A beginner’s mind

Kinfonet Discussion
24

So far, I don’t feel I have made any statements that are not self-evidently true. At least, I’m not aware of making any outrageous claims. And I don’t think I have mentioned anything about 2 seconds of awareness (or not having 2 seconds of awareness) on this thread, so you are perhaps bringing this up from a previous conversation? Even if I have said it here, we can just drop it, ok?

If you don’t like what I said about present moment awareness being an “option” - by which I meant a human potential, a human possibility (which it self-evidently is) - then just ignore it. There’s no need to focus on one minor detail at the expense of everything else which has been shared.

I feel, Inquiry, that you are wanting - for the life of me I do not know why - to make an argument out of what I say. Is it that you are in resistance to this topic of awareness?

I don’t want to have an argument about what it means to be aware. I am wanting to start afresh. So please explore it in this spirit. It doesn’t mean agreeing with what is being said, or accepting things you don’t feel are true. It means putting one’s strong objections and argumentativeness aside for the time being and simply looking at the topic as though for the first time. And one can only do this if it deeply interests one, if one is voluntarily open to exploring.

Is this not true?

Am I making an invalid request?

25

I hope you don’t mind my not understanding what you have written Crina?

Is the context of what you say in your post that we have images of each other? And these images make it difficult for us to perceive each other afresh?

Obviously, if we have a very strong image of a person, it is difficult to look at them as though for the first time. But this doesn’t mean we cannot experiment with it and see what happens.

Is this what you were suggesting, or were you talking about something else?

26

no worries, I don’t mind

I edit many times my responses, I read them,they seem clear to me, but then I hear they are not !!

I’ll try again to respond, and post before you wake up tomorrow morning

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27

I am going to discuss here 2 statements: one from the thread “The Purpose of Kinfonet” and one from “A beginner’s mind”.

The 2 statements are:

1. “I cannot stand people who think they know it all” (from “The Purpose of Kinfonet” thread)
2. “And yet in every moment there is a possibility of simply dropping one’s knowledge, dying to one’s memories, one’s ideas and conclusions, and looking afresh. This is an option that most of us don’t even realize we have.” (from “A beginner’s mind” thread)

My questions:

  • how am I going “to look afresh” when “I cannot stand people who think they know it all”. To be able “to look afresh” at anything/anyone means to stand the “what is”, to stand “the people who think they know it all” (in our case)
  • when I say: “in every moment there is a possibility of simply dropping one’s knowledge, dying to one’s memories, one’s ideas and conclusions, and looking afresh”, doesn’t this imply that any human being can do it ? This means that “the people who think they know it all” can do it as well, any human can do it.

Based on the above I say this:

  • “to look afresh” at people means the freshness of my look is independent of how well or unwell I can stand him/her. Which means all humans are the same in the light of this freshness. What is this “sameness” will be the next question ?

:face_holding_back_tears:PS: I am not saying I don’t have my own “I cannot stand people who …etc”.

ADDED LATER

  • I have no clue what I said in the last paragraph ( “sameness” stuff) - I am either too tired right now or I said a non sense.
28

Hi Crina. We’re all full of knowledge so that seems like a major impediment to looking afresh. We talk a lot about the limits of knowledge on here, and how knowledge and past experience distort our seeing of the present moment. I feel there is a contradiction between being interested in and having some understanding of K’s teachings and being a “know it all”. How do you see this?

29

Hi Sean,
The one having some understanding of K’s teachings and the one who “knows it all” are both struggling to make sense of this complicated life.
Not standing the “know it all” person adds conflict to my life. So, my main concern is my reaction and not the person.

I feel I need to be very careful with words not to create confusion, or misunderstanding. I don’t think I can say more in this sense…at the moment :slightly_smiling_face:

30

So Crina, put very simply, you are talking about images in relationship and how these interfere with a fresh perception, right?

I think the person who said “I can’t stand know-it-all people” was me, wasn’t it? I think I also said that this is in fact how some other people see me! (because they take me to be an intellectual, and they have strong reactive images about people who are intellectual).

So we all have images of each other in relationship. And the question is, how are we to look at each other afresh if we have these strong images of each other interfering all the time. Right? I think I am understanding what you have written.

So:

To which you answer:

This may be in essence correct, but it depends on what is meant by the word “stand” here, doesn’t it? If I am honestly repulsed by something, then I can pretend to “stand” it, or I can force myself through mental effort, discipline, strained politeness, to tolerate it. But is tolerating something the same thing as looking afresh? Or is tolerance a kind of looking which is still tied to the image we have of the thing that repulses us? For me, it is the latter. Tolerance is saying through gritted teeth “I love you” when in fact we feel annoyance, frustration, even hate. So what does looking afresh mean in this context?

