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non-dual

Philosophy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Non-dual (from Sanskrit Advaita) refers to the idea that reality is not divided into separate, independent entities. Instead, all distinctions — subject/object, self/other, mind/matter — are ultimately illusory. Reality is understood as a unified whole.

Detailed Definition
Non-duality appears in poetry as a vision of seamless unity between self and world, observer and observed, often dissolving boundaries through luminous imagery or meditative tone. Rooted in Advaita Vedanta, Taoism, and certain strands of mysticism, it enables poets to express experiences of oneness, transcendence of ego, and the ineffable ground of being—making language a vessel for what lies beyond conceptual division.
Example
Example in poetry:
Rumi’s poetry dissolves subject-object duality: "You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop"; Walt Whitman’s "Song of Myself" declares "I am the mate and companion of people," erasing self/other division; Gary Snyder’s "Riprap" sees mind and mountain as one process; non-dual awareness appears in Jane Hirshfield’s Zen-influenced poems like "The Heart of It"; the Tao Te Ching’s poetic paradoxes ("The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao") express non-duality through language that undoes itself.
Additional Notes
Non-dual (Advaita Vedanta, Taoism) denies subject-object split; it appears in poetry as unity of observer/observed (Whitman), dissolution of ego (Snyder), or paradoxical language that undoes itself (Tao Te Ching); students should note how silence, metaphor, or meditative form enact non-duality—pointing beyond conceptual division to direct experience.
Also Known As
Nonduality Advaita Non-dualism
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