[Buddha-l] Non-dual scholars?

[W. Codling]

Richard Nance wrote:

>That will depend on what you mean by "unambivalence." Could you say more?
>
>Best wishes,
>
>R. Nance
>  
>
Thank you for asking, Richard.  First of all, my primary Buddhist 
influence is Zen and primary interest is the nuts and bolts of living 
and teaching Zen.  So I am not sure if this notion of non-duality is 
emphasized in other Buddhist expressions.  I hear Tibetans talk a little 
bit about non-duality, but Pure Landers don't seem to indulge in that 
sort of talk so much.  So maybe the first thing I need to know is how 
central such a notion is in Buddhism.  Zen, however, is about 
relationship; to characterize a relationship as being unambivalent means 
there is no confusion.  I know it is usually interpreted positively, ie 
being clear or certain, but  I want to use it in a negative sense, 
unambivalence as being non-comparative in the face of discreet 
elements.  To deny that everything resolves into two seems 
counter-intuitive in a Zen context.  In my own so far unsuccessful 
efforts to understand what all those zennies are talking about when they 
speak of 'non-duality', I have often thought that what was being 
described was a non-discriminating or comparative viewpoint, but if so, 
why not say that?  It is common to hear teachers talking about 'entering 
into' non-duality or 'directly experiencing' non-duality or of 
non-duality as an ontological axiom of some sort.  This kind of talk has 
never made sense to me.  So I am looking for a way to talk about the 
profound integrating or centripetal effects of meditation without using 
vocabulary which is palpably inaccurate with regard to the real world.  
I suppose that believing in non-duality would have a clarifying effect 
also, which could also be characterized as unambivalence, but it would 
really entail a form of monism which also runs counter to Zen teaching, 
ie not one, not many.

So, for example,  instead of viewing 'subject and object' as false or 
illusory, I think Zen meditation tends to bring subject and object into 
a sort of equivalence.  It is not wrong, exactly, to label this 
equivalence as non-dual; but it is insufficient in terms of being 
practically useful.  Furthermore, I think that all the talk about 
non-duality is misleading.  I want to find another way to talk about 
this meditative equipoise.

whew,
Wayne


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