This is of course a an important point - surely the main criticism of our habitual relation to the idea of meditation - the dog chasing its tail paradox of fear and desire wishing to escape from itself.
The death of the self can only arise through the realisation of what the self is - the thought dies when it is seen that the thinker is the thought. Thus thought naturally loses its power, knowing is seen as delusion and mere desire for security - and silence naturally is.
Here you describe the contents of your consciousness : You describe a moment of unease, the immediate reaction/desire to escape the discomfort, and an accompanying emotional distress. Then an intellectual interpretation laying out the reasons for ones distress (I may be wrong here - you call it a realisation - so it could be insight into the total movement of self) - followed by some further reasons validating the initial conclusions/descriptions of ones state of mind.
Maybe the description comes across as description of a series of reactions between mentation and emotion because we have to use words to describe whats happening. The way I have retranscribed your story makes it seem like the normal, habitual movement of the self : emotion-aversion-suffering-interpretation-conclusion
Or was there a moment of peace/clarity/silence at the point of realisation/insight? Was the âinsightâ verbal/descriptive based on knowledge? And why the âplea bargainingâ after the insight (ie. âwhatâs wrongâ âwhy shouldnât Iâ)?
A gentle reminder by thought to thought that what is being thought, felt, seen, experienced, interpreted,etc is the only thing that could be happening in this moment âŚand so no need to change, substitute, flee from, get attached to , etc.
Absolute perfection? Awareness of âinattentionâ is attention?
So you donât see it as a need for validation by the known. Its not born of a need for an intellectual description for the purpose of psychological security? eg. Its okay for me to be as I define myself.
Awareness of inattention as you see it would mean the continuation of the movement of conditioning - ie thoughts still continue to produce a descriptive commentary of what is - but maybe the chatter has less of a grip? Has the implication of the chatter changed? Or are we still dependant on it?
Are thoughts now more akin to a silly song that keeps endlessly playing in the forefront of our consciousness - or are they still providing security by describing our personal understanding of reality?
Iâd say that once it is seen that attention and inattention are not opposites (and that is a remarkable insight) the âpictureâ changes. Everything is included. I think that is why K so often tried to get this across. âBe attentive when you are inattentiveâ. It made no sense. But when it was grasped, seen, whatever, it was quite obvious. It seemed to point at what he said was his secret, that he didnât âmind what happensââŚMaybe you only âmindâ what happens when there is some glimmer of a an idea or a hope, or a desire (dream?) that âwhat isâ can somehow be different than it is. That I âcouldâ have written different words than I am writing right now. That you âcouldâ read them and translate them differently than the way you areâŚ
Thatâs right! Itâs very simple, follow along the inattentive thought or thinking and you cannot help but learn all about being inattentive while simultaneously you are attentive and learning while watching the show; show all of its cunning devices, maneuvers and avoidanceâs. Nice!
Coming back to this idea that âattention is inattentionâ - I still find the concept confusing. If anyone can pull up a K quote that deals with this effectively, that might be helpful.
That âawareness of inattention is attentionâ sounds fine. But what happens to that inattention under the light of awareness? This might be where the debate lies.
Maybe we are trying to highlight the paradox of the self discriminating between the two : desiring attention and trying to avoid inattention - which is of course the movement of the self, being part of the problem rather than an understanding of the problem.
Obviously some of us in the comments above are warning against the idea of struggling against thought - stifling thought - which of course is this same movement of desire and suffering and confusion.
But what actually is being described when one talks about âobserving ones thoughtâ ? Do we mean that by reviewing the contents of our consciousness, we can become free of it?
This strikes me as depending on ones own rational mind to come to some sort of special type of conclusion that will magically free us. Maybe it can, I donât know. The only way I can see this happening is that by reviewing our thoughts we suddenly realise how silly they are - maybe this is what is meant when K says : âthought shattering itself against its own nothingness is the explosion of meditationâ *****
So maybe we can agree that thought is not something to be silenced - and that inattention (which I understand as meaning dependance on thought) is not something that we must struggle against. I would also agree that thoughts will always have a tendancy to arise even when we no longer depend on them to explain reality. I would also agree with the fact that thoughts show us who we are - ie what the self is made of.
Where I question the idea of observing our thoughts - and why I use the word âreviewâ rather than observe - Is because I am not sure that awareness and thought can happen in the same moment.
âOnly when thought ends is there truthâ is that a K quote ?
***** Big big maybe - I admit to pushing it for shock effect
What am I trying to find out? The mind comes up with words, issues, problems, which are based in thought. I am introduced to all this, as thought, and can not see through thought. The actual seeing, looking, listening, is not thought.
