non-dualism
Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 12:29 pm
Hi, I've been very interested in non-dualism of late, and after reading up on it and thinking about it, I've come to one or two conclusions which I'd like to offer up for opinion and discussion.
My thinking goes along these lines: Our thoughts, feelings, emotions, ideas, language, labels and indeed anything relating to the world that originates in the mind are not really the world itself, but rather artificial representations of it. In order to experience the world (reality) directly, we have to abandon all our conceptualisations and learn to just 'be'. When we do this, we begin to realise that the way we seperate one thing from another is our mental conceptualising & labelling and that in truth, nothing is really seperate from anything else. In fact, when you dig deep, you can see that everything is made from subatomic particles including ourselves and that because of this, we are not seperate from the world either, but are intrinsic to it. So, because of this, when I do something, such as bow to a statue of Buddha, I realise that rather than bowing to Buddha, I am bowing to the sum total of reality, and by extension, myself and indeed all of you. It is the world bowing to itelf. This being so, any action taken in this world can be likened to sand moving amongst sand. You could argue that nothing really happens at all, because the sand looks just the same as it did prior to the movement. But then there is the question of what constitutes the motive force that drives the movement of sand within sand? (What causes my body to perform a bow, make a cup of tea, or do anything)? And then I realise that this is simply the interplay of energy and matter in a cause and effect relationship, where the driving energy behind it all all originates from the big bang, so that every movement that takes place is simply the universe cooling down (entropy) with localised pockets of order.
Now, I know this is quite a rapid train of thought jumping from conclusion to conclusion, but what do you think? Am I completely off the mark?
My thinking goes along these lines: Our thoughts, feelings, emotions, ideas, language, labels and indeed anything relating to the world that originates in the mind are not really the world itself, but rather artificial representations of it. In order to experience the world (reality) directly, we have to abandon all our conceptualisations and learn to just 'be'. When we do this, we begin to realise that the way we seperate one thing from another is our mental conceptualising & labelling and that in truth, nothing is really seperate from anything else. In fact, when you dig deep, you can see that everything is made from subatomic particles including ourselves and that because of this, we are not seperate from the world either, but are intrinsic to it. So, because of this, when I do something, such as bow to a statue of Buddha, I realise that rather than bowing to Buddha, I am bowing to the sum total of reality, and by extension, myself and indeed all of you. It is the world bowing to itelf. This being so, any action taken in this world can be likened to sand moving amongst sand. You could argue that nothing really happens at all, because the sand looks just the same as it did prior to the movement. But then there is the question of what constitutes the motive force that drives the movement of sand within sand? (What causes my body to perform a bow, make a cup of tea, or do anything)? And then I realise that this is simply the interplay of energy and matter in a cause and effect relationship, where the driving energy behind it all all originates from the big bang, so that every movement that takes place is simply the universe cooling down (entropy) with localised pockets of order.
Now, I know this is quite a rapid train of thought jumping from conclusion to conclusion, but what do you think? Am I completely off the mark?