Is it an effort? a struggle? an internal battle? or is it possible to be free of it? ie just see whats happening - which means it becomes something else entirely - no longer a life or death reality, something we know to be undeniable within our bones, just the memory of some silliness.
Does this discomfort occur anywhere else but in thought?
I imagine for most people it is an effort, struggle, even battle at times. I think you can be free of it, but for this to happen, you probably need to prefer the freedom to the struggle, and we love our struggles (or are at least madly attached to them).
Itâs in the body too.
The effects are felt in the body, but the discomfort starts in thought, doesnât it? Thought is being asked to listen to a statement about itself without thinking about it. Thatâs the gist of the wrench.
The point is that whatever thought does, the listening has already taken place.
Thought can step aside, the statement can be heard internally as pure sound, without semantic meaning. But thought thinks âThatâs stupid! Why would I take in an English sentence that is presumably intended to communicate something, and listen to it instead as pure sound?â
What good are theories based on imagination? Are we just having fun imagining stuff? Have you not examined this in real time? - I mean physically, in actuality - not just in the realm of speculation.
For me, it tends to work this way. I canât be sure how it works for others, hence: âI imagineâ and âI think.â I am not comfortable generalizing to all of humanity, at least not without qualifiers, probably because I focus more on individuals than collectives.
You choose to have no free will?
Are you for real?
I must admit Iâm imagining all sorts of stuff about you - stoner, troll, precocious philosopherâŚ??
(because the stuff you say amazes me)
Not a stoner, not a troll, interested but not well versed in philosophy, not precocious unless I hit my stride at 80. Iâve been a diligent student of several spiritual traditions, found wisdom and beauty in each, but am unwilling/unable to commit to any. So: pluralist?
I used to talk the talk, yearn for deep transformation, but at some point I realized I was largely faking it and I saw the necessity (for me) of being brutally honest with myself and others. So when someone asks me a question, I try to share what I really think-feel, warts 'n all.
So am I for real? Yeah, I just might be.
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Thought cannot just step aside. It cannot do anything without a reason. Thatâs obvious, isnât it?
I donât know if thought can ever step aside without a reason. But I do know, from experience, that it can step aside when you intend to listen to words for their sounds, not their meaning.
But there is still an intention in the stepping aside. Thought has merely switched over its interest from meanings to sounds; it still has a focus. Does listening have a focus? When someone calls you an idiot, is there a focus at that moment? Or does the focus come out of the reaction to what you hear? In the same way, when you hear a statement that causes confusion, does the confusion come from the statement or from your reaction to the statement? So when exactly is there a state of listening? Have we ever listened at all?
Senses detect sights, sounds, textures, etc. Once detected, thought often jumps in and does its things: parses, names, evaluates, analyzes, compares. Without an explicit intention to listen âpurelyâ (without thought), it rarely if ever happens.
But any intention, however noble, must give rise to a reaction because there is still a listener involved. The intention to listen purely is itself an impure intention. The desire to listen without thought is still desire, which is the essence of thought. So we have never listened to one another except through the filter of thought. This filter is what we call the listener, the thinker, the observer, the centre, the me. But thought cannot listen.
When we listen to words, thought is present. If it werenât, weâd hear abstract sounds, as if we were listening to some utterly foreign language or music.
No, thought is in the reaction to the words, not in the words themselves. When you hear the word, âLove,â you are hearing the reaction to the word; and from that reaction you talk about love. Likewise, when you hear the word, âThought,â there is a reaction. The reaction prevents the listening. Therefore, it is necessary first of all to listen only to the reaction. The moment you start describing the reaction, that is thought. So is it possible to listen to a reaction without any description being added?
Then a question creates its own space; it is not being hemmed in by the many answers which thought wants to apply to it.
The question is: have we ever listened at all?
Reacting to the droppings of our own brain - is this what Platoâs Cave allegory is about?
Sorry, Paul, but I feel like weâre going around in circles, and I need a break.
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Look, it is all the half-answers that take us round in circles, all the many maybes of oneâs life. From a question without any answer there is a direct line into a totally different space. Then there is a quality of listening that has nothing whatsoever to do with our own feelings and thoughts and all the other petty reactions of a mind caught in the past. We can only ever listen from the past; thatâs our deep, conditioned programme. Listening without the past, which is the listener, destroys the programme.