If we have unconsciously decided that thought cannot stop, we can’t know this until we are conscious,
Oh Inquiry (sighs),
So, you still see (“hope”) the end of thought as a conscious decision, is that your conclusion; or, do you wonder whether or not thought can realize it must go all by its lonesome?
I was being facetious.
If we have unconsciously decided that thought cannot stop, everything we do and do not do could be determined by unconscious decisions, and there’s nothing we can do consciously to address this condition.
Inquiry,
Forgive me if I ever considered you to be serious
In my experience it doesn’t match up with fact. Thought it seems has a ‘mind’ of its own. Observing one’s thought is a very delicate activity. Different than listening to birdsong or the rustling of leaves etc they are ‘out there’ but thought is ‘in here’…calling thinking “chattering” or whatever, may come from insight but thought immediately appropriates it and it becomes knowledge. When K in The Awakening of Intelligence points out the beautiful light on the mountains to Needleman and Needleman says “beautiful “, Thought hasn’t entered yet and there is just the seeing. In listening to the birds or the wind, it simply IS, I don’t mistake myself for it or try to change it etc, but with thought it’s different. In the listening the ‘thinker’ arises and takes over the seeing. Hard to describe. For me.
It seems apparent to me that when the thinker arises with a thought, this is more akin to thinking than seeing.
When I am looking at something, and the thought “beautiful” (or “ugly”) arises, it would seem that a thought has arisen.
Am I being too simplistic? Either its a lot more complex, or thoughts are part of thinking, not a part of silence nor awareness.
How is this an example of simultaneous thinking and awareness?
When I say “I just thought this or that” - This would be a narrative based on memory. Having some knowledge of my mental narrative, is not an example of awareness, more of an example of experience and memory.
nb. As @charleycannuck mentioned above, this stuff is happening really fast - be it the thoughts themselves, or the movement between silence and thought, between awareness and experience.
Breathing goes on without awareness. Sensation goes on without awareness. Thinking also goes on without awareness. But it seems awareness can be ‘brought to’ these functions, for a while anyway and then return to ‘automatic ‘. Is the ‘awareness’ a product of the function? As K put it : “can thought be aware of itself?” Since there’s no ‘me’ to be aware of anything! I find going into this deeply fear arises at times, fear of the unknown?
Example : I, for some reason, direct my attention to how I’m breathing - this makes me start breathing in a really unnatural, self-conscious fashion. Is this an example of awareness?
PS - some monks in the Rinzai tradition would say that an in & out breath cycle that takes a really long time (like 3 minutes), means that you’re breathing like someone who’s well on the way to becoming a buddha 
There’s an ‘awareness’ of the sound, the in and out, the movement of air in the nose or mouth, so yes, there’s a being ‘aware of’, that wasn’t there until the attention was directed to it.
Granted. This kind of awareness is also called biofeedback. I would call it a knowing that influences the known, it is the observer unconsciously changing, acting upon the observed,
This is the level of awareness we are highlighting - it is really experience, memory and automatic self-control. Agreed?
Is this what we are doing to our thoughts when we direct our attention there?
In the case here I would say no. The thought here has been ‘schooled’ by a variety of gurus, sages, mystics, the Wise etc. it has learned about taking a ‘wrong direction ‘, being in the ‘wrong place’, the presence of greed, the danger of belief, of tradition, of religions, of nations, of its own ‘trickery’ of creating a thinker, experiencer, an observer apart from itself. It has heard that it’s image-making keeps it in a kind of prison made up of the past and no matter what effort it makes will be futile. It has understood the necessity for non-judgemental self knowledge. It is ‘open’ to exploration.
Thought arises spontaneously and deliberately. The mind uses thought consciously, and is otherwise plagued with continuous thought that serves more as filler and background noise than anything useful. We identify with our deliberate thinking and consider our incessant spontaneous thinking to be more pathological than useful.
On the matter of thought we are conflicted. Unless we see that all thought - be it practical or psychological, useful or useless - is limiting at best and deceiving at worst, freedom is inconceivable.
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You have learnt some way of focussing your attention on your thoughts, without reacting to them nor affecting them, yet not being separate from them? What is this magic? Can you describe the process in action?
You are non-judgemental about yourself and your thoughts, despite judging them to be wrong in so many ways - How does this work?
When I see that I cannot direct my attention towards something as simple as breathing, without my whole experience being affected - I must wonder whether I really know what I’m doing when I look at my self and my thoughts.
I think that we have move away from the topic of this thread, which was negative thinking. My fault in fact, in asking Peter a question about what seems to be related to the topic of the observer being the observed , which is a totaly different matter. Could be a topic for another thread.
It simplifies it here when it’s remembered that there is no ‘me’ doing any of this.
Have we Richard? When psychological thought is aware of its movement, there is a negation of the thoughts. They lose the energy that is involved in the duality of thinker/thought. Awareness of the thought process in the moment, IS negative thinking?
Thought wants continuity. It somehow got way off the track. The reflective ability of the evolved brain allowed it to get itself into trouble. Disorder. Asked ‘why’ as if that was an answerable question, etc…worked out great for survival but took itself and its ‘thinker’ down a weird road re our relation to every ‘thing’ around us.
I understand Dan. But before you arrive at this awareness that you describe, there is the process of self knowledge . Negative thinking is necessary in the all process of the inquiry, if I may say. Seeing the false as false, the true in the false , and the true as true. That is, negative thinking. And then:
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I am glad that negative thinking from krishnamurti was discussed in this little blog.
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Does thought have a will of its own, or is it the articulation of visceral conditioned response? I suspect the latter, because if thought is not merely a means of communication, it is who we are, which means we are insane (if not evil) for holding, defending, and perpetuating beliefs and notions that confuse, confound, and create conflict.
Can we question and correct (negate) our every erroneous thought? If we can, thought has no will of its own and is not who we are. If, however, we cannot see our every thought for what it is, we are too identified with thought to be free of our entanglement.