And, what are the hindrances to understanding and being free of suffering? We all suffer, right? And we all contribute to the suffering in the world. ‘The house is on fire’ according to K. How will we put out the fire? And what is the fuel that keeps the fire burning?
You’re asking about one side of the ‘coin’, suffering. Now ask about the other, "what are the hindrances to understanding and being free of pleasure?
Our own activity of thinking is the fire; and the fuel for this fire is the past. So it is not our place to end suffering. We can only instigate it. To be free of suffering means to be entirely free of all self-centred activity. It means being nothing at all, psychologically. This doesn’t come about through any process of thought; it can’t. Our self-centred activity is the cause of all the misery in the world. This activity has to come to a complete stop. That’s all. There are no intermediate phases.
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We pursue pleasure because we’re suffering. They’re two sides of the same coin. What would you say in answer to your question? I doubt anyone…not a single human… is interested in being free of pleasure, however 
Therefore we can do nothing, as the only action we know is action based upon thought. What will bring this activity of self to a complete stop in your view, if thought won’t …cannot…do it?
Why bring in ‘others’, this only has to do with you. You can’t end suffering and hold on to pleasure, they’re the same thing. One you like and the other you dislike. That tears you apart. Psychologically.
Psychological thought / desire has to stop.
K " Can you, as you are now sitting here listening to me, free yourself from time? Can you be aware of that state of being in which there is no time? If you are aware of that state of being, you will see that there is a tremendous revolution taking place instantaneously, because the thinker has ceased. It is the thinker that produces the process of becoming. So, time can be brought to an end, time has a stop - not chronological time, but psychological time."
It’s the common mind of man, however. We can discuss it because it’s a universal problem. If it was only myself that suffered then I could see your point.
You can’t end suffering and hold on to pleasure, they’re the same thing. One you like and the other you dislike. That tears you apart. Psychologically.
You’re saying that we only suffer because we hold on to pleasure? I’m not so sure. Perhaps it’s the need for psychological security that leads to suffering along with attachment to various pleasures and fulfillments. We suffer when we’re violent and afterwards fear punishment or retaliation for our violent act/s. We suffer when our self image is hurt. We suffer if someone insults our religion or our nationality or race. There’s a lot involved. Not saying your point isn’t valid however. Obviously we suffer if our pleasure is denied.
No. The self / thought has created the opposites.
If motivation is to ‘end suffering’, then obviously self is involved. Isn’t it? Whether ‘my’ suffering or ‘your’ suffering, self is the motivator.
But self IS the suffering. And self wants to remain, but to be without suffering. Where is the logic in that?
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Of course self is involved. None of us is totally selfless. He who is without self and suffering, raise your hand. We suffer and we want to end suffering and put out the ‘fire’ when our house is on fire. Who is it that doesn’t wish to end suffering…the drug addictions, the depression, the violence, the hatred, wars, poverty and starvation, brutality and exploitation? Do any of us want to live with suffering and misery?
I can think about this suffering. I am suffering; why? Is it because my way of life is conditioned, detached, mechanical, and I feel this pain of separation from living naturally? More than that, I feel I am standing out of love, out of peace, out of sanity. Isn’t this clear from the thinking about this, this is an immediate state of affairs? Not a matter of more ideas, more action, more time, but the actuality now. The actuality completely realised, as a matter of fact, there is the sufferer. Thinking about this instance of a sufferer, not following the way of thinking which is trying to resolve my sense of suffering, am I thinking there is only me in some solitary existence?
That’s a wrong question, isn’t it? We have already said that we can do nothing. Before we put any other questions, have we listened to this statement?
Well, yes, we’ve listened, but do we see it as the truth? Do we understand why you are maintaining that that’s a fact? Before we understand that statement, we have to understand what ‘doing something’ is…what thought is actually doing when it reacts to suffering. And what the nature of psychological thought is…as I see it.
Would you say this standing out of, is the fact of the brain as inattention?
I would say that sensing a dimension to suffering which is greater than my suffering, leads to the sense of my suffering as less significance, so then I am not as bound by it, and then can look at things afresh.
There is nothing we can do. More explanations won’t help to see it.
Paul: There is nothing we can do. More explanations won’t help to see it.
K spent his whole adult life explaining what division is all about. Going into it with Bohm and others in lengthy discussions and alone in his talks. I assume he thought it was worthwhile and that he might ‘help’ those of us who suffer.
But at the end, as at the beginning, the division is you. That cannot be explained because the very explanation creates further division.
No, what we desire is pleasure and to ‘become’. That desire creates the suffering and misery…‘Desire’ for, or against, is to ‘get somewhere’ psychologically, To attain this or that. A rejection of ‘what is’ for 'what isn’t. It is the source of conflict.
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Maybe you don’t wish to explain it…to go into it…but K surely did. He did it ceaselessly. Explaining the division caused by the word, the ideal, the belief, opinion, conclusion, etc. These divisions are what we are, but it’s not apparent to most of us. We see them as facts …as realities…not as the source of the problem of conflict and suffering.