What is pure attention?

Kinfonet Discussion
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That is, the thing that worries you is

Is this not what Rick and I were discussing previously up the thread? You weren’t active yesterday, so you may have missed it, but Rick brought up the matter of “low-level cognitive events” (in the context of sensory-perception) that could be interpreted by some to mean what K calls “thinking”.

However, as I said to Rick, I understand these “low-level cognitive events” to be part of the brain’s evolutionarily ancient machinery of animal perception, what one could term the brain’s perceptual cognition (which includes things like the automatic and nervous processing of perceptual data, stored implicit and explicit body representations, proprioception, etc).

However, all this is distinct from the brain’s evolutionarily much younger cousin, psychological thought. The distinction, we said, can be thought of as the distinction between the hardware of animal perception, and the software of psychological thought.

Do you understand the distinction?

If you nevertheless still feel that psychological thought has a necessary place in pure attention, maybe you could explain why?

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Douglas, you say

But this is precisely what I am saying. Conclusions are images, thoughts - and they have no place in love, which is a state of pure attention.

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This is not an everyday state. K was something of a ‘freak’ in that he found himself in it without hallucinogenic drugs like psilocybin, peyote or LSD. In these states of heightened awareness, as Huxley put it, the ‘doors of perception are cleansed’. Colors, shapes, things overwhelm, labels seem ludicrous…what these states show is the mundanity with which we normally consider our surroundings and the degree to which the brain has been ‘damped down’ to go about our everyday affairs.

1 Like
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How about agreeing on a ‘snapshot’ working definition of pure attention as we understand it at this point in the thread? A starter, please refine:

Pure attention is the undivided unwavering awareness of whatever arises in the mind.

‘Whatever arises in the mind’ encompasses inner and outer phenomena, i.e. the totality of content present in the noggin.

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Are you our Psychedelic Expert in Residence, Dan? :slight_smile: Would be good to have someone with plenty of neurochemical experience in the house. I tried some recreational drugs back in the day, but never dared to do a hallucinogen, figured I might never come back! But it does seem to be revealing itself to be a viable way to catch a glimpse of _______________ .

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May I suggest a rather minor modification? How about, Pure attention is the undivided unwavering awareness of whatever is there…?

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We have laboured to say repeatedly that pure attention is not psychological thought, has nothing to do with psychological thought. If others want thought to be included in pure attention, then I feel you are talking about something else, not pure attention.

Pure attention = no thought.

Maybe if, taking some of the extracts from K that were shared yesterday, we highlight those qualities that limit or deny pure perception/attention, it will be clearer what is meant:

We never see anything completely, with the totality of our mind, or with the fullness of our heart…

The concept, the knowledge, the [recollected] experience, is entirely different from the actual tree…

We are either emotional, sentimental or very intellectual—which obviously prevents us from actually seeing the colour, the beauty of the light, the trees, the birds, and from listening to those crows…

That seeing of the bird, of the leaf, listening to the noise of birds, becomes almost impossible because of the image that one has built, not only about nature but also about others. And these images actually prevent us from seeing…

We have never looked at anything completely, with the totality of our mind, of our heart, of our nerves, of our eyes, of our ears. To us the word, the concept is extraordinarily important, not the acts of seeing…

Conceptual living, prevents us from actually seeing…

This seeing is not only seeing through your eyes and nerves, but seeing with your heart, with your mind, and you cannot see completely in this way if you are living, functioning, thinking, acting within a fragment of the total mind [i.e. the intellect].

Observe for yourself a tree, a flower, the face of a person… and so look that the space between you and them is non-existent… real observation, real seeing… brings with it this extraordinary elimination of time and space.

Attention can only come about easily when you know how to look, how to listen—how to look at a tree, or your wife, or your neighbour, or at the stars, or even at your boss, without any image.

The image is, after all, the past—the past, which has been accumulated through experience, pleasant or unpleasant; and with that image you look at your wife, your children, your neighbour, the world; you look with that image at nature.

So what is in contact is your memory, the image which has been put together by memory. And that image looks and therefore there is no direct contact. You know when you have pain there is no image, there is only pain.

So what impedes or interferes with perception/attention, according to K, is conceptual living, living in words, concepts, images, memories, knowledge, intellect as a fragment of the mind’s total process; as well as sentimentality, emotionalism and intellectualism.

All these are blocks to pure attention, they prevent pure attention, and so are not included in what we are calling pure attention. This is what is being pointed out here.

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Good! And maybe the qualifiers are overkill:

Pure attention is pure awareness of whatever is there.

Further distillation:

Pure attention is pure awareness of what is.

???

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Pure attention = no thought. Full stop.

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Would you say that ‘choiceless awareness’ (rather than pure awareness or pure attention) is ‘pure awareness of whatever is there.’ ?

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But that would mean that deep dreamless sleep qualified as ‘pure attention.’

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Perhaps, yes. Awareness is a more diffuse concept for me. Awareness of thoughts and feelings and secondary reactions of judgements, moods, attitudes, etc, as they arise in the mind.

But pure attention is pure attention. It is radically non-conceptual, pure perception, unpolluted by intellect, emotion, personal responses or reactions of thought.

