Consider ‘reality’ and ‘actuality’. It may lessen confusion in communication .
Yes - this is a good question. If course, it is impossible for us to go back in historical time to find out why thinking began to operate in the way it has done. But, if one begins neutrally, dispassionately, not taking sides about whether it was right or wrong for thought to develop the way it did, then maybe we can say simply that the brain came to find a certain degree of security in thought, without being aware at the time of the potential danger this would inevitably create.
To speak frankly, thought is a tool that has evolved in the same way that the body has evolved the senses. Thought is part of the senses - it is an extension of the senses; helping us to remember and anticipate sense-experiences of different kinds. We see this in animals, in birds, in mammals, in chimpanzees, and in humans. The danger of thought can already be seen in those chimpanzees who form an image of other chimpanzee groups in their surrounding environment, and who organise hunts to track down and kill members of the other group. This is already the beginning of organised warfare - which we know humans have developed much further.
Are those chimpanzees aware that their images of the other chimpanzee groups are merely images? I doubt it. One needs to have a certain degree of awareness and attention to the nature of thought for these images to be subjected to criticism and doubt. - So probably this is how the images of thought crept into human life and culture. The success of image-making to recall the recent past and predict the recent future (based on that past) probably meant that any doubts or criticism of the thinking tool were ignored. The serpent was already in paradise before we became aware of its existence as a serpent (to use the biblical imagery). So thought was there before human beings realised it was just thought. This is why human beings didn’t originally
And once human beings began to face this fact, we became aware that, as you say,
This shock - which was probably at the root of certain ancient religious insights - was absorbed by mankind’s proclivity for culture. The shock created by, for instance, the Upanishads or the Buddha, was absorbed into images and doctrine, rules and dogmas, rituals and beliefs. And all this helped to cover up the fact that, as you say,
I don’t personally like the language of “illusion”, because thinking can be reasonable within its own limited domain. But, this quibble aside, the question for us now then is, are we able to actually see the nature of thought in our lives? Can there be an awareness of the nature of thought which is not merely intellectual but actual? Is relationship a clue to seeing the nature of thought in action? Can there be an awareness of the limits of thought which is so intense, so actual, that thinking finds its “right place” and no longer oversteps its boundaries?
Dear James,
I like your saying " The serpent was already in paradise before we became aware of its existence as a serpent". By illusion I do not mean, that all thinking is illusion. That would be wrong. Thinking is thinking, which means that it creates images, abstraction, descriptions. If these images are springing from facts they relate to reality, still not being the real. This is the domain where thinking causes no problem and that is how it developed in evolution. But if thinking springs out of itself, out of the self, the I, it is based on an illusion because it is doing it because it gives the image more importance than reality. And that is the illusion. That is not a fact but a believe, a conclusion. The self though it exists is an illusion because it is only thinking. Out of this then can only come problems, conflicts etc. because the division - which is the nature of thinking - is more important than reality which is whole, undivided. It is like our body. It is whole by its nature though each organ has a different function. But if thinking says I am more important, which is just an image, it divides itself from the whole and the whole body will be in trouble, in a state of war which might result e.g. in illness, global war, destruction of the environment etc. Thinking cannot see the whole because it always fragments. Can we see that as you said with an awareness, a direct perception full of intensity and energy? Can we see the whole in which thinking is only a part?
Right. This is where relationship might act as a mirror that helps us to see where thought takes one slice of reality (which is itself an abstraction of reality, not reality itself), and conflates that slice - that fragment - with the whole. When we create images of each other (or of the future, or even of today), we are inevitably projecting fragments of our own past experience (our “conditioning”) onto the world, or onto each other, which then separate us from each other, and cause misunderstandings to occur. Maybe it is in relationship, then, that we can find out whether we can
Why do you say one slice? That would imply that thought fragments reality and cuts it into slices and then deals with slices, conflating them with the whole. The way you write it, it would imply that there is still a division between the slice and thought or a slice and an entity that acts upon slices. But is that so? Is it not that whatever reality might be thought can only create abstractions of it. Not taking slices but creating always, no matter about what, an abstraction. And thought can do that too about itself, creating images about itself - thereby creating a self. Thought does this - not because it conflates slices with the whole - but because it thinks the abstraction, the image, its content, it-self is the whole and the real. Is it not so? The creation of images in itself is a fragmentation. But only if thinking thinks that the image is more important than reality the whole, reality is fragmented, divided. And yes, I agree, only in relationship we can see this process in operation, feel all its consequences and be aware of it, because living is relationship.
