A beginner’s mind

[James]

@Sean

I don’t know if fear stops us just looking at a cloud, does it? Perhaps there is an element of thinking it’s a pointless exercise. Something else?

I think this is actually quite a deep topic, as Voyager points out. There is no particular fear involved in just looking at a cloud or a tree or a face in the crowd. But if my mind has found security and continuity in being preoccupied with various ideas or thoughts, then even as simple an action as looking at a cloud endangers this preoccupation. Looking at a cloud has no meaning for our mental preoccupation, and so it may feel worthless, purposeless, boring. But this feeling of boredom or pointlessness may be the surface expression of a deeper fear: i.e. the fear that our mental preoccupations may themselves be the actually meaningless activity. As Rick says,

@rickScott

Fear may be lurking under the surface, a constant low-level background that it is close to invisible for us, unless it surges, an unconscious constant fear.

Another block is simply habit. If we are used to taking the car we will resist taking the bus or train. If we are used to working in an office on a computer all day, we may resist going for a walk in nature when we have free time. Habit can feel like fate - but if we experiment with making small changes to our daily routine, habit turns out to be as malleable as our bodies are when we exercise them.

Other blocks, as Voyager says, include desire and pleasure. Ordinary awareness may not appear pleasurable to our thought-created sense of things. If there is an opportunity to look at a cloud our thoughts crowd in and offer us a shiny alternative to pursue, something with greater pleasure for the mind. So when we feel the insistent pull of desire we don’t want to be aware (except of the thing which attracts us). Probably we are afraid that if we pay too much attention to the tug of desire itself, we will be forced to abandon the pleasure that the desire is promising. And so we ignore the cloud for our mental pursuit of pleasure.

But deeper than these blocks, or underlying them all, is our deep-rooted identification with thought, with mental existence (as opposed to the existence of outward sensory and inward or psychological awareness). As Voyager says, the real problem is

@voyager

the unshakable value we give to thought, using it to face and solve all our problem in spite of its limits

When in actual fact

@voyager

we should “devalue thought” and that all K’s teaching concerned for this devaluation of thought… [Because] as long as we worship thought we will never be fully aware

The problem is that we then make moving away from thought, or dealing with thought, into a new mental preoccupation, which merely continues this mental investment but on a higher level, with greater sophistication; and it then becomes even more difficult to put aside. This is perhaps one of the dangers of the way Krishnamurti’s teachings can be understood.

But if thought is limited, thought will never fully understand itself, there will always be some aspect of the problem which is left out - and in the meantime life goes by, the clouds pass overhead without being seen, and our lives become ever more meaningless (if our preoccupation with thought is mostly meaningless).

Yet there is nothing to stop us, at any moment, from looking outside at the cloud or the tree (or looking within ourselves at our boredom and fear). So, it seems to me, ordinary awareness is always on hand, is always available, to save us from ourselves, if we are willing to momentarily put aside our immediate fears, our immediate desires, our immediate resistance due to habit, and just look.

This is the first and last freedom isn’t it?

For this, as Voyager points out, we have to have a little leisure, a little mental or physical space; and we must be willing to be very simple, both mentally and emotionally as well as physically. Because ordinary awareness may not, as Rick says, immediately

@rickScott

yield shiny exciting gifts

However, one has to reflect on the fact that if the final judge of what is shiny and exciting is merely our own thinking, this thinking may itself be very biased and unaware! So one can experiment with giving awareness the benefit of the doubt (which is its choiceless aspect); so if one feels bored or afraid or low level background suffering, then that is the thing to be aware of - as well as the cloud, the tree, the face in the crowd going by.

[voyager]

@James

The problem is that we then make moving away from thought, or dealing with thought, into a new mental preoccupation, which merely continues this mental investment but on a higher level, with greater sophistication; and it then becomes even more difficult to put aside. This is perhaps one of the dangers of the way Krishnamurti’s teachings can be understood.

You are expressing something I wanted to express but could not… and you are pointing out the most dangerous tricks thought plays, the ones that keep us going in circles. Who has not fallen into this trap? I feel there is a great need to put those discoveries into paper and the only remedy we have is to re-gain simplicity…
stop here, I don’t want to be involved in the network of thought.

[rickScott]

@James

However, one has to reflect on the fact that if the final judge of what is shiny and exciting is merely our own thinking, this thinking may itself be very biased and unaware! So one can experiment with giving awareness the benefit of the doubt

Right and right. Thought is instrumental for any kind of judgement: shabby-shiny, boring-interesting, yawn-thrilling, ugly-beautiful, good-bad. The fruits of choiceless awareness, whatever they may be, reveal themselves with being choicelessly aware, not analysis or guessing. And yet interestingly, even knowing this, there is strong resistance to being aware. Being choicelessly aware must be somehow deeply threatening to our sense of stability.

