As I’ve said, since thought can’t see anything but more thought, there is no actual seeing until/unless there is no thought - just silence. Where there is no silence, psychological thought fills the void.
If the ‘contents of consciousness’ are pathways laid down in the brain (reflexes), an ‘emptying’ of them would seem to call for a tremendous amount of energy or ‘shock’ for that transformation to take place. Wouldn’t it?
It might not be any more energy than we’re already wasting.
it feels essential to find this ‘freedom from the known’ but that doesn’t seem to be able to bring about the freedom. Does it? And looking at the ongoing plight of Mankind, it seems more necessary than ever.
Yes, but we’re so unaccustomed to being serious about anything more than how I as an individual, feels, we’re not sufficiently serious about humanity as a species.
To differentiate it from an intellectual idea. Maybe since we don’t know what a transformation (if it is possible) would take, K’s question is all we can ask: “can the rhythm of thought come to an end?”
You are talking here about a silence that comes as a respite from too much noise. Unfortunately, that is not really silence, is it? It is merely a pause between two periods of noise - noise, effort, suffering or whatever word one may wish to use - and perhaps we have become accustomed to look at silence in this way because our lives are so full of noise. Therefore first just to be aware of the noise, the effort, the suffering that is actually going on within the mind without seeking to do anything at all about it. Usually, when we look or listen to ourselves and discover something painful, the impulse is to act upon it immediately, to resolve the issue by attempting to get to the source of the pain. But if oneself is the source and the cause as well as the effect and the outcome, what use is such activity? So is it possible to meet pain with silence not activity?
What we are calling activity here is really occupation - to be occupied with something unpleasant or disturbing - whereas as real action would be non-occupation. In other words, to be aware of the noise and yet not to think about it. Have you ever tried this? To be aware of something incredibly painful - whether personal, general or universal - and yet not to think about it, not to be occupied with it.
This is not the same as ignoring pain - we are very good at that - but only to be aware of the pain and not to follow any thoughts about what to do with it. Obviously, this cannot be an intellectual exercise. It is no good picking upon some hypothetical issue. But if there is a real source of pain in your life, what happens when the awareness of this pain is not allowed to turn into an occupation with it?
You ask, “is it possible to meet pain with silence not activity?”.
Then you provide the answer to your question, which is “to be aware of the pain and not to follow any thoughts about what to do with it.”
You conclude by saying, “if there is a real source of pain in your life, what happens when the awareness of this pain is not allowed to turn into an occupation with it?”
Finally, you ask what happens when I do “not allow awareness to turn into an occupation with” the pain I am suffering.
It all sounds like you really know what you’re talking about, but the truth is you’ve made it all up because there’s nothing you or anyone can do about awareness but respond to it, react to it, or render yourself unconscious.
Previously you insisted that thought is aware of itself. Now you’re saying that awareness is evil and one must not allow awareness to do the evil it can do.
Rather than rush to respond to what has been said, maybe it is possible to remain with any sense of frustration that arises on reading these words. Instead of trying to work out what the other person is saying and whether what they are saying is right or wrong, maybe it is possible just to listen to one’s own inner reactions. These too are a subtle form of pain, especially if there any sense of resistance to the images one has already built up about the speaker. After all, none of this is happening in a vacuum. We are social creatures who get caught up in the ebb and flow of relationship, with the desire for connection and intimacy operating at the same time as the demand for separation and security. Relationship is our pain and our noise and our sorrow. We don’t have to go very far to find real examples of it.
It goes without saying that one listens “to one’s own inner reactions” before responding. Anyone who isn’t listening to their own reactions has no business being here.
We are social creatures who get caught up in the ebb and flow of relationship, with the desire for connection and intimacy operating at the same time as the demand for separation and security. Relationship is our pain and our noise and our sorrow.
Relationship with others is only a part of our relationship with our entire environment, which includes our own confusion and conflict. Some people, however, put all the emphasis on their craving for a significant other.