user13773: I have read at various places that Nirvana can't be described or reached by logic or reason. ONLY meditation is the way. Why is that so? thanks in advance.

user471: In the book chapter entitled "Boiling and the Leidenfrost Effect" (an excerpt is quoted below), physicist Jearl Walker discussed the Leidenfrost Effect and explained how it may protect a firewalker from burns to the feet.
Eventhough logic and the scientific method had led him to have complete conviction in physics, he still had sweaty feet and had to clutch a physics textbook to bolster his faith in physics, while demonstrating the effect himself.
Similarly, logic may give you conviction in Buddhism, but logic may not free you from suffering.

The Leidenfrost effect may also play a role in another foolhardy
  demonstration: walking over hot coals. At times the news media have
  carried reports of a performer striding over red-hot coals with much
  hoopla and mystic nonsense, perhaps claiming that protection from a
  bad burn is afforded by ‘‘mind over matter.’’ Actually, physics
  protects the feet when the walk is successful. Particularly important
  is the fact that although the surface of the coals is quite hot, it
  contains surprisingly little energy. If the performer walks at a
  moderate pace, a footfall is so brief that the foot conducts little
  energy from the coals. Of course, a slower walk invites a burn because
  the longer contact allows energy to be conducted to the foot from the
  interior of the coals.
If the feet are wet prior to the walk, the liquid might also help
  protect them. To wet the feet a performer might walk over wet grass
  just before reaching the hot coals. Instead, the feet might just be
  sweaty because of the heat from the coals or the excitement of the
  performance. Once the performer is on the coals, some of the heat
  vaporizes the liquid on the feet, leaving less energy to be conducted
  to the flesh. In addition, there may be points of contact where the
  liquid undergoes film boiling, thereby providing brief protection from
  the coals.
I have walked over hot coals on five occasions. For four of the walks
  I was fearful enough that my feet were sweaty. However, on the fifth
  walk I took my safety so much for granted that my feet were dry. The
  burns I suffered then were extensive and terribly painful. My feet did
  not heal for weeks.
My failure may have been due to a lack of film boiling on the feet,
  but I had also neglected an additional safety factor. On the other
  days I had taken the precaution of clutching an early edition of
  Fundamentals of Physics to my chest during the walks so as to bolster
  my belief in physics. Alas, I forgot the book on the day when I was so
  badly burned.
I have long argued that degree-granting programs should employ
  ‘‘fire-walking’’ as a last exam. The chair- person of the program
  should wait on the far side of a bed of red-hot coals while a degree
  candidate is forced to walk over the coals. If the candidate’s belief
  in physics is strong enough that the feet are left undamaged, the
  chairperson hands the candidate a graduation certificate. The test
  would be more revealing than traditional final exams.


user7090: Nirvana or enlightenment can't be reached by logic because enlightenment is inside us, within us, and not outside.

user14104: Its simple Nirvana is a state that you mentally realize .You can be convinced by it intellectually but it requires that you go through a transformation ,when that transformation occurs you will mentally realize it.Its like being able to see when you where blind.
A man once came to Buddha and told him I want happiness .Buddha replied first remove the I thats ego then remove want thats desire ,then all what remains is happiness the quality itself :).The quality is in-explainable like the beauty of a flower , the greatness of a mountain or the depth of sadness.
So Nirvana is simply recognizing the quality of your receptions in this moment whatever they are done by desire-less intention and diligence till there is nothing else but the quality......You can be convinced by this statement intellectually but taking it as instruction for your meditation and everyday life can lead you to mentally realize it.  

user10304: 
Nirvana can't be described or reached by logic or reason

Logic and reason are functions of the intellect-mind. Nirvana is beyond the intellect-mind. 
What is the intellect-mind? The mind that works on and understands mathematics. The mind constructs the equations, then goes on verifying the left and right sides between the "=" are equal; then designs experiments to prove the equations. In brief, intellect-mind is a self-sustaining system, it goes in a loop of generating hypothesis then re-assumed the hypothesis to evidences, that become facts - which condensed and constructed the world. Say, the stone is solid and heavy. But to generate the stone is solid and heavy - the phenomena, it requires the intellect-mind to recognize the concept of stone, then recalls the attributes of the stone; then the physical body, sensory system and brain, etc., of the human will response to the totality of it, by not able to lift it, or not able to walk pass if it is blocking the road... 

