You are on page 1of 17

DAVID LOY

NONDUAL THINKING
I never think-my thoughts think for me.
Oamartine)
Much of Asian philosophy constitutes a radical critique of thinking as it
usually occurs. It is commonly claimed that the superimpositions of thought-
projection (vikalpa and pnzpaiicu) obscure the actual nature of experience.
Given the emphasis on meditation, during which one lets go of thoughts,
one might conclude that thinking has solely the negative effect of an inter-
ference that distorts reality, and hence tkt we should strive to eliminate
or minimize it. This inference would be an error: thought is not to
be rejected, but its actual nature must be cl di ed. If thought-construction
distor.ts perception, so perception might be said to interfere with thought.
When the thought-forming activity of the mind is preoccupied with a system
of representation and intention, then something fundamental about the
nature of thoughts is obscured also. In Chan, the fifth of Kuo-an Shih-yuans
Ten Oxherding Pictures describes a stage of enlightenment in which thoughts
too are not to be rejected: Enlightenment brings the realization that
thoughts are not unreal since even they arise from our True-nature. It is
only because delusion still remains that they are imagined to be unreal.
The problem is not thoughts per se but more specifically a certain type
of thinking, variously called reasoning, conceptualizing, dualistic
thinking , etc. But exactly what these terms refer to is not clear, especially
if an alternative mode of thinking is supposed. What kind of thinking is left
if we eliminate reasoning? If conceptualizing means thinking that
employs concepts, it is difficult to conceive of what thinking without
concepts could be. Dualistic thinking is easier to understand: thinking which
uses dualistic categories such as being and nonbeing, SamSara and nirvana,
pure and impure. The usual criticism ofsuch thi nki ng is that although
Journal of Chinese Philosophy 13 (1986) 293-309
Copyright 01986 by Dialogue Publishing Company. Honolulu, Hawdi, USA.
294 DAVID LOY
distinctions are made in order to choose one half, the interdependence of
the two terms means that to affirm one is also to maintain the other: in
clinging to life I reveal my obsession with death, and my desire for success
is equal to my fear of failure. But isnt all thinking dualistic in its alternation
between assertion and negation? If such thi aki ng is eliminated, what
remains? The concern of this paper is to
characterize the difference between such problematic modes of thinking and
whatever type is supposed to occur after enlightenment.
What is hondual thinking?
I. hjiia
Another nonduality, the nondifference of subject andaobject, is a
crucial-perhaps the crucial-concept for several of those Eastern systems
which criticize reasoning/conceptualizing-parti&ly Mahayana Buddhism,
Advaita Vedanta, and Taoism. This suggests that a fruitful approach to the
question of the true nature of thinking might be to investigate whether
thinking is (or can be) nondual in this second sense-that is, without a thinker
distinct from the thoughts that he thi nks. The concept of umj& as
developed in Mahay& seems to be an instance of this: Pmjjia is often
defined as that knowing in which there is no distinction between the knower,
that which is known, and the act of knowing. D.T. Suzuki begins his paper
on Reason and Intuition in Buddhist PhiIosophy by thus distinguishing
prqXa from gjiiana:
wm.goes beyond YjirlMO. Wemake use of Nnana m our
world of the senses and intellect, which is characterized by
dualism in the sense that there is the one who sees and there is
the other that is seen-the two standing in opposition. InprqiM
this differentiation does not take place: what is seen and the
one who sees are identical; the seer is the seen and the seen is the
seer.
