A beginner’s mind

[voyager]

@James

Looking at the moon is one form of seeing. Looking at one’s inward reactions (whatever they may be) is another form of seeing. But the seeing is the same seeing. So it is not a matter of linearity, as far as I understand it. One can dive in at any point. One can “start from here” at any point.

Your answer must be understood in its entirety so I think it’s useless to quote brief sentences. Nonetheless I’m putting quotes just to break your long explanation and so give me time to find a proper answer.

I’m not with you with most of what you say. It may be that I have not understood K and the main point of this discussion. In this case I’ll take your answer as an opportunity to improve my understanding. What I feel now is that I didn’t express myself clearly enough and so a misunderstanding has taken place.
I have no doubt about the starting point, and of course I agree that seeing is just seeing. It’s what I have said myself. Yet I feel that things don’t end there. You essentially are objecting to that. Correct?

Talking about the linearity of thought, I was referring to the whole of K teachings, or if you want, to the problem of understanding ourselves. We can’t deny that what K said is rather complex and can’t be grasped rationally. Also, the understanding of ourselves cannot take place through rationality (which is a product of thought), to point out that I quoted the story of the Zen Master. Are we together in this?

Now, as I said, what we have been saying in this thread about the priority of perception obviously is true, but we have also examined the possible reasons why many people (not only here) have never done the first step, and we have drawn the outline (what I called “the chart”) of the requisites or qualifications for this to happen, something K himself used to do in his talks. This is a linear process of thought which is always incomplete. We have to do it somehow, as K did, still it’s always incomplete. Do you see this point?

Let’s be honest: thousands of people have listened to K, and many of them were serious persons (I have met quite a few of them in Saanen or Brockwood) and yet we never heard of a single individual having done what K said completely. We may have had single little insights but not “the Insight” which makes the whole revolution. Those people meditated, and stayed with what is, but evidently that was not enough. I appreciate the effort you are making to clarify the most important points of K teachings, something very few are capable to do, yet don’t you see that in doing so you are making a linear process? So, what I am saying is not that the act of seeing is linear, but that the whole attempt to put it into words cannot help being linear. There are other things we have not touched, like love for instance, and we cannot talk about and see how the many factors involved are connected by each other. It’s something we have to discover by ourselves in a non-rational way. In my view the process is somehow circular, while the description of it is linear.

As I have said the solution to this impasse is to start the journey anyway even if the whole picture is not rationally clear. This is the starting point. And this is what you/me advised to do. It has of course a great importance. As I said, I could have stopped there, yet I wanted to go beyond and talk of something else which I never heard of here or in K talks.
(For “going beyond” I mean talking of something which happens after you have done the first step)
Your reply is:

@James

So there is, in my understanding, no difference between the act (or inaction) of remaining with the feeling-state (i.e. any psychological reaction) and the realisation that we are that feeling-state. If such a difference exists, it implies that we have not actually ‘stayed with’ that reaction (of insecurity, etc).

I’m not satisfied with the way I worded the problem, as I said perhaps it shows a lack of understanding on my part. Yet mine was not a theoretical question, a speculation, but something I experienced many times. Honestly, I can say that I stayed with what is, without looking for something else, and at certain moments I felt I had some insights. I always forget those insights after few hours only to find them again unexpectedly after some time. So, I cannot be sure whether they were real insights. Hence my questions. For instance, once I realized I was the world. After I thought, it’s so obvious and simple. What I had done was just to look with my whole senses awake (another point we have not touched). But I lost it. OK, no problem in that. But about the content of thought I feel the problem is real. If I focus on the ”sound”, the mere process of thought, I can feel the thinking process slows down and I start being clearly aware of the silence between two thoughts, while if I’m sucked in by the content of thoughts I feel I am feeding it, giving energy to it and it continues endlessly. So your statement

@James

Surely it is not a matter of being absorbed by a feeling-state; rather it is a matter of perceiving it holistically. And one can only perceive it holistically - as per K’s teaching - if one no longer draws a line between the feeling-state and one’s own identity. As K says in one of the quotes given above,

Does not help me. We started saying that we only need to see, to perceive, but here you introduce a further factor which we had not considered before: “holistically” (and this by the way proves that the “instructions” we had named before were incomplete).

