Yes. To observe ourselves without any particular purpose or motive.
What do you think about this @macdougdoug ?
Isn’t this a kind of wu wei?
Where does this question come from? I’m not aware of this question being asked yet on the thread.
All we are asking is whether there can be an observation, passively, non-evaluatively, of our reactions as they occur - without any particular motive or purpose for doing so.
So, for instance, in my relationship with someone I might become aware of a feeling-reaction of envy or jealousy. I become aware of the sick feeling (of envy or jealousy) in my heart-mind, and as part of this awareness there is the seeing that it has to do with comparison (the ‘why?’), with comparing myself to another and feeling worthless in that comparison (which is the comparison of one’s self-image with the image one has of another). In observing the feeling of envy all of this is revealed.
Do you see what I mean?
If I stick with it for longer, I begin to see that ‘I’ is envy. The state of envy is part of me, is me; I am not different from this feeling of envy.
Can one remain aware if this fact, just looking at it, without any particular motive or purpose - but just passively observing it?
When there is not one shred of fear or judgement or negative feeling about this sensation we have labeled ‘envy’, then it can be held and looked at as a ‘jewel’. And how obvious it is that it has to arise when there is attachment and comparison.
Right. All this - comparison, attachment, self-pity (the agony of being envious) - is revealed without any form of conscious analysing. It is implicit in the sensation of the thing we call ‘envy’, once we look at it.
What do you think about all this @macdougdoug ?
And reinforces the understanding that “freedom is essential”?
Without the freedom to look deeply into our selves, there will be suffering.
We need freedom to look at ourselves. But does this mean that suffering will not be there? Isn’t it the case that for most of us suffering in some form is going on?
What we are talking about is whether we can be in a state where we can look at it freely, without judging it as right or wrong, without saying we must be free from it or overcome it or escape from it. But just observe the contents of consciousness - whatever they are - as they arise, as they reveal themselves. That’s all.
This is the question to reckon with because all we really are is the impulse to do, to gain, to get, to be an engine of progress. To be without this drive is to abide with/be aware of, what-is without any urge or impulse to do anything about what-is.
We know we’re not doing it and that’s why we ask if we can.
Since all we know is doing with intention, purpose, hoping for gratifying result, reward, resolution, it seems we can’t do anything else until/unless we finally awaken to the fact that this is a limited approach to living. Without this awakening, I don’t see how we can do anything but continue dreaming of getting what we want, whether it be by our efforts, having it bestowed upon us, or stumbling upon it.
If I can be passively aware of everything as it happens, within and without, everything I need to know is unfolding every moment, and that’s self-knowledge and choiceless awareness. But how well can I do that while driving to get somewhere? Maybe I need to pull over, turn off the engine, and find out where and what I am.
[quote=“James, post:47, topic:2700”]
What we are talking about is whether we can be in a state where we can look at it freely, without judging it as right or wrong, without saying we must be free from it or overcome it or escape from it. But just observe the contents of consciousness - whatever they are - as they arise, as they reveal themselves. That’s all.
Why are you trying to do that? For what?
Sounds strange unless you have a good reason for going through all this? K’s point as I hear it is that unless you feel strongly that “freedom is essential” this just becomes a pastime like meditating or chanting etc. Making the self feel ‘holy’?
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Didn’t you share previously an extract from Krishnamurti where he talked about motiveless looking, purposeless looking?
Now you are suggesting a looking with a motive - the motive being “freedom”.
This is precisely why I objected to your bringing in these words like “innocence”, “freedom”, “love”, etc, because they throw us off course and become distractions.
Why can’t there be a motiveless looking at whatever arises in the mind? Apparently you reject this - maybe @macdougdoug rejects this too, seeing as he has ‘liked’ your comment. But I don’t think this is an impossibility at all.
So as @Inquiry implies the first thing to see, know about ourselves is that we are not without motive or purpose. Is there the freedom to just look at that?
Not reject or condemn what K calls the “pettiness “ of our minds? The ‘greed’?