In his chart listing the various counterbalancing characteristics of praj&
and v ~ ~ , the former includes Nonduality in contrast to the latters
duality. The title of Suzukis paper derives from his translation of the
two Sanskrit terms: Vii;iaM he translates reason or discursive under-
NON- DUAL THINKING 29 5
standing, in contrast to praj% which is translated, perhaps unfortunately,
as intuition. The main philosophical meaning of intuition is the
immediate apprehension of an object by the mind without the intervention
of any reasoning proCess5-as in Spinozas scientiz intuitha, the third and
highest form of knowledge, the perception of a thing through its essence
alone, which does not consist in being convinced by reasons but in an
immediate union with the thing itself. Thus Suzuki s term is an appropriate
one to describe nonduality. However, it may be unwise in that intuition
more commonly suggests another faculty of mind apart from the intellect,
whereas the function of intuition here is nothing other than the function
of the intellect when it is experienced nondually. As Suzuki repeatedly
emphasizes, prq2 underlies vi j i i ana:
. . . if we think that there is a thing denoted as pnzjna and anothkr
denoted as d j m and that they are forever separated and not
to be brought to the state of unification, we shall be completely
on the wrong track.6
V q m m o t work without having prajm behind it; parts
are parts of the whole; parts never exist by themselves, for if
they did they would not be parts-they would even cease to
exist,
The etymologies of v y h and pr@h are revealing. Both have the
same root j 2 , Yo know . The vi- prefix of vijkna (also in Vi-kdpa and
vi-tarka) signifies separation or differentiation; hence it refers to that type
of knowing which functions by discrimina ting one thing from another-the
most fundamental discrimination being that of the knower from the known.
In contrast, the pra-prefm of pr42 means being born or springing up-
presumably by itself, evidently referring to a more spontaneous type of
knowing in which the thought no longer seems to be the prouduct of a
subject, but is experienced as arising from a deeper nondual source. In such
knowing the thought and that which is conscious of the thought are one.
One important implication of this is that it is impossible to observe ones
thoughts objectively. The SiksZsamuccaya of Santideva contains a meditation
on thought which dwells on thi s point:
2% DAVID LOY
. . . For thought, KGyapa, cannot be apprehended, inside or
outside, or m between both. For thought is immaterial, in-
visiile, non-resisting, inconceivable, unsupported and homeless.
Thought has never been seen by any of the Buddhas, nor do they
see it, nor will they see it. . . . A thought is like the stream of a
river, without any staying power; as soon as it is produced it
breaks up and disappears. . . . A thought is like lightning, it
breaks up in a moment and does not stay on. . . .
Searching for thought al l round, he does not see it within
or without. . . . Can then thought review thought? No, thought
cannot review thought. As the blade of a sword cannot cut
itself, as a finger-tip cannot touch itself, so a thought cannot
see itself.9
But this seem contradicted by our experience. Surely thought cm review
itself; doesn't this happen often, whenever we ponder the logical implications
of some thawtas part of a sequence of reasoning? hi point of the passage
must be that the various thoughtelements of such a sequence do not coexist
in the mind at the same time. At any moment there can be only one thought;
a "review" of that thought, or any other thought that arises, is a completely
new thought. The next section will explore the implications of this.
n. "An unsupported Thought"
It thinks, one ought to say. We become %ware of certain
representations which do not depend on us; others depend
on us, or at least so we believe; when is the boundary? One
should say, it thinks, just as one says, it rains.
-Lichtenberg"
In the Western philosophical tradition, the denial of a thinker is even
more radical than the denial of the subject as a perceiver or an agent. Modem
philosophy begins with Descartes' postulation of the subject which functions
autonomously as its own criterion of truth, and this subject is founded on the
NON-DUAL THINKING 29 7
fact that the act of thinking requires a thinker, an I to be doing it.
What of thinking? I find here that thought is an attribute that
belongs to me: it alone cannot be separated from me. I am, I
exist, that is certain. But how often? J ust when I thi nk; for it
might possibly be the case if I ceased entirely to thi nk, that
I should likewise cease to exist. . . . I am, however, a real thing
and really exist; but what thing? I have answered: a thing
which thi nks.
Descartes argues that it is self-contradictory to doubt my own existence.
For it is so evident of itself that it is I who doubts, who understands, and
who desires, that there is no reason here to add anything to explain it.
