Yes meditation is looking deeply at everything that is happening inside and outside of myself throughout the day, including the whole notion of inside/outside, self/other. And as you touched upon in another of your posts above, there is an unfolding going on, and a coming to awareness on the part of matter.
One can choose a suit to wear or not, but skin is something else!
You don’t have to go that far in history, now looking at what is happening in America.
A young white man in a disturbed city walking around with a gun is supported by white police officers and the president and a gunless black man get shots in the back.
All based on what people have been taught about how the world works.
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Sadly too true Wim. Thanks
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Suit’s not snazzy enough…
Nothing wrong with being a ‘relic’ Wim.
Yes . The left or the right thought, the nazi thought, the jew thought, the musulman thought. All in conflict and war one with the other.
K: ( in Commentary on Living) …Conditioning is the direction according to which thought has been oriented: personnel or impersonnel, individuel or collective, religious or profane, hindu or christian, boudhist or musulman and so on. It does not exist a musulman thinker but only thought which has been musulman 's conditioned. Thought is the product of his own conditioning.The process or way of thinking create inevitably conflicts and when one make efforts to conquer those conflicts one way or another, that only arouse other form of resistances and conflicts. ( Note: my own traduction from french,hope it’s o.k)
Here is the context and original in english, which is better then my poor traduction.
There is no thinker, only conditioned thinking
The thinker and his thought are a unitary process, neither has an independent continuance; the watcher and the watched are inseparable. All the qualities of the watcher are contained in his thinking; if there’s no thinking, there’s no watcher, no thinker. This is a fact, is it not?
“Yes, so far I have understood.”
If understanding is merely verbal, intellectual, it is of little significance. There must be an actual experiencing of the thinker and his thought as one, an integration of the two. Then there’s only the process of thinking.
“What do you mean by the process of thinking?”
The way or direction in which thought has been set going: personal or impersonal, individualistic or collective, religious or worldly, Hindu or Christian, Buddhist or Moslem, and so on. There is no thinker who is a Moslem, but only thinking which has been given a Moslem conditioning. Thinking is the outcome of its own conditioning. The process or way of thinking must inevitably create conflict, and when effort is made to overcome this conflict through various means, it only builds up other forms of resistance and conflict.
“That’s clear, at least I think so.”
This way of thinking must wholly cease, for it breeds confusion and misery. There’s no better or nobler way of thinking. All thinking is conditioned.
“You seem to imply that only when thought ceases is there a radical change. But is this so?”
Thought is conditioned. The mind, being the storehouse of experiences, memories, from which thought arises, is itself conditioned; and any movement of the mind, in any direction, produces its own limited results. When the mind makes an effort to transform itself, it merely builds another pattern, different perhaps, but still a pattern. Every effort of the mind to free itself is the continuance of thought; it may be at a higher level, but it is still within its own circle, the circle of thought, of time.
“Yes, sir, I am beginning to understand. please proceed.”
Any movement of any kind on the part of the mind only gives strength to the continuance of thought, with its envious, ambitious, acquisitive pursuits. When the mind is totally aware of this fact, as it is totally aware of a poisonous snake, then you will see that the movement of thought comes to an end. Then only is there a total revolution, not the continuance of the old in a different form. This state is not to be described; he who describes it is not aware of it.
Commentaries on Living , serie III, part of the chapter 12
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So Richard why don’t we see that the “movement of the mind” is as dangerous (terrifying?) as that snake in the corner. Why do we not see, feel, the ‘danger’?
Do you mean what prevent us to be aware of the danger ? Isn’t seeing the danger inherent in the fact of being aware, of deeply understanding what has been said ?
Are we to understand that all “movement of the mind” is like a poisonous snake, including practical thought? K made the distinction between practical and psychological thought, and it seems here he makes no distinction. I don’t see how practical thought can be like a poisonous snake.
No. We are not to understand that.
Sorry I took it for granted that we understood the value and place of practical thought. It is the movement of thought / time in the psychological sphere that must stop. In a way it seems what his whole message was pointing at. My question was rhetorical: why don’t I see the ‘danger’ of this movement? Is it because I am the movement of (psychological) thought?
The question was : what other think. K. explain the thought process and how it is the outcome of his own conditioning. And how it must inevitably create conflict etc.
The other important thing to consider is that thinker and thought are a unitary process. There is only a thinking process based on accumulation in the storehouse, which is the mind. Not a thinker and his thoughts. If one say I am a christan as an example, there is not a thinker who is chritian but only thinking which has been givan a christian conditioning. K. goes further and say :
K. : This way of thinking must wholly cease, for it breeds confusion and misery. There’s no better or nobler way of thinking. All thinking is conditioned.
Dan use the word danger. Maybe K. was using poisonous snake to pointed to danger but also for intensity of attention, of awareness ?
Isn’t that what is lacking in me? That it is easier to move and glide with the stream of thought, the thought of ‘becoming’ than for there to be an intense awareness of its ‘conditioning’? An intense awareness of the danger of its continuing? Of its maintaining and strengthening the self-image?
From Huguette’s last post: K.“…So can the mind be without thought, and use thought when necessary? Which means, the mind being empty of thought can use thought, and live with thought, in harmony, not one and the other. And this is meditation. So that the mind has no illusion; and illusion arises when you want to achieve. When you say, ‘I must attain that,’ and then you can invent something which you will attain and think you’ve got it.”
It’s unfortunate that we have to ask questions like this because the teaching is so unclear, ambiguous, and subject to interpretation. It’s no wonder nobody “got it”.
What did K mean by “mind”. In common usage and as K usually used it, the word refers to cognition, what K also called “thought”. But on occasions he gave “mind” a special, strange meaning.
This brings up something I wanted to share. It is a theory. And it is simply that it was necessary for K to pass and leave the scene before the message he brought could be ‘gotten’. He did us a favor by saying “noone got it” before he died, I’m saying, because had he pointed to someone who had got it, then we would look to that person or persons to ‘clear up’ that which we found “unclear and ambiguous”. That is no longer an option. We can’t be dependent on another. If someone says that they got it, they are transformed, etc. it well may be but I will never give the same ‘trust’ that I did to K.'s words. I am totally on my own in this. No teacher that I can turn to. By not passing the ‘mantle’ to another he cut out the hierarchy and the inevitable corruption of the ‘organization’ of what he was trying to get across. He freed us from that option.
There was no need to pass on a mantle. In fact, it would be a big mistake to do so. To get it is to be free - not to be somebody. If K knew that two or two thousand got it, he didn’t have to do anything about it, and nobody needed to know who they were.
We really don’t know if anyone got it or not. Krishnamurti may not have been of sound mind when he spoke his last words.
Because we don’t know what ‘being of sound mind’ is. Let’s take him at his word, and leave it there.
We take him at his word for everything else he said, but of his last words, we can’t say for sure. As far as he could tell, nobody got it, but he wasn’t omniscient.
When ignorance assumes to be the judge and jury of profundity, it is not a happy end for ignorance. Because ignorance feeds upon its own opinions and increases markedly.
Profundity, on the other hand, remains untouched and unpolluted.
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