Tag Archives: nonduality

The Other Side of Nothing

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(Amazon) “In the West, Zen Buddhism has a reputation for paradoxes that defy logic. In particular, the Buddhist concept of nonduality — the realization that everything in the universe forms a single, integrated whole — is especially difficult to grasp. In The Other Side of Nothing, Zen teacher Brad Warner untangles the mystery and explains nonduality in plain English. To Warner, this is not just a philosophical problem: nonduality forms the bedrock of Zen ethics, and once we comprehend it, many of the perplexing aspects of Zen suddenly make sense.”

We are not individual beings but components of an infinite reality that is just one single entity.

Zen Buddhists are Buddhists whose main thing is meditation. […] A way to learn to clearly see what reality actually is, beyond all dogmas and beliefs.

In everything in the world there exists nothing besides illusions. […] We can’t see the true nature of reality, but we can discover it. […] No explanation can ever match the reality it’s trying to describe.

In one sense, God created us. In another sense we are continuously creating God.

“Our life and our surroundings are part of a single continuum.” […] “Action and the place in which it occurs are indivisible.” — Nishijima Roshi

Mind and matter are two aspects of the same thing.

When we stop wanting things to be different from how they actually are, we stop suffering.

The truest thing you can ever say is, “I don’t know.”

The body exists within awareness rather than awareness being something that occurs inside the body or even inside the mind. The body is inside me rather than me being inside the body. […] The body is a manifestation of consciousness or of mind.

“Zazen is good for nothing!” — Kodo Sawaki

Whatever the particular thing is that you think is the worst thing in the world, it is part of you. Continue reading →

The Passing Scene

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“Life is like looking out of the window while sitting in a train. You have no control over what appears in view. There’s even the moment after the train has paused, when it imperceptibly begins moving again. The appearance is that the train is motionless, but the scenery outside the window is moving. That, too, is a view that life sometimes gives us, a falsely relative view. We make no attempt to control the scene observed outside the train, knowing that wishing that it was something that it isn’t would be useless. And so it is, for the person who relaxes into Absolute awareness. Whatever passes across the screen of consciousness, whatever the organism experiences, is viewed dispassionately. The viewer acknowledges that all things change, and merely witnesses the changes impartially.”

— Abiding In Nondual Awareness (Robert Wolfe)

Suzuki Roshi on the inner experience of Zen: “The sights we see from the train will change, but we are always running on the same track. And there is no beginning or end to the track.”

No one here

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“There is peace in this solitary spot on the globe because there is “no one” here. The human, who is merely part of the landscape, has no agenda, no ideas, no intent or motivation; he will not be rising from his chair in a moment to attempt to control something; to influence or change anything. Where could he begin to make any changes that would lastingly improve the situation?”

— Living Nonduality (Robert Wolfe)