Nondualism is a term used to denote affinity, or unity, rather than duality or separateness or multiplicity. In reference to the universe it may be used to denote the idea that things appear distinct while not being separate. The term "nondual" (meaning "not two") can refer to a belief, condition, theory, practice, or quality. Nondualism has been linked with "Monism" or "qualified monism" with which it is sometimes confused (even conflated).

Etymology

"Nondualism", "nonduality" and "nondual" are terms that have entered the English language from literal English renderings of "advaita" (Sanskrit: not-dual) subsequent to the first wave of English translations of the Upanishads commencing with the work of Müller (1823–1900), in the monumental ''Sacred Books of the East'' (1879), who rendered "advaita" as "Monism" under influence of the then prevailing discourse of English translations of the Classical Tradition of the Ancient Greeks such as Thales (624 BCE–c.546 BCE) and Heraclitus (c.535 BCE–c.475 BCE). The first usage of the terms are yet to be attested. The English term "nondual" was also informed by early translations of the Upanishads in Western languages other than English from 1775. The term "nondualism" and the term "advaita" from which it originates are polyvalent terms. The English word's origin is the Latin ''duo'' meaning "two" prefixed with "non-" meaning "not".

Nondualism and Eastern philosophy

Pritscher (2001: p. 16) attributes a salient view on nondual realization to Loy (b.1947), an author of a work on comparative philosophy of nondual theologies i.e. Loy (1988):

"According to David Loy, when you realize that the nature of your mind and the [U]niverse are nondual, you are enlightened."

Loy (1988: p. 3) contrasts his view of the historicity of nonduality in some of its evocations in the experience of the peoples of The East and The West as follows:

"...[the seed of nonduality] however often sown, has never found fertile soil [in the West], because it has been too antithetical to those other vigorous sprouts that have grown into modern science and technology. In the Eastern tradition...we encounter a different situation. There the seeds of seer-seen nonduality not only sprouted but matured into a variety (some might say a jungle) of impressive philosophical species. By no means do all these [Eastern] systems assert the nonduality of subject and object, but it is significant that three which do - Buddhism, Vedanta and Taoism - have probably been the most influential."

Nelson (1951: p. 51-52) cites Radhakrishnan's ''The Principal Upanishads'' (1953) where Radhakrishnan renders a passage of the ''Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad'' (verse 1.4.16) which demonstrates a theme that one becomes transpersonally identified with, or nondual to, or develops qualities associated with that to which one is engaged, worships or holds holy and though it is translated with a male pronominal it may be understood as not being gender-specific:

"Now this self, verily, is the world of all beings. In so far as he makes offerings and sacrifices, he becomes the world of the gods. In so far as he learns (the Vedas), he becomes the world of the seers. In so far as he offers libations to the fathers and desires offspring, he becomes the world of the fathers. In so far as he gives shelter and food to men, he becomes the world of men. In so far as he gives grass and water to the animals, he becomes the world of animals. In so far as beasts and birds, even to the ants find a living in his houses he becomes their world. Verily, as one wishes non-injury for his own world, so all beings wish non-injury for him who has this knowledge. This, indeed, is known and well investigated."

Transpersonal psychology

Theriault (2005) in a thesis explores comparative non-dual experience and the psycho-spiritual mechanisms that bring the awareness about. Lewis (2007) in her thesis explores a number of specific women's experiences on their journey to wholeness and healthfulness in the nondual path of Tantra post-sexual trauma and identifies common themes.

Nondualism versus monism

The philosophical concept of monism is similar to nondualism. Indeed, the terms are used as congruent by many scholars. Some forms of monism hold that all phenomena are actually of the same substance. Other forms of monism including attributive monism and idealism are similar concepts to nondualism. Nondualism proper holds that different phenomena are inseparable or that there is no hard line between them, but not that they are the same. The distinction between these two types of views is considered critical in Zen, Madhyamika, and Dzogchen, all of which are nondualisms proper. Some later philosophical approaches also attempt to undermine traditional dichotomies, with the view they are fundamentally invalid or inaccurate. For example, one typical form of deconstruction is the critique of binary oppositions within a text while problematization questions the context or situation in which concepts such as dualisms occur.

Daniélou (1907–1994) opines that "nondualism" is "dangerous" as it "rests" on "monism":

"The term "nondualism" has proved, in many instances, to be a dangerous one, since it can easily be thought to rest on a monistic concept. The Hindu philosophical schools which made an extensive use of this term opened the way for religious monism, which is always linked with a "humanism" that makes of man the center of the universe and of "god" the projection of the human ego into the cosmic sphere. Monism sporadically appears in Hinduism as an attempt to give a theological interpretation to the theory of the substrata.... Nondualism was, however, to remain a conception of philosophers. It never reached the field of common religion."

Nondualism versus solipsism

Nondualism superficially resembles solipsism, but from a nondual perspective solipsism mistakenly fails to consider subjectivity itself. Upon careful examination of the referent of "I," i.e. one's status as a separate observer of the perceptual field, one finds that one must be in as much doubt about ''it'', too, as solipsists are about the existence of other minds and the rest of "the external world." (One way to see this is to consider that, due to the conundrum posed by one's own subjectivity becoming a perceptual object to itself, there is no way to validate one's "self-existence" except through the eyes of others—the independent existence of which is already solipsistically suspect!) Nondualism ultimately suggests that the referent of "I" is in fact an artificial construct (merely the border separating "inner" from "outer," in a sense), the transcendence of which constitutes enlightenment.

Metaphors for nondualisms

"Buddhism has refined various methods to observe consciousness from the first person perspective for two thousand years. Therefore it is meaningful to bring the explanation models of Tibetan Buddhism into a cross cultural dialogue."

Jewel Net of Indra, ''Avatamsaka Sutra''

Blind men and an elephant

Eclipse

Hermaphrodite, e.g. Ardhanārīśvara

Mirror and reflections, as a metaphor for the continuum of the subject-object in the mirror-the-mind and the interiority of perception and its illusion of projected exteriority

Great Rite

Sacred marriage

Marriage

Sexual union, as well as orgasm

Water-and-wave, ''Awakening of Mahayana Faith''

Nonduality of rays-of-the-sun or sunrays from the Sun, ''Lankavatara Sutra''

A lamp that self-illuminates as it illumines, for apperception or reflexive awareness

A lamp and its light, ''Platform Sutra'' a metaphor for Essence-Function where Essence is lamp and Function is light

Nondual awareness

Craig, ''et al.''. (1998: p. 476) convey a 'stream of consciousness' or 'mindstream' as a procession of mote events of consciousness (C) with algebraic notation C₁, C₂ and C₃ thus to demonstrate the immediacy of nondual awareness:

That nondual awareness is the only possible ''self''-awareness is defended by a ''reductio'' argument. If a further awareness C₂, having C₁ as content, is required for self-awareness, then since there would be no awareness of C₂ without awareness C₃, ''ad infinitum'', there could be no self-awareness, that is, unless the self is to be understood as limited to past awareness only. For self-awareness to be an immediate awareness, self-awareness has to be nondual.

To the Nondualist, reality is ultimately neither physical nor mental. Instead, it is an ineffable state or realization. This ultimate reality can be called "Spirit" (Sri Aurobindo), "Brahman" (Shankara), "God", "Shunyata" (Emptiness), "The One" (Plotinus), "The Self" (Ramana Maharshi), "The Dao" (Lao Zi), "The Absolute" (Schelling) or simply "The Nondual" (F. H. Bradley). Ram Dass calls it the "third plane"—any phrase will be insufficient, he maintains, so any phrase will do. The theory of Sri Aurobindo has been described as ''Integral advaita''.

Challenges to Cartesian dualism

Brown (2006: p. 19) charts the lineage of philosophers, namely Nietzsche (1844–1900), Husserl (1859–1938), Heidegger (1889–1976), Sartre (1905–1980), Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961), and Levinas (1906—1995) who challenged the entrenched Cartesian dualism of a hard split between "body" and "mind" and hence, embraced different views of nondual 'bodymind' or body-mind continuum thus:

"Like the writings of Nietzsche, the writings of phenomenologists Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Emmanual Levinas have been recognized by many as providing alternatives to a Cartesian-dualist and Enlightenment-subjectivity worldview. If Nietzsche's response to Cartesian dualism, enlightenment subjectivity (i.e., Kant), reductive materialism (i.e., Marx), and reductive idealism (i.e., Hegel) is not the only nineteenth-century response, it is one of the most effective."

Philosopher and Buddhist, Günther (1917–2006), stated:

"What we call 'body' and 'mind' are mere abstractions from an identity experience that cannot be reduced to the one or the other abstraction, nor can it be hypostatized into some sort of thing without falsifying its very being."

Nondual religious and spiritual traditions and teachings

Classical traditions

Michaelson (2009: p. 130) identifies what he perceives to be the origins of nondualism proper founded in the Neoplatonism of Plotinus within Ancient Greece and employs the ambiguous binary construction of "the West" [as different to 'the East', refer Saïd's utilization of the discourse of 'The Other' in ''Orientalism'' (1978)]:

"Conceptions of nonduality evolve historically. As a philosophical notion, it is most clearly found for the first time in the West in the second century C.E, in the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and his followers."