I don’t know what it is to perceive holistically; factually I mean, even if I can understand it verbally. What K says implies the understanding of the process of identity. I cannot persuade myself that I am my feelings, I have to see it. Again, we are in presence of a circular process but your way of putting it is linear.

Your sentence: “If such a difference exists, it implies that we have not actually ‘stayed with’ that reaction (of insecurity, etc).” seems to say that the discovery of “I am my feeling” is kind of automatic and that I didn’t actually stayed with my feelings, reaction, etc. I feel this is not true in my case.

[Inquiry]

@James

the topic of this thread is what it means to have a beginner’s mind. This means to look at things afresh, not with conclusions, not with tired eyes or merely skeptical eyes.

Yes, but what we are doing when we flee (or flit like butterflies) from our anger, fear, sorrow, and other unwanted feelings instead of remaining with them, holding them like a baby, is resisting what we are instead of embracing it.

This instinctive resistance is what I’m referring to, and since you’re here with the rest of us, you’re doing it, too, so I think you’re mistaken to dismiss what I’m saying as being cynical and skeptical.

We’re not honestly being what we are, and according to Krishnamurti, the end of this dishonesty is revolting against our instinctual response to flee, escape, from what I am by remaining with what I am when fearful, anxious, greedy, envious, etc.

This is more than acknowledging that I have these feelings and impulses, but owning them by identifying with them as readily or eagerly as we identify with what we like or approve about ourselves.

We’re conditioned to feel better, if not good, about ourselves whatever it takes, be it dishonesty and self-deception. Embracing ourselves at our worst is revolting against what we are and have been for millennia.

[voyager]

@James

So I don’t feel that one needs to draw a line between the content of a thought (a reaction) and the thought itself (which is also a reaction). The thought, the content of the thought, and the thinker of the thought, are all part of the same inward process of reaction. So by remaining with this process non-verbally, in observation, the process is made explicit for what it is at the level of immediate awareness, rather than intellectual or rational thought. This is what I feel K is pointing to.

I think now I have understood where the misunderstanding lies.

For “content of thought” I don’t mean the reaction. When I think of what we have been discussing yesterday here, for example, the content is all the meanings the words convey. So we have the word (or the thought)- a kind of container, which I recall in thinking, the substance or sound of the word, and its meaning (J. has said that, I can answer in this way, etc.) . We can say that the word, the process my brain is creating is real, I can feel it, but its meaning is a non fact, it’s just an association my mind is making. If I stay with the meaning then this interior dialogue with myself absorbs all my mental energy and it goes on indefinitely. I don’t think that is what K meant. To me it looks like being trapped into the illusion that the meaning of our thoughts is true. I can never go beyond thought if I’m giving importance to its meaning. You see my point? Of course I’m not trying to go beyond thought, but to me there is no other story it can tell me.

[James]

You brought in the word thought, not me. I have been talking about psychological content - such as fear, conflict, hate, loneliness, hurt, etc. I have been asking (myself) what is involved in looking at this content? K says, “listen to that content, let it tell you its whole story”. The content of sorrow doesn’t tell you about an

@voyager

interior dialogue with myself [which] absorbs all my mental energy and it goes on indefinitely. I don’t think that is what K meant.

I don’t think this is what K meant either. It’s also not what I meant.

[voyager]

@James

It is a little disappointing that it seems so difficult to meet on any of the points we have been discussing so far. Sometimes it feels that so much energy and expenditure is spent on simply trying to clarify terms, and even then nothing seems to have been communicated. Are we all living in different linguistic domains that never truly contact or overlap with each other’s mental space?

Yes, it’s disappointing to me too.
And perhaps our different linguistic domains mainfest a difference in our way of experiencig perceptions.
I see no solution to that.

[voyager]

@James

You brought in the word thought, not me.

I refuse to think that you cannot understand this simple thing.
I’ll try a last attempt.

1. I observe everything passing in my mind,
2. There are obviously many different things, like thoughts, feelings, emotions, reactions, etc.
3. In most of the cases, when nothing troubles us, what’s going on is just thinking, verbal thinking, that is a dialogue we have with ourselves. So if you bring in interior observation you are also bringing in words, and thought, don’t you?

[James]

I understand what you are saying Voyager, but I guess we are not talking about the same inward situation.

