In support of the claim that Advaita Vedānta and Mahāyāna Buddhism are describing the same nondual experience, chapter 6 argued at some length that their mirror-image categories are phenomenologically equivalent. Because our linguistic categories and ordinary ways of thinking are inherently dualistic, it is natural to try to describe nondual experience by eliminating either the subject or the object. So we have seen how Vedānta makes absolute the unchanging Self-substance, Buddhism the impermanent world that is experienced — yet, I suggest, the experience they attempt to describe is the same.
But such a comparison needs to be supplemented. Advaita Vedānta and Mahāyāna Buddhism are by no means the only Asian philosophies that purport to explain the enlightenment experience. The Indian tradition, in particular, encompasses a very wide variety of systems — nondualistic, dualistic, pluralistic, idealistic, phenomenalistic, materialistic, and so on — which with very few exceptions accept the possibility of personal liberation and attempt to explain that experience within their own categories. Some reference has been made to Sāṅkhya and Yoga, but the argument will be strengthened if analysis of the nondual experience can be expanded in a way that will allow us to account for “non-nondualistic” systems as well. This chapter attempts to do that analogically. I invent a “nondual experience” subject to a wide variety of ontological interpretations; then we notice that these divergent and inconsistent interpretations correspond to the different category-systems of the major Indian metaphysical systems.
Let us begin by returning briefly to one of the topics discussed in chapter 6: the nature of time, more specifically the question whether change is real or not. The well-known simile of water and waves may be used to show how the same experience can be subject to different and inconsistent interpretations. Which is real, the water or the waves? Water here represents the empty (nirguṇa) Absolute, and waves are its phenomenal manifestation “in” time and space. In these terms, the prajñāpāramitā claim that “form is no other than emptiness” means that the waves never lose their intrinsic nature as water, since they have no self-nature of their own, being simply a form or manifestation of the water. Yet it is also true that “emptiness is no other than form”: to emphasize only the immutability of water is to miss the fact that water never exists in an undifferentiated state but appears only as waves, currents, clouds, and so on. So what really exists? Many answers are possible; the important point is that the difference between these answers is not a disagreement about what is perceived but about how one chooses to interpret it. One might say that there is only one thing, the water, and that waves do not really exist, since they are just the forms that water takes. Conversely, one might claim that there are only waves, since there is no such thing as undifferentiated, formless water. The answer one gives also determines whether or not there is permanence. If there is only the water, and the waves are dismissed as mere forms, then there is no change; water remains the same despite any oscillations that may occur. But if there are only waves and if the immutability of water is rejected as a thought-construction, then there is only change and no permanence.
Of course, this analogy has its limitations. We can identify water because we can differentiate it from other things (earth, air), whereas the śūnyatā of Buddhism and the Nirguṇa Brahman of Vedānta cannot be characterized in any way. The simile would work better if water were so all-pervasive that we were completely in it and of it, and thus unable to distinguish it as an it. And this suggests another analogy — which may or may not be something more than an analogy.
Comparing the Absolute to empty space is a metaphor that naturally suggests itself when we want to describe “something” which in itself has no characteristics. In Buddhism, space has been used as a simile for the Yogācāra pariniṣpanna, the dharmadhātu, and the Pure Land; both the Chāndogya Upaniṣad and the Brahmasūtra declare that space (ākāśa) is Brahman, and Śaṅkara agrees, with the important clarification that it is not “material space” that is being referred to.372 An important paper by the Japanese Zen scholar Hisamatsu lists the spacelike characteristics of “Oriental Nothingness”: like empty space itself, it is all-pervasive, unobstructed and unobstructing, pure, formless, unattainable, stable, empty, unattached, impartial, voiding voidness (beyond the distinction between void and nonvoid) and without any distinction between inner and outer.373 Thus space seems to be an excellent analogy for “empty nonduality.” The analogy breaks down — that is, we are reminded it is only an analogy — in that our usual understanding of space conceives of it as an objectively existing medium that things are “in” and as having neither life nor awareness, whereas śūnyatā for Mahāyāna, Brahman for Vedānta and the Tao for Taoism are the ground of everything including all consciousness. Of course, this is nothing other than the two sides of our familiar duality, the commonsense but problematical bifurcation between object (in this case, “material” space) and subject.
