Thu, 17 Aug 2006
Nondual
Time is short tonight so I'll just repost what I wrote to e-sangha on the subject of non-dual traditions.
You can't say non-dual without qualification. The key point is what is seen as non-dual. There are many non-dualities. At an elementary level there is the non-duality of the mind and its witness. At a higher level there is the non-duality of perceiver and perception. And at the highest level there is the non-duality of conventional and ultimate truths. There are many levels of realization and depth beyond depth of truth. So simply because two people say they have seen the truth of non-duality, does not mean they are referring to the same thing.
Nor is it necessarily true that they are referring to different things. So to what extent is the experience of Advaita and Buddhist practitioners the same? The more elementary levels of realization are primarily shamatha. While they have an element of vipashyana, it is an experience that is only concordant with prajna and not genuine prajna itself. Genuine prajna is only seen at the level of the first bhumi. I believe that practitoners from all meditative traditions experience these elementary levels of realization and there is no real difference in their depth of understanding. Of course, it would take a person equally accomplished in different traditions to say for sure. But I find that there's little difference in the descriptions of these experiences that can't be explained as differences of terminology.
Though I call them elementary levels of realization, in our degenerate age they're really quite advanced. Any one having this level of understanding is by our standards a greatly enlightened being. We have little appreciation for how truly great the accomplished lamas are.
