Please explain?
(Learning obviously can have different meanings. There is learning through rote memory, and learning through active, present-tense watching, listening, feeling, etc.)
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There are people who have the good fortune of growing up in a family, tribe, community that is kind, loving, gentle, compassionate. Being immersed in these qualities they are conditioned to be kind, loving, gentle, compassionate themselves.
Yes , and also what K. call a gap …a gap between the old ( the reaction) and the new.
( from the same extract I gave above):
K : There must be a gap between the old and something new that may come into being. There must be a gap. And that gap takes place when you see the whole significance of the old - that the old cannot possibly give birth to the new.
Complete freedom from thought. (Public Talk 1 Brockwood Park, England - 09 September 1972)
People can be trained to be gentle, considerate, polite, and so on. If one is fortunate, having good circumstances, good genes, affectionate family, etc, then one may show an affectionate manner oneself. But this is all superficial. When the circumstances are transformed, by tragedy, personal failure, or betrayal; or when one discovers that one’s affection is curtailed by sexual jealousy, hurt to one’s self-image, or the loss of esteem, then where is love then?
If love is dependent on fortunate circumstances, the esteem of friends and family, sexual rewards, psychological satisfaction made secure through bonds of attachment, etc, then its very dependency means that it is not real, authentic, independent. It will end as soon as the attachment ends, as soon as one loses the esteem of others.
So love must be something different from superficial affection based on attachment or circumstances. And can such authentic live be trained, conditioned?
If it is trained, conditioned, then it is a habit. A habit is mechanical, a continuation of something from the past, from memory. If love is a continuation of memory, of habit, then it is not spontaneous, vivid, present, alive.
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I agree that conditioned qualities can be mechanical and fickle. But they don’t have to be. Imagine, for example, growing up in a family that didn’t practice kindness mechanically, rather heartfully and with understanding and self-awareness. Part of the conditioning is imparting the conditioned one with the desire and habit of being aware of what’s going on, of looking within.
I think there should be a violent uncle, or psychopathic best friend in the mix - just so our hero doesn’t just melt the first time he goes out in the rain.
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You made me laugh! Doesn’t happen very often here, merci, please repeat. 
I agree, ever family needs an Uncle Fester. Guess who that Uncle is in my extended family?
There is no guarantee that in giving love or sharing love that love will be received. And if it comes from outside, then it is still superficial isn’t it? If I depend on another for love, then I am not myself being loving am I?
One can play these imaginative games endlessly - we can imagine a world without wars and hatreds, with no religion or national divisions. But the world is what it is because human beings who mostly do not love have made it thus.
Conditioned responses are always conditioned. The question for us is, can there be an action that is not based on our conditioning - a free act, something creative and new. This is what inquiry is all about. One cannot be trained to have insight.
Need break will reengage on the morrow. Good fruitful ‘hashing out’!
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Freedom is something that I never had a first hand experience in my life. From the time that I had to go to the school and the university. Krishnamurti introduce me to it. K says freedom in the beginning not at the end that most people believe in.
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I doubt there are many people who don’t love in some way. They just don’t love in a way that would ‘make the world a better place.’
Conditioned responses are always conditioned. The question for us is, can there be an action that is not based on our conditioning - a free act, something creative and new.
Sounds like you’re asking if something can happen now that is utterly free of the past. Science says everything that happens now in the material world is grounded, more or less directly, in everything that has happened before. Karma says everything that happens now in the psych world is grounded in everything that has happened before.
That said I think the question “Can we create something utterly free of the past?” is a good one.
One cannot be trained to have insight.
Are you equating love, kindness, compassion, empathy with insight?
Yes.
Yes.
Not can we create etc, but can there be
Yes.
Ordinary kindness and empathy may require some degree of slight or partial insight, but they could also be expressions of our conditioned mammalian brain. Probably a mix.
From what I can see, the animals have no concept of psychological ‘freedom’. We do. My guess is that they can’t reflect on their future death and we can. It’s not a pleasant prospect no matter how benign we hope it will be. So it’s an albatross around our neck from our earliest days. The body will die, that seems undeniable but do I have to die with it? Maybe not? If I can become ‘free’ from the body maybe I can ‘go on’ somehow, somewhere, in some form? Or maybe not, maybe just disappear when the body dies, like turning off a light?
So what happened here that doesn’t happen with the animals? It’s my thinking about it , the ‘thinker’ thinking about the future. The ‘thinker’ sees himself as an entity, a person, separated from ‘his’ thoughts and is concerned about ‘his’ future; me against the world! This ‘entity’ me is worried about my security, security for a non-existent ‘me’! K has said that “thought is fear”, was this part of what he was pointing to?
Judging from your posting there is plenty of agreement between us. Yay! But I see one nontrivial disagreement: Our attitudes towards psychological conditioning, i.e. the psychological self. You tend (more than I do) to explore outside the system, I tend (more than you) to explore inside the system.
I think one can take it for granted that any reasonable and healthy person is doing all they can to improve what they can within the system - be kind, be nice, empathise, demand political and social reforms that elevate people and bring more well being.
But these are all fringe issues, superficial improvements that do not touch the central fact of psychological conditioning, self-centredness, suffering, etc. - So this is what I take as central on a platform like this. I can talk politics and social or personal reform elsewhere, but there are few places to talk about fundamental freedom.
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I agree that the forum enables us to explore things that aren’t often explored in other forums. That’s why I’m here! But relegating everything but what you call ‘central facts’ to the superficial and fringe I definitely don’t agree with.
Alright, but the thread 
question is ‘What is freedom to you.’
To me, the freedom within the system has its place - political freedom, democratic rights, personal agency, the freedom of movement, travel, the freedom that well being brings, improving society, the freedom that comes with a bit of money, etc. I’m not dismissing the relative value of these freedoms.
But these are all surface freedoms. One can have all the above freedoms, and still be lonely, have sorrow, live in a world in which there is terrible suffering going on, destructive forces unleashed, and ultimately the fact of death.
So it is fundamental freedom - freedom from psychological conditioning, from the little ‘me’ - that interests me the most.
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Yes he pointed out the fact that thought is responsible for fear and he also pointed out that one can’t understand fear without understanding pleasure.
He says fear and pleasure are the ends of the same stick ( the stick being thought).
Can there be freedom from the stick( thought )which in one side is pleasure and the other is fear.
We are addicted to pleasure and are satisfied there.
Is love pleasure? Is love thought? Can thought know what love is?
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Same the other way around: You can have inner freedom and live in a world with terrible suffering, war, hatred, violence, destruction, and death. Perhaps even be lonely and sad.
I agree, inner freedom is huge, but outer freedom is too, just ask a political prisoner.
You agree, but not completely. Might it be that you prefer to argue? Politely, of course…