I just mean the images we create, or that thought creates. Each image is a “slice”, a fragment, through which we ordinarily attempt to relate to other people (or ourselves, or the world at large): the image I have of you, or the image I have of another, or the ones you have of me, etc.
But that’s exactly what thought does, doesn’t it? I’m not saying that these fragments are the truth - I think I’ve been clear about that above. I’m saying that our thinking has fragmented the world through these images, and so we then relate to the world (and each other) as though these images were not images. That is, we habitually conflate these images (which are fragments) with the world as though the fragments were actually the whole (not the real whole, obviously): “you are a communist”, “you are French”, “you are a black person”, “you are a woman”, “you are a follower of K”, “you are a bourgeois”, etc. But another person is clearly more than these fragmentary labels we attach to them - they are more than the image. So we ordinarily reduce reality, the world or other people, to the fragmentary images we already have in our minds.
You are questioning whether these fragments are slices of actual reality or merely inventions of thought - but the point I’m making is that, phenomenologically speaking, we ordinarily treat these images as real when we are in relationship, and that this is what creates division and fragmentation outwardly.
I think you are saying more or less the same thing in different words - but please correct me if I’m misunderstanding you.
Good morning James,
I understand now what you mean by slice. Still I would prefer the word image because it actually has a different meaning. It is as I said like a photograph. I am not saying that images are pure inventions. That would not be true. The content of a photo of you is not an invention. It is something that is possible with that technology which allows us to make copies of something. The content of that copy might relate to reality or truth or it might not. If defintely is always limited because it only shows a certain moment or fragment and it is always the past. The technology itself is an invention, based on thought. But that thought too was related to something real out of which a projetion into the future was developed and which allowed us to invent a camera.
Another example for what I mean with images is for example the description of a techological device like a mobile phone. The description about how to use it safely might be completely accurate but it never will be the real thing. Thought is capable of doing the same thing e.g. when we want to go home. We need an accurate description about the way, which need not include every detail. So thinking is capable of creating images which are an accurate abstraction of reality. Nevertheless the content of these images never will be reality. It will never grasp the whole, it will always be limited, incomplete and it always will be the past. The images are then relating to reality but they are not the reality they are relating to. Nevertheless thinking and its images are then part of the whole of life that is taking place right now and which includes existence of us, our perception, the earth, the relations between us and the function of thinking in that wholeness etc.
If we look at thinking we should always bare in mind that it is a movement in time. Thought is only possible if there is memory, stored knowledge in the brain. If thinking is active it is always concerned with the past - it is impossible to think what happens in the moment. We can only think about it later even if it is just a fraction of a second later and to think about it we need knowledge. Thinking then creates actual thoughts with its content and it always does that because it follows a direction, a goal - conscious or unconscious - out of which a projection into the future is created.
The nature of thinking also allows it to create images about itself, about memory, knowledge. The latter are also real as they exist in our brain. But knowledge and memories are already images stored in our brain. They are nothing else than abstractions, images, which means their content are not reality. If thinking always follows a direction, which is a fact, why does it think and create images about images? Why does it create images, abstractions about itself? Which function lies in that? What is the direction thinking follows in doing that? If thinking would realize that an image is just an image and its content not the real but just the limited past, just something which is not existing right now, there would be no need to do that. So if thinking still creates images about itself and if it follows a direction, a goal it must seek and find something in doing so. That is where we did not go further yesterday evening. Is it that we find a relative security, a relief in thinking and in the content of its images? I am in fear and the thinking about ways to get out of it gives me relief. We work with a lot of people, mostly women, who are in situations of abuse. Instead of leaving the situation they often create the images of hope and stay. The hope gives them a certain kind of relief but does not solve their miserable situation. There is no real psychological security in hope.
