What is the nature of K Inquiry? (& Testimonial)

Thought continues as thought. The different awareness, not of thought, which shows no thoughts leading up to it, is called insight. Or you could say it is the beauty of living.

Hello again Howard. When I said “no holds barred” I wasn’t suggesting for a moment that the forum guidelines, which seem very sound to me, should be ignored. I just meant to say that we can see that when questioning the nature of thought that someone may express, it often leads to a defensive response which ends communication. My suggestion was that to avoid this breakdown in communication, it might be a good idea to say in the opening post of a thread that participants should be prepared to have what they express challenged. It’s just an idea.

That seems to make sense but perhaps we think that we are using thought to communicate observations (which we might indeed be doing). When someone challenges this and says “look at what thought is doing here”, that may seem too direct/aggresive. It comes down to different interpretations of what is reasonable/fair/direct/aggressive. It’s a pity when challenges which could lead to the dialogue going somewhere very interesting end up with conflict.

The conflict is a total condition of human life, as the lives we live. It is witnessed in a fragmented way, as arising in this and that, due to the fragmented way of thinking. Thinking it is a conflict arising in this or that, here and there, is the fragmentation.

Is this assertion an example of conditioned thought? Or is it something else?

**And of course, it’s a very reasonable idea. But, given that we’re already accepting the suggested guidelines of this forum, another way to look at your idea might be this: “Please go easy on my ego, I get defensive if you question any of my ideas.” How many times did K talk about being serious? What do you suppose he meant by that? How often did he talk about being mediocre? This isn’t a suggestion that anyone ‘should’ be other than they are. It’s just a question about how serious we each are. There’s no rule that says we must be serious. It’s just a question. To my observation, all attempts to ‘control’ what is, interfere with the choiceless awareness. The attempt to control comes from the conditioning, even when it seems quite reasonable. It’s also how the system of thought moves away from what is. Ex: Q: What is fear? Response: First, I need to know you’ll be careful how you talk to me.
What happened to looking at fear? The response distracted the attention away from the observation. This is one of the main things we discover observing what thought is doing, the responses are constantly moving attention away from what is. Every time we respond with past experience, it moves away from observing what is. Ex: “Well, K or Bohm said this or that.” That past knowledge moves away from seeing for ourselves.

**And that’s the analysis K rejected, psychological ‘evaluations’. Ex: "This is not ‘fair’ to ‘me’. Looking at what thought is doing is different that telling the person, “You” aren’t being fair. That’s violence against the person, asserting they “should be other than they are.” It’s expecting them to conform to some fictional idea. To point out that thought is being judgmental, isn’t saying, “You should be different.” We’re ‘looking together’, not telling anyone what to do or not do, right? Or do you or anyone else have a different understanding of looking together, in choiceless awareness? The point is to observe ourselves in relationship, isn’t it? If we’re inquiring together, we’re listening and looking at all of the responses. I don’t recall K or Bohm suggesting to judge or critisize anyone personally. The suggested to observe thought, to observe the responses, and stick with the facts. The fact is that personal judgments, in ‘thought’, are ‘psychological thought’, what ‘I’ believe. That’s not a judgment of a “person.” That’s describing the nature of the thought. Sure, most every conditioned being thinks this ‘idea’ that the thoughts belong to some thought-identity is “the truth.” But the ‘fact’ is, this identity is just thought, not an actual entity. Thoughts don’t belong to a conceptual identity. The identity is part of the system of thought.

I don’t think being serious means speaking out regardless of how
what you say will be received. That’s the kind of “macho” philosophy that is very common in certain circles. K talked about “communion” which involved passionate inquiry but also listening to each other with great attention and possibly affection. If a number of people react “badly” to what I am saying, I think I have to look at that carefully and not say that others are not really serious. Talking about anything being “mediocre” always sounds judgemental to me but I know K used the word at times.

**Who suggested any such thing? Did anyone suggest either thing? The question was, “What do you think K meant?” So, regarding this response, I’ll ask, "Does this response reflect ‘evaluation according to memory’, or ‘looking’ at the question? What did the question have to do with “speaking out regardless of how what you say will be received,” or a “macho” philosophy? Isn’t this analysis according to memory?
“What is thought doing?” This is the question being asked now:

K: When thought meets the challenge, which is ever new, is not that response the outcome of the old, the past?

**What K seemed to be asking when he asked “Are we serious,” seemed to be, “Are we serious about inquiry, are we serious about observing what is.” If we’re more concerned with defending an image, a belief about how people should be, versus inquiry, then is that seriousness?

K: To ask a question is the easiest thing in the world, but your question has meaning only if it affects you directly so that you are very serious about it.

**You see how thought works? It brings situations out of the past, that aren’t what’s occurring now, to defend the belief, or point it’s making. Where is the number of people behaving 'badly" occurring? Is that what is occurring now?
Here’s why I suggest K used the word mediocre, it’s actually another way to say this:

K: If you treat what we are saying at a verbal level, then go away, it is a waste of time. - Madras Feb. 1952

**It’s a way of suggesting, it’s a waste of anyone’s time, if they’re not serious. The cultural conditioning is deeply engrained, and a mediocre approach will just be a waste of time.
It’s actually an act of love to say, “Look, if this isn’t something really important to you, then you’re better off not wasting your time here.” It’s more blunt than that, but that’s the message.
And by the way, if you openly look, I never said anyone was or wasn’t serious. I asked, What do you think K meant. But do you see how thought interprets that? It makes false assiumptions about what the other person did. And then we generally don’t notice that this idea we have about the other person doesn’t reflect what actually occurred, unless we’re observing what thought is actually doing.

