Approaching Nonduality

Excerpted from the third video of Tricycle Meditation Month 2026: “Awakening with Zen Koans.”

When you finally begin to experience all things in this universe as that nondual experience, then where does that oneness return? 

What do you think? Where does that one return? 

If you examine the experience of the unknown and see that it entails the experience of no division—no subject-object divisions and nothing between the seer and the seen—it means that with everything you see in the world, rather than seeing them as thousands and millions of different things, you begin to see that there is one underlying reality. 

If you are awakened to that one underlying reality, where does that one underlying reality return? 

Let me just break it down a little bit. The first part: one underlying reality. What does that mean? 

When you look at the ocean, we can see lots of different waves. Sometimes it’s a very high tidal wave. Sometimes it’s really strong, like a tsunami—a huge surge of a wave. Or sometimes it’s like the white bubbly small wave you see when the weather is good. You can detect and differentiate many different types of waves, but ask yourself what the nature of those waves is. There are many different shapes and forms, but what is the wave made of? Then you realize it is made of water. So no matter what kind of wave you see, if you just shift your mind away from the shape and form, or the name or label, and shift it to its nature—that which it is made of—then you realize it’s all water. Once the water realizes itself as water, can the ocean, the water, ever be afraid of big waves? 

Have you ever seen the ocean being afraid of its own big wave? Of course not. Because no matter what kind of form and shape it has, it is the same water.

Likewise, do you cook? I don’t know whether you are a good cook, but sometimes I make a noodle dish, or sometimes I enjoy different pastries. This morning I had a bagel. Sometimes you can have a croissant. But what are bagels, or noodles, or pasta, or croissants made of? What’s the very nature of pasta? What is the very nature of a croissant? All of them are made of flour. If you zoom out rather than looking at the form, shape, differences, and names—a name such as “bagel,” “croissant,” “pasta,” or “Asian noodle”—and then you look at what it is made of, you realize they are all made of what? Just flour. Likewise, you can see the reality that you see in front of you, when you are tapping into the experience of the unknown, cannot be differentiated. You cannot distinguish one from another. 

And yet everything is somehow included in this oneness. Isn’t this very curious? 

Everything is included in this oneness, although I do not label them and therefore separate one from the rest of the world. They are all included in this oneness. 

Some traditions call it nonduality, or nondual, experience. When you go to a Buddhist temple in Korea, the first gate that you go through is called the gate of nonduality, or the nonduality gate. It usually has two pillars, and then it’s connected, and then it says gate of nonduality. That’s where you go inside. 

Pause, and take a look around without using words, labels, or names, and see how everything is appearing in this field of awareness. 

In this field, something that I do not know, everything is appearing at the same time, including “I.” This body appears all together. 

Have you ever experienced the world appearing alone, apart from you? Of course not. Or the other experience: Have you ever seen yourself appearing alone, and then the world is not appearing? Of course not. 

This experience of this whole universe in front of you always includes what I call “I,” and the world appears simultaneously without any kind of demarcation other than the human, artificially granted one. 

So can we just peacefully look around and see the world? 

Take a look around your room without using words and without distinguishing one thing from another. See how everything is connected—how everything is revealed in this field of awareness. 

“When all things return to one.” 

Whatever has a form can have a cause. Thereby, it becomes conditional. But something that is unknown doesn’t have any form or shape. Therefore, you cannot cause the unknown to appear. This is the experience of unconditionality. 

“Where does that one return?” 

We encounter many teachers, talking about nondual experiences or experiences of oneness: “I and the universe are one, I feel like I am the tree and the tree is me, and I feel all-connected,” all of that. I had that experience about ten years ago, and I went to my Zen teacher, and he said, “Oh, it’s good that you have this experience of oneness.” Then he asked this question:

“If all things return to one, where does the one return?”