Oh dear. I asked you a question. You seem unable or unwilling to answer. I don’t know how you work out that I’m speculating. To put it simply, if you are looking at a tree, are you looking at it through your conditioning or not? Have you ever experimented with this? You really should give it a try.
Sean,
You said,
All those thoughts that you admit to are part of your conditioning, they wouldn’t be there if your conditioning was absent. So any question you ask is coming from your conditioning, hence speculation. And you are asking a question, to which you suggest that no conditioning is present. And that is what happens when conditioning is absent, hence your question is speculation.
A truly silent mind has no questions.
Hello again Charley. According to you, if I asked you, “How are you?”, I would be guilty of speculation. Is that really what you are saying? If I asked you, “Where do you come from?”, I would also be speculating. Is that right? According to you, these two questions come from my conditioning. No offence Charley, but your last post doesn’t appear to make much sense. Questioning often shows interest and openness while soliliquising shows a disregard for those who are listening.
Sean
If you don’t understand anything I say, if you conclude that I am not making sense, why are you continuing to ask me questions at all? Obviously, I was not referring to the kind of personal questions such as “where do you come from”, etc. You could always ask someone else about what it means to have a silent mind, right? I answered you. You didn’t understand what I said, because you don’t have a silent mind, and because you are not really interested in anything I said. No matter what I say, you will insist on continuing to question, just for the sake of questioning, like a small child, who continues to ask the same question. I think you are just playing games, sorry, but that is what I think of you. I am not going to applaud you your so-called apparent interest. My answers are impersonal. You are asking personal questions in the above post that you just made, which have nothing to do with the kind of questions that people ask on this site. You know nothing about what it means to have a silent mind, yet you ask a question about something which you do not own, hence speculation, which means that you just want to add information to your knowledge base, which I have said before. So, why do you continue to post with me? Since this post is being read by others, I am sure they would also like to know why you are posting here?
The importance of being careful with one’s use of words is shown clearly here.
According to your own logic Charley, you do not have a truly silent mind. But I do agree that continuing to post with you here is a waste of time. Farewell charleycannuck.
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Would it be possible to come up with another word other than ‘conditioned’ to describe our mental situation? It sounds so ‘doctrinaire’ How about hypnotized, spell bound, self love, trance. dreaming, waking sleep, waking consciousness, etc… And can we we stop using the word ‘speculative’ as a hammer to hit someone else over the head with …when we all speculate all the time?
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A few years ago, the meditation was so intense, this poor body wasn’t able to handle it. I won’t go into too many details, but I suddenly realized I was close to having a stroke and most likely would die physically in the following moments, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about that. So, a second or two later, as I was lying there, out of the right corner of my eye (peripheral vision), I suddenly saw the edge/corner of some kind of humongous energy (something so big, it was immeasurable) appear out of nowhere and move towards me. It moved incredibly fast, never saw anything at all that could have moved so fast. It touched my right shoulder, and then split at the same incredible speed, and before I could even take a second breathe, I fell fast asleep, and woke up the next day feeling absolutely wonderful. The body had a felt memory of “it” - it knows everything, and it doesn’t use words, and it doesn’t have a “name”. After that, the meditation continued at a much slower pace, thankfully. If anyone believes that I could dishonour everything that I have received just so that people might have a comfortable relationship with me, think again.
Hello Dan. I think using the word “conditioned” and “conditioning” can indeed be problematic. Let’s face it, we could say that everything all of us write here is a product of our conditioning and that would lead us to a dead end in dialogue. As words are all we have to communicate here, I think it makes sense for us to try to be careful in how we use them. And yes, you’ve nailed it with the analogy of the hammer!
The word conditioning points to all of the factors in my unquestioned way of life. It is more than any particular factor which I may experience. It is more than some factor I may be subjected to, or exhibiting, it is the whole environment of this life, the way of thinking, and how I usually function, in a society. The way I conduct myself in all aspects of this life in society, is conditioned. So we are talking about a vulnerability, a coercion, and a complacency. Alert to all this, I can understand to use language, do day to day tasks, be sociable, without being false.
Hello Peter. Yes, “unquestioned” may well be important here. Let’s take the example of how we walk. This is probably something that falls into a habitual pattern based on past experience. When alertness comes into play and we bring awareness to how we are walking there is the possibility of becoming free from this conditioned pattern. Is this not so?
I don’t become free, I am discovering a different, more organic(?) walk, responsive to a lively movement, taking in the sights and sounds, and not thinking about getting somewhere, or being tired, not entertaining any idle thoughts.
I recently had an experience that was shocking in its unexpectedness but not as transformative as what you describe. Without going into it here, the effect of it was to point out the possible utter misunderstanding of what I take as reality. As you say it was nameless and beyond words. The words that did somehow arise to describe what was seen / felt were: “you are the world”
I feel fortunate to at this point in life to live in / among nature. Over time it has lost any romantic ideas I brought to it. It’s “dog eat dog” literally with everything searching for food, constant wariness of predators, sex in prescribed times, raising offspring and sleep. The ‘violence’ that I see daily around me has recently come into question. It has brought the speculation that my understanding of all that is going on around me, may only be a ‘conditioned’ interpretation of what I see, a false reality and that ‘something else’ of a different magnitude is taking place but this brain has not realized it. The result of not seeing what may be happening is, fear, suffering, isolation and the impossibility of ‘real’ relationship. We may be trying to relate in a false reality. The state of not-knowing is the ‘questioning’ of this possible false reality.
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I am so delighted to have begun what had been my journey prior to this site being in existence - and, in a sense, being forced to wonder, question myself, and test K’s statements alone. I can understand how easily it might be so confusing for a young newcomer to enter this site and discover that there are people who are in the process of choosing to rewrite K’s wording to suit their own conditioning - youngins can be so gullible and influenceable. They might even get caught up believing that speculation is the official modus operandi of this site, right? It’s such a good thing to know that some people do not have the access codes to the K library, where they could go in and rewrite some of K’s statements to align more with their way of living.
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‘Water doesn’t know it’s water’, Krishnamurti said so somewhere not particularly referring to relationship, but still one of his statements. I’m using this now because really nature is what it is, when we find something like a flower or a tree or a landscape is beautiful, it’s us at the moment of observation that find it so, not the thing itself, like a plant doesn’t know it is beautiful or just the opposite. We humans relate to nature but the way we see it is as part of the human reality, nature is something different which we possibly cannot apprehend. Just around where I live I think because it’s hot and the sun is shining most of the time and there are some trees and bushes nearby it has been a festival with the singing of different birds. One starts singing (to me the sound may seem very beautiful, or I just get curious about) and next another joins and another and I can’t imagine how many, I really find it all very amusing, but most probably they do it not to just amuse themselves, I just don’t know and to know would certainly spoil the moment.
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You are speculating 
right?
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Gee, I understood that Sean had split, but no, lol
Considering that the word is not the thing, but only a referent - something that only points to a fact, the problem is not the word per se nor is it the choice of the word, but the fact that whatever word one uses, it is the conditioning that is the problem that must be faced.
Dan, good to see you maintain a sense of humour about all of this, too funny.
I never said I had split Charley. I said the following:
I’m happy to engage in dialogue in a civilised manner with anybody really.
Also, Dan, too funny - also because I have also seen this happening in various posts on this site, so not really speculation.