Perhaps one way of looking at this problem of images in relationship, is to admit to ourselves that we have them. This involves a fresh looking of its own. In the context of Krishnamurti’s teachings - or I might say of real life - having a beginner’s mind doesn’t mean automatically that we will love each other and be at peace with the world. It may mean - and it usually does mean - becoming aware, as though for the first time, of the fact that we have all these images and reactions in relationship. This is the ‘what is’, as opposed to the ‘what should be’.

I should be loving. I should be my brother’s keeper. I should love my neighbour as myself. I should love my enemies. I should have compassion - which means passion for all living things. But is this love and compassion an actuality in my life? Maybe it is in brief moments. But much of the time the ‘what is’ is that I get annoyed, upset, frustrated, hurt, angry with people; and this annoyance, frustration, anger, etc, is remembered in the form of an image in my mind. And this image responds when I see or hear or read this person. No? This is the ‘what is’ in many cases.

So part of looking afresh is admitting to myself that I have these images, and to not attempt to change them or suppress them or judge them or justify them or indulge them. They are part of ‘what is’, and I am interested in looking afresh at ‘what is’ (‘what is’ being the actuality of my experience, or my daily living).

What do you feel about this?

Maybe we could say that part of our “sameness” is that we all have images of each other, and these images interfere in our relationships with each other? We share a common consciousness, filled with similar contents of experience (love, loneliness, hurt, pleasure, grief, boredom, moments of bliss, etc). We also share life: we are all living beings, seeking, striving, hoping, longing. We all want to be happy, find peace or security, find clarity and understanding. We all want to love and be loved.

So part of what it means to see each other a fresh is to read between the lines of the images we have of each other so that we can perceive this common or shared humanity. Which is love, right? So before we can love in a truly meaningful sense, we have to be able to look beyond our images, which means no longer holding to these images as though they were the final truth, being able to die to these images as they arise in the mind, or simply not having images at all. This is logical. This is what one’s reason tells us is possible, potential, could be, might be, will be if we are able to live without images.

But the fact is that I have images. So before I can love another, before I can love humanity, before there can be a quality of deep, broad, universal (as well as personal) compassion, I must be free of images - right? And I cannot be free of images if I am living in denial about the fact that I have images. I may never be free from images, so I have to face my present actuality afresh: I have both weak and strong images of people, and can I become aware of this fact - without judging it, etc - in the present moment of relationship?

So part of being authentic for me is saying or admitting to myself, for example, “I actually cannot stand the way that X, Y, Z communicates themselves; it repulses me”. And they may feel exactly the same way about me.

So these are the present psychological facts - the ‘what is’ - of the relationship.

The next question then is, how is one to look at all this - the ‘what is’ - afresh, as though for the first time?

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31

Hi Crina. Yes, I think you’re right here. Maybe it’s always good to bear in mind that the “know it all” person may have come across this way on a previous thread but they might not be like this all the time. If we accept that each moment is new, we can try to put aside past knowledge of people and begin from scratch each time we interact. I think this is what James was getting at earlier. Does this make sense?

32

Yes. This is part of it. In an actual moment of relationship - which is admittedly difficult to have on a purely text-based platform like this - there is an opportunity to see the image-reaction one has to another person, and to find out if one can drop this image or put it aside in order to communicate.

Some image-reactions are easy to put aside. But some image-reactions are more deep rooted, and it will not be easy to dissolve or drop the image until or unless the roots of the image-reaction have been addressed. In which case one can experiment with temporarily ‘bracketing’ the image, putting it aside temporarily without deceiving oneself into thinking one has dissolved it. But eventually the roots of the deeper image-reactions will need to be perceived if the relationship with this person is to flower.

Sometimes the image-reactions exist because of a basic issue in the relationship that needs to be given attention: this may be because basic assumptions are being challenged, which means that until these assumptions have been unearthed the image-reaction will continue.

But surely there is nothing in principle to stop us from, in a moment at least, dropping one’s images and starting the relationship from scratch all over again. The challenge comes when person A is ready to drop their images, but person B wants to continue them. Or when person A is willing to admit that they have an image, but person B won’t accept that they have an image.

This is the complexity of relationship.

34

Okay, I’ll keep in mind that you consider this a “minor detail” when I read what you write, and allow for statements like this to go without comment.

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Hi again Crina. I think this is a good point. A lot can be learnt from observing our reactions to other people.