Hinduism

Advaita

Advaita (Sanskrit ''a'', not; ''dvaita'', dual) is a nondual tradition from India, with Advaita Vedanta, a branch of Hinduism, as its philosophical arm. Advaita may be rendered in English as 'nondual', 'not-two' or 'peerless' and though there are monist themes in the most recent sections of the ancient ''Rig Veda'' (Mandala 1 and Mandala 10), that is, the sections that were finalized or interpolated last; nonduality finds its first sophisticated exposition in the "Tat Tvam Asi" of the venerable ''Chandogya Upanishad'' (6.8.7), an upanishad favoured by subsequent proponents of Advaita Vedanta. Gauḍapāda (c.600 CE) furthered this philosophical theory that was later consolidated by Sri Adi Shankaracharya in the 8th century CE. Most smarthas are adherents to this theory of nonduality. Further to this, Craig, ''et al.''. (1998: p. 476) hold that the nonduality of the Advaita Vedantins is of the identity of Brahman and the Atman where the identity is "objectless consciousness, as awareness nondualistically self-aware":

Advaita Vedānta is a scripturally derived philosophy centred on the proposition, first found in early Upaniṣads (800-300 BC), that Brahman - the Absolute, the supreme reality - and the self (ātman) are identical. The identity is understood as an objectless consciousness, as awareness nondualistically self-aware. Arguments in support of the view that nondual awareness is the sole reality are developed by classical and modern Advaitins, from Gauḍapāda (c.600 AD) and Śaṅkara (c.700 AD), in hundreds of texts. Some of these are suggested in Upaniṣads.

Rājarshi (2001: p. 45) conveys his estimation of the historical synthesis of the School of Yoga (one of the six Āstika schools of Sanatana Dharma) which he holds introduces the principle of "Isvara" as Saguna Brahman, to reconcile the extreme views of Vedanta's "advandva" and Sankya's "dvandva":

"Introducing the special tattva (principle) called Ishvara by yoga philosophy is a bold attempt to bring reconciliation between the transcendental, nondual monism of vedanta and the pluralistic, dualistic, atheism of sankhya. The composite system of yoga philosophy brings the two doctrines of vedanta and sankya closer to each other and makes them understood as the presentation of the same reality from two different points of view. The nondual approach of vedanta presents the principle of ''advandva'' (nonduality of the highest truth at the transcendental level.) The dualistic approach of sankhya presents truth of the same reality but at a lower empirical level, rationally analyzing the principle of ''dvandva'' (duality or pairs of opposites). Whereas, yoga philosophy presents the synthesis of vedanta and sankhya, reconciling at once monism and dualism, the supermundane and the empirical."

Sikh dharma

Sikhism is a monotheistic religion which holds the view of non-dualism. A principal cause of suffering in Sikhism is the ego (''ahankar'' in Punjabi), the delusion of identifying oneself as an individual separate from the surroundings. From the ego arises the desires, pride, emotional attachments, anger, lust, etc., thus putting humans on the path of destruction. According to Sikhism, the true nature of all humans is the same as God, and everything that originates with God. The goal of a Sikh is to conquer the ego and realize one's true nature or self, which is the same as God's.

Jain dharma

Buddha dharma

Though popular discourse both etic and emic as well as the discourse of scholarship with which it intersects, employ the term "Buddhism" for the Buddhadharma (and often employ the term uncritically), it is salient to be mindful that the Buddhadharma is not a monolithic tradition but a continuum of a number of sub-traditions and praxis-lineages (or sadhana-lineages), many of which tout a number of nondualities proper in various sub-traditions and 'vehicles' (Sanskrit: yana); refer Wallace (2007: pp. 106–107).

See also * Susila Budhi Dharma

Nonduality as Shunyata and Prajna

Huntington & Wangchen (1995: p. 119) hold where 'emptiness' is a gloss of Shunyata (Sanskrit) and 'wisdom' is a gloss of Prajna (Sanskrit):

With the actualization of emptiness, manifest in wisdom as an effect, the bodhisattva gains access to the nondualistic knowledge of a buddha. It may be that this concept seems particularly abstruse because it is associated not so much with a way of ''knowing'' as with a way of ''being'', for we have seen the justification underlying claims to knowledge of this type is necessarily immersed in a certain form of life...a kind of nondualistic knowledge is present wherever a particular epistemic act is embedded in an intuitive awareness of the unique context through which two apparently discrete phenomena are intimately related, as is usually the case, for example, when we speak of a cause and its effect.

Further to the coincidence or nonduality of Shunyata and Prajna within the 'Pure-and-perfect-Mind' (; Sanskrit: Bodhicitta), Günther & Trungpa (1975: p. 30) state that:

We cannot predicate anything of prajna except to say that when it is properly prajna it must be as open as that which it perceives. In this sense we might say that subjective and objective poles, (prajna and shunyata) coincide. With this understanding, rather than saying that prajna is shunyata, we can try to describe the experience by saying that it has gone beyond the dualism of subject and object.

Buddhism general

All schools of Buddhism teach No-Self (Pali anatta, Sanskrit anatman). Non-Self in Buddhism is the Non-Duality of Subject and Object, which is very explicitly stated by the Buddha in verses such as “In seeing, there is just seeing. No seer and nothing seen. In hearing, there is just hearing. No hearer and nothing heard.” (Bahiya Sutta, Udana 1.10). Non-Duality in Buddhism does not constitute merging with a supreme Brahman, but realising that the duality of a self/subject/agent/watcher/doer in relation to the object/world is an illusion.

Within the Mahayana presentation, the two truths may also refer to specific perceived phenomenon instead of categorizing teachings. Conventional truths would be the appearances of mistaken awareness - the awareness itself when mistaken - together with the objects that appear to it or alternatively put the appearance that includes a duality of apprehender and apprehended and objects perceived within that. Ultimate truths, then, are phenomenon free from the duality of apprehender and apprehended.

In the Mahayana Buddhist canon, the Diamond Sutra presents an accessible nondual view of "self" and "beings", while the Heart Sutra asserts shunyata — the "emptiness" of all "form" and simultaneously the "form" of all "emptiness". The Lotus Sutra's parable of the Burning House implies that all talk of Duality or Non-Duality by Buddhas and Bodhisattvas is merely Skillful Means (Sanskrit upaya kausala) meant to lead the deluded to a much higher truth. The fullest philosophical exposition is the Madhyamaka; by contrast many laconic pronouncements are delivered as koans. Advanced views and practices are found in the Mahamudra and Maha Ati, which emphasize the vividness and spaciousness of nondual awareness.

Mahayana Buddhism, in particular, tempers the view of nonduality (wisdom) with respect for the experience of duality (compassion) — ordinary dualistic experience, populated with selves and others (sentient beings), is tended with care, always "now". This approach is itself regarded as a means to disperse the confusions of duality (i.e. as a path). In Theravada, that respect is expressed cautiously as non-harming, while in the Vajrayana, it is expressed boldly as enjoyment (especially in tantra).

Vajrayana Buddhism

Yab-yum

Gross (2009: p. 207) a leading Feminist theologian identifies the nondual import of yab-yum iconography where His ever-so-skillful 'method' (upaya) really enjoys Her ever-so-spacious 'wisdom' (prajna), a wisdom where wisdom-in-reciprocity enjoys method; where His-Her enjoining is coincident in 'great bliss' (mahasukha):

...a vital point must be made, especially given that the ''yab-yum'' image is always said to be an image in which the partners are in sexual union...[t]hough it may seem paradoxical and difficult to understand, this image, nevertheless, is not literally about sex, as in sexual intercourse. It is about nonduality, which is visually represented by the ''yab-yum'' icon.

Dzogchen tradition

Dzogchen is a relatively esoteric (to date) tradition concerned with the "natural state", and emphasizing direct experience. This tradition is found in the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, where it is classified as the highest of this lineage's nine yanas, or vehicles of practice. Similar teachings are also found in the non-Buddhist Bön tradition, where it is also given the nomenclature "Dzogchen" and in one evocation the ninth in a nine vehicle system. The nine vehicles in both the Bonpo and Buddhadharma traditions are different but they mutually inform. In Dzogchen, for both the Bonpo and Nyingmapa, the primordial state, the state of nondual awareness, is called ''rigpa''.

The Dzogchen practitioner realizes that appearance and emptiness are inseparable. One must transcend dualistic thoughts to perceive the true nature of one's pure mind. This primordial nature is clear light, unproduced and unchanging, free from all defilements. One's ordinary mind is caught up in dualistic conceptions, but the pure mind is unafflicted by delusions. Through meditation, the Dzogchen practitioner experiences that thoughts have no substance. Mental phenomena arise and fall in the mind, but fundamentally they are empty. The practitioner then considers where the mind itself resides. The mind can not exist in the ever-changing external phenomena and through careful examination one realizes that the mind is emptiness. All dualistic conceptions disappear with this understanding.

Bonpo Dzogchen

Svabhava (Sanskrit; Wylie: rang bzhin) is very important in the nontheistic theology of the Bonpo Dzogchen 'Great Perfection' tradition where it is part of a technical language to render macrocosm and microcosm into nonduality, as Rossi (1999: p. 58) states:

"The View of the Great Perfection further acknowledges the ontological identity of the macrocosmic and microcosmic realities through the threefold axiom of Condition (ngang), Ultimate Nature (rang bzhin) and Identity (bdag nyid). The Condition (ngang) is the Basis of all (kun gzhi)--primordially pure (ka dag) and not generated by primary and instrumental causes. It is the origin of all phenomena. The Ultimate Nature (rang bzhin) is said to be unaltered (ma bcos pa), because the Basis [gzhi] is spontaneously accomplished (lhun grub) in terms of its innate potential (rtsal) for manifestation (rol pa). The non-duality between the Ultimate Nature (i.e., the unaltered appearance of all phenomena) and the Condition (i.e., the Basis of all [kun gzhi]) is called the Identity (bdag nyid). This ''unicum'' of primordial purity (ka dag) and spontaneous accomplishment (lhun grub) is the Way of Being (gnas lugs) of the Pure-and-Perfect-Mind [byang chub (kyi) sems]."

