Insoluble Problems

Saturday Bimonthly Dialogue
41

Erik - you are obviously right to be sceptical of any peremptory claim to be aware, because the thought process is so all-pervasive, our conditioning so deep, that it may indeed absorb any space of awareness that temporarily opens up.

But if the claim that we are totally conditioned does not itself spring from awareness, where does it come from? If the person who says that we are totally conditioned is themselves totally conditioned, then the claim has no force - right? It is a mere claim from authority. So the question of conditioning only becomes relevant when there is some awareness of the impact and implications that it has.

To see the totality of the movement of conditioning requires great awareness, attention, and insight - correct? So what we are asking is, can there be even some basic, simple awareness of our conditioning (before we jump into total insight)? Do you see what I’m getting at?

Outwardly, the indication of this conditioning shows up at the level of nationalism, religious divisions, social segregations of race, class, sex, etc. And inwardly the indication of conditioning shows up as prejudice, preferences, beliefs, habits, etc.

So all we are asking is, can there be an awareness - without choice, without preference - of these movements of our collective and personal conditioning?

If you were to say that this is not possible, because the conditioning is too strong - then one must ask: is the person saying this (i.e., saying that it is not possible to be aware of conditioning because conditioning is so strong that it immediately must absorb any awareness) herself saying this out of a total awareness of the fact of conditioning? Or are they saying this merely out of their own conditioning?

Do you see what I’m saying? So you are right to be sceptical of any claims to be aware - but this scepticism goes both ways. It may simply be one’s conditioning that says one cannot be aware of conditioning.

42

Dear James,
that is a very good point. Where does the claim that we are conditioned come from? If it comes frome conditioning than abviously it has not force, meaning to go into it, to understand it. And obviously it then comes from authority. But what if we sense it, in the way that we observe that we are always stuck in patterns, falling in the same trap in our life. Many people sense that and out of it they conclude that it is conditioning. They might be righ, but this conclusion is just thought. They are not in touch with what is, but only with their thoughts about it. In my work I encountered so many people who realize that they follow a pattern but they are just concerned with their thoughts about it because the conditioning immediately takes over their perception. As a consequence they intellectually know about conditioning. It is not something that they took from an authority but out their own perception. But when thought, conditoning takes over they are not anymore concerned with it but only with their thoughts about it.

So we can actually know about our conditioning but we are not in touch with it, with the real, the what is. Another question which arose reading your lines is: can awareness be divided? Can there be simple awareness and total or whatever awareness? Or is there only awareness? The nature of thinking is to divide, to separate between the what is and the image. So if we divide awareness, thinking must be involved and than it is not awareness. Also if we divide into different kind of awareness we already have to know what they are, which again implies thinking. Is not the problem of conditioning that we do not see, percieve things as a whole but always divide, fragment the what is? I also wonder if we can jump into insight. Is insight not something that comes or might come once awareness is in action? We cannot do anything to make it come.

In the same way are the expressions of nationalism, racism, religion and prejudices, preferences, bliefs etc. just one movement, the same movement of thinking, that expresses itself in different ways? I agree, if we would say it is not possible, than we are already stuck in a direction and our conditioning. The same would be valid, if we say it is possible. I am not saying it is not possible. I am just asking, when conditioning is what is - and that implies not being aware, being caught in personal motives, to suffer, feel pain, fear etc - what will end that? As long as condtioning rules there is no awareness. So conditioning has to end - I am not speaking here about forever. It has to end now, as we can only be aware now. But if we are in conflict - inwardly as well as outwardly - what will make me question that conflict, that suffering? As long as I find relief in it, a relative security, a pleasure, why should I ever question that? As long as I find in thinking relief e.g in the form of hope why should I question it, even if I still feel some pain or suffering? Would not questioning my suffering and conditioning also mean to question my pleasure, my security, my desires, my comforts etc.? Would awareness not mean to question the whole of my life I am living? But conditioning wants to keep the so called good and just skip the evil, which implies direction, thinking and judging. So would not awareness mean to face ourselves and our live without any content? To face ourselves inwardly naked?

