Thoughts are floating and surrounding a position/ expectation/ desire/ meaning/ etc. When attention is paid to the pattern and the recurring themes of thought. Shouldn’t one ask: What is the position that is being held?
It is a position set against a background of floating. Is the position therefore a reaction to the sensation of floating?
What do you mean by ‘set against’?
The way I see it (for now) that one can have language, memory and thought without being conditioned, the potential is there. So I’d say the floating background or foreground is a reaction to the pre-existing condition/ position, what do you think?
Yes, thought may be a circular movement of reactions from floating aimlessly to attaching itself to a position. Thought can only remain in either of these states for a limited period of time without creating conflict from its own activity.
So thought floats aimlessly until attaching itself, expressing and defending its attachment until it detaches and floats to its next attachment.
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What is it that thought gets attached to? When it attaches itself and holds on to a political or a philosophical position, it is really holding on to itself. Looking at this, can thought realise its self-deception without moving off to another position?
Doesn’t it get attached to the past, the pre-existing condition slightly modified in the present?
What I am getting at is that, I was brought up to comply and adhere to the rules bestowed upon me. Isn’t this patterned learning what started the attachment to begin with?
Thoughts floating, coming and going, acquiring and re-acquiring all the time adhering to this ancient old pattern of learning?
Thought is its positions, its rules and patterns. Most of them have been handed down from one generation to the next. And when these fail or cause conflict, thought looks to other positions, rules and patterns. So the habit of thought is already established, which is to maintain itself through attachments. Whether they are right or wrong, good or bad, doesn’t matter; they are the mechanism by which thought can find continuity.
Is it possible for the mind to operate without any sense of continuity?
De profundis clamavi ad te domine
Domine exaudi vocem meam de profundis
Libera me domine de morte
Aeterna
De morte Libera
De morte Libera me domine
Libera
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Can we Re articulate the question as: Is it possible for the mind to be free from patterned behaviour?
Does this take anything away from the question you put?
I am still invested in finding out whether there is something like an original pattern that all my psychological presence is based upon, regardless of the intricacies of the content that is me. Because what is clear is that, the mechanism by which thought operates on are very similar if not the same. Yet It is still there.
Dear Ayham, a pattern is still a pattern. Thinking is always functioning in a pattern. But is the mind equal to thinking? Or is thinking just a function within the mind? Would that not be the question?
greetings, Erik
Existentialism says no, we are born as a blank slate and create ourselves from there.
Buddhism says yes, we are subject to karma from birth.
Advaita says there is an original/true Self that transcends all content.
Western science says yes in that we inherit psychological traits from DNA.
WWKS? (What would Krishnamurti say?) Probably something like: Who is asking the question?
No, that’s just as good, if not better.
The mind craves security. Thought offers a version of security in the form of religious ideals, philosophical principles, moral standards and so on. But thought can only ever offer a pattern based on experience; it finds its versions of security always from the past and projected into the future. It is only when thought is absent that the mind itself is secure right now, free from all the complications of time.
If thought creating the self is absent. Because the mind uses thinking for practical reasons then.
Thought is the self. When thought finds ways to perpetuate its own activity, this establishes a pattern in the brain where time takes precedence over immediate perception.
No Paul, thought, thinking creates the self otherwise it is just thinking. As you said, if thinking finds ways to perpetuate its own activity , which is the self. So thinking by its nature is not the self, it is just thinking. And even if it creates the self it remains just thinking.
But thinking is the patterned behaviour of all human beings. Our thinking can only operate according to a pattern; whether it is faultless or flawed, clear or confused, it must follow a pattern. Is it possible for the mind to be free of all patterned behaviour? Is it possible for consciousness to be totally absent of thought - thought at any level? Let’s listen to the question and also listen to the responses to the question. Then we shall see all the patterns as they emerge from our consciousness: cleverness, panic, confusion, doubt - the whole picture of thought and its patterns.
Dear Paul, right, thinking cannot do any other thing as functioning in a pattern. Thinking itself is a pattern, a physical pattern. And right, can the mind be free of patterns? That is the question. But this mind lives on this earth and to relate to people or anything we have to use thinking like writing these mails. Can the mind be free of patterns and then use thinking in order to act in the physical world? If so thinking becomes a different quality, because the self is absent. But it is still thinking. If you ask for thought being absent at any level, you have to stop writing and talking. That does not make sense at all and is just a result of thinking.
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It doesn’t make sense to thought because thought has no memory of what it means to be absent. So it is a memory responding to the question. That’s the first thing to see.
Hi Paul,
Ah, well here it might be a good idea to bring in the word “intelligence”… As in my case, where it is intelligence that uses words which are stored in memory in the brain to write this comment. Having failed English in public school and in high school (not being an intellectual - in other words, having that intellectual layer of consciousness - yellow in colour - and the paler the colour the higher the verbal IQ), it is important to nuance between intelligence and mind, right? So, when I use the word mind, I am not referring to the intellectual layer of consciousness.