Ngakpa tradition

Caplan (2009: p. 163), with an indirect quotation, conveys her understanding of the view of a contemporary Ngakpa who holds duality and nonduality to be nondual:

"Ngakpa Chögyam, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher from Wales, offers a perspective on nonduality that includes all of life as a direct expression of the nondual core of truth. He explains that nonduality, or emptiness, has two facets: one is the empty, or nondual, and the other is form, or duality. Therefore, duality is not illusory but is instead one ''aspect'' of nonduality. Like the two sides of a coin, the formless reality has two dimensions -- one is form, the other is formless. When we perceive duality as separate from nonduality (or nonduality as separate from duality), we do not engage the world of manifestation from a perspective of oneness, and thereby we fall into an erroneous relationship with it. From this perspective it is not "life" or duality that is maya, or illusion; rather, it is our relationship to the world that is illusory."

Korean Buddhism

Park (1983: p. 147) identifies essence-function as an East Asian Buddhist strategy to convey nonduality:

Since the ''t'i-yung or'' "essence-function" construction is originally used by East Asian Buddhists to show a non-dualistic and non-discriminate nature in their enlightenment experience, it should not exclude any other frameworks such as ''neng-so'' or "subject-object" constructions. Nevertheless the essence-function construction must be distinguished from the subject-object construction from a scholastic perspective because the two are completely different from each other in terms of their way of thinking.

Park (2009: p. 11) holds that:

"...the terms ''mom'' and ''momjit'' are familiar to all Koreans, and have their roots in ancient history. Although I translated them in the introduction as "essence" and "function", a more accurate definition (and the one the Korean populace is more familiar with) is "body" and "the body's functions". The implications of "essence/function" and "body/its functions" are similar, that is, both paradigms are used to point to a nondual relationship between the two concepts. There is a subtle but crucial difference, however, between the two models, "essence/function" and "body/its functions". The term essence/function (which is often translated by East Asian scholars into the Chinese term t'i-yung) has a rather abstract, philosophical tone, connoting an impression of being somewhat removed from the nitty-gritty details of everyday life. My primary interest, however, is in the human being's personal understanding and experience of nonduality."

Zen

Zen is a non-dual tradition. It can be considered a religion, a philosophy, or simply a practice depending on one's perspective. Zen practitioners follow a way which does not rely on labels or as they say, 'The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon itself.'

Tozan, one of the founders of Sōtō Zen in China, had a teaching known as the Five Ranks of the Real and the Ideal, which points out the necessity of not getting caught in the duality between Absolute and Relative/Samsara and Nirvana, and describes the stages of further transcendence into fully realising the Absolute in all activities.

Nondual themes are very strong in the literary work of Dogen (1200–1253), who founded the Soto school of Japanese Buddhism.

Indigenous Americans traditions

Burrus & Keller (2006: p. 71-72) in their work of transdisciplinary theological colloquia, convey the casestudies of Indigenous Americans which sing-a-song of nondual gender and nondual biological sexual designation and the natural spectrum of possibility:

However objective it may seem, even the scientific framework for defining the "two sexes" is a cultural construction. As Judith Butler has shown, the dominant American ideology of the body affirms the existence of two sexes, two genders, and two basic sexualities that are treated as naturally distinct. But biological sex is not ideologically independent of the other terms; our culture defines our genetics, object-oriented genital joining, and other gender practices in binary fashion in order to identify us dualistically as either male/masculine or female/feminine (where "normal" males and females are heterosexual). Violations of these norms are deemed unnatural. So doctors have tended to define genetic sex dualistically, as XX or XY, and to label violations of the genetic dualism (such as XXY and XO people), including "mismatches" between genetics, hormones, and appearance, as "diseased." But as Anne Fausto-Sterling describes, there is a spectrum of such deviations, naturally occurring bodies with non-dual genital combinations and diverse physicals expressions. Hidden among the males and females living in America are so-called "true hermaphrodites," who possess both ova and testes, "genetically male" (XY) people with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome who look like and are usually raised as women, "genotypically female" (XX) children whose genitalia are virilized at puberty, and "genotypically male" (XY) children who are anatomically female or androgynous at birth but at puberty develop testes, a fused scrotum, and secondary male sex characteristics.

Though the inclusion of nondual bodies, genders and sexual designations and other biological florescence, are by definition qualified for inclusion in this article and such inclusion is rarefied, especially when understood as embodying a syncretic and wholistic ideal, a "a one-sex/body, multi-gender model that reflected ancient gender norms" and which is metaphorically apt in many spiritual nondual traditions as Burrus & Keller (2006: p. 71) state:

...the dominant ideology of the body in the premodern West was a one-sex/body, multi-gender model that reflected ancient gender norms for the distribution of power. Only with the rise of Western medicine and genetics has sex been conceived as dual and ontologically stable--male and female.

Diné/Navajo

Burrus & Keller (2006: p. 73) further to the greater cultural context of mainland America and the diverse two-spirit cultures of the Indigenous American peoples, convey the spiritual view of the Diné or Navajo peoples in relation to the ideal that "all humans were spiritually androgynous":

...eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Navajo had a three-sex, multigender system that included the ''nádleehí'', a "two-spirit" (bi-gender) person who had one of three anatomical birth-sexes (male, female, or androgynous), but was identified by a combination of masculine and feminine gender-attributes. Because Native Americans typically thought birth sex matured over time and defined gender primarily based on work preference, "two-spirit" people included non-dually sexed persons; born-males who adopted women's work, manners, and speech patterns; born-females who took up men's work and mannerisms; or those born either male or female who combined elements of women and men's cultural roles. Finally, the Navajo did not denounce the ''nádleehí'' as unnatural because gender or sex practices did not fit an individual's birth-sex; rather, they thought that all humans were spiritually androgynous, so they treated the ''nádleehí'' as a special but natural gender.

Abrahamic traditions

Jewish traditions and Hasidism

Michaelson (2009: p. 130) identifies that nonduality was unambiguously evident in the medieval Jewish textual tradition which peaked in Hasidism: : As a Jewish religious notion, nonduality begins to appear unambigously in Jewish texts during the medieval period, increasing in frequency in the centuries thereafter and peaking at the turn of the nineteenth century, with the advent of Hasidism. It is certainly possible that earlier Jewish texts may suggest nonduality -- as, of course, they have been interpreted by traditional nondualists -- but...this may or may not be the most useful way to approach them." : ''Judaism'' has within it a strong and very ancient mystical tradition that is deeply nondualistic. "Ein Sof" or infinite nothingness is considered the ground face of all that is. God is considered beyond all proposition or preconception. The physical world is seen as emanating from the nothingness as the many faces "partsufim" of god that are all a part of the sacred nothingness. Sometimes the faces are referred to as colored spheres "sphirot" that are the same as chakras in eastern traditions. sphirot are seen as eminations or fruit of the tree of life in the sacred garden of paradise. The tree exists and emanates through many, sometimes infinite, stages or levels of reality. All is considered one nondualistic whole. nothingness and somethingness are considered one united and inseparable thing. Duality is seen as an illusion of brokenness or contraction and enlightenment is the act of inner restoration or repair "tikkun" of god's unity.

Christianity

Jesus himself utters deep nondual statements, such as this, from John 17:11(kjv)— Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. . .14b . . . because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. . . 21 That they may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us[.] And this, from Luke 11:34 The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.

Christian Science has been described as nondual. In a glossary of terms written by the founder, Mary Baker Eddy, matter is defined as illusion, and when defining 'I, or Ego' as the divine in relationship with individual identity, she writes "There is but one I, or Us, but one divine Principle, or Mind, governing all existence" — continuing — ". . .whatever reflects not this one Mind, is false and erroneous, even the belief that life, substance, and intelligence are both mental and material."

Griffiths' (1906–1993) form of Vedanta-inspired or nondual Christianity, coming from the Christian Ashram Movement, has inspired papers by Bruno Barnhart discussing 'Wisdom Christianity' or 'Sapiential Christianity'. Barnhart (1999: p. 238) explores Christian nondual experience in a dedicated volume and states that he gives it the gloss of "unitive" experience and "perennial philosophy". Further, Barnhart (2009) holds that: : It is quite possible that nonduality will emerge as the theological principle of a rebirth of sapiential Christianity ('wisdom Christianity') in our time."

Gnosticism

Since its beginning, Gnosticism has been characterized by many dualisms and dualities, including the doctrine of a separate God and Manichaean (good/evil) dualism. The discovery in 1945 of the Gospel of Thomas, however, has led some scholars to believe that Jesus' original teaching may have been one accurately characterized as nondualism.

An English rendering from The Gospel of Thomas that showcases a nondual vision of reconciling opposites which are also preserved, that is "make the two one": : When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same...then you will enter [the Kingdom].

The Gospel of Philip also conveys nondualism: : Light and Darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers of one another. They are inseparable. Because of this neither are the good good, nor evil evil, nor is life life, nor death death. For this reason each one will dissolve into its earliest origin. But those who are exalted above the world are indissoluble, eternal.

