An exercise for looking at each of our lacking contentments.

Excerpt from K’s: “Letters to a Young Friend”

“The real thing is man’s discontent, the inevitable discontent. It is a precious thing, a jewel of great worth. But one’s afraid of it, one dissipates it, uses it or allows it to be used to bring about certain results. Man is frightened of it, but it is a precious jewel, without value. Live with it, watch it day after day, without interfering with its movements, then it is as a flame burning away all the dross, leaving that which is homeless and measureless “

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Hi. What/where is the exercise? Trying to understand your title.

“The real thing is man’s discontent…….
Live with it, watch it day after day, without interfering with its movements”

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Ah. Yes it is a good exercise. Thanks.

In my own words, looking at each of my dissatisfied reactions to “what is” each moment I happen to see them.

I am often discontented with what the present moment has to offer. It is contrary to my usual thinking to treat discontent as a jewel to be watched without reacting to or escaping from, which are merely more jewels to be observed without interference.

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On second thought looking at the quote closely, K does not say it is an “exercise”.

Looks like you are changing ‘what is’ to what ‘you want’ it to be.

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I can also put out like this:

“Live with it, watch it day after day, without interfering with its movements”

is a mirror which by looking into, I see the unknown movement of me that I haven’t seen before. I don’t know what will occur if that is done day after day without interfering with it. I don’t care, but it is certainly is a revealing process. I’m not analyzing his statement but am using it to look into the movement of myself as it is unfolding. I really don’t expect anything from it. It is refreshing in and of itself.

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Wonderful. It is something i am struggling with. Thanks

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This to me is ‘living the teaching’. Self knowledge. Nothing to do with having a Krishnamurti transformation. (Whatever that is or was). The teaching as I see it is to set ourselves free from conflict. Only self knowledge can do that. The point of the teaching is not to become another Krishnamurti. He pointed out himself that that was impossible anyway.

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Or even just to see the conflicts we are creating. Freeing from is a problematic phrase. The teaching is the path, not the outcome.