As a proof, this begs the question: To assume that I am doubting my own
existence is to go beyond what is empirically given. What is experienced is
thoughts, some of which involve the concept I, but from this it is illegiti-
mate to infer a thinker distinct from the thought. No Cogito can be derived
from cogifurn.
In reaction, Humes conception of the mind denies the existence of any
identifiable self and emphasizes the intentionality of all consciousness,
that consciousness is always consciousness of something:
I never catch myself at any time without a perception, and can
never observe anything but the perception. When my perceptions
are removed for any time, as by sound sleep, so long am I insen-
sible to myself, and may truly be said not to ex&3
The intentionality of dualistic consciousness is essent i al to the nondualist,
for this is implied by the claim that there is no self apart from its experience.
John Levy has elaborated this concept into what is perhaps the classic argu-
ment against subject-object duality:
When I am conscious of an object, that is, of a notion or a
percept, that object alone is present. When I am conscious of my
perceiving, what alone presents itself to consciousness is the
notion that I perceive the object : and therefore the notion of my
298 DAVID LOY
being the perceiver also coktitutes an object of consciousness.
From this, a most important fact emerges: the socalled subject
who thinkp. and its apparent object, have no immediate relation.
. . . the notion, I amreading, does not occur while weare
thus absorbed in reading a.book: it occurs only when our
attention wavers. . . . a little reflection will show that even when
we are not thus absorbed for any appreciable lapse of time, the
subject who afterwards lays claim to the action was not present
to consciousness when the action was taking place. The idea of
our being the agent occurs to us as a separate thought, which is
to say that it forms an entirely f resh object of consciousness.
And since, at the time of the occurrence, wewere present as
neither the thinker, the agent, the percipient, nor the enjoyer, no
subsequent claim on our part could alter the position. . . .
If the notions of subject and object are both the separate
objects of consciousness, neither term has any real sigaificance.
An object, in the absence of a subject, cannot be what is normally
called an object; and the subject, m the absence of an object,
cannot be what is normally called the subject. It is in memory
that the two notions seem to combine to form an entirely new
notion, I am the p&ceiver or the thhker. l4
From this, Levy later concludes: Memory and the consciousness of indivi-
dual existence are therefore synonym~us.~~ If this argument is valid, then
originally there is no distinction between internal (mental) and external
(physical), which implies just what Chan Masters Hsueh-Feng and Dogen
claimed: t r ees and rocks and cloudr, if they me not juxtaposed in memwy
with the !Pconcept, me as much my mind as thoughts and fee&@. Levy
develops a point much stressed in Advaita: the Self is that which cannot be
known, for to know it would be to make it into an object. What is d y
overlooked about this point is that our usual sense-of-self is the result of
exactly such an objectification. Levys emphasis on memory as the source
of duality is consistent with sankatas reference to it in his famous defdtion
of adhyasa, which may be restated as: Superimposition is the apprehension
NON-DUAL THINKING 299
of something in the present as different than it actually is, due to the inter-
ference of memory-traces.6 (There is aim a parallel in the Lankavafara
Sutm: When the triple world is surveyed by the Bodhisattva, he perceives
that its existence is due to memory [literally, perfuming] that has been
accumdated since the beginningless past, but wrongly interpreted). The
usual function of memory as superimposition is to interpret the perception
so that it is seen as. . . -in thi s case, as a selfexisting object. This process
involves relating together perceptions and other mental events, including
memory-traces and the notion of I (the subject). But what if memory
were not relating together the distinct notions of percept and subject? Ori t
amounts to the same thing-if the memory were experienced as it is, not
superimposed but an entirely fresh object of consciousness quite distinct
from the other thoughts and percepts which it relates together? The signifi-
cance of the Siksiisamuccaya passage, quoted at the end of Section I, becomes
evident: If memory wrongly interpreted is synonymous with individual
existence because it is a case of thought reviewing thought, then the experi-
ence of each thought as autonomous will eliminate that sense of individual
existence-that is, the sense of subjectabject duality.
