The Kinfonet ring? Maybe we should all have different coloured belts Douglas. 
Its a jungle in here! we haven’t evolved to a stage where we are organising and formalising our catcalls and philosophical putdowns yet. We did have a couple of lackadaisical referees at one point, but its a total back alley scratch n spit now.
PS. sorry Dev, joke
Nor sure of any research, bu after awakening from listening to K I felt happy and that I may have understood on a different level.
Catcall organisation workshop anyone?
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On a couple of occasions you wrote of “winning” in a forum like this. On one of those occasions you mention how my replying to you, “I don’t know”, was a winning strategy, though it seems to me more like forfeiting than scoring.
Do we know we’re winning when we get those little valentines, or when playing our own game we keep our score-keeping to ourselves?
Firstly - I’d like to apologise : sometimes I think that some of the stuff on Kinfonet is so crazy that I react by making a joke - usually in the form of trying to show how absurd we are being.
Secondly, this need to win, obviously a part of our inherited psyche, just shows how difficult it is to see past ourselves, even when involved in the basest, most selfish action.
Our neuro-psychological imperitives aside. I have questions : Is Kinfonet a platform for debate? Is that what we want? Is debate the best way to inquire into an idea? (By debate I mean confronting competiing opinions)
Or might it be a good idea for regular participants to practise the idea of “open dialogue” or “attentive dialogue”?
I’ve started a thread on the topic of “open dialogue” here
Well that explains a lot.
It may be. why is there enquiry into an idea? Listening is not an idea.
I know this comment wasn’t addressed to me so please excuse me for butting in, but I think there’s an interesting point here.
Personally, sometimes after reading or listening to K or discussing the teachings here, I feel a heightened clarity for a short period of time. For example, if I watch a video of K talking about the art of listening I sometimes find that I listen more attentively afterwards or have a heightened awareness of the fact that I’m not really listening. I wonder if others can relate to this.
Yo Sean! I’ve sent you a message.
Regarding your comment above - some people on Kinfonet have mentioned something similar. Also it reminds me of our Kinfonet discussion facilitator (lovely fellow) who gets feelings that indicate to him that the Zoom dialogue is going well (I think it indicates that the group is giving off some proper meditative vibe)
Seeing that - do you stay with it? Or do you just have another thought which dissipates focus and moves one further from the seeing as one safely escapes from the seeing? And then wonders why nothing is happening from hearing/reading K’s words? Do you see that nothing can happen from thinking? This is not a putdown or a gotcha comment - you don’t know how to listen. You listen for practical things and listening works. But for psychological issues you use the same way of listening which doesn’t work and, so, nothing can happen. You don’t psychologically listen.
See my response to Sean right above.
Hi Bob. I was saying the opposite - something is actually happening from hearing/reading K’s words (in my case). If I’ve just heard/read K talking about, for example, the art of listening, I often feel my mind sharper, more attentive for a period after having read/listened.
Isn’t listening to K or anyone else a case of attention? An awareness of inattention? Becoming aware of the movement of thought, and how it distorts our perception of what is going on around us?
If I become aware of my inattention there is an immediate change. Awareness of inattention brings attention. Isn’t the seeing the doing here?
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I may be totally off base but your response reads like something you remember you should do and therefore you should get the result K said you would get. But you don’t get the result. If one is doing it as a remembered thing, which then is a method, then thought doesn’t stop. This may not be what you are doing, in which case, ignore my comment. If it is what you are doing, let’s explore. Step by step,
I think observing attention and inattention is something we can all do at any time. If you’re friend is talking to you and you become aware that you’re not listening, what happens? There is immediate attention and you begin to listen. Is this not so?
Do you see that your statement above has a number of steps in it? Can we go step by step?
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I don’t know Bob. My statement seemed pretty straightforward. Self-observation is surely at the very heart of what K spoke about for so many years. But I’m listening.
Proceed…
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Can I ask you why you call it an “art”?
Is it the “riding above the noise”?
Someone should have asked K why he called listening an art and not observation and seeing, because, unless K had redefined “art” to mean something that comes into existence without an artist, we’ll never know.