The illusion of duality

I have decided to begin this blog with an excerpt taken this from Art Hobson's paper, There are no Particles, there are only Fields. (Bold is mine.)

Field-particle duality exists only in the sense that quantized fields have certain particle-like appearances: quanta are unified bundles of field that carry energy and momentum and thus "hit like particles;" quanta are discrete and thus countable. But quanta are not particles; they are excitations of spatially unbounded fields. Photons and electrons, along with atoms, molecules, and apples, are ultimately disturbances in a few universal fields.

Sound familiar?  How about something from the Lankavatara Sutra, for example: Manifold are the waves evolved in the ocean; likewise indeed the Ālaya [ocean/field] sets in motion a variety of Vijñānas [waves/quanta]. (Brackets are mine.)

Going a little deeper, I am aware of my thoughts arising in my mind, or the same, I am aware of manifold waves of mentation arising from my invisible ocean mind which I have never directly intuited.

Notice the seeming duality?  Quanta and field; waves and ocean; mentation and unconditioned pure mind.  But is there really a separation between quanta and field, or waves and the ocean or even mentation and unconditioned mind or spirit?  It would seem to me that the duality is completely illusory.  There is always an implicit unseparatedness but no real separation (duality). 

Insisting that duality is somehow real and not illusory is a failure to understand how reality really works in which a field is primary and thus a first, then quanta appear.  In Zen, spirit (citta) is most primordial from which thoughts or mentation arise and appear.  Sentient beings always live a secondary existence; even speculating about the absolute through less than primary means.  They speak of duality because they can't see the unbounded spiritual field through which the seeming duality is deemed a fictional construct.  At every turn in their lives they experience contradiction and unresolvable separatedness; subject and object are never one.

 

Comments

[slider]

If field is primacy what is awareness. What is their relationship. Is it one.

[TheZennist]

Slider: The term "field" is a signifier; not the signified field which is only realized directly by way of intuition. The human intellect is incapable of making direct contact with the signified field. The intellectual is stuck in words and concepts. Only Buddhas make direct contact with the field by way of intuition.

[slider]

field is also illusion