Alright then Inquiry. Then can you simply observe this fact passively, without trying to change it? One finds that one is a machine of motives and little else. Can’t one face this in oneself directly without covering it up with words and rationalisations?
As you say, to simply
Why do we make such a mystery of this (if we are making a mystery about this)?
But then “awakening” becomes a goal, an end, a purpose. Apparently @danmcderm and @macdougdoug are also talking about “freedom” as being an end, a goal, without which they say we cannot simply observe ourselves as we are. But I feel this is not a fact.
We can observe ourselves simply as we are right now, today, whatever state of ‘imperfection’ we may find ourselves in. We want freedom and awakening, but we are unfree and inattentive. There can be an awareness of the fact that we are unfree, that we are inattentive. We can be aware of the fact that we are driven by motives, are restless, etc.
When you oppose being
with
you are stating something that is not an opposition. One can be passively aware that one is driven by motives. Of course one can! One can be aware that one is jealous, envious, greedy, motivated by desire or fear or irritation. Of course one can.
There is no mystery about it. We only create a mystery about it because we resist being aware in this way. We are so habituated to mental activity that we do not know what it is to sit still and watch ourselves. But there is nothing to stop us simply sitting still for two seconds and watching the compulsive movement of thought play out in our mind.
I don’t see why not? But you seemed to reject this before.
Up-thread I wrote:
And you rejected this - apparently - because we need a motive of “freedom” in order to look. But obviously we need no such motive just to look. We just look, in the same way that we look at a bird or a tree. The bird is there - we don’t need a motive to look at it.
Similarly, the contents of consciousness are there in the mind. We don’t need a motive to look at what is going on. Though apparently some of us are supremely resistant to looking at anything! (@macdougdoug and @Inquiry I’m looking at you 
)
There is nothing to stop us from having two seconds long observations of what we’re doing and why. They’re like commercial interruptions, constant reminders that the cost of freedom is paid for by the desire to get what we want. The more we want, the more expensive it is, and the less freedom we can afford.
If our observations were any longer than two seconds, the whole system would be exposed and our whole world would collapse into a pile of rubble. God forbid!
I’m not talking about a “motive of freedom”, I’m talking about freedom. Freedom is at the beginning, or there is no freedom to “wander deeply” in oneself, says K. Without freedom we will only ever have a motive or a purpose for trying to look at oneself. So what is this freedom that he says is essential and comes at the beginning?
K. Do not ask how to arrive at that freedom. No system of meditation, no book, no drug, no psychological trick you can play on yourself will give you freedom. Freedom is born of the perception that freedom is essential.
And you are free for two seconds on countless occasions every day, so…
If there is “nothing to stop us from” observing ourselves, then why do we spend so much time fussing around about how and why we can’t observe ourselves?
If we saw that those few seconds of observation are actually the only moments when we are being honest and factual, then we wouldn’t treat observation the way we do, making excuses for why we don’t observe. We would observe.
I’m afraid you have made the word/concept “freedom” into an impediment to simple observation.
You say we need freedom to observe, and that’s quite right. But you seem to me to have made this freedom to observe - which is just awareness - into an elusive doctrine of “freedom at the beginning”, that you and @macdougdoug think we need to realise before we actually observe anything.
This is obviously not freedom at all. It is a concept of freedom. And to observe ourselves as we are, factually, we do not need any concepts at all. We just look.
Btw Dan, I did warn you that by introducing these terms like “innocence”, “freedom”, “love”, and giving them the weight and importance you are doing, that this distracts us from the main topic of the thread which is self-knowing.
Yes, and not complain that we don’t have enough time to observe sufficiently.
Yes. If we have the time to participate on Kinfonet, then we clearly have sufficient leisure to observe ourselves (for a few seconds, a few minutes, or on and off throughout the day). We can observe ourselves when we are on the bus, on the train, waiting at the checkout desk, taking a shower, watching television, doing a chore. Only the most unfortunate person has no leisure to look at themselves - and even for such a person there is always the sky above, or the blade of grass pushing through the cement. And we are not as unfortunate as that are we?