Realize Truth Logically

[yumcha]

How can we hope to fully realize the Truth, without first facing all that is in front of us in our everyday lives? We want to jump over the material world without ever mastering it, and get right into Enlightenment.

The first most logical step is to learn to systematically think through the problems that we face in our everyday lives. By learning to think through each problem to its root, we are then able to expose the elusive nature of our “small self”. This thinking process teaches us to focus on a single problem at hand, which will serve us in our ongoing search for Truth.

Focus as well as persistence, are much needed tools with which to arm ourselves in our inquiries into Truth. By first finding our way through the entanglements of our everyday material existence, we not only expose the inner workings of our social interactions, but also expose the ego and its unhealthy campaign to keep us distracted.

Once we are able to achieve some mastery over the delusion of our material existence, we then move naturally forward with a calm quiet mind, into deeper inquiries. Pealing back the layers of delusion naturally activates our internal guidance system.

At some point, we have no other choice but to step out on our own, without the familiar comforts and trappings that keep us focused, and face the Truth with both eyes wide open, and feet planted firmly on the earth.

Truth is not found within the dogmatic, man made systems. These systems, may they be religious or philosophic only serve us for so long before they begin to hinder us.

We must strip away everything that no longer serves us on the path to Truth. It is good to re strengthen our ardor with an occasional refresher, however at a certain point to continue to reinforce with past idols is counter productive.

I submit this simply as my own understanding and path, with the hope that it may serve someone else in their search. As most of you know, just getting started in the right direction is the hardest part of the search.

[zendancer]

Yumcha: What do you mean by "mastering the material world?" Also, how does one think through everyday problems, and if one can do that, how does that bring anyone any closer to the truth? Give us some examples from your own experience. Personally, I spent twenty years thinking about existential issues without getting one step closer to the truth. Understanding only began when I stopped thinking. Can you explain a bit more what you're talking about?

[yumcha]

We can't understand ourselves until we grasp our true nature, and we cannot do that without first examining our own life. An unexamined life is the mistake that many of us make in seeking Truth.

The selfishness of the self, while trying to define itself through its profitability, is overcome only when we find profitability without self-profit.

[zendancer]

Yumcha: When you say that we need to grasp our true nature, what do you mean? What have you grasped about your own true nature?

When you say that we need to examine our life, what do you mean? In what way? Can you give some examples from your own experience?

What you posted seems highly intellectual. Can you break it down into simpler terms? What, specifically, do you think people should be doing?

[klaus]

Hello yumcha,

I too have traveled the road of logic as a way to Truth.
Constant self examination into behavior, motives ( conscious, subconscious) etc.
The result was a dead end. I realized that the body/mind functions on its own energy creating both body/mind which in turn creates the illusion of "I". It is a closed system.

In others words you can't get from here to there.

Thought arises from body/mind and is only of body/mind.

It has nothing to do with Truth, Reality, Enlightment.

[zendancer]

Klaus: Precisely put. Some people are introspective and they examine and think, logically, about their behaviors, motives, etc. Others are extrospective (is there such a word?), and they examine and think, logically, about the world around them. Both approaches use the mind, and the mind can't get beyond dualism. Like you say, it's a closed system. To find the truth you have to leave the mind behind. Not knowing is the way.

Someone once said that an unexamined life isn't worth living, but an overexamined life can be just as bad. If the former is living in a dream, the latter is living in a kind of nightmare. LOL.

[karen]

I was going to write how logic and reason can be used to deconstruct beliefs which seems to have been true in my case. But I'm thinking ZD's way might be best.

Good quip too BTW.

[zendancer]

Karen: I think you're right about how logic can deconstruct beliefs, but it can only go so far. I remember when I first began to logically think about logic, itself. I realized that much of what I had been taught in a college logics course was based on certain unexamined assumptions and ideas. I remember thinking, "Hey, this whole thing is floating in midair! What underlies it? Where is there something solid to start from?" I would get into an argument with a dorm mate, and he would use the logical fallacy of ad hominem--attacking me rather than my argument. I would get frustrated because he wouldn't play by the rules. LOL. In the process I realized that ad hominem can be very effective, and I couldn't find a logical reason that someone shouldn't use that technique. I remember thinking, "There must be some truth that is so unassailable that I would be able to rest in it without caring what anyone says or thinks." In this sense my logical thinking took me as far as it could go. It made me question everything, and it made me realize that thinking was limited in some unknown way, but it could not provide any answers on how to find absolute truth or peace of mind. The older I get the more I appreciate my old Zen Master's simple admonitions:

Put it all down.
Only go straight.
Don't know.

