Because few of us (if any) perceive directly, each one’s perception is distorted by beliefs, opinions, ignorance and arrogance, which means that order must be imposed by the enforcement of rules, laws, and norms.
But to answer your question, this “me-ness” means that most of us (perhaps all) can’t see past ourselves, our content, and a self-absorbed being cannot act in the best interests of all other beings.
So is it fair, logical to say that the “self-absorbed” aspect of being must dissolve in order for there to be real change?
If I’m not mistaken, that’s what K was saying.
Yes that’s why we’re here. You’re not mistaken, that’s what he said.
Put differently: if it rains, the street gets wet! So until this dissolution of the self-image occurs, conflict, violence, brutality, war is a given. It’s not a matter of government or better rules, laws, a different ‘ism’, etc, or anything ‘outer’…whatever the ‘mechanism’ that maintains the presence of a self-image must end?
“You don’t exist “.
What can be done?
The “little wipings” ?
“ …The process of recognition is a process of the continued known. As I do not know what the unknown is I can only do this one thing, keep on wiping thought away as it arises.
K quote from OP. The Illusion of Time Travel thread.
In order for the wipings to be possible there has to be an awareness of the thought that is occupying the mind in the moment. ‘Emptying the mind’ can only be done in the present moment not an illusory past or future one. “Denial” of thought means awareness. I recall having read the ‘Switzerland while shaving’ many years ago but it takes on a more meaningful importance for me now. As does if the image is denied or ‘wiped’in the moment other images have no place ? I can’t recall the quote now but it seemed to speak to the same thing, the absolute necessity of an ‘empty mind’
Yes, but since the “empty mind” is not empty of practical knowledge but of content that sustains psychological thought, it would have to be all beliefs, biases, opinions, tendencies, etc., and they’re not willingly parted with because they’re so crucial to ones identity. There has to be an involuntary insight so thorough and comprehensive that nothing is spared.
But I hear K saying that the small “denials” are important. So big deal, he’s shaving and a pleasant memory of a time in Switzerland arises in his mind. What’s the problem? It’s indicative of a much larger problem, the past interfering with the present. Re-cognition replacing cognition? Small but important.
Yes, what K said about little wipings never made sense to me. If he meant being aware of sentimentality and noting it, that makes sense. But “wiping” it? It’s one of those K-isms I question. And I question his use of “denial”; it sounds reactive, resistant.
Oddly enough, I was going to comment that this made a lot of sense to me. Here K actually gave an example to illustrate what he was talking about, something that perhaps he could have done a bit more of. Anyway, I suppose it shows that different people find different parts of the teachings resonate more or less with them.
It makes sense if K was selfless when he said it (and presumably he was), but why mention it to brains that can’t do it?
I suppose it shows that different people find different parts of the teachings resonate more or less with them.
I don’t know if this is “part of the teachings” because if we could perform these little wipings, we would be ridding ourselves of our selves incrementally, little-by-little, until we’d be free, and I don’t think that’s what K was teaching.
I found the terms ‘deny’ and ‘wipings’ a bit perplexing as well but read in the context of the OP it makes more sense. The way I interpret it is that the action is simply discarding something one sees as false. That is something anyone can do. Drop a belief the instant you realize it is false. I’ll wager that is something we have all done - instantaneous dropping of a strongly held position - in an instant.
The difference with someone like K though is that he appears to see even the most innocuous movement of thought - in this case, daydreaming - as ‘false’. For us there is nothing false about daydreaming. In fact it is what we turn to to get away from boredom. It would appear that the present is never boring for an enlightened person. The natural brain movement of escape via imagery though is seen as very dangerous and something that needs to be caught in the bud. Funny though to think daydreaming occurs even in a mind like K’s. Just goes to show you that there is no point in speculating about such things as selfless-ness.
Daydreaming makes sense for the teenagers who haven’t experienced life but an adult daydreaming is surely an indication of mental disorder.
What the “little wipings” are affecting is the whole of the self as it is manifesting in this instant.
The self that is not manifest, or which exists at other times than the present, may be meaningless concepts.
Also, I will make the claim that the thoughts that arise, come to conclusions, and fall back into subconciousness; is what nourishes the known (aka the self, the past, conditioning).
Thus attention to movement of self (which is the action that arises from understanding what the self/suffering is) - which we are calling wiping - is the denial of self as it arises, and denial of its essential nourishment
Yes, the ‘self image’, the ‘me’ is continuously regenerating itself from the past into the present. ‘Dying to the self’ is each moment that the thoughts / images are being ‘denied’. The denial or “wiping” comes about with attention. The awareness that the present moment is being ‘intruded’ upon by thought, by the past.
Hi Emile
I didn’t see the memory he was referring to as “false”. The pleasant memory of a time in Switzerland probably actually happened. In that sense it was ‘true’. The ‘problem’ is that the brain has ‘teleported’ itself out of the present and away from the task taking place in the immediate present and ‘back’ into an illusory past.
Could we say that the ‘self’ Is a continuous “daydream’?
Or go further out on the limb and say: Everything we (think-feel we) know is (like a) dream?
If I take my car which is obviously not running right to a mechanic who says there is no right or wrong… he may be on to something but I’ll find another mechanic. 
And there we have in a nutshell 2,500 years of philosophical-spiritual debate! 