In some situations I’m fine. In others I start to fade away and sometimes run away for self protection.
Yes. To live the conscious life. As opposed to living on autopilot, lost in thought, surrendering to one’s conditioning. It sounds like a no-brainer, take the red pill and wake up dude! That’s what would happen in the movie, right? But in real life, we take the blue pill o’er and o’er a-gain. Sisyphus!
Now that sounds healthy! Rack 'em! 
I wanna say that if we hold the idea that “I have a weak self”, this is a sign of a strong self at work. In fact, I think you say the same thing here :
Its a bit like someone brought up in financial poverty whose attachement to their lack (aka desire for money) is actually just as strong or stronger than a rich person who’s never even once had the thought : “I need cash”
I wonder, what is another term (synonym) for a “weak self”? Because I’m having trouble imagining what that actually means. For example, I am a bit of an introvert (get easily fatigued by social situations) and have suffered from acute bouts of paranoia - but would categorise this as being due to an overly active self.
But “one must imagine Sisyphus happy”, right?
You may recall that in Camus’ retelling of the Sisyphus myth the supreme moment of consciousness comes at precisely the moment when the rock falls back down into the valley - a moment of complete failure! Yet this is a sacred breathing-space, a pause in Sisyphus’ otherwise endless labour - a space for awareness to flower.
In this moment of pure lucidity Sisyphus rises above his situation, permitting him to love his life in spite of its many sufferings (and failures).
So why not ourselves too?
Yes! “One must imagine Sisyphus happy” is one of my all-time favorite quotes! I identify quite a bit with it, have probably said it here in the forum several times over the years.
I related this example to the operation of thought. One thought follows another. The thoughts associate one after the other depending on the underlying subject. ‘I’ seem to be the ‘director’ of the process…but am ‘I’? The thoughts, sentences, phrases follow the rules of syntax. They appear one after the other. As if they were led by a “form-forming” system.
At the moment, you and the question exist as two separate states; therefore, images will always be involved because you are composed of a million and one memories which get activated by the language of the question. In other words, where there is a question and a questioner, the desires of the questioner must always take precedence. Then love will always be linked to desire; and desire inevitably brings sorrow in its wake. I wonder, therefore, if it is possible to see that the question doesn’t actually start to come alive until it isn’t coming from any questioner, either you or me.
Yes one can say: thought is directed by the “I”, or thought is directed by “conditioning”, expression of the neuronal state, created by the braincells, or is following “the rules of syntax”, predestinated in language, determined by the constelation of the planets and stars and so on, thought is understood in terms of external observation. In that way, the way of behaviour is understood (interpreted) in relation to the abstractions coming out of this kind of observation, external reasons.
You related the example above to the operation of thought. This was intented by me to show how thought works in relation to reality. It should show that we interprete our behavior in the terms of an external observer. You brought in another example in writing: “one thought follows another”. Guess you associate thought with the ants. The difference is: Ants have a sense. They look and are in direct relation with their reality. I think that is the case for all living beings. They move as they look and feel the effects of their movement. It is the same with a musician. In playing the instrument there is listening how the contact to the instrument is and there is contact to the instrument how there is listening. Any kind of delay in this relationship leads to a disturbance, disharmony. But since we look at our activities from an external observer’s point of view through thinking, there is a break here in the relationship to reality, which is conscious in the different kinds of conflict leading to irritation and the demand for finding solutions.
So the question is: Is the idea of an “I” as ‘director’ of the movement of thought based on the external observing the sequence of thoughts? Or is it the way man is conscious about the conflict there is out of the position of external observation? Do you understand this question? And further question: Is this form, in which this conflict appears in consciousness the cause for the continuity of the conflict?
I’d say the question comes alive in a different way when it is not attached to a questioner.
When attached, the question is alive with the interplay of the question itself (what it’s asking) and its relationship to the questioner. It’s a psychological aliveness, the vitality of the world of self.
When the question is not attached to the questioner, but stands on its own, the psychological aspect fades and what’s left is the question itself in all its glory.
Could be, assuming that a strong self means an insistent hungry intrusive self. What I mean here by strong self is a healthy self, one that has managed to evolve successfully through the human self maturation process and end up well functioning and happy(ish).
Being paranoid and overly active are symptoms of a weak = unhealthy self. Join the club!
