non-dual philosophy

[Jundo]

Just want to point out that there are big differences between Advaita (non-dual) Vedanta and other schools of Vedanta, with Advaita-Vedanta being closer to Zen.

For anyone interested in Advaita Vedanta, see Dennis Waite's "Back to the Truth: 5000 years of Advaita" plus his encyclopedic website, advaita.org.uk.

Gassho,
Dave

I would be interested in your telling us some of the difference, Dave.

Gassho, Jundo

[Hans]

Hello Dave,

thank you for your input. Since quite a few modern teachers seem to mix certain influences (at least in my very limited experience) I felt the need to generalise a bit
The website looks very interesting. I'd also be interested in hearing more about your own experiences in this regard.

All the best and gassho,

Hans Chudo Mongen

[JohnsonCM]

obviously I was mistaken about the similarities between the philosophies. thank you for directing me to dig deeper. -O

It's not that you were mistaken. If you look into the majority of the worlds religions and philosophies, you will find that, at their heart, they are all basically the same. The core teachings of Plato are the same as those of the Stoics, which are the same as the teachings of Jesus, and Mohammad, the Ancient Mysteries held many of the same truths as Buddhism, which are similar to the roots in Sikhism. Many philosophers have come to understand that there is an underlying "sameness " to all religions, some call it the anima mundi or world soul, we call it the dharma. The point is that all these core teachings, when one can see past the additions of delusion and discrimination, all come from the Buddha. All these teachers are the Buddha when they speak the dharma, just as much as you are the Buddha when you hear and sit with it.

[Heisoku]

Maybe the next T-shirt should read 'The whole universe is one bright pearl'.

[Dave Schauweker]

jundo's question - difference between Advaita Vedanta and other schools of Vedanta

What is the difference between Advaita Vedanta and other Vedanta schools? Well, Advaita Vedanta is non-dual and the other schools are more or less dual (drum-roll: Ta-da-dum ).
But seriously, for a very rough-and-ready charting of their difference, I think one could do worse than put Advaita (non-dual) Vedanta at one end of a spectrum, with knowledge of the Self (jnana) as the way to liberation, and put Dvaita (dual) Vedanta at the other end of the spectrum, along with eternal souls, eternal matter, an eternal God, and with Bhakti (devotion) as the way to salvation.
Traditional Advaita Vedanta emphasizes intellectual understanding. The guru gradually reveals a more encompassing and valid truth about the Self through a process called sublation.
What is gradually revealed is that only Brahman, ultimate reality beyond all categories, exists. Everything perceived is just a projection.
Unfortunately the incredible richness and complexity of Indian spirituality sully my neat little model. For instance, one of the two founders of Advaita Vedanta, Shankara, wrote a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, sometimes known as the Hindu Bible. The Gita was already quite a syncretist work, incorporating theistic and dualistic views. Meditation, social duty or dharma, devotion to a god - all kinds of practices are covered. In general I believe the Gita gives the idea that liberation is a matter of actively taming the mind, as if the tamer and the mind were separate, like a horse and rider.
Let’s move on to the modern era. Here it becomes even more complicated. We still have traditional Advaita Vedanta. In the West, I would put Greg Goode in this category. His approach is quite intellectual, although his terminology is more modern, substituting “awareness” for “Brahman” as the ultimate reality. His books contain numerous thought experiments to help one realize this.
Well, I don’t intend to write a thesis here, nor could I, and am only going to mention one more modern Advaita Vedanta teacher, Ramana Maharshi, who to me symbolizes the diversity of approach that emerged from traditional Advaita Vedanta in the twentieth century. He is truly a legendary figure, and was the inspiration for W. Somerset Maugham’s novel (and later the film) "The Razor’s Edge". He recommended the practice of self inquiry (in effect, a koan), constantly asking one’s self "Who am I?” ”Who is perceiving this?”
For more, see Dennis Waite's "Back to the Truth: 5000 years of Advaita" plus his encyclopedic website, advaita.org.uk.