But let us use our imagination to eliminate this duality, by supposing that space is conscious. Let us suppose that as a result of some experience I realize that “my” consciousness is not mine at all but is an aspect of space itself. This follows a Vedāntic analogy which compares liberation to realizing that the space inside a sealed pot is not and never has been separate from the infinite space around it.374 However, in one sense this empty Mind-space (as I rather inelegantly refer to it) is not completely void: there are various things in the Mind-space, which makes the term “in” problematical. This infinite Mind-space encompasses all things, so rather than speaking of things as being “in” space, it seems more appropriate to say that they are space — that is, they are what Mind-space is “doing” at that particular time in that particular place. As Śaṅkara would say, consciousness is now not “of” something but “as” something; all phenomena are therefore the various ways this empty Mind-space manifests itself. Chapters 2–4 may be understood as explicating what this “consciousness-as” means in the cases of perceiving, acting, and thinking. Although in itself this Mind-space has no attributes (Hisamatsu’s list of characteristics is really a series of neti, neti: “it is not limited, it is not obstructed, it is not defiled, it is not attainable . . .”), a multitude of phenomena arise within it and of it in this fashion. Yet, paradoxically, the Mind-space remains unchanging and unchanged by these phenomena, for their appearing and disappearing do not disturb the peaceful Mind-ground “from” which they arise. These phenomena, of course, are not objects in the usual sense: they have no “self-nature,” for they are not material and do not persist in themselves but are better described as processes in constant transformation.
Last but not least, this experience of Mind-space seems to reveal “The Way Things Really Are.” But if “I,” having had this experience, were to be asked what I had realized, how would I answer? The point of this chapter is that this “Mind-space experience” lends itself to very different and contradictory ontological descriptions. In the following section I imagine some of the responses that might occur during a conversation among people who have had this experience and who have drawn metaphysical conclusions from it.
Speaker A: “There are two very different substances, both of which are uncaused and eternal and omnipresent, although they do not seem to interfere with each other or even interact. One is immutable and attributeless consciousness (Mind-space), which, I now realize, is what my mind has always been. The other is more difficult to characterize. I suppose we can call it an ‘energy-stuff,’ or perhaps a fine ‘matter-stuff,’ except for the fact that it is dynamic, constantly transforming, taking different forms which do not actually change its nature since these are just the forms that it temporarily assumes. The difference between these two substances is now clear to me. The problem before was these two were confused because ‘my’ consciousness tended to fixate on various forms of the energy-stuff and so was not aware of its own true attributeless nature. But now I realize that immutable consciousness and the constantly changing energy-stuff are quite different from each other and always have been.”
This is largely the view of Sāṅkhya and Yoga, whose dualistic metaphysics distinguishes puruṣa (pure consciousness) from prakṛti (all phenomena, which means anything that can be experienced). However, this characterization of the Sāṅkhya position is not quite satisfactory, for two reasons. First, the analogy had to be constructed in such a way as to falsify the Sāṅkhya claim that prakṛti is an independent substance. In order to allow for Sāṅkhya dualism, the relationship between Mind-space and phenomena would need to be left undetermined and ambiguous, but in practice it is impossible for any description to avoid a bias toward either the dependence or the independence of these two; here too, all description is also interpretation. So a nondual prejudice has been built into the analogy: phenomena and Mind-space do not simply coexist, but phenomena are a manifestation of Mind-space. This is to presuppose that the dualism of the Sāṅkhya-Yoga interpretation is erroneous, but that does pinpoint the problem with this system, which in chapter 5 was shown to be the insurmountable contradiction of how to relate two completely independent substances.
The second problem with my characterization is that it assumes there is only one Mind-space, whereas Sāṅkhya-Yoga postulates an apparently infinite number of omnipresent yet discrete puruṣas. Again, this is an inevitable deficiency of the analogy, which must commit itself to viewing separate minds as merely different aspects or facets of an all-encompassing Mind. But, here again, this is a place where the Sāṅkhya-Yoga interpretation runs into difficulties, for how can all these omnipresent puruṣas occupy the same space (as it were) and have no distinguishing characteristics (for the “attributelessness” of each is exactly the same as every other), yet be characterized as distinct and different? The main argument for a plurality of puruṣas is that if it were otherwise, when one person became enlightened all would have to become enlightened. But there are other ways around that difficulty — such as the nondualist notion that we are all intrinsically already enlightened.