And is not that assumption we could find psychological security also just thinking, just an image? In order to create an image of something thinking has to be physically apart from the thing about it creates an abstraction. Again it is like photography. To take a picture of you I need a camera which is different from you. So if thinking thinks about itself it must treat itself differently from itself. It must treat itself as a separate reality. But the fact is, it is just thinking and nothing else. So in thinking about itself and thereby not seeing the real nature of images lies the illusion, does it not? Not seeing what the nature of images and therefore thinking is, to think they are a separate reality from itself, is the illusion. In that lies the creation of the self, the ego. And if our life is based on that there is no escape from conflict and suffering. We reduce as you said our life to thinking, acutally to thinking about our ourselves, our own thoughts, our own knowledge and memory. Can we see that we are just that? And that all our actions are based on that? Can we see what we actually are? Can we see that every movement in thinking and out of thinking only holds us in that cycle? And would that not mean that when we meet and talk about these things, that we always have to observe if the words and thoughts we are expressing are based on facts or just on thinking? I have the feeling that the dialgoues would be completely different if everyone would ask themselves, if what we are saying is a fact and reality to ourselves. Would we then quote K? I doubt it because first of all they are just words and thoughts which might had been a fact to him or not. We will never know. And if that would be a fact to me there is no need for me to quote him. To see the illusion we live in, to see its existence we need a lot of energy, especially in the busy everyday life we lead in our modern societies. Where does this energy come from? Would that not be an important question. Best wishes, Erik
As far I know - not being a professional philosopher or neuroscientist - there may be a completely natural place for higher-level abstractions (images of images). This is how it becomes possible to do mathematics, to do science, and perhaps even to speak a language. This more complex form of thinking may be fine in its right place. According to Immanuel Kant these higher-level abstractions (abstractions of abstractions) are what enable us to think through complex chains of reason, which is necessary for logical, scientific thought, and so on. But this, obviously, does not concern our inquiry.
For us it is enough to be aware (to the degree that we are aware) that psychological thought, psychological knowledge - which has created a centre as the I, the ego, the observer - is not as real as it purports itself to be. This psychological centre creates both the fear I run from and the hope I run to, the security I find solace in, and the terror of insecurity.
But what does it mean to be aware of the process of thinking? This is why I think it is worth asking ourselves if there is another tool to which we have access apart from thought, apart from thinking.
One clue in this regard is the activity of the senses. The senses are free to perceive the world of nature, for example, without the total domination of the thought function. We can experiment with this by looking at natural objects, taking a walk in the countryside and observing the colours, the fragrances, the sounds and the wind or sun on our skin. We can look at a flower for a few seconds before thinking crowds its way into perception - and if we experiment we may be able to extend this free perception for a few minutes.
If there can be a relatively free observation of this kind outwardly, we can then see if we can observe with a similar freedom inwardly - at our reactions, image-making, thinking, etc. As was previously mentioned, one place to experiment with this is in our relationship with other people, where the images are most active. It is more difficult to catch thought in action here than with nature, because we ourselves are immediately caught up with and part of the reaction (the image). And, as outwardly, so inwardly we may not be able to observe like this for more than a few seconds before we are again absorbed into the reaction or into thinking. However, if we can do this, it gives us the clue that another tool indeed exists. - This is what K calls choiceless awareness. It is not a supernatural gift, but it is a real tool at our disposal that we can either neglect through laziness, or experiment with intelligently. So the energy that you ask about may lie in this activity of choiceless awareness (or observation without the observer, as K sometimes calls it).
Dear James,
oh I think that is a very important point, the higher abstractions. Jobwise I have to deal a lot with neuroscience, physics and mathematics and I think that is not only relevant but very important to shed light on thinking and to understand it. Do you agree that thinking is time and a process in time? It stretches from the past and memory, knowledge to the future. And it always has a direction, not necessarily a fixed goal but a direction. This process of thinking creates a, as I would call it, a product. This product are images, abstractions, ideas. These products exist like a table, you or I, a tree, the earth exist. They are real. And as thinking always can relate to real things it can do that too to its ideas, images, abstraction without causing a problem. Thought created mathematics and naturally it can think about it and develope it furhter. Or it can develope a technology and then improve it. We can also think about an economic system, a political structure, religion which are all created by thought. Indeed that enables us to explore things scientifically or in any other domain. But this is different from the self. With these so called higher abstractions thinking deals with its own products which are now independent from its process.
In thinking about itself, thinking is not only concerned with its products but with the whole process about itself which includes the past, memory, knowledge, projection, direction, time. The self actually includes all that and by thinking about itself, thinking puts an importance on all that. When a mathematician is concerned with higher mathematics he is not concerned with thinking but only with the creation of mathematics, the product of thinking. And in exploring it he uses thinking. But he does not think about thinking itself. On the contrary the self deals with the whole process of thinking, including its products.
That is a very important difference and not easy to understand. And here lies the problem. Exploring higher mathematics, thinking still is different from what it analyses, mathematics. With the self thinking is that what it creates. But it thinks the self is different from itself. I hope I can make it clear what I mean.
