Went again today to the local State Prison for one the small Buddhist groups that meets on a bi-weekly basis.

Today we talked a little about the Eightfold Path. I mentioned that my own experience of that included some years of my thinking  the first step of the Path (Right View/Understanding) seems to logically belong as the last of the Eight Steps, not the first. My presumption being that through taking the path, Right Understanding would develop last, over time, and be the culmination of all previous effort.

Today, I spoke about how the Right View now seems to be a logical first step by virtue of the fact that ‘Buddhism’ doesn’t ever ask me to believe in anything merely posited or proposed. From the very start, Right View enjoins me to question, to consider and to examine how to process my feelings, decisions, opinions, presumptions and assumptions and then, how I can use reasoning in order to approach the unknown through my personal observation and experience of my inner self.  The idea of Me. Is it reasonable?

I sense there are as many differences between reasonable and rational, as there are between meaning and purpose.

Not rational? ‘fraid not

Rational is something

I arrive at for my own little

comforts and understanding.

Rationalize is what I do when

I add 1 & 1 and get two.

Reason,

is when I see that there are

many other ways to get to 2.

And then over a period of

time I have to allow more

Ways to get to Three, than is 

comprehensible to me. So,

Holy Buddha, I take Refuge

in Thee. That’s a good start…