Dualistic thinking Options

It depends on how you approaching a concept. For example, you say "breathing vs. not breathing", from that approach it is dualistic, but I would see it "I am breathing vs. I am underwater and drowning, drawing water to my lungs (I try to breath, the body function is performed but I draw water instead of air) vs. I am in coma in emergency room in hospital and oxygen is provided to me in mechanical way (am I breathing or not breathing in this case? my body is oxygenised, but I am not participating in the function) vs. I am holding my breath (I am not breathing by my will) vs. I am dead (I am not breathing).

I believe that in any case of dualistic statement, it is possible to unify it or break it to more separate elements depending on the approach (a Taoist would probably be able to unify the above statement in one).

The same with "dualistic vs. non-dualistic", "not dualistic" includes monism and pluralism, which have nothing in common (not of common origin) and consequently are separate categories. So it is “monism vs. dualism vs. pluralism”.

In the case of "Thinking vs. not thinking" again, if you approach it as “What to think?” on a subject the alternative options can become countless. Even in case of negative/ positive, in between them is zero which is neither.

dualistic thinking is not the same as dualism.
and even so, breathing and not breathing are the same. Not breathing is just a gradation in breathing.
white and black, white is a low gradation of black, both are colors, both are waveforms, they are not really dualistic, they are gradations of the thing we call color.
The same can be said for most of our dualisms.

Its like this, If you took out some "bread to make toast", did you take out toast since you already knew its purpose and as far as youre concerned it is toast?
Is it bread because thats the form it was in when you took it out and you thought of it as bread even though you knew you were going to make toast?

You did not make a choise, you where hungry, you thought a toast would taste fine. So you picked a slice of bread, you put it in the toaster and turned it on. The toaster then produced a toast. You then eat the toast. The toast is consumed.
You did not really have to make any dualistic thinking. Perhaps you where presented the choice of bread vs. toast. A difficult choise, but after wheiging different factors of personal taste and time, you came to the logical conclusion that toast would be best at this moment. Perhaps if you overslept and had to hurry a piece of toast would not have been an option.

... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/roflmao.gif)
For some reason A Smoking Fox, the bread/toast part of your last post made me laugh so hard my sides hurt.

But both of you do prove a good point, but I just dont find sense in no dualistic thinking because it seems to me that a lot of life as we know it and even much of the occult is incorporated with it in one form or another and really it's all a matter of opinion.

oh and..
whats up with the peanut butter jelly bananna?!?!
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/banana.gif)
peanut butter jelly, peanut butter jelly, peanut butter jelly and a baseball bat!

In life you make your own choices, you may chose whether you think murder is good or evil, it is all up to you. You cant just think nothing of it or you wouldnt be doing much thinking, feeling, or sensing in your life at all. "Breathing vs. Not breathing" if you didnt chose a side then were would you be?

Note: Just applying all of your rationals and showing you how easily you're self-contradicting.

-Chris

You don't have to choose a side, because life isn't black and white. By not making a choice, not thinking about it as you say, just means you feel no attachment to the entire situation. And why would I, for excample, feel attachment to many situations when I am not even a part of it and it has no effect on me because I'm outside of the dogmatic thinking of most.

You don't have be anything, you just ARE. But we'd be digressing into Buddhism then.

by all means, do choose to stop beathing. If you feel you have the choice.
If you can manage to hold your breath until you pass out i would be surprised. Even more so you should realise that it would be against your nature.

There is no dualism in your mind about breathing, you can choose to think in dualistic terms about it. But it will not serve you well.

If you let it be, like you always did, you will see that you breathe quite naturally without making choices.

Greetings!
I hope that this discussion is actually going places...it appears to becoming abit "tis...t'ain't" Sounds like one hand clapping... To breathe or not to breathe is not a good example of dualistic thought. Some would remark that one should either do so and continue or not and stop wasting time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)

Its not the result that matters, it is the path walked.

