When one is listening with a quiet mind where is prejudice and ego?
Do you see your question as remaining with what James wrote or escaping from it? Is this how one seems to be engaged but it is the ego just creating a distraction?
Yes. Thatās why itās called āself-deceptionā.
Hello Bob. What James wrote struck me as interesting and I asked a genuine question in the sense that I really donāt know the answer. My question prompted some self-reflection and perhaps led others to reflect. Who knows?
How self aware are we? If I was sitting opposite myself at a table, how would I come across? As a sensitive listener who is attentive to others? As someone who listens little but instead shows off knowledge? Something in between?
How do the rest of you see this?
This is something we could explore in daily life. This forum is also part of it, but has the limitation of being based on words. The exploration must be in daily life and then the awareness can continue in the forum. Like K said, we mistake the menu for the food.
Can we explore awareness through words. I ate a particular fruit today which you have never tasted. Can I convey the awareness of eating it through words here? It is not possible. Awareness has to be in daily life, then awareness can try to express in words. If it starts the other way round, we try to explore awareness through words, without being aware in daily life, then I donāt feel thought can discover awareness. Awareness has to be discovered directly in daily life.
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This is such an interesting question. It shows the importance of actual relationship. Short of out-of-body experiences (!), one cannot stand outside of oneself to see ourselves as others see us. We can hazard a speculative guess, or try a thought experiment (which I think is probably worthwhile). But ultimately the best mirror of who we are lies in our relationship with other people - as well as with ideas - and in the awareness we have of the reactions we have with respect to these relationships.
One can see that others have images about who we are which are based on their own projected imagination. And one can see the images one has of others based on our own projected imagination.
One can listen to the judgements of others, but one has to remember that most people donāt care deeply enough to actually perceive another person carefully. Or, if one is able to trust another person, someone whom one respects or regards as a friend, one can listen to their feelings and assessments about who they think we are, and perhaps learn from that.
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Do you consider a person guilty until proven innocent? Do you expect others to prove themselves honest before you give them the benefit of the doubt?
@Sean
āIf I was sitting opposite myself at a table, how would I come across?ā
Or, I could simply look at my face in the mirror and see what I have to say about my self.
Yes, but when I am looking at myself in the mirror (an actual mirror), I see what I am habituated to see. I donāt see myself as another person would see me, as a stranger would see me.
I donāt know what you are referring to?
You said, āIf you take me at my word that is the same trap that taking K at his word is. Where did that get you or anyone else?ā
āIf I was sitting opposite myself at a table, how would I come across?ā Sean
I am taking Seanās experiment proposition and make it practical. The way I judge/evaluate my self is the way I judge others.
- I am not interested in the content of my evaluation, I am watching the process.
Are you sure youāre not operating on a double standard as most of us do? Being self-centered, arenāt we inclined to make exceptions and exemptions for ourselves that we may not make for others?
I sometimes wonder if it wasnāt a mistake on Kās part to have introduced the concept of awareness rather than just sticking to the limits of thought.
Awareness to my understanding is not something that can be enacted, pursued. Rather, awareness is blocked by the movement of identified thinking. That is what is real for us. Our conclusions - as believer, denier, judger, judged - etc. It is thought that is limited, no matter what we think. If we were to turn our scrutiny to our own selves would we not see we still have confidence in what we think? And is it not that confidence that blocks awareness?
We need to turn our attention to the fact that we are conditioned, that we look out from there. It isnāt a matter of right or wrong, it is a matter of the inherent limitation of thought. If it were possible to come to terms with that, and our āconfidenceā shaken, for want of a better word, it seems to me, awareness would take care of itself, would be in the forefront, unbidden. I, as identified thought, cannot be aware. Awareness is not a practice, as I understand it anyway.
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I understand. But Iām not sure that looking at oneself in a mirror is sufficient?
If the good people on Kinfonet were sent on a package holiday together, and we all had to share the same house, it would quickly become clear to us what kind of people we all are - outside of our relationship here on the forum.
If - through some kind of miracle! - the various walls we have of each other, the strong judgements and mistrust, was broken down to some extent, so that we could be considerate and caring, as well as more objective, then perhaps we could each be completely frank with one another and tell each other what we really think about each other: what our images, reactions, perceptions of each other is.
We cannot do this with the Kinfonet people of course! - but maybe it happens in life that sometimes we are thrown together with people in this way, and the walls break down sufficiently in the way I outlined, so that Seanās experiment can actually be carried out in some way. So that we can begin to see ourselves objectively (at least to some extent) through other peopleās eyes.
But of course, this depends on circumstances and on other people. An alternative experiment would be - as you say - to be able to observe ourselves with complete objectivity, complete impartiality, as though one were an alien living in the body of a separate host.
But without the promise of a reward, would anything be done? Would we, could we, be interested in truth for its own sake? For no perceivable benefit?
Yes, awareness just is. As Iāve said, itās like light. It illuminates actuality, and if the brainās conditioning doesnāt doesnāt react to what awareness reveals, thereās no confusion or conflict. But the psychologically conditioned brain does react, and thatās the problem.
If each one of us is a light to oneself, but our light is dimmed or blocked by the content of consciousness, and weāre too confused and conflicted to know what to do, what to practice, all we have is awareness.
@Inquiry - with regret, I have to say I donāt understand your question - please say it again if you wish ā¦
Meanwhile this is the experiment:
When I look at my face in the mirror I see a stranger. Really ! This is not a joke.
As I look at my external appearance thoughts start to judge my face and imagine all kind of things, and in the mean time I continue to be amazed to see I am a stranger to myself. The looking stops when there are enough judgements to feel overwhelmed by them.
The value in this exercise is to see how a judgement appears, what triggers it, how I deal with it, etc. When I see others in our dialogues I think the same process starts again.
Why would be different?
ADDED LATER
- the word and the feeling of ā a strangerā, used by the mind to define my face in the mirror, may indicate that the mind detects it can never know that face totally.
- if one could see that the word āstrangerā points to the incapacity of thinking to know something totallyā¦ but words are unfortunately taken as finite objects and not as pointers ā¦
I like to think Iām āinterested in truth for its own sakeā, but there are times when I donāt feel able to face it, and I escape or go to sleep. Choiceless awareness, it seems to me, requires more energy than the dimmed, dulled, compromised awareness Iām accustomed to.
Which is why I am thinking it is more down to earth to focus on understanding the nature of thought, rather than making decrees to oneself or to others about listening or ending thought. Awareness in the sense of the ending of thought cannot be willed into being surely. The question is whether the I/thought process is capable of seeing its own mechanism in a palpable enough manner for it to subside of its own accord or whether some other factor needs to be involved for that to occur.
Someone posted this from K recently on another thread.
K: f you depend on circumstances to make you satisfied with life then you will create misery and chaos, for then you are a plaything of environment, and it is only when circumstances are transcended through understanding that there is order and clarity. To be constantly aware of the process of acquisitiveness, of addiction, of distraction, brings freedom from them and so there is a true and simple life.ā
Ojai, California 8th Public Talk 2nd July, 1944.
As with all things K, the above is subject to interpretation. But this line is relevant in the current context.
āTo be constantly aware of the process of acquisitiveness, of addiction, of distraction, brings freedom from them and so there is a true and simple life.ā
What does he mean by ābeing constantly awareā in this context, precisely? By ātrueā and āsimpleā? Is he talking about everyday āselectiveā awareness (concentration, noticing, focus) or something else? By āconstantlyā, does he mean the now moment, starting afresh at any moment, so that it isnāt a matter of continuity, of accumulating successes, of benefit or reward?