On open letter to Ken Wilber and integral teachers

[Oleg Linetsky]

Dear friends,

recently I wrote my letter to Ken Wilber where I state several ideas important to postmetaphysics discussion as I guess.

When I first read "Integral spirituality" several years ago I was surprised to see pure metaphysical "postmetaphysical" approach. I feel I have something to contribute in this conversation from mystical point of view as pure mystical vision is really free from metaphysics, from any beliefs and universal views. Since my first article about AQAL 2.0 several years ago I suggest a certain method for postmetaphysical philosophy how to treat our experience without universal beliefs and axioms. Truth is out of conceptual mind,  thus we should look there to find a basis for good philosophy. It's not difficult.

Applying it to current AQAL gives us some new great insights and I want to share it with you and to ask about your feedback. Here is a link for an article

http://integralportal.ru/Open_letter_to_KW.pdf

If you consider it too long, have a look on p.17 at least, where I describe 10 primordial  inclinations in wordviews on any levels of development. Even though before I consider boundaries that are extremely important for conversation about postmetaphysical spirituality. Boundaries between sectors and states are also objects that can be percieved! Moreover they are 5 classic elements traditions all over the world talk about.

I'm really interested in oppinion this respectable community. Thanks to all.

[Balder]

Thank you for posting this, Oleg!  I look forward to discussing it with you soon.

[Balder]

Congratulations on getting this posted at the Center for World Spirituality site, Oleg!  I saw that there this morning.  I have finally finished (yesterday) the paper I was working on, so I will read yours closely now.

[Oleg Linetsky]

Thank you, Bruce.

[Balder]

Bumping this thread because, finally, I plan to finish reading Oleg's paper and to comment on it this week.

[Layman Pascal]

This is the output phase of my initial (and therefore most superficial or "least organized") reading.

In general, I like it.  It is tidy, well-meaning, comprehensive and not stupid -- while at the same time mingling theory with practice.  My favourite part is the neatly phrased exhortation to allow the tension of boundary encounters long enough to allow the mind to discriminate between its more partial and more whole (simultaneously mutual) creative options.

My suspicions, naturally enough, arise in those places where this pattern of understanding differs from my own on topics which we hold in common -- and what I have long held in my own mind to be a kind of "threshold cosmology".  May this be a creative boundary!

MY FIRST ISSUE

The understanding I possess of the four "domains" of integral theory is that they are constant necessary contributors to every moment of enacted experience and that in order to approach them in this manner we must considerably broaden their definition beyond the "tip of the iceberg" meaning that hold sway in contemporary spiritual philosophy.  Thus I treat the gross, subtle, causal & non-dual as the manifest, qualitative, formal & indiscernible.  Using my definitions I find that the Causal domain consists of any and all transparent structural requirements for reality.  It is the purely formal dimension imagined apart from both qualitative and substantial experience.  So while we are quite right to situate the "I AM" and the "formless infinite of consciousness itself" in this domain we should, to be fair, also include herein the "=", the fact of relationality, the synatical "is" of anything and the principles without which interaction cannot occur.  

So the upshot of this snapshot of my own considerations is that I would treat "boundaries" specifically AS a causal domain phenomenon.  Perhaps, feeling grandiose, we could say that boundary conditions are THE causal phenomenon.  

For me, therefore, it becomes highly problematic to include the causal as a boundaried domain (subtle/causal, causal/non-dual).

MY SECOND ISSUE

It appears to me that the functional tension associated with boundaries is proportional to the degree that both sides contest the same territory.  I must decide, partially or wholistically, between two suitors -- not between a suitor & a stone.  So the tension is, in a sense, least present in the discrimination between ontological domains (gross, subtle, causal, etc.).  These domains are so fundamentally distinct as to produce no real tension between themselves.  The analogy here is to Integralism itself which discovers no substantial boundary tension between areas of human inquiry but cannot avoid allowing whatever contradictions are present within each area of inquiry.  Poetry and mathematics have no real tension but competing mathematics certainly do.  Thus it seems to me that the useful a more integral means of holding boundaries relates less to the differences between types of reality and more the differences within types of reality.

MY THIRD ISSUE

It perhaps implies too much to use the "I" as the discriminatory force which interprets quadrants of experience.  It is not a terrible sin to do so but one might just as well say "cognitive potential" or "discernability".  While these may err on the side of not adequately situating this reality at the heart of human subjectivity, the idea of "I" almost certainly errs on the opposite side.

