Ok. Are you aware of when you are not giving full attention? For example, if you are talking to someone and your mind starts wandering off, thinking of something else. Are you aware of this movement of thought?
I am completely aware of every movement of thought no matter what I’m doing.
• CRINA’S earlier post: 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
• INQUIRY: So complete attention knows that it is complete attention in the same way awareness knows it is awareness?
• CRINA: INQUIRY, I think you are asking: Are “complete attention” and the “Self-aware Awareness” the same “thing”? I think it is right to say that “Complete attention” and “Complete awareness” point to that quality/capacity of awareness to perform/be in self-knowing, when the “I” is not. The entire energy is given to self-knowing. It is a Self-aware Space (another synonym to “Complete attention/awareness”).
• CRINA’S earlier post: 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).
• INQUIRY: Why does complete attention revert to incomplete attention?
• CRINA: I think that the human body being biologically limited, cannot sustain “complete attention” for long. The human body lives in time, so it’s “radical transformation in it’s biology” requires time. K talks about the “change at the cellular level” in the brain; the cells are “washed” in an instant by awareness, but the cells still need time to transform, regenerate, be reborn, etc.
• INQUIRY: Does it happen frequently?
• CRINA: Not to me…not at all
• INQUIRY: Does the brain operate in both modes of consciousness without conflict?
• CRINA: in my case there is internal conflict, big time!!!
Never doubted it for a moment.
So this raises the question: When there is complete attention to the inner movement of thought, can there be complete attention to what one is doing or attempting to do outwardly, or is attention to outward activity always/usually divided, incomplete, due to the inward activity of thought, be it practical or psychological?
Can the brain awaken to the effect of constant thought, or must thought stop for as long as it takes the brain to awaken?
Thought coming to a stop doesn’t mean forgetting thoughts which have just taken place, it implies observation which isn’t reacting
I didn’t say or imply that it did, but since you mention it, isn’t remembering a function of thought?
it implies observation which isn’t reacting
I wouldn’t know. Is “observation which isn’t reacting” your experience, or just K’s teaching?
I wouldn’t have said it if I was just regurgitating words. I’m open to discussing this, I’m not looking at this statically. One question to put forward here is, is forgetting not remembering? I want to find out what it means for thought to stop. I already know no effort is implied, as all effort is a movement in a particular direction
Yes, I want to know, too, since it can’t be imagined by a brain that knows only continuous thought.
Yes but really it can’t be imagined at all. It’s not a process
In order to find out if thought can come to a stop, don’t we really need to understand exactly why and how we are thinking? So rather than chasing after attention as an ideal, is it possible to look very carefully at the fact of one’s own inattentiveness? What is the mind doing now? Is it thinking or is it attending? At which exact point does our attention to the world stop and turn into thinking? Surely, if we have no immediate answer to any of these questions, the mind is just being attentive. So attention is already there, unbidden. But it seems that if we are only concerned with proving that we are attentive, thoughtless, enlightened - as if this is going to make some magical difference to the world - then we start looking in all the wrong places.
What good is attention when the brain is confused by the fusion of psychological and practical thought and the distorted perception that results? Every living thing on earth is better off when humans are deeply asleep than when awake and active, since our attention is as dysfunctional as our perception, due to our thinking.
What good does it do to think about “complete attention” when one can’t possibly know what it is until/unless one has ceased to be confused?
You’re just repeating my question. Let’s forget about attention and look at the actuality of our thinking. Are you thinking now?
Who/what knows when it is not thinking? Is knowing possible without thought?
When you are not thinking, you are not there. So how can anyone say, ‘I don’t think,’ unless they have a certain motive behind it? The question is: are you thinking now? Is there any actual, vital, necessary reason to be thinking now?
Since we never stop thinking (unless you think you’re an exception), we don’t know what not thinking is. We can’t even imagine what not thinking is because imagining is thinking.
Is there any actual, vital, necessary reason to be thinking now?
At this time, now, practical thought is answering your question.
If all thinking was practical, it wouldn’t be constant, continuous, but only as needed. Psychological thought, however, is driven by constant fear of losing the illusion of I, me, mine, so it’s constant.
Maybe not. If you become aware of your breathing say, or the sensations coming from the body, thought stops.
There can be wider gaps between thought, pauses, but if thought resumes its mindless chatter, it hasn’t stopped being what it is.
Then stop and find out. Are you actually thinking now? Or are you merely rehearsing an old argument? Find out. Because there may be no difference whatsoever between thinking and not thinking, no gap at all between the two. One has heard the question - ‘Are you thinking now?’ - and one has to think about it, which means to allow a space of non-thinking for the answer to emerge. Otherwise, thinking itself is impossible; one is merely regurgitating what others have said. Then the space between the question and the answer is populated by mechanical responses only.
So let’s stop and find out, which means activity and non-activity together.
Don’t you tire of always having the answer to every question?