[yumcha]

Perhaps it would be easier to understand if I were to use an example a bit more familiar to you Zendancer.

I assume that you are familiar with the concept of the Koan? It is a phrase that is used to make the student expend one’s meager resources, mentally exhausting one to the point of no-thought. At the point of mental exhaustion, the mind stills and calms so that the student may allow his own personal guidance system to function, hopefully giving one the answer to the question.

After repeating this process a number of times, the mind begins to focus automatically, which calms, quiets and stills the “monkey mind” into no thought.
This mental exercise can take the place of countless hours spent in cross-legged agony.

Now, instead of using a traditional Koan as a way to still the mind, try using an example from everyday life, such as the desire, motivation or agenda behind why one feels the need to defend themselves when faced with a new concept.

You see it is simply an exercise in using logic to analyze our social interactions and everyday life as a way to still the mind, and in the process, learn a little more about healthy relationships. Much like young Daniel in the movie Karate Kid, he paints the fence, waxes the car, and yet does not understand where the exercise leads. However, when faced with an onslaught he automatically responds.

[zendancer]

Yumcha: Thanks for your last response. Now I understand what you were writing about. The problem is more semantic than anything. I agree that koans about everyday life are some of the most powerful koans, but I do not attribute koan resolution to logic. I associate the word "logic" with our process of rational thought. In a sense, koans paralyze the mind and force the body to search for answers at a deeper level, beyond thought.

Most of us live in our heads, so we are usually separated from the deepest truth of who we are. When we face a problem that can't be solved rationally, we have to get in touch with the core of our being to see-through whatever issue comfronts us. Our bodies always know what to do, but we often have to still the mind in order to tap into our body's direct knowledge. It is only then that our body's knowledge rises to the level of conscious understanding. I think we're both writing about the same thing, but your use of the word "logic" is what confused me. Cheers.

[klaus]

Zendancer,

Can you explain what you mean by our bodies always know what to do and tapping into that knowledge.

Isn't body/mind two sides of the same coin and cannot go beyond themselves?

[karen]

Yeah it's fascinating when people say things like "enlightenment comes from the neck down". I'm thinking there might be only one way to know what they're talking about .

[zendancer]

Klaus: Yeah, it's hard to talk about this sort of thing with any degree of accuracy. I tend to think of the intellect as mind, which I see as a sort of internal computer/graphics generator. When I have had unity-consciousness experiences as well as minor insight experiences, whatever I learned and experienced never seemed to come from mind but from some other source. The understanding was neither linear nor verbal; it came instantaneously. The body appears to be connected to the universe in some intimate way, and I often think of it as having a "downlink" to absolute truth.

Animals do not have to think (higher primates are an exception to this, but their thinking is pretty rudimentary compared to ours) in order to know what to do. Animals are unified with their environment. Humans are, too, but our intellects hide our inherent unity from us and make us think we're separate.

With patience and persistence a human can learn to stop thinking and learn to interact with the world just like any other animal. I think Zen calls this state of having "no mind." In the absence of thought it becomes clear that the body has no problem functioning. Without thinking (which is usually linear and verbal) it can drive a car, eat a meal, go to the bathroom, and do 99% of what needs to be done at any time. Thinking is what creates all of our apparent problems.

Yet, thinking is necessary for many things. I design and build homes. When I get on a drafting board, I use my intellect to imagine new spaces and how they will interconnect. I have to think about dimensions and how to put my imagined spaces on paper. I then have to do material takeoffs and estimate prices, etc--all of which requires the use of my smart little internal computer. A squirrel can't use algebra to solve equations, but I can.

Unfortunately, for most people the computer runs amok and takes over everything. It makes the body think it is a thing with a name, and everything goes downhill from there. LOL. When a person says, "I don;t know what to do," it means that the computer is stuck in a feedback loop and the truth can't rise to the surface of consciousness. When one of my friends says, "I can't decide what to do," I always respond by saying, "Yes you do, but your thoughts are hiding the truth from you."