ONLY meditation is the way

No. Meditation cannot bring one to Nirvana. Those meditation teachers if telling you Nirvana is by reaching certain grade of Jhana, or certain Vipassana, they are just selling you a consumer product with catchy marketing slogan.
Even Vipaśyanā requires getting beyond the intellect-mind. Don't confuse it with the marketed "Vipassana" of Mr. Goenka's or many meditation "teachers", just like a motel with the neon sign "Paradise" doesn't mean it the Paradise. The Buddha's Vipaśyanā is about reaching high level Dhyana, where the sensory inputs are all cut off, the intellect-mind is surpassed, by then insight, the vipaśyanā, can operate.
Therefore intellect-mind is the mind of reason and logic, it is the mind we most familiar with, we use it all the time. No matter how intelligent one owns her/his intellect-mind, how high the IQ score, it doesn't give a slightest edge to this type of person for reaching Nirvana. Though being intelligent is a remarkable gift. Nirvana is removed from reason and logic.  

While the less fluid mindset may easily misinterpret the above demoting the unique gift of human intelligence - logic and reason, how it contributes to modern scientific and technological achievements, it is misreading the meaning of this post. Hellenistic civilization after shaped by Aristotle is dominated by seeking analytical/empirical knowledge procured by the intellect. But it is not the totality of the mind. The mind is more mysterious contained much richer facets: such as how a maths genius conceived numbers.


Why Meditation cannot bring one to Nirvana?
Errr... often too advance an answer is not easy to comprehend :)))
I assumed most Buddhists understand that Nirvana cannot be realized by meditation. Apparently it's not the case. 
a) The Buddha himself said so and demonstrated it, in the very beginning of his search. Let's go back to Chapter One - 
The young Gautama became an ascetic first learnt from Ārāḍa Kālāma, whose specialty was dwelling in the "Sphere of Nothingness" which he regarded was Nirvana - the 7th Dhyana. After acquired the skill and dwelt in it Gautama immediately knew it was not. 
He then learnt under Udraka Ramaputra, specialized in dwelling in the "Sphere of neither Perception nor Non-perception" - the 8th Dhyana. He thought that was Nirvana. After training 3 years Gautama skilled in it, but, to his disappointment, it was still not. He found there still subtle and fine "perception/consciousness" remained. And, when the power of Samadhi subsided, the practitioner would still fall back to the cycle of birth-death.1 
b) If still not enough to convince, let's look at Buddha's unique discovery - the 9th Dhyana. 
The 9th Dhyana is called Nirodha Samapatti (想受滅定), meaning, cessation of thinking and perception. Practitioner entering this Dhyana is virtually dead, read the description of it in the Vinaya (probably not available in Pali text) about Utpalavarṇa and the 500 cow-robbers. Entering this Dhyana one loses her/his autonomy, say, if someone has destroyed her/his body, s/he wouldn't be awaken to stop it. S/he couldn't emerge from this Samadhi without a skillful one "called" her/him. Usually practitioner needs to give her/himself a hint before entering, so that s/he can emerge from it in time. From these characteristics, it hardly can be associated with Nirvana. 
c) Nirvana is like someone who removed the headgear and exited from the AR game. Meditation is just the pause in the game, which allows the player to take a break, returns to her/his senses that s/he is just in the game. But to be released from the game, one needs to disengage in it. This analogy also gives better understanding to my two beginning paragraphs. 
Or, meditation is like washing a broken dish, it can clean it to see the fracture more clearly, but it can't mend the crack. The Buddha said, the unenlightened's life is with effluence, only an Arhat has ceased the effluence. 
footnotes
1. 《佛本行集經》: 「仁者此法不能究竟解脫 (cannot reach ultimate liberation)... 大涅槃 (great Nirvana)。此法還入於生死 (this method still enters back into birth-death；所以者何？既生非想非非想處 (after born in the Sphere of neither Perception nor Non-perception)，報盡還入於生死 (when the effect subsides, [one] still enters into birth-death)。」

