Attention involves seeing and hearing

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Attention involves seeing and hearing. We hear not only with our ears but also we are sensitive to the tones, the voice, to the implication of words, to hear without interference, to capture instantly the depth of a sound. Sound plays an extraordinary part in our lives: the sound of thunder, a flute playing in the distance, the unheard sound of the universe; the sound of silence, the sound of one’s own heart beating; the sound of a bird and the noise of a man walking on the pavement; the waterfall. The universe is filled with sound. This sound has its own silence; all living things are involved in this sound of silence. To be attentive is to hear this silence and move with it.

Letters to the Schools vol II, p 30

Here is my reflection.

I guess some of you might be humbing the Simon and Garfunkel soung right now! :-) If you can also remember the words, or at least some of them, they are actually pretty interesting in the context of what K is saying.

How often has the tone that someone was speaking in said far more to you than their actual words? This is what K would probably call "total listening". Listening with all of you, just just with the ears but the heart too.

Best wishes

Robert

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Just be aware; that is all you have to do, without condemning, without forcing, without trying to change what you are aware of. Then you will see that it is like a tide that is coming in. You cannot prevent the tide from coming in; build a wall, or do what you will, it will come with tremendous energy. In the same way, if you are aware choicelessly, the whole field of consciousness begins to unfold. And as it unfolds, you have to follow; and the following becomes extraordinarily difficult—following in the sense to follow the movement of every thought, of every feeling, of every secret desire. It becomes difficult the moment you resist, the moment you say, “That is ugly”, “This is good”, “That is bad”, “This I will keep”, “That I will not keep.”

The Collected Works vol XV, p 85.

Here is my reflection.

As long as there is the "me" there, who chooses, who has an image, and has desire around that image, there will be resistance. The resistance does stop the following, the observing without judgement, the movement of intelligence. It is the ego defending itself. It is the ego that says I will not listen to this, I will not take part, I am not interested, I have my plan and my desire. To be other than this, which is to be alive, the mind must be extraordinarily alert, sensitive, innocent, and passionate. As soon as you make a choice, you are basically dead. This is not the same as indecision. It's much bigger than that. It is watching the place of chosing in the mind. It is living without resolving duality, without the way of the ego and certainty.

To be aware without condemnation

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Do not think about doing it, but actually do it now. That is, be aware of the trees, the palm tree, the sky; hear the crows cawing; see the light on the leaf, the colour of the sari, the face; then move inwardly. You can observe, you can be aware choicelessly of outward things. It is very easy. But to move inwardly and to be aware without condemnation, without justification, without comparison is more difficult. Just be aware of what is taking place inside you—your beliefs, your fears, your dogmas, your hopes, your frustrations, your ambitions, and all the rest of the things. Then the unfolding of the conscious and the unconscious begins. You have not to do a thing.

The Collected Works vol XV, p 85.

Here is my reflection.

This process that K is describing corresponds to the one in yoga where the mind moves from Dharana or concentration to Dhyana or meditation. There is a movement from objectifying the object with names and labels to experiencing a continuous flow of attention between you and it, unmeditated, one not filtered by our conditioning. Concentration on an object will create heat or tapas as we experience deeper levels of concentration. As this moves into a free flow of attention, it releases prana, which is also termed intelligence in classical yoga, to move downwards and cleanse the nadis or energy channlels. When these are blocked they prevent clear perception of what it is. They are usually clogged with all our conditioning and pre-conceptions. These are called samskaras, layers of concepts and ideas that build up over years, like sandbanks build up with the action of waves over years. The cleansing allows you to just look at the object because now you are not there looking.

K is indirectly critical of this because it begins outside yourself, because it has a method and a progression and involves time. This movement from concentration to meditation is part of an 8-limbed path, and although it appears that one might reach the end, samadhi or true compassion, from any one limb or practice, there is the idea that we are moving from here to there, and that practicing one limb sets the foundation for the next.

Best wishes

Robert

Watching though there is nothing to learn

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

I am learning about myself—not according to some psychologist or specialist—I am watching and I see something in myself; but I do not condemn it, I do not judge it, I do not push it aside—I just watch it. I watch that I am proud—let us take that as an example. I do not say, “I must put it aside, how ugly to be proud.”—but I just watch it.