Neitzsche came to such a conclusion as a result of developing the impli-
cations of other reflections on causality:
Causality eludes us; to suppose a direct causal l i nk
between thoughts, as logic does-that is the consequence of the
crudest and clumsiest observation. . .
Thinking, as epistemologists conceive -it, simply does
not occur: it is quite an arbitrary fiction, arrived at by selecting
one element from the process and eliminating al l the rest, an
artificial arrangement for the purpose of intelligibility-
The spirit, something that thi nks: . . . thi s conception
is a second derivative of that false introspection which believes
in thinking: first an act is imagined which simply does not
occur, %inking, and secon&y a subject substratum in which
every act of thinking, and nothing else, has its origin: that is
to say, both the deed and doer are fictions.*
300 DAVID LOY
Webelieve that thoughts as they succeed one another in our
minds stand in some kind of causal relation: the logician especial-
ly, who actually speaks of nothing but instances which never
occur in reality, has grown accustomed to the prejudice that
thoughts Cause thoughts-. . .
In summa: everything of which we become conscious is
a .terminal phenomenon. an end-and causes nothing; every
successwe phenomenon in consciousness is completely atom-
istic.. . l9
Nietzsche relates the denial of a thinkg to a denial of the process of think@.
Why, after all, do we believe that there is an act of thinking? Because that
act is what the thinker does: stringing thoughts together by creating new
thoughts OP the basis of the old thoughts. If there is no such thinker, then
there need be no such act. That leaves only thoughts, but one at a time,
although the succession may be rapid.
The significance of Nietzsches remarks for us is that we find the same
claim in the Asian nondual philosophies, particularly in Wan Buddhism. In
ThePlatfomt Sum of the Sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng explains what prajk
is:
To know our mind is to obtain liberation. To attain libera-
tion is to experience the Samadhi of Rajna, which is thought-
lessness. What is thoughtlessness? Thoughtlessness is to see
and know all Dharmas (things) with a mind free from attachment.
When m use it pervades everywhere, and yet it sticks nowhere ....
When our mind works freely without any hindrance and is at
liberty to come or to go7, we attain Samadhi of Fmjrru, or
liberation. Such a state is called the fyction of thoughtless-
ness. But to refrain from thinking of anything, so that al l
thoughts are suppressed, is to be Dharma-ridden, and thi s is an
erroneous view.2o
The term thoughtlessness would seem to recommend a mind free from any
thoughts, but Hui Neng denies thi s: rather, thougbtlessness is the function
NON-DUAL THINKING 30 1
of a mind free from any attachment. The implication is that for someone
who is liberated thoughts still arise, but there is no clinging to them when
they do. Why the term thoughtlessness can be used to characterize such
a state of mind wiU become clear in a moment. But the question that arises
first is in what way one can ever be attached to thoughts if, as the Si ksh-
mccaya says, a thought has no staying power, that like lightning it breaks
up in a moment and disappears. Hui Neng answers this later in the Platform
Sutm when he says more about %ow to think:
In the exercise of our thinking faculty, let the past be dead.
If we allow our thoughts, past, present and fulure, to link up in
a series, we put ourselves under restrht. On the other hand, if
we never let our mind attach to anything, we shall gain liberation.
(my emphasis2 )
One clings to a thought by allowing the thoughts to link up in a series, which
means having ones next thought caused, as it were, by the previous
thoughts, rather than letting each thought ari se spontaneously and nondually.