Despite these problems, I have included the Sāṅkhya-Yoga view because it too is a possible interpretation of the experience given in the analogy: the duality-in-nonduality of phenomena “in” Mind-space. Its response is to distinguish both as independent substances, which is a plausible reaction, however unsatisfactory it finally proves to be.
Speaker B: “Speaker A is mistaken. Only one thing is real: this immutable, attributeless Mind-space, which is what I and everything else really are. The constantly changing forms that arise within and from this Mind-space are simply illusions which delude us about what really is; they have no substance or reality of their own, for they are only phenomena that represent nothing but merely manifest the Mind-space. Before, ‘I’ was clinging to these forms and reified them into things that seemed to exist objectively — something speaker A still seems to be doing — but now I realize that is an error. There is only this Mind-space, which is birthless and deathless and has no characteristics of its own.”
This is obviously the view of Advaita Vedānta. Unlike the previous speaker, it emphasizes the dependence of phenomenal forms upon the Mind-space (Brahman), to the extent that it denies phenomena any reality at all. But from one perspective the similarity between these views is greater than their difference, for they both reveal a strong bias toward Mind-space and against the phenomenal. Vedānta shows this by devaluing phenomena into mere appearances, but Sāṅkhya may be said to go even further: although prakṛti is granted the status of an independent substance, there is an insurmountable gap between it and puruṣa, which is what “I” really am. Both views reflect a general Indian prejudice against phenomena, which will be discussed later in this chapter.
Speaker C: “What the others have called ‘Mind-space’ cannot really be said to exist, because it has no characteristics at all. It is so ‘empty’ that it is literally nothing, and how can nothing be ‘real’? What ‘I’ have realized is that there is no ‘I’ and never was. All that does exist are those constantly transforming phenomena — or rather the ‘attribute-elements’ of which things are composed and which are now experienced clearly. I agree with the others that there are no self-existing physical objects, for these attributes do not depend upon or represent any material substance; but these constantly changing attributes are themselves real. It is quite right to say that a cluster of red patches does not really represent a red flower, but those patches do exist — how could that be denied? ‘I’ am not aware of the red patch, for there is no ‘I’ to be aware of it, but the patches themselves do appear and disappear and seem to interact with each other. However, it doesn’t matter anymore what attributes arise or pass away, now that the sense of ‘I’ has evaporated and there is the deep peace of emptiness in its place.”
This turns the previous view upside down: early Buddhism denies reality to the Mind-space but grants it to phenomena — not to objects, of course, but to the dharmas that compose them. In terms of the analogy, such a denial of the Mind-space may seem perverse, but this is also due to the fact that the description given at the beginning is an interpretation, although one that may be more easily corrected in this case. In chapter 6, I argued that a consciousness which pervades everywhere and encompasses everything might just as well be characterized as an emptiness; if there were only one thing, with nothing outside it, then there would not be even one thing, but nothing. The difference in description is due to whether it is more phenomenological (“nothing”) or from the fictional “outside” (“One”), but — what is important for our analogy — there need be no difference in the experience itself.
In contrast to the first two views discussed, this third one is not so prejudiced against phenomena — although nirvana is still characterized as a peaceful, unchanging condition detached from the incessant interaction of the composite dharmas. There is an important similarity between this view and that of Sāṅkhya-Yoga (discussed by speaker A). Prakṛti too is composite, a plurality of three guṇas that interact to compose the tanmātras which then interact to compose the mahābhūtas which also interact to compose “material objects” and mental phenomena. Both views agree that objects as we normally understand them are mental constructions (according to Sāṅkhya, under the catalytic influence of puruṣa) from a plurality of distinct “bits” of experience. The path of liberation in Yoga seems to involve reversing this evolutionary process in order to experience the tanmātras and eventually the guṇas as distinct from each other and, finally, as distinct from the puruṣa. Similarly, the vipassanā meditations of early Buddhism teach one to distinguish the various skandhas and not to identify with any of them. It is significant that Advaita Vedānta accepts the guṇa theory of Sāṅkhya and Mahāyāna accepts the dharma theory of early Buddhism, but in both cases these elements are relegated to a subordinate position and denied any reality of their own: for Vedānta the guṇas are ultimately māyā, and for Mahāyāna the dharmas are śūnya.
