Just Thinking

Kinfonet Discussion
41

This reads like a statement and ends with a question mark, so my answer is that silly questions of no interest at all should not be ignored or “dropped”. They should be acknowledged for what they are so people who post silly, useless questions are discouraged from doing so.

Doesn’t K encourage us to ponder the difference between true meditation and merely following some ritual practise?

I can’t assume that K thought we knew what meditation actually is, but I can assume that he knew we knew what ritual practice is, and that we needed to know that actual meditation cannot be practiced.

I’m asking people who are interested whether they would like to consider this question.

So how do you feel (apart from your reaction to people you consider rude) when someone says this is not a good question, and explains why?

Are you worried that I might be trying to preach?

You’re not a preacher, but you have some notions/assumptions that I feel compelled to notify you of.

42

You would like me to stop asking silly questions?
And who will be the authority on the silliness of my questions?
Actually - would you like me to go away? I don’t mind giving you full permission to decide my fate here on kinfonet. Just say the word and I will refrain from making anymore comments.

Well its not just anyone, its you Inquiry. And it feels a bit like being accosted by a mad policeman.

43

Calm down. Stop taking it personally. I don’t know you. I’m only replying to words on a screen and I don’t want the writer to go away. In fact, you may be the only one here at this time that I don’t want to go away, if that makes you feel better.

its you Inquiry. And it feels a bit like being accosted by a mad policeman.

I can’t blame you for putting your feelings about yourself and your image of me ahead of your capacity for reasoning, but I urge you to be more dispassionate because inquiring into what K was trying to get across to us is a better use of our time and energy than defending our imagined selves to imagined others.

44

To speak of meditation in the sense Krishnamurti meant is a very wide field, there is this book called Meditations (if I remember well published by the uk foundation) which is a compilation of moments of meditation in Krishnamurti’s life, so we see that in actual life he practised meditation {he identified what he was doing as such), the fact is he said there was no method to it. I read above that Nhung’s understanding is that because she wasn’t enlightened she had to do a meditation practice, she felt the need to sit quietly and let thoughts flow without following one in particular. It happens that an enlightened person is always associated with meditation as well. So it seems right to say that meditation is what comes naturally to you if you’re thriving for a religious way of living in the sense that Krishnamurti said he was a religious man.

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45

I understand meditation in the Krishnamurti sense to mean seeing things clearly as they are rather than distortedly through the filter of psychological conditioning. This seeing is enabled by being aware and attending to the present moment. Meditation is attention.

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46

This is some of what @Nhung said about meditation (above) :

"When thought arise, my experience is not adding more. I can imagine thought like a guest I invite accidentally, so let guest do what she likes and I don’t talk to her, I don’t offer some food or drink for her. So guest feels bored and go out.

If I have appearance of doing something to thought, It will arise series of new thoughts. So I don’t suppress, ignore or neglect it. If I see thought one by one when it arises, I’ll be very tired, so I can’t do that. It’s like an arrow kill only a bird . But if we awake, one arrow can kill a flock of birds.

I “try” to practice right to the way: Still and illuminate, not having any appearance of doing something… when we practice if we have thoughts and thoughts can not “attack” us, at that time we are awaking."

And this is what K said in Ojai, april 1977 :

"Meditation. It is really one of the most important things in life. Not how to meditate, not the system of meditation nor the practice of meditation, but rather, what is meditation.

It is very important, I think, to uncover for oneself what one is, what actually one is

It becomes vital, absolutely important that there must be freedom; freedom from this whole content of our consciousness.
And…also… the question of the observer and the observed - the observer who separates himself from the observed. I am this, I must become that. So the observer is making an effort to become.
When jealousy occurs, when there is no observer, you let it blossom and then end. You understand? Like a flower that blooms, withers and dies away. But as long as you’re fighting it, as long as you’re resisting it or rationalizing it, you’re giving life to it.
You can only meditate, and understand it fully, when there is no search or desire for power,

So we’re asking, what is meditation? And why should we meditate?
Be aware of your thought - aware - don’t choose in that awareness which thought you would like - just be aware of it. And from that awareness comes attention. Attention implies that there is no center from which you are attending. This is really important to understand because this is the essence of meditation.
So meditation is the emptying of the content of consciousness, which is consciousness. You’re getting this? That is the meaning and the depth of meditation: the emptying of all the content, which means putting - please listen - thought coming to an end.
Meditation is the attention in which there is no registration, psychologically no registration except the fact, of language, going to the office, working in a factory and so on - nothing else. Then out of that comes complete silence, because thought has come to an end."

