Exercises in Nondualism

Exercises in Nondualism

“First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is” ~Donovan

Perhaps my official introduction to nondualistic thinking was from
the Tao Te Ching (Thou Dei Jinn),

“The recognition of an 'ideal' of Beauty requires 'Ugliness' to compare it with. The 'ideal' of Goodness require 'Badness' to compare it to.”

Wait a second, you mean not everything is black & white, cut & dried,
signed sealed delivered and mine? Decades later I learned from
personal experience how a 'beautiful' looking person can be 'ugly.'

And as the saying goes: The road to hell is paved with good
intentions. The possibility that my good efforts could go seriously
awry got me to examine, review and ask, before taking action: Is this a
genuine 'good action' or might it bounce back at me big time? . . . You
know, when you hear someone say: I was only trying to help! Maybe
so, but decidedly not in the Taoist flow.

Night and day are not so distinct rather an example of what a teacher-
friend enlighteningly called “unified duality.” Dawn . . . twilight . . .
dusk . . . these are times of Day-Night that are the least clearly
defined, what nowadays could be called gray zones. Thus to say that
night and day are opposites, a dualism, would be false ― as they meld
and melt into and out of each other forever, and won't be reduced to
two distinct categories.

Twenty-something years after the Tao, I learned of Yanantin, an
Andean way of being that embraces “complementary opposites.” Yet
the complementary opposite of a definition is revealed in the
following example from Hillary S. Webb's website, as she is the author
of Yanantin and Masintin in the Andean World: Complementary Dualism
in Modern Peru, and Wikipedia includes Bolivia:

“Between 2007-2009, as part of my PhD research, I traveled to central
Peru to explore the degree to which one’s relationship with the world differs depending on whether one views existence as a “battle” or a “dance.”

“In the beginning, I imagined this investigation would be an entirely
scholarly endeavor, in which I would maintain a certain emotional
distance from my subject matter. That assumption would change real
quick.

“On my first day of fieldwork, I asked my friend, Amado, a young
shaman from the high Andes, how to define yanantin:

“'Out of respect, I do not define it,” he responded, his eyes drifting
toward the mountains that surrounded us. “All I know of it is its mystery.'

“His answer took me aback, but I pushed on.

“'Would you be willing to let me interview you?' I asked him.

“An amused smile crossed Amado’s face as he turned to face me.

“'Yes, princesa,' he said. 'You can interview me. But may I suggest that
you download the information from the cosmos instead?'
https://www.hillaryswebb.com/yanantin-and-masintin-andean-world

Or yet another complementary opposite is from Tiokasin Ghosthorse
(Lakota) who speaks of uploading from Mother Earth.

As above, so below; as below, so above.

From Webb's book:
“For us, yanantin doesn’t focus on the differences between two beings.
That is what disconnects them. Instead, we focus on the qualities that
brought them together. That is yanantin. We don’t really see the
differences. That’s why we see them as not necessarily opposed, but as
complementary. One on its own can’t hold everything, can’t take care
of everything. Not only are they great together, but they need to be
together. There is no other way. When there is another, it represents
extra strength for both."

Not focusing on the differences rather what brings together is one of
the gists of what I think nondualistic thinking fosters.

One way I have adopted all this is to practice holding two opposites in
my consciousness and rather than trying to determine who or what is
right or wrong, good or bad, I just let it be... as over time another kind
of awareness arises, nuances slide into consciousness, over-reactions
fade from view because there isn't a 'right way' to respond. Or even if
there is a 'right way' to respond, often a better answer for how to deal
with a problematic situation will come after a night's sleep, when
doing the dishes, whenever. Cognitive dissonance, on the other hand,
balks at such efforts, finding it too uncomfortable to deal with.

As if to ironically laugh in the face of nondualism, there are times
when right and wrong do apply, as virtually all sane people would
agree that it is wrong for Israel to be attempting genocide of the
Palestinian Peoples. Yet imho, if one gets stuck with that “wrong,”
then one will avoid further learning as to the why of such atrocities
and what can be done to, at the least, attempt to change that horrific
course.

Another one for the hopper: Nobel peace prize winner Henry
Kissinger, who recently passed away at 100 (hopefully very far away),
was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands if not
millions of human beings.

The current state of the world is ripe for nondualistic thinking put
into practice. There is far too much oppositional thinking and overreacting
going on, and too-often that trap, called “controlled
opposition,” is deliberate as a means to get people infighting, to get
people distracted from finding more ways of coming together, from
finding more ways of being in the Day-Night flow, from finding more
ways of Earth-Sky living.