Dear Friend,

Advayavada Buddhism is a non-dual and life-affirming philosophy and way of life derived from Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka, or philosophy of the Middle Way. Its most important tenet is that there is a fourth sign (or mark) of being implicit in the Buddha's teaching, namely that, expressed purely in terms of human perception and experience, reality is sequential and dynamic in the sense of ever becoming better than before. What human beings experience and identify as good, right or beneficial, indeed as progress (pratipada, patipada), is, in fact, that which takes place in the otherwise indifferent direction that overall existence flows in of its own accord.

To understand this important tenet, one should first come to realize most deeply, for instance through meditation on the incontestable non-duality of the world, that not the human manifestation of life (i.e. its ongoing process of re-combination, mutation, concatenate multiplication and disintegration of the expended units, and its vicissitudes and perils, even possible extinction, self-inflicted or not) is the measure of things in space and time, but the whole of infinite interdependent reality itself, which, hardly affected, if at all, by the negligible impact of mankind's doings, will continue to become exactly as it, by definition, must.

It then becomes clear that the Middle Way taught by the Buddha as the correct existential attitude is not meant to deviate from the Dharma of the whole; that the objective of the Middle Way is, in fact, to reconnect and reconcile us with overall existence; and that, in its dynamic Noble Eightfold Pathmode, it must be seen as an ongoing reflexion at the level of our personal lives of overall existence becoming over time. Now, as the Eightfold Path leads us towards ever better, we now know that, expressed in terms of human perception and experience, existence as a whole advances over time towards better and better as well. This fact is, indeed, the fourth sign or mark of being.

The purpose of Buddhism is obviously to return mankind to the fold of overall existence. Buddhism must therefore be understood as a 'way of reconciliation' with the whole of existence just right as it is, i.e. as it truly is beyond our commonly limited and biased personal experience of it. The aim of Advayavada Buddhism is to help us understand this main purpose of Buddhism more clearly and to give us individually the necessary tools to become a true part of the whole, here and now.

We would love to hear from you too.

Buddhism is a collective name for the diverse philosophical, esoteric and religious beliefs that are derived from the way of liberation taught, in the 6th century B.C., by the North-Indian prince Siddhartha Gautama, called the Buddha, which means the Awakened or Enlightened One. Advayavada Buddhism, formally established in 1995 as a new secular Western European branch of Mahayana Buddhism (see map) by the Dutch lay Buddhist author and translator Advayavadananda (John Willemsens, b.1934), is a non-dual and life-affirming philosophy and way of life derived in turn from Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka, or philosophy of the Middle Way. The purpose of Advayavada Buddhism is to help us to become a true part of the whole. Because of its open character and structure, it is difficult to determine how many Buddhists share the views of Advayavada Buddhism worldwide at this time.

According to Advayavada Buddhism, it is indisputable that the Buddha did not believe in Brahman (God, transcendent Absolute) or in the atman or atta (soul, immortal self) and taught that man suffers because he does not understand and accept that all things in life are instead utterly changeable and transitory; if the Buddha had ever expressed belief in Brahman and the atman or atta, such a fact would have been unequivocally recorded in History. Man is prone to suffering (duhkha, dukkha) quite simply because he strives after and tries to hold on to things and concepts which he believes to be permanent, but are not.

Man's mistaken view of things is produced by a thirst or craving (called trishna in Sanskrit and tanha in Pali) which is in turn caused by his fundamental ignorance (avidya, avijja) of the true nature of reality. And this thirst or craving can easily take on a more unwholesome form: already as sensuous desire, ill-will, laziness, impatience or distrust will it seriously hinder any efforts to better his circumstances.

His compliance, however, with the five precepts that apply to all followers of the Buddha will allow him to arrest his thirst or craving and to commence removing the root cause of his suffering, i.e. his fundamental ignorance of the true nature of reality. The five fundamental Buddhist precepts are not to kill, not to steal, sexual restraint, not to lie, and abstinence from alcohol and drugs. Man's observance of these precepts in his daily life gives him the moral strength required to embark upon the Buddha's Middle Way that, avoiding first the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification, will in due course bring him to the blessed state of Nirvana.

Nirvana is the complete extinction (nirodha) of all suffering (duhkha, dukkha) as a result of our full reconciliation with reality as it truly is. Nirvana and Samsara are not two different realities or two different conditions of reality. Nirvana is to experience the phenomenal world at the level of ultimate truth (paramartha-satya), i.e. truth divested of all our preconceptions, including even those expressed here. Samsara is to experience the same phenomenal world at the level of conventional everyday truth (samvriti-satya). It is as a result of the purification of our perception of the phenomenal world at the level of conventional truth by following the Buddha's Middle Way, that we shall come to understand the significance of ultimate truth.

The Middle Way devoid of extremes that we must follow is concretely the Noble Eightfold Path that the Buddha taught in his very first sermon in Sarnath, near Benares. The Eightfold Path, when interpreted dynamicallyas Advayavada Buddhism does, is that of our very best (samyak, samma) comprehension followed by our v. best resolution or determination, our v. best enunciation or definition, our v. best disposition or frame of mind, our v. best implementation, our v. best effort, our v. best observation or reflection, and our v. best meditation or concentration, which brings us to a yet better comprehension, and so forth. We thus regain our place in totality advancing over time, in human terms, towards better and better, breaking, as we advance along the Path, the fetters (samyojana) that restrict us to Samsara.

Advayavada Buddhism indeed considers progress (pratipada, patipada) as the fourth sign of being, this next to the impermanence and the selflessness of all things and the universality of suffering in the world, which are the three signs or marks of being traditionally taught in Buddhism. When the Path expounded by the Buddha as the correct existential attitude and way of life is viewed as an ongoing reflexion at the level of our personal lives of overall existence becoming over time, it follows that human beings experience as good, right or beneficial that which takes place in the otherwise indifferent direction that time-being as a whole flows in of its own accord. The teaching of the Buddha must be seen as a Way of Reconciliation with wondrous existence as a whole just right as it is, i.e. as it truly is beyond our commonly limited and biased personal experience of it. Nirvana is, in Advayavada Buddhism, the ultimate reconciliation with reality becoming achievable by man. Indeed, in certain schools of Buddhism, Nirvana itself is seen as the fourth sign of being or seal of the dharma.

Write down the weekly subject in your pocket diary!

Advayavada Buddhism Infocenter,
Postbus 10502, 1001 EM Amsterdam, Nederland.
Telefoon en fax: +31-20-6269602