I absolutely agree with you what you wrote about the experiements with perception in nature and the exploration of the senses. Indeed to me it also is not a supernatural capacity. But is that what we might describe as choiceless awareness a real fact, reality to us? We can read, talk or write about it, but all that are just words and thoughts unless we live it from moment to moment. If it is just thinking it has no meaning as it is only an image. So is it a fact to us? Which means reality is more important than the image and thinking would find its proper place. Concerning the energy, I wonder if we would have to look at will, desire or wanting here. Choiceless means no will, no choosing or wanting. So is it because we want to achieve something, be something, get somewhere that we do not have that energy?
Yes - of course K spoke about this a lot, but it is anyway clear that thought is an active process, moving from the past as memory, and projecting the future from the past, etc. Thought is time. But thought is also content: the movement of emotion, fear, pleasure, desire, suffering, etc - all that. And, as you say, there is no clear demarcation between the content of thought and the thinker of that thought: there is no demarcation between the feeling of fear and the experiencer of that fear. They are a single process.
So this is why simple awareness is critical. Not supernatural awareness - but just catching this process of thought, emotion, feeling, identification etc in action. This is not an abstract possibility - it happens in daily life, when we are attentive and awake.
Right. But this is up to us to find out, isn’t it? Awareness is not an abstraction: one can be aware now, of one’s action of typing on the computer keyboard, the sound of wind in the trees outside, the voices carried on the wind, the inward pull of what we call responsibility in relationship (which is mostly guilt, resistance etc), the sun coming out from behind the clouds, etc. If we are not projecting into the future, then there is no energy necessary outside of this watching - and if we aren’t watching, why ought we to think that any other energy must operate? Mere cognitive analysis - or wanting a result - will not generate the kind of energy we are asking for, will it?
So my own feeling (not being dogmatic about it) is that simple, non-judgemental awareness - of whatever is happening, inwardly or outwardly - is the clue. Awareness of outward perceptions (sights and sounds etc), and inward awareness of guilt or anxiety, the escape from anxiety, etc.
This is democratically open to anybody to experiment with in daily life - I don’t think we need to make it more complex than that.
Oh yes, this is democratically open to anybody to experiment. And I too think, in the end it is simple. With that I too not mean that it is easy to do, especially if our conditioning is in operation. But as you said, it is not a complex thing and no cognitive analysis will help us to experience it. Actually it is this cognitive process which absorbes all the energy we need to be aware. So can we live without having a future and a past, psychologically?
Yes - as you know, much of our energy is actually tied up in the conflict and contradiction that our thinking has created. So perhaps by paying close attention to these emotional contradictions as and when they occur, as they manifest in our daily life - as irritation, hurt etc. - the very contact with these states in the present (through direct observation) then liberates the energy which had been bound up with reactivity (as irritation, hurt, etc). - At least, this is my feeling about it.
Mine too. But this paying close attention is only possible when we do not want to be something as any wanting is a projection into the future. Also we have to let go the past, the know, psychologically. What reamains is what we are now and the not knowing what will happen.
I get what you are saying Erik - but to pay attention or to be aware, all one requires is a living brain and any content of consciousness. These contents are not in short supply! Any mood - sadness, loneliness - or any reaction - irritation, frustration - already exists when it appears, and doesn’t give us any time. If you felt hurt or wounded right now (not that you should be!), the hurt or wound cannot wait for you to end time and thought: it is there, calling, today. If one doesn’t give that reaction attention now, it will come back tomorrow, or in the future, in a more complex form. So it makes sense to pay attention now, and not delay (waiting on a perfect attention).
And then, as you say,
Absolutely, there is no other moment than now to meet the contents of consciousness. But being aware is not just about myself in order to be free of pain. Then it would be just a personal matter. It is not my awareness or yours. It is awareness. It is about life meeting life.
Yes - we are not saying that there needs to be a motive. One is not on the bank of a river with the time to choose whether or not to pay attention to things as they happen, or whether paying attention will resolve pain or difficulty: that fact is we are in the stream of happenings right now. So either we are aware of these happenings, or we are not - that’s all. That is awareness. That is meeting life.
Is that not the crucial point? If we are in the stream of happenings, in the stream of life, which is moving all the time, changing all the time within the unknown and we are caught in conditioning - actually we are conditioning - what will bring awareness? As long as conditioning is continuing there will be no awareness. At the same time there is no means, no method, no other person that can make me aware. So what will bring awareness or end conditioning? Out of what comes the impulse to look at what I am, to look at my conditioning? Would it not to face the pain, the suffering, the conflict I am in now? But is it not exactly that what we want to avoid, want to escape? And that implies a motive, does it not? Conditioning means to follow a motive, thinking, or?
