A Guide on Non-Duality (Funi) in Zen Buddhism

Part I: The Landscape of Duality and Non-Duality

Section 1: Introduction to Non-Duality (Funi 不二)

1.1. Defining the Indefinable: From the Sanskrit Advaya to the Japanese Funi (“Not-Two”)

At the heart of Zen Buddhism lies a principle that challenges the very foundation of ordinary perception: non-duality. This concept, while central to Zen, is not its exclusive invention. It is a current that flows through numerous Asian spiritual and philosophical traditions, including Hinduism and Taoism, though each tradition interprets its meaning and implications uniquely.¹ The term itself is a direct translation of the Sanskrit word

Advaya (अद्वय), which means “not two,” “unique,” or “without a second”.² In the context of Mahayana Buddhism, from which Zen inherits its core philosophical DNA,

Advaya refers to the ultimate nature of reality, a truth most rigorously explored by the Madhyamaka school of thought.²

When this concept was transmitted to China and later to Japan, it found its expression in the term Funi (不二). The characters are stark in their simplicity: Fu (不) means “not,” and Ni (二) means “two.” Thus, Funi literally translates to “not-two”.⁴ This is not merely a linguistic curiosity; the choice of a negative term over a positive one is a profound and deliberate philosophical strategy. To speak of “oneness” or “unity” would be to posit another concept, another metaphysical principle that the discriminating mind could grasp, reify, and ultimately turn into an object of attachment. This would create a new duality of “oneness versus twoness,” defeating the entire purpose. By contrast, the negation “not-two” functions as a deconstructive tool. It does not offer a new belief to replace the old one; instead, it points directly at the fundamental error in our perception—the habit of cleaving reality into separate, opposing fragments—without creating a new conceptual idol.⁵

Funi, therefore, does not point to a state of undifferentiated monistic unity but to the absence of the fundamental separation we perceive between things.⁶ It is the realization that the boundaries we draw—between self and other, mind and body, subject and object, enlightenment and delusion—are not inherent in reality but are conceptual constructs, fictions of the mind.⁷ Zen’s approach to this truth is deeply pragmatic and experiential. It is less a metaphysical doctrine to be believed and more a direct, lived reality to be awakened to.¹

1.2. Beyond Monism and Dualism: Establishing Zen’s “Positionless Position”

The distinction between Zen’s non-duality and the philosophical stance of monism is critical. Monism posits that reality is ultimately grounded in a single, unified substance or principle, effectively reducing the world’s apparent diversity to a singular foundation.¹ For example, the Hindu school of Advaita Vedanta, while non-dual, is ultimately monistic in its assertion that

Brahman, or ultimate reality, is the sole, unchanging substance, and the world is its illusory manifestation.¹

Zen, deeply influenced by the anti-essentialist philosophy of Madhyamaka, rejects this. It denies the existence of any singular, unchanging, absolute essence underlying reality.¹ This is where the full expression of Zen’s unique stance emerges: “not one, not two” (

ichi ni arazu, fu ni arazu).⁹ As established, “not two” (

funi) serves to negate the dualistic paradigm that splits the world into pairs of opposites. The crucial addition of “not one” functions as a safeguard against the opposite error: clinging to a static concept of unity or oneness.⁴ Even the sublime experience of non-dual awareness, if it becomes a fixed state or a new identity, is considered a trap—a “dwelling in the whole as one” that must also be negated.¹⁰

This dynamic tension between “not one” and “not two” gives rise to what has been termed Zen’s “positionless position”.⁹ It is not a standpoint but a state of radical freedom from all standpoints. It cultivates a fluid, responsive awareness capable of what one scholar calls a “free, bilateral movement” ⁹—the ability to appreciate both the unique particularity of individual phenomena (the world of “two”) and their profound, seamless interconnectedness (the reality of “not two”) without becoming dogmatically fixed in either perspective. The ultimate goal is not to achieve a static state called “non-duality” but to cultivate a mind so thoroughly free and present that the very question of duality versus non-duality becomes irrelevant. This represents a form of intellectual and spiritual liberation that refuses to be confined by any conceptual framework, including “non-duality” itself.

1.3. Non-Duality as Experiential Insight, Not Metaphysical Dogma

Perhaps the most defining characteristic of Zen’s approach to Funi is its unwavering emphasis on direct, personal experience over intellectual speculation. Zen masters throughout history have consistently taught that non-duality is not a metaphysical problem to be solved through logic or an ontological system to be constructed through philosophy.¹² Creating a complex theory of non-duality is seen as counterproductive, another layer of concepts that obscures the direct seeing of reality as it is.¹² Zen is, in this sense, an “anti-philosophy,” as it does not build a system of knowledge based on discursive reasoning but seeks to dismantle the very cognitive structures that make such systems seem necessary.¹⁴

The path to understanding is not through intellectual comprehension alone, but through the transformative power of a firsthand encounter with the underlying unity of existence.¹ This encounter is the aim of Zen practice. Through disciplines such as sitting meditation (

zazen), the practitioner endeavors to bypass the limitations of language and conceptual thought to directly apprehend the interconnectedness that transcends all superficial distinctions.¹ This direct, intuitive apprehension is known as

satori or kenshō—an experiential awakening to the equality and non-dual nature of all “thing-events”.⁹

While intellectual study of teachings like the Two Truths or the nature of emptiness can provide an invaluable map and guide for the journey, Zen insists that the map is not the territory.¹² The actual experience in meditation is the key that unlocks the door.¹² This is a path of seeing, not believing; of realization, not accumulation of knowledge. It demands the practitioner move beyond thinking

about non-duality to directly tasting the non-dual nature of this very moment.

Section 2: The Architecture of the Divided Mind

2.1. A Psychological Profile of Dualistic Thinking: The Habit of “Either/Or”

From a modern psychological perspective, the dualistic thinking that Zen seeks to transcend is a recognizable and pervasive cognitive habit. It is a mode of reasoning that structures the world into dichotomies, perceiving reality through a lens of mutually exclusive, opposing pairs: good and bad, right and wrong, success and failure, us and them.¹⁶ This “either/or” framework simplifies the inherent complexity of existence into manageable, but ultimately distorting, binary categories.¹⁶ It is a general tendency to map concepts onto “mutually opposed categories,” leaving no room for nuance, ambiguity, or the vast spectrum of gray that lies between the poles of black and white.¹⁶

This mode of thought is not an immutable feature of consciousness but a learned pattern. We are conditioned by culture, language, and upbringing to perceive the world in this divided way, and we come to mistake this constructed map for reality itself.⁶ This cognitive habit can be rooted in psychological mechanisms like cognitive dissonance, where the mind, faced with conflicting information, seeks relief by creating simplistic, clear-cut distinctions.¹⁶ While not identical, this automatic, habitual nature of dualistic judgment shares characteristics with what cognitive psychologists call System 1 thinking—the fast, intuitive, and unconscious mode of processing that governs much of our daily mental life, often relying on shortcuts and generating biases.¹⁸

2.2. The Cognitive Roots of Separation: How the Mind Creates a Subject and an Object

The most fundamental duality, from which all others arise, is the perceived separation between subject and object—the observer and the observed.¹ This split is so deeply embedded in our experience that we take it for granted as the basic structure of reality. Zen, particularly through the lens of the Yogācāra school of Buddhist psychology, offers a sophisticated model of how this division is constructed by the mind.¹²

The process begins with the neutral functioning of the senses. When sensory input occurs—for example, the eyes receive light patterns from a person standing opposite—the mind creates a sense image. This initial perceptual process inherently establishes a “twofold ordering”: there is the perceived (the image of the person) and the perceiving (the consciousness that registers the image).¹² According to the Buddha’s own analysis, this basic activity of the six sense gates (eye and form, ear and sound, nose and smell, tongue and taste, body and touch, mind and object of mind) is not, in itself, the problem. An awakened being, a Buddha, still perceives the world through these gates; their senses do not cease to function.¹²