I have been talking about what K refers to as contents of consciousness. Consciousness. Which includes fear, pleasure, hurt, etc - all that. I guess in simple terms we could call this emotion. Emotion is something you feel. It has a bodily component to it.

Generally thoughts - associations, ideas - that pass through one’s mind in any given moment, do not touch us deeply. There is no deep rooted emotional content to them. Except when they turn into reactions, or when the associations dredge up an old fear, an old wound, etc. Or when in relationship, our thoughts give rise to established emotional reactions such as jealousy, lust, hurt, anger, etc.

It is these more deep rooted, established emotional reactions which I have been referring to as contents. Yes, they have been created through thinking - but in this case the thinking has laid down psycho-physical roots in the chemistry of the brain. There are neurological pathways set up to continue as feelings, emotions, etc. And these feelings are what I am interested in looking at: to find out what looking/listening means in this context.

Words, thoughts, obviously interfere with this seeing.

Do you see/hear what I am saying?

[James]

I guess I don’t know what it is you are wanting to say through this example of observing one’s thinking… Are you saying that we can only observe through thinking?

Or are you saying that the only things we can communicate on this thread are through thought, and are therefore invalid?

Apologies if I’m not catching your meaning.

Maybe I can ask - putting aside all we have said on this thread - what is your basic interest in this moment in your life? What questions or question interests or concerns you?

[voyager]

@James

And these feelings are what I am interested in looking at: to find out what looking/listening means in this context.

Words, thoughts, obviously interfere with this seeing.

Do you see/hear what I am saying?

I have no difficulty in understanding what you say, I find it obvious.

No, we are not talking about the same inward situation, at least partially. You are interested in a broad view of what is inside our minds, I was referring to a narrower one.

And I’m interested to that - verbal thoughts - (if my memory does not fail me K spoke about observation of the process of thinking), because that is what I observe most of the cases and I can’t ignore it. That is “my what is” in most of the cases, so I observe that.

“Words, thoughts, interfere with seeing”

Perhaps we are saying the same thing here with different words. I called that interference “being absorbed by the content of thoughts”.

Of course there is a lot more and different content in our consciousness, but I was not interested in that (for the moment).

[James]

Ah, okay. This makes sense. I understand better now what you are saying.

I suppose I took it for granted that when the discussion of disharmony or dissonance arose it was in the context of emotionally dissonant states of mind. This was my own misreading.

I guess at this moment in my life I am more interested in exploring these emotional contents - or, not exploring them, but finding out what is involved in observing them in a profound way (through listening, etc). To find out if seemingly deep rooted feeling states - such as sorrow or fear, etc - can flower in the sense that K talked about.

And for this flowering to occur, this question of what it means to remain with a psychologically factual state like fear or sorrow becomes pertinent.

But I see now that this is not what you have been wanting to talk about (at least here on this thread).

[voyager]

Yes, now we are going together
Paradoxically I find it easier to stay with an emotion, like fear, or anger, perhaps because it is non verbal. I haven’t found any problems with that. While in the case of thoughts I have often fallen into to the trap.
Good night.

[Sean]

@James

. To look at the inner, to stay with the inner, as though one were “looking at the moon”.

Hi James and all. Just to be clear that you were quoting K above James, right?

It seems we can look at a cloud, a tree or the moon for short periods in silence. From what I can gather, for most of us, such observations are very brief. Why is that, I wonder. If we can’t stay with looking at the moon in silence for very long, surely we will equally have trouble “staying with the inner” and looking at our sorrow, jealousy etc.

What exactly are we missing here?

[James]

@Sean

If we can’t stay with looking at the moon in silence for very long, surely we will equally have trouble “staying with the inner” and looking at our sorrow, jealousy etc.

Yes, the two seeings - both outer and inner - are related; they essentially belong to the same act of perception.

But the looking inwardly is more difficult because it may involve pain, disturbance; so there is resistance to such inward looking, because it may bring discomfort, uncertainty, fear, self exposure.

Therefore we tend to avoid it, escape it, move onto something else, get intellectual, turn on the TV, etc, rather than face or live with a challenging psychological fact.

