Alan Watts (alanwatts.org); Pat Macpherson, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit nondual
It is the oldest extant tradition of the orthodox Brahminical/Hindu school Vedānta [Note 2], incorporated by Brahmins into Mahayana Buddhism. (See below).
The term Advaita (literally "non-secondness" but usually rendered as "nondualism" [4, 5] and often equated with monism [Note 3]) refers to the idea that Brahman ("GOD") alone is ultimately real, while the transient phenomenal world is an illusion, an illusory appearance (maya) of Brahman.
In this view, (jiv) Ātman, the "experiencing self," and Ātman-Brahman, the "Highest Self and Absolute Reality," is non-different [3, 6, 7, Note 4].
The jivatman or "individual self" is a mere reflection or limitation of singular Ātman in a multitude of apparent individual bodies [8]. More: Advaita Vedanta
Mahayana Buddhist influences
The influence of Mahayana Buddhism on Advaita Vedānta has been significant [362,363]. Sharma points out that the early commentators on the Brahma Sutras were all realists or pantheist realists.
He states that they were influenced by Buddhism, particularly during the 5th-6th centuries CE when Buddhist thought developing in the Yogacara School [364].
Von Glasenap states that there was a mutual influence between Vedanta and Buddhism [Note 67].
Dasgupta and Mohanta suggest that Buddhism and Shankara's Advaita Vedānta represent "different phases of development of the same non-dualistic metaphysics from the Upanishadic period to the time of Sankara" [365, Note 68].
The influence of Buddhist doctrines on Gauḍapāda has been a vexed question [368, 369]. Modern scholarship generally accepts that Gauḍapāda was influenced by Buddhism, at least in terms of using Buddhist terminology to explain his ideas, but adds that Gauḍapāda was a Vedantist and not a Buddhist [368].
According to Mudgal, Shankara's Advaita and the Buddhist Madhyamaka view of ultimate reality are compatible because they are both transcendental, indescribable, non-dual, and only arrived at through a via negativa (neti neti).
Mudgal concludes therefore that "the difference between Sunya-vada ("Emptiness Teaching" or Mahayana) philosophy of Buddhism and Advaita philosophy of Hinduism may be a matter of emphasis, not of kind [370].
Similarly, there are many points of contact between Buddhism's Vijnanavada ["Consciousness Teaching" or possibly the "mind-only" school] and Shankara's Advaita [371]. According to S.N. Dasgupta:
"Adi Shankara and his followers borrowed much of their dialectic form of criticism from the Buddhists. His Brahman was very much like the sunya ["emptiness"] of Nagarjuna...
"The debts of Shankara to the self-luminosity [Note 6] of the Vijnanavada Buddhism can hardly be overestimated. There seems to be much truth in the accusations against Shankara by Vijnana Bhiksu and others that he was a hidden Buddhist himself.
"I am led to think that Shankara's philosophy is largely a compound of Vijnanavada and Sunyavada Buddhism with the Upanisad notion of the permanence of self superadded [372].
Differences from Buddhism
The Advaita Vedānta tradition has historically rejected accusations of crypto-Buddhism highlighting their respective views on Atman ("Self"), Anatta ("Not-self"), and Brahman ("GOD") [373].
Yet, some Buddhist texts chronologically placed in the 1st millennium of the common era, such as the Mahayana tradition's Tathāgatagarbha Sūtras suggest self-like concepts, variously called Tathagatagarbha or "Buddha Nature" [374, 375].
In modern era studies, scholars such as Wayman and Wayman state that these "self-like" concepts are neither self nor a sentient being, nor a soul, nor a personality [376, 377].
Some scholars posit that the Tathagatagarbha Sutras were written to promote Buddhism to non-Buddhists [378, 379, 380]. More
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