user-1: Great question!
It is possible to use logic to arrive at a conviction of the truth of the dhamma, as Nagarjuna demonstrates and others such as Francis Bradley, Spencer Brown and (ahem) me. But this is map-reading. You can read a thousand books about fire and not know what it feels like to be burnt. 
So while logic and reason are useful and trustworthy they are not a carriage that will carry us to Heaven. The Old Testament tale of the Tower of Babel is a teaching story. 
Reason and logic applied to metaphysical questions must work by abduction, by the elimination of unworkable views. This means that metaphysical analysis can be a valuable guardian against error, as Aurobindo characterises it, but while it can proscribe truth by ruling out false views it cannot reveal truth or give it meaning for us. Revelation requires burning the maps and undertaking the journey.   
It is much the same in physics. Most interpretative theories can be ruled out on the basis of analysis but no theory is provably 'true'. Reason and logic produce theories and having a theory of the existence of a holiday resort is not the same as going on holiday. 
Meditation is necessary because truth outruns the intellect and cannot be discovered intellectually. For Mahayana the true nature of reality would be beyond conceptual fabrication and the categories of thought, so no amount of thought is able to take us there. As all the teachers say...
“Man can partake of the Perpetual. He does not do this by thinking he can think about it.” 
Jan-I-Janan
Sentences of the Khajagan

user254: I have read at various places that Nirvana can't be described or reached by logic or reason.
I think that's two questions: 1) described, 2) reached.
I think Nirvana is defined as being the end of craving -- not just a temporary pause or lull, but uprooting the "tendencies" and "effluents" which result in the arising of craving -- so changing or undoing habits (if craving is a kind of habit, and results from habits, etc.).
And you can't do something, or accomplish something ("reach" something), just by thinking about it -- you have to do it!
I suppose that's true of everything -- mundane things too not only Nirvana -- e.g. you can't learn to play piano or guitar just by thinking about: you'd have to do it, practice it.
Maybe that's true even of describing something -- I can't describe playing guitar or piano, nor even describe hearing piano or guitar  -- i.e. you'd have to actually do it yourself, play it or hear it, to know it for yourself.

13773: <p>I have read at various places that Nirvana can't be described or reached by logic or reason. ONLY meditation is the way. Why is that so? thanks in advance.</p>
 471: <p>In the book chapter entitled "<a href="https://www.reed.edu/physics/courses/Physics332.s18/pdf/Leidenfrost.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Boiling and the Leidenfrost Effect</a>" (an excerpt is quoted below), physicist Jearl Walker discussed the Leidenfrost Effect and explained how it may protect a firewalker from burns to the feet.</p>

<p>Eventhough logic and the scientific method had led him to have complete conviction in physics, he still had sweaty feet and had to clutch a physics textbook to bolster his faith in physics, while demonstrating the effect himself.</p>

<p>Similarly, logic may give you conviction in Buddhism, but logic may not free you from suffering.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The Leidenfrost effect may also play a role in another foolhardy
  demonstration: walking over hot coals. At times the news media have
  carried reports of a performer striding over red-hot coals with much
  hoopla and mystic nonsense, perhaps claiming that protection from a
  bad burn is afforded by ‘‘mind over matter.’’ Actually, physics
  protects the feet when the walk is successful. Particularly important
  is the fact that although the surface of the coals is quite hot, it
  contains surprisingly little energy. If the performer walks at a
  moderate pace, a footfall is so brief that the foot conducts little
  energy from the coals. Of course, a slower walk invites a burn because
  the longer contact allows energy to be conducted to the foot from the
  interior of the coals.</p>
  
  <p>If the feet are wet prior to the walk, the liquid might also help
  protect them. To wet the feet a performer might walk over wet grass
  just before reaching the hot coals. Instead, the feet might just be
  sweaty because of the heat from the coals or the excitement of the
  performance. Once the performer is on the coals, some of the heat
  vaporizes the liquid on the feet, leaving less energy to be conducted
  to the flesh. In addition, there may be points of contact where the
  liquid undergoes film boiling, thereby providing brief protection from
  the coals.</p>
  
  <p>I have walked over hot coals on five occasions. For four of the walks
  I was fearful enough that my feet were sweaty. However, on the fifth
  walk I took my safety so much for granted that my feet were dry. The
  burns I suffered then were extensive and terribly painful. My feet did
  not heal for weeks.</p>
  
  <p>My failure may have been due to a lack of film boiling on the feet,
  but I had also neglected an additional safety factor. On the other
  days I had taken the precaution of clutching an early edition of
  <em>Fundamentals of Physics</em> to my chest during the walks so as to bolster
  my belief in physics. Alas, I forgot the book on the day when I was so
  badly burned.</p>
  
