Enlightenment by Trial and Error: Ten Years on the Slippery Slopes of Jewish Spirituality, Postmodern Buddhism, and Other Mystical Heresies (Jewish Arguments)

by Jay Michaelson

In other words, at a certain point, the mystic moved beyond unitive experience to return to the experience of duality while maintaining the consciousness of unity. This is what David Loy calls the “nonduality of duality and nonduality.” And it is what the Zen masters mean when they say “in the beginning, mountains are mountains. During zazen, mountains are not mountains. Afterward, mountains are once again mountains.” That is to say: in the initial dualistic consciousness, mountains are experienced as mountains. In unitive consciousness, the mountains disappear as separate entities and are only motes on the sunbeam of consciousness. In nondual consciousness, the mountains are both: both everything and nothing, both existent and nonexistent.