When we ask the question “What will bring awareness?”, we are not asking an abstract question, right? What brings awareness can be asked at a metaphysical level, but we are asking the question at a human level, aren’t we?
So, at a human, everyday level, what brings awareness might be a stimulus or a shock from outside: the shock of beauty, or the shock of pain or suffering. Of course, if the shock is suffering, that awareness might be almost immediately taken over by the conditioned motive of escape (which obviously implies a motive to escape pain). But there might still be - mightn’t there? - an awareness of that pain or suffering in spite of my motive to escape, because the pain is stronger than the escape. If I then try to escape from this awareness, I still have the opportunity to be aware that this is what I am doing, right? Or if my motive to remain with the pain or discomfort is that there might be a reward in doing so, then can there not be an awareness of that motive too?
So when we talk about awareness we are not stipulating that the whole of conditioning must end, or that there must be no motive. We are asking if there can be awareness of a motive, awareness of conditioning, as it acts.
We are not saying that this awareness is total attention or insight; we are not saying that it sees the whole of conditioning and ends conditioning. We are simply saying that an awareness of my impatience (which is my conditioning), an awareness of my desire to avoid disturbance (which is a motive) - is possible. The cause of awareness may simply be interest, curiosity. It may be intense, unavoidable pain or discomfort. It may be affection for someone we care about. It may be a response to something beautiful, something that moves us - perhaps the words of someone we respect. It may be existential boredom! So when you ask
couldn’t it be any of these things? Certainly, where my conditioning is experienced as actively painful, limited, or problematic, then some awareness must already be present to even recognise that this is the case. What then happens with that awareness is up to each person’s capacity, energy, interest, degree of discomfort or comfort, degree of affection, sensitivity, responsibility, etc. There is no blueprint.
So can we not ask simply, Is there an awareness of our conditioning now? Am I aware of the background movement of thought acting in my consciousness, now? - K has said that consciousness is its contents: so can there be an awareness of any of those contents, now?
And if there’s no awareness, but only incessant cogitation or the motive of escape, can there be an awareness of that cogitation or motive to escape, now?
These are the questions I ask myself at least. I don’t know what questions you ask yourself?
Dear James,
surely we do not ask that question here intellectually or in an abstract way. At least I do not. I is a question concerned with our everyday living. I wonder if the shock is not already a reaction of the conditioning. And can we not also stay with pain out of our conditioning? Explaining it, rationalizing it in which we find a relief that immediately dampens the pain? If we agree that awareness, that which we mean here, is not conditioning and also no motive and if conditioning is that what we know, that what goes on continously, should we not ask the question if conditioning could end at all? Because if awareness is only there for a moment and conditiong takes over immediately it is still conditioning out of which we live and awareness has no meaning. I think it is clear that we cannot ask for the ending of conditioning or wanting it. Because that again would be a motive. For sure awareness of all the examples you mention might also go along with awareness. But usually they do not and all like interest, curiosity, so called respect for others etc. just spring from our conditioning. Also I agree, there is no blueprint. There can not be because everybody has to find out for him- or herself. Yes, the question is, can there be an awareness of conditioning in me, the motive in me and all the pain now? I also ask, can I percieve myself as I am right now, without wanting to change it, without wanting to be something, reach something? Can I just be aware? Like I would observing the birds outside or the tree. How can I answer this question? Can we not only answer it, if we do it? If we act now? Bringing all the energy there is together to really face that task, without knowing what the answer will be? And in this doing, do we not find out what the conditioning is, how we want to escape, move away in and through thinking? Can we just let that unfold itself? And doing that, does it not require the awareness we are talking about? If we are so aware, will we fall again into conditioning? Is it possible? If we do, than we have not been aware, because what is right now, is the conditioning. Ah, I am just thinking, is the question maybe: Can we be aware of not being aware? Because what is much more important is the not being aware, the conditioning. That is what is and can I be aware of it? Now? If I am and thereby understand it, would I follow it, the not being aware, again? I have the feeling that is important because if we are aware of not being aware our whole life, whole past unfolds and we see all the misery we went through and maybe caused in others. Can we stay with that and not run away from it? Be aware of it?
Yes, this is the question for me. It includes your other question:
Because if I am not aware now, then this is nevertheless the actual fact of what I presently am,
For this reason - not because I am quoting K as an authority, but simply because it fits with what we are talking about - I think K’s language of “choiceless awareness of what is”, is completely appropriate here. Whatever is, is - right? (whatever it is). And so can there be an awareness of that, now, as it is happening - as you say, just like observing the birds outside or the tree?