Not sure if I belong here

Question

I have been participating for about a year, and I have made it clear that I am not a Buddhist, so I don't contribute Answers requiring knowledge of the scriptures (although I know something about that.) I answer when it appears that a personal perspective is OK. I also ask questions, because I am interested to learn how Buddhists would answer some questions that I have.

In actuality I am interested in Nonduality (as you probably know if my name is familiar) and there is no SE site for that. I tried to start one, but I do not know enough people to generate a snowball of interest. It fizzled completely. (Sad, because there are people and resources all over the web.)

I have been asked to not make non-useful comments, which is fair. I do comment a lot, and often to no purpose. Some of my questions and answers get voted up, some down. But overall, I don't feel that I really belong here. It is simply the only place I know of to work with other people on these ideas at all. Is there a better place for my interest?

Answer 1

No one belongs anywhere :) No, seriously. You think I belong here? But you have no idea what goes on in my mind, and how this site fits into my daily life. Belonging anywhere is totally an illusion, is only an appearance. Real situation is always a lot more complicated, full of inner contradictions etc. Relax. We are all like this.

If you take me for example, I don't identify with (do not belong to) any Buddhist tradition. I have a lot of respect for every tradition, but I also have a lot of issues with one-sided attitudes inherent in almost any tradition. They all define themselves via "and here's where our opponents are wrong - and that's what makes us right". And yet, I keep swimming in the sea of traditions - answering questions as they pertain to Theravada, Mahayana, Zen, Tibetan Buddhism etc. But if you ask me what I really think about Buddhism - it's nothing like what we're talking about here. Imagine what that means for my feeling of "belonging" here or anywhere.

As for your affinity with nonduality, what can I say. If you ignore all that Buddhist mythology and terminology that we spend so much time discussing here, and just focus on the end result (whether in Theravada or Mahayana) - you will see that the final Buddhist answer to people's problems is firmly in the area of experience, not ontology. Ontological speculations in Buddhism are only as valid as skilful means that lead to experiential liberation. Experiential! Herein hides the key to your dilemma. If we take nonduality as an ontological state of things - with all its validity - it may or may not have any liberating effect on an actual human being. And if human being takes nonduality as his/her frame of reference, they may or may not achieve full liberation - depending on whether they have any other mental or emotional hangups unaffected by the realization of nonduality. See what I mean?

If we take nonduality as simply the state of absolute all-inclusive totality, with no reference point, it may be too remote from someone's experience to actually make difference to their personal dukkha. But if we learn to not hold on to any fleeting experience, and to not get caught up in any categorization, and to not make any concept our ground - then and only then we're adopting the true spirit of nonduality - without even making nonduality an object of our mind. "Tao we speak about is not the actual Tao" - remember? Same way, nonduality as our description of the ontological state of things is not the actual attainment of non-attainment of nonduality. Having no attachment is.

You can even see this in your present situation. Insofar as you identify with this concept of nonduality, you keep on fabricating some kind of barrier between "you" and "your perspective" and "Buddhism" and "our perspective". That's a typical case of duality! Now if you actually take nonduality as your modus operandi, and drop your identification with it as a reference point - you will break right out to where you think you are, except you will no longer stand on the concept.

I hope this makes sense. I just want to emphasize the big difference between "Brahmanical" kind of nonduality "I am one with the Universe, what you call God, and Spontaneously exist as self-illuminating Gnosis" -- and the Buddhist kind of nonduality of which we can't even say anything because it's not found in any single state of mind.

If that's where you are, then you totally "belong" in the same place where I belong, which is no where. And then for the sake of being able to communicate with your fellow "nondualists" you may want to study the language of Madhyamaka (if you are a rational type) or the language of Prajnaparamita (if you are an intuitive type). You don't have to be lonely.

But then if you truly feel that you want to be a Brahmanical type of nondualist, then you can go and seek the community of Adyashanti's students. There is nothing wrong with seeking the company of likeminded people.

It's all good either way! Hugs....

Answer 2

I'm sorry to hear that. I want to make it clear that this site is not a Buddhist site and its not only for Buddhists. Its both for Buddhists, Non-Buddhists, people interested in Buddhism and the like.

Just because you are not Buddhist does not mean that you do not belong here. Buddhism is just a conventional word.

I see you have several high-voted questions and you have been here for a year. That is really good and yearlings who participate on the site, are necessary for the site as they fall into the category of established users.

From a practical and insight-meditational point of view, problems occur when we add a "self" to the equation, e.g. its "me" who don't belong here or "I" do not belong here.

I don't know whether or not you meditate or if you do, what kind of technique you practice. I will tell you how my tradition (Mahasi Sayadaw) handles doubts and identifications with a self. When doubt arises we view it objectively and make a mental note of it as "doubting, doubting or "thinking, thinking", while sending the mind out to the object. We treat it as just a mental phenomena. The same goes for identification or the process of taking ownership of phenomena. We note that as a mental phenomena as well. We try to cultivate insights from these hindrances, i.e. the three marks of existence and the 16 stages of insight.

My point is that you can deal with this in different ways. The way I'm proposing is always the practical, insight-meditational way. Let me know if you want to discuss this on the chat or if you like to have more information.

Regarding Non-duality. Have you searched on Reddit.com? I found a bit here. I don't if this is what you are looking for. There is also a Philosophy SE that might be worth checking out.

I hope you will consider your stay here. If you should decide to leave I wish you the best of luck in the future. You will always have this site that you can come back to if interest should arise again.

May you be well and happy.

Answer 3

Hm, I've lost most of my links/connections to other Buddhist, Zen and/or tantric forums, so I can't be really of help with references; the only forums I know are in the usenet (accessible via "newsreader" and mostly some login into the newsgroups-server). For the serious discussion of duality/nonduality (as a duality itself(?) ;-) ) I think also forums with some taoistic flair might be interesting. The only "(neo-) tantric" forum I knew of has close a couple of years ago and its descendent ("Lotus lounge") seems not to be interested in serious conceptual discussions.

I know also, that nonduality is a big issue in the Sufi and even in the Baha'i religion and possibly of interest, however this is of course a different line and I made this sometimes a bit fruitful for me as long as I was engaged in the "interreligious dialogue" and had friends with such denominations. I think there is a Baha'i-forum still operating and my impression was that there was some good and serious spirit also for such questions - sorry I don't have the link at the moment.

Answer 4

For the question of which Stackexchanges discuss nonduality, this search.

Today, it seems Philosophy SE, Buddhism SE, Hinduism SE. I would imagine you'd get Greek tinged nonduality, Buddhist tinged nonduality and Advaita nonduality respectively.

As for the realization of nonduality, I've always been curious about what the consequences are, i.e. for personal life. So things are one & not two, so then what? In the case of a religion, (albeit one with many sects who radically disagree at times), there is an orthodox answer to what the consequences are. I'm prejudiced to think that in modern western philosophy, the consequence of nonduality is either "the current social-political system is fine, carry on" or "we need a revolution of the proletariat, stat!". In the case of Buddhism, the consequences is "we ought to follow the Eightfold path" or in Zen "you don't know what nondualism is, but when you do, you'll know what to do".

Anyhow, my point is that a religion (& to a certain extent secular philosophy departments) have an agenda, if you agree with the agenda, then that is where you'll feel comfortable.