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K would say that pure attention continues in dreamless sleep. But that is another matter Rick. Let’s keep to the examples already suggested above - having to do with complete seeing, seeing with the whole of the mind, with total awareness, total attention, seeing with all one’s senses fully awake. What place has thought in this pure seeing? We are saying, none whatsoever.

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I asked my AIs to weigh in on this issue. Two (GPT and Bard) agreed with what I and Manuel said. One (Bing) agreed with what James said. So there’s wiggle room involved, as is often true with Krishnamurti’s views. But since it’s James’ thread I’m happy to go with his interpretation.

Here’s the text from Bing:

Krishnamurti said that total attention does not include awareness or perception of thoughts, because thoughts are the product of the past, of memory, of conditioning. He said that thoughts are the source of conflict, confusion, and sorrow, and that they prevent the mind from being free and creative. He said that when there is total attention, there is no thought, only silence and emptiness. He said that in that silence, there is a possibility of a new dimension of consciousness, beyond the known and the unknown.

Also from Bing, a new working definition:

Total attention is the direct perception of reality without the interference of thought.

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GPT says something similar (note - I am using the 3.5 version which is free):

What does Krishnamurti mean by total attention?

GPT: For Krishnamurti “total attention” is complete, undivided awareness in the present moment, free from distractions or preconceptions.

Does total attention, according to Krishnamurti, involve thought?

GPT: Krishnamurti suggested that total attention goes beyond thought. While thought is a natural part of the mind, true attention involves being aware without getting entangled in the continuous stream of thoughts—allowing a direct perception of reality.

So, just to repeat again, does total attention, according to Krishnamurti, involve conceptual thought or psychological memory?

GPT: Krishnamurti often spoke against being dominated by psychological memory and conditioned thought. Total attention, in his view, requires a state of mind free from the influence of past experiences and conditioned thinking, allowing for a fresh, unfiltered perception of the present.

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Can you talk a little about the concept of attention in the context of the book The Ending of Time?

GPT: “The Ending of Time” is a series of dialogues between Krishnamurti and Bohm. In these dialogues, they explore various profound philosophical and psychological topics, including the nature of time, thought, and the possibility of a different kind of attention.

In the context of attention, they discuss the idea that true perception requires an attention that is not distorted by thought or time-bound processes. They explore the challenges of maintaining a state of attention free from the influence of psychological memory and conditioning. The book delves into the complexities of the mind and the obstacles to achieving a state of awareness unclouded by the limitations of thought.

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In general, why did Krishnamurti say that thought has no place in attention?

GPT: Krishnamurti asserted that thought has no place in attention because, in his view, attention is a state of direct perception, free from the influence of past experiences, preconceptions, and conditioned thought. Thought, being a product of memory and conditioning, can cloud perception with its biases, judgments, and interpretations.

According to Krishnamurti, true attention involves a pristine awareness of the present moment, unobstructed by the interference of thought.

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Me: Neuroscientists say that perceptual awareness involves low level cognitive events in the brain. What are these low level cognitive events?

GPT: Neuroscientists often refer to low-level cognitive events in the context of perceptual awareness as basic sensory processes and early stages of information processing. These include activities such as sensory input reception, feature detection, and initial processing in sensory regions of the brain.

For example, in visual perception, low-level cognitive events may involve the detection of edges, colors, shapes, and motion by specialized neurons in the visual cortex. These processes lay the foundation for higher-level cognitive functions and contribute to the formation of a coherent perceptual experience.

It’s important to note that perceptual awareness is a complex phenomenon involving interactions across various brain regions, and the term “low level” refers to the initial stages of this intricate process.

Me: Using this definition of low level cognitive events that take place in perception, is this the same thing as when Krishnamurti talks about thought?

GPT: While the low-level cognitive events in perception, as described by neuroscientists, involve basic sensory processes and initial information processing in the brain, Krishnamurti’s discussions about thought typically go beyond these sensory processes. Krishnamurti often refers to thought as the broader mental activity that includes interpretation, analysis, and the influence of memory and conditioning.

While low-level cognitive events in perception relate to sensory input and basic processing, Krishnamurti’s focus on thought encompasses the more intricate aspects of mental activity that can influence our perception, understanding, and responses to the world around us.

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(Would be fun to do a trialogue between Bard, GPT, and Bing, no human presence except for copying/pasting the messages from/to the AIs. :slight_smile: )

Would you go along with the latest working definition:

Total attention is the direct perception of reality without the interference of thought.

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It’s ok, as far as working definitions go. But you see, according to this definition there is still a danger that someone - you or Douglas say - will pick this up and say we don’t know what reality is, or we don’t believe there is such a thing as direct perception because there are low level cognitive events that enable the eye to detect edges, colours, shapes, etc, and we think what Krishnamurti called thought is the same thing, etc. Do you see what I am saying?

Whereas when K says “in that state of attention there is no thought” (The Ending of Time), or “freedom is the non-existence of thought” (from the ‘freedom’ thread), or “thought doesn’t enter into the field of understanding. Thought doesn’t exist where love is” (from the OP to the ‘what is the central thread or hub’ thread), it is clear what is being negated.