MY FOURTH ISSUE

I believe this document perpetuates the common unclarity regarding metaphysical and post-metaphysical interpretations.  The existence of boundary tensions as the primordial sites giving rise to the enactment of beliefs is a metaphysical assertion.  One does not act in excess of metaphysics by asserting what is "more real than conceptual assertions".  Rather this is the essence of metaphysics itself.  

Now, of course, the problem of metaphysics lies not so much in the existence of assertions about "What Is" but in the contraction of our relationship to these assertions.  So this text functions, at least in part, as a post-metaphysical attempt but perhaps obscures this when it begins to claim its difference from metaphysics.

Enough!

[Oleg Linetsky]

Hi Layman! 

Thanks for your reply.

Layman Pascal said:

In general, I like it.  It is tidy, well-meaning, comprehensive and not stupid -- while at the same time mingling theory with practice.  My favourite part is the neatly phrased exhortation to allow the tension of boundary encounters long enough to allow the mind to discriminate between its more partial and more whole (simultaneously mutual) creative options.

Thank you. Great to hear that. This is really one of the important moments, that we have to learn to feel uncertainity as long as possible in order to expand clarity and compassion.

My suspicions, naturally enough, arise in those places where this pattern of understanding differs from my own on topics which we hold in common -- and what I have long held in my own mind to be a kind of "threshold cosmology".  May this be a creative boundary!

Great! I like how you formulate it. Post-metaphysical approach is a real challenge for all of us. We are supposed to find a ground beyond conceptual mind and beyond beliefs, so we have to transcend our ego to achieve it. It's a worthy goal and indeed it is a path of creativity.

MY FIRST ISSUE

So the upshot of this snapshot of my own considerations is that I would treat "boundaries" specifically AS a causal domain phenomenon.  Perhaps, feeling grandiose, we could say that boundary conditions are THE causal phenomenon.  

For me, therefore, it becomes highly problematic to include the causal as a boundaried domain (subtle/causal, causal/non-dual).

Right, it can be considered it like that as well. But I suggest to expand a little bit an understaning of bodies/realms. Actually in integral theory states and bodies are described little bit one-sided. In particular causal.

How you can explore what movement is in sitting meditation? How you can explore what desire is in absolute formless silence? This is actually classical limitation of traditional yoga. When you are in nirvikalpa samadhi causal seems to be formless abyss, vast blackness, bliss of great I'amness. And this is partially right. Because you don't know how it works in real life then. And in real life in any moment all bodies make their certain job and they are all connected. I don't rely on this kind of understanding only. I investigate how it works in sahaja-samadhi, when you keep clear awareness of nirvikalpa samadhi and keep doing something in life. So you are aware of all states and bodies at same time and can see how they inter-relate. 

It works like that. I don't care of anything and just enjoy blisful presence in the very first moment. Then something distracts small part of me for a moment. Initial tension arises (at-tension). I can't say it's my will that does it and meanwhile I check somehow if it's interested to me or not. So this attension and degree of interest to something belong to this formless causal realm and body. In vedanta they call them "seeds" that reside to causal. When you are in sitting meditation there are no objects except of this sence of "I'm". That is why it seems that causal = "I'mness" and you just enjoy your formless interest to "be interested" that is experienced as a pure bliss. So actually bliss = pure interest. But in real life causal works like something that keeps your attention to some object.

If you have a reason (or cause, or karma seed, or wish) to keep attention on something, it starts unfolding as an image (or self-image or self-sence) in subtle body. And right after that gross body gets an impulse to follow subtle image. This is like a mecanics of the very moment of inaction.

If you don't consider states/bodies/realms as a concepts but try to experience them directly, you'll realize that you are the one that can see and feel all these processes and ruptures. You are beyond them. Boundaries can't belong to causal domain, you are right. But they also can't be an object of quadrants. They reveal themself beyond conceptual mind at all.

In particular because I can ask myself "who guides attention?" Is it my Self (causal I) that directs it or someone else? We are confused by this question! This means there is a tention and true Self (or I) can see it.