Islam

Sufism and Irfan (Arabic تصوف taṣawwuf) are the mystical traditions of Islam. There are a number of different Sufi orders that follow the teachings of particular spiritual masters, but the bond that unites all Sufis is the concept of ego annihilation (removal of the subject/object dichotomy between humankind and the divine) through various spiritual exercises and a persistent, ever-increasing longing for union with the divine. "The goal," as Reza Aslan writes, "is to create an inseparable union between the individual and the Divine."

The central doctrine of Sufism, sometimes called Wahdat-ul-Wujood or Wahdat al-Wujud or Unity of Being, is the Sufi understanding of Tawhid (the oneness of God; absolute monotheism). Put very simply, for Sufis, Tawhid implies that all phenomena are manifestations of a single reality, or Wujud (being), which is indeed al-Haq (Truth, God). The essence of Being/Truth/God is devoid of every form and quality, and hence unmanifest, yet it is inseparable from every form and phenomenon, either material or spiritual. It is often understood to imply that every phenomenon is an aspect of Truth and at the same time attribution of existence to it is false. The chief aim of all Sufis then is to let go of all notions of duality (and therefore of the individual self also), and realize the divine unity which is considered to be the truth.

Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, (1207–1273), one of the most famous Sufi masters and poets, has written that what humans perceive as duality is in fact a veil, masking the reality of the Oneness of existence. "All desires, preferences, affections, and loves people have for all sorts of things," he writes, are veils. He continues: "When one passes beyond this world and sees that Sovereign (God) without these 'veils,' then one will realize that all those things were 'veils' and 'coverings' and that what they were seeking was in reality that One."

Taoism

Dechar (2005: p. 5-6) identifies that the terms "Tao" and "[D]harma" are etymologically rooted by identifying the etymon "da":

"The word Tao has no exact English translation, but it relates most closely to the Western idea of wholeness, to the unknowable unity of the divine. When used by the Taoist philosophers, Tao became the Way, the path or cosmic law that directs the unfolding of every aspect of the [U]niverse. So Tao is the wisdom of the divine made manifest in nature and in my individual life. The Chinese word Tao has an etymological relationship to the Sanskrit root sound "da", which means "to divine something whole into parts". The ancient Sanskrit word dharma is also related to this root. In the Buddhist tradition, dharma means "that which is to be held fast, kept, an ordinance or law...the absolute, the real." So, both dharma and Tao refer to the way that the One, the unfathomable unity of the divine, divides into parts and manifests in the world of form."

Taoism's ''wu wei'' (Chinese ''wu'', not; ''wei'', doing) is a term with various translations (e.g. inaction, non-action, nothing doing, without ado) and interpretations designed to distinguish it from passivity. From a nondual perspective, it refers to activity that does not imply an ''"I"''. The concept of Yin and Yang, often mistakenly conceived of as a symbol of dualism, is actually meant to convey the notion that all apparent opposites are complementary parts of a non-dual whole. The Tao Te Ching has been seen as a nondualist text; from that perspective, the term "Tao" could be interpreted as a name for the Ultimate Reality (which, as the Tao Te Ching itself notes, is not the reality itself).

Contemporary

A Course in Miracles

''A Course in Miracles'' is an expression of nondualism that is independent of any religious denomination. For instance in a workshop entitled 'The Real World' led by two of its more prominent teachers, Kenneth Wapnick and Gloria Wapnick, Gloria explains how discordant the course is from the teachings of Christianity:

"The course is very clear in that God did not create the physical world or universe - or anything physical. It parts ways right at the beginning. If you start with the theology of the course, there's nowhere you can reconcile from the beginning, because the first book of Genesis talks about God creating the world, and then the animals and humans, et cetera. The course parts company at page one with the Bible."

A Course in Miracles presents an interpretation of nondualism that recognises only "God" (i.e. absolute reality) as existing in any way, and nothing else existing at all. In a book entitled ''The Disappearance of the Universe'', which interprets A Course in Miracles, it says in its second chapter that we "don't even ''exist'' in an individual way - not on ''any'' level. There is no separated or individual soul. There is no Atman, as the Hindus call it, except as a mis-thought in the mind. There is only God." A verse from the course itself that displays its interpretation of nondualism is found in Chapter 14:

"The first in time means nothing, but the First in eternity is God the Father, Who is both First and One. Beyond the First there is no other, for there is no order, no second or third, and nothing but the First."

Notes

References

Byron Katie, Mitchell Stephen (2007) "A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are". New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 978-0-307-33923-2

Castaneda, Carlos (1987). ''The Power of Silence''. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-50067-8.

Downing, Jerry N. (2000) ''Between Conviction and Uncertainty'' ISBN 0-79144-627-1

Godman, David (Ed.) (1985). ''Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi''. London: Arkana. ISBN 0-14-019062-7.

Hawkins, David R. (October 2006). ''Discovery of the Presence of God: Devotional Nonduality''. Sedona, Arizona: Veritas Publishing. ISBN 0-9715007-6-2 (Softcover); ISBN 0-9715007-7-0 (Hardcover)

Jeon, Arthur (2004) City Dharma: Keeping Your Cool in the Chaos ISBN 1-40004-908-3

Katz, Jerry (Ed.) (2007). ''One: Essential Writings on Nonduality''. Boulder, CO: Sentient Publications. ISBN 1591810531.

Kent, John (1990) ''Richard Rose's Psychology of the Observer: The Path to Reality Through the Self'' PhD Thesis

Klein, Anne Carolyn (1995). ''Meeting the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhists, Feminists, and the Art of the Self''. Boston, Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-7306-7.

Kongtrül, Jamgön (1992). ''Cloudless Sky: The Mahamudra Path of The Tibetan Buddhist Kagyü School''. Boston: Shambhala Publications. ISBN 0-87773-694-4.

Lama, Dalai (2000). ''Dzogchen: The Heart Essence of the Great Perfection''. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 1-55939-157-X.

Madhukar (2006) ''The Simplest Way''. Editions India. ISBN 81-89658-04-2.

Norbu, Namkhai (1993). ''The Crystal and the Way of Light: Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen''. London: Arkana. ISBN 0-14-019314-6.

Schucman, Helen (1992) "A Course In Miracles". Foundation for Inner Peace, pg. 1. ISBN 0-9606388-9-X.

Tolle, Eckhart (2004) "The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment" ISBN 978-1577314806

Trungpa, Chögyam (1987). ''Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism''. Boston: Shambhala Publications. ISBN 0-87773-050-4.

Watson, Burton (Trans.) (1968). ''The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu''. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-03147-5.

Lumiere, Lynn-Marie and Lumiere-Wins, John (2000). "The Awakening West: Conversations with Today's New Western Spiritual Leaders" (Paperback)

Waite, Dennis (2004) "The Book of One: The Spiritual Path of Advaita" (Paperback)

External links

"Neo-Advaita or Pseudo-Advaita and Real Advaita-Nonduality by Timothy Conway" a commentary by Ravi dated Wednesday 09/7/2008

Category:Hindu philosophy Category:Buddhist philosophy Category:Postmodern theory Category:Monism Category:Pluralism

cs:Nedualita es:No-dualismo fr:Non-dualité it:Non-dualismo nl:Non-dualisme ru:Недвойственность tr:İkiliksizlik

playername	David Bingham
fullname	David Thomas Bingham
dateofbirth	September 03, 1970
cityofbirth	Dunfermline
countryofbirth	Scotland
currentclub	Tynecastle (player-coach)
position	Forward
years1	1991–1992
years2	1992–1995
years3	1995–1998
years4	1998–2003
years5	2003–2004
years6	2004–2008
years7	2007
years8	2008
clubs1	St. Johnstone
clubs2	Forfar Athletic
clubs3	Dunfermline Athletic
clubs4	Livingston
clubs5	Inverness CT
clubs6	Gretna
clubs7	→ Queen of the South (loan)
clubs8	Cowdenbeath
caps1	17
caps2	99
caps3	33
caps4	148
caps5	31
caps6	54
caps7	4
caps8	6
goals1	3
goals2	44
goals3	9
goals4	50
goals5	13
goals6	30
goals7	0
goals8	0
pcupdate	01:14, 18 June 2008 (UTC) }}

David Thomas Bingham (born 3 September 1970 in Dunfermline) is a Scottish footballer who is currently a player-coach with East of Scotland side Tynecastle.

Career

Youth Career

David played for U12s Oakley Utd B.C.(Fife), U13-14 Salveson B.C.(Edinburgh), U15-16 Crossford B.C (Fife) and U18-21 Inverkeithing B.C (Fife).

Playing

Bingham began his career at St Johnstone in 1991 before moving to Scottish Second Division side Forfar Athletic in 1992. He played in just under 100 matches for the club, helping the side to win the first Scottish Third Division in 1995. His performances attracted the attention of Dunfermline Athletic and he was soon signed by then manager Bert Paton for £100,000. After 3 years with the Pars, Bingham moved to up-and-coming side Livingston in 1998. He scored 50 goals in 148 first team appearances for the Livi Lions, enjoying a great 2001-02 season, when he scored a hatful of goals. In 2003 he moved to Inverness Caledonian Thistle where he won the First Division Championship in his first season. Instead of staying in the Scottish Premier League with Caley Thistle, he decided to drop down to the Scottish Third Division, with Gretna, scoring a whopping 30 goals in 54 league games helping his side to race up the divisions in consecutive seasons. Bingham then joined Queen of the South on a six month loan deal in the July 2007 and returned to Gretna in December 2007, before being loaned out to Cowdenbeath in January 2008. Due to Gretna's financial difficulties towards the end of the 2007-08 season, Bingham was released from his contract along with all other staff members at the club. he hasn't given up hope of getting his "dream move" to ayr united

Coaching

Bingham unsuccessfully applied to be manager with Berwick Rangers and Forfar Athletic in 2008 and became coach of Scottish First Division side Dunfermline Athletic U 14's. In August 2008, He became player-coach at East of Scotland League First Division side Tynecastle F.C..