Speaker D: “I agree with speaker C that speakers A and B, by referring to Mind-space, have made something out of nothing — that is, they have hypostatized emptiness into a substance. Yet I must also agree with speaker B that phenomena are not real, for they too are empty. Speaker B says they have no self-nature because they are only appearances of Mind-space, but I say they have no self-nature of their own because they are mere appearances that refer to nothing. The various attribute-elements arise from nowhere, interact with each other, and disappear — how can such interdependent and momentary phenomena be said to be real? Except for speaker A, we all agree that these appearances do not represent any material substratum, but speaker C still tries to make these attributes into little substances of their own. Emptiness is their source and ground; but to say that emptiness is their ground means that they have no ground. Because everything is groundless, nothing can be said to exist or be real.
“However, merely to say that everything is empty would be one-sided. There is not the voidness of a completely empty space, for myriad phenomena do arise. To denigrate and dismiss these phenomena as illusion only is ‘clinging to emptiness’ (or ‘clinging to Mind-space’). Perhaps this is a reaction to the earlier and opposite problem of attachment to form, but one should cling to nothing. Phenomena are illusory only if we are deluded into taking them as self-existing; now that we have realized they are empty appearances, we should accept them for what they are and be able to play with them freely. The dance may have no meaning, but there is still the empty dance.”
The Mahāyāna standpoint is distinguished into two viewpoints. Speaker D may be said to reflect the “relative” (saṁvṛti) truth, and speaker F presents (insofar as it can be presented conceptually) the “absolute” or “highest” (paramārthika) standpoint. Speaker D agrees with early Buddhism that the Mind-space cannot be called real and agrees with Vedānta that phenomena (dharmas) cannot be said to exist either, since they are interdependent and thus relative. However, because the dualistic category of nonexistence is dependent upon the category of existence (and hence perishes with it) and because the interdependence of phenomena means that they have causal effects, phenomena should not be said not to exist either.
In Mahāyāna we generally see more of a balance in perspective between empty Mind-space and phenomena, for neither is negated in favor of the other. The Prajñāpāramitā says that form is not only emptiness, for emptiness is also form. However, to say that emptiness manifests as form is not quite right; as the Heart Sutra continues, form is not other than emptiness, and emptiness is not other than form — that is, one must be careful not to reify emptiness into something that phenomena arise from, as Śaṅkara and our Mind-space analogy do. A more accurate phenomenological description is that empty phenomena appear and disappear. That brings us to the familiar Mahāyāna equation between saṁsāra and nirvana: nirvana is not something other than saṁsāra; it simply involves realizing the emptiness of the samsaric field. This implies a different attitude towards change, as we saw in chapter 6. The Vedāntic Brahman transcends time, the early Buddhist dharmas are impermanent, but the Mahāyāna view is more paradoxical: changing yet unchanging, since “things” change although their nature as empty does not. It is a more dynamic conception than that of Vedānta, which is prejudiced against phenomena, and conceives of the Absolute as static. Because “emptiness is not other than form,” Mahāyāna tends to understand the Dharmakāya as more active and creative. In the history of Zen Buddhism for example, certain masters — such as Te-shan Hsüan-chien (A.D. 782–865) — have been criticized for being “too empty” — that is, emphasizing the emptiness of form too much, and not realizing sufficiently the form of emptiness. Śaṅkara would not have considered this an error, but the Five Degrees of Tōzan (Tung-shan Liang-chieh, A.D. 807–69) and the Ten Oxherding Pictures of Kakuan Shien (Kuo-an Shih-yuan, 12th c.) — which codify the various stages of Zen enlightenment — both depict such enlightenment as incomplete. The deep satori of the eighth oxherding picture — rendered as a simple circle representing empty unity — is followed by “Returning to the Source,” which depicts a flowering branch representing particularity. Emptiness at this stage is found in the phenomena of the everyday world. According to Kakuan’s commentary, one “observes the waxing and waning of life in the world while abiding unassertively in a state of unshakable serenity. This [waxing and waning] is not a phantom or illusion [but a manifestation of the Source].”375 In the Five Degrees, Tōzan represents the stage of empty unity by the third degree, sho-chu-rai (Ch., cheng chung lai), “the One alone” or “enlightenment emerging from universality”; the fourth degree, hen-shu-chi (p’ien chung chih), is “the Many alone” or “enlightenment arriving from particularity.”376 (In the fifth and highest degree, form and emptiness, the many and the One, interpenetrate so completely that there is awareness of neither.) The syncretic systems of T’ien-T’ai and Hua Yen make the same distinction.
