In the history of Western and certain branches of Indian philosophy, claims about nonduality have often taken the form of monistic challenges to metaphysical dualisms asserting the incommensurability of, for example, mind and body or spirit and matter. Nondualism denies the presence of the implied ontological gap separating these constituents of reality, asserting instead that everything is (ultimately) one or the same. Buddhist nondualism, as it came to be understood in China, does not involve an erasure of difference or a denial of its reality, but rather a restoration of the otherwise “excluded ground” between “being” and “nonbeing”.