Contradictory Identity
A famous saying from Zen master Daito Kokushi;
“Buddha and I, distinct through a billion kalpas,
Yet not separate for an instant,
Facing each other the whole day through,
Yet not facing each other for an instant”
In the Diamond Sutra we are presented with the logic of contradictory identity.
An example from the Sutra -
“bodily existence is said by the Tathagatha (Buddha) to be no existence, thus does he speak of bodily existence”.
The term “bodily existence” refers here to a body as an identified form. The identified form is a relative phenomenon, an abstraction from the totality. Whether it be me identifying my own body, or identifying someone (or something) else’s , while its relatively sound to make the identification, ultimately it is an abstract from the totality, and entirely dependent on all else that appears. Being dependent, it is empty of an independent self existence. Therefore what is referred to as “bodily existence” is contradictorily “no existence”.
Another example, but not from the Sutra; pointing to a part of a whole is both pointing to a part, and also pointing to the whole. If we conceive of the world as a totality, any one thing I point to (or indicate) be it a rock, a human, a bolt of lightning, a baby’s cry, an illusion, a dream- pointing at anything, as a part of the world it is also pointing to the world as a totality.
The world is the form of a contradictory identity of the part and the whole. To point at the whole, paradoxically, necessitates pointing to some part. A part therefore also has a the form of a contradictory identity with the whole.
Totality and partiality, transcendence and immanence, universal and particular, one and many, subject and object – all of these dualities are not only dependent on each other, they are abstracts from reality, and as such also identical to reality as the form of the contradictory identity of the abstract and the concrete.
That is my understanding of non-duality as the characteristic of reality.
For Buddhism, the contradictory identity of transcendence and immanence is significant. One transcends the self by negating the self immanently. Encountering the negation of the self (the self as a facet of consciousness) in the very depths of the self (at the root of the ordinary self is that which is not-self, a bottomlessness that is not separate from the self) the self is paradoxically reaffirmed as the contradictory identity of the self and not-self.
Self is emptiness, emptiness is self.
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The logic of The paradox;
The many is the one, one is the many,
Form is emptiness, emptiness is form,
The form of formlessness!
The permanence of impermanence
The identity of the contradictory
Life, death, life –
Yet never one becoming the other
Never separate, not the same.
Absolute contradiction as absolute identity.