The crucial error, the “delusion” that Zen targets, is what happens next. It is a conceptual superimposition or an overlay that we add to this raw perceptual experience.¹² The mind takes the fluid, interdependent process of perception and reifies its components. It mentally constructs a solid, independent “subject”—a thinker, a seer, an “I”—and a solid, independent “object”—the thought, the sight, the “other.” This act of fabrication creates a sense of separation, distance, and even antagonism between the two poles, where there was originally a seamless, unified event.⁷

2.3. The Zen Diagnosis: Duality as a Superimposed Delusion and the Source of Suffering (Dukkha)

Zen teachings identify this superimposed dualistic framework as an illusion, something “extra” that we add to the purity of direct experience.¹² It is a fiction created by the mind. The

Lankavatara Sutra, an influential Mahayana text for Zen, states this unequivocally: “There is nothing but that which is seen of the Mind itself, the duality too is of the Mind”.⁷ This cognitive habit of splitting reality is diagnosed as the fundamental root of human suffering, or

dukkha. Buddhism maintains that when we relate to the world from the standpoint of a fixed, separate self confronting a world of separate objects, we inevitably suffer. When we can relate to experience from the standpoint of no fixed self, suffering ceases.¹²

The very act of making distinctions (vikalpa) fuels this suffering by creating a psychological trap. The poles of any duality are mutually dependent; one cannot exist without the other.⁶ To be preoccupied with becoming “rich” is to be simultaneously haunted by the fear of being “poor.” To strive obsessively for “purity” is to be bound to a life of constant, anxious vigilance against “impurity”.⁶ This dynamic locks the individual into a state of perpetual tension, desire, and aversion—the very definition of

samsara, the cycle of dissatisfaction.³ The only exit from this self-made prison is not to win the game of opposites by finally securing the “good” pole, but to see through the game itself and stop playing.

This dualistic paradigm is not only a source of personal anguish but also of societal ills. By its nature, it ignores complexity, distorts reality by reducing it to simplistic binaries, limits human potential by forcing conformity to narrow categories, reinforces oppressive power structures through an “us versus them” mentality, and promotes prejudice and discrimination against those who are categorized as “other”.¹⁶

Part II: The Philosophical Bedrock of Zen Non-Duality

Section 3: The Madhyamaka Contribution: The Wisdom of Emptiness

3.1. Nāgārjuna and the Middle Way: Navigating the Extremes of Existence and Non-Existence

The philosophical foundation for Zen’s understanding of non-duality was laid centuries before Zen’s emergence as a distinct school, primarily by the Indian philosopher Nāgārjuna (c. 150–250 CE) and his Madhyamaka (“Middle Way”) school.² Nāgārjuna’s seminal work, the

Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way), represents one of the most rigorous and radical deconstructions of metaphysical thought in human history. His project was not to propose a new theory of reality, but to systematically dismantle all existing ones, demonstrating their inherent logical contradictions.²

Nāgārjuna’s primary targets were the two great metaphysical extremes that dominated philosophical discourse: eternalism (or essentialism), the view that things possess a permanent, unchanging, inherent existence (svabhāva); and nihilism (or annihilationism), the view that things have no existence at all.²³ His “Middle Way” is not a weak compromise between these two poles. It is a profound transcendence of the very dualistic framework that forces a choice between them. Using a powerful logical tool known as the tetralemma (

catuṣkoṭi), which examines four possibilities (a proposition is true, it is false, it is both true and false, or it is neither true nor false), Nāgārjuna demonstrates that any concept predicated on inherent existence—such as causality, motion, or self—collapses into absurdity under analysis.²⁴ The famous opening verse of his masterwork negates all four conceivable modes of arising—from self, from another, from both, or from no cause—thereby pulling the rug out from under any attempt to establish a foundationalist view of reality.²³

3.2. Śūnyatā (Emptiness) and Pratītyasamutpāda (Dependent Origination) as the Foundation of Interconnectedness

The central concept that emerges from Nāgārjuna’s deconstructive analysis is śūnyatā, typically translated as “emptiness”.²⁴ This is perhaps the most misunderstood term in all of Buddhism. Emptiness is not a synonym for nothingness, a void, or non-existence; to interpret it as such is to fall into the very nihilism that Nāgārjuna sought to refute.³ Rather,

śūnyatā is a statement about the nature of phenomena. It means that all things (dharmas) are empty of svabhāva—an independent, self-sufficient, intrinsic essence or “own-being” that would give them solid, standalone existence.²⁴

The reason phenomena are empty of this inherent existence is because they are dependently co-arisen (pratītyasamutpāda).²⁴ This principle asserts that nothing exists in isolation. Everything, without exception, comes into being in dependence upon a vast, intricate web of causes and conditions.²⁷ A flower, for example, has no independent “flower-ness”; its existence is entirely contingent on non-flower elements like sunlight, water, soil, and air. To remove these conditions is to remove the flower. Emptiness and dependent origination are thus two sides of the same coin: things are empty

because they are dependently arisen.

This insight transforms emptiness from a negative, void-like concept into a positive description of the dynamic, relational, and interconnected fabric of reality. As Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh explains, emptiness means being “signless,” which is to be free from the prison of fixed concepts and identities.³ This relational view is beautifully captured in the Mahayana metaphor of Indra’s Net, a cosmic web in which each jewel at every intersection perfectly reflects every other jewel, illustrating a universe of infinite, mutual interpenetration.²⁹

Śūnyatā is not a metaphysical substance but a diagnostic tool, a corrective lens. Its primary function is to remedy a fundamental cognitive distortion (samāropa): our innate and automatic tendency to project the illusion of solid, independent existence (svabhāva) onto the fluid, interdependent flow of experience.²⁴ This projection is the root of attachment and suffering. Therefore, the goal of practice is not to “attain” or “find” a thing called emptiness, but rather to

cease the act of projecting substantiality, thereby seeing the world as it truly is.

3.3. The Two Truths: The Non-Dual Relationship Between the Conventional and the Ultimate

To navigate the practical and philosophical implications of emptiness, Madhyamaka philosophy employs the crucial doctrine of the Two Truths. This doctrine provides a framework for understanding reality on two distinct but inseparable levels ³¹:

1. Conventional Truth (saṃvṛti-satya): This is the world of our everyday, empirical experience. On this level, tables are solid, fire is hot, actions have consequences, and social and ethical norms are valid and necessary. This truth is pragmatic and functional; it is the reality in which we live, work, and relate to one another.²⁷ Madhyamaka does not deny this level of reality.
2. Ultimate Truth (paramārtha-satya): This is the ultimate nature of those very same conventional phenomena, which is their emptiness (śūnyatā) of any inherent, independent existence.²⁷

The profound insight of this doctrine lies in its assertion that these two truths are non-dual. They are not two different worlds or two competing realities. The ultimate truth of emptiness is not found by negating or escaping the conventional world; rather, it is the very nature of the conventional world. This is the quintessential message of the Heart Sutra, a text revered in Zen, which declares: “Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. Form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not other than form”.³ This statement is the most concise and powerful expression of Madhyamaka non-duality.