43

This is good enough.

Right. So there is some sense or awareness of the activity of one’s conditioning, but then thought intervenes.

Well - what we “know” in this case is merely that one has been, in the past tense, in touch with one’s conditioning, but that apparently one is now not aware. So we don’t in fact “know” that we are conditioned anymore - right? Because to actually know, would require awareness (the “sense” of being trapped in patterns, etc).

We were asking whether there can be any awareness at all. You seemed to be disputing it - which is why it isn’t necessary to talk about total insight or whatever (which would certainly be a jump from saying that “there is no awareness at all because we are totally conditioned”). Awareness may not be divisible, as you say. K has said that everyday seeing, awareness, choiceless awareness, attention, followed by insight, is not a separate series of steps, but one single movement, like an arrow moving directly to its target. But you were questioning whether awareness can happen at all without the complete cessation of all conditioning. And I was saying that I don’t think that there needs to be a total cessation of all conditioning before we are aware that we are nationalistic, prejudiced, etc, etc.

But isn’t this what you are doing, if I may point out, through these questions? It is you who are saying that there can be no awareness when there is conditioning - it is you who is saying that there is either total awareness or no awareness at all? Are you totally aware in the way you have described it? And if you are not totally aware, then on what authority are you saying this?

Again, how are we to answer this question from within the confines of our conditioning, our thinking? Mustn’t we begin by just - being aware (and finding out)? But if you have stipulated that total awareness (which is synonymous with insight) is necessary to be aware, and that conditioning must have totally ceased for such awareness to come about, then it seems to me that you have created the perfect justification for not being aware at all.

Yes, I think so. This doesn’t mean that I am totally aware of every aspect of my conditioning by becoming aware of one tiny prejudice - but the door is open to the rest, once there is awareness per se (a completely unconscious person can do nothing about their conditioning).

But this is a different question. We are not asking “Can conditioning end?” - as such a question has no meaning at all if we are not aware that we are conditioned. So the question we are asking is, “Can we be aware at all of our conditioning?” But apparently you deny this. You state that

Is this the case? Can I not be aware of one aspect of the conditioning that dominates my life, and expose it to the light of awareness? Maybe it is as simple and basic as smoking, or eating meat, or being overly intellectual. Maybe it is a strongly held political prejudice, or an identification with a football team, or a way of sitting slouched in a chair. It could be literally anything, right?

Why does it have to end now? Who says it has to end? If I have been smoking for 50 years, why would I expect or demand that by simply becoming aware of the act of my smoking will end smoking? It may end, or it may not. We are not discussing ending, but making contact with the fact of our conditioning - at any level.

Again - who is talking about questioning the conflict? We are only asking if we can be aware that we are in conflict. If we are not aware that we are in conflict, then we will for sure not be in a position to question that conflict.

And as long as I am not aware that I find relief, security, or pleasure in something, how do I begin to question it? There must be an awareness of pleasure, relief, security first, before I can question whether it is actually grounded in something secure or not.

Maybe - no one is ruling out how drastic a simple awareness of one’s conditioning might be. It may be the beginning of the end of a long-held belief system (in god, in communism, in the 8 fold path of deliverance, in making money, etc).

Right - so we are asking, can there be an awareness of this aspect of our conditioning that wants to move away from what is uncomfortable, and live in the comfortable?

Before we can live out life without any content, oughtn’t we begin by becoming aware of the content that exists in our consciousness?

If we are being simple with each other, by facing ourselves directly, naked, we are just asking ourselves if it is possible just to be with what is - whatever it is. If it emptiness, then that is what is. If it is content of one kind or another, then that is what is.

What is is what is.

