Duality...

The Question of Duality...

by Carolyn Heising on Sunday, March 20, 2011 at 7:34pm

Tonight, at my meditation group,  we were asked to meditate on this koan:

"what  are the questions that have both "yes" and "no" as the answer?"

I thought of the question on my mind recently..."should I retire now?"  .... well.  yes, sometimes I think..and no.. at other times... INDECISION..

someone else in the group mentioned questions that cannot be easily answered.. life questions.. daily questions.. should I do this? or that? go here? or there?  all these things...

but what about questions concernining size? are you big? or little? tall? or short?  relative to what?  are you smart? or not so smart?  are you rich? or poor? again, relative to what?  are you beautiful? or not so beautiful? healthy? or not healthy?  are you successful? or not so successful?  lucky? or not so lucky? are you young? or old? endless categories... go on and on..

The West seems to want to categorize everything into categories... compartamentalize... creating this duality... and the East is asking us to question our certainty about these categories... about our Western ideas... even the categories of East and West are a type of duality... do East and West really exist? well,  who coined East and West in the first place?

and what about larger issues? am I spiritual? or non spiritual? political? or apolitical? liberal? or conservative? stubborn? or laid back?  am I educated? or uneducated?  am I generous? or self centered?  am I good? or bad?  

what about all of these categories?  

Let us learn to question the ease by which we categorize ourselves.. and others..

Namaste friends..