References

External links

Category:Living people Category:1970 births Category:People from Dunfermline Category:Scottish footballers Category:St. Johnstone F.C. players Category:Forfar Athletic F.C. players Category:Dunfermline Athletic F.C. players Category:Livingston F.C. players Category:Stirling Albion F.C. players Category:Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. players Category:Gretna F.C. players Category:Scottish Premier League players Category:Scottish Football League players Category:Tynecastle F.C. players

name	Jeff Foster
width	100
position	Center/Power forward
height ft	6 | height_in 11
weight lb	250
nationality	American
birth date	January 16, 1977
birth place	San Antonio, Texas
high school	James Madison High School (San Antonio, Texas)
college	Southwest Texas State
draft round	1
draft pick	21
draft year	1999
draft team	Golden State Warriors
career start	1999
teams	Indiana Pacers (1999-2011)
highlights	}}

Jeffrey Douglas Foster (born January 16, 1977) is an American professional basketball player who most recently played for the Indiana Pacers of the NBA.

Early life and college

Foster was born in San Antonio, Texas and graduated from James Madison High School in San Antonio in 1995. In senior year, he joined the varsity basketball team in high school. He attended Southwest Texas State University and finished college nine credits short of a degree in finance. With the Southwest Texas State Bobcats, Foster averaged 12.8 points and 10.2 rebounds in his junior season and was part of the All-Southland Conference Second-Team in 1998.

NBA career

He was selected 21st overall by the Golden State Warriors in the 1999 NBA Draft out of Southwest Texas State University, but his draft rights were immediately traded to the Pacers in exchange for Vonteego Cummings and a future first-round draft pick.

Foster was part of the Pacers' 1999–2000 Eastern Conference championship team, though he played only 19 games that year as he was fourth on the Pacers' depth chart at center behind Rik Smits, Sam Perkins and Zan Tabak. In his second season he played in 71 games, gaining a spot in the rotation as the Pacers rebuilt for the future. He averaged 3.5 points and 5.5 rebounds per game while averaging only 16.2 minutes per contest.

Foster began the 2001–02 season as the starter, and started 48 games that year before Brad Miller was acquired in a trade with the Chicago Bulls. Nevertheless, Foster played in all 82 games for the first time in his career, averaging 5.7 points and 6.8 rebounds per game.

Miller remained the Pacers' starting center throughout the 2002–03 season, and as such Foster was relegated back to the bench, and he produced his lowest point total yet of his career (2.1 ppg) and grabbed only 3.6 rebounds per game.

Before the 2003–04 season, Brad Miller was traded to the Sacramento Kings, and newly-acquired Scot Pollard began as the starting center. But Foster distinguished himself in the Pacers' season opener against the Detroit Pistons and his play, combined with Pollard's poor play, meant a return to the starting line-up for Foster. The energetic, hard-working center became an important rebounding presence for the Pacers, and his offensive rebounds in particular, combined with well-timed tip-ins, finally endeared himself to Indiana fans.

Foster sustained a back injury in December 2009 and underwent surgery on February 16, 2010.

NBA career statistics

Regular season

|- | align="left" | 1999–00 | align="left" | Indiana | 19 || 0 || 4.5 || .565 || .000 || .680 || 1.7 || .3 || .3 || .1 || 2.3 |- | align="left" | 2000–01 | align="left" | Indiana | 71 || 9 || 16.2 || .469 || .286 || .516 || 5.5 || .5 || .6 || .4 || 3.5 |- | align="left" | 2001–02 | align="left" | Indiana | 82 || 48 || 21.8 || .449 || .133 || .610 || 6.8 || .9 || .9 || .5 || 5.7 |- | align="left" | 2002–03 | align="left" | Indiana | 77 || 2 || 10.4 || .360 || .000 || .540 || 3.6 || .7 || .4 || .3 || 2.1 |- | align="left" | 2003–04 | align="left" | Indiana | 82 || 79 || 23.9 || .544 || .000 || .669 || 7.4 || .8 || .9 || .3 || 6.1 |- | align="left" | 2004–05 | align="left" | Indiana | 61 || 43 || 26.1 || .519 || .000 || .634 || 9.0 || .7 || .8 || .2 || 7.0 |- | align="left" | 2005–06 | align="left" | Indiana | 63 || 37 || 25.1 || .552 || .000 || .604 || 9.1 || .8 || .6 || .4 || 5.9 |- | align="left" | 2006–07 | align="left" | Indiana | 75 || 43 || 23.2 || .469 || .000 || .639 || 8.1 || .8 || .8 || .5 || 4.3 |- | align="left" | 2007–08 | align="left" | Indiana | 77 || 52 || 24.5 || .550 || .000 || .593 || 8.7 || 1.7 || .7 || .4 || 6.4 |- | align="left" | 2008–09 | align="left" | Indiana | 74 || 26 || 24.7 || .501 || .286 || .658 || 6.9 || 1.8 || .7 || .7 || 6.1 |- | align="left" | 2009-10 | align="left" | Indiana | 16 || 3 || 15.9 || .478 || .000 || .556 || 5.1 || 1.3 || .2 || .2 || 3.1 |- | align="left" | 2010-11 | align="left" | Indiana | 56 || 3 || 16.8 || .479 || .000 || .563 || 6.3 || .8 || .4 || .6 || 3.3 |- | align="left" | Career | align="left" | | 753 || 345 || 20.7 || .497 || .113 || .614 || 6.9 || .9 || .7 || .4 || 4.9

Playoffs

|- | align="left" | 2000–01 | align="left" | Indiana | 4 || 2 || 13.0 || .444 || .000 || 1.000 || 3.0 || .5 || .0 || .8 || 2.5 |- | align="left" | 2001–02 | align="left" | Indiana | 5 || 0 || 15.6 || .538 || .500 || .444 || 4.8 || 1.4 || .6 || .2 || 4.0 |- | align="left" | 2002–03 | align="left" | Indiana | 6 || 0 || 6.3 || .545 || .000 || 1.000 || 1.3 || .3 || .0 || .5 || 2.3 |- | align="left" | 2003–04 | align="left" | Indiana | 16 || 13 || 19.2 || .581 || .000 || .800 || 6.6 || .8 || .8 || .3 || 3.6 |- | align="left" | 2004–05 | align="left" | Indiana | 13 || 0 || 18.8 || .596 || .000 || .714 || 7.4 || .4 || .5 || .9 || 5.9 |- | align="left" | 2005–06 | align="left" | Indiana | 4 || 4 || 20.0 || .364 || .000 || .750 || 6.0 || .8 || 1.0 || .2 || 2.8 |- | align="left" | 2010–11 | align="left" | Indiana | 5 || 0 || 18.6 || .583 || .000 || .375 || 4.8 || .8 || .4 || .8 || 3.4 |- | align="left" | Career | align="left" | | 53 || 19 || 16.8 || .556 || .400 || .661 || 5.5 || .7 || .5 || .6 || 3.9

References

External links

Category:1977 births Category:Living people

Category:Basketball players from Texas Category:Centers (basketball) Category:Texas State Bobcats men's basketball players Category:Golden State Warriors draft picks Category:Indiana Pacers players Category:Sportspeople from San Antonio, Texas Category:Power forwards (basketball)

es:Jeff Foster fr:Jeff Foster it:Jeff Foster ja:ジェフ・フォスター zh:杰夫·福斯特

Region	Eastern Philosophy
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Color	#B0C4DE
Name	Alan Wilson Watts
birth date	January 06, 1915
birth place	Chislehurst, Kent, England
death date	November 16, 1973
death place	Mt. Tamalpais, California, USA
School tradition	Zen Buddhism Hinduism Pantheism Religious naturalism Taoism
Main interests	Personal identity Higher consciousnessAesthetics Public Ethics
Influenced	}}

Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York. Pursuing a career, he attended Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, where he received a master's degree in theology. Watts became an Episcopal priest but left the ministry in 1950 and moved to California where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies.

Living on the West Coast, Watts gained a large following in the San Francisco Bay Area while working as a volunteer programmer at KPFA, a Pacifica Radio station in Berkeley. Watts wrote more than 25 books and articles on subjects important to Eastern and Western religion, introducing the then-burgeoning youth culture to ''The Way of Zen'' (1957), one of the first bestselling books on Buddhism. In ''Psychotherapy East and West'' (1961), Watts proposed that Buddhism could be best thought of as a form of psychotherapy, not just a religion. Like Aldous Huxley before him, he explored human consciousness in the essay, "The New Alchemy" (1958), and in the book, ''The Joyous Cosmology'' (1962).

Towards the end of his life, he divided his time between a houseboat in Sausalito and a cabin on Mount Tamalpais. His legacy has been kept alive with the help of his son, Mark Watts, and many of his recorded talks and lectures have found new life on the Internet. Critic Erik Davis notes the freshness, longevity, and continuing relevance of Watts's work today, observing that his "writings and recorded talks still shimmer with a profound and galvanizing lucidity."