As I am watching, I am learning. Watching means learning what pride involves, how it has come into being. I cannot watch it for more than five or six minutes—if one can, that is a great deal—the next moment I become inattentive. Having been attentive and knowing what inattention is, I struggle to make inattention attentive. Do not do that, but watch inattention, become aware that you are inattentive—that is all.

Stop there. Do not say, “I must spend all my time being attentive”, but just watch when you are inattentive. To go any further into this would be really quite complex . There is a quality of mind that is awake and watching all the time, watching though there is nothing to learn. That means a mind that is extraordinarily quiet, extraordinarily silent. What has a silent, clear mind to learn?

The Impossible Question, pp 25-26

Here is my reflection.

This practice of watching the inattention is negative inquiry, seeing the false as false so that the true can be revealed. If you start to go further and focus on trying to cultivate the positive - attention - then you start creating problems. Then you'll need an image of what attention is, a method to bring it into beeing, a teacher to teach you the method, and from there you start to accumulate further conditioning. All you really need is intelligence, for which only a simplicity is needed, the inward simplicity of being alone. Intelligence is that quality of the mind that is awake and watching all the time. With intelligence we learn about ourselves from ourselves, and for ourselves. It's not a selfish action, it is self-observation, studying onself, becoming free without becoming dependent and becoming lost in a new pattern of conditioning that is only a step away from the one we just had.

One ceases to learn the moment one argues with life

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

The act of listening is the act of learning.One has to learn so much about life, for life is a movement in relationship. And that relationship is action. We have to learn—not accumulate knowledge from this movement that we call life and then live according to that knowledge, which is conformity. To conform is to adjust, to fit into a mould, to adjust oneself to the various impressions, demands, pressures of a particular society.

Life is meant to be lived, to be understood. One has to learn about life, and one ceases to learn the moment one argues with life, comes to life with the past, with one’s conditioning as knowledge. So there is a difference between acquiring knowledge and the act of learning. You must have knowledge; otherwise you will not know where you live, you will forget your name, and so on.

So at one level knowledge is imperative, but when that knowledge is used to understand life—which is a movement, which is a thing that is living, moving, dynamic, every moment changing—when you cannot move with life, then you are living in the past and trying to comprehend the extraordinary thing called life. And to understand life, you have to learn every minute about it and never come to it having learned.

The Collected Works vol XV, pp 13-14

Here is my reflection.

When we learn from the past, from past experiences, from past relationships, there is then a conformity to those relationships in everyone thing that comes afterwards. Learning is dynamic, moving, ongoing. Can you treat everyone as new, with fresh eyes, can you enter this movement called life by just looking, being impartial in what you see. Most of all, can you free yourself from this conformity by seeing it working within you?

The very act of listening is a great miracle

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Listening is an art which very few of us are capable of. We never actually listen. The word has a sound and when we do not listen to the sound, we interpret it, try to translate it into our own particular language or tradition. We never listen acutely, without any distortion. So, the speaker suggests, respectfully, that you so listen and not interpret what he says.

When you tell a rather exciting story to a little boy, he listens with a tremendous sense of curiosity and energy. He wants to know what is going to happen, and he waits excitedly to the very end. But we grown-up people have lost all that curiosity, the energy to find out, that energy which is required to see very clearly things as they are, without any distortion.

We never listen to each other. You never listen to your wife, do you? You know her much too well, or she you. There is no sense of deep appreciation, friendship, amity, which would make you listen to each other, whether you like it or not. But if you do listen so completely, that very act of listening is a great miracle.

That Benediction is Where You Are, pp 22-23.

Here is my reflection.

Memory constantly distorts the world we have in front of us. It puts a coating over it that makes it look glossy and appealing, but this is only because it is of your own making. All we recognise here is our desire. It takes away the passion to find out. Memory is there as the reassuring background that we constantly drop into. It allows us to live in a state of presumption and superiority. Not knowing changes everything. It creates a senstivity and an appreciation for what is said. Take time today to see when you have a conclusion about something or someone. Might that be based upon a fragment, your desire frustrated by them? Have you understood the totality of them?

Best wishes

Robert

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

There is an art of listening. The word “art” implies putting everything in its right place. If you understand the meaning of that word, the real art is not painting pictures, but the art of putting your life in its proper place, which is to live harmoniously. When you have put everything in yourself in its right place, you are free. Putting everything in its right place is part of intelligence. You will say we are giving a new meaning to that word “intelligence”. One must. Intelligence implies reading between the lines, between the words, between two silences, between speech, listening with your mind all the time alert to listen. You hear not only with the ear, but also without the ear.

