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?
-
-
Replying to @shaunbartone
I'm possibly quite heterodox on this but I'm fond of an interpretation of "emptiness" as being a kind of poetic word for what ought to have been called "non-essentialness". Viewed that way it's orthogonal to non-dualism.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @danlistensto @shaunbartone
trying to get a sensible interpretation of what's meant by non-dualism is a bit of a hassle too of course. I haven't yet found much agreement on this either scripturally or exegetically. my favorite version of it is the Taoist idea of complementarity though.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @danlistensto @shaunbartone
I think Taoist complementarity is even more radical (and even more useful/insightful) than Buddhist mutually arising phenomena. It's more than just a statement about causality but is a strong metaphysical claim of ontological necessity.
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @danlistensto @shaunbartone
The simplest statement of it is by example: have you ever seen a sheet of paper with only one side? would such a thing even be possible in principle? Front and Back are complementary out of absolute necessity.
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @danlistensto @shaunbartone
this is where the orthogonality to "non-essentialness" comes in. In fact, it's possibly even contradictory. It's essential for all beings to exist in complemented pairs. There is no other way for a thing to be. The pairs are inseparable and therefore not separate, but one thing.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @danlistensto @shaunbartone
I don't have a good reconciliation of this with Emptiness. I've possibly misunderstood it or possibly it's meant to be far more domain limited of a claim. Best I've got is to note that we can imagine a front without a back. We do this all the time in mathematics, for example.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
So Emptiness is really a characteristic of thought and consciousness rather than a metaphysical or ontological claim about existing things. But then, do thoughts exist? I want to say they do. What is the complement of a thought though? Emptiness.
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.