47

Do know this for a fact or are you referring to what Krishnamurti implied when he said that meditation occurs naturally, effortlessly, at any time, and can’t be practiced?

48

Hello, Rick!
Well, I can’t reduce meditation to attention, but attention is certainly part of meditation or part of the meditations that Krishnamurti shared with us.

49

Hello, Inquiry!
I don’t see much connection between what you highlight and your question, but I’ll say that what I meant basically was that meditation can be both practised and not practised, depending on what you mean to be doing. I’ve done different practices of meditation and I think all can help you in daily life if you don’t expect it to operate the miracle of enlightenment.

50

You’re saying that meditation can be done, practiced deliberately, and this is not what Krishnamurti was saying. Do you want to have it both ways because you don’t know what to call what you’re doing when you think you’re meditating?

51

What I said, Inquiry, is that meditation can be practiced as I have practiced formally doing courses of yoga and vipassana meditation and along with the years with different groups including Christian meditation. Everybody calls it meditation and Krishnamurti could never find a different name for what he told us about so it is all meditation. Krishnamurti would not say how you could come to this state, no technique, no system, so that he didn’t become a model, I’m sure you understand this.

52

In deep meaning there is no method here. K has ability to enlighten immediately, so it’s no method, no practice. So non - method is a method . And people who haven’t enlightened immediately are left behind and want to enlighten gradually. If I don’t have method, how can I practice?
When I practice but in that practice don’t have appearance and trace of practice at all ( because I don’t do anything,) then it is not a practice. So having practice in no practice.

53

Attention is fundamental to what Krishnamurti meant by meditation. Without attention there is no meditation. But I agree that reducing meditation to attention is an oversimplification.

54

To the contrary, Krishnamurti was redefining the word “meditation” just as he did the words “religious”, “observation”, “consciousness”, and others. But, ignore that if you need to think you’re meditating.

55

Hello, Nhung!
I think I understand very well what you’re doing and it seems it is working, that is what is important. I’m with you here.

56

Yes, Rick, I totally agree with you and I think you were right to underlie the importance of attention in meditation.

57

There is no contrary here, Inquiry. There is this very basic truth that the word is not the thing, no matter how much you work on the word. What you do only you can know, that is all.

58

This is one of the first things K says in his enquiry into what meditation is. And then he goes on to describe the workings of the self (ie. separation between Observer/observed which includes the weird sense of separation between me and myself, effort and progress over time, desire for power/security etc)

I think this (desire to find out what one is) is what makes the difference between “trying to meditate” and “meditation” (aka religious mind).

I have often wondered about the necessity for “insight into the whole movement of self” in order for effortless, choiceless awareness to arise (ie. awareness of my experience moment to moment - rather than being caught up in the annoying or attractive contents of my experience) and I reckon that mere (but honest and intense) curiosity about the movement of self is sufficient for awareness to kick in.

Awareness of the movement of self does not require revulsion or total understanding due to some magical insight - mere curiosity will suffice.

If I am angry, mere curiosity about what anger is will suffice to transform that moment of anger into awareness.

Of course, this just kicks the can down the road - I have no power over what I am/want etc I can no more make myself curious than I can provoke insight - we are forever subject to the vast network of causes and conditions.

59

Yes, and what we do is pretend to know what we really don’t know, and then deny that this is lying to ourselves. We don’t face this fact because to do so undermines every pretense we stand for, justify, defend, and perpetuate.

So the question is, Can one presume, believe, anything to be true if one has no self to conspire with?

Without a self, a co-conspirator, can one distort, deny, or dismiss whatever actuality that does not comport with one’s presumptions? Could it be that the self-centered brain practices the worship of duplicity?

60

Hello, Inquiry!
What are you talking about? You speak of ‘we’ and ‘without a self’ doing so and so… I don’t identify with any of what you say, I’m sorry, and it is out of context anyway. You can believe what you will, it’s your life. The topic was meditation and meditation practice because Nhung said that in her meditation practice she wouldn’t look at each single thought, it would be too tiring.