Don’t blame thought for “overstepping its boundaries”. It’s just a mechanical process that the brain can put to any use it chooses to, and the human brain chose to deify the thinker, I, me, mine, i.e., hubris, a colossal mistake. Blaming thought is like blaming a rock for being used as a weapon.
If that is so (to you) you have put an end to inquiry of what right kind of thinking is.
Not true. Thought is a mechanical process that is put to whatever use the brain chooses to put it.
If the brain is in contact with what is right, its thoughts are right. The conditioned brain, however, is not in contact with what is right, so its thinking is incoherent at best, and dangerously wrong at worst.
When the conditioned brain believes it knows what right thinking is, it is using thought to deceive itself.
What is this conditioned brain that you speak of? How did you get conditioned and why can’t you get past it, free of the conditioning? Do you feel ‘secure’ in the conditioned state you describe? I mean the state that the ‘conditioned brain’ describes? (Taking ‘you’ out of the picture for the moment) Does it get ‘jealous’, ‘envious’ etc , is it a violent conditioned brain or a ‘nice’ conditioned brain? How would it describe itself? If I may ask.
The unconditioned Brain is a myth.
I did say that you have finished your inquiry if any with regard to right thinking or right behavior…
The conditioned brain is a brain that chooses not to be choicelessly aware and therefore, not to perceive directly, but indirectly through the filter of its chosen beliefs, prejudices, biases, etc. In other words, the human condition as we know it.
It is not so because you say so so explain it instead of making a statement that it is so.
‘Mechanical’ is a cold word especially when it’s used to describe a process that created all the complexities of all the worlds religions. All the world’s art, science, music, architecture, dance, drama, medicine, literature, philosophy, space exploration etc. But it IS a material process of association that ends with the death of the brain. Is it what we are, this magnificent ‘thing’ or are we not? My feeling, though I can’t prove it, is that we are not; that what we actually ARE is awareness itself…pure and undifferentiated.
A knife I can put to any use I choose because a knife is different from me but in case of brain ,is thinking as a mechanical process different from brain ?
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Isn’t it obvious that thought is a mechanical process? It involves knowledge which means language, imagery, computation, logic, it’s linear, practical, psychological, etc. It’s a procedure based on content which is accumulated over time and which isn’t always factual or reliable. It’s a limited process, time bound, and fallible. How you can think that right thinking is “without structure” is dumbfounding.
I suggest you read Bohm’s book “Thought as a System”.
Of course. Just as your hand does a lot more things than use a knife, the brain does a lot more than think.
Yes it is clear that you by read it and think you have made that your own and thus become “thought”. But apparently don’t understand the difference between frozen cold crystallised knowledge as an end product and knowledge in the service of ??? in a process which also takes place in the brain.
An ear cannot see and eyes cannot listen and both contribute to a possible understanding.
How i don’t know!
We could take the example of K speaking about seeing bringing with it immediate action. For example, observing greed in ourselves, seeing the whole of greed and this seeing immediately ending greed.
We seem to accept what K is saying here, but I wonder why. Is it because we trust what K says in general as making a lot of sense so we accept what he says on seeing bringing about instant action as well? Or is it because we have experienced this, even in a limited way, and know the truth of it from direct experience? Perhaps it is a combination of both of these things.
I think “getting a bit carried away with the teachings” happens when we stray across a line and start talking knowledgeably about seeing bringing immediate action. As far as I can see, we can only explore this but none of us really know for sure.
If I become aware of something happening in myself like ‘greed’ or ‘anger’ and I don’t bring judgement good/bad into the moment but just watch ‘it’ unfold, this is what K has called “caring” about what is taking place, whether it is greed, violence, etc. Awareness IS caring. He uses the example of a mother’s attention to her newborn. A choice less awareness then is caring, a form of love?
So rather than it being a ‘method’ to get rid of the feeling we call ‘greed’, the caring for it in this way, whatever sensation it is, has a negating effect?
From this point of view, what’s missing in us is this awareness without choice, this ‘caring’ for ourself without judgement?
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Hi Dan. Yes, I think that’s a very good way of putting it.
Sean it’s an extraordinary suggestion from him: to see ourselves even the violence in ourselves with this state of total caring (not approval)…I may be wrong but I think that this is the state he has called “Attention”?
( That’s the word he used when asked to sum up his ‘teaching’ in a word!) To me it implies a complete freedom from judging?
Yes, I think it is extraordinary. The idea of applying the most caring, loving and tender side of human existence (a mother’s care for a child) to wider aspects of life is quite revolutionary.
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When you see something clearly, without bias or self-interest, you respond to what actually is rather than having your “take” on it. So I don’t see why “seeing”, direct perception, could bring anything but intelligent response, whether it would be to do nothing or something.
As far as I can see, we can only explore this but none of us really know for sure.
Have you never had the experience of seeing something so clearly that your response (be it active or passive) is appropriate, even if you don’t realize it until after the fact? I’m sure we all have because if there were no moments of clarity, we wouldn’t know what clarity is, and how rare it is for the conditioned brain.
How would one “explore” clarity when it is the very thing our conditioning serves to prevent?
‘Clarity’ is in the revealing of the brain’s conditioned state, the ‘conditionings’…how we act, react, think, feel, believe the way we do what we do. The ‘exploration’ is not by the brain but by awareness of what is taking place in the brain without any judgement about what or why that is. With the same caring as in the K example of a mother with her newborn?
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Then “exploration” isn’t the word that applies because it denotes something one does intentionally, and “awareness of what is taking place in the brain without any judgement about what or why that is” is just awareness.
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