monism(sat), consciousness (cit), and bliss (ānanda). Being pertains to the nature
of Brahman in the sense of the negation of all empirical being. Being
(sat) means that Brahman could not have originated from something else
because Brahman alone is real. This position entails that the world does
not have real being, implying that the world is essentially illusory (māyā)
because its existence is sublated by Brahman. The conscious aspect of
Brahman denies its opposite and suggests that consciousness is native to
Brahman. The aspect of bliss introduces the principle of value and points
to the fact that Brahman is free from birth and death and to realize it
means to know it as blissful, which is an unconditional value. From an
ultimate perspective, Brahman is indefinable, indescribable, impersonal,
non-relational, and without qualities. The saguÏa aspect of Brahman
refers to the lower aspect of reality because it is conditioned by limiting
adjuncts such as ignorance, whereas nirguÏa (higher aspect) is free of
limiting adjuncts and the object of liberating knowledge.
In contrast to Śankara’s position on Brahman, Rāmānuja (1050–1137)
promotes a position called viśistādvaita, which means qualified non-
dualism because Brahman is not devoid of characteristics. In fact,
Brahman is qualified by the ātman (self) and world (matter or prakÙti).
For Rāmānuja, Brahman is a personal God equated with the personal
deity Vishnu. Therefore, Rāmānuja rebutted the thoughts of Śankara by
writing a commentary on the Vedānta Sūtras with the intention of
defending the devotional position that he thought was threaten by
Śankara. According to Rāmānuja, the ātman and world are modes of
Brahman, who animates and supports them, and the self is a modifica-
tion of Brahman which constitutes its body. Contrary to Śankara’s posi-
tion, the world is real for Rāmānuja, since the entire universe is
incorporated by Brahman.
In contrast to these Hindu thinkers, the Madhyamika school of
Mahāyāna Buddhism identifies emptiness (śūnyatā) as the non-dual real-
ity. This line of thinking is embraced by the Zen thinker Dōgen and his
notion of Buddha-nature, whose being is openly manifest and at the same
time concealed. Dōgen equates all existence (including plant and animal
life, and the inanimate world) with Buddha-nature, which is also being
and being-itself. The absolute inclusiveness of Buddha-nature does not
mean for Dōgen that it is immanent in all existence but that all existence
is immanent in it. The inner aspect of Buddha-nature contains non-being,
which is grounded in emptiness, the dynamic and creative aspect of
Buddha-nature. Finally, Buddha-nature is impermanent because it is eter-
nally coming into being and passing into non-being, which represents a
single process of impermanence. This position implies that there is noth-
ing static and immutable in the universe. This all-embracing, dynamic,