Non-dual and life-affirming

Advayavada Buddhism is a non-dual and life-affirming philosophy and way of life that essentially proclaims that there is ‘no cloth apart from the threads, no threads apart from the cloth’. What perhaps strikes some people as an unsubstantiated article of faith is our assertion that progress is inherent in existence, but what Advayavada Buddhism in fact teaches in this respect is simply that we humans experience and identify as progress (pratipada, patipada) that which follows the otherwise indifferent direction in which wondrous overall existence advances over time. There is no doubt a parallel with religion here: the religious person will probably say that what he or she experiences as progress is that which is in agreement with God’s wishes and inner plan. There is also, maybe, a certain affinity with panentheism, which says that all is in God, ‘somewhat as if God were the entire ocean including the fish and we were the fish’.