On Love and Loneliness, pp 87-88

Here is my reflection.

Here K is talking about an opening to listening, which is an art. To put everything in yourself in order such that you can listen. This is to observe everything within you that doesn't listen, that reduces listening to the "science" of what has already been heard. To live harmoniously is to make life an art. There is an art to inteligence and it is listening. The listening is the miracle; one who listens has experienced a radical inward transformation.

Best wishes

Robert

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

You know, there are two ways of listening: to listen casually, to hear a series of ideas, agreeing or disagreeing with them; or there is another way of listening, which is not only to listen to the words and the meaning of those words, but also to listen to what is actually taking place in yourself.

If you listen in this way, then what the speaker says is related to what you are listening to in yourself; then you are not merely listening to the speaker—which is irrelevant—but to the whole content of your being. And if you are listening in that way with intensity, at the same time and at the same level, then we are both of us partaking, sharing together, in what is actually taking place. Then you have the passion which is going to transform that which is.

Beyond Violence, pp 37-38.

Here is my reflection.

I think this is what is taking place in the conversations between K and Alan Anderson. This was Anderson's gift, to be able to observe himself as he was speaking and thinking. This is what made it such an expansive inquiry.

It now seems see onvious that just to listen to someone, what they are saying and no more, is such a small way of living. It seems so obvious that we must observe ourselves as we speak. If we understand ourselves then there is understanding; not of one thing but a total understanding; one of the whole mechanism of living.

Best wishes

Robert

Is there seeing without preconception?

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

The dictionary meaning of the word 'perception' is to become aware of, to apprehend. That is, you see the cupboard, you have a preconception of it; that is not perception. Is there seeing without preconception? Only the mind that has no conclusion, such a mind can see. The other cannot. If I have previous knowledge of that cupboard, the mind identifies it as cupboard. To look at that cupboard without the previous accumulation of prejudices or hurts, is to look. If I have previous hurts, memories, pain, pleasure, displeasure, I have not looked.

Tradition and Revolution

Knowing what you are by watching yourself

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

By looking at the mirror every day, you begin to know your own face, and you say: “That is me.” Now, can you in the same way know what you are by watching yourself? Can you watch your gestures, the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you behave, whether you are hard, cruel, rough, patient? Then you begin to know yourself. You know yourself by watching yourself in the mirror of what you are doing, what you are thinking, what you are feeling. That is the mirror—the feeling, the doing, the thinking. And in that mirror you begin to watch yourself. The mirror says this is the fact; but you do not like the fact. So you want to alter it. You start distorting it. You do not see it as it is.

Krishnamurti on Education, p 61

Here is my reflection.

Here is a good way of understanding negative inquiry. What do you look for when you inquire into yourself? The short answer is everything. You begin to see your reactive tendencies, which come from habit, and from your fear, which is also your greatest desire; the fear that your greatest desire won't be fulfilled. It takes courage to watch all this in what you are doing, thinking, and saying.

Your fear will also separate you from those you want to be close close to, because fear makes a demand of the other: be this way, be that way. All the time this conversation goes on in the mind. This is who we are.

Best wishes

Robert

To see without the shadow of yourself

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Seeing is a very complex affair. One sees casually with one’s eyes and swiftly passes by, never seeing the details of a leaf, its form and structure, its colours, the variety of greens. To observe a cloud with all the light of the world in it, to follow a stream chattering down the hill; to look at your friend with the sensitivity in which there is no resistance and to see yourself as you are without the shades of denial or easy acceptance; to see yourself as part of the whole; to see the immensity of the universe—this is observation: to see without the shadow of yourself.

Letters to the Schools vol II, pp 30-31

Here is my reflection.

To look at something without your needs, without your desire imprinting itself on that thing or person. Your past catses a shadow over everything and everyone you meet. They are haunted by your shadow, your words, your projections, your desire for them to be this way or that way for you, not just when you are with them but long after. They carry that mark, that brand; it buries deep into their psyche. Your words, which are always words of judgement, imprison them, condition them, give them their reactive tendencies, their pain. Can you stop all this and just be sensitive to them and let them live? Can you end your resistance to them in a moment of startling self-awareness that you are doing all this and that it is creating the distance between the two of you? Can you start to live too?

Best wishes

Robert

What is perception?

