No Inherent Separation or Non-Separation
John Tan wrote to someone else:
I read the first paragraph, there are some concepts that need to be clarified and refined. What is the difference in saying:
1. Duality and non-duality are inherently inseparable.
2. Duality and non-duality originate dependently.
3. Duality and non-duality are non-arisen.
There is neither an inherent separation nor an inherent non-separation. “Separation” and “non-separation” are merely conventional designations that arise by dependence on contrasts and contexts.
The mind’s insistence that “there must be” either duality or non-duality (or their separation/non-separation) is precisely grasping at inherent existence; at best, these notions are conventionally valid.
What matters is not choosing a side, but understanding how the conventional works—dependent designation and functional distinctness—and how the ultimate is just the emptiness (unfindability, non-arising) of whatever is conventionally presented, not a second thing behind it.
Dzogchen’s pointing-out of luminous clarity liberates only when that luminosity is recognized as empty and non-reified; otherwise it becomes a subtle substance.
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