Early years

Watts was born to middle class parents in the village of Chislehurst, Kent, in 1915, living at 3 (now 5) Holbrook Lane. His father was a representative for the London office of the Michelin Tyre Company, his mother a housewife whose father had been a missionary. With modest financial means, they chose to live in pastoral surroundings and Alan, an only child, grew up playing at brookside, learning the names of wildflowers and butterflies. Probably because of the influence of his mother’s religious family the Buchans, an interest in "ultimate things" seeped in. But it mixed with Alan’s own interests in storybook fables and romantic tales of the mysterious Far East.

Watts also later wrote of a mystical vision he experienced while ill with a fever as a child. During this time he was influenced by Far Eastern landscape paintings and embroideries that had been given to his mother by missionaries returning from China. The few Chinese paintings Watts was able to see in England riveted him, and he wrote "I was aesthetically fascinated with a certain clarity, transparency, and spaciousness in Chinese and Japanese art. It seemed to float...". These works of art emphasized the participative relationship of man in nature, a theme that stood fast throughout his life.

Buddhism

By his own assessment, Watts was imaginative, headstrong, and talkative. He was sent to boarding schools (which included both academic and religious training of the Muscular Christianity sort) from early years. Of this religious training, he remarked “Throughout my schooling my religious indoctrination was grim and maudlin…” During holidays in his teen years, Francis Croshaw, a wealthy Epicurean with strong interests in both Buddhism and the exotic little-known aspects of European culture, took Watts on a trip through France. It was not long afterward that Watts felt forced to decide between the Anglican Christianity he had been exposed to and the Buddhism he had read about in various libraries, including Croshaw’s. He chose Buddhism, and sought membership in the London Buddhist Lodge which had been established by Theosophists, and was now run by the barrister Christmas Humphreys. Watts became the organization’s secretary at 16 (1931). The young Watts explored several styles of meditation during these years.

Education

Watts attended the King's School next door to Canterbury Cathedral. Though he was frequently at the top of his classes scholastically, and was given responsibilities at school, he botched an opportunity for a scholarship to Oxford by styling a crucial examination essay in a way that was read as presumptuous and capricious.

Hence, when he graduated from secondary school, Watts was thrust into the world of employment, working in a printing house and later a bank. He spent his spare time involved with the Buddhist Lodge and also under the tutelage of a "rascal guru" named Dimitrije Mitrinović. (Mitrinović was himself influenced by Peter Demianovich Ouspensky, G. I. Gurdjieff, and the varied psychoanalytical schools of Freud, Jung and Adler.) Watts also read widely in philosophy, history, psychology, psychiatry and Eastern wisdom. By his own reckoning, and also by that of his biographer Monica Furlong, Watts was primarily an autodidact. His involvement with the Buddhist Lodge in London afforded Watts a considerable number of opportunities for personal growth. Through Humphreys, he contacted eminent spiritual authors (e.g., Nicholas Roerich, Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan) and prominent theosophists like Alice Bailey. In 1936, aged 21, he attended the World Congress of Faiths at the University of London, heard D.T. Suzuki read a paper, and afterwards was able to meet this esteemed scholar of Zen Buddhism. Beyond these discussions and personal encounters, Watts absorbed, by studying the available scholarly literature, the fundamental concepts and terminology of the main philosophies of India and East Asia.

Influences and first publication

In 1936, Watts' first book was published, ''The Spirit of Zen'', which he later acknowledged to be mainly digested from the writings of Suzuki.

In 1938 he and his bride left England to live in America. He had married Eleanor Everett, whose mother Ruth Fuller Everett was involved with a traditional Zen Buddhist circle in New York. A few years later, Ruth Fuller married the Zen master (or "roshi"), Sokei-an Sasaki, and this Japanese gentleman served as a sort of model and mentor to Watts, though he chose not to enter into a formal Zen training relationship with Sasaki. During these years, according to his later writings, Watts had another mystical experience while on a walk with his wife.

Watts' fascination with the Zen (or Chan) tradition—beginning during the 1930s—developed because that tradition embodied the spiritual, interwoven with the practical, as exemplified in the subtitle of his ''Spirit of Zen: A Way of Life, Work, and Art in the Far East''. "Work," "life," and "art" were not demoted due to a spiritual focus.

Priesthood and after

Watts left formal Zen training in New York because the method of the teacher didn't suit him. He was not ordained as a Zen monk, but he felt a need to find a professional outlet for his philosophical inclinations. He entered Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, an Anglican (Episcopalian) school in Evanston, Illinois, where he studied Christian scriptures, theology, and Church history. He attempted to work out a blend of contemporary Christian worship, mystical Christianity, and Asian philosophy. Watts was awarded a master's degree in theology in response to his thesis, which he published as a popular edition under the title ''Behold the Spirit''. The pattern was set, in that Watts did not hide his dislike for religious outlooks that he decided were dour, guilt-ridden, or militantly proselytizing—no matter if they were found within Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, or Buddhism.

All seemed to go reasonably well in his next role, as Episcopalian priest (beginning in 1945, aged 30), until an extramarital affair resulted in his young wife having their marriage annulled. It also resulted in Watts leaving the ministry by 1950. He spent the New Year getting to know Joseph Campbell; his wife, Jean Erdman; and John Cage.

In early 1951, Watts moved to California, where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco. Here he taught alongside Saburō Hasegawa, Frederic Spiegelberg, Haridas Chaudhuri, lama Tokwan Tada, and various visiting experts and professors. Hasegawa, in particular, served as a teacher to Watts in the areas of Japanese customs, arts, primitivism, and perceptions of nature. Besides teaching, Watts served for several years as the Academy's administrator.

Watts also studied written Chinese and practiced Chinese brush calligraphy with Hasegawa as well as with some of the Chinese students who enrolled at the Academy. While Watts was noted for an interest in Zen Buddhism, his reading and discussions delved into Vedanta, "the new physics", cybernetics, semantics, process philosophy, natural history, and the anthropology of sexuality.

Middle years

After heading up the Academy for a few years, Watts left the faculty for a freelance career in the mid 1950s. In 1953, he began what became a long-running weekly radio program at Pacifica Radio station KPFA in Berkeley, which continued until his death in 1973. Like other volunteer programmers at the listener-sponsored station, Watts was not paid for his broadcasts; they did, however, gain him a large following in the San Francisco Bay Area. These programs were later carried by additional Pacifica stations, and were re-broadcast many times over in the decades following his death. The original tapes are currently held by the Pacifica Radio Archives, based at KPFK in Los Angeles, and at the Electronic University archive founded by his son, Mark Watts (alanwatts.org).

In 1957 when 42, Watts published one of his best known books, ''The Way of Zen'', which focused on philosophical explication and history. Besides drawing on the lifestyle and philosophical background of Zen, in India and China, Watts introduced ideas drawn from general semantics (directly from the writings of Alfred Korzybski and also from Norbert Wiener's early work on cybernetics, which had recently been published). Watts offered analogies from cybernetic principles possibly applicable to the Zen life. The book sold well, eventually becoming a modern classic, and helped widen his lecture circuit.

Around this time, Watts toured parts of Europe with his father, meeting the renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung. In relation to modern psychology, Watts's instincts were closer to Jung's or Abraham Maslow's than to those of Freud.

Experimentation

When he returned to the United States, he began to dabble in psychedelic drug experiences, initially with mescaline given to him by Dr. Oscar Janiger. He tried LSD several times with various research teams led by Drs. Keith Ditman, Sterling Bunnell, and Michael Agron. He also tried marijuana and concluded that it was a useful and interesting psychoactive drug that gave the impression of time slowing down. Watts’ books of the ’60s reveal the influence of these chemical adventures on his outlook. He would later comment about psychedelic drug use, "When you get the message, hang up the phone."

For a time, Watts came to prefer writing in the language of modern science and psychology (''Psychotherapy East and West'' is a good example), finding a parallel between mystical experiences and the theories of the material universe proposed by 20th-century physicists. He later equated mystical experience with ecological awareness, and typically emphasized whichever approach seemed best suited to the audience he was addressing.

Supporters and critics

Watts's explorations and teaching brought him into contact with many noted intellectuals, artists, and American teachers in the human potential movement. His friendship with poet Gary Snyder nurtured his sympathies with the budding environmental movement, to which Watts gave philosophical support. He also encountered Robert Anton Wilson, who credited Watts with being one of his 'Light[s] along the Way' in the opening appreciation of ''Cosmic Trigger''.

Though never affiliated for long with any one academic institution, he did have a fellowship for several years at Harvard University. He also lectured to many college and university students. His lectures and books gave him far-reaching influence on the American intelligentsia of the 1950s–1970s, but he was often seen as an outsider in academia. When questioned sharply by students during his talk at University of California Santa Cruz in 1970, Watts responded that he was not an academic philosopher but rather "a philosophical entertainer."

