Duality and non-Duality

Duality and non-Duality

Non-Duality challenges us to consider the perspective that all things come in fact from an undifferentiated single entity.

Before considering non-Duality further, let us first discuss Duality. Duality posits that there is a divide between is and is not, light and dark, high and low, male and female. There is a succinct poem that comes from Tai-Chi traditions:

From absence of division,
is born a divide.
That there is a divide,
signifies the greatest division.

From the Great Divide,
come the two natures: Yin, Yang.
From the two natures, four kinds:
Small yang, large yang, small yin, large yin.
From the four kinds, eight symbols;
Eight symbols, sixty-four more symbols.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagua
Translation: my own

Now, the concept of binary has become much more common with the rise of computer technology and its widespread study. The idea of encoding a vastly complex, and provably spanning set of things based upon just two single values: 1 and 0 has become widely acknowledged. This explains the second half of the poem.

The first half, however, is (in my opinion) a bit more interesting. Continuing with our computer and binary analogy, in the beginning there was simple electrical current. Perhaps more, perhaps less. We put our dams in the river to block the current, and created two distinct values: presence of current (1) and absence of current (0). Hence, from here we have our “yin” and “yang” upon which to build more complex symbols to encode even more complex concepts.

The poem goes on to say that this is the greatest division. There is no greater division than absolute black and absolute white. When we combine 1 and 0 to make 11, 10, 01, 00, we place between the two extremes a couple of mid-points, that are more this and less that, but nonetheless less extreme. This is what is meant by saying that there is no greater divide than the original divide.

Thus, much of the everyday ideas we have around categorizing, differentiating, distinguishing, are based upon the idea of Duality.

Non-Duality, then, challenges us to return to the undifferentiated nature of things, of being. Take a mountain, for example. You can probably imagine a mountain in your mind right now. But interesting things start happening when you ask yourself, where does the mountain end, and the flat ground begin? Is it here, is it there? Who is the authority on such matters?

What of the rocks that have broken off of the mountain? What of the trees that grow on the mountain? And the roots of those trees, that sink down into the rock? What then of the minerals exchanged between rock bed and tree root?

We human beings are constantly exchanging with our environment: oxygen and carbon dioxide, moisture as we inhale and exhale, drink and perspire, solid food and waste. Where then is the boundary between our physical form and the physical environment that surround us?

One can delve further into the realm of the mind. When meditating deeply upon an external object, the ego temporarily ceases to be active. For the duration of meditation, awareness is totally focused on the object, and for a moment it may appear as though the ego ceases to exist. In that moment, what is the divide between observer and object on the mental plane?

In moments of flow state, or deep connection between individuals, again individual differentiation seems to temporarily suspend itself. It is in these moments that we can get a glimpse of non-Duality, a glimpse of the return to undifferentiated being.