The end of meditation is meditation itself. The search for something through and beyond meditation is end-gaining; and that which is gained is again lost. Seeking a result is the continuation of self-projection; result, however lofty, is the projection of desire. Meditation as a means to arrive, to gain, to discover, only gives strength to the meditator. The meditator is the meditation; meditation is the understanding of the meditator.
What does an āunderstanding of the meditatorā mean? Is it the simple appreciation that where there is an observer there will be desire and striving? Or is a more earth-shattering revelation required? That is the question facing us.
Seeking is conflict, and conflict of any kind, noble or base, requires selective, directed awareness. Freedom lies in unfettered awareness itself, not in the effort to be aware, which is an activity of self. Freedom has no value. Awareness is wholistic, has no concept of change, indeed has no concepts whatsoever, not even to curtail the seeking that is so vital to oneself. That much is obvious and I think this is the essence of what K is saying above. There is no relationship, no bridge between self and awareness. We are left to our own devices. To be or not be. The choice is ours to step into a new river at any moment, or not. Understanding be damned. The seeing is the doing. Just do it or just see it. They are one and the same.
If thatās true, and my never taking this āstep into a new river at any momentā is because Iām unaware of this constant opportunity, Iām innocently ignorant, and have no choice but to carry on as usual. If, however, I am aware of this opportunity and I choose not to take it, Iām evil.
Or, good if I keep on trying. To awareness though, there is no distinction. Life has no purpose, no point of view. It just is. Viewpoints are beliefs, mind constructs.
It is a slippery slope, this talk of āchoosingā that is an immediate doing, that does not act on perception, does not oppose understanding. The terrain is rife with opportunities for self-deception.
Putting that aside for the moment, it is possible for anyone to be passively aware, is it not? For most of us, that is a fleeting occurrence - with thought resuming center stage almost immediately. There are several possibilities as to why this is case. It could be that we are deceiving ourselves and thought is always dominant even when we think it absent - in this case the activity was precipitated from an understanding or preference. It could be that it is too boring to watch life idly go by - which again implies thought was present all along. Or it could be that it requires tremendous energy to not identify with the movement of the thought, to treat it as any other occurrence - the I-process having the tremendous momentum of lifelong usage behind it. We simply donāt have that kind of energy at our disposal ā a great deal of energy is required to deal with the incessant movement of fear and desire and we simply donāt have any left over. It isnāt a question of will or desire, or even of studying ourselves more earnestly as far as I can tell - that is all further dissipation. The irony of this is that the longer the interval of self-abandon the more energy is made available for that purpose, as that is the only time insatiable self-interest is in abeyance. The last possibility of course is that the energy comes from a giant explosion of insight into the whole affair of self and thought. The likelihood of the latter happening to any of us I would say is pretty slim.
Could it be as you pointed out Dev, thought is present in background even in a state of attention. After reading what you have pointed out, i question myself how am I able to recall that in a state of attention there wa no thought. Is it that memory is not just thought, experience, feeling etc but even in a state of attention everything is recorded or is it that self is much more than thought, feeling, experience etc and as you said may be it requires tremendous energy of insight to understand what it is and freedom from it ( of course desire for freedom from ā Iā is still part of ā I ')
Surely the point of our interest in unbiased awareness is to render our thought processes more accurate? To meet life intelligently. To double check what and how we are perceiving by being more deliberate, less mechanical, if you will. And, as we canāt obviously use image-making to totally understand image-making, we must fall back on agenda-less awareness. Natural intelligence will presumably take over from there and any change in thinking then would be effortless, discovery-based. Or, so you would think anyway.
You canāt examine something by suppressing it. Or by altering it. You need leave it be. Totally relax. Allow yourself to be whoever or whatever you are. Not that we can suppress thought-based perception. That is just plain silly. We only imagine we are able do so. Which is but another example of un-intelligent behavior. It does take energy to be alert in this fashion. It is far easier to function on auto-pilot and carry on unquestionably with what we believe to be the case. Just as it is to easier talk about all this than to actually do something .