MY SECOND ISSUE

It appears to me that the functional tension associated with boundaries is proportional to the degree that both sides contest the same territory.  I must decide, partially or wholistically, between two suitors -- not between a suitor & a stone.  So the tension is, in a sense, least present in the discrimination between ontological domains (gross, subtle, causal, etc.).  These domains are so fundamentally distinct as to produce no real tension between themselves.  The analogy here is to Integralism itself which discovers no substantial boundary tension between areas of human inquiry but cannot avoid allowing whatever contradictions are present within each area of inquiry.  Poetry and mathematics have no real tension but competing mathematics certainly do.  Thus it seems to me that the useful a more integral means of holding boundaries relates less to the differences between types of reality and more the differences within types of reality.

I agree with you that we can't compare or esteem tensions between math and music. But this is a little bit different case. Don't consider domains as something that really exist. They are just concepts that are actually useful to distinguish something. They don't really exist. There is no reality, no consciousness, no motivations. These are all just words, concepts, ideas. Everything arises right now in my awareness. And in my awareness every moment I feel tensions between them. I have a lot of examples every moment. Most simple is an endless tension between I and WE. We feel it all the time. Between me and space (or God). Nature of mind has no boundaries. All other mental categories consist of pairs and have illusory but sensible tensions between.

MY THIRD ISSUE

It perhaps implies too much to use the "I" as the discriminatory force which interprets quadrants of experience.  It is not a terrible sin to do so but one might just as well say "cognitive potential" or "discernability".  While these may err on the side of not adequately situating this reality at the heart of human subjectivity, the idea of "I" almost certainly errs on the opposite side.

Right, that is why I emphasize a lot an idea that "I'm universe" and "I live in Universe" (causal/nondual) many times. Finally I suggest using 2 types of description - with "I" in UL (wilberian, dialogical) and with "I" in the ground of all of them and beyond everything (mystical, monological).

Indeed it's not easy to describe things like that but I'm sure it's possible. Little bit more diffucult thing about "I" is connected to causal/nondual. In all other cases Self or "I" is the one that feels and discriminates. I co-create my/our Universe.

You can choose your own word, but what I meant to say is that "I" is not some model like Self or any. Its direct exerience of pure free readiness to feel and choose, naked awareness without identification with any objects - that is how I feel myself. I'm the one to who mind offers his propositions and I choose (or enact) games I like. It's free from any structures of consciousness but it's not just vast openness like Wilber often says. It's also high energy of readiness to choose that manifests as a strong ability not to believe to everything that arises (like divine skeptic, that accepts views of others but don't believe they are true).

MY FOURTH ISSUE

I believe this document perpetuates the common unclarity regarding metaphysical and post-metaphysical interpretations.  The existence of boundary tensions as the primordial sites giving rise to the enactment of beliefs is a metaphysical assertion.  One does not act in excess of metaphysics by asserting what is "more real than conceptual assertions".  Rather this is the essence of metaphysics itself.  

Now, of course, the problem of metaphysics lies not so much in the existence of assertions about "What Is" but in the contraction of our relationship to these assertions.  So this text functions, at least in part, as a post-metaphysical attempt but perhaps obscures this when it begins to claim its difference from metaphysics.

Well, I understand your confusion but that's what I said in the beginning. The game in post-metaphysics is for those who is ready to drop his mind one day. I never said that my approach is more real then others. I don't assert anything at all! Any assertation has its back side, you know. Meanwhile I don't offer to discard wisdom and don't leave people in pure uncertainity like Nagarjuna's prasangika does. When one drops his mind 5 elements start to shine. No need to believe in them. One can recognize them or not. This is the main goal of my letter. After one recognizes them steady he is free to create own philosophy that works for him! You can use any language (for any level of development) and add more elements (like Wilber did with lines and types). Just have in a view that every statement (or relation or preference) has its shadow on the other side.

Practice gives us a chance to feel tensions more deeply and 5 elements is a guide to live without fears and suffer. Just keep realizing that you are none of objects (NOT/NOT) and everything that arises in space of your awareness is yours (AND/AND). And yes, it's post-metaphysical in some sense as it's not based on axioms - you can forget everything except of 5 elements that you feel by heart! And yes, it's not post-metaphysical in some sense, as everything you build over 5 elements will be conceptual thing. In any case if philosophy doesn't take into account 5 elements it will not be good enough and its worldview will not be flawless. Game will start and karma will bare its preferences and delusions.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Oleg,

It might behoove you to do a bit of homework on similar ground we've covered extensively in the forum. This thread is a good place to start, as well as the Gaia predecessor thread on the same topic.