@Peter
There is non-thought, out of time, and that which is time-bound, and the one is driven to incorporate the other.
Looking at thought [as it arises in oneâs mind] what is seen?
There is technological thinking, about things, people and ideas⌠meetings, work, food, sleep, et al
and there is psychological thinking, about things. people and ideas in relationship to me, the image of my selfâŚ
The technological must be known and dealt with effectively.
The psychological; is it even necessary? after all the self is fictitious made up of memory, which are remembrances put together by memory & thought with feeling attached that give a feeling of existing, worry, guilt, shame and fears. âIâ donât want to disappear, repeat mistakes et al
Passively observing thought as it arises [not acting on it] does the brain have the space and energy to sort it all out?
or must the fictitious [all knowing/egotistic] self intervene?
producing self-improvement i.e. more self?
.
This âfeelingâ that âI Amâ, that I exist is undoubtable. It must be felt at some level in every living thing. The self-image has co-opted this feeling and made it into the idea that âI AMâ is itself, its experiences, the name, the memories, the sorrows, the joys, the fears,etc. But the I AM canât be that, can it? I canât âknowâ what I am. What is known is the past. I donât âknowâ what I am. Thought says differently but thought is the
past. So we all share this I AM feeling but canât âknowâ it, grasp itâŚIs that because we all ARE it? Intelligence sees the game psychological thought has played but has no power to stop it. So âendingâ if it happens at all, must be, thought itself seeing along with intelligence that it has no business doing what it has been doing for eons. K has said, where the âselfâ is, the âotherâ is not. Which to me says that there can be no âfloweringâ (emptiness?) in the human brain / mind as long as psychological thought with the duality of thinker / thought , observer / observed, etc., persists.
[/quote]
That word intelligence may actually mean thought aware of itâs limits becomes silent so that there is nothing to hamper itâs full function/operation.
âIntelligenceâ may be a quality not of thinking itself but as I recall D Bohm using that it was a quality that could âread between the lines of thoughtââŚor could you say âinsightâ into the activity of thought? Which could result in thought no longer continuing in the patterns in which it was operating, If the insight was deep enough to illuminate the complete mis-location, and destructiveness and uselessness of thoughtâs operation in the psyche?
Imagine having no psychological thoughts or thinking about my âselfâ in relationships.
Nothing, no thoughts interfering, thought has died, become silent for a whileâŚ
The brain is fully awake & aware, there is no hindrance, no worry nor any fearâŚ,
And suddenly a thought moves arises & forms into a viewable description, an image so complete and comprehensive that nothing is left hidden, the idea, the full thought, the beliefs behind it with itâs ideals and itâs fears completely reveals itself and itâs origins and the machinery that it arises out of becomes fully exposed and in clear focus.
Are you describing an experience here or an âidealâ i.e., the way it should be?
Do it and find out. Why not give it a try?
K would say, have you done it, have you tried it, itâs something that you do etc.
The work is to watch every thought, thatâs the work, itâs very simple to say but thought thinking is all over the place, constantly active day and night running so you can easily see what is going on any time you like. Staying with it without the goal set beforehand i.e. without direction it has to find the power of undirected attention and observe a thought, just one thought all the way to itâs end, then do it again and again until it becomes easy to do and 2nd nature to breathing etc.
This sharpens the seeing capacity of the brain clarifies thinking reveals feeling, consents, ideas, opinions etc that are stored in memory and in consciousness in the mind with itâs vast storehouse.
Knowing itself from observing itself while it is thinking through things is quite instructive. Resulting in the mind knowing itself with no self. The discovery of the lack of a self causes the mind to not rely so heavily on the thought process. Knowing itself it requires no outside validation so itâs more free inwardly to look and see and also to know where it is in relationship to the environment.
I should have said with no self image. The self image just goes away when the mind becomes quiet to listen, to see & observe itself. Goes away in the sense that it only appears to defend or assert. Quiet it has no impediment.
Quiet it becomes innocent. But this is no ideal state, itâs just one of many different forms and ever changing states of mind.
This is a good description David of this âart of observationâ. The image that I have of the process is an âopening of the handâ rather than a clutching. It takes a âsensitivityâ to move with what is taking place when thought is all the time wanting to assume the seeing to itself. Just a personal note: my wife is attending a small group get together and the thought arose "well maybe sheâll meet someone there andâŚso here was thought / self presenting this possibility and the reaction was the emotion we call âjealousyâ. What was humorous about this is, that the self that was reacting to this, feeling this, etc., âŚdoesnât actually exist!