This contrast between Brahman and śūnyatā also applies to both Hindu and Buddhist tantra:
Both the Hindu and the Buddhist Tantras have another fundamental feature common to them [the first feature was emphasis on the human body as the means of liberation] — a theological principle of duality in nonduality. Both the schools hold that the ultimate nondual reality possesses two aspects in its fundamental nature — the negative (nivṛtti) and the positive (pravṛtti), the static and the dynamic — and these two aspects of the reality are represented in Hinduism by Śiva and Śakti and in Buddhism by Prajñā and Upāya (or śūnyatā and karuṇā). . . . The ultimate goal of both the schools is the perfect state of union — union between the two aspects of the reality and the realization of the nondual nature of the self and the not-self. (S. B. Dasgupta)377
Speaker E: “I agree with speaker D, but he does not go far enough. He too is still one-sided. We have realized that the world is nondual, but we should not be so infatuated with this new way of experiencing that we become prejudiced against the more usual dualistic mode. That too would be an overreaction against duality — and in another sense still dualistic. I grant that nonduality is revelatory of the truth in a way that duality is not, but this does not imply that we should ‘cling to nonduality.’ Subject–object duality and the plurality of phenomena are also aspects of the world, and we should not dualistically reject one mode in favor of the other. Let us accept that there are these two ways of experiencing, without prejudice against either. Our aim should be to understand fully the relation between these two modes in order to be able to experience both.”
A view such as this is consistent with my explication of the first chapter of the Tao Tê Ching (in the second section of chapter 3). Lines 1, 3, 5, and 7 of that first chapter were seen to describe the nameless Tao, the source of heaven and earth, which is the world apprehended nondualistically when there are no intentions and therefore no self; in contrast, lines 2, 4, 6, and 8 refer to the dualistic everyday world experienced as a collection of interacting objects, due to the superimpositions of language and intention. The spiritual path leads us from the delusions of the latter to an appreciation of the former, but dualistic experience is not thereby rejected:
Therefore when you give up intentions you will see the wonder [of Tao]
When you have intentions you will see the forms.
The experience of nonduality, with its apparent revelation of “The Way Things Really Are,” should not lead to the opposite extreme of completely rejecting duality. From this point of view, we end up with two modes of experience, neither of which should be permanently negated for the sake of the other. In Zen Buddhism, for example, there is a return to the world of “delusion,” if only to fulfill one’s Bodhisattva Vow to save all beings, for in the nondual experience itself there are no sentient beings to be saved and nothing at all that needs to be done.
This implies an ultimate acceptance of the phenomenal world of plurality that did not occur in India, even though one might expect this as a further development of the Mahāyāna or tantric viewpoint. That is why Mahāyāna took root in China whereas Vedānta and early Buddhism could not, and it is part of a more general contrast between India and China that has had deep philosophical implications. The Indian preference for abstract, negative universals and transtemporal otherworldliness is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Chinese (and Japanese) pragmatism, which favors particular phenomena and the pattern of their transformation.378 For example, the Chinese love of nature and their desire to unite with it (as expressed in poetry and painting) must be contrasted with Indian alienation from nature, which, given Indian geography and climate, was perhaps inevitable. Consider too the contrast between the Indian ideal of ascetic renunciation and the ragged, jovial, chubby, barefoot, and perhaps inebriated Han-shan, for whom “ordinary mind is the Tao”; the tenth and final oxherding picture depicts such a Bodhisattva “Entering the Market Place with Helping Hands.” In terms of our analogy, the difference is between a general Hindu bias toward the empty Mind-space and a general Chinese bias for nondual phenomena, with Mahāyāna Buddhism somewhere between these two, which may be why it was the main bridge between these two cultures.
