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There are 3 kinds of knowledge.
Only the third kind of knowledge leads one to freedom from suffering. One can never attain enlightenment by thinking up theories.
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Rational usually isn't without emotion (in my opinion) -- rather it's a structure built on an implicit (often unspecified or unknown) emotional basis, and the emotional basis is often (perhaps invariably) irrational.
For example, IMO the following is an example of rational thinking:
I think this was an example of cause-and-effect reasoning.
This reasoning is logical but doesn't necessarily allow or encourage you to question the premise on which your logic is based:
So Buddhism adds some necessary ingredients that are missing from mere rationality, including:
Buddhism uses rationality or can be explained rationally, for example:
There's an idiom in English, "good servant but bad master" ("fire is a good servant but a bad master", "technology is...", "science is..."). I expect that "reason" and "logic" may be like that, i.e. sometimes useful tools but you shouldn't do something just because it sounds "rational".
Also I'm taught to be rational, and if someone tells me to do something I often want to know why; and (theoretically) knowing why I do something helps me to understand what I'm trying to do and therefore maybe even how to do it. So it may be difficult for me to work with (practice, benefit from) a doctrine that's irrational -- it can be helpful if a doctrine is rational, if its reasoning is explained.
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I don't think there is anything necessarily wrong with rationalism provided that it is adequately counterbalanced by other factors. As you imply in your question, experience is one such equalizer. But I'm not sure it's sufficient. It owes its existence to something even more fundamental. As dirty a word as this is in contemporary Buddhist parlance, the single most important factor that ensures that our rationalism doesn't become dogmatic, cold, dead, and inflexible is faith.
When I say faith, I don't necessarily mean belief. I'm not saying that you should accept by rote Buddhist doctrine as catechesis. Instead, the faith that we should develop as followers of the dharma is one of openess and trust. Without trust in the eight fold path, we'll never sit on the cushion. When we're tired, when our legs hurt, and when the pangs of doubt are gnawing at us, unless we've developed a trusting mind, we'll never push through. Without faith, there can be no experience. Likewise, when we've put in our cushion time, when we've had great insights, when we've begun to see the world through the true dharma eye, unless we've developed a trusting mind, our progress stalls. Without faith, we bind ourselves to an imperfect understanding. Without openness, we've closed innumerable dharma gates. Without the fundamental mind of trust, our current level of knowledge - not matter how subtle - gets in the way of deeper experience, more refined wisdom, and true understanding.
Lastly, and most importantly, trust, emptiness, and the awakened mind are unified in ways that defy rationalism, experience, reason, or even wisdom:
To live in this faith is the road to nonduality,
Because the nondual is one with the trusting mind.
- Seng-ts'an from the Hsin Hsin Ming