According to the autobiographical first part of the Platform Sutra, Hui
Neng became deeply enlihtened and realized that all things in the universe
are his self-nature, upon hearing a line from the Diamond Sum: Let your
thought arise without fixing it anywhere. The passage just prior to this
one-which Hui Neng must also have heard-puts this in context. Edward
Come translates it as follows:
Therefore then, Subhuti, the Bodhisattva should produce
an unsupported thought, a thought which is nowhere supported,
which is not supported (qrafisfhitz) by forms, sounds, smells,
tastes, touchables, or objects of mind.=
A thought is Unsupported because it does not ari se in dependence upon
anydung else, not caused by another thought (niind-objects) and of
course not produced by a thinker, which the Bodhisattva realizes does not
exist. Such an unsupported thought, then, is pmj&, arising by itself
nondually.
302 DAVID LOY
Hui Nengs grandson in the Dharma, Ma-tsu, reinforces Hui Neng and
the Dkmond Sutm: So with former thoughts, later thoughts, and thoughts
in between: the thoughts follow one another without being linked together.
Each one is absolute& tranquil.% That each such unsupported thought
is absolutely tranquil is a new point, although probably implied by Hui
Nengs term thoughtlessness. So when one loses sense of self and com-
pletely becomes an unsupported thought, there is the Taoist paradox of
wei-wu-wei, in which action and passivity are combined: there is the
movement of nondual thought, but at the same time there is awareness of
that which does not change. That is why such an experience can just as well
be described as th~ughtlessness~. The later Wanmaster Kuei-shan Lingyu
referred to this as thoughtless thought: Through concentration a devotee
b y gain thoughtless thought. Thereby he is suddenly enlightened and reali-
zes his original hatwe? Thoughtless thought is not a mind emp@ of
any thought: one thought is thoughtless thought.
An important parallel to this is found in the writings of a modem
Advaitin, FQmana Maharshit
The ego in its purity is experienced in the interval between two
states or between two thoughts: TIE ego is like the worm which
leaves one hold only after it catches another. Its true nature is
known when it is out of contact with objects or thoughts. You
should realize this interval as the abiding, unchangeable Reality,
your true Being. . . 26
The image of the ego as a worm which leaves one hold only after catching
another might well have been used by Hui Neng and Ma-tsu to describe the
vay in which thoughts are apparently linked up iu a series. The difference is
that Mahayana Buddhism encourages the arising of an unsupported
thought, whereas Ramana Mahanhi understands unchangeable Reality as
that which is realized only when it is out of contact with al l objects and
thoughts. This is consistent with the general relation between Mahayana and
Advaita: N i r m Brahman is so emptied of any attribute (hen, nen, . . . )
that it becomes impossible to differentiate from &nyufir. It is difficult
indeed to distinguish between pure being and pure non-being as a
category. (S. Da~gupta).~ But there is stiU a difference in emphasis.
NON-DUAL THINKING 303
Mahiiyha emphasizes realizing the emptiness of all phenomena, whereas
Advaita distinguishes between empty Reality and phenomena, with the effect
of devaluing the latter into mere m@Z
The image of a worm hesitant to leave its hold wus used in a personal
conversation I had in 1981 with a Theravada monk from Thailand, a medita-
tion master named Phra Khemananda. This was before I discovered the
passage from Ramana Maharshi; what Khemananda said was not prompted
by any remark of mine, but was taught to him by his own teacher in Thai-
land. Hebegan by drawing the following diagram:
Each oval represents a thought, he said; normally, we leave one thought only
when wehave another one to go to (as the arrows indicate), but to thi nk in
this way constitutes ignorance. Instead, we should realize that thinking is
actually like this:
T 1
Then we will understand the true nature of thoughts: that thoughts do not
arise from each other but by themselves.
This understanding of thoughts-not-linking-up-in-a-senes but springing
up nondually is consistent with D.T. Suzukis conception of prajE~:
It is important to note here that pm~*nu wants to see its diction
quickly apprehended, giving us no intervening moment for
reflection or analysis or interpretation. Rajm for thi s reason is
frequently likened to a flash of lightning or to a spark from two
304 DAVID LOY
striking pieces of flint. Quickness does not refer to progress
of time; it means immediacy, absence of deliberation, no allow-
wce for an intervening proposition, no passing from premises
to conclusion.?*
This gives insight into the many Wan dialogues in which students are criti-
cized for their hesitation or praised for their apparently nonsensical but
immediate replies. That the reply is immediate is not itself sufficient; what
is important is that each response be experienced as a nondual presentation
of the whole. Hesitation reveals lack of pngXa because it indicates either
some logical train of thought or the self-consi5ous paralysis of all thought.