[Inquiry]

@voyager

I remember once when talking with Inquiry I told him that we should “devalue thought” and that all K’s teachings concerned this devaluation of thought. But he didn’t agree

I don’t remember. Can you find when this exchange took place?

As long as we worship thought we will never be fully aware. Of course, we may be convinced to be aware, that is the trick thought plays all the time.

Do we “worship thought”, or are we conditioned to give more importance to thought than to sensitivity? I ask because worship is chosen, and sensitivity is choiceless.

Of course, we may be convinced to be aware, that is the trick thought plays all the time.

I don’t know if conviction and awareness are compatible. When I’m convinced of something, I resist or deny awareness of what doesn’t support my conviction. Awareness is choiceless, but our conditioned response to it may distort or deny it.

[James]

@rickScott

The fruits of choiceless awareness, whatever they may be, reveal themselves with being choicelessly aware, not analysis or guessing. And yet interestingly, even knowing this, there is strong resistance to being aware. Being choicelessly aware must be somehow deeply threatening to our sense of stability.

Yes, I think this is so. As I was trying to say in my post - and which Voyager also mentioned - we have (most of us at least) fallen into the trap of mental habit, and have found a sense of security there. So anytime we are required to step away from our usual mental habituation, our usual mental preoccupations (whatever they may be), we feel lost, like a fish out of water. We feel destabilised.

Speaking realistically, I think it is entirely natural to spend at least some of our time in the world of our thinking. After all, we have been educated this way, it is part of culture, maybe even part of our human biological necessity, to think and find pleasure in the imagination or intellect. Within sane limits there is probably no harm in this. Even K read novels and watched movies as part of his daily life, he listened to classical music in his bedroom (where this was available), he attended musical concerts, he watched documentaries or the news on TV, and he of course participated in many stimulating discussions throughout his life. So the life of thought - not merely for riding a bike, driving a car, writing a letter, etc - has its own place.

But the place we have given it is the primary place. We are identified with our mental world, and find any threat to it a threat to our own psychological well being. And although we have normalised this as a culture, it may be - or in fact is - a basic mistake that we ought to be aware of and, if possible, change. Because if this stability, this security, is based on an essentially self-created mental reality, which has no independent actuality apart from what we give it through our preoccupation with thinking, then of course we are in danger of losing this stability as soon as we stop thinking or move away from thinking. Our whole identity is threatened by such a thing. We feel the threat of annihilation.

This is probably the main reason why we inwardly resist giving ourselves up whole-heartedly to being aware.

What do you feel?

[voyager]

@Inquiry

I don’t remember and I’d like to be reminded. Can you find when this exchange took place?

Choiceless awareness

It’s not a matter of devaluing thought but of realizing it’s limitations. Thought is essential - it can’t be devalued. It can only be utilized ignorantly and improperly.

Of course I simplified your answer but essentially it summarized your opposition to my statement.

Regarding your last question, sorry but I don’t feel like being dragged again in an intellectual discussion.

[rickScott]

@James

We feel the threat of annihilation

I think that goes to the heart of the fear/revulsion/discomfort of choiceless awareness. It’s an existential fear, the fear of death. The self seems to think-feel that when it goes, everything goes. I’m fond of my sense of self, as you know, but not of that aspect of it. It’s like living with and being ruled by a safety freak who sees the unknown as high-risk, better to be avoided. I give choiceless awareness short shrift, dabble with it, declare the ‘result’ meh, and hold onto that image.

[James]

@rickScott

It’s an existential fear, the fear of death. The self seems to think-feel that when it goes, everything goes… It’s like living with and being ruled by a safety freak who sees the unknown as high-risk, better to be avoided. I give choiceless awareness short shrift, dabble with it, declare the ‘result’ meh, and hold onto that image.

Yes - this is a good description of what takes place and why.

Nevertheless I feel, I sense, I intuit, that there is a simpler, more modest, more ordinary way into this business that doesn’t involve so much existential angst.

So rather than think-feeling in terms of impossibilities, why not think-feel in terms of what is ready to hand? And ordinary awareness, humble curiosity, is ready to hand.