If one reacts to what I wrote, the reaction demonstrates how the authority of what-should-be (and its corollary, what-should-not-be), precludes seeing what-is.

When one reacts and doesn’t examine the reaction, self-defense is a higher priority than self-knowledge

Think about it. How can this be said, without the actuality of this discovery called conditioned thought being on the mind, and why do we think it doesn’t apply to oneself?

He also spoke of the “shoddy mind”. Is that judgmental or just an accurate description?

Coming from a shoddy mind, it would be judgmental because a shoddy mind is bound and conflicted by what-should-be, rendering it incapable of seeing what-is. But coming from a mind without belief, and therefore without conflict, it is acknowledging what-is.

A free mind doesn’t have to judge because it sees clearly what-is. A conflicted mind sees only judgment because it can’t see what is.

In the two sentences above, there is no tone of voice available to the reader as there would be to the listener in a spoken utterance. There is also an absence of non-verbal communication such as body language. Reading those sentences, it would be easy to get the impression that you were somewhat angry when you wrote them Howard. Of course, this may not have been the case. If you had written, “I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying”, the reader may well respond in a different way to how she/he would respond on reading a more direct statement or question. My point is that we all need to try to communicate what we are saying in as skillful a way as possible so as to maintain communication. I don’t see this as compromising “what is”.

I’m a bit lost here and I think I’ve lost the thread of what we were originally talking about. Please, feel free to challenge anything I write robustly Howard. I look forward to further inquiry with you here.

The problem isn’t K using this term but others - we tend to think of our own minds as free of thought and conditioning while others have “shoddy minds”. Don’t we all think we can see “what is”? Isn’t that what makes us all the same here? It’s easy to judge others and look down on them from a superior vantage point whether it be fellow posters, the homeless or whatever. Isn’t that basically what is happening all the time in the world?

That was essentially my question - does conditioned thought apply to you?

It applies to us all. This way of thinking individualistically is part of the conditioning, and shows how intellectually we miss the point.
Please don’t respond, “what is the point?” Try to see it is not about him or her saying something for your entertainment. It is looking at the human conflict which is I, self, you and, me. See the conflict, psychologically as it were, for yourself, or not. See what happens, totally, mind, body, feelings, etc, all of that together in your own immediate existence.

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Ok, thanks for clearing that up Peter.

**Yes, this is not the case. And this appears to be an important thing to be aware of. This is why I mentioned it in my testimonial. With regard to this, I’d like to share one of the guidelines for dialogue I was given when I was first introduced to dialogue in 1986, written by Mark Lee, the Director of the KFA at the time, that I feel is an essential part of dialogue. This one: “Dialogue is letting the issue unfold in affection and mutual respect.” Mark told me he wrote the dialogue guidelines “In the spirit of Krishnamurti’s teachings.” Perhaps in the spirit of this sort of comment K frequently expressed at his talks:

K: We are two friends sitting in a park on a bench, talking over together our problems, friends who are concerned deeply with what is going on in the world, with the confusion, the chaos that exists throughout the world. I wonder if you have a friend with whom you talk, to whom you expose your own feelings, your concepts, your ideas, disillusionment, and so on. We are going to talk over together in that manner – exploring, enquiring, without any bias, in great friendship, which means, with great affection, respecting each other, without having some kind of hidden thought, hidden motives. - Brockwood Sept.1975

**I suspect that this tendency to ‘interpret’ email messages in this manner is related to the cultural conditioning of defending “my belief” against “your belief.” We’re conditioned to imagine relationship as ‘adversarial’. We’re told by the culture to “defend ‘your’ beliefs.”
So, thanks for keeping an open mind Sean.

**Well thanks for that. My views are also open to question. What I was referring to was the tendency for thought to respond in a manner that ‘moves away from observing what is’, or away from looking at the question that was just asked.

**The question arising out of this statement is, “When does the examination or inquiry begin?” The impression I get visiting various Krishnamurti sites, here, on Facebook, and other places, is that most every participant is great at quoting K, and telling each other what they haven’t done, or what they should do. But “doing the work” together appears to be quite rare. It seems that K gave a great example to all of us when he spent over 50 years inviting humanity to inquire with him. He wasn’t pushing ideas, he was saying, “Let’s look together choicelessly.” If we’re going to “live the teaching,” is that about quoting words, or giving directions, or, meeting each other in openness? From not knowing, and observing together? If we’ve read or listened to K for a fair amount of time, who hasn’t already heard “what we’re supposed to do?” Are the teachings about the words, or about the looking, from not knowing?

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If one can look “from not knowing”, one can see. Our problem is that we look from what-should-be and react to what is reflected rather than see what actually is.

If K’s teaching can help one to realize this, his work was not in vain because someone “got it”. Whether that one must converse with others to get it, I don’t know, because it’s a matter of seeing what is going on in oneself.

Yes, right up to the moment you realize you are reacting to what-should-be.

**Is this “problem” a ‘fact’, or a translation based on past experience? Do we know what each person is actually going to do, before we begin the inquiry? I think we’re all aware of this possibility, and it may be a “reasonable guess.” But isn’t this how thought responds to the suggestion to begin an inquiry, it “talks about how it’s nearly impossible.” It looks like it is how thought responds, because it just happened, right? So, do we really know what’s going to happen next?