Comparative Theories of Nonduality: The Search for a Middle Way

ISBN-13: 9781441159021 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 248 str.

Milton Scarborough;Milton Scarborough

Opis

It is a commonplace that while Asia is nondualistic, the West, because of its uncritical reliance on Greek-derived intellectual standards, is dualistic. Dualism is a deep-seated habit of thinking and acting in all spheres of life through the prism of binary opposites leads to paralyzing practical and theoretical difficulties. Asia can provide no assistance for the foreseeable future because the West finds Asian nondualism, especially that of Mahayana Buddhism, too alien and nihilistic. On the other hand, postmodern thought, which purports to deliver us from the dualisms embedded in modernity, turns out to be merely a pseudo-postmodernism. This book's novel idea is that the West already contains within one of its more marginalized roots, that of ancient Hebrew culture, a pre-philosophical form of nondualism which makes possible a new form of nondualism, one to which the West can subscribe. This new nondualism, inspired by Buddhism but not identical to it, is an epistemological, ontological, metaphysical, and praxical middle way both for the West and also between East and West.

Spis treści

 

Chapter One: Western Dualism and Buddhist Nondualism

                        A. Dualism Observed

                        B. Dualism Defined

                        C. Dualism Applied.

                        Buddhist Nondualism and the Middle Way

 

Chapter Two: Hebrew Pre-Philosophical Nondualism

                        A. Metaphysical Nondualism

                                    1. Heaven and Earth

                                    2. Finite and Infinite

                                    3. Essence and Existence

                                    4. Body and Soul

                                    5. Time and Eternity

                        B. Epistemological Nondualism

 

Chapter Three: Hebrew Nondualism and Social Reality

                        A. Covenant as Sunyata

                        B. The Prophets and Sunyata

                                    1. King and Subjects

                                    2. Rich and Poor

                                    3. Priests and Laiety    

                                    4. Israel and the Nations

                                    4. Good and Evil

                        C. Alleged and Real Differences Between Asian Nondualism and

                                    Hebrew Nondualism

 

Chapter Four: From Omniscience to Ignorance

                        A. The Foundations of Western Dualism

                        B. The Slippery Slope of Ignorance

                        C. Rummaging Through the Ruins

                        D. Critique

 

Chapter Five: A Western, Nondual Epistemology

                        A. Markers of "Unheard of Knowledge"

                        B. The Tacit Dimension

                        C. Implications, Comparisons, Extensions

                        D. The Polanyian Difference

                        E. The Body

                        F. The Middle Way