I wouldn’t say that attention and meditation are dual aspects of anything. For me they are one and the same - though I would say meditation is a deeper movement of attention, and has to do more with the state of attention in which thought has completely ended. But both attention and meditation can, I think, be taken as different words for the same basic freedom of mind.
However this is still all at the level of theory. And to speak of the ground is even more theory. Attention is not a theory, is it?
When attention is there, when you are attentive, it’s an actuality. (Or at least appears to be, which is about all we can say about any apparent actuality.)
We are talking about two different things. Eating is simply an analogy. One cannot live without eating, but one can live without reading a menu or even knowing what a menu is. So these things are obviously quite different.
Theory exists for practical purposes of exposition and explanation - which are particularly important in science, or in technique, in the knowledge we need in practical life.
But what place has theory at the level of what you were calling earlier “spiritual truth”? I don’t think that theory has any place in spiritual truth. Nor does theory matter very much when one is actually suffering or when one is in a state of attention or a state of love or ecstasy.
I think I understand what you’re getting at, why theory has no place for you in spiritual truth. And it makes sense. But our understandings of spiritual truth are quite different. For me spiritual truth or Truth from here on is all-inclusive, the territory includes the map.
It’s not a matter of “for me” and “for you”. Truth (with a capital T) is unknown, and a theory is just the small pebble we throw into the vast unknown.
There is a relationship between a map and the territory because someone has experienced the terrain so as to draw a map of it.
But there is no map of the unknown, and so no relationship between so-called maps of truth and truth itself. If there were such a map, then it would already mislead you, because a map is known and truth is unknown.
The known is an abstraction created by our thought and knowledge, by our past experiences. But truth and life - the immediacy of life - are always new.
I genuinely do not know why you continue to defend the value of theories over actual living, and thoughts over actual perception and awareness. It makes it very difficult to meet.
Again, we have different views of Truth. Your story, my story. And neither of us seems willing to budge from our storylines. It’s the world in a nutshell! What’s the intelligent way to deal with it?
When you use the word “truth”, it is like a Christian who talks about “God”.
The Christian thinks they know what that word means, they use it as though it were an everyday word like “fax machine” or “telephone”.
In the same way you use the word “truth”, as though you or I knew what that word means in itself.
If you were honest - and I don’t see why you shouldn’t at least try to be honest about these things - what you know is your own theories of truth. You have ideas, maps, theorems, pluralist hypotheses, multi perspectivist beliefs about truth.
But the belief, the theory, the map, the “view” - your “view” and my “view” - is not the actual truth.
I wonder Rick why you pretend to be interested in emptiness or truth, when you have no interest in what it means to have an actually empty mind, a mind that is completely empty, denuded, of the known, of thought and belief?
For you thought, theory, and belief is truth. Apparently you are affixed there, and are incapable of moving out of this habit of thought. You have become a living, moving propaganda machine for thought and theory.
Why? Do you really think that when you die all these theories will make a difference? Death is the end of theories and vain beliefs. So why not live with death today? And every day?
You’re upset and I’m ready to give up and walk away. It’s our shadow side.
What’s the intelligent way to deal with the situation we’ve fallen in?
I think our pausing to let the mud settle would be good.
The danger I see in continuing in the same manner is we’ll both fall back on our conditioned thinking and behavior and the darkest of both of us will run free, get the zoomies!
How do you see your “conditioned thinking” if you don’t express it? Harmony among and between self images isn’t the point is it? It’s the revelation of the self image with its confidence and the freedom from it that is important.
K. The confident man is a dead human being.
But, for me, theory with respect to the immediate observation of ourselves and the world - that is, within the living moment of feeling, sensing, seeing, relating - has no place.
Theory then becomes illusion: illusion being the playing with things - ideas, theories - which have no actual reality.
For me, to believe that theories have a place in relationship to actual life, to living, is to move away from ‘what is’ (what is actual), and into illusion. And I’m not interested in playing with illusions. I have enough illusions already without adding wholly theoretical ones to my plate!
