Intersubjectivity theory and Nonduality.

[rltruthseeker]

 

The following is from Judith Blackstone's book The Empathic Ground.

Nondual Realization and Intersubjectivity Theory (pdf)

 

 

 

Two views of Nonduality

 

“Over the centuries, different contemplative traditions have developed a variety of ways to describe the underlying oneness referred to as “nonduality.” But all of these views of oneness can be seen as belonging to two different perspectives.

 

1. One group of traditions claims that the universe is a single field of Consciousness (or God) a unified Self that is being, awareness, and bliss. Within this vast field, the multitude of phenomena, including ourselves, arise and subside like waves in the ocean. This is the original insight of the Hindu seers, enshrined in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads. It is also found, expressed in different terms, in many of the Western metaphysical writings. An extreme version of this view is that claim that only pure consciousness, devoid of any content of experience, is real. All phenomena, all forms in nature, are unreal and mere illusions.

 

2. The second group views nonduality as the interdependence of phenomena; all things are connected through each other through causes and effects. Nothing has an unchanging essence, including ourselves. This view is found in the early schools of Buddhism and in the so-called “self-emptiness” doctrines. It is also the basis of scientific materialism.

 

These two camps, which can be called the absolutists and the relativists, respectively, have been at odds with each other for centuries. A more integrative view, currently advocated by the Dalai Lama, is based on the understanding of interdependence, while maintaining that there is a continuum of pure awareness that is not dependent on the physical body.

 

Our View of Nonduality

 

     In our view, nondual realization is the lived experience of ourselves as pervaded by a very subtle dimension of consciousness. It is the clear-thorough openness of our whole body. At the same time, everything outside of ourselves also is experienced as pervaded by this same consciousness. As this all-pervasive, nondual consciousness, there is no boundary between ourselves and our environment, no boundary (no duality) between our internal and external experience. This does not mean that there is no internal experience, and it does not mean there is no external experience. It means that internal and external events register in the one unified space of nondual consciousness.

    

     When we reach this most subtle dimension of ourselves, everything appears to be transparent, made of empty, luminous stillness. This is a distinctive, unmistakable shift in the way life appears to us. For example, if we look at a table, we will see the table with all its weight, color, and texture, and at the same time, we will be aware that the table is “transparent.” It appears to be pervaded by—or made of—luminous space.

 

This ground of being is not something we have to create or imagine. It arisese spontaneously when we reach a degree of openness to life. We can employ many techniques to achieve the openness that unveils this aspect of our being, but nondual consciousness itself is not a volition experience. It is not something that we do; it is who we are. That is why it feels completely authentic, as if we finally found reality.

 

The more fully we come to know ourselves as the stillness and spaciousness of this dimension, the more effortless, deeply, and vividly the movement of life occurs and flows. This means that nondual experience is not a particular state of being or a way of paying attention. For example, nondual realization does not eradicate the capacity for reflection. Nondual consciousness encompasses and surpasses reflective consciousness but does not eradicate it.

 

This fully-body openness to the flow of life gives us a sense of being present to each moment. All of the sensual stimuli, such as the sights and sounds in our environment, seem to emerge out of the vast open space of nondual consciousness without any effort on our part. In other words, we don’t need to listen in order to hear, or to look in order to see. We simply receive the moment (including our own response to it) just as it is.

 

It is important to understand that nondual consciousness, as the primary level of our being, is not something separate from the “content” of experience flowing through it. It is not a detached transcendence, not merely an impersonal witness, for it is right in our experience. As this subtle consciousness we are both the witness and the experiencer at the same time. We are disentangled from the content of our experience only in the sense that we do not grab onto it; we do not clamp down on it; we do not deny or distort it. We allow it to flow. For this reason, as nondual consciousness, we gain—at the same time—both more ability to witness and more capacity to experience. We become more disentangled from life and more directly, potentially immersed in life.”

 

                                   --Judith Blackstone, Ph. D and Zoran Josipovic, Ph. D.

                                     From Spirituality & Health magazine May/June

 

 

Judith Blackstone, Ph. D is a psychotherapist and creator of Realization Process. She is on the faculty of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and SUNY Empire State College and gives workshops regularily at Esalen.

Judith Blackstone's website is www.judithblackstone.com

 

[rltruthseeker]

I like the idea of God as a nondual universal "ground of Being" (Tillich)...and that is how I understand God. I realize though that the idea of God can be both a hinderance or a means of progress. Eventually all ideas have to be relinquished in the abiding mind for realization to shine through.

Prajnaparamita, a woman who does Advaita Vendanta says this:

"Little by little you will come to see that everything is empty, all feelings are empty, all experiences are empty. You go throught the experience of emptiness and see that emptiness is a concept, transparent and illusionary. Emptiness is a concept, [the idea of] God is a concept, self-realization is a concept. The sense of an observer evaporates altogether. Words fall short, but if can make do without words...openness, clarity, naturalness. You just live your life ou, as life itself."

This is also similiar to what the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart said about God. That the "unknown God" makes way for the realizion of "the birth of God" within oneself, or the realization of divinity within ourselves, but don't concern ideas of divinity.

