The second objection is that eliminating intention—driving a wedge between action and all thought—seems hardly possible and is certainly not desirable. To act in such a way would mean to live aimlessly, with no direction or meaning at all. Moreover, “activity transcending thought” is likely to be more willful and selfish, giving greater freedom to instinctive and indiscriminate drives, than action that has been deliberated and mediated by moral principles. We need intentions because we must reflect on what we do, and before we act.
However, as mentioned earlier, nondual action does not imply wanton, merely spontaneous activity like that of a spoiled child. The point is more subtle. The objection assumes that acculturation introduces ethical factors (e.g., a superego) that condition our instinctive selfishness, but nonduality, in denying an ego-self, eliminates the basis of selfishness. (This is the essence of the Taoist response to Confucian morality.) It is true that “activity transcending thought” negates any meaning to life, in the sense that life’s acts do not gain their meaning from referring to something outside themselves. But from another perspective, that meaning may be found within the action and perceptions themselves, which are experienced as fully satisfying. Only thus can each moment be complete in itself.
In order to determine whether nondual life may be said to have any goal or direction, we must again distinguish between two perspectives. From one perspective it is true that life does not have a direction, but then, as above, life does not need a direction. The present may be fulfilling without deriving its meaning from being projected toward some future state of affairs. From another perspective, however, life can still have a pattern without having a direction dualistically imposed upon it. As Unmon said, when the bell sounds we put on our robes and go to the meditation hall. There is the nondual sound “bong!,” there is the nondual thought “time to sit,” and there is the nondual activity of dressing and walking. I venture to suggest that those who learn to live in such a way often become aware of a pattern developing in their lives which is more profound and meaningful than any they could have created for themselves.
David R. Loy, Nonduality in Buddhism and Beyond
