I’m not sure that thought can’t grasp what an insight is. Thought can remember what an insight was surely, can’t it? The problem as I see it is that the freshness of the insight is lost as thought turns insight into a mechanical process. For example, I was cooking a bechamel sauce. Through paying careful attention one day, I discovered that by adding slightly too much flour it was difficult to get the sauce to be smooth. I observed carefully, understood and had some insight into how the suace was cooked. The next time I make the sauce, and every time from then on, thought dictates what I should do. I add less flour mechanically so the making of the sauce becomes a mechanical, automatic process where I don’t really pay much attention.
Yes it doesn’t matter the type of conclusions or belief though some are less divisive than others …it’s the presence of thought/time itself that is the polluting factor, isn’t it?
There so many things I don’t understand and I want to solve, right? How to get a boyfriend or girlfriend. How to deal with the neigbours noisy dog. How to get a good result in my work. And the media is endlessly talking about health, happiness, wealth, and success. Even when someone is talking about a completely radical change in our being, we are thinking about how, what, why and when, etc. We are looking at a method, a system to be able to come to a completely clear understanding of something, when it is actually the whole being who is free from all this.
How did you come to this understanding Peter? Did it come to you out of the blue with no inquiring…no questioning…no reading books or listening to talks? K spoke often of the need to ‘go into it, sirs’…to question…to inquire. Is all that a wrong approach in your view?
Who is this “whole being” to whom you refer?
Often we talk about conditioning and fragmentation. Do we see this seriously for ourselves? Not ask someone to explain it. Not ask how to fix it. Not want to be shown it by someone else. Thinking of this and that part, this or that problem, this or that idea, is the condition. We don’t have to go looking for anything, any idea. Looking carefully, for myself , I see there are all these matters as I go about my day. I can ask myself, ah, is this fragmented thinking and fragmented awareness? Actually it is obvious isn’t it? The mind is coming up with thoughts, memories, emotions, plans, and I can tell it is separate to the actuality of my being, whatever that is at the moment. I am shopping at a supermarket, and thinking about some time before when I ran into a friend. I am washing the dishes and worrying about an argument I had earlier with my wife or husband. Aware of the mind activity, I can wake up to this, and negate it. Negating it, there is the space for the whole being.
I think we do, yet we’re caught up because we feel we need one or more of the fragments just to survive physically. We identify with the job, for instance…and the pay check. Or our car or our family who we depend upon in one way or another. My wifi went out for a couple of weeks and it was distressing. I identify with a lot of stuff I do online…some necessary for survival, like paying bills and checking bank balances etc…doing my time sheet for my job. It’s so easy to get caught up in fragmentation…in one or more of the fragments. for someone who is retired and has a nice retirement income and no family responsibilities, then perhaps they can put aside this fragmentation somewhat. For a year or more, back about 20 years ago, I was collecting unemployment so didn’t have to work. I’d walk daily ‘in nature’ and lose all sense of myself for a period of time…lost in observation…looking at the trees, the sky, the flowers, etc. It’s much harder when one has a job and many responsibilities related to survival of oneself and perhaps of one’s children as well.
1 Like
How do I choose what to negate? Am I the being taking up space? Or by “space for being”, do you mean freedom of expression?
We are not talking about day to to day life. Day to day life is where there is thoughts about this and that. Now we are contemplating what is all this on the mind. We are looking at the mind and there is a movement of thought. I am not emotional, sentimental, analytical. It is a whole movement of thought. Ah, I see, the parts, the words, ideas, concepts, are what I become engaged with and call thinking. Now there is a space free from thought. There is a whole sense of living in the world with no effort of any kind at all.
Our sink is backed up at this moment. I can’t wash dishes and they’re piled up. It goes on like this every day…this is only one example. No effort?? When there’s a storm and the roof is leaking…when my kids need to eat and I’m in danger of losing my job? Sorry, Peter, but who can live without effort of any kind? Perhaps an independently rich person with a staff or cook, maid, butler, etc.
