nonduality

Many Buddhists, as well as those in other contemplative traditions, often speak about nonduality, but what is it? And is it something we can experience living a worldly life?

Nonduality literally means 'not two,' implying oneness, unity. More deeply, it means seeing past conventional wisdom, conventional ways of seeing, speaking, and understanding. It means seeing left as being relative to something else from a certain point of view, but that such a thing as left doesn't ultimately exist. It means being able to see beyond our limited, human perspective, glimpsing the greater whole and totality of life, its oneness where our experience is relative and ephemeral, like globs of foam floating down a river.

Nonduality means being able to take in the present moment, as it is. It means that, in the words of Richard Rohr, "You learn not to divide the field of the moment or eliminate anything that threatens your ego, but to hold everything—both the attractive and the unpleasant—together in one accepting gaze." And that is something I think one can certainly do living a worldly life, although such a life can present challenges to developing (or uncovering) such a way of seeing.

Things arise and cease, but things are also empty, like globs of foam on a river—and nonduality is being able to switch our gaze from one reality or mode of seeing to the other. This idea of two ways of seeing brings to mind the line, "These are the world's designations, the world's expressions, the world's ways of speaking, the world's descriptions, with which the Tathagata expresses himself but without grasping to them" (DN 9).

Language itself is conventional, limited, and incapable of fully describing what we're talking about; it can only point us towards such experiences. Generally speaking, however, we don't tend to see life through the prism of nonduality, but quite easily see and make distinctions, likely due to the evolutionary advantages of such. Nevertheless, we do seem to have the ability to perceive the world from a nondualistic (or one might say, unobstructed) POV, penetrating into this ultimate reality or whatever you want to call it, while still functioning in, and speaking about, regular, conventional, everyday life.

To use another image from SN 22.95, one can see and interact with the mirage of dualistic experience (existence/non-existence, etc.) while apprehending its underlying emptiness.

dhamma

What is the Dhamma? In Buddhism, Dhamma is twofold. It refers to (1) the teachings/symbols pointing towards (2) a profound truth. That truth is an experience/way of perceiving reality that leads to a new mode of being; and that new mode of being is an existential transformation lifting us above the fear and suffering we experience through our ignorance and craving, the reality of things as they are when seen with a calm, clear, and ultimately selfless mind—a mode of being where, in the words of Jean-Pierre de Caussade, we're able to "embrace the present moment as an ever-flowing source of holiness."

Although I began my journey into Buddhism with meditation, I think my journey truly began when I read Food for the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah, which inspired me to read the suttas starting with the Majjhima Nikaya and got me seeing things from a whole different perspective. I was inspired to practice, to change myself for the better.

But somewhere along the way, I fell into a sort of intellectual rabbit hole, and began to accumulate views rather than weed them down. I felt it important to be authentic and orthodox, which caused me to have a very closed-minded and narrow point of view, clinging to the finger rather than seeing where it was pointing. The Dhamma became just another possession; and it's only been through a combination of practice and interfaith dialogues and study that I've finally found myself slowing climbing out of that hole.

I realized things were different when I started to see through the appearances of the words and symbols and began catching glimpses of what they're pointing towards; and I eventually came to the conclusion that there's a universal truth which underlies the foundation of most spiritual traditions in some shape or form. For me, Buddhism opened my eyes to this truth, and contemplative Christianity, I think, is helping me to realize it.

From that perspective, then, I'd say that the first aspect of Dhamma is the study of the symbols pointing towards 'knowledge and vision of things as they are.' The next is the application of the various methods of achieving this gnosis until, eventually, everything becomes reflective of Dhamma, which isn't the same thing as saying everything is Dhamma. You just get better and better at recognizing it hiding in plain sight, at seeing through all the illusory distinctions and perceiving the fullness of the emptiness beyond.

But paradoxically, that emptiness isn't empty, it's full. And it's the fullness of that truth we're all seeking, whether it's the luminous mind defiled by incoming defilements due to ignorance, the light of the sun that's obscured within the cave of ignorance, or the presence of God dwelling within the temple of our bodies. The teachings of the wise (like Jesus, the Buddha, Caussade, Ajahn Chah, etc.) point the way; and all we have to do is pierce the veil of ignorance and discover it for ourselves.