A Question for my Twitter Sangha: is Non-Dualism the same as the doctrine of Emptiness? My experience with Dzogchen and Tibetan Buddhism confused the two (either they confused them or I did), but now I'm starting to see them as very different doctrines. What's your take on it?
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Here’s my take on the two doctrines: about 2/3 way down this blog post are my definitions of both.
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Interesting article. Buddhism as the "ultimate let down" I agree with. The way you limit emptiness to just no-self and impermanence, however, is not the usual understanding.
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I also tagged on dependent origination. What else would add to the definition?
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Mainly that objects aren't even objects, but just thought to be so by convention. Your text could imply that, but I'd make it explicit.
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True, but I said at the end of the paragraph ‘They are all transformations of energy, expressions of physical laws, the fundamental forces of the universe itself.’
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Which is still something more than ‘absolute emptiness’, but the current scientific consensus is that absolute emptiness is not physically possible.
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You can also say that 'quantum mechanics' and 'general relativity' also point to the same thing: fundamental structures of the universe. But they are different explanations that work at different scales, so different that scientists can't bring them together into a unified theory
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So my question to you is what is the importance of this potential difference to you personally? I mean, besides the pure intellectual joy, what is it about this difference that is fascinating to you?
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What's important to me is to preserve the world-view of object-processes that exhibit emergent properties of difference, variety, specificity, diversity, rather than saying 'it's ultimately all one' or 'it's ultimately all empty.'
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Furthermore, to preserve the materialist world-view as one of consequential importance, as 'real' at the level of planetary existence and survival, rather than say it's only an 'appearance' (Dzogchen), or it's only a sensory experience (yogacara & others).
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How we relate to the material world, whether as dharma practitioners or otherwise, has profound consequences for how we and all other species survive on this planet. It's not just 'appearances' or 'emptiness', its life or death, survival or extinction.
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And even before we get to catastrophic conditions, how we relate to the material world has serious consequences for how we deal with poverty, disease, ecological subsistence, the destruction of material cultures. It's not 'nothing', it's the survival of human civilizations.
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Yes. Thanks for writing this all out, Shaun. It's good to hear your viewpoint, and I couldn't agree more.
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