The self is effort - it is the fear and the desire - therefore it is the effort to escape or progress.
If there is no self, who will do the dishes? (Ha ha, or not to haha, that is the question -this seems like as good a place as any for some shakespeare)
It is the simple practical efforts to survive in adverse conditions…like a drought for instance, or a storm as we’re getting here on the East Coast of NJ today… Not trying to progress spiritually or anything like that. The more fundamental issue is ensuring our physical safety and taking care of our physical needs. Sometimes it’s pretty stress free and effortless…but when our needs seem to be threatened, then fear pops up. Whether it’s useful or necessary…this fear…is one question that comes to mind. Perhaps it is useful in that it ensures that we’ll take action…action to do what’s necessary to survive.
Why are we not talking about daily life? It’s where we live…right now. There may be fear or anger or worry. Do we deal with those kind of facts(I think K talked about fear and violence as facts if I’m not mistaken)) or deny them and contemplate something or other? Just questioning Peter, not coming to a conclusion.
1 Like
Look where its got us - pretty amazing really - fingers crossed. (PS - I’m not trying to be a smart ass - I really mean it)
The thoughts are memory. I am going around in circles. Of course I have a daily life. The serious question is, what is the mind activity? When I do housework, shopping, driving, do my work, am I doing it, carefully, or am I thinking about something else? All the distracted, worrying, mind is what we have become accustomed to and think is OK. Isn’t this process a division between actuality and the mind? This division is a conflict. When I say I know all that, and I have to live my daily life, I am conceding to conflict. This is why we talk about living differently. We have made conflict an issue, and don’t see the whole human responsibility.
It’s not a matter of thinking it’s OK or it’s not OK. It simply is what it is. Thinking it’s NOT OK would be a division obviously. Division is there…what do we do about it when it’s present? If I try to change it I introduce more division. If I condemn it …again, more division. When I justify it’s no different than condemning…it’s division…thinking. Division is present…a fact. Where do we go from there? How do we deal with the fact of division? And who is there who might be able to do this? There’s no one there separate from the images, is there? We know what K might say I think…simply observe the fact.
I am concerned about all this. I look at something, read something, but I am thinking there is the inner and the outer. We have in this division what we think is the normal approach. Automatically we have done something for our concerns. Automatically we have a reaction to what is said or read. Looking at this seriously is to see there is no my mind, your mind, his or hers, it is the whole human condition. Not just a phrase here or there, not just a concept about this or that, and not some practice to follow, the whole human condition.
Yes…there is action…and there is thinking. “Life is action” K once said, I think. I wake up in the AM and life demands action. My mouth is dry…I brush my teeth. I go into the kitchen and see the dirty dishes in the sink which need washing. I’m hungry, but the breakfast won’t make itself…I don’t have a cook like K did. I need to get the breakfast made and maybe wake the kids to get them ready for school. And so on throughout the day. My car broke down last night so I have to arrange for a ride to work. .Then I must call the repair shop to try to get my car fixed. Action and thinking/planning…throughout the day. Where does meditation come into all this? Or does it? How do I relate my busy action and thought filled life to the ‘teaching’. I know I have conflict, yet i can’t stop acting. At least Mon. through Friday I must work and act and think. Life demands it, right? Perhaps on a sunday I will have some time for contemplation. Well, we’ll see. Perhaps one of the kids will fall sick and action will be necessary…action and thinking.
1 Like
Good post. So, how do you relate to the Krishnamurti teaching? And what motivates you to do so?
I’ll take the last question first. Seeing how much suffering we create in the world is the motivation. The wars, the suicide bombers, the alcoholics begging for money by the liquor store in town, the kids without decent upbringings, genocide, you know all this of course. So as to the ‘teaching’…not much time lately as I’m busy, busy, busy, but in the past…well, much reading when I was young and had plenty of free time. Later watching the videos on youtube. Looking …observing…,.my own behavior, my reactions, my emotions, my desires and fears. All that kind of thing.