Paper Tigers of Duality

Two prehistoric apes stand in the tall grass. One points a finger in a certain direction to alert the other to a crouching tiger that is about to prey on them, as if to say: “Watch out! Tiger!”

Language developed from the behavior of finger-pointing. Each word is an attempt to point to and to point out. The finger was the first “this” (if pointing something out) and the first “there” (if pointing to something). The finger was the first tongue. The finger was the first attempt to pivot somebody’s field of awareness to a focal point, to manipulate another’s vector of attention, to coordinate and share a point of view. Thus, communication was born.

But, as Buddhists say, the finger pointing to the moon isn’t the moon. The entire mind is a drop-down menu of verbal gestures that self-select – associatively, compulsively, reflexively, reactively, mechanically, robotically, and mostly unconsciously – in a jaw-dropping stimulus-response automaticity – in an attempt to name the Nameless. But no matter how many fingers we point at Reality, no matter how many words we use to describe it, a finger point at the moon isn’t the moon, a description isn’t that which is being described, and the word isn’t its referent.

No “this” ever equals that which it points to.

In essence, every word that exists, every category, every conception is just another “this” – another finger-point. Yes: each word – at its core – is a synonym of the word “this.” That’s why we can say, without any hint of contradiction, that “this is a car” (this = car) and “this is a truck” (this = truck) although “a car isn’t a truck” (car =/= truck); or that “this is a man” (this = man) and “this is a woman” (this = woman) although “a man isn’t a woman” (man =/= woman). This “this” is a semantic stem-cell that equals everything and nothing at the same time.

What is this “this?” As the pre- and post-historic apes turn their heads in the tall grass and over the suburban hedges, what turns, what pivots?

It seems as though we all stand amidst Self-centered fields of awareness, at a perpetual radius of Self-Other duality.

Any “this” – it seems – means “not me/not I.” Awareness is always other-directed and it is always a duality, a distinction betwee
Self and Other. To be “aware of” we have to be “separate from.” After all, how can a center look at itself?! Indeed, any time we point a finger, we direct it away, from our Selves, towards not-our-Selves, to point to Something that we aren’t. Thus, any “this” (or any word for that matter) – at its core – means “not me/not I.”

Even the pronoun-word “I.”

So, as we stand in the tall-grass of first person perspectives, amidst these self-growth-hungry bamboo shoots of “I”, in the Self-centered fields of Other-directed-awareness, let us allow a possibility that what we fear is nothing more than a pack of paper tigers – nothing more and nothing less than the finger-pointing-gesture-dance of our own mental narratives…

All fear is based on Self-Other distinctions. And all we fear is the distinctions that we make…

Pavel Somov, Ph.D., author of "EATING THE MOMENT: 141 MINDFUL PRACTICES TO OVERCOME OVEREATING ONE MEAL AT A TIME" (New Harbinger, 2008) www.eatingthemoment.com
Copyright, 2009