[Oleg Linetsky]

Dear "Theurj",

thanks for suggestion but I don't know english that good to read so much of texts like that. I will appreciate if you can give some brief idea on it or point some certain places. 

Also in my model it actually doesn't matter how you define states or quadrants. When one feels great pain and suffer the last thing he's interested in is exact definitions of states or anything.

I don't know flawless definitions, because all of them are just fluid boundaries. The game in so called "Integral postmetaphysical definitions" seems to be incongruous. Any definition by its very nature is metaphysical. Any term points on a small part of great web and can't be accurately described. That's why probably Wilber uses orienting generalizations.

Why you are satisfied with quadrants definitions and not satisfied with states or levels? Because Wilber constitute quadrants with reference to the 2 steady boundaries. He doesn't give exact definition of them! Why do you want to use another way of definition for states then? We have 5 boundaries that don't slide. They disappear only in the states of unity. Thus we have great base for reliable philosophy. Moreover it has been known for ages.

Please read two last paragraphs of my previous reply. My point is that post-metaphysical = non-conceptual (in its base), and we have to go beyond the mind first to win this game. Everyone can build own philosophy then with wide veriety of definitions that works. I don't care much how I call "something", if we both know what it means. I'm concerned about its name when I don't know for sure what it is. Children that just learn to write always correct parents that they don't write letters as they should be, their hadwriting is often terrible. Adults don't care much, because they recognize and differentiate essential features (patterns) of letters. Letter is just a symbol. So do terms like states or quadrants.

Lets don't focus on finger, lets even don't stare on a sun that finger points to. Lets play with its rays!

[Oleg Linetsky]

MY SECOND ISSUE

It appears to me that the functional tension associated with boundaries is proportional to the degree that both sides contest the same territory.  I must decide, partially or wholistically, between two suitors -- not between a suitor & a stone.  So the tension is, in a sense, least present in the discrimination between ontological domains (gross, subtle, causal, etc.).  These domains are so fundamentally distinct as to produce no real tension between themselves... Poetry and mathematics have no real tension but competing mathematics certainly do.

One more argument. In the letter I point out that if "I" can discriminate whether it's gross phenomena or subtle then for this "I" both realms lie on a same plane. This means that this distinction is illusory for "I" and we not only can correlate them but do that all the time. And of course where there is a duality there is a tension. Between me and not me, between observer and the observed, between imaginary and embodied.

[Layman Pascal]

Hi Oleg,

I appreciate your responsiveness and am happy to investigate what I think is a tremendously fertile zone.  As I read through your words I find myself becoming increasingly certain that BEYOND CONCEPTUAL & POST-METAPHYSICAL are not the same. 

It seems to me that your metaphysics take the form of "When we get beyond concepts and beliefs we can encounter what really IS".  For me this is metaphysics.  It is an assertion that what is really real is what we find when we move past our inherently limited models of reality. 

It is not bad to have a metaphysics but this is not post-metaphysics.  I think it becomes post-metaphysics when we say something like, "Is the experience beyond concepts really any more real?"

Here's how I would summarize my view:

"The finger pointing at the moon (as opposed to the Moon itself)" IS the finger. 

You say, "I never said that my approach is more real then others. I don't assert anything at all!"  But that is an assertion.  So then, is it a good assertion?  How does it fit with an organize other assertions.  Perhaps it does this very well.  But for me this works much better when assertions don't disguise themselves as non-assertions.  In order to language the relationship of the "formless" to "form" I think we need our assertions to be even extra-assertive.

So I'm sitting in meditation and I encounter various "issues", various limitations on my sense of self, various habits of mental discrimination, various tensions.  I move beyond these and it feels good.  I let go of issues and forms and my experience becomes a pleasure purity of being-knowing... a bliss of "pure interest" in which I no longer suffer any cognitive lag or uncertainty.  Whenever I do encounter these things I embrace their tension and open myself to understandings which expand my wisdom and move me back towards wholeness. 

BUT is this a good model of the universe?  Or should we be tempted to say (as I sometimes am) Meditation is not an Ontology?

The pragmatic spiritual approach to any moment of reality seems like it might not be an adequate basis for a truly inclusive conceptual model of reality -- because it tends to disempower concepts.  It says, "My idea is that all ideas should be organized in relationship to That Which is Not Just an Idea".  This is like building a boat a with a hole in it and then saying, "That's okay... swimming is natural".  Sure, but the craft might not be seaworthy. 

