There is a new instrument which is the mind, which is intelligence

Kinfonet Discussion
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What does K mean by the ‘mind’ in the 2nd conversation between Krishnamurti and Bohm in 1983 (shared on the “Stillness of the mind” thread)?

In this conversation K says that intelligence, insight, attention, compassion and perception all come from the mind - universal mind which is outside the brain. This mind is unlimited, without any boundary, and is also pure energy.

He says that only the action of ‘mind’ can dissolve the conditioning of the brain. But also that this mind can only function through the brain when the brain is quiet.

Some particularly interesting extracts from the conversation:

JK: Can [psychological] conditioning be dissipated? That’s the whole question.
DB: It really has to be dissipated in some physical and chemical and neurophysiological sense.
JK: Yes.

JK: I think the mind is separate from the brain.
DB: What does separate mean? Are they in contact?
JK: Separate in the sense that the brain is conditioned and the mind is not… As long as the brain is conditioned, it is not free.
DB: Yes.
JK: And the mind is free… So as long as the brain is conditioned its relationship to the mind is limited… the mind being free has a relationship to the brain.
DB: Yes. Now we say the mind is free, in some sense, not subject to the conditioning of the brain.
JK: Yes.
DB: What is the nature of the mind? Is the mind located inside the body, or is it in the brain?
JK: No, it is nothing to do with the body or the brain.
DB: Has it to do with space or time?
JK: Space - now wait a minute! It has to do with space and silence…
DB: Is it bounded by anything?
JK: No.

DB: Now is insight of the mind? Is it of the nature of mind? An activity of mind?
JK: Yes.
DB: Therefore you are saying that mind can act in the matter of the brain.
JK: Yes.

DB: Perception also is of the mind…
JK: Yes, that’s right.
DB: Are you saying that the brain is a kind of instrument of the mind?
JK: An instrument of the mind when the brain is not self-centred.

DB: Is intelligence from the mind?
JK: Yes, intelligence is the mind.
DB: Is the mind… is compassion, love, also of the mind?
JK: Of the mind.

JK: Contact can only exist between the mind and the brain when the brain is quiet.
DB: Yes, that is the requirement for making it. The brain has got to be quiet.
JK: Quiet is not a trained quietness. Not a self-conscious, meditative, desire for silence. It is a natural outcome of understanding one’s own conditioning.
DB: And one can see that if the brain is quiet it could listen to something deeper?
JK: That’s right. Then if it is quiet it is related to the mind. Then the mind can function through the brain.

DB: There is a particular brain, this brain or that brain. Would you say that there is a particular mind?
JK: No.
DB: That is an important difference. You are saying mind is really universal.
JK: Mind is universal - if you can use that ugly word.

JK: Let’s see. You are asking whether the mind can be perceived by the brain.
DB: Or at least the brain somehow be aware… an awareness, a sense.
JK: We are saying, yes; through meditation… You see, the difficulty is that when you use the word “meditation” it is generally understood that there is always a meditator meditating. Real meditation is an unconscious process, not a conscious process.
DB: How then are you able to say that meditation takes place if it is unconscious?
JK: It is taking place when the brain is quiet… Let’s put it this way: conscious meditation, conscious activity to control thought, to free oneself from conditioning, is not freedom.
DB: Yes, I think that is clear, but it becomes very unclear how to communicate something else.
JK: Wait a minute. You want to discuss what lies beyond thought.
DB: Or when thought is silent.
JK: Quite, silent. What words would you use?
DB: Well, I suggested the word awareness. What about the word attention?
JK: Attention for me is better. Would you say, in attention there is no centre as the me?

DB: We are discussing a kind of attention without this ‘me’ present, which is not the activity of the conditioning.
JK: Not the activity of thought. In attention, thought has no place… Attention can only come into being when the self is not.

DB: Is this undirected attention mind?
JK: Attention is of the mind.
DB: Well, it contacts the brain, doesn’t it?
JK: Yes. As long as the brain is silent, the other has contact.
DB: That is, this true attention has contact with the brain, when the brain is silent.
JK: Silent, and has space.

JK: The brain has space.
DB: Unlimited?
JK: No. It is only mind that has unlimited space. My brain can be quiet over a problem which I have thought about, and I suddenly say, ‘Well I won’t think anymore about it,’ and there is a certain amount of space. In that space you solve the problem.

DB: Now this perception originates in the mind?
JK: Does the perception originate in the mind? Yes. When the brain is quiet.
DB: But we use the words ‘perception’ and ‘intelligence’, now how are they related, or what is their difference?
JK: The difference between perception and intelligence?
DB: Yes.
JK: None.