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

What is perception, what is seeing? How do you see that tree? Look at it for the moment. With what sight do you see it? Is it solely an optical observation, just looking at the tree with the optical reaction, observing the form, the pattern, the light on the leaf? Or do you, when you observe a tree, name it, saying. “That is an oak” and walk by? By naming it you are no longer seeing the tree—the word denies the thing. Can you look at it without the word? So, are you aware how you approach, how you look at, the tree? Do you observe it partially, with only one sense, the optical sense; or do you see it, hear it, smell it, feel it, see the design of it, take the whole of it in? Or, do you look at it as though you are different from it—of course, when you look at it you are not the tree. But can you look at it without a word, with all your senses responding to the totality of its beauty?

The Flame of Attention, p 34.

Here is my reflection.

Without the name, reality is just what it is. Add the name and it becomes aomething. The reality of something can only be experienced. Take a river. You can only experience what a river is; you jump into it and feel the current and flow of the water. Stay on the back, which means you give it a name, and all you have is the appearance of it. K is all about the reality of things, not the appearance.

Best wishes

Robert

You learn a great deal by watching

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

You learn a great deal by watching, watching the things about you, watching the birds, the tree, watching the heavens, the stars, the constellation of Orion, the Dipper, the Evening star. You learn just by watching not only the things around you but also by watching people, how they are dressed. You not only watch that which is outside but also you watch yourself, why you think this or that, your behaviour, the conduct of your daily life, why parents want you to do this or that. You are watching, not resisting. If you resist you don’t learn. Or if you come to some kind of conclusion, some opinion you think is right and hold on to that, then naturally you will never learn. Freedom is necessary to learn, and curiosity, a sense of wanting to know why you or others behave in a certain way, why people are angry, why you get annoyed.Learning is extraordinarily important because learning is endless. Learning why human beings kill each other for instance. Of course there are explanations in books, all the psychological reasons why human beings behave in their own particular manner, why human beings are violent. All this has been explained in books of various kinds by eminent authors, psychologists and so on. But what you read is not what you are. What you are, how you behave, why you get angry, envious, why you get depressed, if you watch yourself you learn much more than from a book that tells you what you are.

Letters to the Schools vol II, pp 75-76

Here is my reflection.

There is so much difference between learning about something in the traditional way and learning about something from observing yourself. The latter will transform you totally. If you learn about what violece is from yourself you will not be violent anymore; if the learn about it from books or taking a course you will be. The latter is clearly a path of avoidance, as is all knowledge.

When the whole organism becomes highly sensitive

Good morning everyone,

Looks like it will be bringht and sunny today!

Here is today's quote:

Isn’t there a danger, the questioner asks, in the mind when the whole human organism becomes highly sensitive; isn’t there a danger of nervous tension? Why should we have tension at all? Doesn’t tension exist only when there is resistance? There are noises going on here: a dog is barking, the buses are going by, and there is a child crying. When you resist, tension is built up. This actually takes place.

If you don’t build any resistance but let the noise go through, listen to it quietly, without resistance, not saying that it’s is good or bad, not saying, “I wish that dog wouldn’t make that noise; that bus is terrible”, but just listen—then, since there is no resistance, there is no strain, no effort.

I think one of the problems of modern life is living in boxed-up houses called flats, where there is no space, no beauty, but constant strain. If you are vulnerable to it all—I’m using the word “vulnerable” in the sense of to receive, to let everything come—then I don’t see how you can have nervous breakdowns or nervous tension.

The Collected Works vol XVI, pp 148-149

Here is my reflection.

To be vulnerable, in our culture, is seem as a poor state of being, but to be vulnerable is to truly meet life life. It is the same as being innocent. So many people today, very young people, want to loose their innocence, but it is really the greatest strength we have. The innocent are not in boxes, feel no strain and tension. In them is the river of life; there is no resistant to life. They are not foolhardy; they don't jump in to things for the thrill of sensation; they are completely aware of their innocence because they have observed their resistance, which is what innocence is not. So innocence and vulnerability are not related to anxiety and neurosis, rather they come with a profound feeling of being alone, individuated - which is to be undivided, independent. To be vulnerable is to have a strength that allows for gentleness and compassion, a strength that few of us have experienced.

