I would say yes, over time but certainly without “effort”. It is an ‘art’. Thought is always there to ‘take over’, to ‘conclude’…the art is continuing with the ‘insight’…and ‘learning’ how to avoid the ‘concluding’ movement of thought.
Exactly! Observation is certainly a skill the body mind works at naturally and becomes better at without any help from thought, thought merely puts it into words after the fact
The mind brain and heart move along together forever improving in efficiency just as observation improves, becoming more quiet more inquisitive and thoughtful in the sense of more compassionate as it’s view increases, otherwise it probably could not handle the chaos it is forced to live in just to feed itself and survive
The idea or feeling that some unexplainable magic moment or insight will happen and change everything is what it is, magical thinking, like any old religion promising nervana or enlightenment like the strike of a lightening bolt.
Most are thinking- feeling that it is a matter of figuring something out, arranging the words just so.
Whereas it takes focus to look at what must be looked at to understand what is going on. You can’t just imagine it.
Or “refraining” from concluding rather than avoiding.
Thought can only learn how to think.
Avoiding, refraining, thought can only learn how to think…
Sounds a lot like controlling for some reason.
To do it. To observe is not conjecture.
You had to exercise control to write the above comment.
Who is the refrainer? The one who concludes?
Whom, pray tell, is the one who says thought can only learn how to think?
The knower? The one who holds back? The projector? The thinker?
Observing is an art; to learn an art you have to do it, like the art of listening you have to listen and then you begin to know when you are not listening. Same with observing.
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The “who” is thought, the process of cognition. There is no person, no me or you doing it. It’s a function of the brain that personifies itself for sociability.
Observing is an art; to learn an art you have to do it.
Who is the “you” that does it?
Good question!
To learn observing there must be a feeling that, after considerable cogitating that feeling of “I don’t really know” comes up.
Curiosity is apparently the driver.
Question is also, where does curiosity come from?
I must have been born with it; so I do not recall when it started.
This came up for me, that both ‘avoiding’ or ‘refraining from’ something, introduced a ‘chooser’. Who then has to be ‘included’ into the picture. The ‘art’ it seems is in ‘learning’ the complete ‘surrender’ to ‘what is’. I would use the word ‘allow’ but that again introduces a ‘chooser’ outside of the picture which then again calls for the dropping of any resistance whatsoever to anything. Then the sense of what K meant by the “sacredness” of ‘what is’ as well as that the "book of one’s life’ can be read in a glance can begin to be understood.
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It is amazing how thought works. A single word can put things off track as if switching one word or phrase with another, with basically the same meaning becomes, if only for a short while, acceptable, and the original word forgotten… refraining, concluding avoiding, are examples…
Our thought appears to be describing before the fact of observation, what will be observed; which appears to be very common… we already know what we will observe before we actually observe…
The chooser decides before hand what is acceptable.
The art of surrender! appears to be essential, but how does one pull this off? My brain, chattering says, I will ignore this chatter and surrender?
Perhaps observing the chatter is the only way for thought to see itself?
The book of ones life is there in the chatter, is revealed there through observing it. It is what is. Sacred, I don’t know. But thinking is the book being revealed. Having observed my own chattering book, I can attest to that. What I have observed has been all about my past experience and my reactions to it, written down in memory and arising out of memory.
The refrainer, the concluder and the avoider appear to be aspects/words for the same action, with the same intention, the observer separated from the observed in order to control the observed.
Each of these words are actually images, slightly differing in shape or something that makes them appear different, but they are all action words that describe the controller, yet another image.
The mirror is a good image for the sake of description…it simply reflects what is there. It doesn’t ‘choose’ or ‘reject ‘ what it will reflect. It doesn’t distort in any way what is in front of it. An awareness that is without choice.
Surrender is as much a choice as any other decision.
Maybe what you mean is that the option of choice collapses of its own weight and there remains nothing but “what is”.
Now why didn’t I say that? 
Looking at what is without any interpretation, without agreeing or disagreeing is perhaps the art of listening, since we listen to ourselves talk internally privately or to ourselves or to others as we speak aloud.
Nothing ‘collapses’ and magically ‘what is’ appears, or does it?
The way I see it working in my head is this; I hear myself talking to myself, I begin following along the self talk, the interruptions cease as my curiosity to listen more carefully/earnestly… with no I you or me present, nothing interfering.
Use of the words I you or me merely indicates the general direction where the talking is taking place… is there a better way to say it?
**Is this description more accurate: “The way it appears to be happening in the head (not ‘my’ head), is thoughts arising in consciousness or awareness (not my’self’ talking), there’s a looking at the words, and then an interest to simply observe occurs (not ‘my’ curiosity) , and the thought-stream appears to cease, with no thought of an “I” doing the looking.”
How’s that?
A better description has not been heard!
What is observation? Very important question.
Related in this thread to the idea of “learning how to observe”.
In talks where K addresses this question he sometimes juxtaposes the 3 concepts of :
attention, concentration, and awareness.
Awareness being the idea of a process that occurs without effort. For example, the desk, computer and the wall in front of us - if they exist there can be an awareness of them, effortlessly. Usually at this point we recognise and interpret what we perceive - this is of course the movement of memory. It is inattention reacting to awareness - our instinctive, habitual interpretation of what is.
Concentration is the idea of focussing our attention upon something. There is the notion of effort, motivation and choice - which is the movement of self. I am concentrating on what I have chosen to concentrate on, at the expense of everything else - it is an effort to control, and thus a movement based in conflict.
So what about Attention (or observation as we are calling it in this thread)?
Am I Attending? Or is there attention? Am I Observing? (and am I observing some thing?) Or is there observation?
Is there a center to this Observation? Ie. A “me” observing.
Awareness has no center, nor focus, nor choice, nor chooser. For the center is the known and its need for security and progress (ie.learning, improvement) - which is a delusion that limits clarity.
Awareness is non-dependance on thought - thought must neither be the focus nor the judge.
If I know what I am observing - this is not freedom from the known.