Comments on “Living contradictions”

@alexpetralia

I think “living with contradictions” is actually a major point of Eastern philosophy in general.

Eastern philosophies are quite varied, and I’m not an expert. There’s an anti-rational trend in Zen that you mention in your post. Some other Buddhist views rely heavily on logical argument.

I wrote about this somewhat here: http://bit.ly/2GaKopJ

I enjoyed reading that!

However, I have _zero_ formal training in Eastern philosophy/Buddhism and could be completely wrong. I’d be curious to hear if my perspective is substantially off.

In the post you link, you make the point that reason is limited, perfect knowledge is impossible. This seems spot on to me.

Faced with irreconcilable contradictions, different responses are possible. One is to step outside the framework that produces the contradiction and find a different way of understanding how things work, in which the contradiction is reconciled and ‘makes sense’. Another is to transcendentalize the contradiction into a realm where, because everything is nondual, or One, there cannot be irreconcilable contradictions by fiat, so the contradiction is declared to be paradoxical, or not understandable by ordinary human beings.

Historically, nearly all Buddhist paths could be read as responses to contradictions inherent in previous paths. They attempt to present solutions to contradictions that were unsolvable from inside the forerunning philosophy/worldview.

In Buddhism sitting and living with contradictions is core to the Zen path. That’s not so for all Buddhist paths. I’ve heard Dzogchen teachers emphasize resting in uncertainty, which isn’t quite the same thing, but is interestingly similar.

Thanks very much, I fixed the link.