Now, you acknowledge a bit that your ideas might not all be post-metaphysical but rather form what seems like a good, comprehensive metaphysical philosophy which can be useful in life and meditation.  This is terrific. 

I like your observation that when the "I" observes the difference between Gross & Subtle it treats them as if they are on the same plane.  This is what me might expect if the "I" is a causal structure.  When it then observes the relationship between Causal and either the Subtle or the Gross the "flattening of the planes" might be the gateway to non-dual experience.  This does seem to be the tactic used in Zen Koans.

And, as a final thought -- is it impossible for a duality to exist without a tension?

[Balder]

Oleg,

I am glad we've finally been able to get a conversation going around your paper (although regrettably I've yet to contribute substantially).

I appreciate the (likely intentional) resonance between central elements of your vision and Tibetan Buddhist cosmological teachings.  I'm thinking here, for instance, of the description in Dzogchen of the spontaneous emergence of the five lights out of the empty clarity of the natural state.  I appreciate this because you are attempting to articulate a postmetaphysical spirituality that is consonant with the tradition in which I have primarily practiced, and so I am curious to see how and where you go with this.

However, as I mentioned to you in an email, my own thinking has taken a different path in recent years, and this is one of my primary "sticking points" with your paper:  your definition of postmetaphysics is apparently quite different from my own.  Like Layman, apparently, I stumbled over your equation of non-conceptuality with post-metaphysics.  The idea of going beyond concepts to encounter reality as it is seems, to me, to repeat the very metaphysical moves of past traditions that post-metaphysics aims to redress.

Recalling your previous paper on postmetaphysics and Wilber's holon, I realize your view on postmetaphysics may be subtler than I am representing it, however, so would you please state for me what you mean by the term, particularly as you are using it in this paper?

Concerning your use of "I," I am reminded of Assagioli's work.  Do you have him in mind here? 

One of the ways to read or employ the quadrants is fractally, where terms associated primarily with one quadrant can be further opened through an additional quadratic analysis.  This is a technique Suzanne Cook-Greuter wrote about a few years ago; I mention it here because it seems this is what you are doing, but we could also set your quadrated "I" alongside other quadrated elements (particularly if we want to avoid the latent solipsism/narcissism that could skirt around an approach which puts "I" at the center as Absolute).  For instance, the "Object Oriented Ontology" we have been discussing here seems, in its own way, to be "quadrating" the rather lifeless "object" of conventional understanding and drawing out all sorts of hidden richness and strangeness.

 

[Oleg Linetsky]

Dear Layman,

I appreciate your responsiveness and am happy to investigate what I think is a tremendously fertile zone.  As I read through your words I find myself becoming increasingly certain that BEYOND CONCEPTUAL & POST-METAPHYSICAL are not the same. 

Sure, I can agree with you.

It seems to me that your metaphysics take the form of "When we get beyond concepts and beliefs we can encounter what really IS".  For me this is metaphysics.  It is an assertion that what is really real is what we find when we move past our inherently limited models of reality. 

Right, but I didn't assert that. I don't even think in terms of real/not-real. What I meant is that WITHOUT getting BEYOND concepts it is not possible to build any post-metaphysics. It's a big difference.

It is not bad to have a metaphysics but this is not post-metaphysics.  I think it becomes post-metaphysics when we say something like, "Is the experience beyond concepts really any more real?"

It's not bad to have metaphysics, right, but it's not good to have it in a base of philosophy, because it doesn't allow you to stay free! And my point is that good philosophy should help to ACT wisely in the world without making you believe in something as real.

Here's how I would summarize my view:

"The finger pointing at the moon (as opposed to the Moon itself)" IS the finger. 

Good point. But I think that everyone sees what he sees and there is no finger without a context.

You say, "I never said that my approach is more real then others. I don't assert anything at all!"  But that is an assertion.  So then, is it a good assertion?  How does it fit with an organize other assertions.  Perhaps it does this very well.  But for me this works much better when assertions don't disguise themselves as non-assertions.  In order to language the relationship of the "formless" to "form" I think we need our assertions to be even extra-assertive.

Right. That's great. I knew you'd catch it. )) I had to make sure we are on a same ground. But please have in a view that I know this game in words and want us both to go further.

