Being totally consumed by whatever experience I am reacting to in this moment -eg. my neighbour being terribly wrong - is a tiny one track universe.
Expanding this tiny reality to include myself : the center of this one tiny universe.
Sorry, I don’t know how best to continue this story - but its got something to do with the fact that the tiny reality and myself are one and the same, and that neither exist.
At this point maybe best just let that universe puff out of existence and receive what comes up next.
until thoughts create illusion because of thinking psychologically that there is a future theres no great problem with thought .
maybe the existence of memory, or call it the past time it’s not so far to think about something comming in the time lying in front of me .
there are repeating phenomena we can count our time on . so we can say for instance sunrise will happen . we trust in that .
Do i honestly look into my illusions ?
into it’s thoughtfabric to draw the line between the moment now and what is gone savely .
Let’s say there is a difference between probability predictions of natural processes based on a lifetime of experience, such as expecting the sun to rise tomorrow, and individual or collective ideas that result from memory and determine the present moment? Expectations that arise even though they stem from past experiences that may have nothing to do with the present?
The question could be whether we notice this at all, as the present moment does not appear to us as an illusion, which is resuming from past experiences, but as a reality - as we trust our own perception?
It is part of the Universe, only it thinks it is not, making that division “real”. That is why when for whatever reason it becomes aware of that division it thinks it must do something to return to the whole. Hence the creation of organized religions, and all kinds of theories about it that it tries to use to try to return to the whole… without ever succeeding. For in spite of all these organized religions and all kinds of theories about it, it continues to be divided from the whole… only now it thinks it is not.
As far as man with his personality exists, he can add this personality to the universe, but I’m not sure this personality is more than something that just spoils the universe
Yes. the act of separation is done by thinking and the attempt to overcome this separation is also done by thinking.
the remark that this is also part of the universe referred to the feeling that something would be prevented if we perceive in this way. It seems to me if we perceive or receive in this way, as it is every day, it is the perception of the universe by an observer. It is reality. I don’t think there is another reality that would be hindered, that would be beyond it as an alternative at that moment.
I would say that attention somehow sustains choiceless awareness. On the other hand, Krishnamurti in his book ‘’The Urgency of Change‘’ says at the end of the chapter on ‘’Awareness‘’:
Questioner:This is too difficult. You are saying things that seem true, that sound true, but I’m not there yet. Can you put it differently? Can you push me out of my trap?
Krishnamurti:Nobody can push you out of your trap – no guru, no drug, no mantra, nobody, including myself – nobody, especially myself. All that you have to do is to be aware from the beginning to the end, not become inattentive in the middle of it. This new quality of awareness is attention, and in this attention there is no frontier made by the ‘me’. This attention is the highest form of virtue, therefore it is love. It is supreme intelligence, and there cannot be attention if you are not sensitive to the structure and the nature of these man-made traps.
This is ‘analysis’ isn’t it? Thought separating into thinker / thought. Attention is seeing this inattention? (From beginning to end without “becoming inattentive in the middle of it”)?
No kind of authority can free us from the trap: no guru, no tradition, etc., and above all not our inner authority, which pretends to know that there must be a way to get out of it. It seems to me that if this knowledge existed, we would have freed ourselves long ago. Apparently the problem is not that we are trapped, but that we think we are trapped and need to free ourselves. Then we are busy trying to find a way out, which takes up all of our attention.
I can’t free myself from this trap, in Buddhism there is the metaphor of the"gateless gate" - the trap is only there when I think it’s there. Then it functions as a gate.
The brain has to free itself it seems…From what? The ‘traps’ that it has fallen into in its search for security. One trap is the idea of ‘becoming’. Another trap is that it must be ‘full’ rather than empty and hold and burnish an image of itself constructed from the past. The trap is that this image of itself is believed to be actual, that it exists and must be protected….etc
Seeing the ‘traps’ accurately without judgement or condemnation is perhaps what is meant by ‘attention’?