JK: We are asking, can suffering end? That is the problem.
DB: Yes, and it is clear that thinking cannot end it.
JK: Thought cannot do it. That is the point. If I have an insight into it…
DB: Now this insight will be through the action of the mind; through intelligence and attention.
JK: When there is that insight, intelligence wipes away suffering.
DB: You are saying, therefore, that there is a contact from mind to matter which removes the whole physical, chemical structure that keeps us going on with suffering.
JK: That’s right.… Would you put it that mind is pure energy?
DB: Well, we could put it that way, but matter is energy too.
JK: But matter is limited; thought is limited.
DB: But we are saying that the pure energy of mind is able to reach into the limited energy of matter?
JK: Yes, that’s right. And change the limitation.

JK: What is the new instrument that will put an end to all this misery? You see, there is a new instrument which is the mind, which is intelligence.

DB: You said that the mind is universal, and is not located in our ordinary space…
JK: Yes, but there is a danger in saying this, that the mind is universal. That is what some people say of the mind, and it has become a tradition.
DB: One can turn it into an idea, of course.
JK: That is just the danger of it; that is what I am saying.
DB: Yes. But really the question is, we have to come directly in contact with this to make it real, Right?
JK: That’s it. We can only come into contact with it when the self is not. To put it very simply, when the self is not, there is beauty, silence, space; then that intelligence, which is born of compassion, operates through the brain.

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This seems key to me that the understanding of the condition brings about the necessary quiet in the brain, the necessary space to receive the other, the Mind. The silence flows from understanding, not desire or will which is the conditioning itself.

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Delightful dialogue, thanks for sharing! :slight_smile:

For me the essence is the relationship between an individual limited brain and a universal unlimited mind. It’s quite close to the Advaita view: brain/ahamkara, mind/brahman, intelligence/moksha. That’s true for many aspects of Krishnamurti’s worldview.

Please keep posting your ‘curated’ dialogue passages, they often get at the core essence of the issues we tend to discuss here: self, awareness, the ground.

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Does the following resonate? its the same statement but moved into the sphere of biology :

Life is separate from the organism… in the sense that a particular body, a particular animal is conditioned, and life is not…

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Isaac came into contact with this instrument when the apple fell on his head. Einstein’s brain was also able to make space for E=MC2.

Allowing for space in the midst of dire need might be what prayer is - or the trick that koans with meditation is trying to provoke.

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Little oases amidst the ongoing rush of low-level panic that is our default mindstream? :wink:

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There are some similarities with aspects of Advaita and Samkhya. There are also similarities with the notion of buddha-nature in Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism - where the ‘pure mind’ (buddha-jnana or dharmakaya) is said to act (or reveal itself) only when the self-centred mind (impure tathagatagarbha or alayavijnana) is dissolved.

But K always rejected comparisons.

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What do you think this understanding involves Dan? It may be worth just reviewing the OP briefly to explain why I ask the question.

In the first part of the dialogue K and Bohm ask

K: Can [psychological] conditioning be dissipated? That’s the whole question.

They actually answer this at the end when they say

K: When there is insight, intelligence wipes away suffering.

However, in order for insight to take place K says that the brain must be selfless and quiet/silent:

DB: Are you saying that the brain is a kind of instrument of the mind?
K: An instrument of the mind when the brain is not self-centred.

And:

K: Contact can only exist between the mind and the brain when the brain is quiet.

And:

K: Attention can only come into being when the self is not.

And:

K: As long as the brain is silent, the other has contact.
DB: That is, this true attention has contact with the brain, when the brain is silent.

And:

K: Does perception originate in the mind? Yes. When the brain is quiet.

So it seems like a catch-22: we need insight to dissolve our conditioning, our suffering; but insight/intelligence/perception can only act through the brain when the brain is quiet and is no longer self-centred (quietness and non-self-centredness being synonymous here) - i.e. the conditioning is not dominating the brain.

Self is a product of conditioning, self is a part of suffering; and yet the self needs to be absent - the brain needs to be at least relatively free of its conditioning - for insight/Intelligence/perception to act.

So which comes first? - does insight come first? or does the brain’s freedom from its own conditioning (as self) come first?

K gives a clue to the answer when he says that a quiet brain

is a natural outcome of understanding one’s own conditioning.

So understanding our own conditioning seems to be the key here.

But what does ‘understanding’ mean here? Does it mean insight/intelligence/perception? If it does then we are back with the catch-22.