This doctrine provides the philosophical key that allows Zen to be simultaneously radically transcendent and radically immanent. It prevents the practitioner from falling into the extreme of world-denying asceticism (by affirming conventional reality) and the extreme of nihilistic apathy (by recognizing the ultimate emptiness of phenomena). The ultimate is not located in another realm but is discovered by seeing deeply into the nature of the ordinary. This is why Nāgārjuna could make the astonishing claim that “there is, on the part of saṃsāra [the cycle of suffering], no difference at all from nirvāṇa [liberation]”.²³ This insight paves the way for later Zen practices like

samu (work practice) and the core Zen conviction that the path to enlightenment is found not by turning away from everyday life, but by engaging with it completely.³³

Section 4: The Yogācāra Lens: The World as Mind

4.1. Consciousness as the Field of Experience: Deconstructing the Perceiver and the Perceived

While Madhyamaka provides the ontological foundation for Zen non-duality by deconstructing the substantiality of the external world, the Yogācāra (“Yoga Practice”) school offers a complementary psychological framework by deconstructing the substantiality of the internal world.³⁵ Also known as Vijñānavāda (“Consciousness-Doctrine”) or Cittamātra (“Mind-Only”), Yogācāra shifts the focus of inquiry from the nature of things to the nature of experience itself.¹²

The core proposition of Yogācāra is that what we experience as an objective, external world is inseparable from the consciousness that perceives it. The objects of our perception—sights, sounds, thoughts, feelings—do not exist independently of the mind that cognizes them. As one text explains the Yogācāra view adopted by Zen, “When you, for example, see someone it is not that you see the person directly, but, rather, an image of them arises in your mind… we are literally seeing our own mind”.¹² The school’s primary non-dual insight is the negation of the subject-object dichotomy. The “grasper” (the perceiving subject) and the “grasped” (the perceived object) are not two distinct entities but are co-dependent arisings within a single, unified stream of consciousness.³⁶ The goal of practice, from this perspective, is to directly realize this non-difference of subject and object.¹

4.2. The Three Natures: How the Mind Constructs and Can Deconstruct a Dualistic Reality

Yogācāra provides a detailed cognitive map that explains the process of both delusion and awakening through its doctrine of the Three Natures (trisvabhāva). This model acts as a “how-to” guide for Madhyamaka’s “what.” While Madhyamaka states that reality is empty, Yogācāra details the precise psychological mechanism by which the mind constructs the illusion of a non-empty, dualistic world.²⁷

1. The Imagined or Constructed Nature (parikalpita-svabhāva): This is the world as we habitually and falsely experience it. It is the product of language and conceptual thought, which carves the seamless flow of experience into a world of discrete, separate, and independently existing subjects and objects. This is the level of delusion, the superimposition of the subject-object split onto reality.²⁷
2. The Dependent or Interdependent Nature (paratantra-svabhāva): This is the underlying, moment-to-moment flow of consciousness itself—the raw, dependently-arisen stream of perceptions, feelings, and thoughts before it is carved up by concepts. It is the causal, relational flux of experience, the foundation upon which the imagined nature is projected.²⁷
3. The Perfected or Consummate Nature (pariniṣpanna-svabhāva): This is the ultimate, true nature of reality, which is realized when one sees the Dependent Nature directly, as it is, completely empty of the false subject-object duality of the Imagined Nature. For Yogācāra, emptiness (śūnyatā) is defined with psychological precision: it is the absence of the parikalpita (imagined duality) within the paratantra (dependent flow of consciousness).²⁷ Awakening is the purification of the stream of consciousness from this conceptual contamination.

4.3. The Synthesis in Chan/Zen: Integrating Emptiness and Mind-Only Perspectives

In India, the Madhyamaka and Yogācāra schools were often perceived as philosophical rivals. Mādhyamikas sometimes criticized Yogācārins for reifying consciousness, making it into a new absolute (ontological absolutism). Yogācārins, in turn, sometimes criticized Mādhyamikas for their radical negations, which seemed to border on nihilism.²⁷

However, when these philosophies were transmitted to China, the developing Chan (later Zen) school demonstrated a characteristic pragmatism. It was less interested in scholastic debates about the final ontological status of mind and more concerned with how these philosophical tools could be effectively used to bring about liberation.²³ Chan seamlessly synthesized the insights of both schools into a potent practical path.⁴¹

From Madhyamaka, Zen inherited the radical deconstruction of essence (svabhāva) and the wisdom of emptiness (śūnyatā), using it to dismantle the practitioner’s attachment to the solidity of the external world of objects. From Yogācāra, Zen inherited a sophisticated cognitive psychology, using the “mind-only” perspective to dismantle the practitioner’s attachment to the solidity of the internal world of the subject, the “I”.¹² This powerful synthesis is evident in foundational Zen texts like the

Hsin Hsin Ming (Faith in Mind), which states: “When thought-objects vanish, the thinking-subject vanishes. When the mind vanishes, objects vanish”.¹² This verse perfectly illustrates the interdependent dissolution of both poles of the subject-object duality, a hallmark of the Zen approach. The philosophical tensions that existed in India were largely resolved in Zen through a practical shift in focus from ontology (what is the ultimate nature of reality?) to soteriology (how can one be free from suffering?). The philosophies of emptiness and mind-only became skillful means (

upāya) to achieve a non-conceptual, non-discriminatory state of awareness, rather than ends in themselves.¹⁴

Part III: The Dissolution of Core Dualities in Zen

Section 5: Self and Other: Realizing Anātman and Interbeing

5.1. The Doctrine of No-Self (Anātman): Deconstructing the Illusion of a Separate, Enduring Ego

The most personal and persistent duality that Zen practice confronts is the division between “self” and “other.” The foundation for dismantling this barrier is the core Buddhist doctrine of anattā (Pali) or anātman (Sanskrit), the teaching of “no-self”.⁴² This is not a declaration of nihilism but a precise philosophical and psychological diagnosis. It asserts that within the entirety of human experience, no permanent, unchanging, independent essence—no soul or fixed self—can be found.⁴²

The entity we habitually refer to as “I” or “me” is, upon investigation, revealed to be a dynamic and impermanent composite of five interrelated processes, known as the aggregates or skandhas: form (the physical body), feeling (sensations of pleasure, pain, and neutrality), perception (the recognition and labeling of sensory data), mental formations (thoughts, intentions, biases, and habits), and consciousness (the faculty of awareness itself).⁴² The deep-seated belief in a solid, separate “self” that stands apart from and possesses these aggregates is identified as the “primordial ignorance that is the root of all suffering”.⁴⁴

Zen practice is the laboratory in which this doctrine is moved from theory to direct experience. Through introspective practices like meditation, the practitioner is guided to look for this supposedly solid self. The consistent finding is that no such entity can be located. What is found instead is a continuous, ownerless stream of thoughts, feelings, and sensations arising and passing away.⁴⁵ This realization is not the annihilation of the person but the liberation from a false and constricting identity. It is a strategy to achieve non-attachment by seeing through the illusion of a permanent, separate ego.⁴²

5.2. Dōgen’s Path: “To Study the Self is to Forget the Self”

The 13th-century Japanese Zen master Eihei Dōgen provided one of the most profound and poetic articulations of this process of self-dissolution. In his renowned work, the Shōbōgenzō, he wrote: “To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things”.⁶

This famous passage outlines the entire arc of Zen practice in relation to the self.

• “To study the self” is the initial phase of the path: the diligent practice of introspection, of turning the light of awareness inward to investigate the nature of one’s own being.
• “To forget the self” is the pivotal moment of breakthrough, the realization or kenshō. It is not an act of willful amnesia but a natural consequence of deep inquiry. When the self is sought with unwavering attention, it is found to be empty of substance, and the very sense of a separate self dissolves.⁶
• “To be actualized by myriad things” describes the state of non-dual awareness that follows. When the artificial boundary of the ego drops away, the division between inside and outside, self and world, collapses. One realizes an intimate, non-dual relationship with the “ten thousand things” (a classical term for all phenomena in the universe).⁶ In this state, the bodies and minds of both self and others are seen to “drop away,” revealing a single, seamless reality in which the universe itself confirms and expresses one’s true nature.⁴⁷ The result is not an empty void but a rich, relational fullness where one’s identity expands to become co-extensive with all of existence.

5.3. Thich Nhat Hanh’s Vision: The Metaphor of Indra’s Net and the Reality of Interbeing

In the 20th and 21st centuries, the Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh powerfully modernized the expression of this non-dual reality by coining the English term “interbeing”.⁴⁹ This word elegantly captures the essence of dependent origination (

pratītyasamutpāda) and the emptiness of a separate self. To “inter-be” means that one’s existence is inextricably woven with the existence of everything else.

To make this concept tangible, he often used the simple example of a sheet of paper. Looking deeply into the paper, he would explain, one can see the sunshine, the cloud, and the rain that were necessary for the tree to grow. One can see the logger who cut the tree and the papermaker who processed it. One can see the wheat that made the logger’s bread and the parents who gave birth to the logger. If you remove any of these “non-paper” elements, the paper itself cannot exist.⁵⁰ The paper “inter-is” with the entire cosmos. The same is true for a human being. There is no isolated, independent self; we are composed entirely of non-self elements.

