One is the experiencing and the other is my story about the experience. Both have effects/power, are actions.
Intentionally following oneâs thought, âstaying withâ it , loosing it and picking it up again days maybe weeks laterâŚI find that disturbing this thinking process with the intent of âstaying withâ has some negative (uncomfortable) results. Maybe thatâs why K warned about dropping it in the middle?
following on from elsewhere - @DanMcD - this is probably a good place to discuss the matter of thought and following thought.
The first thing I want to ask is : have you ever noticed a thought as it arises? Or are we only âfollowingâ or observing old (ie fully formed) thoughts - ie retelling them to ourselves for some reason.
No youâre following, listening to the thought as it arises right now. All the questions about this and that, listen to them. Youâll âfadeâ in and out, doesnât matter. Nothing to âgetâ out of it, just return to the listening, following. The questions are beside the pointâŚjust follow your own thinking.
Are you saying that Iâm meditating right now? Or that I know what Iâm thinking?
Well it ought to be âyouâ because I sure as hell donât! Iâve got enough on my hands here!
This may be where the âproblemâ is? There can be an awareness of thought as it arises. Thereâs no âIâ separate from thought. There can be an awareness of the hand on the legâŚsaying âI have my hand on my legâ is an interpretation of that action, sensationâŚin this excercise, awareness follows the
Thoughts there is no âIâ involved.
It becomes somewhat obvious that thought would rather be âleft aloneâ to speculate , analyse, conclude, question, theorize,etc than to âbecome awareâ of itself as it moves i.e. it would rather stay âasleepâ rather than to awaken to itself. May be wrong. Security issues may be involved.
âWhy is intellectual understanding insufficient?â
What is intellect? What is understanding? Is understanding verbal?
I still find all this a bit confusing - so here are a few simple claims that might help (please comment if you donât agree with the claims) :
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Recognising my thoughts, knowing what my thoughts are, is not meditation.
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Awareness is not something I do intentionally.
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My efforts to cause whatever effects in my own psyche will not set me free.
Of course, Iâm not claiming that we are totally on the wrong track, or that I know what people mean, when I donât know what they mean.
Câmon Douglas, is this true?
Being aware of thoughts and investigating into what they are is a major part of Buddhist meditation (just to mention one well-known form of meditation). And for Krishnamurti meditation was quite a broad activity. Sometimes K would finish a long talk on fear or the nature of thought and say words to the effect that âThis has all been a process of meditation, from the very beginningâ. So on either count, recognising, being aware of thoughts and investigating into their nature can charitably be called meditation (without of course saying that it is the whole of meditation, which goes beyond thought).
Say I am worrying about the neighbourâs dog (true story) - and the thought âthe dog is dangerousâ appears in my mind - and I know that I have thought that thought.
How is this meditation? How is it different from what happens all the time for most everyone.
Awareness of the movement of self and following thoughts is not the same thing.
Choiceless awareness and recognition of thought/objects is not the same process at work.
How do we investigate into what thoughts are? To be charitable, asking the question is the beginning of the inquiry.
I donât know how the subject of meditation came up for you in this thread (I havenât read the whole thread), but I assume that the discussion follows on from your conversation with Dan about âfollowingâ thought, being aware of thought as it happens.
First of all, why do you assume that meditation is different from daily life, from what happens âall the time for most everyoneâ? Surely meditation - at one level - is just this attention paid to what is happening in an ordinary mind âall the timeâ?
By bringing attention or awareness to the daily thoughts we have - such as âthat dog is dangerousâ, etc - we begin to expose the mechanics of what is occurring in our minds, and perhaps begin to see the very mechanical and automatic nature of the thought process. This is all part of meditation, isnât it?
Choiceless awareness is just non-volitional awareness of whatever is happening- including thoughts, feelings, sensations, trees, clouds, birds.
So meditation begins where we are, where our minds are; with our thoughts, our fears, our restlessness and pettiness. It is not transcendental⌠until it is!
It is probably important to state that awareness is the same for all - there is not a special form of awareness for enlightened folk.
Now for someone âon the pathâ who notices the thought : âthe dog is dangerousâ - what should they do?
There is no-one special âon the pathâ, is there? There is just the awareness of the thought (and its reaction as feeling, sensation in the body) âthe dog is dangerousâ. There is nothing special to do. K calls this learning without accumulation. Self-knowledge is part of meditation, isnât it?
Nothing to do with âmeditationâ. Nothing to do with any âresultâ other than following each thought. âWhyâ do it? Because K (and now me) suggested trying it. I think he felt it was important and I agree. Think of it as following, being aware of the sensation of your left foot say. Lose it and come back to it as an excercise. With thought itâs a bit more difficult because of the thinker/thought duality? Anyway I would like to hear otherâs impressions after âdoingâ this for a while. As K would say, âJust do it sir!â
Some bloke, no one special, someone like you, me or DanMcD, who is interested in self & suffering - notices the thought : âthe dog is dangerousâ. What should they do about it? Nothing? Follow it? What have they learnt? (How is this learning without accumulation?)
And whatâs the difference between what we do about it, and what humanity has always done?
If we say âno differenceâ - why did the Buddha speak?
What do you mean? Sometime later in the day I should make the effort to consider my foot again, or a thought that I had earlier? Surely thats not what you mean.
I am reminded of Plum village where a bell would ring every so often, at which point we were all supposed to take a moment to shut up and be âmindfulâ (aka wake up?)
ANY moment in the day or night, when you remember the excercise, become aware of the procession of thoughts in your head. Follow it. One thought is not more significant than another
Imagine yourself as a stenographer and you are taking dictation. What is being dictated are the thoughts. Your job is to accurately hear each of the thoughts so you donât miss a word. Your responsibility is not to react to the thought but just to hear it. There is no responsibility to assess or to judge the thoughts in any way. Only to follow them as diligently as possible. You can pick it up at any point.
Thanks Dan - So this sounds to me a bit like the Plum village example above.
I would say that its about getting into the habit of realising what weâre up to. Waking up regularly to see what the brain is being preoccupied with.
Now - I am still under the impression that there is some effort, some conscious act that you are proposing should take place from that moment of awareness.
As you know, I am suspicious of this idea that we can be in the midst of a thought process and also observe that thought at the same time.
I propose that what is actually happening, is that a thought arises, is recognised, and we can then review that thought. Unfortunately we donât seem to agree on this point - but its up to each of us to experience this as best we can.
Also, why are we taking note of the contents of the thoughts? (Like a Stenographer) Why are we (re)viewing each word? Are the words significant or not?