My free to download book On The Way To The Far Shore has a number of words that point in the direction of nonduality. From Wikipedia:
"Nondualism includes a number of philosophical and spiritual traditions that emphasize the absence of fundamental duality or separation in existence. This viewpoint questions the boundaries conventionally imposed between self and other, mind and body, observer and observed, and other dichotomies that shape our perception of reality."1
This appendix from the book attempts to provide shades of meaning for the words in the book that point in the direction of nonduality, as understood in Buddhist traditions.
Emptiness: For the Buddha, "empty of self or what belongs to self." For Nagarjuna (2nd century CE), "Because there are no things at all which are not dependently originated, there are no things at all which are not empty"2 – equating dependent origination and emptiness. This is not nonduality – but it does point away from the usual conventionally imposed separations we tend to make in sensing the world.
SODAPI: Streams Of Dependently Arising Processes Interacting – my acronym pointing to the dependently originated nature of all there is. Nothing stands alone, everything arises dependent on other things. And the "things" are processes, not static nouns. This also is not nonduality – but again it points away from the usual conventionally imposed separations we tend to make in sensing the world.
Signlessness: We use signs to conceptualize what we are sensing. For example, it you see a collection of five pieces of wood, four of which are similar and vertical, and the fifth is broad and flat and attached atop the vertical four, we conceptualize that we are seeing a wooden table. The signs are "4 similar and vertical", "1 broad and flat", "wooden". Signlessness is sense contact (followed automatically by vedanā), but with no further processing; no becoming conscious of the signs of the object that we would use to conceptualize what the object is. The practice given to Bāhiya in Udana 1.10 is a practice that leads to experiencing signlessness: "In seeing will be merely seeing; in hearing will be merely hearing; in sensing will be merely sensing; in cognizing will be merely cognizing." There is holistic sensing rather than the usual sensing of separate signs which are used to conceptualize all the separate things being sensed. Also the verses at the end of DN 11 speak of "consciousness that is signless" and go on to describe various aspects of nonduality: the 4 elements find no footing; long and short, small and great, beautiful and ugly, name-and-form are wholly brought to an end.
Thingifying: This is my word for the dualistic process of sensing some limited part of the universe (which is all we can ever do), and mentally chopping it up into bits and pieces – both as nouns and/or as verbs. This action is the opposite of nonduality. But it is how we mostly lead our lives. We need to do this to find food, clothing, shelter, etc. But it is not an accurate picture of what's really happening – what's really happening is nonduality – by thingifying, we miss the unified nature of the universe.
No-thingness (ākiñcaññaṁ): In "The Way to the Far Shore", ākiñcaññaṁ refers to atammayattā – literally "not made of that state" or maybe a little clearer "non-concocting/non-fashioning any state". This would be the exact opposite of "thingifying". This is experiencing the world and not breaking it up into various things. This is the experience of nonduality.
Atammayattā: This word does not appear in "The Way to the Far Shore"; instead what we find is ākiñcaññaṁ, best translated as "no-thingness". Atammayattā literally means "not made of that state" or "non-concocting/non-fashioning any state". This is a mental experience of no-thingness, there is no thingifying happening. So this is also an experience of nonduality since it is basically the same as ākiñcaññaṁ. See the chapter on Atammayattā for more information.
Asaṅkhatā: This word also does not appear in "The Way to the Far Shore". It is (far too often) frequently (mis-)translated as "the unconditioned". That is Not what it means! A is "not" and saṅkhata is the past participle of sankhāra. Sankhāra is literally "making together" and is best translated as "fabricating/fashioning/concocting". So asaṅkhatā would be "non-concocting/non-fashioning" – which is very similar to atammayattā – it just doesn't have the sense of "state" associated with it. It is the opposite of "thingifying". It is one of the words the Buddha uses when he is describing Nibbāna in Udana 8.3.
Nibbāna: Literally "blowing away." It refers to a fire going out, not burning (the latter of which is often given as a more literal translation). It is the goal of the Buddhist spiritual path. It is the extinguishing of the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion. It is described in Udana 8.3 as ajāta, abhūta, akata, asaṅkhata – "without birth, without beings, without made things, without fabrications". The verses at the end of DN 11 are also often thought of as a description of nibbāna. The word nibbāna appears in more than 300 suttas.3 Most of these references just refer to it rather than describe it, but from the suttas mentioned above and other sources, it seems rather obvious it is a state of nonduality. Nibbāna is a concept, just like all the other words in this appendix. It's not a place, it does not have ontological existence, and it's certainly not a heaven for arahants; it's a realization. It's the end of dukkha, the end of greed, hatred and delusion. The reason that it's the end of greed, hatred, and delusion is that your conceptualizing of the world no longer finds anything for you to be greedy about, or to hate, and you are no longer deluded because you have penetrated the empty nature of the world – it is all without a self or what belongs to a self. Thus there is no craver, no clinger; hence no craving, no clinging. Just this is the end of dukkha.
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Leigh Brasington
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/ Revised 20 May 25