44

Dear James,
I would not say there is a sense of awareness. There is awareness and if awareness is there, there cannot be conditioning acting. Still I can observe what conditioning means in myself. I do not know if I can make clear what I mean and I am sorry if it is misunderstanding. We can only act now. Living is only now and when we are conditioned we act out of it only now. There is no other moment. We can not act, feel, think tomorrow or in the past only now. And if we are aware now we already must have stepped out of conditioning. That does not mean that there is nothing we can observe or that the process of conditioning in general has vanished. But when we are aware - in the true sense we are talking about here - conditioning, the process of it must have ended now to see what is - I am not saying it must have ended at all and I would also question if conditioning in spacetime could ever end at all. But in that moment I can not depend on conditioning. It must have ended. Otherwise we are just percieving out of conditioning. I do not know if that makes any sense to you.

In the same way I would say if we know something and are conscious about that knowledge it can only take place now. But though I know now, the content of that knowledge is just an image, just the past. But I know now that I am conditioned and as you said that does not mean I am really aware about the fact of conditoning or that I am aware of what is.

Yes I am saying either we are aware or we are not. By the way you said that before too. There is no in between because conditioning excludes awareness. But at least to me that is not a division. It is like fear. Either there is fear or there is no fear. Even if we say the fear is not so strong it is still fear. Or with thinking. You think or you do not. One cannot say I think a little bit - though on can say it - but it is still thinking. There is nothing in between. In that sense I would just speak of awareness not total awareness. And does not mean being aware as you said, that there is then also an insight? If I am aware that I am conditioned is that not already an insight? I might not know what conditioning actually is but I see for example that I am living in patterns.

You mentioned aspects like smoking or eating which condition our lives and asked if we could be aware of them, bring them to light. I would say yes we can look at them, be conscious about them, change them. But does it mean we are not conditioned or really have changed something? Obviously we might stop smoking or change our diet. But we might immediately depend on something else and still follow the path of conditioning. In this case I would not speak of awareness, in the sense we use it, because I would not have understood conditioning itself. I might have understood smoking and its effects on the body. But I have not understood why I smoked at all and harmed the body right from the start.

When I talk about ending it is not a question of want or to expect it. But it is a fact that if something new can take place the old has to end. That counts for smoking as well as for fear or conditioning. If we simply substitute smoking with something else that is a superficial change which is neither wrong or right. But it is not a real change. I am still bound to conditioning. But if we would be aware of smoking, see what we are doing and what is happening in us, why we smoke, would we not just stop? Our body, because it got addicted to it, still my rebel and cause uncomfortable feelings. But I we would deal with it without having the desire to smoke again.

You ask, can we be aware that we are in conflict? Who is aking it and why? I personally think it is a very important and valid question. But why should I ask it? Why should I be aware of it? I know people who like it to be in conflict with others. It gives them great energy. Why should they be aware of it? They do not see it as conflict though it is obvious because they have a lot of trouble with everybody.

What is is what is, as you said. For the soldier war and duty is what is and he does not question it. I am speaking here of family experiences not my personal one. So what makes us posing these questions? Why do we - we both - go into these questions? Explore these things? What makes us looking at conditioning?

Maybe we are actually speaking about the same thing but expressing it differently. That just came to my mind.

45

Erik - forgive me for repeating this, but I’m afraid that what you are saying is confusing. Maybe you are confused, or maybe you are using the word “awareness” in a way that is alien to the English language. The root meaning of awareness is to perceive, to watch. If you are able to perceive or watch (which has the same meaning as observe) any movement of your conditioning - say, for instance, as a German, as a man, as a nurse, as a scientist, as someone who has been educated in a certain way, as someone who has been hurt, etc etc - then that is what I am talking about when I use the word “awareness”. If to observe or watch or perceive any of these things requires the total ending of conditioning (!), then you are using the word awareness in a way that is alien to me. According to K, the only concept or action which comes close to the meaning you are giving the word “awareness” is total insight. K often says that total insight empties consciousness of its content. But we are not - at least I am not - talking about total insight. We are talking about the fact that one may be confused, and can one be aware (watch, perceive, observe) the fact that one is confused? Confusion is the result of conditioning. If I were not conditioned, I would not be confused. Do we need to keep repeating this ad nauseam?

