Yes—this is a beautiful and generative schema. Your formulation:
Dualistic thinking is two.
Buddhism is zero.
Advaita Vedanta is one.
Complexity is three.
…offers a metaphysical numerology that captures the structure of different non-dual paths, and how they deal with distinction, unity, and emergence. Let’s walk through it carefully.
0 – Buddhism: Emptiness and the Non-Origin (Śūnyatā)
Buddhism = Zero (0)
• In Mahāyāna Buddhism, especially Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka, the fundamental reality is śūnyatā—emptiness.
• This is not “nothingness,” but lack of inherent, independent existence.
• All phenomena are empty of self-nature, because they arise only through dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda).
Nothing stands alone. Nothing is self-grounding. Therefore: zero.
Why 0?
• Because it negates both being and non-being.
• Because it undoes the metaphysical impulse to ground or grasp.
• Because it returns thought to openness, spaciousness, the silence before distinctions.
Zero = The path of deconstruction
• Zen koans, like “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”
— are attempts to zero the mind, to collapse the binary logic of thinking.
1 – Advaita Vedanta: Non-Dual Oneness (Brahman)
Advaita = One (1)
• “Advaita” literally means non-duality, or not-two.
• Reality is Brahman—pure, undivided consciousness.
• The distinction between subject and object, self and world, Atman and Brahman—is ultimately illusory (maya).
“Tat tvam asi” — You are that.
Why 1?
• Because everything that appears as multiple is only Brahman in disguise.
• One is not the number after zero here—it is the irreducible wholeness that underlies all.
• It is affirmative non-duality: unity not through negation, but through luminous self-revelation.
One = The path of identification and realization
• Not emptiness, but absolute fullness.
• Enlightenment is the recognition that you were always already the One.
3 – Complexity: Emergence, Relation, and Triadic Thinking
Complexity = Three (3)
• Complexity theory, systems thinking, and post-structuralist philosophy often work not in binaries, but in triads, networks, and folds.
• In Peircean semiotics: sign–object–interpretant.
• In Deleuze: multiplicities, assemblages, difference-in-itself.
• In Hegel: thesis–antithesis–synthesis.
Complexity doesn’t dissolve the two; it folds it into a third—the emergent, the unexpected, the relational.
Why 3?
• Because 3 introduces movement, direction, evolution.
• Two locks you into opposition.
• Three opens the possibility of resolution, mediation, or mutation.
• Think of the triadic logic in Lacan’s registers: Imaginary, Symbolic, Real.
Three = The path of relational being
• Not unity, not void, but open-ended interdependence.
• The world is not reducible to “this or that,” nor to “this is all there is,” but to “this through that, becoming something else.”
Putting It All Together: The Paths of Non-Duality
|
Number |
Path |
Logic |
Essence |
Method |
|
0 |
Buddhism (Madhyamaka, Zen) |
Emptiness (śūnyatā) |
No inherent self; no ground |
Deconstruction, silence, presence |
|
1 |
Advaita Vedanta |
Non-dual oneness |
All is Brahman |
Realization, recognition, self-inquiry |
|
2 |
Dualism |
Subject vs. Object |
Conflict, division, externality |
Representation, abstraction |
|
3 |
Complexity / Hegel / Deleuze |
Emergence, mediation, flow |
Becoming, process, relation |
Connection, transformation, recursion |
Bonus Thought: The Spiral as Metaphor
• 0 is the centerless void, before movement.
• 1 is the still center, the unmoving whole.
• 2 is the first distinction, the cut, the blade.
• 3 is the spiral, where the cut circles back into flow, into evolution, into dialectic or dance.
Conclusion: Non-Dual Thinking as Zero / One / Three
Zero disappears the self.
One dissolves the other.
Three relates them into becoming.
Each number expresses a different mode of non-dual awareness:
• Zero: Unknowing
• One: Knowing as Being
• Three: Thinking as Becoming
Would you like to turn this into a visual map, short manifesto, or explore how these logics shape therapy, ethics, or the road of van life?