So if, for you, theories are as important as living, then I don’t know what more there is to say about it. I can’t convince you and you won’t convince me. We will just continue to talk past each other.
It doesn’t mean I reject you as a friend, or that I don’t appreciate what you have to say. It just means that on this matter we will not be able to meet. That’s all.
How do you see your nastiest instincts if you don’t express them? You watch the process, the internal snowballing from trigger to discomfort to rage to hate to violence. But you don’t (hopefully!) go all the way and act your darkest impulses out, right?
Perhaps we will be able to meet around this issue, perhaps not. Who knows how we’ll evolve worldview-wise? There’s common ground for us to be able to explore together. And uncommon ground for keeping things interesting. Can our differences exist but not be problems?
You may or may not…it doesn’t matter. The point is to see that ‘you’ aren’t steering the ship, thought is, and that can be dangerous. You don’t even exist (if you consider K’s ‘story’). He’s saying that you are just a psychological structure put together by memory, nothing, not a thing….it’s radical to say the least. Take it or leave it. But if it’s taken, take it all the way. Take it till there’s the ‘perception’ that “freedom is essential “.
If someone appeared on Kinfonet talking endlessly about the truth of nationalism, refusing to critique nationalism, or see where it is problematic, must their differences simply rub along with the rest and be given space to “evolve” together?
Or, ought the person who has voluntarily appeared on a website set up to study teachings which explicitly critique and reject nationalism ask themselves why they continue to assert contrary views where they are not appropriate?
You want - for reasons that are unclear to me - to continue to assert without argument or reasoning that theories have the same validity as truth or life, and to do so on a website, a forum, set up to study teachings which explicitly critique and reject theory in relationship to the psyche, in relation to our psychological what is.
Yet you are unwilling to critique thought and see the limits of thought. You are unwilling to critique theory and see the limits of theory. Just as, in the past, you have been unwilling to critique and see the limits of the self.
So what are you doing on a Krishnamurti forum Rick? Is this an outrageous question?
You are not interested in Krishnamurti. You are not interested in what Krishnamurti taught or said. You are more invested in theories and ideas that have nothing to do with what Krishnamurti talked about. You don’t accept anything Krishnamurti has said about truth or actuality or thought or consciousness or awareness or meditation or compassion or the self. So what is motivating you to be here?
I’m not trying to cancel you or stop you from posting. I’m trying to get you to reflect on what you want out of a place like this. Because if you are just going to repeatedly ignore everything that other people say, and you have no interest in what Krishnamurti said, then what are you doing here?
Am I crazy for asking this question? Am I rude or excluding?
I am definitely interested in Krishnamurti. I’ve written about his views many times here, quoted him, extolled views I found extollable, criticized those I found criticizable. Since Dev expressed his misgivings about my not focusing enough on Krishnamurti, I have focused more on him.
For me our conversation has gotten toxic, I need to walk away from it. Adios for now.
I am not wanting to be toxic, I’m just trying to address the basic issue here, which is your apparent or perceived lack of serious interest in Krishnamurti. Either you are hiding this interest very well, or Krishnamurti’s teachings are something you can take or leave. You aren’t deeply committed to exploring them. Krishnamurti, for you, is less important than your other theories. And all I’m saying is that this isn’t fair to do on a website like this.
You write:
But in the two years or more I have discussed with you about Krishnamurti I honestly cannot recall one fundamental element of Krishnamurti’s teachings that you unequivocally accepted as valid - not equivocally or relatively, but something that you said ‘yes, I see this is valid’, and explored from there.
For instance, you have said things like that you believe that thought is alive and limitless. That the self is essential and cannot be done away with. That consciousness is not shared by human beings. That meditation is something you already know about and are bored with. That choiceless awareness is invalid. That truth is relative. That theories are as important as life…. I could go on.
To continue to act this way means that there is never any actual meeting. We are never able to explore further than the most superficial surface of what K talked about - because your interests lie elsewhere. All I feel I am doing is calling you out on this fact.