Except when they don’t…which is frequently.
Surely all my experiences confirm what seems to be?
This is the excercise , observation of psychological thought as it arises, that is necessary for the brain to become sensitized to thought’s presence. There is usually identification e.g. ‘I am thinking’ rather than the awareness that ‘there is thinking’, the movement of thought.
Surely?..
When there is awareness of what thought is doing, does it matter whether I am putting it to use or it’s just going on the way it does?
The stream of consciousness is flowing along as “the movement of thought” until Intention (I) needs to harness thought for some purpose, be it practical or psychological. If intentional thought is oblivious of or uninterested in what unintentional thought is doing, and attentive only to what it (I) is intentionally thinking, that bias, that preference for its chosen activity makes it choicefully aware, i.e., uninterested in why thought operates compulsively, incessantly.
Then in your case, J K would probably say: “Then just don’t do it Sir!”
To which I would say, “I’m not doing any of it, sir. It’s just happening and I’m just describing what it seems to be.”
Thanks for the warm welcome back, Doug.
To me, whatever feelings arise in reaction to something I have posted is not a unique cerebral process or event which stands alone, separate from the total flow of all the movements of my mind. It is the same process operating, that we here are interested (or not) in understanding:- the movements of the mind, their cause and significance, the nature of the self or thinker, the relationship of the thinker to thought, the relationship between emotion and thought, and so on.
Whether or not awareness is shining its light, there is a reaction. But without awareness, there is no questioning of the mental activity, of the nature of the self who thinks, feels and reacts, no perception of the contradictions. Without awareness, there is no hunger to question any of it, as I see it.
Where there is awareness, then the discomfort of challenges is not taken at face value as we have been educated to do. Then it is an opportunity to observe, question and understand. Don’t you think?
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I’m guessing you don’t have children? :o)
I have a young adult son - who still causes me sleepless nights.
Maybe I am just too passionate about ideas - especially on the subject of humans.
Psyche thought is like a swift moving river. It, as a ‘self’, considers itself to be necessary, important, critical,interesting, passionate, clever, erudite, no-nonsense, poetic, meaningful, going somewhere, etc. It conjures a ‘thinker’ that is behind all its movements. And the ‘thinker’ (aka me) frets and fusses about where all this is ‘going’?
.
Cont.
So what am I, if not all that?
Our kids never get too old for us to worry about them.
I understand about the passion. If we were NOT passionate about understanding the chaos and the suffering, while also seeing the beauty and wonder of creation, I think there would be no enquiry. The passion to enquire and observe is not unrelated to love or beauty, I think. It’s not an intellectual action or a choice, as I see it.
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The brain is ‘identified’ with the contents of its conditioned consciousness. The society normalizes this situation. Unless the conditioning is seen, it controls the brain. The brain may sense that something is wrong and desires something else but the something else is a projection of its conditioning, so there is no breakthrough?
Cont.
As long as the search is coming from the conditioning it is always partial. Thought can’t bring about the ending of the conditioned state. Thought is only ever the past. Attachment, even partial attachment continues the buttressed belief that there must be attachment to something. But there can’t be a partial freedom.
The brain becoming aware of its situation and with no desire to change or judgement of any kind, seems the only ‘way’?
There IS no “way” and no desire in awareness, is there? Awareness and a “way” are two “things” with totally different sources from each other, like toothache and nausea, or day and night. Is it so? They do have something in common in that they need the brain to operate, just as toothache and nausea need the body to operate, or day and night need the sky.
Awareness can be somewhat like a series of nestling Russian dolls. You open the first doll (discontent, let’s say) and find another doll (fear, let’s say), and then another (desire or anger, let’s say). Awareness is not rooted in thought; it acts on its own, without help or input from thought. Fear, desire, anger, discontent, and so on, are rooted in thought, in memory. Wherever conditioning is acting without awareness or observation of the mind’s movement, there can be no self-understanding, no observation of one’s fear, motives and one’s bondage to them. No?
It occurs to me that I realize very well that you understand that there is no “way” or desire in awareness and no understanding in thought. It is probably so for all of us.
Nonetheless, there is something that drives most of us to continue with our endless why’s, something that makes us continue to seek answers through thought, analysis, explanations. Something that keeps us from taking the first step into the unknown and surrender effortlessly to awareness, to life. In this surrender, thought is not seen as the enemy.
Since I can’t surrender without wanting something better, where, how does this giving up, letting go, surrendering effortlessly to awareness take place?
If you know surrender is what it takes, might one assume you know this because you’ve surrendered?
If you’ve surrendered, you, the conditioned brain, has solved the problem by giving up, admitting defeat, but have you ceased to exist?
It seems to me that all the conditioned brain can do about its condition is be more practical in its thinking than personal; more scientific than emotional; more dispassionate than passionate. And this is done by acknowledging that awareness is all practicality has to work with.
With the transformed brain, practical thought remains because the transformation is from the confusion of practical and psychological thought to the clarity of thought in its place.
By seeing clearly that action from the center of suffering has necessary limits and consequences; and instinctively shying away from those consequences.
nb. limited by my confused fear and pride, and resulting in the self perpetuating propagation of more suffering.
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