Speaker F: “I disagree with all the previous speakers, for this experience does not enable us to draw any ontological conclusions. Instead, this experience demonstrates what is misguided about all such ontological questions, by revealing that ‘place’ where all such questions and concepts have disappeared — where there are no solutions because there are no problems. From this experience we should not deduce that anything exists or not, is real or not. We cannot characterize our experience in any way, not even as nondual, for to label the experience is to represent it, whereas the experience is what occurs when we are not re-presenting. Yet re-presenting is what philosophy always does and cannot help doing. If what is important is to have this experience, we should rather be concerned to demonstrate the inadequacy of philosophy, both as a description of this experience and as a method for attaining it.”
This represents what might be called the “highest” (paramārthika) standpoint of Mahāyāna, that one should not make ontological or any other philosophical inferences from the experience. In particular, it expresses the approach of Nāgārjuna, who confined himself to refuting all possible philosophical accounts of reality. This reflects the “perspective” of the experience itself, which denies the adequacy of any intellectual perspective on “it.” All philosophical views are attempts to grasp the nature of this nondual experience from the conceptual and hence dualistic standpoint, therefore by definition all such perspectives must be unsatisfactory. In answer to the question about what is real, the “highest” response is to remain silent, like the Buddha. This does not evade the question but rather manifests the answer in a different dimension.
Speaker G: “All the previous speakers, including even speaker F, have assumed something that may be challenged: that this experience reveals ‘The Way Things Really Are.’ But we may accept the importance of the experience without taking it as revelatory in that sense. What I, at least, experienced was a miracle: God manifested Himself to me and then we merged together into what Eckhart has described as the blissful voidness of the Godhead. But this was only a temporary irruption of God into the natural order, His material creation. Later — how can I say when? — He withdrew to end the experience, leaving the physical world to operate as usual according to the scientific laws that He has established to order it. To presuppose that this brief union of my soul with Him reveals something about the nature of this world overlooks another possibility: that it was the experience of something ‘Other’ which completely transcends the world.”
This last speaker is included to suggest that the Mind-space experience might even account for the theistic mystical experience — particularly in its “complete” form of union with God. This issue is discussed more fully at the end of the next chapter, where an attempt is made to account for the curious parallel between the Saguṇa and Nirguṇa Brahmans of Śaṅkara and the Deus and Deitas of Eckhart: there I suggest that Saguṇa Brahman and Eckhart’s Deus both refer to the awareness of a consciousness pervading everywhere and encompassing everything (such as the Mind-space), while Nirguṇa Brahman / Deitas is the deeper experience of merging with that consciousness and realizing that it is “my” consciousness, whereupon even the last trace of duality disappears. However, other theists might disagree with Eckhart that the nondual experience is at all revelatory of “The True Nature of Things.” Instead, they could see it as a miraculous event in which God temporarily interferes with the natural order in order to manifest Himself through it. This reminds us of the importance of cultural conditioning upon our expectations. If one had been raised in a culture which interpreted the nondual experience in this way, one would probably expect a temporary, blissful union without any such philosophical implications and might well draw no ontological conclusions afterward, except to confirm one’s belief in a God who is yet understood to exist (normally) apart from the phenomenal world, His creation. The presupposition of one’s own essential sinfulness — for example, “original sin” as opposed to God, who is infinitely perfect, might keep one from making any inferences about one’s true nature as nondual. We should not confuse this position with the paramārthika viewpoint of Mahāyāna. For Mahāyāna, the experience indeed reveals the true nature of reality, but this is such that language cannot express it; no philosophical categories can truly grasp it. We must also be careful not to assume from this alone that the theist is wrong or misses something that the nondualist does not, for both interpretations are culturally conditioned: the nondualist too is conditioned to expect an ontologically revelatory experience — although the rest of this work can be seen as an attempt to support the nondualist’s conclusions by developing and systematizing his claims.