That many approved replies arenon-sequitur re+ds one aspect of the en-
lightened mind, that its thoughts are free from-reasoning and any methodo-
Even more important, this also explains how meditation functions,
since the letting-go of thoughts breaks up the otherwise habitual linking
together in a series. Huang Po: . . . Why do they [Wan students] not
copy me by letting each thought go as though it were nothing, or as though
it were a piece of rotten wood, a stone, or the cold ashes of a dead fire?29
logy.
III. Conclusion
We are now in a position to answer the problem posed at the beginning of
this paper: How to characterize the difference between reasoning/conceptua-
lizing/duaIistic thinking and the type of thinking that occurs after realization:
nondual thinking. The problem with reasoning/konceptualizing is that it
involves thinking as a logical process leading to a conclusion-that is, as a
series of linked thoughts. The distinct thoughts of such thinking never stand
Zmsupported by themselves but depend upon and refer back to the
previous thoughts, because apparently caused by them. The experience
of ptqiiio seems to be that, instead of my laboriously extracting the logical
implications of one thought for another (for which process a self is assumed
to be neceisary), thoughts spring up fd-grown, like Miuerva from the
forehead of Zeus.
There are two objections which spontaneously ari ses in reaction to
thi s conception of nondual thinking: Without the direction of a thinker
NON-DUAL THINKING 30 5
to organize ones thoughts and relate them in a series, thoughts would arise
randomly and chaotically, and we could not function in any meaningful
way. This objection gains its force from our experience of the free-associa-
tion that occurs during daydreaming, when the conscious controls which
normally direct (or seem to direct) our thinking are relaxed. However, we
should not equate concentrationaf-mind with a thinker; the former-one-
pointed mind-is much recommended in Chan for example, even as the
self is denied (W~-hSin)~. Pmjtiu is an instance of the first because there is
not the self-conscious reviewing of the second. A manifestation of t h i s
occurs in the dhmma-combat which advanced Chan monks were expected
to engage in with masters and other monks as a way of testing and
p~lishing~ their own realization. When a monk was challenged with a
Chan question, his answer needed to be both immediate and appropriate
to situation. The point here is that, contrary to our usual understanding, the
mediation of reasoning is not necessary to choose the most appropriate
response from among various alternatives, but what ar i ses spontaneously in
pji%-intuition will be appropriate if self-hesitation does not interfere.
This is no special process of intuiting, but the natural function of mind
for someone without the delusion of didity. There is certainly pattern
in my mental life, but it is not something that I have imposed upon it;
there has never been a thinker creating and linking thoughts.
But (thi s is a second objection) how then do you explain away the
sense of effort that we experience when we try to think? You have denied
not just the thinker, but the very act of thinking, which leaves only thoughts,
whose nondual nature is, it has been claimed, to spring up spontaneously.
If that is true, why is thinking ever effortful?
To answer thi s, we must distinguish between types of effort in
thinking. One type is that involved in rigorous logical thinking, but I suggest
that much of the effort involved here is due to selecting and organizing into
a rational pattern thoughts which naturally ari se, which in themselves have
no such pattern. The function of the self here is not creating thoughts but
linking them into an acceptable logical sequence. As Nietzsche claimed in a
passage quoted earlier, thinking as epistemologists conceive it is an arbitrary
fiction, an artificial arrangement for the purpose of inteugibkity in which
certain thoughts are selected out and others ignored.