Watts has been criticized by Buddhists such as Roshi Philip Kapleau, John Daido Loori, and D. T. Suzuki for allegedly misinterpreting several key concepts of Zen Buddhism. Examples of the criticisms by those who believe that zazen can only be achieved by a strict and specific means of sitting as opposed to a cultivated state of mind available at any moment in any situation would be when Kapleau claimed that Watts dismissed zazen on the basis of only half a koan. In regard to the aforementioned koan, Robert Baker Aitken reports that Suzuki told him "I regret to say that Mr. Watts did not understand that story." In Loori's translation of Dogen's The True Dharma Eye, the author also mentions this and expands further to suggest that Zen in its essence ''is'' zazen, and cannot be grasped without the practice. This had been the predominant interpretation of Zen in the West before Alan Watts began to write. One major point raised today, however, is that the state of Zen is like that of dog, always in the moment, regretting nothing. Although in one Koan Zhaozhou is said to have answered that a Dog does not have Buddha nature, in a different Koan from the same period Zhaozhou answered the same question in the positive, demonstrating the disagreements between the sects of 'walking monks' and 'sitting monks' that go back thousands of years. In his talks, Watts addressed the issue of defining zazen practice when he said, "A cat sits until it is tired of sitting, then gets up, stretches, and walks away."

He did, however, have his supporters in the Zen community, including Shunryu Suzuki, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. As David Chadwick recounted in his biography of Suzuki, when a student of Suzuki's disparaged Watts by saying “we used to think he was profound until we found the real thing," Suzuki "fumed with a sudden intensity," saying, "You completely miss the point about Alan Watts! You should notice what he has done. He is a great bodhisattva."

Applied aesthetics

Watts often wrote about, or sometimes alluded to, a group of neighbors in Druid Heights (near Mill Valley, California), who had endeavored to combine architecture, gardening, and carpentry skills to make a beautiful and comfortable life for themselves. These neighbors accomplished this by relying on their own talents and using their own hands, as they lived in what has been called "shared bohemian poverty." Druid Heights was founded by the writer Elsa Gidlow, and Watts dedicated his book ''The Joyous Cosmology'' to the people of this neighborhood.

Regarding his intentions, Watts attempted to lessen the alienation that accompanies the experience of being human that he felt plagued the modern Westerner, and (like his fellow British expatriate and friend, Aldous Huxley) to lessen the ill will that was an unintentional by-product of alienation from the natural world. He felt such teaching could improve the world, at least to a degree. He also articulated the possibilities for greater incorporation of aesthetics (for example: better architecture, more art, more fine cuisine) in American life. In his autobiography he wrote, "… cultural renewal comes about when highly differentiated cultures mix".

In his last novel ''Island'' (1962), Aldous Huxley mentions the religious practice of maithuna as being something like what Roman Catholics call "coitus reservatus". A few years before, Alan Watts had discussed the theme in his own book ''Nature, Man and Woman''. There, he discusses the possibility of the practice being known to early Christians and of it being kept secretly by the Church.

Later years

In his writings of the 1950s, he conveyed his admiration for the practicality in the historical achievements of Chán (Zen) in the Far East, for it had fostered farmers, architects, builders, folk physicians, artists, and administrators among the monks who had lived in the monasteries of its lineages.

In his mature work, he presents himself as "Zennist" in spirit as he wrote in his last book, ''Tao: The Watercourse Way''. Child rearing, the arts, cuisine, education, law and freedom, architecture, sexuality, and the uses and abuses of technology were all of great interest to him.

Though known for his Zen teachings, he was equally if not more influenced by ancient Hindu scriptures, especially Vedanta, and spoke extensively about the nature of the divine Reality Man that Man misses, how the contradiction of opposites is the method of life and the means of cosmic and human evolution, how our fundamental Ignorance is rooted in the exclusive nature of mind and ego, how to come in touch with the Field of Consciousness and Light, and other cosmic principles. These are discussed in great detail in dozens of hours of audio that are in part captured in the ‘Out of Our Mind’ series.

On the personal level, Watts sought to resolve his feelings of alienation from the institutions of marriage and the values of American society, as revealed in his classic comments on love relationships in "Divine Madness" and on perception of the organism-environment in "The Philosophy of Nature".

In looking at social issues he was quite concerned with the necessity for international peace, for tolerance and understanding among disparate cultures. He also came to feel acutely conscious of a growing ecological predicament; as one instance, in the early 1960s he wrote: “Can any melting or burning imaginable get rid of these ever-rising mountains of ruin – especially when the things we make and build are beginning to look more and more like rubbish even before they are thrown away?" These concerns were later expressed in a television pilot made for NET filmed at his mountain retreat in 1971 in which he noted that the single track of conscious attention was wholly inadequate for interactions with a multi-tracked world.

Political stance

Distrusting both the established political left and right, Watts found political inspiration in the Chinese sage Chuang-Tzu . He disliked much in the conventional idea of "progress." He hoped for change, but personally he preferred amiable, semi-isolated rural social enclaves, and also believed in tolerance for urban tenderloins, social misfits, and eccentric artists. Watts decried the suburbanization of the countryside and the way of life that went with it.

In one campus lecture tour, which Watts titled "The End to the Put-Down of Man", Watts presented positive images for both nature and humanity, spoke in favor of the various stages of human growth (including the teenage years), reproached excessive cynicism and rivalry, and extolled intelligent creativity, good architecture and food .

On spiritual and social identity

Watts felt that absolute morality had nothing to do with the fundamental realization of one’s deep spiritual identity. He advocated social rather than personal ethics. In his writings, Watts was increasingly concerned with ethics applied to relations between humanity and the natural environment and between governments and citizens. He wrote out of an appreciation of a racially and culturally diverse social landscape.

He often said that he wished to act as a bridge between the ancient and the modern, between East and West, and between culture and nature.

Watts led some tours for Westerners to the Buddhist temples of Japan. He also studied some movements from the traditional Chinese martial art T'ai Chi Ch'uan, with an Asian colleague, Al Chung-liang Huang.

Worldview

In several of his later publications, especially ''Beyond Theology'' and ''The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are'', Watts put forward a worldview, drawing on Hinduism, Chinese philosophy, pantheism, and modern science, in which he maintains that the whole universe consists of a cosmic self playing hide-and-seek (Lila), hiding from itself (Maya) by becoming all the living and non-living things in the universe, forgetting what it really is; the upshot being that we are all IT in disguise. In this worldview, Watts asserts that our conception of ourself as an "ego in a bag of skin" is a myth; the entities we call the separate "things" are merely processes of the whole.

Internet phenomenon

As part of his growing popularity, Matt Stone and Trey Parker – creators of the animated series South Park – have also contributed a video tribute by animating some of his lectures. This has spawned a culture of user animated videos all around the net.

Personal life

Alan Watts married three times and had seven children, five daughters and two sons. His oldest son, Mark Watts, currently serves as curator of his father's work.

He met Eleanor Everett in 1936, when her mother, Ruth Fuller Everett, brought her to London to study piano. They met at the Buddhist Lodge, were engaged the following year, and married in April 1938. A daughter, Joan, was born November 1938, and another, Anne, was born in 1943. Their marriage ended eleven years later, but Watts continued after that to correspond with his ex-mother-in-law.

After leaving Eleanor in 1950 Alan Watts married Dorothy DeWitt and moved to San Francisco in early 1951 to teach. They began a family that grew to include five children: Tia, Mark, Richard, Lila, and Diane. However the couple separated in the early sixties after Watts met Mary Jane Yates King while lecturing in New York. After a difficult divorce he married Mary Jane in 1964.

Watts lived with his wife Mary Jane in Sausalito, California in the mid-60s. He lived his later years at times on a houseboat in Sausalito called the Vallejo, and at times in a secluded cabin on Mount Tamalpais. Laden with social and financial responsibilities, he struggled increasingly with alcohol addiction, which may have contributed to his premature death.

In October 1973, Watts returned from an exhausting European lecture tour. There is currently no evidence proving the cause of Watt's death .

Books

1936 ''The Spirit of Zen'', Paperback. 1969 ISBN 0-8021-3056-9 A preview from Google Books

1937 ''The Legacy of Asia and Western Man''

1940 ''The Meaning of Happiness'', Paperback. 1970, ISBN 0-06-080178-6

1944 ''Theologica Mystica of St. Dionysius'', (translation from Greek of pseudo-Dionysius, available online)

1948 ''Behold the Spirit:A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion'', Vintage ed. 1972, ISBN 0-394-71761-9

1950 ''Easter – Its Story and Meaning''

1950 ''The Supreme Identity'', Vintage ed. 1972, ISBN 0-394-71835-6

1951 ''The Wisdom of Insecurity'', Vintage ed. 1968, ISBN 0-394-70468-1

1953 ''Myth and Ritual in Christianity'', Beacon Press 1971, ISBN 0-8070-1375-7

1957 ''The Way of Zen'', Vintage Spiritual Classics 1999, ISBN 0-375-70510-4

1958 ''Nature, Man, and Woman'', Vintage reissue 1991, ISBN 0-679-73233-0

1959 ''Beat Zen Square Zen and Zen'', Paperback, ASIN B000F2RQL4

1960 ''"This Is It" and Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience'', Vintage reprint 1973, ISBN 0-394-71904-2

1961 ''Psychotherapy East and West'', Vintage ed. 1975, ISBN 0-394-71609-4 An excerpt

1962 ''The Joyous Cosmology – Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness''

1963 ''The Two Hands of God – The Myths of Polarity''

1964 ''Beyond Theology – The Art of Godmanship'', Vintage 1973, ISBN 0-394-71923-9

1966 ''The Book – On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are'', Vintage reissue 1989, ISBN 0-679-72300-5 An excerpt

1967 ''Nonsense'', ISBN 0-525-47463-3. (This book is a spiritual application of literary nonsense).