[RichardH]

Jean Klein was a respected western Advaita teacher... http://www.nonduality.com/klein.htm His teachings were recommended by a Theravadin Abbot I know (how is that for mixing things up?). It is different from the Vedanta I learned early on, in that Self is not reified. There is much talk of capitol "A" "Awareness though, which can seem like just stringing along the reification, frankly. But the key point is that there is nowhere to hang your hat. It has some things in common with Zen, and some differences . IMHO

Gassho , Daizan

[Taigu]

Advaita is great, I am a keen admirer of Maharshi and reader of satsang and I don t practice Advaita. The guru thing, the idea of a eternal Self, all of this is not compatible with Zen, and Zen should not be mixed up with Advaita. Both are great paths and should be practised as is. Undiluted. One cannot simply pick up ingredients from the shelf, chewing water, playing an invisible lute, comunicating with the bare essence of things, this is our way.

Gassho


Taigu

[Jinyo]

An interesting thread - I began reading the teachings of Sriramana Maharshi a while back but did not get very far into it. I think as Hans and Taigu point out it's better to feel for the gravitational pull of a teaching within oneself and then study and practice deeply.
It's not a case of one practice being better than another - just a feeling of one's 'home'.

Gassho

Willow

[Dave Schauweker]

Zazen, Vedanta, and a sensory deprivation tank experience

Jundo, Taigu:
You guys provide a great service to the Zen community. And what is your reward? Having to deal with argumentative nit-pickers like me.
O.K. this is my last post on this thread (and I’m not kidding).
Trust me (as Mitt Romney used to say), there is a point to this.
This morning I took advantage of a half-off coupon and tried a sensory deprivation tank session for the first time. I became acclimated to the tank almost immediately and started to relax. As in my daily zazen, I just tried to relax and be passively aware. In a relatively short time, I became aware that I was more relaxed than I am during zazen, and in this more relaxed and empty state I realized that during zazen I had been subtly shaping my mental states.
I relaxed still further and realized that there was a definite resistance to carrying the process of relaxation any deeper. From this point on, I just watched my resistance, which occasionally resulted in involuntary muscular contractions.
Although I skipped my zazen today, because I didn’t have time to do both, I believe I learned something quite valuable that I can now apply to my zazen.
Let’s return to Oheso’s question that began this post:
“Can a Zen Buddhist learn from the study of writings of Adavaita Vedanta proponents? any thoughts or familiarity with this philosophy or Greg Goode?”
I also believe I learned a lot that I can apply to zazen from Krishnamurti, who, because ya gotta put him somewhere, is often lumped in with Vedanta.
It’s not always a case of either/or ideas or practices, mixing practices, consumer-like attitudes towards religion, etc. And I believe the uniqueness of Zen can be overemphasized. I personally would rather leave that to the fundamentalists (I specifically had in mind "No one comes to the Father except by me").
‘Nuff said.
Gassho,
Dave

[RichardH]

As in my daily zazen, I just tried to relax and be passively aware.

This sounds like a confused struggle. I've been there, and I hope it can be put down. It is a drag.


The Four Noble Truths, the Buddha's "nobel silence" on tail chasing ontological questions, recognizing the gyres of Eternalism and Nihilism that people routinely slip down in pursuit of ..... , all this and much more distinguishes the skillful way Buddhism. Respecting these distinctions and not blurring them in New Age generalizations does mean being a fundamentalist. There is nothing supremacist about it, nothing chauvinistic, nothing closed minded. It just means practicing thoroughly and with fidelity.

Gassho Daizan

[Taigu]

Call me a fundamentalist if you wish, i am just in charge of transmitting a teaching that does not belong to me. No need for anything else.
Gassho


Taigu

[Jundo]

This morning I took advantage of a half-off coupon and tried a sensory deprivation tank session for the first time. I became acclimated to the tank almost immediately and started to relax. As in my daily zazen, I just tried to relax and be passively aware. In a relatively short time, I became aware that I was more relaxed than I am during zazen, and in this more relaxed and empty state I realized that during zazen I had been subtly shaping my mental states.

This is what may sound strange about Shikantaza Zazen, but ultimately it is not about going into a sensory deprivation tank or attaining a peaceful relaxed state. It is about sitting with all that is, silence or noise, quiet or chaos ... with a clear Silence and Stillness within that gently holds all that is going on, including the distracting, beautiful or ugly, quiet or rock concert noisy. That is the ultimate Silence and Stillness, because it is Silent and Still without need for silence or stillness. That is ultimate Peace, perfectly At Peace both with peaceful situations and those not feeling nice and peaceful at all.