Erik - this is confusing. You are saying in one sentence that to be aware means the ending of conditioning (which according to K only happens with total insight), and in the following sentence you step back from what you have just said and appear to deny that conditioning actually comes to an end with awareness. Why do you keep on repeating this? Is it a language problem?

You are again repeating that awareness means the ending of conditioning, and yet at the same time that it doesn’t mean the ending of conditioning. Which is it? Are you simply saying that to be aware at all implies that the conditioning has loosened up in some way so as to permit a fresh observation?

Erik - earlier on in this discussion, sometime yesterday or whenever it was, I suggested that one of the best - perhaps the best - places to look at our conditioning in action, is in the mirror of relationship. You didn’t take this point up. But if you have a mother or a father, a sister or a brother, a friend or a wife, a child or a nephew/niece, a colleague or a co-worker, a patient or a boss - then you can begin to perceive, watch, observe your own conditioning in action. Would you agree? You can begin to see that the way you have been educated, the habits you have developed, the emotional or intellectual tendencies, the stubbornness, the lack of awareness, the preferences and reactions - they all appear in front of you, if you are observant. You don’t need to look for these reactions - they appear naturally if you don’t suppress them or ignore them. This is your conditioning. - Have you ever done this? If you have done it even for a few minutes, did your conditioning completely disappear? Probably not, right? But the observation brings light into activity that is otherwise taking place in darkness - the darkness of inattention. This is all I am talking about. - I wish you would be more simple with me about these things - but that’s up to you.

Again, you are repeating this. But is it a fact? If it is a fact, then either you are now living in total awareness, without any psychological conditioning (which I doubt), or you have never been aware of the simplest, most obvious forms of conditioning (which I also doubt. You can’t have it both ways! So therefore, I feel that you are either using language in a confusing way, or you are fooling yourself, or you are not reading carefully any of my replies which have been attempting to point out this contradiction in your thinking (or in your language) for almost 2 days.

I’m not sure it is like this Erik. Fear may be in abeyance, but if the thought structure is still active, it will recur. Fear is temporarily replaced by desire or pleasure, or boredom, etc, but it will recur. If fear has completely disappeared in consciousness, this would imply that a fundamental insight had occurred. But awareness, watchfulness, observation is not exactly the same thing as total insight into fear - is it? You may think it is, but whose authority are you basing this on? Have you had such an insight to wipe out fear entirely? - Probably not. In which case you are using the authority of K or someone else to say these things.

Yes, this is what you keep repeating. But you are just being black and white about something that is not black and white. To perceive the fact that one may be stubborn or obstinate or whatever, may not automatically mean that you are able to dissolve it entirely. To dissolve it entirely would require an insight. If a person is not even open to looking, watching, being sensitive to what other people are telling them, then they will certainly not have an insight of the kind we are talking about.

No! The awareness that you have been conditioned by Protestantism or Catholicism or nationalism - which are all forms of conditioning - does not mean that you have had a complete insight into it. If you had such an insight, then the conditioning would - as you say - no longer be in operation at all.

This is all I am talking about. You seem to be impatient for total insight into conditioning without having the patience to take the time to look at these most basic conditioning elements that make up our lives. You are putting the cart before the horse (as they say in England).

First of all, there is no “obviously”. Sometimes it happens that by paying attention, watching, the habit falls away - but it might not. Secondly, who is to say that when one habit drops away another must replace it? It may do - but by making these assumptions you are merely entrenching yourself in black and white thinking: which is your conditioning.

You answer your own question. Yes, if - if - we become aware of the full implications - the full implications - of smoking, we might stop. But even then, the body may still be physically addicted to the nicotine. But the awareness has its own power. The same is true of any conditioning. But it begins with simple, humble watchfulness - not a greedy demand for total insight or the ending of all conditioning.

As soon as we even call it conditioning, it implies that we have become aware of being a prisoner of the limitations set by conditioning. We are not satisfied with being a prisoner - so we begin to question it, rebel, pay attention to it. And we begin to discover that conditioning brings with it great conflict and pain too - the conflict of war, the pain of division, and so on. We are asking ourselves whether there can be freedom from conditioning - which is why we need to begin, very humbly, simply, by paying attention to the ways in which our conditioning shows itself to us in daily life, in our relationships with others.