1970 ''Does It Matter?: Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality'', Vintage ed. 1971, ISBN 0-394-71665-5

1971 ''Erotic Spirituality – The Vision of Konarak''

1972 ''The Art of Contemplation''

1972 ''In My Own Way – An Autobiography 1915–1965'', Vintage 1973, ISBN 0-394-71951-4 A preview from Google Books

1973 ''Cloud-hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal'', Vintage 1974, ISBN 0-394-71999-9

Posthumous publications

1974 ''The Essence of Alan Watts'', Celestial Arts 1977, ISBN 0-89087-210-4

1975 ''Tao: The Watercourse Way'', with Al Chung-liang Huang, Pantheon 1977, ISBN 0-394-73311-8

1976 ''Essential Alan Watts''

1978 ''Uncarved Block, Unbleached Silk: The Mystery of Life''

1979 ''Om: Creative Meditations''

1982 ''Play to Live''

1983 ''Way of Liberation: Essays and Lectures on the Transformation of the Self''

1985 ''Out of the Trap''

1986 ''Diamond Web''

1987 ''The Early Writings of Alan Watts'', Paperback. 1995, ISBN 0-89087-794-7

1990 ''The Modern Mystic: A New Collection of Early Writings''

1994 ''Talking Zen''

1995 ''Become What You Are'', Shambhala Expanded ed. 2003, ISBN 1-57062-940-4

1995 ''Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion'' A preview from Google Books

1995 ''The Philosophies of Asia''

1995 ''The Tao of Philosophy'', edited transcripts, Tuttle Publishing 1999, ISBN 0-8048-3204-8

1996 ''Myth and Religion''

1997 ''Taoism: Way Beyond Seeking''

1997 ''Zen and the Beat Way''

1998 ''Culture of Counterculture''

1999 ''Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion'', edited transcripts, Tuttle Publishing, ISBN 0-8048-3203-X

2000 ''What Is Zen?'', editor: Mark Watts, New World Library, ISBN 0-394-71951-4 A preview from Google Books

2000 ''What Is Tao?'', ed. Mark Watts, New World Library, ISBN 1-57731-168-X

2000 ''Still the Mind: An Introduction to Meditation'', ed. Mark Watts, New World Library, ISBN 1-57731-214-7

2000 ''Eastern Wisdom'', ed. Mark Watts, MJF Books, ISBN 1-56731-491-0, three books in one volume: ''What is Zen?'', ''What is Tao?'', and ''An Introduction to Meditation'' (''Still the Mind''). These were assembled from transcriptions of audio tape recordings made by his son Mark, of lectures and seminars given by Alan Watts during the last decade of his life. They constitute simplified introductions to the philosophies he taught.

Audio and video works, essays

Including recordings of lectures at major universities and multi-session seminars: Many of his works have made it easier for western people to apprehend eastern esoteric thinking which until now required western people to travel to Asia and spend years learning the subtle nuances of the profound traditions.

1960 ''Eastern Wisdom in Modern Life'', television series, (here)

1960 ''Essential Lectures'', audio recordings, (here)

1960 ''Nature of Consciousness'', essay, (here)

1960 ''The Value of Psychotic Experience''

1960 ''The World As Emptiness''

1960 ''From Time to Eternity''

1960 ''Lecture On Zen''

1960 ''The Cross of Cards''

1960 ''Taoism''

1962 ''This Is IT''

1968 "Psychedelics & Religious Experience", in ''California Law Review'' (here)

1969 ''Why Not Now: The Art of Meditation''

1971 ''A Conversation With Myself'' (part 1 part 2part 3)

1994 ''Zen: The Best of Alan Watts'' (VHS)

2005 ''Do You Do It, or Does It Do You?: how to let the universe meditate you'' (CD)

2007 ''Zen Meditations with Alan Watts'', DVD, (here)

Other books

''Genuine Fake: a Biography of Alan Watts'', by Monica Furlong, Published by Heinemann, 1986

Academic connections

Saybrook University offers the only course on Watts in the United States and perhaps the world (HTP 3075: The Life of Alan Watts). Saybrook also has the only Watts academic chair in the world, which is held by Stanley Krippner, Executive Faculty Member.

Notes

References

Aitken, Robert. ''Original Dwelling Place''. Counterpoint. Washington, D.C. 1997. ISBN 1-887178-41-4 (paperback)

Charters, Ann (ed.). ''The Portable Beat Reader''. Penguin Books. New York. 1992. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hard cover); ISBN 0-14-015102-8 (paperback)

Furlong, Monica, ''Zen Effects: The Life of Alan Watts'' Houghton Mifflin. New York. 1986 ISBN 0-395-45392-5, Skylight Paths 2001 edition of the biography, with new foreword by author: ISBN 1-893361-32-2

Kapleau, Philip. ''Three Pillars of Zen'' (1967) Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-5975-7

Stirling, Isabel. "Zen Pioneer: The Life & Works of Ruth Fuller Sasaki" Shoemaker & Hoard. 2006. ISBN 978-1-59376-110-3

Watts, Alan, ''In My Own Way'' New York. Random House Pantheon. 1973 ISBN 0-394-46911-9 (his autobiography)

External links

The Alan Watts Electronic University – Alan Watts audio and video courses, co-founded by Alan Watts, Mark Watts, and Henry Jacobs in 1973.

Alan Watts Podcast – The official Podcast of Alan Watts

Master Enlightenments Arts Seminars and Lectures by Alan Watts – Looking at many different forms of enlightenment – Recorded by Henry Jacobs in 1964/65 who set up the original Alan Watts radio network.

Alan Watts Online – Project Unicorn (also via Archive.org)

Watts essay on Nothingness (This link no longer functions.)

Alan Watts audio archive from the DIY Dharma website

Alan Watts Lectures and Essays Audio, video, essays and articles – resources from deoxy.org

Alan Watts Resource Compilation A collection of audio and video links of Alan Watts lecture and essays

Alan Watts on YouTube, South Park Interview with Mark Watts on the resurgence of his father's work

watts.progressiveradionetwork.org Gary Nulls online station with Alan Watts show including some archived audio lectures.

Alan Watts. The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

Category:1915 births Category:1973 deaths Category:20th-century philosophers Category:Buddhism in the United States Category:Converts to Buddhism Category:Buddhist philosophers Category:Mahayana Buddhists Category:English Buddhists Category:English philosophers Category:English spiritual teachers Category:English spiritual writers Category:English Taoists Category:Harvard Fellows Category:Metaphysicians Category:Modern Buddhist writers Category:People associated with the Human Potential Movement Category:Western mystics Category:American Episcopal priests

cs:Alan Watts de:Alan Watts es:Alan Watts eo:Alan Watts fr:Alan Watts it:Alan Watts he:אלאן ווטס nl:Alan Watts no:Alan Wilson Watts pl:Alan Watts pt:Alan Watts ru:Уотс, Алан fi:Alan Watts tr:Alan Watts

Dean Radin (born February 29, 1952) is a researcher and author in the field of parapsychology. He has been Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), in Petaluma, California, USA, since 2001, and is on the Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Psychology at Sonoma State University, on the Distinguished Consulting Faculty at Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, and former President of the Parapsychological Association. He is also co-editor-in-chief of the Elsevier journal ''Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing''.

Biography

Professionally, Radin worked as a concert violinist for five years, later switching to engineering after earning an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, as well as both a master's degree in electrical engineering and a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

After graduation, Radin worked at Bell Labs, and then conducted research at Princeton University, GTE Laboratories, University of Edinburgh, SRI International, Interval Research Corporation, and was a faculty member at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Radin was elected President of the Parapsychological Association in 1988, 1993, 1998, and 2005 and has published a number of articles and scientific papers, as well as two books directed to a popular audience: ''The Conscious Universe'' and ''Entangled Minds''.

Radin's books have drawn mixed reviews. A critical review of ''The Conscious Universe'' was published by ''Nature'', to which Dean Radin objected due to what he described as factual inaccuracies. Following an exchange of letters, in April 1998 Nature published an acknowledgment of a numerical error introduced during the editing process, and later in July 1998 reproduced the full text of the original letter from Radin requesting the correction.

Research

Radin has conducted parapsychological research in several areas, drawing a conclusion that some psychic phenomena exist. Radin was featured on the BBC Horizon TV series explaining an experiment he designed that recorded people's emotional response to a randomized series of pictures. He believes the results to be evidence of retrocausation, a conclusion not supported by mainstream scientists. Radin's research has yet to capture the attention of the mainstream scientific community as a whole.

Books

''Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality'' (2006)

''Captain of My Ship, Master of My Soul: Living With Guidance'' (2001), with F. Holmes Atwater, Joseph McMoneagle, Skip Atwater

''The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena'' (1997, HarperCollins). Note: in Great Britain this book is entitled ''The Noetic Universe''.

See also

Parapsychology

References

External links

Dean Radin's official website - Contains a blog and various resources to do with his work

Dean Radin articles & MP3 audio provided by ''Shift in Action'', sponsored by the Institute of Noetic Sciences

Dean Radin Lecture Entangled Minds at Theosophy Hall, NYC Part 1 of 2

Dean Radin Lecture Entangled Minds at Theosophy Hall, NYC Part 2 of 2

- Interview with Radin responds to criticisms of Global Consciousness Project

Category:Living people Category:1952 births Category:Parapsychologists Category:American classical violinists Category:American fiddlers Category:American banjoists Category:People from Sonoma County, California Category:Place of birth missing (living people)

fa:دین رادین fr:Dean Radin