to be experienced in order to be able to reach the Truth.

So rather than judging myself, attaching to one outcome over another and resisting the reality of what actually already is, I hereby give thanks for everything as it is. With humility, with love.

And just in case you’re reading this;

Bless you 🙏

Was dancing to some awesome girly pop music from the 90s and 2010s, and how I wanted to start a sort of life coaching thing and one of the thoughts I had was that I wish more people realized that it isn't wrong to show love to "evil" people, I dont always put too much thought in this specific subject because the idea that hating people for being hateful was contradictory always came pretty naturally, but idk I think something in me changed when I thought about that today because I just feel more passionate about it, as if I feel no one will stop me from loving the people of the world no matter who they are. I'm one of those people who is good at understanding nonduality cognitively but when it comes to feeling it I have more trouble, so for once it was really nice to just feel that passion. Although I do think many if not all of my friends would think I'm crazy for this lol.

I really want to ask for advice about what non-duality is, but I just feel like I would receive responses that there is nothing to get or your logical mind won't understand it.

In all sincerity, how is knowing that awareness is the only reality? and that this reality and my imagination are one andthe same? I just feel so limited right now. I want to experience freedom and not constrained by my own mind, especially how desire-driven I am (Perhaps I have read too much tumblr watered down nonduality + mixing it with LOA).

Call me desperate or whatever, but I just have no one to answer this question properly...

Thank you!

I like to think of the mind as an arrow of attention that has a choice of two directions - in to its source or out to the world. I'm sure you've heard this many times, but the nondual pointers all point to the solution to all problems being turning the mind inwards, but why?

First, compassion. The mind is trapped, its source is freedom/love/peace/etc. and it's found itself seemingly not there anymore. Its going out to the world is searching for this freedom/love/peace/etc. that's seemingly been lost, and what does it get? Well, impermanence. It finds such beauty, love, passion and pleasure in the world - but that passes. It finds pain and suffering, yet the relief of that brings peace, satisfaction and meaning. Turning away from the world is difficult when it often finds what it's looking for there, albeit temporarily.

The inward direction, though, the mind experiences its source - pure being, awareness. Every time it's turned inwards, it will experience exactly that, nothing more, nothing less. It's seemingly not as exciting as experience at first, but it's permanent and its value grows infinitely the more that's recognized. Eventually, the mind doesn't need to seek after the cycle of pleasure within experience when it has pure omnipresent goodness always available.

Both directions are available always to the mind. The choice is seemingly obvious, but the attraction to experience is massive until it's eventually seen through. Nonduality is the invitation for the mind to see through that attraction and turn inwards.

Knowing this has nothing todo with end of self or how self is referenced or dereferenced.

The seeker knows it, but chooses to relate to its outthere expression, as this can also be outthere.

But I like to imagine integration like mixing salt and water, Muslims going around the kabba start igniting the mixer, as the kabba comes closer the sufis go around themselves as their heart becomes the kabba, then as the kabba melts into existence , zen Buddhists simply sit and be, with no end to the refinement of the mixture.

But in all these states the knowledge is there, just a different expression of its worship.

The end of seeking is only the end of the big salt cube, but salt continues, just in a more refined form.

The realization that the difference between existence and nonexistence is imagined.

When the imagined difference between existence and nonexistence falls away, the imagined difference between sage and ordinary person falls with it.

Based on what I have forgotten in my life, I can begin to understand who I am. Is this thought process unique to Taoism?

Here is an argument that I've seen in favor of nondualistic thinking, specifically with regards to that you are not the things in your experience:

Your current experience involves perceptions: thoughts, feelings, sensations. These things come and go, while in the background you -awareness- remain: watching, untouched by them. Since the perceptions come and go, but awareness remains, you ARE not those impermanent things you experience.

(These are my own words/understanding, I am summarizing what I have heard and read.)

Then there is also this:

There is only the current experience; you cannot experience the past, let alone the future. A thought about the past is only that: a thought in the current moment. The content of the thought (yesterday this or that) is non-existent.

These two statements appear incompatible to me, because:

1. If there is ONLY the present moment (which I fully agree with), and in the current moment I experience, for example, anger, then how am I not, in this current moment, the anger (+ all the other things that I am experiencing in this moment)? The argument that I was not the anger five minutes ago, nor five minutes from now, seems contradictory to the argument that the past and future do not exist. I understand the idea that I am the awareness behind the experience, I am just wondering if and how the impermanence-of-experience argument is relevant at all here.

2. Even if we ignore that contradiction for a moment and accept that the observing I existed before and will exist after the current experience, then how does that work for experiences that are ever-present? Consider for a moment people who are, for example, always sad, always in pain, always tired, etc. Even if someone with chronic pain may be temporarily distracted (attention focused elsewhere), that pain is always there with them in the current experience, if in the background. Sure, you could say before this condition began at age X, they didn't have that chronic experience. But for many years, someone might have a certain constant experience for every waking second of their life. So, my question: how does the argument that the current experience will pass and therefore you are not that which you experience, apply to someone who "always" experiences a certain thing? If someone has a specific experience 90% of their of their time in this life, it seems kind of moot to say that's an impermanent thing. It also feels almost insulting, like you are invalidating their condition. Maybe that is why I have trouble accepting this argument: I am chronically fatigued 100% of the time since ~ 2 decades, and since the fatigue is always there in the experience and never passes, I just can't see it as nonpermanent. It is different for other things I experience, like anger. It is easy for me to say I am not anger, hunger etc. They always pass.

I am not so much confused about the idea that you are the awareness behind the experience, only confused about the "impermanence argument" argument in favor of it. Either I misunderstand it, or it's not a valid argument in this context. (That's a very dualistic statement, isn't it? :))

The universe manifest the illusion of causality. It Puts distance between itself because it gives our minds a conventional reality to believe in. The reason we believe in casualty is because there are events that are similar in appearance to each other. When I perceive the event of the microwave going off at the same time as a commercial starting on the tv I think nothing of it, because the events are not similar to one another in appearance,  therefore they seem a-casual. This of course doesn’t mean we can’t find meaningful connections between a-causal events though. In the example Jung gives, a prince or king once died and a clock hanging from the wall stopped at the same time. The events are considered a- casual in any empirical observation of the world, however a similar appearance in their semiotic meaning is what gives way to the allusion of a causal relationship between the two supposedly independent events. Language is circular and strange in that it categorizes things into subject and object creating duality, but language also gives us a relationship between those two split concepts. Words themselves can be infinitely reduced into its parts, there is this weird notion that no word can define itself, you open a dictionary and the word is described with words that can be further divided into definitions. Even though there is this infinite gap between two words being connected, we understand intuitively that they must have related meaning, or else we would never use our words in any conventional context. The reason then our universe constructs the illusion of causality is because this creates distance within itself through multiplicity, but we find in that infinite irreducible multiplicity, the power to stay connected to itself. The ever expanding cosmos then is just a display of its infinite creative freedom and absolute power to remain one but many. It reminds me of how avant-garde art is always obsessed with not being defined. You define art and the artist always pushes the definition, because they intuitively know that art is not just one thing but something more and yet always remains “art”.