But I think that this does not explain all the effort which is indubitably
306 DAVID LOY
connected wth thinking. The example of Zen ciharma-combat, used in
answering the previous objection, is also helpful here. Even for one who
sometimes experiences nondual pr@dntuition, effort is necessary, but this
effort is to keep a one-pointed mind by avoiding and cutting through the
various interferences that still arise and tend to distract. Again, this effort
is not to produce thoughts but to eliminate or bypass the other mental
processes (emotions, desires, memory-traces, etc.) which otherwise transform
the creativity of prajiiu into discrimination of v # h by filtering pmiiia
through various organizing mechanisns. Perhaps the sense of self i s this
habitual process of organizing thoughts and linking them in series; if so,
the sense of self constitutes a barrier which can be overcome only with
effort.
This interpretation invites comparison with some philosophical views
on telepathy. From his own resexches, HH. Price concluded:
It looks as if telepathically received impressions have some
difficulty in crossing the threshold and manifesting themselves
in consciousness. There seems to be some barrier or repressive
mechanism which tends to shut them out from consciousness, a
barrier which is rather difficult to pass, and they make use of
all sorts of devices for overcoming it. . . . . It is a plausible guess
that many of our everyday thoughts and emotions are telepathic
or partly telepathic in origin, but are not recognized to be so
because they are so much distorted and mixed with other mental
contents in crossing the threshold of consciousness.j
This could serve as a description of how prajiia is filtered and distorted into
vijijuna It also raises the question whether psi phenomena such as telepathy
and precognition are natural aspects of prqEa-intuition (about whose
function there is always something essentially mysterious) which has been
freed from such distortions. Claims to psychic powers are traditional to all
the nondual Asian traditions. For example, according to the Pali sutras the
Buddha had such fadties as heavenly ear, the ability to hear sounds very
far away. Are mental powers such as telepathy perhaps the natural funtion
of the mind when 3nterferences are eliminated?
But prqina-intuition, as described in this paper, may seem t oo mys-
NON-DUAL THINKING 30 7
terious to be believable. Do we ever experience such nondual thinking? Of
course: this is what is normally expressed by the term creativity, which
too is usually acknowledged to be essentially mysterious.
Has anyone at the end of the nineteenth century a clear idea
of what poets of strong ages have called mqht i on? . . . If one
had the slightest residue of superstition left in ones system, one
could hardly reject altogether the idea that one is merely incar-
nation, merely mouthpiece, merely a medium of overpoweriog
forces. . . . One hears, one does not seek; one accepts, one does
not ask who gives; like lightning, a thought flashes up, with neces-
sity, without hesitating regarding its form-I never had any
choice.. . .
Everything happens involuntarily in the highest degree but
as in a gale of a feeling of freedom, of absoluteness, of power,
of divinity.
The concept of nondual thinking as developed in thi s paper also seems a
fruitful approach to Heideggers later work (after the Kehre), which distin-
guishes between vorstellendes and urspnurgliches Denken and insists that
thinking must be claimed by Being so that it is not just about Being but is
itself an event of Being. We never come to thoughts. They come
to But to expand on these issues would go beyond the bounds of this
paper .33
w-w ZENDO
KAMAKVRA, JAPAN
CHINESE GLOSSARY
a SF,G
30 8 DAVID LOY
NOTES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
Quoted in Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation, London: Hutchinson, 1963,
p. 150.
Philip Kapleau, ed., The Three P i l h of Zen, Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1956, p. 306.
D.T. Suauki, "Reason and Intuition in Buddhist Philosophy", in Charles A.
Moore, ed., EJJOls m &~t -WcJt phfbsophy, UaiVadty of Hawaii, 1951, p. 17.
Ibid. p. 35.
Oxford English Dictionmy.
sunrki, op. at., p. 34.
Ibid., p. 17.
Se e Monies-Williams' A Sanskrit-EngIkh Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1976.