Best wishes

Robert

Sensitivity of mind and heart

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

You have to have this extraordinary feeling, this sensitivity to everything—to the animal, to the cat that walks across the wall, to the squalor, the dirt, the filth of human beings in poverty, in despair. You have to be sensitive—which is to feel intensely, not in any particular direction, which is not an emotion which comes and goes, but which is to be sensitive with your nerves, with your eyes, with your body, with your ears, with your voice. You have to be sensitive completely all the time. Unless you are so completely sensitive, there is no intelligence.

Intelligence comes with sensitivity and observation. Sensitivity does not come with infinite knowledge and information. You may know all the books in the world; you may have read them, devoured them; you may be familiar with every author; you may know all the things that have been said; but that does not bring intelligence. What brings intelligence is this sensitivity, a total sensitivity of your mind, conscious as well as unconscious, and of your heart with its extraordinary capacities of affection, sympathy, generosity. And with that comes this intense feeling, feeling for the leaf that falls from a tree with all its dying colours and the squalor of a filthy street—you have to be sensitive to both; you cannot be sensitive to the one and insensitive to the other. You are sensitive—not merely to the one or the other.

The Collected Works vol XIV, p 143

Here is my reflection.

This is, I think, was makes K a real yogi. To be a yogi is to move beyond the play of opposites; this is mentioned in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. One be sensitive to light and not dark is not to sensitive; it is insensitive, no matter how much sunlight affects you. It is not sensitive to be sensitive to when one is happy, but to be senstive to saddness as well. To live totally is to see the interconnectedness of the two things, and to be in this place of pure observation is equanimity. Such a person is truly free; it is the first and last freedom, as K would put it.

Best wishes

Robert

The analyser and the analysed

Good morning everyone,

Well, it's stopped rainy!

Here is todays' quote:

Please do follow this carefully. There is the analyser and the thing to be analysed. We have never questioned who the analyser is. He is obviously one of the many fragments and he proceeds to analyse the whole structure of oneself. But the analyser himself, being a fragment, is conditioned. When he analyses there are several things involved. First of all, every analysis must be complete or otherwise it becomes the stone round the neck of the analyser when he begins to analyse the next incident, the next reaction. So the memory of the previous analysis increases the burden. And analysis also implies time; there are so many reactions, associations and memories to be analysed that it will take all your life. By the time you have completely analysed yourself—if that is ever possible—you are ready for the grave.

Beyond Violence, p 102

Here is my reflection.

So analysis must be like fire. To actually be effective it must analyse everything. If there is something left, something not understood, it remains in the memory, in the unconscious, of the analyser. It must include an awareness of the analysis itself. And analysis does imply time. As you analyse you accumulate information and knowledge, fitting the clues together. But this allows the analyser the authority of anlysis; the analysis then depends upon the analyser.

Best wishes

Robert

The experiencer and the experienced

Good morning everyone,

Still very dark outside! :-)

Here is today's quote:

You can experiment with this for yourself very simply and very easily. Next time you are angry or jealous or greedy or violent or whatever it may be, watch yourself. In that state, “you” are not. There is only that state of being. The moment, the second afterwards, you term it, you name it, you call it jealousy, anger, greed; so you have created immediately the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experienced.

When there is the experiencer and the experienced, then the experiencer tries to modify the experience, change it, remember things about it and so on, and therefore maintains the division between himself and the experienced. If you don’t name that feeling—which means you are not seeking a result, you are not condemning, you are merely silently aware of the feeling—then you will see that in that state of feeling, of experiencing, there is no observer and no observed, because the observer and the observed are a joint phenomenon and so there is only experiencing.

The First and Last Freedom, pp 175-176.

Here is my reflection.

K would say, don't decide that this is possible or not possible, but go into it, experiment, and find out. We each might discover the unforced force of attention.

Best wishes

Robert

Controller is part of chattering

Good morning everyone,

So many things to do this morning that it's actually after the sun is up as I get to the blog. :-)

Here is today's quote:

You don’t ask: Why is my mind chattering, so restless? Have you ever asked that question of yourself, why you are so restless, moving from one thing to another, seeking constant entertainment? Why is your mind chattering? And what will you do about it? Your immediate response is to control it, to say, “I must not chatter.” Which means what? The very controller is chattering. There is a controller who says, “I mustn’t chatter”; he is himself part of chattering. See the beauty of it! So what will you do?

On Mind and Thought, p 75

Here is my reflection.