This reality of profound interconnectedness is vividly portrayed in the ancient Mahayana metaphor of Indra’s Net. This image describes a vast cosmic net that stretches infinitely in all directions. At every node or intersection of the net hangs a perfectly polished jewel. Each individual jewel reflects on its surface every other jewel in the entire net, and each of those reflections, in turn, contains the reflections of all the other jewels, and so on, ad infinitum.²⁹ This powerful image illustrates a universe where each part simultaneously contains and is contained by the whole. To awaken to this reality is to awaken from what Thich Nhat Hanh calls “the illusion of our separateness”.⁵¹ This awakening forms the very basis of Zen ethics, as the realization of interbeing naturally and spontaneously gives rise to compassion. When there is no fundamental separation between self and other, harming another is understood, not just intellectually but viscerally, as harming oneself.⁵¹

Section 6: Mind and Body: Healing the Cartesian Wound

6.1. Zen’s Rejection of Mind-Body Separation

In the history of Western philosophy, one of the most enduring dualisms has been the separation of mind and body, most famously crystallized by René Descartes in the 17th century. Cartesian dualism posits mind (as unextended, thinking substance) and body (as extended, non-thinking substance) as two fundamentally distinct and separate entities.²¹ This created the classic “mind-body problem”: how can these two different substances possibly interact?

Zen Buddhism, from its inception, has fundamentally rejected this premise. The perceived separation between mind and body is seen as yet another conceptual fiction, an artificial division imposed upon a unified reality. This understanding is rooted in the life of the historical Buddha himself. His six years of extreme asceticism were predicated on a dualistic worldview that treated the body as a filthy vessel or a prison for a pure spirit. His enlightenment was precipitated by his abandonment of this extreme in favor of a “Middle Way,” which recognized mind and body as an “inseparable entity”.²²

This leads to a profound difference in approach. In much of the West, the philosophical problem has been to theoretically bridge the gap between two entities defined as separate. In Zen, the starting point is the original, pre-conceptual oneness of mind and body; the practical problem is how to experientially realize and live from this inherent unity.⁵⁴

6.2. Dōgen’s Embodied Philosophy: The Integrated Reality of Shinjin (Bodymind)

This principle of mind-body non-duality finds its most thorough and sophisticated expression in the philosophy of Dōgen. He consistently used the Japanese term shinjin (身心) to refer to the integrated reality of our being. This term is best translated not as “body and mind” but as the unified concept of “bodymind”.⁴⁵ The deliberate absence of a hyphen or a conjunction is significant; it indicates that body and mind are not two separate components that are linked together, but a single, indivisible process that is only later abstracted into separate mental and physical aspects by reflective thought.⁵⁴

From a phenomenological standpoint, this aligns perfectly with our direct experience. We never actually experience a “pure mind” devoid of bodily sensation, nor a “pure body” devoid of awareness. Any “mind-aspect” of an experience—a thought, an emotion—is always felt within the context of a “body-aspect”—a posture, a breath, a subtle tension.⁵⁴ This is the philosophical rationale behind the immense emphasis on physical posture in the practice of zazen. By meticulously aligning the spine, grounding the body, and stabilizing the hands, the practitioner is not merely preparing the body for a mental exercise. Rather, they are working directly with the mind

through the body, engaging the integrated system of the bodymind as a whole.⁵⁵

6.3. Shinjin Datsuraku: The Practice of “Casting Off Body and Mind”

Dōgen’s own profound awakening experience is said to have occurred when his master, Tiantong Rujing, seeing a monk dozing off during zazen, exclaimed, “The practice of zazen is the casting off of body and mind!” (zazen wa shinjin datsuraku nari). Upon hearing this phrase, Dōgen realized great enlightenment.⁴⁸

The key phrase, shinjin datsuraku (身心脱落), is often translated as “casting off body and mind” or “body and mind dropping away.” This is easily misunderstood as a nihilistic rejection or denigration of the physical and mental aspects of our being. However, its true meaning is precisely the opposite. “Casting off” does not mean getting rid of the body and mind. It means casting off the dualistic concepts of “my body” and “my mind” as separate, possessed objects.⁵⁴ It is the practice of letting go of all the reified ideas, attachments, and opinions about who and what we are.

When the deeply ingrained notions of a separate self inhabiting a separate body are released, what remains is the direct, non-dual experience of reality itself. This is what Dōgen meant when he wrote, “To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others”.⁴⁸ The dropping away of the conceptual boundary between self and world reveals a seamless reality. This is not a one-time peak experience but the very substance of ongoing practice. The act of zazen, moment by moment,

is the continuous practice of casting off body and mind, of letting go of the reified self and abiding in the unified, present-moment reality of the bodymind.⁵⁴

Section 7: Enlightenment and Delusion, Nirvāṇa and Saṃsāra

7.1. The Great Identity: Finding Liberation Within the Midst of Ordinary Life

One of the most radical and challenging expressions of non-duality in Zen is the assertion of the identity of enlightenment and delusion. This directly confronts the common spiritual assumption that enlightenment is a pure, elevated state achieved by eradicating an impure, inferior state of delusion. A foundational Zen text states this paradoxically: “Enlightenment exists solely because of delusion and ignorance; if they disappear, so will enlightenment”.⁵⁶

This teaching reveals that enlightenment and delusion are not two separate, opposing realities. They are mutually dependent concepts, two sides of the same coin.⁵⁶ They are like “left” and “right”; the existence of one is predicated on the existence of the other. The enlightened mind and the deluded mind are not fundamentally different substances; they represent two different ways of perceiving and relating to the very same reality. From this perspective, the goal is not to annihilate delusion in order to attain enlightenment. Such an effort would be a dualistic struggle, reinforcing the very separation it seeks to overcome.

Dōgen deepens this understanding by teaching that “delusion and enlightenment are completely mixed up with each other”.⁵⁷ He speaks of a “Great Enlightenment” (

daigo) that is so vast and boundless that it is not hindered by delusion but in fact includes and embraces it. This is not to condone ignorance, but to recognize that even our confusion, our struggles, and our imperfections unfold within the all-encompassing field of our true nature. This insight is a profound antidote to spiritual materialism—the ego’s tendency to turn enlightenment into a new, shiny object to be acquired and possessed. By teaching that one must not “grasp at” or “linger in” enlightenment, Zen short-circuits this spiritual ego-trip, forcing the practitioner to abandon the quest for a special state and return their attention to the simple, unadorned reality of this moment, just as it is.⁵⁶

7.2. The Non-Duality of the Path and the Goal: “Saṃsāra is Nirvāṇa”

This principle of non-dual identity extends to the most fundamental concepts of the Buddhist path: saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. In some early Buddhist interpretations, saṃsāra—the cycle of birth, death, and suffering, driven by ignorance, greed, and hatred—was seen as a realm of bondage to be escaped, with nirvāṇa representing the liberation or extinguishing of that cycle, a state outside of it.⁶

Mahayana Buddhism, particularly through the philosophy of Nāgārjuna, performed a radical re-reading of this relationship. Nāgārjuna’s famous declaration from the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā reverberates through all of Zen: “There is no distinction whatsoever between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. There is no distinction whatsoever between nirvāṇa and saṃsāra“.³² The ultimate limit of one is the ultimate limit of the other; there is not the slightest gap between them.²³

This does not mean that suffering is an illusion or that liberation is unnecessary. It means that liberation is not to be found in some other place, some other time, or some other dimension. Nirvāṇa is the true, empty, and interdependent nature of saṃsāra itself. Saṃsāra is the experience of the phenomenal world through the distorted lens of a grasping, deluded mind. Nirvāṇa is the experience of that very same phenomenal world through a clear, awakened mind that has seen through the illusion of a separate self and ceased to grasp.³² The world does not change; what changes is one’s way of perceiving and relating to it. Liberation is not an escape from life, but a total immersion in it, free from the filters of dualistic thought.

