It's biological, every other animal on the planet has meaning without looking for it. Humans have gradually lost meaning and have consequently acquired a greater need for meaning. See the absurdity principle above. — daldai

Meaning seems like it is something that would only exist in the context of, well, meaning. If a being does not communicate, it doesn't think in terms of meanings. Language is a tool, and we often overuse it, or use it in the wrong situations.

The problem seems to be that you cannot give a 100% rationally deduced reason for believing that you are 100 % rational. In fact you cannot give a 100 % rationally deduced reason for any belief whatsoever, and thus it would seem to follow that neither you, nor any one else, can be 100 % rational. — John

Deductively, one counter-example is sufficient for disproof of a premise. Once proven wrong, the rational thing for a person to do is to admit that one had been irrational, and change their beliefs to match their newfound knowledge. Supposing this was a minor belief, it requires a very small fix to prevent a complete collapse. After the change, one should be 100% rational again. If it was a major belief, there may be no realistic fix.

However, it is clear that nobody is 100% rational all the time. It's a never-ending journey to perfection: no person is a Buddha all the time.

in many places in the Buddhist scriptures, it is said that the enlightenment of the Buddha is 'beyond mere reason'. — Wayfarer

I think I said that, as the title of this thread is "Beyond Rationality".

the state of wisdom or jnana which is the aim of the Buddhist path is not itself within the scope of reason as it requires insight into dependent origination and related principles. — Wayfarer

I believe that once reason is mastered, one has reached the beginning. It's like a karateka gaining a black belt. All the moves are known, and now there is room for perfection.

Without emotion youll have zero motivation, or reason to do anything. — Wosret

The amount of effort that one puts into enlightenment creates momentum, and this momentum is more than enough to sustain life. Clinically depressed people have little motivation, and in most cases they can put on a happy face.

Did you ever wonder why Buddha is chubby... the middle way must be OK. — Cavacava

I think this was already mentioned, but "Fat Buddha" is different than Gautama Buddha. It's similar to mistaking Santa Claus and Jesus. Anyway, the Middle Way to enlightenment does not refer to the life of an average person. Rather, it is a criticism of the extreme methods people tried to use to trick themselves into emotional states that they then called "enlightenment". Some people would be gluttons. Others would starve themselves. Some surrounded themselves with riches. Others would live on nothing but what they could forage. Siddhartha Gautama just sat under a tree and thought carefully about the world. He was still just a beggar, wise as he was.

In any case how could you ever know if someone were "100 % rational" unless you were 100 % rational yourself? — John

That's a problem, and it needs one to trust oneself. How can you trust anything you learn or know if you can't justify your thoughts with knowledge about the Real?

Rationality has yielded amazing results. Science and math are the towering examples of pure rationality in action. Even topics like religion, where faith is a cornerstone, employ rationality at some point. — TheMadFool

I don't know if the rationality of religion is done in good faith, since religions seem to have as little problem justifying irrationality as rationality. How can you trust a belief system where 1 in 3 words is a bold-faced lie?

Thanks for the welcome.

The universe itself is not divisible, so Tao is infinite. We can't talk about Half the Universe with the same assuredness that we can talk about the Universe itself. But it is a sum, and this sum is Reality..The evidence of the sum is the use of direct opposites to give the yin and the yang meaning. The Taoist universe is dualistic. Everything that exists -- the active principle of the Universe -- is yang. It is bound by yin, aka. Nothingness. What this means is that the universe is both singular and dual; infinite and finite.

What we can say about one thing is different than what we can say about two. A thing taken by itself is infinite, whereas a thing taken as part of a whole is finite.

As I said, "Tao is all of existence, a sum of an infinite number of infinite parts." This is a tautology, a circular argument. This is because I treated "Tao" as a thing, and not as the Everything. People make the same mistake when they talk about God.

By itself, a thing is finite, and I merely repeated that when I said "the sum of an infinite number of infinite parts" -- a sum being also finite. It's all just A=A.

Thanks for making it explicit..

Using Reason, the best, most probable, God we can come up with is a circular argument. The goal of an apologist is not to make God rational, but to justify irrationality.

The pantheist God (aka the Tao of Lao Tzu) is. Even saying that much is misleading. Tao is all of existence, a sum of an infinite number of infinite parts. It is not a personal God; it is not responsible for our existence so much as we can only exist as finite particles of it. God exists: A=A This is the meaning of the duality present in the symbolism of the yin-yang, and in all of existence. There is Being -- yang -- (the sum of all existence) and there is Nothingness -- yin -- (a indescribable Void that cannot be named).

Yes, this is a circular argument, but I have not found a more convincing one.