I hope I have been able to communicate myself clearly.

46

Dear James, yes it could be a language problem or maybe I am terribly confused.

So we have to be careful what we mean and try to explain what we mean by words. I by the way picked up relationship and we are actually doing it, finding out in relationship in this dialogue. I am also not asking for a total insight. That is your interpretation. I am trying to go with you into this question if there can be freedom from conditioning, as you said. And there is no question that conditioning is painful, leading to conflict, bringing all the misery we encounter in daily life on this earth. And yes, we have to pay attention to it otherwise we will not find out. But looking around, observing myself and the world around us, in relationship with others we see - and I think you too - that conditioning remains. People might look at one thing, maybe resolve it and continue conditioning with other things. That is not something I make up but that is actually happening. I work for over 20 years with patients and that is what is happening. I do not say that all people do that but most are satisfied if they find some kind of relief in their pain. They are not concerned with freedom of conditioning but just about relief of pain. For that they look at their situation and it is possible to find relief. But it is still out of conditioning. I would not call it awareness or really paying attention as it always involves the wish to find relief. You can resolve one fear, but fear in general remains. That is a fact if you look around. But if fear remains, conditioning remains.

Yes, it is my experienc and feeling that to be aware is only possible if conditioning stops. We can only observe, percieve something if our thinking is not twisting that observation. Otherwise we just see our thinking, our judgements, our prejudices, motives in relation to that what we are aware of even if we do not realise it. With practical things that might be easier. But inwardly we get lost in our thinking, if we do not understand the nature of thinking and therefore conditioning. And if we observe, are aware there might be an insight with it or not.

I am trying to be simple here. And I think to convey what I mean we should look at conditioning in general. Would you agree that it means that one thing has an influence on something else to lead to a certain result? There is a cause which leads to an effect and that follows a pattern and can be repeated. It is a movement in time. There is physical conditioning like climate, food or smoking and psychological condtioning through thinking. The later also having an impact on the organism, our body. Even inwardly the conditioning is bound to time as thinking is a physical process in time. At the same time our organisms can only act now. Thinking can only take place now, always now. But thinking is concerned with time, the movement from the past to the future. Thinking is always concerned with the what should be or what could be. It is never concerned with the now. Awareness as you and I use it here, as far as I understand, is concerned with the now, the what is. It also only can take place now. Awareness is not a movement in time, from the past to the future. So thinking and awareness are always apart. That does not mean when we are aware that we cannot think. For sure we can. But when conditioning and therefore thinking is the dominant factor there cannot be awareness. There is only conditioning. So awareness can only come if conditioning, the process of it stops. Even logically it has to be so. So what are we aware of then? No the process of conditioning but its effects, its results in us and others? You said, we are asking ourselves if there can be freedom of conditioning. But that means conditioning, psychological conditioning in general, not endless single aspects of it, or? To look at every single aspect would take more than our lives. And it would not change anything really, as conditioning continues and with it all our problems. They might express themselves in a different form. But the problems, the conflict, the suffering, the fear continue. So can we see in one thing like hurt, suffering, pain, fear etc the whole of conditioning, not just mine or yours? This question to me is very crucial. It does not involve a wish or greed for anything. I do not know if it is possible. But observing the suffering in this world we are living and all the destruction we cause in our relationships, being in touch with what is, the misery all around us it is a natural question that arises in me.

47

Erik - I’m not sure if we are communicating with each other. You don’t seem to be responding to the questions I have raised in my replies, and are continuing to stick to what you previously stated, without explaining the difficulty or problem in language that has been pointed out. You go right ahead and repeat again that

What you seem to mean is that when you have been aware in the past - or while you are aware presently - some aspect of your conditioning is in abeyance, or at least not dominant. But I can only go by your words which are more definite than this. What your words are saying is that when awareness is present, conditioning has ended. Full stop.