Bottom line? As one's mind becomes silent, and the intellect becomes a servant rather than a master, one always knows what to do. If a quandary appears, one only needs to sit down, become silent, and allow the universe to reveal the truth through the body. Several days ago I described a simple experiment that can be used to verify this. Take away all personal volition and watch what happens. The body will do what it has to do in the absence of any imagined controller. It's a fun experiment and is often shocking to people who haven't done it before.

[zendancer]

Klaus: A few more thoughts along the same line as my last post. I was a real lucky kid. I grew up in a family where I was given lots of freedom to do whatever I wanted to do. My parents didn't have many expectations for me, so I got to pursue my many interests and they were very supportive of all my interests. I collected bones, feathers, fossils, arrowheads, leaves, minerals, coins, and tons of other things. I built models, playhouses, forts, science projects, go-carts, etc. I went on archaeological, paleontological, and mineralogical expeditions with older students. I was a full-class science nerd and I built high-powered rockets, a telespectroscope, and Heathkits galore. I had my own personal laboratory with big transformers and oscilloscopes and tons of dangerous chemicals. IOW I always got to do my own thing. I never second-guessed myself about anything until my second year of college when I began to think about reality, meaning, purpose, and thinking itself. It all went downhill from there. LOL. I became a certified intellectual and got totally lost in the funhouse. After I began practicing silence, had an enlightenment experience, and went on a few retreats, I got my true direction back. It took many years of silence, but eventually my body kicked my mind out of the control booth and I returned to the kind of world I lived in as a kid.

The second time I became a kid, however, things were different. The first time I was totally self-centered and everything revolved around me, me, me. The second time the whole thing was totally empty because there was no me. This time is a lot more fun because I get to play almost all the time, but I care what happens to everyone around me. I only wish that everyone could have this much fun.

Many people are not as lucky as I was. I have friends who had terrible childhoods and parents who laid all kinds of heavy trips on them. I can see why they would have more trouble getting free as a result of their past conditioning. Many children never develop a strong center because they're trying to fulfill the needs of the people who surround them. Most of the people I know worry about what other people (and especially family members) think. This sort of thing rarely concerns me at all because I am so grounded in the truth of who I am--in the truth of "what is." This body knows what it likes to do, and it does what it does. The whole thing is quite humorous, almost hysterical. It's like watching something happen according to some kind of hidden instructions. "It" loves to follow the stock market, design and build homes, do accounting, hike in the woods, hunt fossils, read books, ski, and a thousand other things. It occasionally has problems, but they seem relatively minor in the total scheme of things. This is one of the reasons It always feels so thankful.

I wrote these thoughts because it occurred to me that I grew up in a way that allowed me to be who I was from the earliest age, without adult expectations. This gave me a strong center. Later, I lost it when I began thinking about thinking and moved from body-knowing to head-knowing. The head-knowing ended in 1999 when my spiritual search came to an end. I then understood, for the first time, in some complete embodied way, what was going on. I was then able to relax and go with the flow because all questions had ended and everything was profoundly empty.

These days I find that I am not interested in thinking too much. One day a few weeks ago someone asked some questions on this board that caused me to spend several hours thinking about the issues and trying to decide how to explain some things. Afterwards, I felt that I had thought too hard and too long, and all I wanted to do was sit in silence for many hours. It was as if the body needed to shake off the effects of all that thinking and get back to stillness where there is peace of mind. I sat in silence for several hours for several nights in a row, and it was the first time I had done that sort of thing in a long time. I'll dig up an old poem about this subject and post it here if I can find. Cheers.

[zendancer]

Klaus: I couldn't find the one I wanted, but this one gives some of the same flavor.

I used to be smart,
Before I understood
How little I knew.
I used to spend a lot of time trying to figure things out
Logically.

I’m not proud of it, of course,
But I used to be very clever.
I often talked for hours and hours about my ideas,
Until one day I realized
That I didn’t understand how I grew hairs on the backs of my hands,
Or under my arms,
Or on my head.
I didn’t know how I grew them,
Or kept them growing,
Or how they happened to come out of the me-ness of “me.”
I didn’t have a clue
How I added a single cell to
The fuzz of my fuzz.

It’s strange,
But a thing like that
Can destroy a man’s understanding
Completely.

Today, I’m no longer clever,
And I’m not very smart.
I’m actually pretty dumb,
And there is no end to what
I don’t know.
Those who are erudite
Might find it silly,
But there is nothing more foolfilling
Than knowing how much I don’t know.

Most people don’t know it,
But not-knowing
Is the only thing worth knowing.