One cannot be logical with their emotions...

I found myself getting extremely confused while reading this passage, and the only thing that really stuck was the notion that some things are impossible to explain in words. I agree with this. Words just confuse things, and they are very limiting in their meanings. I like this idea of abandoning ordinary images and language in order to see the truth.

It took me a while, but I finally found a comparison that I could understand and attempt to explain.

Emotions.

Emotions are basically impossible to put into words. Sure, you can say that you're happy, sad, frustrated, disappointed, or intrigued, but those words rarely reveal how you are really feeling. If you assign a single word to what you are feeling, you'll never understand emotions. Emotions are usually a combination, anyways. Only by experiencing emotion, can you truly understand them. You can study happiness forever, but you'll never truly understand it, unless you experience it. (Which is partly the reason why self-help books make me laugh.) You can only see truth if you don't categoize or try to name your emotions. It may look like anger, smell like anger, and taste like anger, but it's really something completely different that we don't have a word for. Anger over losing a sports game is different than the anger of a friend stabbing you in the back. Love for a friend is different than love for your partner or love for your car, yet we find it necessary to assign a single word to these completely different feelings. Language is very limiting. This is where the paradoxes discussed in Fritjof Capra comes into play. Emotions can be extremely contradictory if they are attempted to be explained in words.

One cannot be logical with their emotions.

One cannot be logical with buddhism, either.

Picture from: http://waa.uwalumni.com/onwisconsin/fall01/emotional1.html

Buddhism and physics?

I never thought physics could be related to Buddhism. ..but I guess anything is possible.

here's a video I found explaining the relationship between science & Buddhism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj_i7YqDwJA

I found this chapter to be confusing at first, but after I read a little further I understood what Capra was trying to say.

I think the main concept he is trying to get through is that language can only explain so much. The true meaning and explanation of some things can only be found through reality, not language or logic.

Capra mentions the Tao Te Ching and how it can be extremely difficult and puzzling to read. He also mentions that it is very contradicting. It is just one example of how eastern philosophy makes us think much deeper into things, forgetting about logic & reasoning.

Zen Buddhists teach nonverbally through senseless riddles called koans. These riddles are used to make students aware of the nonverbal understanding of reality. They are not meant to be solved using logic, however they are to be "understood in awareness of reality".

pic: zenartrebel.com