Whether the brain can be quiet

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Meditation is to find out whether the brain, with all its activities, all its experiences, can be absolutely quiet. Not forced, because the moment you force, there is duality. The entity that says, “I would like to have marvellous experiences, therefore I must force my brain to be quiet” will never do it. But if you begin to inquire, observe, listen to all movements of thought, its conditioning, its pursuits, its fears, its pleasures, watch how the brain operates, then you will see that the brain becomes extraordinarily quiet; that quietness is not sleep but it is tremendously active and therefore quiet. A big dynamo that is working perfectly hardly makes a sound; it is only when there is friction that there is noise.

Meditations, p 4

The idea here is simply that self-awareness creates stillness. It puts an end to the movement of the mind that establishes duality. The awareness is the transformation. It does lead anywhere, to the fulfillment of any desire for the mind to be wonderfully quiet or anything. When the self is observed there is no room in consciousness for the other, the not me. The attention is directed towards the activity that creates and maintains the me. It is right upon it, upon the me, rather than just to the not me. Then there is no force.

Best wishes

Robert

Understand the activity of the self

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

When there is the activity of the self, meditation is not possible. This is very important to understand, not verbally but actually. Meditation is a process of emptying the mind of all the activity of the self, of all the activity of the “me”. If you do not understand the activity of the self, then your meditation only leads to illusion, your meditation then only leads to self-deception, your meditation then will only lead to further distortion. So to understand what meditation is, you must understand the activity of the self. The self has had a thousand worldly, sensuous, or intellectual experiences, but it is bored with them because they have no meaning. The desire to have wider, more expansive, transcendental experiences is part of the “me”.

This Light in Oneself, p 72

Here is my relection:

Unlike most mediattion practices, k is saying that the way to the outside is through the inside. there is no avoidance and so no indirect and covert preserving of the self. Any recognition that the "me" is not, is from the me. We can never know enlightenment.

Meditation is the ending of sorrow

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

It rather compliments the study group discussion again and the last Meeting Life seminar.

Meditation is the ending of sorrow, the ending of thought which breeds fear and sorrow—the fear and sorrow in daily life, when you are married, when you go to business. In business you must use your technological knowledge, but when that knowledge is used for psychological purposes—to become more powerful, occupy a position that gives you prestige, honour, fame—it breeds only antagonism, hatred; such a mind can never possibly understand what truth is. Meditation is the understanding of the way of life, it is the understanding of sorrow and fear—and going beyond them.

Talks & Dialogues Saanen 1968, p 94

Suffering and self-pity

Good morning everyone,

I'm going to paste in the blog entry I have for the Meeting Life group today as our quote for the day. By coincidence it matches one of the things we discussed at the study group last night. We got talking about whether there is a difference between missing someone and suffering. We found our way to the understanding that missing someone even if they have died is a form of self-pity and self-indulgence, whereas actually suffering a loss is transformative. The references are to Commentaries on Living, Third Series.

Suffering and self-pity:

K starts with a question, “Do you suffer because your father (or anyone you loved) is gone, or because you feel lonely? “Now which is it? You are suffering, surely, not for your father, but because you are lonely, and your sorrow is that which comes from self-pity.” (p300)

Do we ever meet sorrow directly, or merely use words to talk about it, meeting it indirectly? “When we talk of loneliness, are we experiencing the psychological pain of it, or merely employing a word to indicate something which we have never directly experienced. Do we really suffer, or do we only think we suffer?” (p302)

So we never meet adversity directly. Instead, we escape by all possible means. We are afraid of it and so we never find out what it is. We are running away from something that we don’t know and have never encountered. To escape from suffering is one thing, but to be free of it is another; for that you must look at it directly: the loss, the sadness, the loneliness, all of it. Do you just want a friend’s good wishes and comfort over a cup of coffee or do you want to end it now? “To understand sorrow there must be an actual experience of it, and not just the verbal fiction of sorrow.” (p303)

Meditation is not different from life

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Meditation is not something different from daily life; do not go off into the corner of a room and meditate for ten minutes, then come out of it and be a butcher—both metaphorically and actually. Meditation is one of the most serious things. You can do it all day, in the office, with the family, when you say to somebody, “I love you”, when you are considering your children. But then you educate them to become soldiers, to kill, to be nationalized, to worship the flag, educating them to enter into this trap of the modern world.

Watching all that, realizing your part in it, all that is part of meditation. And when you so meditate you will find in it an extraordinary beauty; you will act rightly at every moment; and if you do not act rightly at a given moment it does not matter, you will pick it up again—you will not waste time in regret. Meditation is part of life, not something different from life.

The Flight of the Eagle, p 46

Here is my reflection.

It is meditation, the continual observation of the self in action, in relationship, that makes for an integrted life. Nothing else will do as anything else shines the light of awareness and transformation elsewhere, and if it is elsewhere it is no transformation at all; just a manipulation through argument to make the world better for your kind of conditioning. If we are manipulative in this way, the we are, indeed, butchers literally and not just metaphorically.

