[MD] Faith/Skepticism

[Michael Poloukhine]

> MP,
> Are you saying that you don't experience the awakening into this
> life at birth, and everything subsequently?
MP: I don't understand the relevance of the question, but yes, I'd say that; life 
does not begin at birth, birth is a part of a life already in progress. Birth is only 
the point at which that life begins to take on the aspects of reason and language 
with it. Language is learned, and then well after birth. We learn what it means to 
experience well before birth, and then we learn it without the knowledge of 
language. Pure experience. 

> Language and reason were 
> created after these mystical experiences to express them, no more. 
MP: That is what I'm saying too.

> The -I believe- is no different than a hot stove which is sat
> upon, you live your life accordingly thereafter. 
MP: Not sure what you're saying here. I am dissecting "I believe" into two parts: 
the seed moment and what follows. The belief built around the seed moment is 
based in reason, but the seed moment is not. I find the Q stove example to be 
lousy, but the concept is the same to what I posited. The reasoning that occurs 
after jumping off the stove is no longer pure experience; language has come 
into play.

> To think that
> reason is more than this negates its very roots.
MP: Agreed.

> Oh, the reasoning
> in Tao is very clear and directive, all it provides is reasoning.
MP: It provides language, no doubt, it cannot help it, and I don't (and didn't) 
pretend it doesn't. But its reasoning is decidedly vague, and in any Western 
reasoning terms, "irrational"; it's reasoning is all about the suspension of reason 
as being the only *way* that is the true *way*. How one can ever convey that 
through language is a mystery, and I think the Tao acknowledges this difficulty 
in its brevity, simplicity and vagueness of language. 

But *what* it conveys, albeit necessarily through language, is a far cry from 
anything that can be called "reasoning" in a Western SOM context. Tell a 
scientist that the only way she'll learn anything about her field is by ceasing to 
learn and see how far it gets you!

MP
----
"Don't believe everything you think."