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This possible theistic response is our final reaction to the Mind-space experience. Other intelligent responses may be possible, but there is reason to believe that the reactions considered so far include all the philosophically important ones. This may be seen by tabulating these various responses according to their ontological views about the status of the Mind-space and of phenomena, respectively:
Arranged in this way, the “logic” of the responses is quite striking. The first four reactions cover the four “primary” possibilities which involve an unequivocal yes or no answer. The Mahāyāna “highest” view negates the ontological question by refusing to respond to it at all. What has been termed the Taoist view (E) urges that we not “cling” to the Mind-space experience to the exclusion of our more usual dualistic experience. A final possibility is to deny that the experience reveals the true nature of things.
Examined in this light, we are able to notice three important things. First, responses A through F exhaust all the major possibilities. It is difficult to conceive of any other responses that could not be classified into one of these main categories. Second, it can hardly be a coincidence that there is such a perfect correspondence between all these various possible ontological decisions and the categories of all the major metaphysical systems. This seems to imply the third and most important point, that all these metaphysical conclusions may indeed be different interpretations of the same nondual experience. This elaborates on the comparison between Buddhism and Vedānta in the previous chapter and further defends our “core doctrine” of nonduality from the criticism that a difference in ontology must reflect a difference in experience. It also raises a question. If the Mind-space analogy works so well to account for all these varied philosophical reactions, is it more than an analogy? At the end of chapter 2, it was noted that we can “think” nonduality only in one of two inconsistent and unsatisfactory ways: either we conceive of consciousness as pan-psychically residing “in” material objects, or we idealistically reduce the object to an image “in” the mind. The Mind-space analogy is an instance of the former, and the same qualifications apply. We must not overvalue the analogy, which cannot give us any true taste of the nondual experience; yet, just as obviously, there must be something to it.
One could take issue with the conclusions of the above paragraph by arguing that any ontological claims made on the basis of such an experience are obviously questionable. If the nondual experience is subject to such a diversity of possible interpretations, how can it be said to “enlighten” us regarding “The Way Things Really Are”? The consequence is rather that the experience is thereby devalued. However, we can turn this criticism upside down and maintain that the consequence is to devalue not the nondual experience itself, but the ontological question and metaphysics generally. This experience may be valid as revelatory, but the revelation is one that cannot be successfully represented because it introduces us into an altogether different dimension, ungraspable by language. This of course is consistent with the “highest” view of the various nondual philosophers themselves, who generally acknowledge that what is most important is not the philosophical conclusions derived from the experience but the experience itself.
But such a sweeping condemnation of philosophy would be an ungenerous conclusion. In Sense and Sensibilia J. L. Austin pointed out that real is one of those words whose negative use “wears the trousers”; a definite sense attaches to an assertion that something is real only in relation to a specific way it might not be real. Nietzsche has shown how ethical motivations often stand disguised behind metaphysical conclusions. We may apply these remarks here by asking: What have all these systems wanted to label as “unreal,” and what ethical motives are latent in their attempt? In this way we may recover an appreciation for what they have tried to do. In our preoccupation with the differences among these systems, we should not overlook their even more basic agreement. We can realize the main concern of all these philosophical systems has been to devalue the same thing. Even those systems that, in our tabulation, accept the reality of phenomena (i.e., Sāṅkhya-Yoga, early Buddhism) do not uncritically accept the commonsense reality of the pluralistic world. The point is that, on the basis of what I argue is a nondual experience, all of these systems challenge the reality of the objective world that we naively discover ourselves to be “in” and otherwise take for granted: a collection of material objects (including me), each supposedly discrete yet interacting causally in space and time. However inadequate their own ontological categories may finally prove to be, that should not keep us from valuing their critique of those “commonsense” dualities which not only delude us but keep us from even becoming aware that we are deluded.
In our discussions of the metaphysical differences between India and China, we saw that the positive ontological claims of the various systems can be placed on a spectrum that ranges from exclusive preference for the empty Mind-space, on the one extreme, and preference for nondual phenomena, on the other. Applying Nietzsche’s dictum, we can conclude that some nondualist systems are more world-negating and others are more world-affirming. If we want to evaluate this difference, we should not forget a final point: each of these Asian systems has not only based its categories upon the liberation experience, but also traditionally included some kind of meditative praxis aimed at recreating that experience. This means that any negative effect from clinging to ontological claims can be offset by this built-in, self-correcting, and even “self-transcending” mechanism. In this way they ensure that we will go beyond all concepts, including their own.