So my sense is that by ‘understanding’ here K just means ordinary moment by moment observation of oneself in relationship; the simple awareness of one’s ‘what is’ - one’s conditioning, one’s self-centredness - as it displays itself in daily life.

This kind of observation is not insight or complete perception (or total attention which wipes out the ‘I’) - but just ordinary awareness, ordinary observation, of which everyone is capable.

It is from this ordinary everyday learning through observation that ‘understanding’ takes place; from this understanding the brain becomes naturally quiet; and in this quietness insight/Intelligence/percpetion becomes possible.

Does this sound right to you?

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I am not sure which comes first.
If we consider thought is something outside, then there is a possibility of reducing outside thought.
In the modern interconnected world it’s a bit difficult as we are constantly bombarded with thought. Earlier only people could do that, now machines, algorithms bombard us.
I find that if I surf the internet mind is active, if I don’t then it becomes quiet naturally. If the outside thought is not there, will there be reaction of inner thought? I am not sure. I am experimenting with that.

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@James

James:So my sense is that by ‘understanding’ here K just means ordinary moment by moment observation of oneself in relationship; the simple awareness of one’s ‘what is’ - one’s conditioning, one’s self-centredness - as it displays itself in daily life.
This kind of observation is not insight or complete perception (or total attention which wipes out the ‘I’) - but just ordinary awareness, ordinary observation, of which everyone is capable.
It is from this ordinary everyday learning through observation that ‘understanding’ takes place; from this understanding the brain becomes naturally quiet; and in this quietness insight/Intelligence/percpetion becomes possible.
Does this sound right to you?
So my sense is that by ‘understanding’ here K just means ordinary moment by moment observation of oneself in relationship; the simple awareness of one’s ‘what is’ - one’s conditioning, one’s self-centredness - as it displays itself in daily life.
This kind of observation is not insight or complete perception (or total attention which wipes out the ‘I’) - but just ordinary awareness, ordinary observation, of which everyone is capable.
It is from this ordinary everyday learning through observation that ‘understanding’ takes place; from this understanding the brain becomes naturally quiet; and in this quietness insight/Intelligence/percpetion becomes possible.
Does this sound right to you?

Dan: The way I see this James is that there may not be anything ‘ordinary’ in this ‘everyday learning’? “Freedom” he has said is in this everyday awareness. The state of awareness is freedom? The state of awareness is understanding? The ‘state of observation’ is understanding? (standing under) ‘Learning’ about the conditioned noisy brain is awareness of the self., moving with it, in relation to it because there is no identification with it. The ‘silence’ does not come after the learning, the understanding, the awareness…it is all one movement?

If there is understanding that everything I (self) want is something to deliver me from my confusion, suffering, fear etc, which ironically can only create more of the same…there is ‘silence’ in that understanding.

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Sometimes teaching words can be misleading. We come to conclusions based on the teachings/words and take those conclusions to be true. (from which arises motivation to reduce the bad eg. outside thought, and move towards the good)

One such teaching is the idea that the self is not an entity - which does not mean that the process is not occuring (we cannot say that it does not exist, it exists as an idea, as a feeling, and a process) - a process that is occuring in the brain (which could be considered to be “inside” the skull)

I thought you accepted that the discrimination between inside and outside (of this center) was a discrimination that arose from the discriminating self - it is a feeling that has no more reality than any other thought (including the feeling of self/center).

The problem with our relationship to the outside is one of relationship - and that relationship may well be happening inside (our heads) - inside & outside may all be happening inside.

Just saying that this way of considering the matter may be more confusing than helpful - but if you insist on using these ideas - maybe you could start by saying inside of what? (where is the frontier between inside and outside?)

PS. If you think its helpful/important (understanding inside/outside) - maybe start a new thread, because the catch 22 of insight/silence is very interesting too - so maybe we can leave this thread open for that?

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I love finding connections, even (especially?) when they’re strrrrrrrretches.

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If wanting, desiring, deliverance “from my confusion, suffering, fear etc,”, only creates “more of the same”, what if suddenly, for no apparent reason and not as a result of anything I’ve done or has happened to me, “confusion, suffering, fear etc.,” cease, come to an end?

What if, out of the blue, I am nothing but a memory and what actually is, is not mine to deal with, but is everything and I am nothing? Is this what I wanted, or is this just the end of wanting?

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If we are motivated enough we could come up with a theory that indicates that I am already a Buddha (I’m pretty sure I’ve come across such a theory already, and from interpretations of respectable sources - maybe they can be helpful teachings in certain circumstances) - or even a theory that I am the best Buddha (but that would be most unhelpful)

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One would have to have an idea of what “a Buddha” is. To me, it’s someone sitting under a tree doing nothing but being, giving cryptic answers to questions from curious, questing people.

