Summary of the Core Theory

This study of subject–object nonduality has reached its midpoint, for part 2 offers a different approach to the topic. The analyses of nondual perception, nondual action, and nondual thinking have given us a theory that part 2 defends and elaborates. We must prepare for what is to follow by summarizing what has been done.

We began by noticing something interesting. Several important Asian philosophical systems, which have many similarities and many differences, make the same claim that the true nature of reality is nondual. Then are they perhaps referring to the same experience? Chapter 1 distinguished five different meanings of nonduality and discussed three of them: thinking that does not employ dualistic concepts, the nonplurality of phenomena “in” the world, and the nondifference of subject and object. We observed that all three claims are found in Mahāyāna Buddhism, Advaita Vedānta, and Taoism, which we have since referred to as “nondualistic systems.” These three nonduality claims are closely related. The critique of thinking that employs dualistic categories (being vs. nonbeing, pure vs. impure, etc.) usually expands to encompass all conceptual thinking, for such thinking acts as a superimposition which distorts our immediate experience. That is why we experience the world dualistically in the second sense, as a collection of discrete objects (including me) interacting causally in space and time. Negating dualistic thinking leads to experiencing the world as a unity, variously called Brahman, Dharmakāya, Tao, the One Mind, and so on. But what is the relationship between this whole and the subject that experiences it? The Whole is not truly whole if the subject is separate from it. This leads to the third sense of nonduality, the denial that subject and object are truly distinguishable. The rest of this work is devoted to understanding that extraordinary and counterintuitive claim, which is not just an objective evaluation; the nondualistic systems also agree that our usual sense of duality — the sense of separation (hence alienation) between myself and the world “I” am “in” — is the root delusion that needs to be overcome.

The preceding three chapters have explored what the claim of subject–object nonduality means in three different modes of our experience. It is significant that in each case we were able to utilize concepts ready at hand in the nondualist traditions. In chapter 2 it was the Indian epistemological distinction between savikalpa and nirvikalpa perception (prapañca is a related term); in chapter 3 it was the wei-wu-wei of Taoism; and in chapter 4 it was the prajñā of Mahāyāna Buddhism. In the process of unpacking the unfamiliar and counterintuitive implications of these concepts — clarifying what the claim is and using comparisons to situate it in Western thought — we have been in danger of losing the forest for the trees. We must see clearly the relationships among these three in order to attain an overview. The “architectonic” of their parallels is as important as the sum of their individual claims. If, as discussed in the introduction, the nondualistic perspective is able to understand dualistic experience, but not vice versa, then evidently we can “interpolate” from these nondual claims to explain our usual dualistic experience as due to superimposition or interaction among these three.

Chapter 2 argued that, according to both Buddhism and Advaita, the distinction between savikalpa (with thought-construction) and nirvikalpa (without thought-construction) is equivalent to the distinction between the dualistic and nondualistic modes of perception. When the percept is differentiated from all its thought-superimpositions, there is no awareness of any duality between that which is perceived and that which perceives. Our usual understanding hypostatizes such percepts into material objects, but in themselves they are empty (śūnya) because they have no self-nature (svabhāva). They are only the phenomenal manifestation, according to Advaita, of a qualityless (nirguṇa) Mind; according to Buddhism, of nothing. I argued that the most satisfactory presentation of this view is found in Mahāyāna: negatively, in the Mādhyamika refutation of any possible conceptual superimpositions, for the critique of prapañca shipwrecks any possibility of philosophy providing a “mirror of nature”; positively, in the explicit subject–object nonduality of Yogācāra. It was suggested (and the argument will be developed in subsequent chapters) that this view is also implicit in the early Buddhist denial of a self (anātman) and in the Advaitic assertion of all-Self (ātman). But both views suffer from an inadequate account of the nature of phenomena: early Buddhism tends to accept uncritically the objectivity of dharmas, while Advaita takes an ambivalent attitude toward māyā. What nondual hearing and seeing might be was developed by referring to Berkeley’s denial of the material object and Hume’s critique of the ontological subject, and placed in the context of Western epistemology as a version of phenomenalism. The contemporary Western view that perception is always “thought-constructed” does not necessarily constitute an argument against such nondual perception but rather indirectly supports its possibility, since the nirvikalpa claim is not about our usual perception but about a special case not often experienced, in which perception has been “de-automatized.” The possibility of such de-automatization thus becomes an issue that can be settled only empirically — exactly what the nondualist traditions claim to happen in the enlightenment experience.