"Therefore, if God is to speak his word to the soul, it must be still and at peace, and then he will speak his word, and give of himself to the soul and not a mere idea, apart from himself. Dionysus says: God has no idea of himself and no likeness, for he is intrinsically good, truth and being. God does all that he does within himself and of himself in an instant." This is also what the Christian gnostic text, A Course in Miracles, talks about.

This is similiar to the ideas of Narguna and Sejuna Brahman.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Be mindful of the not only diverse but divergent views of what "Nagarjuna's ideas" might be, even between adherents of the same Tibetan Prasangika Buddhist stream. Along the lines above on the differences that constitute the two truths, nonduality and emptiness according to Naggie see the essay I referenced recently here. In a discussion on this topic Jackson says:

"The great Madhyamaka outlook associated with certain Tibetan proponents of other-emptiness...[assert that] buddhahood is empty only of those conventionalities, while its natural purity, luminosity, and gnosis are eternally established and independently existent; thus... [it] involves negating the self-existence of conventional entities and concepts, but not of the ultimate buddha-mind" (232).

Granted some, including Balder, have argued that Dzogchen for example does not adhere to this other-emptiness doctrine. But Thakchoe, in The Two Truths Debate (Wisdom, 2007) says of Gorampa on this topic:

"Gorampa argues that ultimate truth is ontologically unconditioned, and hence it is not a dependently arisen phenomenon; it is distinct from empirical phenomenon in every sense of the word...it is an absolutely timeless and eternally unchanging phenomenon" (73).

And Thakchoe reminds us that Mipham*, the eminent Nyingma-Dzogchen proponent, is in agreement with Gorampa on this (42). As are more contemporary modern monists like Murti, on whom Wilber draws heavily in interpreting Nagarjuna.

* in footnote 170 Thakchoe says: "Mipham not only attempts to show that ultimate truth is the only truth but also takes one step further to show that ultimate truth is an absolute, therefore truly existent" (188).

[rltruthseeker]

I'm not sure what you want me to distinguish theurj. I'm not sure if you are arguing for the existence of an Absolute or not. I like the teachings of Dzogen...but I have to admit, I am not familiar with all the different Buddhist schools of thought...but I take only what is relevant and can apply to my own life. I think though that the samsara/nirvana issue (as expressed in the heart sutra), doesn't refer to two different ontological realities...but that samsara/nirvana is the same ontological reality, only seen differently.

I think that only Being has existence...Nonexistence by definition can't exist...when something is said to "not exist" then it only means it is "displaced" in time or place. Even our ideas "about" something exists, even if their correspondence doesn't seem to match "an empirical terrain."

If Reality exists (philosophers aren't in agreement if Reality exists or not, how funny) then I think it would be always be in agreement with itself (because it IS itself). Reality I think is separate from our own views of reality, yet it is only by our senses "touching" an "objective" Reality, that we realize that our subjective "realities" weren't true...or rather, perhaps our own ideas were partial. Ultimately, I think all ideas and concepts are an abstraction of Reality, but it is only by seeing how partial some of them were (for ourselves) that we are able to correct our own notions and embody different ways of being. I think that metaphysical realities should be de-emphasized, and am "post-modernistic" in the sense that sacred narrative can be re-written, but I'm still interested in preserving some of the spiritual (practical) truths that I have found in it.

The Dzogen teacher Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche says this:
"Pure awareness is like a ball of clear crystal-colorless in itself but capable of reflecting anything: your face, other people, walls furniture. If you moved it around a little, maybe you'd see different different parts of the room and the size, shape or position of the furniture might change. If you took it outside, you could see trees, birds flowers--even the sky! Whatever appears, though, are only reflections. They don't really exist inside the ball nor do they alter its essence in any way.

Now suppose the crystal ball were wrapped in a piece of colored silk. Everything you saw reflected in it-whether you moved it around, carried it to different rooms, or took it outside-would be shaded to some degree by the color of the silk. That's a fairly accurate description of conditioned awareness: a perspective colored by ignorance, desire, aversion and the host of other obscurations. Yet these colored reflections are simply reflections. They don't altar the nature of that which reflects them. The crystal ball is essentially colorless.

Similiarly, pure awareness in itself is always clear, capable of reflecting anything, even misconceptions about itself as limited or conditioned. Just as the sun illuminates the clouds that obscure it, pure awareness enables us to experience natural sufferings and the relentless drama of self-created suffering: me versus you, mine versus yours, this feeling versus that feeling, good versus bad, pleasant versus unpleasant, or a desperate longing for change versus an equally frantic hope for permanence.

The truth of cessation is often described as a final release from fixation, craving or "thirst". However, while the term "cessation" seems to imply something different or better than our present experience, it is actually a matter of acknowledging the potential already inherent within us."

[Edward theurj Berge]

I'm not sure if you are arguing for the existence of an Absolute or not.

I am not, at least as the absolute is depicted in the interpretations I've cited. For me that is "metaphysical" and I'm about enacting the postmetaphysical. See various recent discussions on what is PM to Batchelor to transitional structures to the Dalai Lama to Balder's conference paper.