This sentence appears to kept me busy for some time.
Why should one have the need for identification, this is the same energy why white people identifies themselves with there culture.
Both parties should let go of there identifications and seeing the insanity of what they are doing.
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Yes, of-course, it’s the only solution. We all have identifications… and they keep s in hell (
Thanks for the link to the video. Bohm’s take on the self and the fortress like citadel it constructs in defence of itself is well mapped out. The self is a true piece of work, capable of turning itself to anything, and its capacity for deception is something to behold.
This is really outstanding and contradicts all my experience in this field. A good chanche to doubt about one’s experience!
“a lot of doubt though because of the hinayana doctrine they were trying to instill in us - which went against all my zen and K beliefs.”
One belief agaist another! ( I had a similar experience with Vipassana meditation (I think it’s hinayana too) , a friend of mine introduced me to a Buddhist monk. He was a nice guy and I was curious to test their way. But I had no doubt about the doctrine (which I already knew) and which I found infantile.
The “meditation” however was sensate and in line with what I had done in the past, but I don’t like to do it with other people like in a concetration camp. Alone is my preference.
“I don’t see what your explanation is trying to deny or pinpoint?”
I’m not trying to deny anything, I just have doubts about your explanations, as I doubt every explanation by principle. We actually don’t know what happens inside us and explanations are a way to put aside the issue. Actually you got near my explanation in saying: " If the brain is not involved, there is no suffering".
I used the expression “the brain isolates itself from the body sensations”. Isn’t it the same stuff?
You probably mean doubt my interpretations and conclusions - however my experience was : the dropping of fear coincided with the dissapearance of pain - and my conclusion was that fear and pain are strongly correlated. (Difficult to argue against)
I would love new insight into the subject, so please feel free to point me in the right direction - because as you say, your explanation so closely resembles mine that it doesn’t really constitute a counter-argument.
If we are talking about S. N. Goenka’s Burmese version of Vipassana, where we are instructed to sweep our attention up and down the body (after a few days of watching the breath in a particular way) then yes it is Hinayana/Theravada - It was this retreat that I attended and also found too naive. So much so that I didn’t bother doing their special Vipassana technique, and just sat there with no method whatsoever for the whole period (apart from the naturally occuring doubt and attention)
PS - we should probably move to private messaging if we have more to say as we are taking up too much space here.
Not at all. I realize now that my reply was too short and not clear enough. I meant a good chance to doubt MY experience. As I said, I find your experience (10 days without pain) quite outstanding and very interesting. It condraddicts my experience because I’ve worked with yoga quite a lot for long time, and what I have learnt from it was not to force my body and achieving the positions (especially the lotus) gradually and gently. Your experience makes me think that there is something more and deeper about the relationship with our body which I never suspected. I cannot formulate any conclusion and I don’t want to. The two approaches (the gentle one and the violent one) could be equally valid depending on the person. I’m apt to think that if you feel you can do it then in 90% of the cases it will work.
What I know from anatomy and phisiology is that when you stretch a muscle like in yoga, that prompts a contracting reflex which is a defensive mechanism of the nervous system not to harm yourself. So the more you try to stretch it, the more it contracts (and hence the pain), unless you find a way to bypass the contracting reflex. In another discipline I’ve learnt few ways to cheat the nervous system and so to let it go the tension. Most likely you have found another way.
"to sweep our attention up and down the body (after a few days of watching the breath in a particular way) then yes it is Hinayana/Theravada - "
We did that too (and I was already accustomed with it through my yoga experience). But the core of the meditation was the observation of one’s thoughts without censoring them or stopping them. Which is just what K. advised to do.
By the way the teacher/monk knew K. and was contrary to his “no method” approach. To support his ideas he said that nobody had benefitted from K.'s teachings or got any results. I was too polite to tell him that even with their approach nobody had reached any results!
I think that violence - be it in Yoga or Social Contestation, is dangerous
The process I describe regarding pain and the Lotus posture was totally devoid of violence - it was 100% surrender.
PS. 99% surrender is not enough
Now I understand this question of yours!
“I’m saying that this essential (for our sanity and clarity) wholeness can have an increased
presence, via courage (meaning that we do not need to cling to the self) and attention (meaning that we are able to identify its subtlest movement - ie the watcher)”
and also this…
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Will knowing which part of the brain creates those identifications will be any helpfull ??
I’ll doubt that very much, that seems to me only a playgarden for scientists !
No, of-course. From a matter of fact point of view it’s absolutely useless. But as we all like to speculate sometimes, a bad habit in my opinion ( it could be consoling to know that we have our biology against our aims…
P.S.
Also K’s affirmation that the mind is something bigger than the brain does not help us…
A sad state of affairs 
This little robot seems to be doing all he can to stay alive - an existence based on fear.
I suppose thats to be expected seeing as it is just mirroring humanity (as represented by the internet)
artificial intelligence is the product of humanity and that’s why it is the mirror of humanity !
Kiill them! Kiill them now! 
May I remind you that this is not a forum for fundamentalist terrorists !
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The bottom line is that the living does not need man, but man needs the living.
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Isn’t “self” imagination itself? When I looked up the definition of imagination, it was quite revealing. “The self” is possibly the cause of murder. We can reason out why we don’t commit murder, but the process of thinking is what leads to murder.
isn’t it much easyer?
one sees the sun rising every morning and it seems as if that’s the movement, but investigation has proofed that the earth with the observer on it is turning around the sun, so it is the outcome of the process of wrong thinking based on incomplete information.
the self seems to be the same wrong thinking process based on incompleet information.
K. informed us on the basis of logic the wrongness of the thinking process but proof is only delivered when it’s is seen directly.
I think we must be aware here that the “self” exists as a lump of reactions. Stating, as Inquiry does, that it is an illusion is misleading because even if it may be correct theoretically, practically we need to deal with it and its mischiefs. All our relationships are conditioned by the self and its behavioral patterns (like violence/nationalism) and saying that it’s only imagination is equivalent to an intentional cheating to hide its responsibility and move the blame to something else. If one is not aware of him/herself in daily life and in all her/his relationships than there is no ground for a discussion about this topic.
We can say that “it’s the process of thinking is what leads to murder” but again it’s just a theoretical assumption which does not help us to understand what is at stake. The self is a creation of thought but we live well without the ego while we cannot live without thinking. To blame thought for the violence may lead to the wrong assumption that we need to eliminate thought (as some people believe), while the real villain is the process of the self. K. and a few others showed us that we can use happily and efficiently thought without the presence of the ego. Denying the reality of the self means depriving us of this possibility.
‘The bottom line is the …’ - The fact is we don’t know what role we (humans) are playing in this world (also we don’t exactly know what 'this world’is). We’re part of an eco-system, humans wouldn’t for example exist without the existence of the vegetables (animals as well, maybe). It simply isn’t for us - human beings - to decide what human colour should or not exist, all we have to do is respect nature and try to cooperate with it aiming at a more harmonious life. Black people lived in a very primitive way, they are now part generally of the so-called civilized world but they are now taking a further step and a dangerous one because at the same time they are using the vicious means that whites have generated and implemented and give to the world the image of victims of this society. Krishnamurti was against all sorts of violence, he said, and all we can do in that sense is ‘to put our house in order’ and ‘clean the slate’.