Yeah, good question. Is it all images bouncing up against images? Maybe. In some cases. And that can be great fun, engaging, fulfilling. But there’s also the possibility of actually touching another living being. It might be subtle or indirect, between the lines. It’s thrilling and sometimes terrifying.
These thoughts presented here, do they have an ‘author’? They issue from a brain, does the brain have an ‘owner’? Is the notion of ‘possession ‘ misplaced here where thought/thinking is concerned? If there is awareness of these thoughts as they appear, does that constitute some sort of ownership? Or is all this ‘just’ thinking? Is the “external observer “ mentioned, the “thinker” that K refers to as a “trick” of thought? Technical thinking obviously has a place but what is the point of this ‘psychological’ thinking? Does it have any point at all or was it just some sort of inevitable mistake in the human brain along its way? Does its very movement in the mind serve no other purpose than to continue creating problems and then attempting to solve them? Thereby perpetuating itself, as well as an ‘illusory’ conflicted ‘I’?
So if any or all of this is ‘true’, what will bring the movement of thought in the mind to a ‘stop’ before humans destroy themselves and possibly a great deal of Nature as well? If psychological “occupation” of the mind is the cause of human suffering, is there any other factor except thought itself that can bring about an end to its reign there?
That’s not quite what I mean. First, we questioned separation; then we questioned love; and now another element has entered into this, which is sorrow. Our questioning has led us to this feeling or experience of sorrow, a reaction which occurs when we see our lack of love and all the other consequences of living separately as isolated and confused individuals. This reaction of sorrow is me; so I can’t question it without forming a gulf between the sorrow and myself. Therefore, the only thing that makes any sense at this point is for sorrow to question itself, not for sorrow to be questioned by proxy.
You ask your questions in relation to terms like author, ownership, technical and psychological thinking, mistake in the brain, purpose. Thought leads to results which enforce thought to reflect its own working. That way: Thought creates fear and on the other hand fear is a challenge for thought. The terms addressed are from argument of the thinking with its results. Because thinking is in the unclear with itself, it looks for something responsible for it, author, some faulty plant, the transgression of a competence, thus for something what already is, before the result turns out. And that thing “before” becomes the object of interest with regard to possibilities of having influence on it or not.
In the same way one finds that one survives by the way one thinks ones way through life, then it is said that thinking is there, has its purpose in ensuring survival. Or one takes notice of solving problems with thinking, already it said, it is its task. One is afraid and finally finds a safe protective place and already it is said that the fear is present as a disposition, so that one can recognize danger and to look for and find protection from this.
In the first Dialog with J.Needleman, Awakening of Intelligence, K states, that “thought operates in the field of the known” and it operates in that field, as only in this field thought can function (and verify itself) in finding “security, protection and safety”.
What we probably agree on is the peculiarity of thought to always pretend something in order to be able to reason und justify its operating before itself. But what makes, that thought can relate to knowledge? I think one should ask more distinguished “what knowledge is”, “what thought is” before discussing the question about change of mind. I think you mean that too, when you ask for a ‘stop’.
I’m very familiar with those talks. There is a great moment when Needleman is asking about ‘help’ and K draws his attention to the light on the hills. A moment of pure seeing without the presence of thought.
Isn’t it strange that thought should want “security, protection and safety”? From what? This is a “material process”.
Or is it the ‘thinker’ that wants those or is it the brain itself that K has said must have “total security? And ‘finds it’ by stuffing itself with dead knowledge and shuts out the living unknown?
Is it a fact that we are ‘separate’ when we are romping in the “field of the known” but we are ‘one’ when that activity is watched with no judgement?
I am going to have to use the H word here:
How (in tarnation!) would sorrow ‘question itself?’
He said the ‘how’ word!!!
I’m so embarrassing!!!
(Don’t tell Jiddu.)
BUT …“sorrow questioning sorrow” IS the only way. 
Wish I knew what “sorrow questioning sorrow” means!
You can never know what it means. To know what something means is just about being clever enough with language to be able to put it into a satisfactory statement. By the time you have arrived at this statement, the feeling of sorrow has moved on.
You are sorrow. You are fear. You are greed, shame, regret, jealousy, envy, guilt, anger, pride, and a million other things too. But you also want to be in control of all this. That’s right, isn’t it? You are asking, ‘How?’ out of a sense of separation from what is taking place.