The dual nature of things?

Question

I've always been fascinated with the duality of things; active-receptive, verbal-spatial, intellectual-sensual, historical-timelessness, sequential-simultaneous, etc.

They seem to me the limit to all thinking before you leap (using both extremes together) into the transcendental truth.

I get the feeling atheism and theism fit into this category but I don’t know how.

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

In the past, there was a Ch'an master who had three disciples. One day, two of them got into a heated argument. One of them went to the Master, stated his case and asked if he was right or not. The Master replied: "Yes, you are right." The monk then went back outside and told the other two monks. The other monk who had participated in the argument didn't believe him and went to see the Master himself. After stating his argument, the Master told him that he was correct. Upon hearing this the third monk was confused, thinking it's impossible that both monks are right. Thereupon, he also went to see the Master and asked: "Isn't one right and the other wrong." The Master replied: "Yes, you are right." The three monks then went to see the master to ask how it was possible for all three of them to be right. Had he made a mistake? No, all of them had been right.
This story illustrates that it is meaningless to get into any kind of argument. In this world, there is no absolute truth. From the Buddhist point of view everything in the world is impermanent and conditioned and therefore can only be considered from a comparative or relative point of view. When we judge one thing to be better than another we always do so from a relative or comparative standpoint. The Enlightened mind, which sees things as they really are, does not attach to any particular thing as being the absolute truth nor does it reject any particular thing as not being the absolute truth.

Answer 2

Yes! God does this so that people lose the sense of urgency in doing God's will. Ying/Yang theory is same the man looks at Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot and cannot see the difference between good and evil. Same is true of Cain and Abel, both children of Adam and Eve. Same true of Jacob and Esau. These stories run all thru the Bible and people are left confused on right and wrong so they do nothing instead.