I guess in this silence of yours there is not much wiggle room for a bit of modesty or scepticism? That possibly you are not speaking out of pure silence but have an image of the other person and are responding through that image? That there is possibly something reasonable and sane in what other people are sharing with you?
There is a danger in assuming oneself to be a spokesperson of silence: one becomes inflexible and unwilling to listen to others.
This is what religious fundamentalists do.
This is the experience of division. This is conflict being lived as reality.
Have you heard him explain that our desire to be constantly in a state without division, is in fact the creation of division?
If I can only live in silence, am I really free of the self? If I am disturbed by every thought, am I really free from the known?
Is perfection of the human mind merely the ability to live alone on a mountaintop (barring Ubereats deliveries) - or do we have the potential to think and interact without suffering?
Perhaps the best way we can help each other here is by tirelessly pointing out each other’s delusions, misunderstandings, irrationalities, defenses, psychological snags? The challenge is to point them out in a way that invites rather than discourages hearing (kindness?) and to always remember that you (the pointer outer) might be wrong.
The shame here is that I would really appreciate a conversation about silence, what is silence. I’m not interested in defending the value of practical thought.
But when someone comes along and makes statements about silence and thought so adamantly and dogmatically, thrilled with their own inner conviction of having a silent mind, rejecting simple facts that are obvious - doesn’t this create division?
I remember K saying a few times that one needs a silent mind and knowledge in the field of reality, they can move together like two streams moving side by side.
Difference is not division. There is a difference between division and non-division
All I can say is thinker is the thought. If someone is passing judgements, then thinker is thought. The judgement is the thinker himself. Unless it comes from observation, that is different. There is a limitation in exploring in online dialogue. What matters is direct testing.
I have proposed something, you can directly test or ignore it.
You’re confused…
Adeen, I wonder what is preventing us from meeting each other simply?
I am not wishing to defend psychological thought. I am not objecting to inquiring into silence, into what is a silent mind.
I just feel that you are stating things too generically, too absolutely, without any nuance, without listening to what other people are saying.
And then, after stating these things, rather than discuss, dialogue or clarify what you have stated, I feel that you double-down on what you have already stated.
Is this a judgement? Is it a criticism? Is it completely untrue or unwarranted? What do you think?
Not true. You’ve been very active in this discussion forum.
I don’t think that the teaching said anything about practical or none practical thought. They use it wrongly in this K forum.
K talked about technical knowledge which is absolutely necessary or we go back to the cave man . What we need to examine is our phycological knowledge and see if it is of any use.
Yes, technical knowledge comes from observation and action. Like a doctor changes the line of treatment if the blood tests are different. The action comes from observation. But a quack believes in a theory irrespective of observation
If I was interested in intellectual discussions then I would have indulged in the request for intellectual exploration.
What I am saying negates the entire intellectual exploration as I have questioned thought.
Although I am a little sceptical of Mukesh when he uses words like ‘love’ and ‘the vast ground of silence’ (because K questioned whether those around him truly understood the depth and meaning of these qualities), I do appreciate what he is shares here. - ‘Learning through seeing and emptying’.
However, he does say - contrary to what you were saying on the other thread - that there can be an awareness of fear, an awareness of suffering, an awareness of reaction, of being inattentive, of being lost in thought and past memories.
He also says that although thought has no place in relationship, or in complete attention, it has its right place - in providing security in the physical world, in the technological world - which is all that we have been saying on this thread.
So I don’t know why you reject it when I say it, and accept it when someone else says it?
Not as an intellectual exploration Adeen, but just so that the language we are using is clear and shared by all: do you agree with Mukesh that
?
And do you agree with Mukesh that
?
Basic difference is that I am saying that thought in itself is unawareness. Awareness is unrelated to thought and as long as mind is operating in thought it is unaware of both inside and outside. To be aware of both your inner movement as well to listen to another some silence is needed. The word fear is not fear. There has to be a silence for awareness of the feeling. Although ‘awareness of’ is not good way of saying because it implies choice. Awareness is choiceless as it does not involve thought
It’s not a matter of being intellectual or non-intellectual - I’m not trying to be difficult - it’s just I’m still a little puzzled by the way you talk about ‘awareness’ and thought? I feel that you are using these words in a slightly different way than K used these words, but maybe you aren’t? Maybe the confusion is wholly on my side?
All I know is that
it is conventionally possible for a brain to be aware of itself thinking and reacting (this is not theory); and
that K also talks about the importance of being aware of our thinking and reacting.
And yet you seemed previously to be denying this? - So maybe (I’m guessing) this is either because you have been using the word ‘awareness’ to mean
or because you have been implicitly referring to
Is this right?
So for instance, when you say that
I would agree with you. Awareness, as I understand it, is essentially non-conceptual (ugly phrase), it is not made of ‘thought’. Thought is not the same thing as awareness.
However, awareness can be aware of the activity of thought (perhaps its very non-conceptuality makes this possible?).
And when you say
I agree with this completely. However, I (mis)understood you previously to be saying that one could not be aware of any feeling response, as this would deny awareness? Which is quite different to what K has said:
K: There is the awareness of the rose, and the awareness of the response to the rose. Often we are unaware of this response to the rose. In reality it is the same awareness which sees the rose and which sees the response.
(The implication of this statement being that awareness can be aware of sensation, feeling and thought responses).
But I don’t think you are, at the end of the day, denying this?
So maybe we do not basically disagree with each other?
Maybe an example will help. If there is fear and you start thinking about it, you escape. By escaping you are no longer aware. Thought is basically escaping and so unaware. To be aware, activity of escape should not be there. As long as mind is caught in activity of escape, activity of reaction it is unaware. So there has to be a silence which is passive, which is not escape, not thought for awareness to be there. This silence being not escape, not reaction, not reaction of thought which is basically thinker or self. So an observation without observer, without choice, without thinker, without thought, a passive observation which has nothing to do with activity of thought. If there is escape there is no awareness, thought being unaware, thinker being unaware.
I think we are talking about two different things. I haven’t been talking about meeting a response (such as fear) with total attention, etc. That’s a slightly different problem, one that can be explored on another occasion.
I have been talking about the simple fact that one can be aware of a response per se - a response that may be completely natural, or may be an outcome of conditioning.
The example I gave on the other thread was simply being aware that when I see a robin (a small cute English garden bird) outside the window I have a feeling response that is pleasant. But when I see a rat near the house I feel a momentary response of disgust (unpleasant). All this takes place without any conscious intention - but one can be aware of it (the response) as it occurs.
The movement of psychological thought as a ‘thinker’, an ‘individual, a ‘self’, a center’ is dangerous as we have seen what goes on around us and in us. The human brain is basically the same but this thought creates and maintains the false divisions between itself and all others…Awareness creates no division. It is around and in everything and everything is in it. When awareness is not present to the movement of psychological thinking, there is a ‘blindness’ in the division it creates: “I am an Israeli or whatever and you are a Palestinian or whatever and you are my enemy!” That’s the blind division that psychological thought as a ‘self’ structure has brought about?
The false divisions brought about by beliefs in religions and nationalism, leaders etc, seems so childish? And have been and are so deadly!