That is, to look at something, to pay attention to something, because one feels like looking at it, one feels like giving it attention. And if one doesn’t feel any interest in it, then to drop it and pay attention to something that does capture, in a small way, one’s interest.

There is always some aspect of present moment experiencing which one can be interested in. One might even think of this as a kind of experimental hedonism: to be curious about the taste of the apple juice one is drinking, of the cold feel of the glass in one’s hand, of the refreshment one feels after one’s thirst has been quenched, of the feel of water as one rinses the glass under the hot tap, of the view of the garden as one turns to place the glass on the drying wrack. And so on.

Each moment has an infinite variety of small little sensations and experiences like this - and to notice them is to step away slightly from one’s purely mental fixations, so as to open up a conversation with the world beyond thought.

We can’t simply ditch the thought-made mind in one go through a decision or action. It seems to me that we have to feel our way into the world first, before a transformative insight becomes even a vague possibility.

This feeling into the world does not take time: it is immediate feeling-awareness, here and now, of the taste of apple juice, the coldness of the glass, the view of the garden, etc - as well as of the dull rumble of one’s anxieties (from the monsters in the basement), such as they are.

I feel this is worth giving some space and energy to experiment with.

[rickScott]

Perhaps useful is the good old metaphor of snake and rope, where the snake is the annihilation we fear and the rope is the opposite, aliveness? We look and see that utter annihilation awaits us should we dwell in awareness. But spiritual teachers tell us we’ve got it all wrong, that dwelling in awareness is aliveness, not annihilation. Listening passionately, we get it, choiceless awareness is aliveness rather than annihilation. But our understanding is partial, intellectual, the rope still seems snake-ish, we remain confused at the root level.

[rickScott]

Pleasure junkies that we are, we want to milk the last drop of pleasure out of life. This is something we know how to do in our default state of consciousness (not choiceless awareness). But there is no such pleasure to milk from choiceless awareness. There may be gifts galore in awareness, tiny everyday joys, simple moments, but these are not intensely and dramatically thrilling like the pleasures (and pains) of our default sleepy-daydreamy consciousness. At least I don’t think they are (from experience), but what do I know of choiceless awareness, maybe it is endlessly amusing?

[Sean]

@James

Speaking realistically, I think it is entirely natural to spend at least some of our time in the world of our thinking. After all, we have been educated this way, it is part of culture, maybe even part of our human biological necessity, to think and find pleasure in the imagination or intellect. Within sane limits there is probably no harm in this.

Yes, I think you’re right James - spending some of our time in the world of our thinking seems very sane and reasonable. As far as I can see, the problem is that we spend almost all of our time in the world of our thinking and that the other world of choiceless awareness is an unexplored planet where we almost never go. Why would we? Do we even know it exists? What could there possibly be there that would make such exploration worthwhile? We understand that one man went there and it seems to be an incredibly interesting planet but the fact that we want to go there stops us travelling and we can’t get our heads round such a strange set-up. Does this make any sense?

[voyager]

@Sean

As far as I can see, the problem is that we spend almost all of our time in the world of our thinking and that the other world of choiceless awareness is an unexplored planet where we almost never go. Why would we? Do we even know it exists? What could there possibly be there that would make such exploration worthwhile?

“Almost all our time” implies that for a short time at least there is choiceless awareness. And if that happens with something important like the violence in us, it’s enough. I wouldn’t use the expression “the other world”, to me it sounds as if we have created an image of it, of what we should do according to K. and we have associated a sense of impotence with that image. Let’s forget about another world, or an unexplored planet, and just deal with what we are facing from day to day, from moment to moment. And I even think it’s healthier to forget about choiceless awareness, because we have created a myth out of it, and make the best with our ordinary awareness. We have created an image of it and we are trying to achieve it, that is just the wrong way to proceed.

“What could there possibly be there that would make such exploration worthwhile?”

Discontent with our lives, with the way we are using our mental resources. K said we must have the flame of discontent, do we have it? Or are we caught in the old trap of looking for a result?

[James]

@rickScott

what do I know of choiceless awareness

I think Voyager is right to seek to demystify “choiceless awareness”. As we know, choiceless awareness is a phrase K used often in his talks and discussions, but for this reason it has taken on a kind of abstract or ideological significance for some people, which has turned it into an impossible dream for spiritual adepts. As Voyager says,

@voyager

I even think it’s healthier to forget about choiceless awareness, because we have created a myth out of it, and make the best with our ordinary awareness. We have created an image of it and we are trying to achieve it, that is just the wrong way to proceed.

