Writing, essay
Taoist Epistemology
How Taoist practice knows what it knows: direct experience in the body, checked against teacher and tradition, rather than belief.
First published December 2015 on the old nathanbrine.com blog.
Just some thoughts to kick around. Please, take with a grain or two of salt.
When asked whether experiences during meditation were real or not, Master Wang answered, “It doesn’t matter. Just apply the method. After you have fully experienced something, then you can try and understand it. But don’t try to understand it first. Just practice.”
Western philosophy:
Use reason to discern truth.
Use truth to make sense of world.
Taoist:
Use method to gain experience.
Use experience to make sense of world.
My point is that Taoists aren’t all that interested in ultimate truths, at least truths that can be talked or thought about. They are concerned with what works to help us experience ourselves and our world in subtle and profound ways.
Someone once told me that scientists are not interested in the truth; they are interested in what works.
Science:
Use experiment to gain data.
Use data to make sense of world.
The scientific method is much closer to the heart of the Taoist experience.
Master Wang has said that we should play with the methods and observe what happens, and in this way learn. Like science, Taoist practice is not overly concerned with a final truth; both are an ongoing process of making sense of ourselves and our world.
Now, what does this mean for us?
Well, as practitioners, attachment to what we currently understand as the truth can hold us back. It’s only when we let go of what we think we understand that we can make progress with our practice. For example, it was only after I was open to the idea that maybe it was possible to see inside my body that I was able to use inner vision. I still don’t understand how inner vision works. Yet by using it, new dimensions of my practice became available.
This doesn’t mean we blindly believe in everything. Just be open. We don’t need to understand how it works. Just be open, try the method, and see what happens.
Master Wang once said, “If you think you understand the practice, you don’t.”
We never do. We just keep going. Just as in the Daode jing’s last line of chapter one, “Through mystery upon mystery, therein lies the gateway to the marvellous 玄之又玄眾妙之門.” It calls us to inhabit a state that is dark and obscure, yet profound and ever expanding.
Of course none of this is probably true.