Ten onenesses
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ten onenesses
十不二門 (Jpn jippu-nimon )
Also, ten non-dualities.
Ten principles set forth by Miao-lo (711-782) in The Annotations on "The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra." In this work, Miao-lo discusses the ten mystic principles of the theoretical teaching (first half) of the Lotus Sutra and the ten mystic principles of the essential teaching (latter half) of the sutra, which T'ient'ai expounded in The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra, and reveals the ten onenesses. The section of Miao-lo's work that explains this principle later became an independent work called The Ten Onenesses. In it, Miao-lo states that the concept of ten onenesses includes the ten mystic principles of both the theoretical and the essential teachings.
The ten onenesses are as follows:
(1) The oneness of body and mind. What one observes in meditation is one mind or one thought (Jpn ichinen ), which is an indivisible whole of body and mind.
(2) The oneness of the internal and the external. Though the object of meditation is divided into two—the internal object, or the realm of one mind, a psychosomatic entity; and the external object, or the external world of physical and spiritual phenomena—these two are non-dual because one mind embodies the three truths and includes all three thousand realms.
(3) The oneness of the result of practice and the true nature of life. This means that the true nature of life, or the true aspect of all phenomena, is no different from what one ultimately attains through Buddhist practice. The true nature moves one to practice, and practice enables one to manifest the true nature.
(4) The oneness of cause and effect. "Cause" here means ordinary people, and "effect," Buddhahood. The oneness of cause and effect means that the Buddha nature inherent in the ordinary person is the same as the Buddha nature that the Buddha has manifested.
(5) The oneness of the impure and the pure. Because ignorance or delusion and enlightenment are two expressions of the same mind and essentially one, the impure mind shrouded in ignorance is itself the pure mind that is enlightened.
(6) The oneness of life and its environment. Both the Buddha as a living being and the Buddha land as the environment exist in one mind and are therefore non-dual.
(7) The oneness of self and others. "Self" means the Buddha, who teaches, and "others" means ordinary people, who are taught and enlightened. But they are non-dual because both the Buddha and ordinary people embody the three truths and are endowed with all three thousand realms. In other words, both self (Buddhahood) and others (the nine worlds) are inherent in one mind.
(8) The oneness of thought, word, and deed. The Buddha saves people through his three categories of action—thought, speech, and behavior. These three categories of the Buddha are no different from those of ordinary people because they arise from the three thousand realms inherent in both. Moreover, these three exist in one mind as a psychosomatic whole and therefore are one.
(9) The oneness of the provisional and true teachings. The Buddha preaches the provisional teachings (the three vehicles) and the true teaching (the one vehicle) according to the people's capacity. Because they both spring from the Buddha's enlightened mind, however, they are non-dual.
(10) The oneness of benefits. Though people receive different benefits according to the level of the Buddha's teaching that they practice (such as provisional and true), both the Buddha and the people ultimately enjoy the same benefit, just as plants in a field are all nourished equally by the rain.