A reflection on non-duality
Holding Two Truths at Once
Non-duality is not the rejection of ordinary life.
It is learning to live inside appearance without being completely defined by it.
“The urge to cultivate comfort and avoid pain is at the heart of ego development,”
and it shapes our so-called personality.
When we first step into spiritual practice, it is easy to fall into an either-or mind.
Either the world matters,or nothing matters.
Either the self is real,or there is no self.
Either pain is a problem,or pain is the path.
But non-duality does not ask us to choose one side too quickly. It asks us to hold two truths at once. Our mind is used to seeing the world in a conditioned way. With the introduction of absolute truth, we may misunderstand it and use it as a way to avoid pain and challenges.
What Are the Two Truths?
Relative truth is the world as it appears.
Names.
Forms.
Roles.
Relationships.
Cause and effect.
Harm and care.
Success and failure.
Self and other.
It is the world we live in.
It matters because our actions still have consequences.
Harm is still felt.
Care is still needed.
Responsibility remains.
Absolute truth points to the non-dual nature of what appears.
It does not erase life.
It does not deny the relative world.
It loosens the way we hold what appears.
From this view, things are not as fixed, separate, or final as they seem.
The non-duality in
Dimond sutra
是 (True), 非 (False), and 名 (Name) frequently appear toward the end of the Diamond Sutra, and together they hold a profound meaning.
We give 名 to everything.
Slowly, we forget that a name is only a label, and not the thing itself. A name is not simply true or false. It exists outside this dualistic circle.
名 carry history, memory, feeling, and emotion. They can be powerful, but also misleading, depending on how deeply we understand them.
Here, 名 points toward oneness and unity. It contains both 是 and 非 or all forms within duality. In this way, it becomes the root of how we see and understand the world.
Just like modern scholars interpreting ancient scripts, the more forcefully we try to extract meaning from words, the less we may receive from them. The scripts themselves are already shaped by a dualistic mind — a mind trying to make sense of something that may not be held by sense-making.
Look deeply through objects and names.
They are neither this nor that.
And yet, they are all names.
Refer to the translation below for smoother reading experinece
是 (True)
非 (False)
名 (Name)
Some lines from the Dimond sutra in Chinese:
非眾生，是名眾生
非菩薩，是名菩薩
非說何法，是名說何法
非非法，是名何法，是名不異色身
非一合相，是名一合相
非微塵眾，是名微塵眾
非世界，是名世界
非法相，是名法相
非凡夫，是名凡夫
非菩薩，是名菩薩
非眾生，是名眾生
Japanese Esoteric Buddhism
Two realms,
one whole.
Wisdom without compassion becomes cold.
Compassion without wisdom loses its clarity.