On here, we often have past history with other posters but each thread is a new one. If possible, I try not to let what someone has said in the past influence interaction in the present. Sometimes, any meeting of minds might be impossible in which case it’s probably better to avoid interacting altogether. We all have different ways of being but people can change. If I met a “know it all” last week they might not be a know it all today. How do you see this?

40

At the risk perhaps of repeating myself boringly, all I meant by the word “option” was that being aware, paying attention, listening, seeing, pausing, sensing, being open, inquiring, etc, is possible for a human being at any time.

If I only live in my thoughts, in my ideations, in my head, I may not be aware (except nominally, intellectually, vaguely) that it is possible to look outside and see the sun setting. This possibility of looking outside, using my senses, my eyes, to look at the sun setting (this is only an example), is always there.

Perhaps the word “option” was clumsily chosen, but this is all I meant by it.

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41

When you look at the image you have about the person you, look at yourself.
Forget the person.
When I say to myself about the another: 'I can’t stand her" I actually can’t stand the image I created.
There is no other who has created this image for me.
The annoyance, frustration, even hate belongs to the one who has created it.
Of course that there are external triggers, but the “creator and the holder” of the annoyance, frustration, even hate is not the other person.

So when I meet the person next time, I am actually going to meet the image I have created about that person. I can attempt, at least, to look afresh at my own creation (the image), before I can see afresh the person.

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42

Hi James. One thing that strikes me is that being as free of images is possible is obviously very important, but there may be fundamental differences in personality which make it very difficult to interact with someone in a constructive way. I don’t mean just here, but in life in general. It’s probably easy to waste time and energy at times when real communication is very difficult or impossible, don’t you think?

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Yes. The whole issue of relationship, and images in relationship, is subtle and complex. It probably requires its own thread, so I’m not sure if I should start a separate thread on the topic or try to address it on this one?

My interest in looking at what it means to have a beginner’s mind had more to do with exploring the nature of simple awareness. Seeing the world and oneself afresh. In this sense there is an overlap with this topic and Rick’s thread on ‘Listening is seeing’.

Seeing afresh and listening with attention are obviously relevant to what it means to relate to other people, but the topic of relationship - or images in relationship - feels like it requires its own space to do it justice.

And yet at the same time it feels silly to open up a new thread each time a conversation deviates because of people’s interests. So I don’t know whether I should try to address it here or elsewhere?

44

Yes. This is a subtle point that is difficult to discuss coherently. How much of the difficulty in relating to people who seem to have completely alien personalities is created by one’s image of them, and how much is it simply a fact of experience?

Some people are so differently wired, live in such different mental and emotional worlds, that attempting to bring them together into communion will be inevitably frustrated. Common sense or emotional intelligence may save us wasting energy attempting to do what is practically and psychologically impossible.

But if we try - idealistically - to give people the benefit of the doubt, we may not become clear about this until we have already wasted a certain amount of energy.

Having an idealistic attitude is obviously problematic. But so is cynicism. So what we require is an attuned sensitivity (or emotional intelligence) in relationship to perceived as quickly as possible if there is a possibility of communication and communion with another, or if the gulf in sensibility is just too wide to reasonably attempt it. Something like this. What do you feel?

Btw, I have opened up a thread on ‘images in relationship’, so feel free to respond (if you have a response) there if you want to, or here.

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45

I have opened up a new thread on ‘images in relationship’, so perhaps this question can be pursued there?

So I will just briefly respond to what you wrote here.

Yes, I agree with this up to a point. But I think the reality of it is more nuanced than this. Our images of each other are in part based on what we actually observe and experience of one another. Our observations and experiences are coloured by our own peculiar conditioning, by our own attitudes and prejudices, but unless we are blindly projecting out of pure fantasy - which does often happen, and which I am not denying - there is often an element of fact in what triggers the image. This is what makes image-making so complex and visceral.

Maybe we can pursue this on the new thread? I will post a response there and you can pick it up if you feel like it.

46

When I encounter someone I’ve formed an image of, I am seeing how the past impinges on the present.

Because I know I am seeing this person through the screen of the image I previously formed, I am more aware of the complexity of this person now than I was at first. First impressions are rough drafts at best, and crude conclusions at worst.

47

Yes, this is indeed complex. I suppose applying common sense is usually a good guide. We all probably move away from some friends and move towards others as life goes on. If a friend is bad for you in the sense that they are always competitive and seem to care little about seeing you happy and fulfilled, it’s usually a good idea to distance yourself from them. The fact that you have a negative image of this person may well play a part but there is also an element of being aware of a person’s behaviour and how that impacts on you - if someone is behaving in a destructive way towards you, that is an observable fact.

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48

But it isn’t always “an observable fact”, and unless one is unusually sensitive and observant, one may never know.