David Quinn: It is logical and mystical. The logic comes from the truth that Reality/Tao is utterly everything. It becomes mystical when you enter the whole of yourself into that logic.
What you present is the doctrine of duality as being the reality of consciousness.
David, many times you mention the Buddha and Lao Tzu, but never in my encounter with their teachings have I come across a wisdom that
equates logic with wholeness/mysticism. As a way of being purified of belief in dualism, yes, but not as
The Way of realizing wholeness. I mentioned this observation over a year ago, which, to my knowledge, you failed to address. You do not mention Jesus as often as you do Lao Tzu and the Buddha, but if one includes him in the circles of great Masters of wholeness, of mysticism, at no time does Jesus speak of logic and reason as The Way to realize the Kingdom of the wholeness of God.
At the heart of Jesus' and the Buddha's teachings was not to "become enlightened", but to
end suffering, and both made it clear what this ending of suffering entailed: the complete transcendence of duality. And what lives at the heart of man's attachent to duality? His application of logic and reason to that which has no logic or reason to exist. And how did the three teachers of the Mystery that is life go about completely transcending man's attachment to duality? The Way of all three Masters was to be transformed from the language of attachment to duality, logic and reason, into the language of detachment from logic and reason, the language of the spiritual metaphor of I AM or SELF. And in doing so, they became for all who have ears to hear, the living revelators of the
living vision of transcendence.
At the heart of what I see as being your error, one that prevents you from being transformed into the living vision of transcendence, is your understanding of the Tao as being utterly everything, as if it is an Thing full of finite things, a Totality of things. Of my comprehension, this is not the vision of Lao Tzu of The Tao. Verse one of the Tao te Ching:
(Conceived of as) having no name, it is the Originator of heaven
and earth; (conceived of as) having a name, it is the Mother of all
things.
Lao Tzu identifies the Tao as being the
Originator of heaven [that which cannot be conceived of having a name] and of earth [that which is conceived of having a name]. This distinction between being everything and being the Originator of everything are two different visions of the Tao. Your vision of a logical Tao of the rearranging of finite things keeps a man locked into the prison of duality with no language of wholeness upon which to stand, whereas Lao Tzu's vision of a Tao of Mystery gives a man a way to walk out of this prison – the Way of his living transcendence.
Lao Tzu plainly addresses the way a man becomes the Way of living transcendence in the last paragraph of verse one:
Under these two aspects, it is really the same; but
as development
takes place, it receives the different names. Together we call them
the Mystery. Where the Mystery is the deepest is the gate of all that
is subtle and wonderful.
As development of wisdom takes place, we receive the different names of the Mystery. And what is the nature of these different names? The nature of the Metaphor of the [infinite] spiritual SELF. The very language Lao Tzu [whoever Lao Tzu “was”] used to produce the Tao te Ching.