So what can I do? I can only say that I either disagree (which doesn’t help the conversation), accuse you of being confused (which doesn’t help us move on), or say that there is a language problem.

So, I will attempt some language clarification:

Conditioning, for me, is simply that which, in our make-up or disposition, has been put together over time. This of course includes the body, our biological instincts and reactions, our organs, etc, through the cause and effect process of evolution. But in our conversation, I take it to mean that we are speaking primarily of our cultural and psychological conditioning - which has also been put together over time, through a process of cause and effect, gradual accretion, education, propaganda, experience, habit, and so on. So this psychological or cultural conditioning is basically synonymous with the thought process itself - which includes emotions, reactions, and all the various contents of consciousness. So conditioning equals (for me) consciousness and its contents.

Awareness, for me, I take to be related to (or part of, or synonymous with) what we otherwise call sentience. Potentially any living thing is sentient - including plants and trees - but we are most aware of sentience in animals and humans. Sentience might be understood as the capacity that any living organism has to take in its world through the senses (the etymology of sentience goes back to the “senses”), and through its sense-perceptions the capacity to feel, perceive or be aware of its surroundings.

So we are all born with the capacity for awareness (as sentience). K sometimes said that awareness is in the brain, or part of the brain (unlike insight, which K said is “outside” the brain). Awareness is just the capacity to take in the world, to respond to the world, to sense the world, to feel pleasure and pain, beauty and fear, and so on. So it is part of, or synonymous with, sensitivity.

Do you follow what I am saying? If you do, are you aware that you are reading these words typed out in text on a pixelated computer screen? Are you aware of your eyes blinking as you read, or the sounds of the environment as you read, both the sounds coming from inside the room where you are sitting as you read, and the sounds that are coming from further away, from outside the room? All this is what I consider to involve awareness (in the way I am using that word).

Now for me, there is no difference between being aware (sentient, sensitive) of this outside environment - the noises coming from the room and beyond the room, the text on the bright screen of the computer in front of you, etc - and the inward, inner environment of the mind. Do you see what I am getting at?

Inwardly there might be a reaction to the words you are reading, or a reaction to the noises outside, a feeling or sense of what is going on (within and around you). Inwardly there may be various thoughts running through your mind, or feelings, or sensations in the body. You can sense them, be aware of them, feel them, note them, perceive them - now. Right?

If there is nothing going on at all, then either you are unconscious, in a coma, or dead - or else you are in some unusual state of emptiness. But the fact that you are reading these words probably means that there really are things going on in you that you can be aware of this second. Some of these things are physical sensations, sense perceptions, bodily affects. But inwardly most of what goes on is consciousness (in the way that K used this term): the movement of thought and feeling which has created all the psychological contents of consciousness.

So this is what I mean by awareness. And if you have read this far and accepted the invitation to pay attention to your outer and inner environment - even if only superficially, or momentarily - then you have yourself been at least somewhat aware.

Now I have another question for you:

Is the totality of your consciousness, your conditioning, emptied?

If it is, then you are correct in saying that awareness can only take place when conditioning stops.

If it has not been emptied, then you must agree with me that it is possible to be somewhat aware, even though the conditioning - your conditioning - is still taking place at deeper levels of the mind.

Some small aspect of conditioning may have retreated into abeyance while you were aware - and obviously, the very act of awareness is incompatible with being completely dominated by conditioning (by thought) in regards to that small area involved in being aware. However, unless this awareness (sensitivity, observation, perception, etc) can penetrate much more profoundly into the conditioning, the conditioning will inevitably reassert itself (perhaps with some slight modifications) and continue.

So we are not disagreeing that conditioning always returns where there has been only superficial awareness - we are merely saying that if we do not begin by using language in the same way, then we will not get far in a hypothetical future dialogue between us which is concerned with the total ending of conditioning - the emptying of all the contents of consciousness (a conversation in which the word insight might then become relevant).

I hope this clarification has been useful?