For myself choiceless awareness doesn’t mean something different per se from ordinary awareness - it is simply a refined or more accurate description of what ordinary awareness actually is. So, for instance, the daffodils in the vase are yellow. I am aware that the daffodils are yellow because they are in fact (for a non-colour-blind person) the colour we have agreed to call yellow. There is no choice in this awareness of the fact. Choice may come in immediately afterwards when I say ‘I like’ or ‘I don’t like’ those daffodils, but then one can be aware of this psychological movement as a new fact - and again, the very fact that it is there and one is aware of it means that one has not chosen this fact to be there: one is simply aware of the fact that one ‘likes’ or ‘does not like’ the daffodils, etc.

So ordinary awareness, left to itself, is always choiceless. The issue is that we are psychologically active constantly, giving attention only to our psychological preferences and interests, and this constancy of our psychological life overcomes or overpowers or blocks out simple, ordinary holistic awareness (awareness is also holistic). I think this is what Sean is saying when he writes:

@Sean

the problem is that we spend almost all of our time in the world of our thinking and that the other world of choiceless awareness is an unexplored planet where we almost never go.

The consequence of this is that we begin to make an abstraction of what this “other world of choiceless awareness” is. Either we say to ourselves (mentally, in thought) that awareness is impossible, or we say, as Rick writes, that

@rickScott

there is no such pleasure to milk from choiceless awareness

Or we speculate that it means either

@rickScott

annihilation

or

@rickScott

that dwelling in awareness is aliveness, not annihilation.

Remember, this is the view of awareness that we have from the perspective of our thinking minds, the mind that is preoccupied with thought, and so is bound to be one step removed from the thing it is judging (and it will always likely disvalue awareness in one way or another, because awareness is not dependent on our capacity to think).

At the other extreme, there are those people who make large claims about awareness, that awareness is already transformation, that awareness is a state of non-division, that awareness cannot be an awareness of thought, that awareness is synonymous with insight. This helps contribute to the misunderstanding that awareness is only for the privileged few, for the people who are already Buddhas, enlightened masters, etc.

But simple sensory awareness of the fact that one is hungry or tired, excited or bored, that it is daytime as opposed to nighttime, or nighttime as opposed to daytime, is already awareness. There is no need to make a mystery of this fact.

So I think the issue that we are exploring together is whether there can be a cognitive or attentional shift away from our preference for thinking (and being occupied 9-5 with mental interests), towards a more holistic, sensory and psychological awareness (by ‘psychological’ I mean awareness at the level of our heads - not just our bodies, our senses - but a psychological awareness without the preoccupation with thinking we currently have).

Does this make sense to people?

[voyager]

@James

So I think the issue that we are exploring together is whether there can be a cognitive or attentional shift away from our preference for thinking (and being occupied 9-5 with mental interests), towards a more holistic, sensory and psychological awareness (by ‘psychological’ I mean awareness at the level of our heads - not just our bodies, our senses - but a psychological awareness without the preoccupation with thinking we currently have).

Yes, of course. That brings us back to the question of seeing that thought is not capable to make us live a satisfactory life and so we are all the time discontent with what we do, with how we act, with our relationships. Personally I see that 99% of my relationships with the people around me are superficial or conflictual and therefore I cannot help but being discontent. And I can see that the cause is thought. I feel at home only when sensory awareness is in operation and I don’t find it difficult to shift from thought to perception. So that’s why I felt that talking (too much I think in this forum) about choiceless awareness is just a myth we have created hearing K.

A beginner’s mind is a mind who is not trying to mold one’s life according to the “pattern” given by K, or a mind which is trying to figure out what is that weird experience another had and we hadn’t. A beginner mind is simply watching with spontaneous interest what is in front of him/her or inside his/her head, and when that thing he was watching is no more there, forget about it and watch something else which has come about.

[James]

@voyager

“What could there possibly be there that would make such exploration worthwhile?”

Discontent with our lives, with the way we are using our mental resources.

Yes. I think this is the clue. We realise at some level - whether dimly or acutely - that we are living at the level of thinking, thought (mental preoccupation), when there is the possibility of living at the level of the senses, at the level of holistic awareness (mind-body awareness or emotional and sensory and cognitive awareness, or however else one describes this).

Feeling this discontent with the way we habitually live our lives, we can then become interested in the

@Sean

unexplored planet [of holistic awareness] where we almost never go

This may or may not have a quality of intense

@rickScott

aliveness

But we will not find this out unless we explore this for ourselves. N’est pas?

