That’s interesting cause maybe there is a memory that is recording without the “me”, which happens when the me doesn’t live in memory or the “me” is …gone/non existent.
I comment my own post…!
- if there is such a memory that is not conditioned then this memory doesn’t belong to the brain. A memory outside the brain.
oh my …! What’s that ? God !
K would call it an outside agency ??!!!
I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion. As I’ve said, I don’t think the recording of experience is conditioned until it is reviewed, but this is just speculation.
There is no me without memory.
Inquiry, but this speculation is …fascinating …(I know the word fascinating can mislead me into imagination…or excitement ) but I never considered what you say : " I don’t think the recording of experience is conditioned until it is reviewed " - I really can’t prove it is true or false…it blows my thinking !!!
again, I can’t marry these two (the me & memory); memory is initially “intact” then the “me” distorts it; I can’t prove it is impossible nor possible
so, experiences are recorded without the “me” and are unstored “raw material”
then the “me” edits this “raw material”, and makes the conditioned memory I know…
Whatever we are meaning by the word “me”, pure/initial memory is already limited and conditioned from the start (by everything else ; biology, culture, context, etc).
Whatever conclusion we come to (about this, or anything else) will just be strengthening the conditioning already in progress (unless we are at least somewhat free from the known eg. like the sky 
)
PS. Have we seen the sky today? Have we sat down outside with a cup of tea?
Could K remember tying his tie with complete attention? Or was there no memory of that? How did he know the “me” wasn’t there when he tied his tie?
That would have been a good question to ask K when he was alive. I can’t assume anything about his brain beyond what he said about it. He felt that the conditioning that is common to everyone else, on him, did not “take”. So it’s possible that for K, no “me” was ever formed, and his attention would have always been complete.
I cannot know when I am not present, and if the brain doesn’t record the event as a memory I can review, the absence of I can only be witnessed or recorded by someone else or a recording device.
Is there necessarily a close correlation between memory and events (or experience or lack thereof)?
For example, the brain has been known to fill in the gaps, or make sense of nonsense.
I think this passage “defines” what complete attention is;
The word complete means, no room for anything else; attention fills the space “to the brim”, leaving no room to the “I” to be in;
In the unfolding of this attention, I am only attention, nothing else.
When I am out of it, I remember the complete wholeness of the moment, which confirms indirectly the absence of the nosy disturbance, which is the “I”.
The absence of the “I” is confirmed by the existence of wholeness.
1 Like
you say :Nicely put @crina, who said that?
my answer: few moments of more or less of complete attention, in which the “I” was in and out of it…
1 Like
Let’s say that according to memory, the testimony of others, and a surveillance camera, I was absent when “I” said or did something. If what was said or did was wise or selfless, I would conclude that the old me was absent. But if it was something stupid or harmful, I would conclude that a worse me was present.
According to K’s teaching, the I, the ego, the self, dies, ceases to exist, when the brain awakens to its conditioning and is free of itself. That means one goes from living constantly with oneself to living without oneself, free of oneself. But can the brain that knows nothing but living with itself imagine living without itself? Isn’t I, me, a complete system that operates within self-imposed limits? And isn’t it possible for I to believe anything that makes this isolated, self-regulated system more tolerable to sustain?
I can believe that at times, I am absent, not dividing or interfering with attention, and it may be true. But how can I know for sure that my self-serving system has lapses, moments, events, when I am absent?
Dear Inquiry, I want to continue this dialogue but my English is sometimes an impediment in understanding more complex ideas; so if you want, rewrite your above post in a basic English, cause my brain has tried to decipher your message without much success - this is not to critique you…
Can I know when I am not present, not active, nonexistent? Can I know anything but how to be I?
The “I” is the byproduct of memory. The “I” is not self aware. The “I” can not be aware of it’s own absence or presence.
Awareness is the agent in observation, and it is prior to memory.
In a state of “Complete attention” this awareness stands alone, it is self aware and autonomous, unmixed with anything else then awareness.
Once “Complete attention” is no longer my state, the sense of “I” returns and my life is now a space in memory, where there is a believing in an “I” as the agent of observation (of knowing).
"Can I know anything but how to be I ? "
Are you making a difference here between “to know” and “being” ?
You can´t have one foot in this and one foot there, you can have one foot in that intelligence which is not limited and then you can come to the other but you can´t go from the limited to that, (…) so we are asking, not in opposition to the limited but if you are asking from the limited to find out the other, you never can find out. – J.K. On living peacefully with intelligence.
So complete attention knows that it is complete attention in the same way awareness knows it is awareness?
Once “Complete attention” is no longer my state, the sense of “I” returns and my life is now a space in memory, where there is a believing in an “I” as the agent of observation (of knowing).
Why does complete attention revert to incomplete attention? Does it happen frequently? Does the brain operate in both modes of consciousness without conflict?