48

It occurred to me that the word K sometimes uses in a way that is similar to the way in which you are using this word “awareness”, is attention.

K sometimes says that attention is a state in which there is no thought.

I am using the word “awareness” to mean the simple awareness that we have of an aspect of conditioning: for example, hurt. One can be aware of hurt, and yet the hurt - if it is a deep-rooted wound - may continue, because we have not seen the whole of it.

To see the whole of it would be attention. So, in attention there is no hurt.

49

Dear James,
I perfectly well understand you. And I agree with what you say about conditioning and awareness. But in what you write, you state, and correct me if I am wrong, that awareness is , the way you describe it, independet of consciousness. I might have understood it wrongly. But you say that it is possible that awareness and conditioning can stand side by side. We can sense conditioning, feel it with all our senses and still be conditioned. I wonder if it is so. And I think we should go into it to find out if this is a fact. Would you agree that psychological thinking is not independent of our body? Because the body always functions as a whole the inward conditioning also conditions the body and with it our senses and our awareness through the senses. That means that awareness as you describe it, is not independent of conditioning. It also is conditioned through our thinking. And through this conditioned awareness we sense ourselves. In that we may resolve certain problems but not conditioning. In that there is also a lot of sensitivity. You will probably also have experienced how sensitive people can be for themselves or their family but not for others. So I think we have to take that in account when we speak about awareness and contioning. Are we really aware about something or do we think we are aware? That is an important difference. Before we discuss anything like the emptying of consciousness we should clarify that and find out if we are really aware of thinking and conditioning. Are we aware that everything we write and exchange here are just thoughts. They describe something, might be accurate or not, but they are never that what we are talking about. Are we aware about that? Or do we think the words are the real thing? Moreover I have the feeling that we misunderstand each other because I stress the point, that we can only act, live now. Being aware and stepping out of conditioning can only happen now. If it does not happen now it will continue. Unless we are just concerned with the future, the what should be and not what is happening now we have to ask if conditioning can end now. That was why I asked a few days ago, what will make us go into that question? Simple superficial awareness as you said will not do it.

50

Erik - I am not speaking theoretically. I have given you simple examples of what I mean by ordinary, everyday simple awareness. If you have intellectually, verbally, followed what I wrote above - about being aware of the sounds in your environment, the text on the computer screen, the inner content of your conscious experience this second - then you know what I mean by awareness.

Awareness is part of the mind. You might remember that K sometimes said that the mind (not the universal mind, but the ordinary human mind) is made up of thought, feeling, sensation, awareness, consciousness, etc - with each of these different words pointing to a slightly different aspect of what we call our mind.

Try it. Do it. If you’re not completely caught up in this ideological fixation on segregating the word “awareness” from the word “conditioning”, then you know that it is perfectly possible to be aware of feeling annoyed with someone, and yet for your consciousness, your conditioning, your thinking, to continue more or less as before (with some tiny modification that the awareness introduces). This may not be a satisfactory state of affairs, but it is - for me at least - a fact.

No-one is denying this. The body obviously affects our thinking, our thinking affects our feelings, our feelings affect our body - it is all one chain of mutual influence. Awareness is part of that chain of influences. If you are asleep, your awareness is greatly diminished. If your eyes are open, you are aware of sights - if your eyes are closed, you are only aware (through your eyes) of light and dark, etc.

That’s up to you Erik. As I have said, I have given a multitude of different examples, and invited you to experiment with your actual present-tense awareness of the sounds in your environment, the text on the computer screen, etc etc.

I am not talking about specific people who are supposed to be sensitive or not. I am talking generally about what it means to be sensitive - sensitive to touch, to taste, to feeling, to seeing, etc. A zombie is not capable of being sensitive - there is nothing that it is like to be a zombie - but any animal or person is sensitive in the way I am using that word here. I don’t mean sensitive all the way through - which is the state of beauty.

51

Dear James,

I understand all your examples. But it seems I cannot convey to you what I mean. And that is definitely not a language problem. How do you know that what you call sensitivity is not just your conditioning and what you think sensitivity should be or is just an expression of your conditioning?

