[Buddha-l] David Loy

[Jamie Hubbard]

Joy Vriens wrote:
> I can't answer for Richard, who must be busy correcting student copies 
> or learning Dutch, but I wondered what you meant by making various 
> non-dualities merge into one? 
What I meant, and I haven't looked at the book in a long time and my 
memory dims, was simply that in the end all the forms of non-duality 
that he dealt with ended up being the same thing--advaita, Mahayana, and 
Taoism, if dim memory serves me. I just don't see how all of these 
different philosophies can be one and the same-- that's all that I 
meant. Buddhism might be more fun if it is Taoism, but that is another 
subject. Of course, perhaps the point of non-duality is that all things 
are one (ah, the slippery difference 'tween non-duality and monism) and 
why I find most forms of non-duality not simply philosophically 
incoherent but rather boring to boot. I mean, even Vimalakirti had to 
shut up in the end and I prefer the conversation. So I like it earlier 
in the text when the goddess chides Sariputra for being silent and 
reminds him that words have the same value of emancipation as all else.

> When we talk about non-duality, and even when we talk about "all one", 
> we talk about a corrective to a view (reifying individuality) that 
> causes dukkha? Like when we talk about anatta, emptiness and the 
> equality of all dharmas in their essence, those teachings are surely 
> meant to be corrective and not descriptive. Would you also fear that 
> all anattas and emptinesses could be merged into one and what effect 
> would you imagine that to have? 
Yes, I would-- I believe that this is an argument in Indian and Tibetan 
Buddhist philosophy (is the emptiness of this dharma the same as the 
emptiness of that dharma), but I have always preferred to talk about 
"emptinesses" precisely in order to avoid the notion that there is one 
big "emptiness" thing out there swooshing around the universe. When we 
speak of emptinesses we remind ourselves that emptiness (or anatta) only 
has meaning in the context of something that is empty of --lacking-- 
something else. The emphasis tends to remain on the phenomena rather 
than what is missing. Why bother with something that doesn't exist? Much 
better, methinks, to be concerned about the things that do exist, that 
is, inter-dependent phenomena, most of which need help. Non-duality, 
emptiness--watch out for the shell game, it is beguiling!
> The Buddha himself has played with the idea of "oneness" but in a 
> similar metaphoric way as non-duality theories play with it. At least 
> that is how I and I hope David Loy and of course those theories 
> themselves :-) interpret them.
I don't think that non-duality is a metaphor, I think that it is an 
idea-- a view, if you will, and a pernicious one at that. The kind of 
idea/philosophy that you can write entire books about, it seems.

> "Just as in the great ocean there is but one taste — the taste of salt — so in this Doctrine and Discipline there is but one taste — the taste of freedom"
>
> Freedom is an experience, not a thing. Non-duality, or even oneness or the one, is also an experience, not a thing. I would even say there is a big chance that the Buddha's freedom, non-duality and all the oneness theories (merged into one if one likes) are referrring to a similar experience. The experience of no boundaries, or no conditioned things if you prefer. Of course conditioned things is a pleonasm. All is unsatisfactory, the Buddha says and "What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All." (Sabba sutta). 
I don't know what this has to do with non-duality (and ditto with your 
quote below from Ajahn Chah); in fact, I believe that it was my old 
buddy Bruce Burrill who pointed out that this was likely a direct 
response to a different sort of All, that is, the monistic One of the 
Upanishads, later elaborated into the unity of Sankara's advaita, which, 
if my characterization of David's thesis is correct, is the same as 
Mahayana and Taoism (yikes!!!):

 From the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad:

== 10. Verily, in the beginning this world was Brahma. It knew only itself
(atmanam): "I am Brahma!" Therefore it became the All. Whoever of the gods
became awakened to this, he indeed became it; likewise in the case of seers
(rsi), likewise in the case of men. Seeing this, indeed, the
seer Vamadeva began:-

I was Manu and the sun (surya)!

This is so now also. Whoever thus knows "I am Brahma!" becomes this All;
even the gods have not power to prevent his becoming thus, for he becomes
their self (atman).

So whoever worships another divinity [than his Self], thinking "He is one
and I another," he knows not. He is like a sacrificial animal for the
gods. Verily, indeed, as many animals would be of service to a man, even
so each single person is of service to the gods. If even one animal
is taken away, it is not pleasant. What, then, if many? Therefore it is
not pleasing to those [gods] that men should know this.
11. Verily, in the beginning this world was Brahma, one only. ==

> Yet there is also a mode that is unconditioned (Udana VIII.3), i.e. without *those* boundaries.. 
Ah, yes, Udana VIII.3. . . such confusion this little piece has created. 
If the Buddha really did utter this, his editors should have left it out 
of later compilations out of respect for the poor folks who latch onto 
it, believing that it promises just what the Buddha denies. Others have 
parsed this better than I, so I will just pass it by assuming that it is 
a later interpolation rather than try to make it consonant w/ anatta-- 
life is too short.

But enough-- I have to get to work!

Cheers, Jamie

> "One who has reached the end has no criterion by which anyone would say that for him it doesn't exist. When all phenomena are done away with, all means of speaking are done away with as well."(Upasiva-manava-puccha).
>
> I will end with a quote of Ajahn Chah and would like to ask you in what way what Ajahn Chah describes with words would differ from the experience of no boundaries, or even of being one with everything in yet other words?
>
> "A devout elderly lady from a nearby province came on a pilgrimage to Wat Pah Pong. She told Ajahn Chah she could stay only a short time, as she had to return to take care of her grandchildren, and since she was an old lady, she asked if he could please give her a brief Dhamma talk. Ajahn Chah replied with great force, "Hay, listen! There’s no one here, just this! No owner, no one to be old, to be young, to be good or bad, weak or strong. Just this, that’s all - just various elements of nature going their own way, all empty. No one born and no one to die! Those who speak of birth and death are speaking the language of ignorant children. In the language of the heart, of Dhamma, there are no such things as birth and death."  
> http://www.dharmaweb.org/index.php/No_Ajahn_Chah:_Reflections 
>
> When Ajahn Chah says "just this", where would the boundaries delimiting this "this" be?
>
> Joy
>
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