Since we’re here trying to understand why we’re prisoners of our own devices, and we keep asking ourselves and each other if there’s anything one can do to bring an end to self-imprisonment, maybe we’re asking the wrong question. Maybe instead of wanting release from our prison, we should be asking what we think it is to be relieved of oneself.

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I may be wrong, but I think Adeen is using the word thought to mean ‘outside’ because K mentions this in a couple of his talks. Bohm once told K that the word ‘thought’ in the Inuit (Eskimo) language means ‘outside’.

Yes, I think there is something to this. When we are free from external influences (including social media) there is a different quality to the brain.

I would say that there will be less reaction of thought; external silence is helpful in producing clarity. But if the absence of ‘external’ thought were sufficient in and of itself to end thought then one would expect the thousands of monks the world over to have ended thought - and there is no evidence they have done so.

The ending of ‘inner’ thought - i.e. the more deep rooted psychological conditioning that has been accumulated in the brain from early childhood - probably requires insight to be dissipated.

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(I think something may have gone wrong with the quotation tool here Dan? A block of text has been copy-pasted twice over, but without any quotation box to show it is a quote? - It’s just a bit confusing to read, that’s all).

Yes. By the word ‘ordinary’, I should say, I didn’t mean anything pejorative.

One of K’s early phrases was that freedom is the first and last step. So the quality of freedom that exists at the start of an investigation into oneself may not be fundamentally different from the freedom that may (or may not) exist once the mind/brain has been unconditioned (through insight).

He also says (in one of his journals) that the movement from simple watching and listening, to awareness, to choiceless awareness, to attention, and then to insight is like an arrow moving - a single movement:

When there is this simple, clear watching and listening, then there is an awareness — awareness of the colour of those flowers, red, yellow, white, of the spring leaves, the stems, so tender, so delicate, awareness of the heavens, the earth and those people who are passing by…. When you are aware there is a choice of what to do, what not to do, like and dislike, your biases, your fears, your anxieties, the joys which you have remembered, the pleasures that you have pursued… but there is no choice when you see things very, very clearly.

And that leads us to an awareness without choice — to be aware without any like or dislike. When there is this really simple, honest, choiceless awareness it leads to another factor, which is attention…

then out of that comes insight. Insight is not an act of remembrance, the continuation of memory. Insight is like a flash of light… This is pure, clear insight—perception without any shadow of doubt… That insight is outside the brain, if one can so put it…

This whole movement from watching, listening, to the thunder of insight, is one movement; it is not coming to it step by step. It is like a swift arrow. And that insight alone can uncondition the brain. (Krishnamurti to Himself, 20th April 1983)

But the catch-22 still seems to be there: one needs a certain degree of freedom from one’s conditioning first before insight becomes even a vague possibility - and yet only insight can completely dissolve one’s conditioning.

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So it could be a tipping point situation wherein a series of partial insights tip over to total insight. Or it could be that total insight happens for no reason one can know this side of total insight, if at all.

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On the matter of tenuous connections, I don’t know if you have followed the ‘catch-22’ discussion above? (i.e. that in order to have insight the brain must be at least somewhat free from self, from our conditioning; but only insight can completely dissolve the self, our conditioning)…

I don’t mean to go into this here, but in Dzogchen (not that I am an expert in Dzogchen) the ‘path’ and the ‘fruit’ of the path (i.e. insight/liberation) are said to be just different aspects of the same process (because Dzogchen is a non-dual tradition).

The same issue arises in Chan/Zen traditions (because realisation is supposed to be sudden, while cultivation is gradual).

Maybe. But I think the fundamental issue is that for K insight has no cause, it is ‘outside’ the brain. Whereas all activity of the brain (or at least the part of the brain which is subject to our conditioning) can be said to have a cause. A cause and effect process from ‘within’ the brain will never lead to insight because insight has no cause.

However, as we have been discussing, K also says that through watching and listening, through awareness and attention, the possibility of insight exists (which suggests that some activity from ‘within’ the brain is relevant and perhaps even necessary for insight to take place).

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I’m getting déjà vu (from yesterday):

You might remember that early on in your Kinfonet days we had some conflict around paths? I said I valued paths, though I saw the danger in them. You wanted me to explain myself, but I refused. Well, you provided a way in for me. (Thanks!) It was through Buddhism that I became comfortable with paths, again while acknowledging the danger of attachment to them, specifically the Madhyamaka’s taking both path and view as key elements of the awakening process.