Parallels to this, too striking to be coincidental, were found in the Taoist paradox of wei-wu-wei, which is interpreted to mean not just passivity or noninterference, but action that may be realized to be nondual when it is distinguished from the superimposition of intentions. Just as linguistic superimposition delusively bifurcates perceiver from perceived, so intention-superimposition bifurcates agent from act — splitting what might be called the “psychic body” and giving rise to the mind–body distinction, the sense of being “a ghost in a machine.” Nondual actions are experienced as no action at all (wu-wei) because wholly to be an action is to lose the perspective of an agent distinct from it and thus to eliminate the sensation that an action is occurring. This paradox is all the more significant because we found precisely the same to be true of nondual perception and nondual thinking: “one sound is soundless sound,” “one thought is thoughtless thought.” Such an understanding of wei-wu-wei was used to explicate the first chapter of the Tao Tê Ching, whose cryptic lines lend themselves to such a nondualistic interpretation. This critique of intentionality was further developed by reference to Western theories about mind and action. The relationships among craving, conceptualizing, and causality were explored, using ideas of Heidegger and Wittgenstein that enable us to see how causal relationships are “built into” language. Recent work in the philosophy of mind, pointing to intentionality as that which maintains the sense of self, was (just as in the previous case of Western theories of perception) shown not to refute the possibility of nondual action but rather indirectly to support it, for if the sense of self is maintained by intention, then eliminating intention will also eliminate that sense of self. But, following Hume, one should not assume a causal link between intention and action, for any “link” between them, like causal links generally, is essentially mysterious. Causality, as usually experienced, is part of our interpretative filtering, which must be distinguished from the “thing in itself.” On one side, the lack of any causal link between intention and action amounts to a refutation of volition and implies determinism. One could argue, conversely, that the elimination of all savikalpa thought-constructions (which include all causal inferences) rather refutes determinism. But the problem of freedom versus determinism is dualistic in presupposing a self whose actions are either free or determined, and the nondualistic denial of an ontological self resolves that bifurcation: if I am the universe, then complete determinism becomes equivalent to absolute freedom. This issue of causality is perhaps the most crucial one of all, and is discussed further in part 2.

We found the equivalent nondual thinking in the Mahāyāna concept of prajñā, that knowing in which there is no distinction between the knower, the act of knowing, and that which is known. Such knowing is sometimes understood quite broadly to describe all nondual experience, but with reference to thinking it means that there is no thinker (consciousness) apart from the thought. For both perception and action, the difference between dualistic and nondualistic experience was seen to be due to the superimposition of thought-constructions. Again, it can hardly be a coincidence that we find a similar parallel with thinking: that thoughts are superimposed upon each other, in effect. An important passage by John Levy argues that the sense of subject–object duality is due to the mental juxtaposition of different experiences — that is, the superimposition of memory-traces onto a new experience. Then to eliminate or distinguish the memory-trace (in the case of thinking, the previous thought) from that which it conditions (the new thought) will eliminate the sense of subject–object duality. This explains the importance Mahāyāna places upon not letting thoughts link up in a series (making a chain by superimposing one on the other) but rather allowing an “unsupported thought” to arise spontaneously. This also connects with the previous critique of causality. From the highest (paramārtha) point of view, just as intentions do not “cause” actions, so earlier thoughts do not “cause” subsequent ones; “everything is its own cause and its own effect” (Blake). On this account, the difference between our more usual ways of thinking and the special cases of creativity and inspiration is the difference between dualistic thinking — in which there is clinging to familiar and comfortable thoughts — and a more open, receptive thinking in which thoughts spring up (pra-) nondually. Because the latter thoughts cannot be accounted for causally — as the effects of previous causes — there is something essentially inexplicable and mysterious about the creative process. This gave us a fruitful perspective for interpreting the later work of Heidegger.

The significance of these individual studies increases as we notice the parallels among our conclusions. Probably the most important parallel concerns the emptiness (śūnyatā) of experience. Each mode of experience was found to be empty in at least three related senses. First, of course, each is empty of subject–object duality, for when distinguished from thought-superimpositions there is no awareness of a discrete consciousness separate from the experience. It is argued in part 2 that to inflate either the subject or the object by eliminating the other cannot be satisfactory. Both must be denied, since as relative to the other each is meaningless without the other. Second is the paradox that to “forget yourself” and nondually “become” something is to gain an awareness (of) that (which) transcends any particular experience, (of) what may be called an emptiness because it cannot be grasped objectively. This implies the third sense. None of these three modes has any reality or self-nature of its own, for each is only a phenomenal manifestation of what part 2 argues is an all-encompassing, attributeless Mind, which can be phenomenologically experienced only as a nothingness that is creative because it is the source of all phenomena.

This understanding allows us to account for the difference between dualistic and nondualistic experience without needing to add anything extraneous. If perception, action, and thinking are in themselves nondual, then we can understand our usual sense of duality as due to their superimposition and interaction. As an example of such interaction, we have discussed the relations among craving, conceptualizing, and causality (chapter 3). The general problem seems to be that the three modes of experience interfere with each other and thus distort or obscure each other’s nondual nature. The material objects of the external world are nondual percepts objectified by thought-superimposition and by our attempts to “grasp” them. Dualistic action is due to the superimposition of intention upon nondual action, and that network of intentions both presupposes and reinforces the objectivity of its field of play. Both concepts and intentions occur when nondual thinking is related to percepts and actions rather than experienced as it is in itself (fig. 4, below).