We sit in a quiet room, but with our eyes half open ... pushing away nothing, nor chasing after anything. We sit that way just to quiet down the mind enough to release the tangles of thought and emotion that plaque and bind our minds during a busy day. However, we do not shut our eye or seek some escape either. We simply sit, undisturbed by whatever disturbs. Then, rising from the cushion and returning to our busy day of noise, disturbance, places to go and things to do ... we may yet taste a bit of silence, nondisturbance, no place to go or thing in need of doing in/amid/as all that disturbing running around ... all at once, not two.

Anyway, I have dabbled in the past with sensory deprivation tanks too. But one cannot carry a sensory deprivation tank or Zafu around all day!

This talk goes into that a bit more ...

At our Zendo in Tsukuba, for our Saturday morning Zazenkai, birds can usually be heard chirping prettily in the surrounding trees ...

... but also, a truck or cars will frequently be heard rushing down the nearby road, carpenters banging fixing a neighbors roof, or a military helicopter passing overhead (I do not know why, but our house must be on some route they use to one of the nearby bases).

It has become one of the most powerful teaching tools I have for new students. I tell them that it is not to think "Oh, the birds are very lovely and peaceful ... but the trucks and helicopters disturb my nice Zazen". Rather, "the birds are singing as birds ... the trucks are trucks ... the copters just copters. Do not think one pleasant but the other ugly or detracting from the atmosphere. Then, there is a certain quiet and stillness that one can come hear behind and sounding right through all the sounds and noise."

I learned this sitting many a morning at Nishijima Roshi's old Zendo ... located right next to a NOISY child's playground and a highway.

Suzuki Roshi has a lovely little talk (one of his few video talks) on the mind's making "sound vs. noise". If I recall, his birds in the talk were not as pretty sounding as ours!

Gassho, Jundo

You also said ...

It’s not always a case of either/or ideas or practices, mixing practices, consumer-like attitudes towards religion, etc. And I believe the uniqueness of Zen can be overemphasized. I personally would rather leave that to the fundamentalists (I specifically had in mind "No one comes to the Father except by me").

Well, there is something unique about Shikantaza among all fine forms of meditation ... just like there is something unique about chocolate ice cream among all fine flavors of ice cream.

Most meditation I know is aimed at getting some sensation that takes us out of life ... such a bliss, a feeling of peace, oneness, realization of god by shutting off or turning away from this world and the senses ... like in the sensory deprivation tank and the deep sense of relaxation there. That is fine ... until the lights come on. If one wants that kind of peace, valium or morphine might do better. The Peace I describe is more profound perhaps, because it is a Peace so Peaceful that All is At Peace even with not feeling peaceful all through life. In Shikantaza, we find a Bliss that includes the sad times, a Beauty that is both the beautiful and ugly to our eyes, a Oneness that is One with division, and finding the Pure Land even in the busy inner city ...

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?7684-Sit-a-Long-with-Jundo-Zazen-for-Beginners-%28Part-XXIII%29

So, it is a unique ice cream flavor.

Gassho, Jundo

[Oheso]

orthodoxy is it's own reward?

-O

[Jundo]

I sometimes say that bananas are wonderful and tasty, and so is ketchup ... but I am not sure about banana ketchup!

However, when I said that last time, our Kyonin sent me this ...



Nevertheless, in this Sangha we are just BANANAS!

Gassho, Jundo

[Taigu]

Not exactly...and people with a few hours sitting and a few books behind them regularly voice their own opinion about the path, and we live in a world where tennage dudes trashing this and that are praised for their originality and theor opinions are more valued that people that offered time and space, actually give their lives to what they study.
If you are s student of Advaita, you should know better or rather not know better. As to your knowledge of a Zen Buddhist point of view as you phrase it let me be clear: zen buddhist is an absurd phrasing, there is no point of view but the relinqishing of all views
And there is no reward here.
And no non- dual path. Time to seriously study Nagarjuna and get some of his stuff down your brain, your heart, your bones and beyond. Twenty years of practice and then twenty more before uttering a single word. Or at least have the will to listen and learn.

Anyway, you are welcome!

Thank you


Gassho


Taigu

Orthodox- fudamentalist dude Taigu