How To View Duality?

But wouldn't the one truth only exist as opposite to the one false?
Im being a real jerk today, sorry

 

I would say there is no true or false. Everything just is.....without a mind to divide it.

 

But, now this is just a what if, but what if without mind, everything just isn't?

 

You lost me........ I would say oneness can be experienced through the mind when it is not dividing and comparing different parts of the whole. The whole includes what is and what isn't?

 

I dunno, what is the point of the next breath you are going to take? I know it's all born of mind, and so do you, but that doesn't stop you from going to work tomorrow morning, or trying to avoid pain. We can sit here and say that we are above all of this, and nothing exist, and everything is one, and on and on, but the truth is, none of us actually live that. I'm interested in how everyone's mind views this product of the mind, not at our attempt to be higher than the duality that dictates our lives every single day.

 

Neo, how has your view changed?

 

I said it could change depending on the outcome of this discussion. At the moment I'm not really sure what or how I think of duality.

 

NAMASTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I dont know! I cant even remember why I ever took my first breath!
Probably because I thought I was going to drown.

I will go to work tomorrow because I have a family that relies on my income to survive. That's natural; it may be a choice, but does it conflict with nature? I dont have the freedom at the moment to meditate on my work and decide if it's right or wrong for my path, as it stands, it just happens and it provides food. I have no reason to complain about it, though I do quite often out of attachment to my feelings.
But avoiding pain is as natural as breathing. Feeling pain doesnt automatically equal suffering, it's just a sensation like pleasure that eventually will pass, like all things, life and death, oneness and otherness. It's all in how you view it.

The majority of us speak or minds about things with which we have little to no experience, that is very true. Im guilty as charged!

As am I, and I gave my answer, how it is interpreted is beyond my control.
But I dont know that my attempt is one of being higher than, or transcending duality; it feels to me at least, to be an attempt at seeing duality for what it is by first looking into what it is not. That is still just a view, born of the mind, no higher or lower than anyone elses view.
It may be uninteresting though lol, I can't help that much

 

You are one of two then.

But I'm glad this thread could bring us closer together.

 

I guess I originally explained all of the views with the assumption that duality is ultimately an illusion. Perhaps I just should have left that assumption unsaid.

Nice call with the Opposition view and bringing up the whole "anti-force" thing. But I feel that in this case, it's really just a matter of perspective. From the perspective of heat, wouldn't cold be considered an "anti-force" and vice-versa? Unless you meant a anti-force to the entire idea of force in general, in which case, we are stuck in an infinitely multiplying vortex of dualistic ideas rearranging themselves to oppose each other as they arise (too complicated for me to fully consider).

As for the One Truth view, I didn't really mean to express evil as a value or entity unto itself. I only meant to describe "evil" as simply the absence of good, not as a force that can stand alone by itself. I suppose I ran into one of the barriers of language along the way.

I think of it this way. Using numbers to help me, I visualize the classic view of duality like this.

-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
cold -----------------hot

While doing this, the two respected ends are assigned positive or negative values. I don't really mean for either to be considered positive or negative though, and this can just as easily be reversed since all of this is heavily reliant upon perspective.

-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
hot----------------- cold

With the One Truth view however, it would look something like this

0 1 2 3 4 5
evil------- good

Evil in this case is actually nothing, but merely the absence of something else. We can notice it and recognize it because we notice the absence of good.

 

thnx

 

NO
You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

yeah, but that was all mind. What you thought about it was mind, your fear and subsequent attempt to avoid the sensation of drowning was mind. And yet you did it anyways.

You actually do have the freedom to do all of those things and make those decisions. You choose either to do or to not do.
As for what is natural, I really don't know what is natural anymore. I think we've become too complicated a species to make a statement like "avoiding pain is natural".

But really, all of this barely has anything to do with duality and your avoidance of discussing it anymore.

 

I generally agree with the one truth idea especially when it come to light/darkness, full/empty etc. Things like good/evil and war/peace are more complicated. What is considered good? Is war the absence of peace or the other way around? Is competition the absence of cooperation? Is chaos the absence of harmony? It gets to be a stretch.

 

Right, but if that one view can accomodate any example you can think of, then it can't be true. It has to cover everything. But just because something gets complicated doesn't mean it's a stretch. It just means you have to get drunk and think about it more better.

 

God is real Josh, it's all gonna be ok

















































































































APRIL FOOLS!!!


















































































Wait. What?

 

i think duality is a useless concept, and categorizes ideas by an apparently trivial, unimportant aspect - that there is one, and only one, opposing idea for every other idea.

perhaps that was poorly worded.

some dualities:
mind/body
light/dark
natural/artificial
male/female
presence/absence
maker/made
god/man

it's been proposed in one of my classes that the breakdown of only one part of this western dualistic mode of thinking renders the entirety totally obsolete, but this is placing FAR more emphasis on duality than it deserves.

personally i reject entirely the duality of natural and artificial. we cannot exist outside of nature, and we cannot make what we make without natural products, i find it a hefty claim that we can somehow be unnatural, or that something we make can be unnatural.

neuroscience is demonstrating more and more clearly every day that mind is an illusion created by the brain, that it is merely a function of anatomy and chemistry. the idea of a mind which is somehow seperate from the body is antiquated, outdated. possibly still right in a sense, but more evidence is against this than for it.

yet shifting the focus away from "the mind" and to "the body," including the brain, does not break down the duality of male and female, of god and man. neither does eliminating a distinction between the natural and the unnatural destroy the idea of masculine and feminine, divine and human.

to me "duality" is a rather arbitrary way of classifying these concepts, and at least the way it is presented in western culture (which always places value judgments on both sides....presence>absence, male>female, god>human, natural>unnatural) is, in my opinion, flat out foolish.

in my opinion, it is best to eliminate some of these distinctions entirely, best to maintain one or two the way they are already presented in western culture, and best to shift our thinking more towards the idea of yin and yang, though without the loaded metaphysical aspects. rather, simply reaching an understanding of nonconflicting opposites. man is not greater than woman, and woman is not greater than man, we are complimentary to one another and are merely parts of a whole. we need each other equally. light is not better than dark, nor dark better than light. etc.

 

Hey, next time you are allowed to enter a state in which you are allowed to perceive God, tell him/her I said that he/she is mad mo' fuggin gay/cool.

 

:cheers2:

 

I was going to comment on this, but by the time I got done reading it, I was left confused as to exactly what your thoughts/feelings were regarding this subject.

And as for the mind is merely a physical function of anatomy and chemistry, I would have to strongly disagree.