When I practiced meditation it seemed that getting better at being aware of what is happening now, inwardly and outwardly, was a worthwhile exercise, but it seemed also that doing it systematically and methodically boosted my self-confidence and self-regard rather than exposing it.
These days, what seems to matter more than what I do is why I do it. What am I getting out of it? How is it good for me? I’m OK being systematically and methodically physical for health reasons, but for mental health I’m not sure what to do.
Thanks for sharing guys, regarding your experiments with awareness, or meditation.
If I may expand a bit on your experiences, as our experiences, by definition, show us what we are experiencing.
So this says that the movement of self (in this case : desire for some escape from mundane experience/search for some fascinating experience on the one hand, and/or desire for some sort of self improvement) got involved in some activity with its usual goals (pleasure, progress/security) and found the activity ineffective (not self-serving enough)
So here apparently the self got involved in some sort of difficult and important activity, and felt emotions based on how it judged its performance to be in said activity - and reacted to those emotions.
Or another way of putting it : the self pursued an image (meditation), reacted to an image (success), reacted to an image (results not as desired)
Anyway, this is what the self does, it pursues self serving goals and discards what does not serve itself. Which has nothing to do with freedom from the self, so we shouldn’t be surprised if thats not what happens.
Freedom from the self, or meditation, is freedom from the knowledge, conclusions and desires of the self, not subservience to them.
If I am concerned with results, I am not concerned with freedom from the need to achieve. If I am concerned with serving myself, this is what I am concerned with.
Its difficult to see past what I want. Even if I want “freedom from what I want”, this is still “I want”.
Sounds about right. The actual experience of being “in the nothingness zone” (resting in awareness, just sitting) is not unpleasant, on the contrary it feels kind of perfect. It’s getting to the state that’s hard, I just don’t wanna stop my normal monkey mindstream. And the staying in the state, when I exit momentarily from it into normal mind, the thought-feeling kicks in: What in tarnation am I sittin’ here doin’ nothin’ for??!!!
Does the ‘I’ know deep down that it is the source of suffering?
( I realize the I cannot actually know anything, since it has no agency. It’s like a thunderstorm. The I and the storm are not un-real, they have causes, they manifest. But there is no I-host, no Thunderstormer. When I ask “does the I know?” what I really mean is: Can the process that makes the I, thought-memory-desire, also make the understanding that it causes suffering? )
Who is it that is ‘suffering’ psychologically? Isn’t it the ‘thinker’, the ‘experience-er’, the ‘observer’? All creations of thought itself?
A closed circle of fear and suffering with occasional moments of joy?
A better way of putting it is to say that I wanted to find out what the practice of meditation entailed and what practicing meditators were getting from it. What I found is that one can get better at being here now, being aware, open, vulnerable, etc., which is good, but that making a practice of it is not good when it’s more self-improvement than self-exposure.
Freedom from the self, or meditation, is freedom from the knowledge, conclusions and desires of the self, not subservience to them.
Yes, according to K’s teaching. I am not free of my conclusions and desires and know nothing more of freedom from the known than what Krishnamurti has said about it and what I can imagine.
Its difficult to see past what I want.
Is it a matter of seeing past desire, or of seeing desire for what it is?
Even if I want “freedom from what I want”, this is still “I want”.
I can’t honestly want freedom because it’s the end of I, the end of dishonesty and delusion.
Probably the latter. Or the latter permits the former.
What makes “meditation” more about self-improvement? Surely there is no self during meditation, so any improvement would be a net positive for all?
Or maybe I should ask : what makes “meditation” a “practise” (and thus bad/self-centered)?
What does it matter who suffers? Is not the fact that suffering is being needlessly imposed on the whole (or beings that would rather not - if we consider that there are separate beings) enough?
It can be seen how it works. Thought comes up with an image, if there is no resistance or reaction to it, it disappears. But if the ‘thinker’ (me) reacts to the thought say negatively, the brain is alerted to the possibility of danger and there is resistance to the image or images. These feelings are what is recognized as fear or suffering? The brain is reacting as if the danger was real but it’s not. It’s psychological! The ‘real’ danger is thought itself?
So as long as the duality of observer observed continues, so will the inner (as well as the outer) conflict. And it seems the only way for the situation to end is with awareness of the movement of thought?
‘You’ usually think that ‘you’ are doing the thinking…but it’s all just thought. You don’t exist. Thought created you and me and the notion of ‘individualism’.
Awareness can illuminate the situation but only if it’s choice less. No rejecting, preferring, condemning etc. K said that awareness is “caring”. There can’t be real understanding if there is any picking and choosing…
It depends on what we mean by “meditation” - what Krishnamurti meant, or what meditators mean. I don’t know what K meant by the word any more than I know what he meant by intelligence, compassion, love, seeing, observation, etc., because he said these things were beyond the brain, and I am not beyond the brain. Are you?
Or maybe I should ask : what makes “meditation” a “practise” (and thus bad/self-centered)?
According to K, meditation is not and cannot be a practice, but a lot of people practice what they call “meditation”, so when you use the word, don’t leave it up to the reader to decide which meaning of the word you’re using.