Date: 11/01/2025 11/02/2025
Location: Star Lake Meditation Center
Teacher: Shilin Long
Sitting Meditation
Breaking the Limits of Logical Thinking
Logical thinking is essential in daily life, but in meditation and awakening, logic becomes a subtle barrier. Logic helps us understand the external world, but it cannot reveal the true nature of the mind. Logic belongs to thought; awakening belongs to awareness. To deepen meditation, one must learn to step beyond the limits of logic and move from analysis to direct experience.
1. Characteristics of Logical Thinking: Analysis and Categorization
1. Logic relies on language
Language is dualistic—right vs. wrong, yes vs. no.
2. Logic is based on concepts
Concepts are abstractions, not direct reality.
3. Logic constantly divides
Division helps us understand but separates us from awareness.
2. The Limits of Logic: It Cannot Reach the True Mind
1. Logic only handles the known
The unknown and ineffable lie outside logic’s reach.
2. Logic cannot observe awareness
Thought can analyze objects but not the knower.
3. Logic cannot stop thoughts
Thinking cannot remove the source of thinking.
3. Why Meditation Must Go Beyond Logic
1. Truth must be experienced
Awakening is not intellectual—it is direct seeing.
2. Logic often becomes an obstacle
More thinking leads further from clarity.
3. Awareness is deeper than logic
Logic is built on language; awareness precedes language.
4. Step One: Observe Thought Instead of Using Thought
1. Watch how thinking moves
Arising, lingering, dissolving.
2. Do not follow thoughts
Be the witness, not the participant.
3. When thought is seen, it loses power
Awareness surpasses logic.
5. Step Two: Practice Non-Conceptual Awareness
1. Feel sensations without labeling
Pain is pain—no story added.
2. Watch the breath without analysis
Breathing happens; awareness observes.
3. Suspend judgment
No good, no bad—only awareness.
6. Step Three: Use Koans and Hua-Tou to Collapse Logic
1. A koan gives thought no exit
It forces the mind past reasoning.
2. The hua-tou points beyond thought
Thought cannot enter the pre-thought state.
3. When logic stops, awareness shines
Thought is not the problem; attachment is.
7. Step Four: Move Into Direct Experience
1. Let the mind touch reality directly
Not “thinking of breath,” but “breath itself.”
2. Awareness replaces explanation
Experience is more authentic than analysis.
3. Reality is lived, not conceptualized
Truth is not defined but encountered.
8. The Results of Breaking Logical Limits
1. Seeing phenomena as they are
Without adding conceptual layers.
2. Less entanglement in thought
Awareness becomes stronger than thinking.
3. Direct connection with the present
Reality without the filter of language.
Conclusion
To awaken, one must move beyond the boundaries of logic.From analysis to awareness, from concepts to experience, from thinking to presence.When logic quiets down, the mind’s natural clarity shines effortlessly.Truth is not discovered by thinking but realized through direct, wordless awareness.
