I have never had an insight like this, so all I can do is appreciate your words (which I do) and let them wash over me.
Strangely, considering my general ineptitude at meditation, itâs quite easy for me to slide into a mindset in which I take things in without naming them. Thing is, I grow quite quickly bored with this way of being, I want the fun and games of thinking, imagining, creating, playing.
Iâve rarely ever experienced anything profound from thought-lessness (my flavor of it). Itâs peaceful and calm and harmonious, but rather dull. I miss the mental fireworks! This ring a bell for anyone?
Time will tell as they sayâŠI grew up in a city and now find myself in nature with few human contacts. Nothing âromanticâ about any of it. But the connection with what goes on here does something. But as you say the mental activity is stimulating. The ânetwork of wordsââŠand then you realize the rest of nature goes about their living without any of that. Am I missing something even greater than that stimulation? Is this brain really trapped, stifled by its conditioning? Have I run away from what I call, feel is âdullnessâ? Can I just stay with that feeling of emptiness? Without the word.
Yeah, good questions, they get to the (my) heart of the matter, particularly: Am I missing something even greater than that stimulation? Once youâve got the taste for mental hijinks, peaceful calm is more like a palate cleanser than an entree.
If the emptiness doesnât feel good, doesnât make you happy or energize you or make you more loving, why would you want to stay with it? Because itâs âthe truth?â (Who says?)
I take no responsibility for your brainwashingâŠ
I see it, and anything else I run from, as a curtain. It needs to be pulled back to reveal the ânothing-nessâ behind it.
Weâre addicted to stimulation because weâre insensitive to what actually is.
Do you? If you could know âwhat radical transformation he meantâ, you could believe you have undergone that transformation. But radical transformation, as Iâve said, is unimaginable. If it could be imagined, it would be neither radical nor transformative.
Itâs all your fault!!!
Why does the curtain need to be pulled back? If itâs not already pulled back, how do you know there is nothing-ness behind it? Are you trusting the word of Krishnamurti and other sages? (Iâm not saying thatâs a bad (or good) thing to do, Iâm just asking if thatâs what youâre doing.)
itâs not a matter of trusting anyone. You wonât know whatâs behind the fear, the loneliness, the anxiety, etc if you run. See what you see. This has nothing to do with anyone else.
Iâll chew on that, DanMcD. Thanks.
Why are we so insensitive to what surrounds us?
Weâve been conditioned from childhood to be stimulated. We become addicted to sugar and caffeine, to electronic stimuli; to competitive activity which makes us ambitious, envious; to be acquisitive, greedy, by advertising; to be hateful and xenophobic by nationalism and organized religion, and so on.
I see that we seek some sort of stimulation most of the time. In such a state, there is a high chance of having no perception. Stimulations could be either positive or negative. In such a state, thoughts will happen at different paces. A thoughtless state will make the mind open to perceive and see things around us. Because of these stimulations, we are becoming insensitive to our surroundings.
I got the point you said about radical transformation. It is unimaginable.
Yes, we move towards pleasure and away from pain. (Masochists might seem to move towards pain, but the pain is pleasurable. Likewise those who sacrifice their own pleasure for the greater good are pursuing a higher pleasure: moral rightness.) There are probably exceptions.
Apparently living in the world of self/thought and external highs/stimulants is more pleasurable to us than living in the world of what is. I once told a Buddhist nun that I found mindfulness boring, she said I needed to find some way to make it interesting, i.e. more pleasurable. I havenât yet.
She gave you good advice, but your aversion to what you call âpleasureâ keeps you from taking it.
If you find being mindful, passively aware of what-is to be boring, itâs because your conditioning has dulled you to need more stimulation than you need to find life interesting.
Itâs going for a walk with earbuds instead of listening to the ambient sounds as you walk; turning on music or videos instead of listening to your thoughts as they arise. Life is more interesting than what we make of it.
Itâs not only stimulation, itâs wanting to live and play in a private world of my own making. Itâs an ennui for consensus reality. Not just an ennui, a fear and loathing, as if the real world was a bad place and my happiness depended on creating and living in a kinder and gentler fantasy world.
Itâs a form of magical thinking, right? If reality hurts (and it does, sometimes, a lot), well then, Iâm imaginative, right, so let me create my own alternate reality that is close enough to real reality that I donât have to make a psychotic break to live it, but that has magical spells that keep the monsters at bay.
We humans did not evolve to see reality as it is, we evolved to spin reality in a way that optimizes survival and well-being. Krishnamurti and the other great spiritual revolutionaries challenge us to undo this spinning and see/live reality as it actually is.
Cuando leo o escucho lo que dice K. sobre el observar sin elegir, y me parece verdadero,hago de ese observar un objeto de deseo.
Las palabras de K. se âmeâ transforman en objeto de deseo.
Pretendo asĂ,imitarlo.
Y sigo actuando asĂ desde la palabra,desde el yo.
Si es cierto que asĂ nada he comprendido,que ocurre?
Si es cierto que nada ha cambiado,si es cierto que ese estado de no eleccion,
no existe , qué pasa?
Yo que creĂa haber hecho algunos pasos,me doy cuenta que aĂșn no hice el primero?
Hola Roberto
Me gustaria entender lo que usted ha escrito pero lo veo que mi espanol no puede. Puede usted intentarlo en ingles?