This is why I raised the question of what is involved in remaining with a challenging psychological fact. I think it is a valid question. But it seems that nobody wants to discuss it. Some people are so resistant to it that they refuse to even verbally talk about it. And others feel that nobody they know has ever done it, or they haven’t done it themselves, and so have drawn a conclusion that it isn’t possible. This seems to be the consensus on this thread.

So I’m not sure we will be able to get into the question here.

I still feel the question is valid, and worth pursuing. But maybe not with the people here.

[James]

I should say that @voyager also has said that staying with anger and fear is easy for him. So there’s that.

[voyager]

@James

I should say that @voyager also has said that staying with anger and fear is easy for him. So there’s that.

I have to specify that it has become easy only lately. It was not like that one or two years ago.

@James

This is why I raised the question of what is involved in remaining with a challenging psychological fact. I think it is a valid question. But it seems that nobody wants to discuss it. Some people are so resistant to it that they refuse to even verbally talk about it. And others feel that nobody they know has ever done it, or they haven’t done it themselves, and so have drawn a conclusion that it isn’t possible. This seems to be the consensus on this thread.

First of all, if you are looking for consensus you will always be frustrated. It’s something really easy to see. K was not looking for consensus, he was perfectly aware that nobody, or almost nobody was doing what he advised to do. But this did not prevent him from going on saying what he felt was worth saying and that humanity needed in order to live a real human life. He was not afraid of truth, the truth that after 50 years talking nobody had really changed. There are plenty of hints about this thing in the talks. And what’s more important he never felt frustrated for this lack of comprehension. He knew that success was a distructive thing, even in the job he was doing.

@James

and so have drawn a conclusion that it isn’t possible

If this is a reference to myself, I have to tell you, sorry, that you have gone off the road. I never said that it not possible and I never thought that it is not. I can look openly and serenely to this bitter truth, because I know it’s a basic feature of human mind, the simple fact that we don’t want to change.

But probably you are talking of other people in the forum (I had a glimpse of that yesterday - some confused mind trying to spread his poison). So I can understand and share your feelings.

But even in these cases one has to give up convincing the others, all the others. There is an element of the ego in this pretension that everybody must understand us, must feel the justness of our argumentations. We of course feel the need to share what we consider our discovered jewels with the others, but we should remember that also the person who has opposite views has the same feelings.

I remember a sentence I heard once from a teacher of mine - not a religious teacher;
“A true teacher is the one who never turns to see who is following him”.
K was like that, and we should do the same.

I feel that this topic of the presumed “failure” of K or the impossibility to change has become a tabu in the K circles, especially here. It seems like we are afraid of tackling it and so react aggressively when someone mention it. That shows that we have not yet delved in our human nature, in the ego nature, and therefore we feel defenseless towards those statements.

We should not defend K or his teachings or our understanding, we can only understand why those people arrived at that conclusion and let them think what they want.

There is a precious and irrevocable change in our life once we understand K’s message, or better, once we understand enough of our life, even if the “great revolution” has never taken place. It happened to all the people I mentioned to you before and it happened to me. This is our inalienable truth and force, and with this force we can happily respond to the people who conjured to boycott our work here.

So I feel that the existence of this tabu shows the necessity to face this problem openly and manly. Without negating the reality or trying to remove it from our conscience inventing specious arguments.

I think it’s time for us all here to be aware of a basic and simple fact which is spoiling most of the most meaningful discussions here: the resistance that our ego has towards everything which threaten its existence or its supremacy. This resistance is not just a simple reluctance but it’s a deep and implacable hostility towards the person who incarnate this threat or who foster it. It’s this hostility which mast be managed wisely - and you James showed some talent about that, but evidently it’s not enough.

I may seems melodramatic pointing this out, but I think I can say that it’s a cosmic battle the ego is fighting since it was born. We can see an echo of this in all traditional religions and a very explicit example in politics, the battle between the light and the darkness. And as anyone can see, darkness is rising and getting stronger and stronger in all the world, with nazifascism resurrecting in many countries, and violence spreading without control. As we are humanity we cannot help being affected by this ego battle, it’s not only there, but it’s in here, in ourselves.

And the more we try to persuade the ego, the more it resists. In real life we can find some kind of truce in this battle, the ego energies can be directed towards pleasant activities like sports or art, where the ego find some gratification and therefore it keeps friendly, but here no truce is possible, no diversions which can satisfy the ego. K is asking a complete surrender of the ego and this makes it berserk. If we understand this subtle and hidden game some people play here we will find a way to solve the matter.

