Your assumptions are correct - I am indeed a human being and I do like strawberries. Does that count as “preferring”? The wild strawberries that grow in the mountain forests of the Pyrenees are particularly tasty.
Do I interpret what is? Of course I do. When I think, which is almost all of the time, I interpret “what is”. This interpretation comes from my past experience or conditioning. When I see a tree, thought says “that is a tree”. The question seems to be if thought is ever silent and there is the looking at the tree in silence without thought. Does this ever happen? My expereience is that it happens for short periods of time. Krishnamurti spoke about observation without words which is an interesting thing. When you observe, does thought interpret with words, images or something else? Is thought ever still and is there sometimes observation with a silent mind? Surely these are things to experiment with. We can explore this together here but exploration is often closed down by black and white statements or declarations at the beginning of a discussion. Let’s face it, we know very little about observing with a silent mind.
Well, here is the first question: How are we going to approach something that does not belong to the field of knowledge without staying in the field of thought and words to know what it is?
And the second: Why do we want to know what it is?
And the third and last: At what point in such approach is there going to be an observation with a silent mind, at the beginning, in the middle, at the end … or never?
In short, what do these words of K mean to you (all): “You are listening to yourselves, and not to the speaker.”
There are the “conscious” thoughts - which most people can identify as thoughts - the narrative in our heads that we are aware of and can be recalled.
Then there are the more powerful thoughts that we usually mistake for reality. These are in fact interpretations/judgements about our relationship with the “outside” world.
Then there is maybe the most powerful thought, which we call identity or the observer.
Powerful because subtle and difficult to see and thus cause of confusion and conflict.
Meditation is when the process of interpretation and identification is seen.
I don’t understand what you mean here. Can you give examples?
In the video which began this thread, Krishnamurti makes it very clear that for him, meditation is the awareness of the whole movement of thought. I don’t see that dividing thought up into different categories really helps. When we talk about observation, surely there is just thought and silence. While thought is operating, there will be a distortion of reality as conditioning is present and constantly interpreting reality. Observation with a silent mind will not have this distortion. Is this not so?
We are under the impression that our basic understanding of reality as we experience it, is reality. When we notice the truck rumbling by over there, the birdsong, the silly people on the internet etc… What we are in fact aware of is not reality as it is, it is our impression, our interpretation of reality - what we experience as really happening “out there”, is in fact all made up “in here” - it is also thought - thought masquerading as reality.
All that we observe, is ourselves.
Even the identity we call ourselves, is thought.
If we can tell the difference between thought, and silence, this too is self-centred noise.
Oh yes, but the problem is that the tree is in fact very, very real - it is part of nature and has not been created and put together by thought. The question is whether we can really see it or not. If we can’t tell the difference between thought and silence then we are really lost. Are you saying that you really can’t tell when thought stops and there is silence, even for a moment?
I’m saying that when there is no comparison, the myriad things are one, the conflict ceases, and there is silence - a different vision avails itself. What I believe has less of a hold.
Thought doesn’t have to be silent to see what it misrepresents. Thought’s power is not in its disturbance, but in our inability to see it for what it is.
I suppose, given the complexity of the subject, it’s inevitable that we understand different things when we listen to Krishnamurti talking for four minutes about meditation as he defined it. At least we have the wonderful descriptions of walking in nature that Krishnamurti left us. Reading these we can get a feel of observation with a silent mind.
Yes…K emphasized this point in a lot of his talks and discussions. We normally don’t see the tree as it is but see it through the screen of knowledge and memory and labels and various ideas about the tree.
It seems like you’re saying that thought can understand itself. Is that what you mean?
Krishnamurti said in the video clip that began this discussion that silence comes when the mind completely understands itself. Since he used “mind” and “thought” interchangeably, he was saying that thought can understand its own operation. And why wouldn’t it? When you learn to do something skillfully, you can help others develop the same skill because you understand all that’s involved in the process.
Thought, the mind, can understand itself when it’s attentive to its own activity, observing its mistakes and correcting them until it operates optimally. This is what Krishnamurti meant by learning and self-knowledge.
You know what? I agree with you on something. I agree that you probably" watched thought like a fool". How else could you have watched it? On the other hand, K was talking about watching thought attentively. Watching everything going on around us attentively. Which is much different than what many apparently did.
I think a lot of people where trained, conditioned or whatever to accept meditation as being what several people from the east were saying it was. Focusing on a mantra or chanting something while sitting in a very uncomfortable pose. Remember all those “gurus” from the east who came to the US in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s selling “meditation”? Transcendental meditation, as one example, which many ending up referring to as “transcendental trash”. I never got involved with meditation back then so I’m no expert on it. But I think it sort of set our view of what “meditation” was suppose to be. What K pointed out had little or no likeness to the commercial meditation. But some, apparently, tried to approach it like one would the commercial meditation.
It seems that once again you may have let your own interpretation of what you thought K was saying get in the way of what he actually said on the video. May I suggest you watch the video again without interpreting?
I very strongly disagree - please reconsider! Mind and thought are 2 different concepts. Just as consciousness and thought are very different. Or the brain and thought are very different. The self and thought are 2 different concepts. All are related but point to different things - how would communication be possible if words all meant the same thing - although now I am starting to understand why the dialogue gets so weird here sometimes.
Please consider this definition of mind : the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.
I would also say that thought is always conditioned, thus biased. Whereas we don’t really know what mind is.
Yup, there was no intelligent way I could have watched anything attentively for no reason.
That was what Krishnamurti said and I believed him. After all, what had I got to lose? It was exciting in the beginning when I was in touch with folks, diehard Krishnamurti devotees who knew the ropes. After a few years at it and going nowhere, I was having second thoughts; especially, when the devotees came across as just another group of people with a special interest. Being the determined kind, I stuck to it in case the enterprise needed a bit more effort (as macdougdoug phrased it). I didn’t go as far as Siddharta who was practically half-dead and wasted before he chucked the bs.