7.3. Dōgen’s Radical Affirmation: “Impermanence is Buddha-Nature”

Dōgen takes this non-dual identification to its ultimate and most profound conclusion in his teachings on Buddha-nature (busshō). Many Mahayana traditions had come to understand Buddha-nature as an inherent potential for enlightenment within all sentient beings—a pure, permanent, seed-like essence obscured by temporary defilements.⁵⁹ This view, however, can still harbor a subtle duality: a permanent, true nature versus an impermanent, false self.

Dōgen radically collapses this final duality. He quotes the Sixth Chinese Patriarch, Huineng, with approval: “Impermanence is, of course, Buddha Nature”.⁶⁰ For Dōgen, Buddha-nature is not a static, unchanging, permanent entity that exists

despite impermanence. He asserts that Buddha-nature is the very process of impermanence itself—the dynamic, unceasing, moment-to-moment arising and perishing that constitutes all of reality.³³

This is a revolutionary insight. The primary source of human existential anxiety—the fact that everything changes and passes away—is transformed into the very ground of liberation. From this perspective, there is nothing to seek and nothing to attain that is separate from this present moment. The grasses, trees, mountains, and rivers; our own bodies and minds, with all their fleeting thoughts and feelings; even the Buddha’s great enlightenment and entry into nirvana—all of these are impermanent, and as such, they are the full and complete expression of Buddha-nature.⁶⁰ The goal is no longer to find something permanent

within the flux of life, but to awaken to the realization that the flux itself is sacred, whole, and lacking nothing. This allows for a fearless and total embrace of life as it is, in all its transient, vibrant beauty.

Part IV: The Praxis of Non-Duality: Tools for Transcendence

Section 8: The Way of Stillness: Zazen and Silent Illumination

8.1. Shikantaza (Just Sitting): The Practice of Goal-less Realization

The core practice and central pillar of the Zen tradition is zazen, or sitting meditation.⁹ Within the Sōtō school, founded in Japan by Dōgen, the paramount form of this practice is

shikantaza, a term that can be translated as “just sitting,” “nothing but precisely sitting,” or “single-minded sitting”.⁶ The essence of

shikantaza is its radical simplicity and its goal-less nature. It is not practiced as a technique or a means to achieve a future end, such as enlightenment. In a direct embodiment of non-duality, the practice itself is understood to be the expression and realization of enlightenment.⁹

The instruction for shikantaza is to sit in a state of brightly alert, open awareness, without focusing on any particular object (like the breath, in some other meditation forms) and without getting entangled in the content of thoughts.⁴⁸ Dōgen described this state with the term

hishiryō, which means “non-thinking”.⁴⁸ This is a subtle point. “Non-thinking” is not a dull, blank state of mind, nor is it the active, willful suppression of thought (“not-thinking”). It is a state of awareness that transcends the duality of both thinking and the effort to stop thinking. Thoughts are allowed to arise and pass away freely, without being grasped or rejected, like clouds moving through the vast sky of the mind.¹² This practice directly confronts and starves the goal-oriented ego, which is fueled by the dualistic belief in a deficient present and a more perfect future. By repeatedly returning to the simple, non-instrumental act of sitting, the practitioner experientially realizes the completeness of the present moment, thus collapsing the duality between the path and the goal.

8.2. The Role of Posture and Breath in Unifying Bodymind

Zen places a seemingly disproportionate emphasis on the minute physical details of the zazen posture. The instructions are precise: a stable base (using a cushion or zafu to elevate the hips), crossed legs (in a full-lotus, half-lotus, or Burmese position), a straight and upright spine, relaxed shoulders, a specific hand position (cosmic mudra), and a soft, downward gaze.⁵⁵ These details are not arbitrary or merely preparatory. They are integral to the practice itself, flowing directly from the non-dual understanding of

shinjin, the bodymind.⁵⁴

The core principle is that a stable, upright, and alert body supports and engenders a stable, upright, and alert mind.⁵⁵ As the 13th-century master Dōgen wrote, “if one’s body is straight, one’s mind is easily straightened too”.⁵⁵ The posture is a physical expression of the mental state being cultivated. As Zen master Shunryu Suzuki stated, “the most important point is to own your physical body. If you slump, you will lose yourself. Your mind will be wandering somewhere else”.⁵⁵ In this way, Zen practitioners work with the mind indirectly, but powerfully, through the body.

The breath, like the posture, is a key element in unifying the bodymind. In zazen, the breath is not consciously controlled or manipulated; it is allowed to be completely natural.⁵⁵ Awareness simply rests on the physical sensation of the breath as it enters and leaves the body, acting as a gentle anchor to the present moment. This awareness of breath serves to calm the discursive mind and ground the practitioner in the tangible, non-conceptual reality of their own physical presence, healing the split between mind and body through direct, lived experience.⁵⁵

8.3. Hongzhi’s Mòzhào (Silent Illumination): The Union of Stillness and Luminous Awareness

The Chinese Caodong (Sōtō) master Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157) provided a luminous and poetic articulation of this form of practice, which he termed mòzhào, or “silent illumination”.⁶³ This teaching, which is a direct precursor and close relative to Dōgen’s

shikantaza, describes the two inseparable aspects of our true nature.

• “Silence” (mò) refers to the fundamental nature of the mind itself: empty, spacious, still, and free from all conceptual fabrication and self-narrative. It is the deep quiet that remains when the clamor of dualistic thought subsides. This is the direct experience of emptiness and no-self.⁶³
• “Illumination” (zhào) refers to the mind’s inherent function, which arises naturally from its silent essence. It is the mind’s innate, luminous awareness—its capacity to reflect all phenomena clearly, vividly, and without grasping or distortion, like a flawless mirror. This is the natural expression of wisdom (prajñā).⁶³

Crucially, silence and illumination are non-dual. They are not two different qualities or sequential stages. They are the inseparable essence and function of the one mind, just as a lamp and its light cannot be separated.⁶³ The practice of silent illumination, therefore, is simply to rest in this natural state of wakeful, knowing presence. It is to be the silent room, aware of all the furniture (thoughts, sensations) without being defined by it. This practice reveals that awareness is not an

act performed by a “self,” but the very nature of mind. When the active effort to “be aware” ceases, the sense of a doer dissolves, leaving only the seamless, non-dual field of silent, knowing presence.

Section 9: The Way of Inquiry: Kōan Introspection

9.1. Shattering the Intellect: The Rinzai Method of Kōan Study

In contrast to the quiet stillness of Sōtō’s shikantaza, the Rinzai school of Zen employs a more dynamic and confrontational tool for breaking through dualistic thinking: the kōan.⁶⁵ A kōan (literally “public case”) is a story, dialogue, question, or statement from a past Zen master that is presented to a student as an object of meditation. Kōans are paradoxical and designed to be utterly impenetrable to the rational, logical mind.³

Famous examples include Hakuin’s “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” and the first kōan from the classic collection The Gateless Gate, in which a monk asks the master Zhaozhou, “Does a dog have Buddha-nature?” and Zhaozhou replies with the single word, “Mu!” (a term that can mean “no,” “not,” or “nothingness”).³ The purpose of the kōan is not to be answered intellectually. Its function is to act as a kind of spiritual sledgehammer, frustrating and exhausting the student’s reliance on dualistic, conceptual thought until it shatters, forcing a breakthrough into a direct, non-dual mode of knowing.⁹ The kōan is a controlled cognitive crisis, a weaponized paradox designed to induce a failure of the mind’s ordinary processing system, thereby creating an opening for intuitive insight to emerge.

9.2. Becoming the Kōan: How Paradox Dissolves the Subject-Object Divide

The method of kōan practice involves intense and unwavering concentration. The student is instructed to pour their entire being into the kōan, often focusing on a single “word-head” (huatou) like “Mu”.⁶⁵ They are to hold this question constantly, in meditation and throughout daily life, until it generates what is called a “great ball of doubt”—a profound state of existential questioning and focused tension.⁶⁵

Through this wholehearted, ceaseless concentration, the initial dualistic structure of the practice—”I” (the subject) am “working on the kōan” (the object)—begins to dissolve.⁶ The boundary between the seeker and the sought becomes blurred. The student is encouraged to “become one with the kōan.” The breakthrough, or

kenshō, occurs at the moment this subject-object boundary collapses completely. The student realizes that the kōan is not an external puzzle to be solved but is, in fact, their own mind’s activity of questioning and seeking.⁶⁵ The paradox is not resolved by a clever answer; it is dissolved by a fundamental shift in consciousness, a direct realization of the non-duality of subject and object. The two hands of the self and the kōan have become the sound of one hand.