@voyager

A beginner’s mind is simply watching with spontaneous interest what is in front of him/her or inside his/her head, and when that thing he was watching is no more there, forget about it and watch something else which has come about.

Yes.

[rickScott]

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Mini-tangent

I see the term ‘awareness’ having two distinct meanings:

1. the perceiving-sensing of things (the everyday meaning);
2. the ground from which (apparent) things rise and fall (the transcendent meaning).

These get mixed up in ‘nondual spirituality’ conversations all the time! And it’s the source of great trouble and confusion. That’s why I like using capitalization to clarify:

awareness = perceiving-sensing
Awareness = the ground

Note: I realize this is different from the Krishnamurtian use of ‘awareness,’ so please feel free to ignore should you find it unhelpful.

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[James]

@rickScott

awareness = perceiving-sensing
Awareness = the ground

My understanding of ordinary awareness (perceiving-sensing) is that it may run deeper than the senses (and so is potentially the “ground”, in the language of Dzogchen). So the word awareness can include both these meanings.

But the critical words here are “may” and “potentially”.

Unless one has actually contacted the ground of the mind - aka as total attention, absolute awareness, insight awareness, undivided attention, intelligence beyond the mind, the mind outside the brain, compassion beyond sorrow, etc - then talking about awareness with a capital “A” is merely speculation, right? Even if this speculation is being done by a tradition one might respect (such as Dzogchen, Chan/Zen, Kashmir Shaivism, Ramana Maharishi, or even Krishnamurti).

The problem with going off in the direction of speculation is that this detracts from the actual awareness we have immediate access to, the actual sensory and psycho-physical perceptions that are already present to feel and to perceive, etc. In other words, it may be a trick of our thinking which makes us feel that we are getting hold of a deeper, broader level of perspective - when we may in fact be neglecting the nearer facts of our own direct experiencing.

This is why awareness is not capitalised for me. If the other kind of awareness makes an appearance, one’s life, one’s existence will be the only capitalisation that matters!

[rickScott]

Unless one has actually contacted the ground of the mind - aka as total attention, absolute awareness, insight awareness, undivided attention, intelligence beyond the mind, the mind outside the brain, compassion beyond sorrow, etc - then talking about awareness with a capital “A” is merely speculation, right? Even if this speculation is being done by a tradition one might respect (such as Dzogchen, Chan/Zen, Kashmir Shaivism, Ramana Maharishi, or even Krishnamurti).

For people who have not realized the ground, it is a concept, an image, an inkling. But as you say, the inkling is backed by teachers and teachings that we (rightly or wrongly!) trust. Just like the inklings we have of the possibility of being intelligent and unconditionally free are backed by Krishnamurti.

The problem with going off in the direction of speculation is that this detracts from the actual awareness we have immediate access to, the actual sensory and psycho-physical perceptions that are already present to feel and to perceive, etc. In other words, it may be a trick of our thinking which makes us feel that we are getting hold of a deeper, broader level of perspective - when we may in fact be neglecting the nearer facts of our own direct experiencing.

I understand. I really value the ‘actual sensory and psycho-physical perception’ approach to exploring reality, but I don’t see it as the only way in.

This is why awareness is not capitalised for me. If the other kind of awareness makes an appearance, one’s life, one’s existence will be the only capitalisation that matters!

Existenz!

I like the idea of awareness (low a) spanning the full range of what the term means (in circles like this). I just think it leads to endless confusion, level mixup, a nasty trap to fall into. Think of all the dialogues here that have haggled about the meaning of awareness! Would they have benefited from distinguishing between everyday awareness and transcendent Awareness?

[James]

@rickScott

I like the idea of awareness (low a) spanning the full range of what the term means (in circles like this). I just think it leads to endless confusion, level mixup

It’s only a mix up for people who are approaching this question of life from an abstract, intellectual, or ideological point of view.

If one doesn’t accept ideas as a replacement for actual awareness, then there is no level to mix up: the world as it is, and oneself as one is, is a field of potentially unlimited exploration. This is the beginner’s mind.

There’s a quote from K I like which expresses this point well:

The moment you have achieved anything you cease to have that quality of innocence and humility; the moment you have a conclusion or start examining from knowledge, you are finished, for then you are translating every living thing in terms of the old.

Whereas if you have no foothold, if there is no certainty, no achievement, there is freedom to look.

[James]

@rickScott

Would they have benefited from distinguishing between everyday awareness and transcendent Awareness?

I have done this, constantly - but I seem to have been ignored!

I would say it is the people doing the “transcending” and capitalising who are responsible for the general mix up