[James]

Voyager,

If I say that this post of yours is a meta-post, do you understand what I mean by this phrase? I mean by ‘meta’ that it does not (imo) attempt to directly address what I feel is the question I have been asking.

The thread topic is “a beginner’s mind”, and the sub-topic I thought we had reached was “looking at what we are inwardly” (in particular, what does it mean to remain with difficult or challenging psychological states). I realise that I have become isolated in asking this question, but this is the question nonetheless that I have been wanting to look at - with a “beginner’s mind”.

So when you bring up this whole discussion about

@voyager

this topic of the presumed “failure” of K or the impossibility to change [which] has become a tabu in the K circles, especially here

I don’t feel this is pertinent to the question of exploring these issues with a “beginner’s mind”.

But ok. I admit defeat. This topic simply doesn’t engage anyone’s interest. I will drop it.

So, putting the primary topic of the thread aside (or what I have taken to be the primary topic of the thread aside), let us look at what has now become the focus of the thread. Which is… how we discuss anything? How our egos get involved in our discussions about anything? Our view of Krishnamurti’s failure or success in teaching, and/or other people’s failure or success in listening to him?

[James]

@voyager

I feel that this topic of the presumed “failure” of K or the impossibility to change has become a tabu in the K circles, especially here. It seems like we are afraid of tackling it and so react aggressively when someone mention it.

In my experience - whether here on Kinfonet, at Brockwood or elsewhere - this is not a taboo subject at all. Some people really enjoy or actively promote this topic. On Kinfonet there are a number of people (many of whom have left, but who still pop by occasionally) who feel very strongly that Krishnamurti was a failure as a teacher, and that what he talked about is an impossibility, and/or that Krishnamurti himself was a fraud, or that he was a superhuman freak who achieved what no human being can achieve - or that many people have had the same insights as K. There are these wildly polarised views on the subject.

While this subject interests me a little bit, I find it of secondary importance for myself, because it involves a lot of speculation, second hand opinion (no matter how much informed that opinion may be), and doesn’t actually address the core questions I personally wish to ask. I find the whole topic a distraction, not a taboo. I am not a cultist enough to think that what K has talked about - or aspects of it at least - have never been experienced by other human beings apart from K. Which doesn’t mean I think that what he has talked about is easy, or that many people have had insights into it, etc.

[James]

@voyager

If this is a reference to myself, I have to tell you, sorry, that you have gone off the road. I never said that it not possible and I never thought that it is not.

Previously, you wrote:

@voyager

Let’s be honest: thousands of people have listened to K, and many of them were serious persons (I have met quite a few of them in Saanen or Brockwood) and yet we never heard of a single individual having done what K said completely… Those people meditated, and stayed with what is, but evidently that was not enough

Your post was written in the context of the discussion (at least, this is how I took it) of what is involved in remaining with a psychological feeling-state. This was your reply to that.

And yet you have also said, a little contradictorily, that you find doing this with certain states like anger and fear, easy. So I am confused.

[James]

@voyager

it’s a cosmic battle the ego is fighting since it was born. We can see an echo of this in all traditional religions and a very explicit example in politics, the battle between the light and the darkness. And as anyone can see, darkness is rising and getting stronger and stronger in all the world, with nazifascism resurrecting in many countries, and violence spreading without control. As we are humanity we cannot help being affected by this ego battle, it’s not only there, but it’s in here, in ourselves.

Ok. I agree with this. But does this mean that we cannot at least try to look at what it means to remain with a challenging psychological state? I don’t think we need to go to def-con 5 or whatever to just talk about these things.

It doesn’t mean we have to have complete consensus, but to at least have the ability to agree that it is a question worth asking - which is what I was talking about with Rick and others.

[James]

@voyager

I think it’s time for us all here to be aware of a basic and simple fact which is spoiling most of the most meaningful discussions here: the resistance that our ego has towards everything which threaten its existence or its supremacy. This resistance is not just a simple reluctance but it’s a deep and implacable hostility towards the person who incarnate this threat or who foster it.

Maybe this is the question that is worth giving attention to then? I think this is what you are saying, right? - That our egos sabotage all real investigation…?