9.3. Linji’s Iconoclasm: “If You Meet the Buddha, Kill Him”

The spirit of kōan practice is perfectly embodied in the fierce and iconoclastic teaching style of Linji Yixuan (d. 866), the founder of the Rinzai lineage. His recorded sayings are a collection of shouts, blows, and paradoxical statements designed to jolt his students out of their conceptual slumber. His most famous and shocking injunction is a kōan in itself: “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him”.⁶⁷

This statement is not an incitement to violence or an act of nihilistic disrespect. It is the ultimate expression of non-dual practice. The spiritual path often begins with a dualistic framework: the unenlightened student (subject) seeks wisdom from the enlightened Buddha (object). While this can be a skillful starting point, it becomes a profound obstacle if the Buddha is turned into an external idol, an object of veneration forever separate from oneself. Linji’s command to “kill the Buddha” is a radical instruction to destroy this final and most subtle of all dualities—the separation between oneself and the goal of enlightenment.⁶⁸ It is a demand to relinquish any externalized, conceptualized image of perfection or authority. The “killing” of the external Buddha is the moment of realizing that the Buddha-nature one has been seeking is nothing other than one’s own intrinsic, authentic nature. This is what Linji called the “true man of no rank” ⁶⁷—the unadorned, non-conceptual awareness that exists prior to all dualistic labels of holy or mundane, master or disciple, self or other. It is the ultimate act of self-realization.

Section 10: The Way of Action: Integrating Practice into Daily Life

10.1. Samu (Work Practice): Finding the Dharma in Mundane Activity

A defining feature of Zen practice is its integration of spiritual training into the fabric of everyday life. A primary vehicle for this integration is samu, or work practice. Samu refers to the physical, manual labor required for the upkeep of the monastery or Zen center, such as cleaning, cooking, gardening, and maintenance.⁷⁰ The tradition of elevating work to a core spiritual practice is often credited to the Chinese Chan master Baizhang Huaihai (720–814), whose famous dictum, “A day without work is a day without food,” established self-sufficiency and mindful labor as central to monastic life.⁷⁰

The practice of samu is a direct, tangible expression of the Zen teaching that the Dharma—the ultimate truth—is not confined to the quiet of the meditation hall or the pages of a sutra. It can be found with equal potency in the roar of a lawnmower, the sensation of wetness from a washcloth, or the rhythmic effort of sweeping a floor.³⁴ This perspective challenges and dissolves the spiritual hierarchy that often values contemplation over action, and the sacred over the mundane. By treating work as a form of meditation,

samu asserts that enlightenment is not found by escaping the world, but by engaging with it fully, with complete presence and attention.³⁴

10.2. The Non-Duality of the Meditation Cushion and the World

Samu serves as a crucial bridge, breaking down the artificial barrier between formal sitting meditation (zazen) and the activities of daily life. It is the laboratory where the stillness, concentration, and non-judgmental awareness cultivated on the cushion are tested and applied amidst dynamic, real-world conditions. The goal is a seamless integration, where there is no longer a separate “meditation self” and a “work self,” but a single, unified awareness that flows through all activities.³³

This integration is the essence of a mature Zen practice. It is about bringing the insights gained in stillness into the crucible of difficult situations and interpersonal relationships, allowing the practice to inform and transform one’s entire life.⁷¹ The ultimate zazen, as one master put it, is our everyday life itself.³³ This holistic approach ensures that Zen does not become a quietist retreat from the world’s challenges, but rather a robust training for engaging with them more wisely and compassionately.

10.3. Dōgen’s Shushō-ittō: The Oneness of Practice and Realization in Every Moment

The philosophical culmination of this integrated, non-dual approach is found in Dōgen’s seminal principle of shushō-ittō (修證一如), which translates to the “oneness of practice-realization”.⁴⁸ This doctrine is a direct refutation of the linear, dualistic view of spiritual practice. The conventional model assumes that practice is a means to an end: one engages in practice (the cause) now in order to achieve realization (the effect) at some point in the future.

Dōgen collapses this temporal and conceptual gap. He asserts that practice and realization are “not two” (funi).⁶² Wholehearted practice is not a method for

attaining enlightenment; it is the very activity and expression of enlightenment itself.³³ From this perspective, there is no gap between aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana; they are all seamlessly interwoven in what Dōgen calls “continuous practice”.¹⁴

This principle radically transforms the practitioner’s experience of time and effort. The anxious striving for a future goal is replaced by a complete immersion in the present action. Each moment of practice—whether sitting in zazen, pulling a weed during samu, or eating a meal—when performed with total presence, is the full and perfect manifestation of one’s inherent Buddha-nature. This is the ultimate non-duality of the path and the goal, where the journey itself is the destination, and every step is arrival.

Part V: The Expression of Non-Duality

Section 11: The Nature of Realization: Satori and Kenshō

11.1. Glimpsing the True Nature: The Direct, Experiential Character of Awakening

The culmination of Zen practice is an awakening experience, for which the Japanese terms satori and kenshō are used.⁹

Kenshō (見性) literally means “seeing one’s true nature,” pointing to an initial insight into the empty, interdependent reality of the self and the world.⁶⁵

Satori (悟り) often refers to a deeper, more profound, and sudden experience of enlightenment.¹⁵ Both terms signify a realization that is fundamentally direct, personal, and experiential, not merely conceptual or intellectual.¹⁵

This awakening is not the acquisition of new information but a radical shift in perspective. It is the direct, intuitive apprehension of the non-dual reality that has always been present but was previously veiled by the habits of dualistic thought and the illusion of a solid, separate self.⁶³ It is an experience that is, by its very nature, unexplainable and unintelligible by reason and logic, as it transcends the subject-object framework upon which such faculties depend.⁷² The emphasis on the

suddenness of this awakening, a key teaching of the Southern School of Chan attributed to the Sixth Patriarch Huineng, serves as a pedagogical tool to break the practitioner’s attachment to the idea of gradual, linear progress. It underscores the non-dual teaching that our true nature is already complete and enlightened; awakening is not a process of building something new but of suddenly recognizing what has been present all along.⁷⁵

11.2. Beyond Words: Analyzing Experiential Accounts of Non-Dual Awareness

Because the experience of satori is non-dual, it is inherently ineffable. Language, which functions by creating distinctions between subjects, verbs, and objects, is inadequate to capture a reality in which these divisions have collapsed.⁷⁸ As soon as one says, “I experienced oneness,” the duality of an “I” and an “experience” is reintroduced. This failure of language is not a bug but a feature; it is direct evidence of the non-dual character of the realization and serves as a crucial safeguard against the ego’s tendency to grasp the experience and turn it into a conceptual trophy or a spiritual identity.⁷⁹

Despite this ineffability, accounts from those who have had such experiences offer pointers to its nature. Common themes include a sudden and complete dissolution of the boundary between the self and the external world, leading to a profound feeling of oneness with all things.⁷⁹ Practitioners describe a sense of awareness expanding beyond the confines of the physical body to fill the room or even the entire cosmos, a state where “individual consciousness was suddenly Universal Consciousness”.⁷⁹ This is often accompanied by a cessation of internal chatter, a profound sense of peace and clarity, and an overwhelming feeling of unconditional love, joy, and trust in the unfolding of reality. The fear of death is seen to vanish, as the limited, separate self that could die is no longer perceived as the ultimate reality.⁷⁹

11.3. The Spectrum of Insight: From Fleeting Glimpses to Stable Realization

Zen is realistic about the nature of spiritual development, recognizing a wide spectrum of insight. Kenshō may be an initial, powerful, but potentially fleeting glimpse of the truth. Satori can denote a deeper, more life-altering awakening. However, neither is seen as a final, ultimate endpoint.⁷³ A central tenet of mature Zen practice is that there is no single “Enlightenment-with-a-Capital-E” that solves all problems forever. Instead, the path consists of many “enlightenments,” a series of deepening insights that unfold over years of dedicated practice.⁷³

Even after a profound awakening, the work is far from over. The crucial next stage is gogo no shugyō, or “practice after satori”.⁶⁵ This is the long and often difficult process of deepening and stabilizing the insight, purifying residual habitual tendencies, and integrating the non-dual understanding into every facet of one’s character and daily life.⁷¹ The danger is to become attached to the memory of the awakening experience itself, turning it into a source of pride or a new, subtle form of ego-identity. This reintroduces duality and becomes an obstacle to further progress. This is why Dōgen emphasized that in true enlightenment, “no trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly”.⁴⁷ The ultimate realization is not a static state to be possessed, but a dynamic, traceless way of living in the world.

