Absolute/Relative: Helpful or not?

I was just listening to a podcast where the speaker was talking about the nonduality of the "Absolute" and the "relative." There was a time when thinking of practice in this way was helpful for me, and resonated with my experience. Lately, however, considering Absolute and relative as recognizable categories seems/feels like unnecessary conceptual elaboration. Things just kind of are as they are (nebulous, flowing, changing, energetic), and that's fine by me. Divisions like sacred and mundane, spiritual and physical, etc., just don't resonate with me right now.

I'm wondering how others resonate with these concepts. Do you find them helpful? I know I used to, and maybe I'll find them helpful again sometime later on.

Bingo. I have been meaning to post on this topic too. I recall various talks, forum discussions or articles I've seen/heard where reality is described as being "relative/dualistic" AND "absolute/nondual" - and experience is described as being a sort of either moving in and out of these different ways of perceiving or as needing the application of one or the other view. I think there's even an old Shinzen podcast where he talks about "zooming in and out". That is, if you are doing a transaction at the bank, that's a relative world thing, and nonduality doesn't really apply. But if you concentrate a certain way, you go into a state where everything's like all one dude. So "awakening is always available" but somehow at odds with or distinct from other aspects of experience.

To me this potentially describes a kind of experience common shortly before and sometimes lingering after awakening. But it is not "true" - it's an unstable or unintegrated realization. However, given a lot of people pass through (and may linger in) this territory, it makes sense that it can be a common way to try to describe things, and they may not realize that what it reflects is an incomplete or unintegrated realization.

Thoughts?

Ona Kiser wrote: To me this potentially describes a kind of experience common shortly before and sometimes lingering after awakening. But it is not "true" - it's an unstable or unintegrated realization. However, given a lot of people pass through (and may linger in) this territory, it makes sense that it can be a common way to try to describe things, and they may not realize that what it reflects is an incomplete or unintegrated realization.

Yes, I think that's what I'm getting at. Integration and nondual realization go together, in the sense of mingling nondual space with phenomenal appearances. But that doesn't describe a dichotomy; rather, just two aspects of the overall This-ness. The Absolute/relative dichotomy is often framed as though we need to honor both, to include both, etc. But - and not to sound like an old vedanta sage - this leads me to ask just who or what is needing to honor and include the Absolute and relative? The idea that some kind of self can occupy either space, or hold them together in a non-conflicting way, just doesn't quite cut the mustard. There are not two spaces one can occupy, nor is there only one. The assumption in either case is that there is a distinct someone going back and forth between the two, rather than seeing one's selfing activity as the activity of nonduality itself.

I've not articulated this much, so it might sound like rubbish. But I guess that's the point of having the conversation, yeah? To get some clarity on how to talk about it in a way that's helpful to folks that are also where I'm at, so to speak.

Jackson wrote: The idea that some kind of self can occupy either space, or hold them together in a non-conflicting way, just doesn't quite cut the mustard..

That said... If this is where someone is at in their practice, trying to hold what they conceive/perceive as the Absolute and relative dichotomy in such a non-conflicting manner may be an effective way to see through the distortion. I think this would be much more expedient than telling someone, "No, just see it this way instead."

Agree with you both: when I initially encountered the idea of "integration," it seemed helpful. Necessary, even, because the context was being in the midst of a bunch of folks much preoccupied with "waking up"-- defined as transcendence of all that had gone before.

At some indeterminate point, I began to see it as another counterproductive concept and effort: to "put back together" aspects of experience that had been conceptually distinguished-- but were in reality never separate or separable from one another. Experience IS-- and then we start describing, defining, and otherwise play around with "making something" of it. No problem there, unless we confuse our artistic play for reality, per se.

The older I get, the more I appreciate "old man (or woman) basking in the sun" view.

I think there's a healthy balance between using concepts that speak to the direct experience of someone where they are, even if that where-ness is incompletely understood; and pointing to what is fully true.

So if someone is having the "going in and out of relative/absolute perception" experience, I think it might be okay to acknowledge that it feels like that and use that vocabulary as a communication tool, but (given that only happens in advanced practice), it would also be very helpful to point out that what they are seeming to experience is not actually how things are, and suggest some points of investigation for untangling that.

What has bothered me about this particular absolute/relative "school" of teaching/description is that I've seen it described rather dogmatically, as if that IS the fullness of realization, probably because the person explaining it doesn't realize they are not seeing clearly. But it then gets passed on as a kind of doctrine, and I think that is very unhelpful.

I have to say that for me, this particular "issue" didn't hit me like a hammer until this year, when I recall stumbling across some discussion using that kind of language and thinking "What are they talking about? That's ridiculous!" But I surely had encountered that terminology/view before and not taken much issue with it, so it seems to me my own experience changed enough that the wrongness of that perspective suddenly became quite evident.

Jackson wrote:

Jackson wrote: The idea that some kind of self can occupy either space, or hold them together in a non-conflicting way, just doesn't quite cut the mustard..

That said... If this is where someone is at in their practice, trying to hold what they conceive/perceive as the Absolute and relative dichotomy in such a non-conflicting manner may be an effective way to see through the distortion. I think this would be much more expedient than telling someone, "No, just see it this way instead."

You can't really "see it this way instead" (or any other thing someone tells you) by effort, in any case. But you can have the disturbing poke follow you around that kind of keeps a doubt or curiosity active, so that you know that what you are trying to settle down in is not a place to settle down, so to speak. You think?

Kate Gowen wrote: ...The older I get, the more I appreciate "old man (or woman) basking in the sun" view.

That almost calls for a new picture, Kate.

But all women basking in the sun apparently look like this (says my search results): www.stock-images-illustrations.com/enlar...the-deck-of-a-boat/1

more what I had in mind:

us.123rf.com/450wm/forsterforest/forster...ard-enjoying-sun.jpg

This is what I have in mind for myself in old age... mingling natural wakefulness with the phenomenal appearances of the ocean, sun, and sky

farm8.staticflickr.com/7365/9923796575_17b9311d5a_o.jpg

A guy can dream. I'll more likely be mingling awareness with an old book in my quaint living room. I'm okay with that, too.