Logic v Emotion ( really morke like ... Reason, Emotional/Affexual, Gut+Intuitive)
sova
delocalized fractyllic harmonizing Veteran
Hello friends
Spend a lot of time working logically. Spend a lot of time coming to determinations logically. Spend a lot of my waking life playing logical games and making what feel like logical moves to logical places.
But then there is the rest of life. The parts that will come and that will manifest without logical intervention.
There is the emotional and affectual side.
There is the gut and intuitive level and deeper.
Since i (= this jumble of patterns) began practicing meditation it became more apparent that logic was not the only way to come to knowledge.
When I was in college as a first year, a professor challenged us with the question: how else to come to a conclusion but with reason?
And although I had no way to articulate what I knew to be true, I was very unwavering in my presentation that there were other ways to Know and Decide.
Ten years latter I finally have some words on the matter.
Comments
I've been thinking about this recently too.
To start there is a large spectrum of individual predilections whether someone relates more to the world through feeling or thinking.
I think of intuitive ways of knowing in a similar way to the story of the firefighter who, while on the roof of a burning building, got a really bad feeling that they needed to get off the roof without any logical reason. Not long after they got off the roof collapsed. Reflecting later he realized that his feet were hotter than they should be, so it wasn't a psychic revelation but rather the subconscious part of his mind was using his experience to try to tell the conscious portion to gtfo. Or how we can work out our problems in dreams or suddenly pop into our minds in seemingly unrelated situations.
I'm rather intuitive in the way I try to sort out the world, but I've been led astray by some of my intuitive sense about the way things are or the way I think they should be. So I place a lot of importance now on "showing my work" or reasoning out logically and challenging my intuitions so I can hopefully avoid going down some wrong road, at least for too long.
Thanks @sova
The importance of lowering the mind full awareness to include a healthy mind/body intuitive understanding ...
We have centres of awareness, wheels within wheels.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmachakra
The importance of the gut
https://www.eclecticenergies.com/energy/dantian
Many dharma centres in the West provide Yoga and Qi-Ong for a more inclusive well being. Body out of balance. Mind out of balance. No surprises there ...
I’ve caught myself making decisions via intuition (coming to a conclusion via an intuitive realisation) and principle (that you come to a conclusion because you hold onto a certain principle). Neither of those are particularly reasonable. But you have to consider what is reasonable - reason is really only a tool that leads you step by step to self interest, materialism or other principles.
It’s interesting that we think we are quite reasonable, but studies have shown that it’s not true, there are actually many different factors that can influence our thinking, and often the chains of steps of our thought can be quite muddled and confused.
Intuition is not something we can develop.
Intuition is something we already have.
We are, after all, animals, and some animals have openly displayed levels of intuition that we might envy, because we marvel and comment on how they seem to react with a second sight, but we could do that too. (I have, before now, remarked on my dog's incredible ability to predict my husband's home-coming from his work...)
Unfortunately, this intellectual Reason seems to have been superimposed as superior, and therefore, our intuitive abilities have been quashed and laid aside as some form of superstitious nonsense; something to be ignored because of course, we are far too intelligent to resort to, and rely on, such basic alerts... Far better to discern, discriminate, evaluate, weigh up and conclude, using our brain power....
We may be intelligent, but... clever? That's another matter entirely....
It is something ideally we become increasingly mindful or aware of. It can seem almost supernatural but is increased sensitivity to available conscious, subconscious and super conscious awareness.
Just 'knowing things' is part of our unfolding. In Sufism it is called Kashf. In Buddhism Abhijñā.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhijñā
But the supra-normal “direct knowledge” of an enlightened being doesn’t necessarily come just with more mindfulness, does it? It would be an interesting question to ask of an enlightened master.
In my experience intuitive insight is very real and useful. Also in my experience it is fraught with misperceptions. It is important that our intuitions be informed by verifiable knowledge and checked against all sorts of cognitive biases.
IMO the adoption of reason and empiricism was an important development in human understanding and progress and has brought much benefit to our condition (though not without drawbacks as well). As a corrective measure to humanity's reliance on revealed wisdom and authority for knowledge and understanding we increasingly, imo justifiably so, rely on it. Probably just as with many things, as we see the benefits of reason and discard ineffective and even harmful ways of understanding we can over correct and throw out the baby with the bath water such that we lose important and effective intuitive senses.