Islksasarmrccycr 233-4, in Edward Conze, ed., Buddhist Texts Through the Ages,
Oxford: Cassirer, 1954, p. 163.
Quoted in Koestla, op. cit.
Rene Descartes, "Meditations on First Philosophy", in l%e Philosophical Works
of Desartes, tans. Haldane and Ross, Cambridge Univasity Rur, 1931, p. 152.
Ibid., p. 1%.
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature Book I, Part IV, Section VI, "Of
Personal Identity".
John Levy, The Nature of Man According to the Ve&ta, London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1956, pp. 66-7.
Ibid., p. 69.
From the preamble to'ankara's BmhmSutiu-i3-a.
Quoted in Aldoua Huxley, The Peremid Philosophy, London: Chatto and
Windus, 1974, p. 216.
F. Nietzsche, The Wifl to Power, No. 477, t r ans. Kaufmann and Hollingdale,
New York: Vintage, 1968, p. 264.
Ibid., NO. 478, pp. 264-5.
Sutm Spoken by the Sixth Patriarch on the High S a t of 'The Treasure of the
Law", trans. Wong Mou-lam, Hong Kong Buddhi.. Book Distributor, no date,
p. 35.
Ibid., p. 49.
My translation of this l i ne; sw ibid., p. 19.
Edward Conze, ed., Selected Sayings from The Perfection of Wisdom, Boulder,
Colorado: Rajna Press, 1978, p. 90.
Ku-tsun-hsu Yu-lu I:4 (Kosonshul;u Goroku) Recorded Sayings of Ancient
Worthies, Sung Dynasty, Fu-hsueh Shuchu. Shanghai, no date; quoted in Alan
Watts, The Way of Zen, Penguin edition, p. 102 in. Compare: 'The True is thus
the Bacchanalian revel in which no member,i.e., no thought, is not drunk; yet
because each member collapses as soon as he drops out, the revel is just as much
NON-DUAL THINKING 309
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
transparent and simple repose. (Fromthe Preface to Heqels Phenomenology of
Spirir, No. 37, trans. A.V. Miller.)
Chang Chug-yuan, original T~?acfin@ of chan Buddhipm, New York: Vintage,
1971, p. 203. For more on wd-wu-wd, see Wei-wu-wcli: nondual action,
Philosophy East and West, Vol. 35, No. 1, J anuary 1985.
Ramana Maharshi, Erase the Ego, Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1978, p.
18.
Surendranath Dasgupta, History of Indian Philosophy, DeUi: Motibl Banarsidass,
1975, Vol. I, p. 493.
S u m , op. cit., p. 18.
The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, trans. J ohn Blofeld, London: The Buddhist
Society, 1958, p. 54. Why do we link thoughts together, always needing to
add one more? The answer, I think, is in the fact that the senstof-self is not a
thing but a process. In itself, the self is a nothing, and this is usually experienced
as a lack; 90 the senseof-self always tries to get ahead of itself by projecting the
next thought, and the next. . . This constant thrust into the future i.9 the self.
Quotedin Arthur Koestler, Janus:A Smm*ng Up, New York: Random House,
1978, p. 271.
F. Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann, New York: Vintage, 1966,
Sea Letter on Humanism, in David Farrell Krell, ed., Martin Heidegger: Basic
Writing& New York: Harper and Row, 1977, p. 341.
That pmji?cr-thoughts do not link-up-ina-serks does not deny that, from another
perspective, previous thoughts condition later ones. But when one forgets
oneself and becomes a nondual thought, then there is no longer any awareness
that the thought is caused. This paradox-that the thought is both caused and
unconditioned (see last Nietzsche quote)-is dkcussed in two other papers: The
Paradox of Causality in Madh~amika~ Intemationol Philosophical Quurtedy,
Vol. 25, No. 1, March 1985, and The Mahayana Deconstruction of Time,
Philosophy East and West, Vol. 36, No. 1, J anuary 1986.
Pp. 300-1.

You might also like