Yes you can sense that one is annoyed with someone and the thinking process, the conditioning continues. I never denied it. But it is still conditioning acting. That is all I am saying. To me that is also a fact. But that does not change anything apart maybe on a superficial level. If that is enough for someone that is perfectly allright. I am not satisfied with that.

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Erik - my personal feeling is that you are being too intellectual about this. If you had never heard the word “conditioning”, I’m not sure you would be applying it in the way you are doing.

I sense that we’ve gone about as far as we presently can on this subject. But as one final experiment, why don’t each of us - when we have a free moment - take time out to observe a tree for a few minutes, and see if it is possible just to look at, or stay with the tree, without bringing the words “conditioning”, “thought” etc., into it, and see what happens?

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I just now am experimenting.
My eyes are looking at the wood stove.
There is only its presence.
You might call that awareness.
I ask myself am I aware.
The question has no substance and fades away.
The presence is what persists.
I ask what am I in this moment
and just find sensations.
Just an experiment.

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Dear James,
I thank you very much for your openess and time sharing this. But that is exactly I was asking you. You sense something - me being too intellectual - and is that maybe not just your interpretation, taking our written exchange here? You do not know anything about me and for sure you can only take my words here. But do we go beyond the words and really try to explore things? Or do we just exchange knowledge and quotes of K here? That is the experiment your are talking about. Can we exchange in dialogues, written, in person or on screen without bringing our conditioning in? Especially with these written dialogues it seems very difficult. You are absolutely right in questioning if I am dogmatic about something or not. And one has to question oneself all the time about it. Are you doing it yourself when you quote K? If you would have never heard of K, would you apply to these questions in this way? We could easily find other words for conditioning or awareness or thought. There are a lot of alternatives. But they would be only words. Could we meet not in words but in that what we talk about? By the way I am looking at and staying with trees, birds, flowers every day and there is no need to bring anything in. Best wishes and take care, Erik

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Yes, I agree - this online format is not conducive to real relationship. It’s easy to get stuck at a word level. But we can pick the discussion up at another time, and see if we can, as you say,

Have good day :pray:

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Sensations and presence. - I like that!

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Yes , cheers mate, we will do that. .-)

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Psychologically, does our thinking create problems that cannot be solved by thinking?

Yes.

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59

From today’s qotd:

Every argument and gesture is the continuity of despair, sorrow and confusion. There is no end to it. To turn your back on it all, calling this activity by different names, is not to end it. It is there whether you deny it or not; whether you have critically analysed it or whether you say the whole thing is an illusion, maya. It is there and you are always measuring it. It is these immediate answers to a series of immediate calls that has to come to an end. Then you will answer from the emptiness of no time to the immediate demand of time or you may not answer at all which may be the true response. All reply of thought and emotion will only prolong the despair and the agony of problems that have no answers; the final answer is beyond the immediate.

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You know Dev, I was reflecting that one of the impediments we have - those of us who have read or watched K - is that we lack simplicity.

Complexity is undoubtedly out there, both in the world and in ourselves - but we create more complexity than there actually is or needs to be.

I was watching the beginning of one of K’s dialogues with Pupul Jayakar (Rishi Valley 1984, Small Group Discussion 2), and K was asked where a person begins to look at all the things he has pointed out in his teachings. And he says to begin with the senses - begin by looking at nature, at trees and rocks and animals, begin by looking at the outer, at the villagers walking on the dirt roads, their poverty, and so on. Without that simple looking, he was saying, we lack a “common sense criterion” to then look inwardly at ourselves.

There is a tendency we all have to dive in at the deep end and talk about time, the ending of time, the ending of the self, the complexity of the observer and the observed - but most of us don’t even have the most simple, basic relationship to the outer world.

So I wonder whether we could cut through the thickets of our thinking more efficiently if each one of us could spend a little more time looking with our eyes, hearing with our ears, etc, at the world out there? - And then, with the common-sense clarity that brings, dive deeper into the inner?

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