Virtuous (selfless/altruistic/long-term beneficial) action AND Meditation both lead there, I believe it important to emphasize that supranormal knowledge is not the goal but a byproduct of the path (leading to the goal)
Well said @sova,
It can be prematurely induced to a degree by technique. However normally it comes into being quite naturally as you mention ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevatta_Sutta
Iddhi is seductive to the ego and therefore fraught with danger and often has to be explained away ... So in that sense it is personal and best kept secret.
Good luck with your questioning ...
Intuitive action is always beneficial/of service to others
instinct and cognition.not mutually exclusive.
personally,try to be gooku dragon-ball-supra instinct in mind-body unity? ultra ...instinct.lofty.he is my hero.inspiring.great modern day mythos.
this instinct has inspired us fans.the mind follows the body and the body follows the mind.a series of moment and movement.zen persuit?feels natural in action ....flow with grace.is there such a thing as intuitive action?
ha! lobster we were thinking the same thing.intuitive action.
I feel @sova has brought up an important question. On the whole [warning generalisation ahead] most Westerners and Buddhists and Scientists are too head based. Science I feel is best served by a reasoned approach.
... However we may find that intuition, instinct, gut feeling of danger or opportunity is a very useful capacity, that will be more in demand as AI becomes more prevalent ...
Perhaps, but I think @Person’s point was well made, that historically recent progress has been mostly based on improved use of reason, and an understanding of our own biases. And a lot of the buddha’s teachings make good sense, logically.
The fact that “direct knowledge” is at some point supposed to come along does not mean we should start to make intuitive choices for all our decisions... you may find you’ve come home with a broccoli rather than a loaf of bread when you go shopping!
Reason seems quite inferior to direct knowing a lot of the time, but there are certain things that can only be known through inference (not directly, but indirectly) and therefore logic and reason must be used to come to some understandings. Such contemplations as interdependence, impermanence, selflessness, fit within such a modality, because their logical conclusions/results are not apparent to us, nor are they within our normal paradigm of feeling/seeing/hearing/smelling/tasting.
However, when I consider my personal relationships or levels of attraction, I wonder how much is chemical / pheromonological and how much is actually conscious or actively willed opinion. It seems to me that our bodies and biology are far more responsive to our surroundings and stimuli than our reasoning minds.
Is it, therefore, possible to overthrow your biological imperatives with reason? I think that's what we try and do in the West just by brute force and thinking, but honestly there is already a lot of inbuilt wisdom in the bodies we have, and connecting to that with a more direct route than narrative/reason/words-thought is a daily mission for me. So I would say don't resort to reason unless the result cannot be come to directly, and the more we see ourselves and our mind/body complexes clearly, the more we have range of motion and freedom.
It's not a "one or the other thing" as @Kerome skillfully points out, but as someone who has spent a lot of their waking life operating from the logical region of the brain, it's very nice when I learn to trust my more essential senses about how things feel/flow/stagnate/freshen/breeze/improve/slow/hasten/open
Balance.
Not too much of one, or too little of another.
Equilibrium....
Middle Way. (Who said that...? Oh yeah. He got there before me..... )
Tee Hee.
Balance and equilibrium sound good.
another angle could be instinct,or intuition--which i consider an aspect of the hues of instinct--is a sense of experience.lets use the arts as an example.those who are trained in hip-hop dance can feel and sense their body in movement.their experience in physical intelligence or techniques allow them to intuitively move along side their emotional intelligence as they free form to the music or beats.
frame in a buddhist context,they are using cognitive whole of feeling tones or aware of the body ,emotional tones or the intitive aspect and conscious tone or the desicion making in ther livelyhood.
so it doesn't have to be a versus . intuitive reasoning. we all have.i like to call it good sense.for exampl we as buddhist know what leads to pain and less pain. um,like dont poke an outlet.we know intuitively and rationally and warn other dont do it.
Is free will an illusion?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-free-will-an-illusion/
Is intuition part of dependent origination?
https://www.whitehallmeditation.org/meditation-on-perception/meditation-dependent-origination/
Which way is No-Way?
http://www.myrkothum.com/wu-wei/
Wot no answers?
This was Osho’s opinion as well, it was one reason why he developed a lot of active meditations which involved a lot of physical activity, like standing shaking, dancing, jumping to music... the idea was to get westerners out of their heads and more into their hearts. They work quite well.
Exactly. I know crazy when I see her. I know and use rational. Bad feeling? Sure is useful.
Finding the good feeling (positive intuition) is part of the dharma Buddha Way ...