  <p>I have long argued that degree-granting programs should employ
  ‘‘fire-walking’’ as a last exam. The chair- person of the program
  should wait on the far side of a bed of red-hot coals while a degree
  candidate is forced to walk over the coals. If the candidate’s belief
  in physics is strong enough that the feet are left undamaged, the
  chairperson hands the candidate a graduation certificate. The test
  would be more revealing than traditional final exams.</p>
</blockquote>
 7090: <p>Nirvana or enlightenment can't be reached by logic because enlightenment is inside us, within us, and not outside.</p>
 14104: <p>Its simple Nirvana is a state that you <strong>mentally</strong> realize .You can be convinced by it intellectually but it requires that you go through a transformation ,when that transformation occurs you will mentally realize it.Its like being able to see when you where blind.</p>

<p>A man once came to Buddha and told him I want happiness .Buddha replied first remove the <strong>I</strong> thats ego then remove <strong>want</strong> thats desire ,then all what remains is happiness the quality itself :).The quality is in-explainable like the beauty of a flower , the greatness of a mountain or the depth of sadness.</p>

<p>So Nirvana is simply recognizing the quality of your receptions in this moment whatever they are done by desire-less intention and diligence till there is <strong>nothing</strong> else <strong>but</strong> the quality......You can be convinced by this statement intellectually but taking it as instruction for your meditation and everyday life can lead you to mentally realize it.  </p>
 10304: <blockquote>
  <p>Nirvana can't be described or reached by logic or reason</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Logic and reason are functions of the intellect-mind. Nirvana is beyond the intellect-mind. </p>

<p>What is the intellect-mind? The mind that works on and understands mathematics. The mind constructs the equations, then goes on verifying the left and right sides between the "=" are equal; then designs experiments to prove the equations. In brief, intellect-mind is a self-sustaining system, it goes in a loop of generating hypothesis then re-assumed the hypothesis to evidences, that become facts - which condensed and constructed the world. Say, the stone is solid and heavy. But to generate the stone is solid and heavy - the phenomena, it requires the intellect-mind to recognize the concept of stone, then recalls the attributes of the stone; then the physical body, sensory system and brain, etc., of the human will response to the totality of it, by not able to lift it, or not able to walk pass if it is blocking the road... </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>ONLY meditation is the way</p>
</blockquote>

<p>No. Meditation cannot bring one to Nirvana. Those meditation teachers if telling you Nirvana is by reaching certain grade of Jhana, or certain Vipassana, they are just selling you a consumer product with catchy marketing slogan.</p>

<p>Even <em>Vipaśyanā</em> requires getting beyond the intellect-mind. Don't confuse it with the marketed "Vipassana" of Mr. Goenka's or many meditation "teachers", just like a motel with the neon sign "Paradise" doesn't mean it the Paradise. The <em>Buddha's Vipaśyanā</em> is about reaching high level Dhyana, where the sensory inputs are all cut off, the intellect-mind is surpassed, by then insight, the <em>vipaśyanā</em>, can operate.</p>

<p>Therefore intellect-mind is the mind of reason and logic, it is the mind we most familiar with, we use it all the time. No matter how intelligent one owns her/his intellect-mind, how high the IQ score, it doesn't give a slightest edge to this type of person for reaching Nirvana. Though being intelligent is a remarkable gift. Nirvana is removed from reason and logic.  </p>

<hr>

<p>While the less fluid mindset may easily misinterpret the above demoting the unique gift of human intelligence - logic and reason, how it contributes to modern scientific and technological achievements, it is misreading the meaning of this post. Hellenistic civilization after shaped by Aristotle is dominated by seeking analytical/empirical knowledge procured by the intellect. But it is not the totality of the mind. The mind is more mysterious contained much richer facets: such as <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/2020/autistic-savant-daniel-tammet-solves-problems-blink-eye/story?id=10759598" rel="nofollow noreferrer">how a maths genius conceived numbers</a>.</p>

<hr>

<hr>

<p><em>Why <code>Meditation cannot bring one to Nirvana</code></em>?</p>

<p>Errr... often too advance an answer is not easy to comprehend :)))</p>

<p>I assumed most Buddhists understand that Nirvana cannot be realized by meditation. Apparently it's not the case. </p>

<p>a) The Buddha himself said so and demonstrated it, in the very beginning of his search. Let's go back to Chapter One - </p>

<p>The young Gautama became an ascetic first learnt from Ārāḍa Kālāma, whose specialty was dwelling in the "Sphere of Nothingness" which he regarded was Nirvana - the 7th Dhyana. After acquired the skill and dwelt in it Gautama immediately knew it was not. </p>

