Want to enter the dharma door of nonduality? Watch this video.
This is week four of an eight week collaboration between Michael Owens and Michael Taft. Each Sunday, Michael Owens will teach on a(t least one) chapter of the VNS. Then the following Thursday, Michael Taft will lead a guided meditation based on that chapter.
This chapter of the sutra, “The Dharma Door of Nonduality” is probably the most famous and important. It is also one of the only places in the sutras of Buddhism where the term “nonduality” is featured. As a guide to meditation, it gives us a veritable treasure trove of focus themes for nondual practice.
The nondual guided meditation lasts for one hour. Following that there is a dharma talk and Q&A session for about 30minutes.
Guided Meditation
0 – 15 min: Shamatha
15 – 30 min: Shamatha without an object (“dropping the ball”)
30 – 60 min: Entering nonduality through various dharma doors.
Quote from this Chapter
“The bodhisattva Priyadarśana declared, “Matter itself is void. Voidness does not result from the destruction of matter, but the nature of matter is itself voidness. Therefore, to speak of voidness on the one hand, and of matter, or of sensation, or of intellect, or of motivation, or of consciousness on the other, is entirely dualistic. Consciousness itself is voidness. Voidness does not result from the destruction of consciousness, but the nature of consciousness is itself voidness. Such understanding of the five compulsive aggregates and the knowledge of them as such by means of gnosis is the entrance into nonduality.
The bodhisattva Prabhāketu declared, “To say that the four main elements are one thing and the etheric space-element another is dualistic. The four main elements are themselves the nature of space. The past itself is also the nature of space. The future itself is also the nature of space. Likewise, the present itself is also the nature of space. The gnosis that penetrates the elements in such a way is the entrance into nonduality.”
~ from The Teaching of Vimalakirti, translated by Robert Thurman
Read a bit about the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra
Want to learn more about nonduality? Start here
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