But still, this subject is really to vague to come to solid conclusions.

If we want it to the go somewhere we will have to shorten the scope of our research.
First we must all agree what dualism is, and then we have to pick one type of dualism to go in depth on, like dualistic thinking. We must then narrow our discussion to that single one.

Lets start then by these questions to all.
What is dualism.
Which part of dualism are we interested to explore in this topic.

I think since I started this thread and we didn't actually explore what dualism is to start with, I will split this topic and make a starter thread so we can start at the beginning, define what we mean by dualism and then go from there.

So anyone who wants to consider dualism itself go there and anyone who honestly feels that they can further this discussion, please do so.

Well I personally found what I was looking for in regard of dualism and whether or not it's usefull or not. I can't believe the answer is so simple and it hit me...Literally when The Middle Pillar written by Regardie fell out my bookcase when I walked by (IMG:style_emoticons/default/13.gif)

I still stand by my views on the dichotomy of good vs evil, but the other dualities...

The Tree of Life in the mystical kaballah system is divided in 3 parts. The left "pillar", the "right" pillar and the one in the centre. Each containing respectively 3-4-3 Sephiroth/Qlipoth. The 2 pillars symbolize dualities while the centre one is about being in balance. In Regardie's book he states the psychological effects of going to one of both dualities and sees them as extremes of life. Extremes are never healthy, but finding the balance in which you pass no judgement on both dualities and are not tempted to follow the "extremes" in life is the way to go. Simply put...being in perfect balance.

Dualistic Thinking / Non-Dualistic Thinking = Dualistic Thinking

(grins)

lol. yes. im not sure we can escape dualism. since its embedded in our perceptions as human beings:

i am different from everything around me. i am me and everything else is not me. Therefore there are opposing qualities that separate that distinguish me from everything else. what are those qualities?

i think as you age, its just reinforced over and over again. i'm not sure dualism can be abolished...unless you want to obliterate a very important part of your own identity. and even then, well...it'll just default back into individualism again.

and of course, just because you reedit your perception of yourself, doesn't mean that your perception can reedit the relation you have with your surroundings. it'll just fall back into a similar pattern as do most animal's roles.

personally i think its better to be able to use this so called "limitation" as an advantage.

You don't have to live in a box...you can make it look like a circle. hehe. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blablabla.gif)

For a while in the 80s and early 90s, many of the books I read (and spiritual teachers whose lectures I attended) pretty much uniformly demonized duality. It was somewhat of a fad to do so, and became quite commonplace most notably in "eastern" material. Duality was presented, and used, as a kind of whipping boy for being the supposed source for all conflicts in human experience. It was ironically very akin to how Satan often is blamed as the source for all conflicts in human experience by some Christian sects. In contrast, non-dualism was upheld and given the highest accolades.

The crusade against dualistic thinking never made sense to me - because dualism/non-dualism is, well, dualistic! Yet that basic point seemed to be (and often still is) missed the majority of the time by those who still rail against dualism while supporting non-dualism. Most tried to dismiss that point by attempting to say that the duality of dualism/non-dualism only is an pseudo problem that merely stems from using this language (because this language is dualistic) to discuss the issue. However, that dismissal remains erroneous - and the point still stands - simply because it is not the relationship of the words themselves that is the issue. Instead, it is the relationship of the meanings (the meanings that transcend the words, and thus transcend the inherent mechanisms of this language) referenced by the words dualism/non-dualism that reveals and affirms the very duality they so valiantly strive to escape.

In the end, one fact that they tend to make provides me with enough room for some resonation: conflict is indeed the problem. Conflict which takes the form of combat (fighting, dueling, etc...), and which originates from fear - not from differentiation based upon duality.

To put a far finer and sharper point on this by coining a word of my own here:

duel-ity (combat, fighting, etc...) is the problem - and fear (not dual-ity, differentiation, distinction, etc...) is its source.

This post has been edited by Praxis: Nov 29 2008, 08:38 PM