This is the whole question of yoga, especially as meditation. It is the controller that says "I must meditate," "I must control my mind," and it is the controler too who decides when that has been done. But how is this possible? It isn't of course. We are still within our mind. We can't say, "I want to control my thoughts so that I am free of suffering, anxiety, and everything," and then not know whether we have got there or not. That would be ridiculous. So we invent lots of techniques to work on and we say that the techniques will take us there: the asanas, the paranayama, the regular meditation practice. And we defer the question of when will we get there; so it is really just a way of keeping the anxious mind occupied, just as one keeps an upset child occupied with a toy. We distract ourselves from the real problem of the mind by working on techniques. We become great at these techniques but we have no understanding of our mind and so no understanding of ourselves. We really need to put yoga in perspective a little. All we really get from it is a healthy body; which is wonderful. But the mind needs more than techniques I think.

Best wishes

Robert

The controller and the controlled

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Is there in daily existence a way of living in which every form of psychological control ceases to exist?—because control means effort, it means division between the controller and the controlled; I am angry, I must control my anger; I smoke, I must not smoke and I must resist smoking. We are saying there is something totally different and this may be misunderstood and may be rejected altogether because it is very common to say that all life is control—if you do not control you will become permissive, nonsensical, without meaning, therefore you must control. Religions, philosophies, teachers, your family, your mother, they all encourage you to control. We have never asked: Who is the controller?

The Network of Thought, p 79

Here is my reflection.

So is there a controller without control? Is it only in the act of controlling that the controller comes into being? Is the object to which control is directed, just a cloak, a distraction from the real question? Is there a away of relating to another without control, and how does this relate to love? Would love reveal the real question?

Bets wishes

Robert

The division between the observer and the observed

Good morning!

Sun today! :-)

Here is today's quote:

There is a division between the observer and the observed. That is, you are looking at your life as an observer, as something separate from your life. Right? So there is a division between the observer and the observed. Now, this division is the essence of all conflict, the essence of all struggle, pain, fear, despair. That is, where there is a division between human beings—the division of nationalities, the division of religions, social divisions—there must be conflict.

This is law; this is reason, logic. There is Pakistan on one side and India on the other, battling with each other. You are a Brahmin and another is a non-Brahmin, and there is hate, division.

So, that externalized division with all its conflict is the same as the inward division as the observer and the observed. You’ve understood this? If you don’t understand this, you can’t go much further, because a mind that is in conflict is a tortured mind, a twisted mind, a distorted mind.

Mind in Meditation, p 6.

Here is my reflection.

The point is that the observed is something that thought creates in the process of, and at the same time as, creating the observer, the me. The observed that is outside us is simply the manifested representation of what thought creates within us. It legitimates action towards and upon the observed. Thought, then, provides its own internal justification system through the act of representation, which is what all thought is. Until there is thought, the observed just is; in the same way that the observer, the me, just is. Representation therefore brings the world into existence, yet at the same time divides it, makes it fragmented. Until then, in its just is-ness, there is togetherness, affection, love. The thought of the observer is the thing thats fragmented the world, and all sorrow dates from this moment.

Best wishes

Robert

How does the observer come into being?

Good morning everyone,

Still dark outside as I seem to be on an early-morning roll this week and the days are getting shorter!

Here is today's quote:

So how does the observer come into being? When you look at this flower, at the moment you observe it closely, there is no observer, there is only a looking. Then you begin to name that flower. Then you say, “I wish I had it in my garden or in my house.” Then you have already begun to build an image about that flower. So the image-maker is the observer. Right? Are you following all this? Watch it in yourself, please. So the image and the image-maker are the observer, and the observer is the past. The “me” as the observer is the past, the “me” is the knowledge which I have accumulated: knowledge of pain, sorrow, suffering, agony, despair, loneliness, jealousy, and the tremendous anxiety that one goes through. That’s all the “me”, which is the accumulated knowledge of the observer, which is the past. Right? So when you observe, the observer looks at that flower with the eyes of the past. And you don’t know how to look without the observer and, therefore, you bring about conflict.

Mind in Meditation, pp 8-9.

Here is my reflection.

I think this gets nicely at the way that observing from the past creates conflict. The observer is the past, is everything that he or she has accumulated from experience. So now when he looks it is never her that he looks at but rather what his past experience shows him. This might be fear, anger, desire, ambition, hurt, remorse, sorrow, all his life's possibilities, but it is still not her that he sees. Only if he is deeply alert to all of this in himself can he truly love her.

Best wishes

Robert