Meditation is essential

Kinfonet Discussion
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K on Meditation (4 minutes):

Dogma, interpretation, analysis, not so much

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That 4 minute Krishnamurti video clip captured one of many moments when he was at his best. He was addictive. It took me years to get out of that meditative trance.

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What do you mean Sree by “trance”? What K. is talking about here is watching thought choicelessly, as I hear it. The ‘trance’ state comes when thought has come upon a method of some kind and practices it over and over in order to bring about some state or other. The watching one’s thought silently is a certain kind of ‘art’ , but it has no motive other than the seeing the movement of the thinking process as it takes place. Do you see this ‘meditation’ differently?

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This confused me too - If pushed I would interpret it as meaning Sree felt that for many years he watched too many Krishnamurti videos.

However, K is saying something helpful here. “Meditation is essential”. The refusal of meditative systems or techniques does nothing to deny that fact. If non-judgemental attention is not possible, then we are just philosophers, good for debating and analysing ideas.
If we want to find out, thinking will not help, curiosity is key - and by that I mean : do it, find out - is attention without knowing possible?

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It means many things: getting drawn into that Krishnamurti state that only a like-minded fellow would understand, watching thought like a fool, seeking out Krishnamurti readers and arguing in Krishnamurti forums. At some point, I realized I had become a member of a some sort of a cult because no one except like-minded thought-watchers had a clue about what I was talking about.

You get what I meant by “trance” now?

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You became a ‘seeker of truth’. You found K. That’s a sort of miracle when you look around at the state of others. No path, no guarantees, nobody but yourself to get out of whatever ‘trance’ you fall into. Bohm says thought ‘runs’ you not the other way around. It has to be “understood” or better as he says “perceived”…

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“You”? How does thought runs you? There is no denying that the “self” exists (as far as I am concerned).

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You’re the construct of thought aren’t you? You’re the ‘self’, the center. That “bundle” of memories, experiences, conclusions, likes, dislikes, etc?

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As soon as you know you’re attending, you’re attending with knowledge. So to attend without knowledge, the need to know must burn up in the flame of attention.

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To attend is to be present and deal with things at hand. How is it possible to be in attention without the need to know? Are you using the English language as we know it?

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Hello Inquiry, Thanks - In view of your response, I’d like to try and improve my question - maybe “knowing” is not the best word.

My new question is : Is attention necessarily subject to the past? ie is it subject to interpretation (interpretation which is obviously based on knowledge/past)

Okay thats an awful question - please let me try again.

My real new question is : is attention without interpretation possible?

Or : Is attention without comparison possible?

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It certainly seems to. I mean paying attention to thoughts reminds me of trying too see the floaters in your eyes - they always avoid the centre of my vision.

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is attention without interpretation possible?

My understanding is that undivided attention, or what K called “complete attention”, is without interpretation.

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Thanks for posting this. Meditation is emptying the mind of the known. Can we live without accumulating and see things freshly every day?

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How did you come to that conclusion?

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Sometimes you know what you’re doing, and sometimes you don’t know until it becomes clear. In the case of floaters, you know what you’re doing, frustrating as it may be.

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Only one way to find out.

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Attention is usually divided between the object of attention and recognition (what I know or presume to know about the object), whereas complete attention is undivided.

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But of course, I must not empty it.

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What you are saying is very dense - If we go into it, we might get lost. We can if you insist - but I’ll just ask one more time : How did you come to these conclusions?