In this talk, I elaborate on the Chan Buddhist’s account of reality as non-dual or the view that each posited thing (“A”) is internally related to that which is not-posited (“not-A”). As the different Buddhist traditions developed in both India and China, the Mahayana Buddhists recognized that certain dualistic distinctions needed to be reconciled in order to be faithful to foundational Buddhist commitments. Of these distinctions, the most important to reconstruct was the dualism between the “unconditioned” and “conditioned” existence. The Chan Buddhist reconciled this dualism by presenting a non-bifurcated account of reality where the non-dualistically understood “unconditioned” was now viewed as the unconditionally present structure of each conditioned aspect of existence. Furthermore, the metaphysics of non-duality can help us make sense of how the Chan Buddhists believed we could be motivated to act with compassion in a way that was unconditionally grounded.