Such a nondualistic interpretation implies a critique of several stereotyped misunderstandings about the nature of spirituality. The most important one is that enlightenment does not involve transcending the world and attaining some other, nonsensuous realm, for on this account the transcendental is nothing other than the “empty” nature of this world. As Mahāyāna emphasizes, saṁsāra is nirvana: “Nothing of saṁsāra is different from nirvāṇa, nothing of nirvāṇa is different from saṁsāra. That which is the limit of nirvāṇa is also the limit of saṁsāra; there is not the slightest difference between the two” (MMK, XXV, 19–20). In this way we come to an understanding of this fourth sense of nonduality, mentioned at the beginning of chapter 1.

Figure 4

Another misunderstanding sees the spiritual path as quietistic and requiring a withdrawal from activity (e.g., physical labor, sex, political involvement). There may well be periods when such a retreat is valuable, but the possibility of wei-wu-wei means that eremitism, asceticism, and so on should not be understood as inherently superior. (Gandhi may be a model in this regard.)

Finally, the emphasis on meditative techniques in the nondualist traditions has sometimes resulted in an anti-intellectualism which dismisses the higher thought processes as obstructive, but in fact the nondual intellect is our most creative faculty. Each of these misunderstandings may now be seen to be an overreaction against its respective dualistic mode of experience. This work implies that a better solution is not to try to negate each dualistic mode but to transform it into the nondualistic mode.

We have just seen how part 1 attempted to construct a core theory of nonduality by extracting and synthesizing claims from a variety of Asian traditions — primarily, but not exclusively, Mahāyāna Buddhism, Advaita Vedānta, and Taoism. There have also been numerous references to the Western tradition — particularly to Blake, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger — but these have played a supportive role. The method of extraction has been unsystematic and intuitive: claims supportive to this enterprise have been used, while others have been ignored. This means that similarities and congruences have been emphasized while disparities have seldom been remarked. But these differences among the various traditions — in particular, the contradictory ontological claims — cannot simply be swept away. They provide the most serious challenge to this inquiry. If behind each philosophy is the same nondual experience, as I have been suggesting, then why do the various systems end up with such different ontologies? As soon as we turn to the question of what is Real, our tidy core doctrine dissolves into a hotbed of controversy. For example, Advaita Vedānta is monistic, Sāṅkhya-Yoga is dualistic, early Buddhism seems to be pluralistic, and Mādhyamika denies both that things exist and that they do not exist.

The purpose of part 2 is to deal with these conflicting ontological claims. The approach is that these differences do not in fact negate the core theory constructed in part 1, for these ontological differences arise not from different experiences but from emphasizing different aspects of the same nondual experience. The experience itself involves no claims, ontological or otherwise, for it transcends philosophy; yet when one tries to satisfy the inevitable philosophical demand for an ontology, one may make different and inconsistent inferences by dwelling upon different aspects of that experience, according to one’s cultural or personal dispositions.

Part 2 argues for this in various ways. Chapter 5 examines the relationships among what are perhaps the three most important Indian systems (or sets of systems): Sāṅkhya-Yoga, Buddhism, and Vedānta. We shall see that each develops one of the three primary ways of understanding the subject–object relation. Since the radical dualism of Sāṅkhya-Yoga is untenable, chapter 6 focuses on the curious relationship between the other two, whose categories are so diametrically opposed that each is the mirror image of the other. For the purpose of analysis, their conflict will be reduced to five sets of categories: all-Self versus no-self, substance versus modes, immutability versus impermanence, no-causality versus all-conditionality, and no-Path versus only-Path. I argue that in each case one extreme is phenomenologically equivalent to the other if the dualism between them is truly negated. The implication of this is that the nondual experience “behind” these contradictory systems is the same, and that the differences between them may be seen as due primarily to the nature of language: linguistic categories being inherently dualistic, the natural tendency is for descriptions of nonduality to eliminate one or the other of the dualistic pair.

But there is much more to Indian philosophy than Buddhism and Vedānta. Other ontological views must be dealt with. Chapter 7 attempts to make much the same point analogically, by presenting a “nondual experience” that is subject to a variety of interpretations. By no coincidence, these interpretations happen to correspond to the ontological claims of the major systems. Finally, chapter 8 tests our core theory by demonstrating how it helps us to understand the Bhagavad-gītā. We will see that a nondualist approach can explain the relations among its various margas (spiritual paths) and perhaps even resolve the relationship between personal (God, Krishna) and impersonal (Brahman, etc.) Absolutes.