As a preface, I just want to make clear that these essays are dealing with the problems of western philosophy and Buddhism - philosophically. They are (for me also) often dealing in extremely obscure and difficult language. They are certainly not attempting to prescribe and promote an extremely obscure and difficult interpretation of Buddhism. That would be quite against the spirit of the latter. Like trying to teach tennis through lectures on the anatomy of the human arm. If these essays are giving you headaches or even causing undue stress or doubt, ignore them completely. I certainly don't want to cause discomfort, and it's all unnecessary anyway to the practice of Buddhism.
“To learn the Buddha’s Way is to learn one’s own self. To learn one’s self is to forget one’s self. To forget one’s self is to be confirmed by all dharmas (phenomena). To be confirmed by all dharmas is to effect the casting off of one’s own body and mind and the bodies and minds of others as well...”
This is a passage from the works of Zen master Dogen.
In looking for a basis for subjectivity and objectivity (what is normally considered the structure of our experiences)- even of ‘intersubjectivity’ – we do not seem to be able to find a base outside of these bare determinants. Even by pointing to a presumed bundle of organised matter, we cannot escape the stricture of that duality; in pointing at a bundle of neurons we are still within the framework of a subject objectifying.
In other words, the paradigm of ordinary logic- the logic of subject, predicate, object- is an abstract logic from an assumed ground level of perception, which latter turns out to be merely one moment in the development of our consciousness. It is a practical logic, but it rests on what cannot be supported by itself; an abstract logic. Looking objectively for the basis of objective abstract logic is akin to the self looking objectively for the self. It vanishes away constantly. Ungraspable.
And yet, the experience of the self-and-other, or self-and-world is still there, still powerfully pervading and inseparable from all we subsequently grasp at and understand (in the ordinary sense).
In western philosophy, encountering this impossible paradox-
‘a subject looking objectively for a basis in itself from which to base it's objective understanding of the world subjectively’
-resulted in two trains of responses; Either the rational (or, more rational) glossing over of the problem by appealing to the dynamic totality of history as taking priority, and thus making the problem insignificant, a la Hegel (and then in a much more realistic sense, Marx), or in dissolving the problem into the mystery of existence, a la Nietzsche.
There were others, Max Stirner for instance, who while not shying from the problem could not in the end escape subjectivity, merely refine it and shift it onto another base and go no further.
The problem is the apparent paradox of the determined and the free. The world and the self. A solution in the spirit of Buddhism might be;
not to grasp at it (Stirner), not to push it away (Marx), not to ignore it, cover it over (Nietzsche). Not to appeal to some greater principle that overcomes it (Hegel). Rather to realise the contradiction without trying to do anything with it.
The Buddha’s Way according to Dogen (as I understand it) is-
to experience the ungraspable nature of the ‘self’. To experience it’s ungraspability, is to recognise the ultimate inadequacy of the view of abstract logic- the view which bases itself on the premise of the reality of the “self and world” duality. To recognise this inadequacy is to cease believing in it’s absoluteness in regards to truth. To cease believing in the absoluteness of abstract logic, including its language, names and form, is to accept it’s relative truth value. The world and self disappear as absolutes. The reality is reconfirmed as absolute. This absolute reality is then acknowledged to include the abstract as relative-
Again, we have here the paradox of the contradictory identity of the absolute and the relative; non-duality.
Identity
by A. R. Ammons
https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/A/AmmonsAR/Identity/index.html