If I say "A" you say "Aha! I caught you! This is metaphysics! Because "-A" is also may be possible." Right. For any "A" there is "-A". And what we can do about it? What is your approach then? Lets say you offer some "B" that transcends and includes "A" and "-A" and looks less metaphysical. Then I can say "Hey! "B" is metaphysics because "-B" may be possible". And so on. We have endless escalation of meanings and statements that are less metaphysical in some sence but anyway they are pure metaphysical. Right?

Post-metaphysics that I suggest goes another way. What makes us make judgements? Why you can't not assert anything? Why you couldn't not to catch me on phrase "I don't assert anything!" Why I couldn't not to write letter to Wilber? (And in the same time with both could) Because there was a tension inside us that made us do something. What is beyond "A" and "-A"? What is common between them? There is something that can be interpreted as "A", "-A", and even "B". What is it?

This is tension itself or energy or element. This is something that doesn't allow you to sit in meditation the whole day. It starts to harass. We can't withstand to it. So afterwards one chooses "A", another one "-A" - it's not that much interesting. In order to be correct we have to take both meanings in same time "A" and "-A". And that is actually what you do all the time. For instance, I say "I don't assert anything" and you add "This is assertation". Or "Metaphysics is evil" and you say "It's good". In every case for every statement we have not only to take both meanings to be absolutely correct but write out their contexts accurately that makes all process boring, difficult and yet leaves us with question "how many such double statements should be taken for good philosophy?" This is a dead end.

What is really interesting with an energy ground of all pairs of interpretations is that all tensions and energies can be reduced to 5 irreducible types and that is really great discovery! What we have to do then is just to take all 5 pairs of interpretations "A"/"-A". Like "I'm Universe"/"I live in Universe" (causal/nondual), "I'm observer"/"I'm a dreamer" (subtle/causal), and so on ... and investigate all interpretations very detaily TAKING THEM ALL at same time as correct. Wilber did so for 2 of them (quadrants) and we have 3 left. Moreover I show that considering those 5 is necessary and sufficient for post-metaphysical philosophy! Got the point?

So I'm sitting in meditation and I encounter various "issues", various limitations on my sense of self, various habits of mental discrimination, various tensions.  I move beyond these and it feels good.  I let go of issues and forms and my experience becomes a pleasure purity of being-knowing... a bliss of "pure interest" in which I no longer suffer any cognitive lag or uncertainty.  Whenever I do encounter these things I embrace their tension and open myself to understandings which expand my wisdom and move me back towards wholeness. 
BUT is this a good model of the universe?  Or should we be tempted to say (as I sometimes am) Meditation is not an Ontology?

Good point. I don't see meditation is ontology by default. It's practice. And if you want to see it as ontology, you will definitely find a lot of evidences for this. But our conversation is not about this. Meditation give us a tool to see beyond thoughts and to find something important. It's not for making models of universe. Quite contrary, its goal is to break them.

The pragmatic spiritual approach to any moment of reality seems like it might not be an adequate basis for a truly inclusive conceptual model of reality -- because it tends to disempower concepts.  It says, "My idea is that all ideas should be organized in relationship to That Which is Not Just an Idea".  This is like building a boat a with a hole in it and then saying, "That's okay... swimming is natural".  Sure, but the craft might not be seaworthy. 

:))) Here it is. Fear... It means we are on a right way. Just one step forward and you are free.

This sounds like metaphysics "I'm afraid to let go concepts because I'm afraid to drown, so we have to believe in thoughts". But life IS NOT just a thoughts. And right, I know that thoughts in particular are orginized not by meta-thoughts, but by "That Which is Not Just an Idea". And you can't just ignore that. Otherwise it's again metaphysics. ))

I like your observation that when the "I" observes the difference between Gross & Subtle it treats them as if they are on the same plane.  This is what me might expect if the "I" is a causal structure.  When it then observes the relationship between Causal and either the Subtle or the Gross the "flattening of the planes" might be the gateway to non-dual experience.  This does seem to be the tactic used in Zen Koans.

Who observes tension between causal and non-dual then? ))

And, as a final thought -- is it impossible for a duality to exist without a tension?

Yes and no. Duality is not an experience - it's just a conception. Do you believe it exists?
As for me, I can live in tensions and I also can relax and dissolve in serene unity. And even this choice is half mine and half the will of THAT...