Section 12: The Bodhisattva’s Compassion: The Ethical Fruit of Non-Duality

12.1. From Insight to Action: How Realizing Interconnectedness Cultivates Compassion

In the Mahayana tradition, of which Zen is a part, wisdom (prajñā) and compassion (karuṇā) are regarded as the two wings of a bird; one cannot fly without the other. They are not separate virtues but are understood to be two inseparable aspects of a single, unified awakening.⁹ The profound wisdom of non-duality—the direct, experiential realization of emptiness and interconnectedness—is the very ground from which authentic compassion naturally and spontaneously arises.

From a conventional, dualistic perspective, compassion is often an effortful act of bridging the gap between a separate “self” and a separate “other.” It can be tinged with pity or a sense of moral obligation. However, when the illusion of a separate self dissolves, the very foundation for this model of compassion disappears. The boundary between “my suffering” and “your suffering” becomes porous and ultimately illusory.⁵¹ Through the lens of interbeing, one realizes that all beings are not isolated entities but are nodes in a single, interdependent web of existence.²⁶ In this context, compassion is no longer a choice but a natural, visceral response. It is the recognition of suffering arising within the one, seamless body of reality, of which one is an inseparable part. As Thich Nhat Hanh taught, a deep understanding of the nature of suffering inevitably generates compassion.⁴⁹

12.2. The Non-Dual View of Suffering: “He does not need punishment; he needs help”

The application of non-dual wisdom radically reframes our understanding of and response to conflict and harm. A dualistic worldview frames conflict in oppositional terms: “me” (the innocent victim) versus “you” (the malicious perpetrator). This view naturally leads to responses of blame, anger, and a desire for retaliation, which only serve to perpetuate the cycle of suffering.

A non-dual perspective deconstructs this entire framework. Thich Nhat Hanh offered a powerful articulation of this view: “When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending”.⁸¹ This insight dissolves the rigid duality of victim and perpetrator. It looks beyond the harmful act to its root cause, which is invariably found in the actor’s own ignorance, pain, and delusion. The person causing harm is no longer seen as an “enemy” to be defeated, but as a suffering being in need of understanding and assistance. This cognitive reframing makes responses like anger and retaliation illogical and counterproductive. The only skillful response is one rooted in compassion, which has the power to de-escalate conflict and break the cycle of violence.⁸¹

12.3. The Bodhisattva Vow as the Ultimate Expression of Non-Dual Practice

The ethical and compassionate fruit of non-dual realization is embodied in the figure of the Bodhisattva, the ideal of Mahayana Buddhism. A Bodhisattva is an awakened being who, out of profound compassion, postpones their own entry into final, complete nirvana in order to remain in the world and work for the liberation of all other sentient beings. This ideal is not born from a sense of self-sacrifice but from the deep, non-dual understanding that one’s own liberation is inextricably bound up with the liberation of all. One cannot be truly and completely free while any part of the whole remains in bondage.

This selfless commitment is formalized in the Four Great Bodhisattva Vows, which are chanted daily in Zen monasteries:

1. Beings are numberless, I vow to save them.
2. Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them.
3. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them.
4. Buddha’s way is unsurpassable, I vow to realize it. ⁸²

From a dualistic standpoint, the first vow in particular appears logically impossible and absurdly grandiose. How can one limited, finite self possibly save infinite beings? It is a promise of certain failure. From a non-dual perspective, however, the vow is the only logical and natural expression of realized reality. It is not undertaken by a separate self for the benefit of separate others. In a universe of interbeing, where there is no fundamental separation, the act of “saving others” is indistinguishable from the act of “saving oneself”.⁸² The vow is not a promise to complete an impossible task; it is a declaration of alignment with the compassionate nature of reality itself. It is the universe vowing to heal and awaken itself through the locus of the practitioner’s realized awareness and compassionate action.

Part VI: Contemporary Dialogues and Conclusion

Section 13: Non-Duality in a Wider Context

13.1. Comparative Analysis: Advaita Vedanta’s Brahman and Taoism’s Tao

While this report focuses on Zen, understanding its unique flavor of non-duality is enhanced by comparing it with other major non-dual traditions, principally Hinduism’s Advaita Vedanta and Chinese Taoism. Though often grouped together, their philosophical underpinnings and practical implications differ significantly.

Advaita Vedanta, a prominent school of Hindu philosophy, teaches a form of non-dualism (Advaita) that is ultimately monistic and substantialist.¹ It posits the existence of a single, ultimate, unchanging reality called

Brahman, which is of the nature of pure consciousness. The individual self, or Ātman, is held to be identical with Brahman. The phenomenal world of multiplicity and change is considered māyā, an illusory or dream-like appearance that veils the singular reality of Brahman.¹ The spiritual path in Advaita involves using discrimination (

jnana yoga) to pierce through the illusion of māyā and realize one’s true identity as the absolute, unchanging Brahman-Ātman.

Taoism, in contrast, expresses a non-dualism of naturalistic harmony. Its central concept is the Tao, the ineffable, spontaneous, and natural “Way” or flow of the cosmos. The Tao is not a single substance but the dynamic principle that underlies all of existence. Taoist non-duality is often expressed through the interplay and balance of opposites, symbolized by the yin-yang. The goal is not to realize identity with a transcendent absolute but to harmonize one’s life with the natural flow of the Tao through wu wei, or effortless, spontaneous action.¹

Zen’s non-duality (Funi) stands apart from both. Rooted in Madhyamaka’s anti-substantialism, Zen’s core concept of emptiness (śūnyatā) is a direct rejection of any ultimate, unchanging ground of being like Brahman.⁵² Its doctrine of no-self (

anātman) is a direct refutation of a permanent soul like Ātman. Unlike Advaita, Zen does not see the phenomenal world as an illusion to be transcended but as the very field of awakening (“form is emptiness”). Unlike Taoism’s focus on harmonizing with a cosmic principle, Zen’s focus is more psychological, aimed at the deconstruction of the cognitive habits of the discriminating mind.¹² This distinction is crucial: the goal in Zen is not to abide in a state of pure, unchanging consciousness, but to fully embrace the dynamic, impermanent flow of life itself, realizing that this very impermanence

is Buddha-nature.

The following table provides a concise comparison of these three traditions:

13.2. Parallels in Western Thought: From Transcendentalism to Phenomenology

While non-dualism is most explicitly articulated in Eastern traditions, parallel themes and experiences have surfaced throughout the history of Western thought, particularly within its mystical and philosophical currents. Western mystics, from Christian figures like Meister Eckhart to Islamic Sufis, have described profound experiences of union with the Divine, a dissolution of the self into a greater reality that echoes non-dual realization.¹

In 19th-century America, the Transcendentalist movement, heavily influenced by its members’ readings of Eastern texts, produced powerful descriptions of non-dual states. Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay “Nature,” famously described an experience in the woods where “all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God”.⁸⁷ This account of the disappearance of the separate self and the experience of being a conduit for a universal reality bears a striking resemblance to Zen descriptions of awakening.

