What is dualism, it’s effect and how to let it go

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The word dualism is
unfortunately not familiar that

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much to Western people,
although it should be.

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But I think it reveals the fact
that we're so comfortable

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inside of dualistic thinking
that we don't recognize it for

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the problem that it is.

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The mind is a binary system,
and it looks at everything in

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terms of short / tall,
black / white,

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Catholic / Protestant,
gay / straight.

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And most people are entirely
comfortable with that because

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it gives them the sort of
minimal clarity that gives them

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a sense of control.

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But the trouble is,
it's not true.

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Things are never that simple.

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There's gradations in between.

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I was told by a doctor that
when a little two year old

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first hears the word tall,
the only way they can process

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that without knowing that,
of course, is to distinguish

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it from short.

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Now that's all a little
two year old needs.

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But in fact, as you grow up,
you learn there's huge degrees

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between a tall person and a
short person, and you sort of

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accept that subtlety.

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But for all practical purposes,
we stay with that binary language

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and then it gets worse, we think,

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because we choose one side,
and once you choose it,

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you prefer it.

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And all I have to do is tell people
don't take my word for it.

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You watch your mind.

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As soon as you say any kind
of split, you always, within a nanosecond,

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judge one side to be higher
and one side to be lower.

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That's the beginning
of blindness,

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because people talk,
not realizing all

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words are metaphors.

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All words are metaphors.

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There's no other thing
except metaphorical language.

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But then we take those
metaphors as if they were

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a true, objective, metaphysical
description of the thing.

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So this makes for
very incomplete perception.

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And unfortunately, the politics
and the psychology that follows

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from it is even worse.

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So what we teach here at the
Center for Action and Contemplation

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is to teach people, frankly,
how to contemplate,

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which is to live in the whole picture
where you catch yourself splitting

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and dividing and identifying
with one side.

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And basically, you practice
not doing that.

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You leave the field of the
moment open, you see.

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That takes surrender and it
takes practice because the ego

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likes to identify with
one side.

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I don't know why
that's true, but it does.

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And presume that
one side is always better.

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This is getting us nowhere.

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I mean, here in America,
as you know, we just went

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through 18 months of this.

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So here we are,
a country with universities,

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churches everywhere and at the
highest levels of the United States,

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we found out most people,
even people with PhDs

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on the left or the right,
are still dualistic thinkers.

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So we got our work cut out for us.