Non-Dual Reality as True Reality

From this point on you really know. This is called the pinnacle of Zen, the sovereignty of Zen. It is also called knowledge of what is knowable; it produces all the various states of meditation, and anoints the heads of all spiritual princes. In all fields of form, sound, fragrance, flavor, feeling, and phenomena, you realize complete perfect enlightenment. Inside and outside are in complete communion, without any obstruction at all.

-Pai-chang, "The Sphere of the Enlightened"

The Chinese Zen master, Pai-chang established the Zen monastic rules for Ch'an. His koans are well-known to Zen students worldwide. However, these koans give more of an insight into non-dual reality, the concept that "all phenomena exist as a species of dependent arising--dependent upon causes and conditions, whole and part, and mental designation."

The Western Cartesian viewpoint is "the core of many of our Western prejudices that impede both our philosophic and scientific understanding", where matter and mind are separate and distinct. Indeed, the error in Cartesian logic is based on the presupposition that a man is detached from the world. The religious background of Rene Descartes is Catholic, and this is steeped in much of the work in which he made his famous statement, a statement that has been misinterpreted to mean that mind and matter are two separate entities.

For in the text of Descartes' Meditation, he did not write "I think therefore I am." What he did indeed write is, "I am--I exist: this is certain; but how often?". The Latin reads: "Ego sum, ego existo; certum est. Quandiu autem?"

From the Christian sense of nondual reality, the faithful see God and Jesus as one. In contrast, the Hindu - and subsequently, the Buddhist - viewpoint focuses on the concept of advaita, nonduality, where all is one, all things and their differences, all of creation, each creature on Earth, the Earth itself, human beings, and the rest of the universe. It's very non-exclusive, all encompassing.

By logical conclusion then God encompasses not just Jesus but all things in the universe. You and me, good people and evil people, saints and sinners, demons and angels, God and Satan, man and woman, "all creatures great and small."

Thus, a careful study of advaita might lead one to panenthism, which is based on the conclusion that if God is the creator of the universe, from atoms all the way to animals, planets, stars and the whole cosmos itself, and the Creator and created are as one, then God is also in all things.

When one sees all of creation as created by God, one develops respect for oneself and the world, for the people living in it, for oneself.

In terms of the Eternal Way, non-dual reality may be expressed in terms of the Dreamer and this Dream we humans call Life or Reality as we like it to be.

For this Dreamer who dreams of me, She dreams of the world, of all other people on it, the animals, the plants, the Earth, the Sun and Moon, the planets, the stars. She also dreams of Herself, for She is the infinite consciousness. The Dreamer is a Sleeping Beauty, for Love is Her reason for Dreaming. Indeed, nondual reality is infinite consciousness.

(originally posted April 24, 2004 at 9:38 PM)