Memory

Kinfonet Discussion
21

Do you think there is some preliminary work – which may include the type of discourse we are attempting to have by putting out thoughts down here in this forum, that is, applying one’s mind to investigate as clearly as one can - that reveals something to thought about its own functioning? That leads to a triggering of some instrument other than thought?

An awareness (partial insight) of sorts that is different from the absolute “perception” described below.

Perhaps the distinction is neither here nor there. We need to move one step at a time from where we are. To only consider the other insofar as it is helpful in informing our attempt at unbiased (rational) thinking. Followed by the suspension of said thinking for the purpose of learning about something altogether new?

Curiously though, I do have a vague recollection of coming across somewhere K making a distinction between awareness and attention, as if they were different states, attention being more akin to the pure, impersonal perception mentioned above. Elsewhere in his writings, he uses the words interchangeably.

22

This might be a semantic/linguistic issue, but I don’t see perception as being beyond memory.

23

Even the ‘purest’ most ‘direct perception’ draws upon hard-wired conditioning, i.e. memory.

We are memory made flesh, there’s no escaping causality, the past. (Or is there?)

24

Rick, you began with the question

However, your assumption is clearly that there is nothing except memory:

and

and

and

So, in this respect, your position is no different from Emile’s:

Right?

Emile also raised the problem that, if it is only memory that is putting the question (raised in the OP), then

That is, if all there is, is memory, and all we are is memory, then

Right?

It seems we are caught in a trap (made of memory, by memory itself).

K’s words cannot be a satisfactory answer, because for us they can only be an external authority.

So we are still left with the question:

Is there

You and Emile both say ‘no’.

My question to you both then is:

is this ‘no’ the outcome of a direct insight you have had into the nature of thought and memory, or into the nature of attention/perception?

If it is not, then on what basis are you asserting your ‘no’? Your assertion must be based on memory (i.e. logical reasoning from prior assumptions or the authority of others or from your own partial insights into memory), right?

And if it is - i.e. if your ‘no’ is genuinely the outcome of a direct perception or insight - then maybe you could elaborate on the insight (not merely partial insight) you are claiming to have had?

You see, I feel that unless we are permitted to ask the question of whether or not there is in fact a state of attention/perception free from memory/thought -

a question that has no answer at present, and so is actually unknown to each of us -

we are only going to go around in circles here.

What do you feel about it?

If nevertheless, after saying all this, you both still reject my original question (“Is there a state of awareness/attention or perception in which memory is absent?”), can we explore a bit more together what we mean by “memory”, what memory is (where it comes from, how it arises, what its mechanism and function is)?

25

Yes. This comes out most clearly in his discussion with the Buddhist scholar Walpola Rahula, where K makes a clear distinction between simple awareness (accessible to anyone at any time), choiceless awareness (which is a subtly different state of the same awareness), and attention (in which there is no centre at all operating).

Awareness and attention are crucial pointers in Krishnamurti’s teachings - because we are otherwise completely confined to thought and thinking alone.

In his later dialogues K would sometimes equate the alertness of the senses with awareness, to make it clear that our two fundamental instruments are cognitive and perceptual - with the perceptual “instrument” being the crucial pointer for the listening audience.

26

Could you say this again - but differently? I’m not getting it. Or maybe I am, thusly :

K says awareness is the habitual perception/interpretation via the senses and knowledge - and thus implies that there is not the usual processing of information during attention (which is dffferent from awareness)?

27

Hey macdougdoug! - Rick’s OP question is the main question we are looking at. My reply to Emile (about awareness and attention, and the relationship of the senses to awareness) is a secondary point. I don’t want to make that the focus of the thread until or unless it becomes absolutely necessary.

Rick’s question was:

I would be interested to know (seeing as you are interested in Zen) what is your response to that question?

28

I don’t know what you mean by ‘direct insight.’

My belief(?) that everything is conditioned (derived from memory) is based largely on an idea: Everything that arises (present) is causally related to everything that arose (past). That’s close to an inviolable law for me. But it’s a law of conventional reality, which is all I know. If there is something beyond, all bets (which are made in conventional reality) would be off.

29

Yes.

You don’t believe that there is anything more than memory, based on your own reasoning from memory. Is that sufficient for you?

So what made you ask the original OP question?

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30

Not quite. Memory being always in the mix doesn’t mean there is nothing more than memory. I see nothing that is untouched by past/memory/conditioning. That touch might be heavy or light.

To hone and expand my understanding. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe there are blips of true newness that are not products of time/causality.

31

Do you mean this purely logically?

You have said here that simply because memory is always present doesn’t mean that memory is all there is.

This implies that there is something else apart from memory for memory to be in the mix of.

When you say “see” in this sentence, you merely mean reasoning from memory, right? (because you don’t admit that there is any seeing which does not include memory).

So all your conclusions about memory are from memory alone.

And as Emile already said,

So why did you ask your original question?

You say,

Your understanding which is based on memory alone.

You seem satisfied with this conclusion.

You say

but it is clear from the way you put it that investigating into this possibility (which you have left open on purely logical grounds) does not engage your attention.

So maybe we can leave it there (unless Emile wants to say anything further).

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32

My first reaction is to the word “existence” - as opposed to “experience” - we habitually take these to mean the same thing - our relation to reality being essentially subjective.

Our experience can be considered new, when no thing is known or named.
Our existence is part and parcel of the whole which includes the brain and its evolution over time.

33

Logically, yes.

Not if memory is mixed with other forms of mental activity.

Not necessarily, see above.

No, not purely logical, I’m genuinely interested in the scope of memory in our existence. And even if I think it is very likely that X is true, I’m open (if begrudgingly!) to being shown X is false.

34

What are these “other forms of mental activity” that are not based on memory?

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35

I don’t know if there are or aren’t any.

The closest I probably get to mental activity without memory intruding:

Open awareness meditation (resting in object-free awareness)
Connecting with what feels like the true Self

36

This bit sounds like an activity based on and motivated by knowledge/memory
I like to describe zazen as a physical rather than mental activity specifically in order to avoid this problem ~ it might however allow a state of mind that may become habitual

37

Yes. This is why I suggested in my very first reply that any possible answer to your original question depends on whether there is, in fact, any form or awareness or attention in which memory is wholly absent.

Open awareness is one possibility.

As macdoudoug says,

If you are already projecting what you think you should be feeling (the big Self story, the story of Advaita), then it is most probably memory that you are feeling - not a state of awareness free from memory.

38

Do you mean you can’t imagine how one could see things for what they actually are without recognition?

39

‘Getting there’ definitely is. But when I feel connected, it might be other than.

40

Add to the list of suspects.

I would say it involves memory up to the connection, but then I don’t know for sure.