Buddhism is monism but not monotheism. The former denies any fundamental duality while the latter is the doctrine that there is only one God. The two are quite different. Monism by far is the most subtle of the two. It can be illustrated by the ocean with its ever-changing waves. In other words, the simple element of water can become waves which are never the same—yet which are fundamentally only water. Waves, I would add, are accidents, that is, they are not essential to the nature of water. Only the water is real. All else is empty and illusory.
The entire cosmos is only Mind. What we see through this body we inhabit is empty and illusory—not essential to Mind. But all this is for a reason which shall be explained later.
All that we know and can see is what is empty and illusory. Just name and form (nāma-rūpa), a differentiation of the original Mind. In this predicament we are unable see our self. We only see guess-works of our self which amount to simulacra or representations of our self—never our true self which is Mind.
Despite this appalling condition there is a way out. This is what the Buddha discovered.
Since we are, intrinsically, Mind we have only to penetrate through this empty and illusory phenomenalization of Mind, namely, our agitated, ever changing thoughts, like a laser adjusting down on a dimensionless point. This is then like a door which opens to our self or Mind from whence we first began.
The seeing of this dimensionless point is suddenly followed by a flood of psychical, vital light that continues for many hours. What this all adds up to is that we have penetrated through the veil of mind phenomena. Using our previous analogy, instead of seeing waves, we enter the water which we always were; which is where we began. Now when we look at this ocean, even with its waves, we only see water.
The One Mind in order to behold itself first causes a contrast by phenomenalizing itself—creating as it were a false other. Then confronted by its own phenomena it passes through it and out of it returning to itself. By this return phenomena is saved, so to speak. It was always heuristic. But the big payoff is freedom from further suffering. Nothing changes yet everything changes.
Yeti; My understanding of Buddhism is non-dualistic, but not monism; and the few non-dualists I know would reject “monism as non-duality” or at most, see monism as a form of non-dualism.
In any case, it’s only words :-)
Posted by: clyde | July 19, 2017 at 01:21 AM
Clyde:
If one understands monism as non-duality, I don’t see how anyone can argue that Buddhism is anything other than monism, even with all the distortions present in today’s spiritually confused world. Non-duality cannot be “reified”, no matter how one might try. It is only the habit of dualistic cognition that could entertain such an obvious and false distortion of Buddhist practice. I don’t mean this in any other way but supportively, but without the direct cognition of the non-dual no amount of sutra study will suffice and its meaning will forever escape, which in my opinion amounts to a tragic loss of time in this brief and marvelous opportunity of human birth.
Posted by: n. yeti | July 13, 2017 at 03:57 PM
Yeti; I tried to make clear that I wasn’t asking about provenance, but about how the dharma teaching in the Heart Sutra refutes “Buddhism is monism”.
More directly to your point, Red Pine writes, “This is the function of this mantra: to go beyond language and the categories in which language imprisons us and to lead us into the womb of Prajnaparamita, which is the Gone, the Gone Beyond, the Gone Completely Beyond.”
Posted by: clyde | July 13, 2017 at 02:45 AM
p.s: The teacher does not “destroy the personhood (the aggregates) of the student” or any other illusion. At best, the teacher shows the way and the student awakens, as if by accident or grace, and sees things as they are. Easy ;)
Posted by: clyde | July 13, 2017 at 01:44 AM
OK, but let’s not reify atman . . . or Mind . . . or emptiness.
Posted by: clyde | July 12, 2017 at 03:38 PM