More recently, the 20th-century philosophical movement of phenomenology has provided a rigorous Western framework for critiquing the classical subject-object dichotomy. Thinkers such as Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty argued against the Cartesian model, asserting that the subject (human consciousness) and the world are not separate entities but are linked in an inseparable and original relationship. There can be no world without a subject to perceive it, and no subject without a world to be in.²¹ This philosophical perspective, which emphasizes the primacy of lived, embodied experience, offers a compelling parallel to Dōgen’s non-dual concept of the “bodymind” (

shinjin) and the inseparability of self and world.⁵⁴

13.3. The Neuroscience of Oneness: Scientific Inquiry into Non-Dual States of Consciousness

In recent decades, the dialogue between Buddhism and science has opened a new frontier for exploring non-duality: the field of contemplative neuroscience. Researchers are now examining non-dual awareness not just as a philosophical concept or a subjective spiritual experience, but as a distinct and measurable cognitive state.¹

Using technologies like fMRI and EEG, scientists are studying the brains of long-term meditation practitioners to identify the neural correlates of these states. While the research is still in its early stages, some intriguing findings are emerging. For instance, non-dual experiences may be associated with a significant quieting of the brain’s Default Mode Network (DMN), a network of brain regions that is highly active during self-referential thought, mind-wandering, and thinking about the past or future. A decrease in DMN activity could be the neural signature of the “forgetting the self” that Dōgen described.

Other research explores the physiology of dualistic perception itself, examining how the brain’s two hemispheres and the connecting corpus callosum might contribute to our sense of a divided versus a unified reality.³¹ Neuro-phenomenologist Zoran Josipovic has described non-dual awareness as a unique “non-representational mode of consciousness,” distinct from ordinary states of focused attention or mind-wandering, suggesting it represents a fundamental and unique capacity of the human brain.¹ This ongoing scientific inquiry promises to provide a new language and a new level of understanding for the profound states of consciousness that Zen practitioners have been exploring for centuries.

Section 14: Applying Non-Dual Wisdom in a Polarized World

14.1. An Antidote to Ecological Alienation: Towards a “Sacred Ecology”

The modern ecological crisis, with its attendant climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion, can be diagnosed as a catastrophic symptom of dualistic thinking. It is born from a profound sense of alienation, a worldview that posits a fundamental split between humanity and nature. In this dualistic model, nature is conceived as an “other,” a collection of inert resources separate from us, an object to be controlled, managed, and exploited for human ends.⁹⁰

The Zen perspective of non-duality offers a powerful antidote to this alienation. The realization of interbeing and the vision of Indra’s Net reveal that there is no such separation. To see that we “inter-are” with the Earth, the water, the air, and all other species is to understand that to harm the planet is, quite literally, to harm ourselves.⁵¹ This insight transforms the basis for environmental ethics. It calls for a fundamental shift from what philosopher Jason Wirth terms a “political economy,” which is driven by the logic of accumulation and consumption, to a “political ecology,” which is grounded in the wisdom of our interdependent relationship with the planet.⁹⁰ This approach, which environmental leader Satish Kumar has called a “Sacred Ecology,” is the heart of Engaged Buddhism. As taught by Thich Nhat Hanh, it involves applying mindfulness and compassion to address our collective suffering, which includes the degradation of our shared planetary home.⁹¹

14.2. Transcending “Us vs. Them”: A Non-Dual Perspective on Social and Political Polarization

The same dualistic habit of mind that alienates us from nature also alienates us from one another, fueling the intense social and political polarization that characterizes the contemporary world. This polarization thrives on “us versus them” thinking, a cognitive framework that sorts complex human beings into simplistic, monolithic, and opposing camps—left versus right, liberal versus conservative, good versus evil.¹⁶ This fosters anger, fear, and division, making genuine communication and collaborative problem-solving nearly impossible.

A non-dual perspective works to deconstruct these artificial and harmful categories. It encourages the practitioner to abandon “team-based politics” and to see beyond the labels to the shared humanity underneath.⁹² It reveals that there are not two opposing armies of “left” and “right,” but simply billions of individual people, each with a complex assortment of views, fears, and hopes. The non-dual approach does not demand that one abandon one’s values or become politically apathetic. Instead, it reframes the entire endeavor. The goal ceases to be the victory of “our side” over “their side” and becomes “All of Us versus the Problem”.⁹² This fosters a commitment to open dialogue, deep listening, and connection rather than distancing. It is a call, as Rev. Deborah Johnson puts it, to live a life that demonstrates what we stand for, not merely what we stand against.⁹³

14.3. Avoiding the Pitfalls: Distinguishing Non-Duality from Nihilism and Spiritual Bypassing

As with any profound spiritual teaching, the concept of non-duality is susceptible to misinterpretation and misuse. Two of the most common and pernicious distortions are nihilism and spiritual bypassing.

Nihilism is the belief that life is meaningless and that nothing ultimately matters. This can arise from a superficial understanding of the Buddhist concept of emptiness (śūnyatā), misinterpreting it as the claim that “nothing is real”.²⁵ Zen explicitly rejects this view. Emptiness, as has been shown, does not mean non-existence; it means the lack of

independent, inherent existence. The conventional world is not unreal; it is a “real dream” whose events have very real consequences.²⁵ To use emptiness as a justification for apathy or amorality is to fall into the extreme of nihilism that the Buddha’s Middle Way was designed to avoid.³

Spiritual Bypassing is the use of spiritual beliefs and practices to avoid dealing with unresolved psychological wounds, difficult emotions, or pressing social and political issues.⁵ A distorted view of non-duality can become a convenient tool for this kind of avoidance. Phrases like “it’s all one,” “it’s all an illusion,” or “there is no right or wrong” can be co-opted by the ego to justify disengagement from uncomfortable realities, such as systemic injustice or personal responsibility.⁵ This is a profound misunderstanding of the path. True non-dual realization does not negate or erase the conventional world of duality and its attendant suffering. On the contrary, it leads to a more direct, courageous, and compassionate engagement with it. The awakened Bodhisattva does not float above the world in a state of blissful indifference; they roll up their sleeves and enter the marketplace to help.

Section 15: Conclusion: Living the Non-Dual Reality

15.1. Recapitulation of Zen’s Core Insight: The World as a Seamless, Interdependent Whole

The journey into the heart of Zen’s central tenet, Funi (不二), begins with a diagnosis of the human condition: a deep-seated habit of dualistic thinking that cleaves reality into a world of separate, opposing parts. This cognitive habit, which creates the illusory boundaries between self and other, mind and body, subject and object, and enlightenment and delusion, is identified as the fundamental source of suffering. In response, Zen offers not a new set of beliefs or a complex metaphysical system, but a path of direct, experiential inquiry.

Through the philosophical lenses of Madhyamaka emptiness and Yogācāra psychology, and through the core practices of zazen, kōan introspection, and mindful work, Zen guides the practitioner to see through these artificial divisions. The core insight that emerges is the realization of the world as a single, seamless, dynamic, and interdependent whole. This is not a philosophical claim to be accepted on faith, but a living reality to be directly perceived and embodied.

15.2. The End of the Search: Realizing the Perfection of the Present Moment

The ultimate fruit of this profound journey is the cessation of the frantic, anxious striving that characterizes the dualistic mind. When the fundamental duality between the seeker and the sought dissolves, the endless search for a better state, a different reality, or a future salvation comes to a natural end. This is the realization that this very moment, in all its ordinary, impermanent, and imperfect glory, is utterly complete and lacking nothing.

This is the state of the “true man of no rank” living an ordinary life in an extraordinary way. It is the freedom to, as Master Linji taught, “just act ordinary, put on your clothes, eat your rice, pass the time doing nothing,” but to do so from a place of profound peace and non-dual insight.⁷¹ The final message of Zen is one of liberation not

from the world, but in the world. It is the discovery that nirvana is found in the midst of samsara, that Buddha-nature is this very impermanent life, and that the sacred is nowhere other than in the concrete, everyday “thing-events” that are presencing here and now. It is the celebration of this one, indivisible reality, lived with a still, open, and compassionate mind.¹⁰

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