<p>He then learnt under Udraka Ramaputra, specialized in dwelling in the "Sphere of neither Perception nor Non-perception" - the 8th Dhyana. He thought that was Nirvana. After training 3 years Gautama skilled in it, but, to his disappointment, it was still not. He found there still subtle and fine "perception/consciousness" remained. And, when the power of Samadhi subsided, the practitioner would still fall back to the cycle of birth-death.<sup>1</sup>          </p>

<p>b) If still not enough to convince, let's look at Buddha's unique discovery - the 9th Dhyana. </p>

<p>The 9th Dhyana is called Nirodha Samapatti (想受滅定), meaning, cessation of thinking and perception. Practitioner entering this Dhyana is virtually dead, read the description of it in the Vinaya (probably not available in Pali text) about Utpalavarṇa and the 500 cow-robbers. Entering this Dhyana one loses her/his autonomy, say, if someone has destroyed her/his body, s/he wouldn't be awaken to stop it. S/he couldn't emerge from this Samadhi without a skillful one "called" her/him. Usually practitioner needs to give her/himself a hint before entering, so that s/he can emerge from it in time. From these characteristics, it hardly can be associated with Nirvana. </p>

<p>c) Nirvana is like someone who removed the headgear and exited from the AR game. Meditation is just the pause in the game, which allows the player to take a break, returns to her/his senses that s/he is just in the game. But to be released from the game, one needs to disengage in it. This analogy also gives better understanding to my two beginning paragraphs. </p>

<p>Or, meditation is like washing a broken dish, it can clean it to see the fracture more clearly, but it can't mend the crack. The Buddha said, the unenlightened's life is with effluence, only an Arhat has ceased the effluence. </p>

<p><sub>footnotes</sub></p>

<p><sub>1. 《佛本行集經》: 「仁者此法<em>不能究竟解脫</em> (cannot reach ultimate liberation)... <em>大涅槃</em> (great Nirvana)。<em>此法還入於生死</em> (this method still enters back into birth-death；所以者何？<strong><em>既生非想非非想處</em></strong> (after born in the Sphere of neither Perception nor Non-perception)，<strong><em>報盡還入於生死</em></strong> (when the effect subsides, [one] still enters into birth-death)。」</sub></p>
 -1: <p>Great question!</p>

<p>It is possible to use logic to arrive at a conviction of the truth of the dhamma, as Nagarjuna demonstrates and others such as Francis Bradley, Spencer Brown and (ahem) me. But this is map-reading. You can read a thousand books about fire and not know what it feels like to be burnt. </p>

<p>So while logic and reason are useful and trustworthy they are not a carriage that will carry us to Heaven. The Old Testament tale of the Tower of Babel is a teaching story. </p>

<p>Reason and logic applied to metaphysical questions must work by abduction, by the elimination of unworkable views. This means that metaphysical analysis can be a valuable guardian against error, as Aurobindo characterises it, but while it can proscribe truth by ruling out false views it cannot reveal truth or give it meaning for us. Revelation requires burning the maps and undertaking the journey.   </p>

<p>It is much the same in physics. Most interpretative theories can be ruled out on the basis of analysis but no theory is provably 'true'. Reason and logic produce theories and having a theory of the existence of a holiday resort is not the same as going on holiday. </p>

<p>Meditation is necessary because truth outruns the intellect and cannot be discovered intellectually. For Mahayana the true nature of reality would be beyond conceptual fabrication and the categories of thought, so no amount of thought is able to take us there. As all the teachers say...</p>

<p>“Man can partake of the Perpetual. He does not do this by thinking he can think about it.” </p>

<p>Jan-I-Janan
Sentences of the Khajagan</p>
 254: <p><strong>I have read at various places that Nirvana can't be described or reached by logic or reason.</strong></p>

<p>I think that's two questions: 1) described, 2) reached.</p>

<p>I think Nirvana is defined as being the end of craving -- not just a temporary pause or lull, but uprooting the "tendencies" and "effluents" which result in the arising of craving -- so changing or undoing habits (if craving is a kind of habit, and results from habits, etc.).</p>

<p>And you can't do something, or accomplish something ("reach" something), just by thinking about it -- you have to do it!</p>

<p>I suppose that's true of everything -- mundane things too not only Nirvana -- e.g. you can't learn to play piano or guitar just by thinking about: you'd have to do it, practice it.</p>

<p>Maybe that's true even of describing something -- I can't describe playing guitar or piano, nor even describe hearing piano or guitar  -- i.e. you'd have to actually do it yourself, play it or hear it, to know it for yourself.</p>