Best wishes

Robert

Mantra has lost its meaning

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

What is meditation? Is it to escape from the noise of the world? To have a silent mind, a quiet mind, a peaceful mind? And you practise systems, methods, to become aware, to keep your thoughts under control. You sit cross-legged and repeat some mantra. I am told that the etymological meaning of that word ‘mantra’ is ‘ponder over not-becoming’. That is one of the meanings. And it also means ‘absolve, put aside all self-centred activity’. That is the real, root meaning of mantra. But we repeat, repeat, repeat, and carry on with our self-interest, our egoistic ways, and so mantra has lost its meaning. So what is meditation?

That Benediction is Where You are, p 75

Here is my reflection.

The irony of mantra, as will so many of the yoga techniques, is that we have become lost in the technique. We think that the technique will do the work for us, as if the matra will create a total inner revolution - just by repeating a word! So we try to perfect the technique, find a teacher, etc. In fact, it's just a way of avoiding the reponsibility to observe ourselves. This is the only adequate response to living. This is the only think that will change us.

Best wishes

Robert

Siddhis are like candlelight

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

You do all kinds of things to come upon this strange beauty of silence. Do not do it, just observe. Look, sirs, you know in all this are various powers of clairvoyance, reading somebody’s thought. There are various powers, you know what I am talking about, don’t you? You call them siddhis, don’t you? Do you know all these things are like candles—candlelight in the sun? When there is no sun, there is darkness, and then the light of the candle is very important; but when there is the sun, the light, the beauty, the clarity, then all these powers, these siddhis are like candlelight. They have no value at all. And when you have the light, there is nothing else—developing various centres, the chakras, kundalinis, you know all that business. You need a sane, logical, reasoning mind, not a stupid mind. A mind that is dull can sit for centuries breathing, concentrating on its various chakras, and you know all that playing with kundalinis—it can never come upon that which is timeless, that which is real beauty, truth and love.

Krishnamurti in India 1970-71, pp 180-181

Here is my reflection.

Well, here is another one in the eye for the yogis! When you learn about yourself from yourself and for yourself, you are not being selfish and narcisistic; you are being a light to yourself. When you are this light then the teacher is a like the candle in the daylight: he or she has no value. One is attracted to the teacher because one is in the dark, but the teacher cannot lead you to the light. He is in the dark to; this is why he attracts students. He has created a method and an ideal and he clings to that as if it were his candle! A stupid mind will explore chakras and kundalini and breathing for centuries; what you need is a mind that is sane and logical, that can see the false as false and not try to escape.

Best wishes

Robert

What meditation isn't

Good morning everyone,

Monday and Tuesday together today. Sorry for the miss yesterday:

Monday:

Prayer obviously produces results; otherwise millions wouldn’t pray. And in praying, obviously the mind is made quiet; by constant repetition of certain phrases, the mind does become quiet. And in that quietness there is a certain intimation, certain perceptions, certain responses. But that is still a part of the trick of the mind because, after all, through a form of mesmerism you can make the mind very quiet. And in that quietness there are certain hidden responses arising from the unconscious and from outside the consciousness. But it is still a state in which there is no understanding. And meditation is not devotion—devotion to an idea, to a picture, to a principle—because the things of the mind are still idolatrous. One may not worship a statue, considering it idolatrous and silly, superstitious; but one does worship, as most people do, the things in the mind—and that is also idolatrous. And to be devoted to a picture or an idea, to a Master, is not meditation. Obviously, it’s a form of escape from oneself. It’s a very comforting escape, but it’s still an escape.

The Collected Works vol V, p 361

Tuesday:

And this constant striving to become virtuous, to acquire virtue through discipline, through careful examination of oneself, and so on, is obviously not meditation either. Most of us are caught in these processes, and since they do not give understanding of ourselves, they are not the way of right meditation. After all, without understanding yourself, what basis have you for right thinking? All that you will do without understanding of yourself is to conform to the background, to the response of your conditioning. And such response to the conditioning is not meditation. But to be aware of those responses, that is, to be aware of the movements of thought and feeling without any sense of condemnation so that the movements of the self, the ways of the self, are understood—that way is the way of right meditation.

The Collected Works vol V, p 361

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Thought shattering itself against its own nothingness is the explosion of meditation.

Krishnamurti’s Notebook, p 166

Here is my reflection.

Thought constantly needs a reference point to survive. It needs to compare and work at all levels of generality. In and of itself, it is nothingness. Its singularity, outside the opposition of this and that, me and you, it is nothingness. Meditation is to observe this, and then in this moment the shattering of thought happens. Perhaps K is using the word explosion to refer to the total movement, the instant and complete change, the inner revolution, that happens with self-observation - thought observing itself?

Best wishes

Robert

Meditation…is the very inquiry into what is meditation

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

Meditation is not a process of learning how to meditate; it is the very inquiry into what is meditation. To inquire into what is meditation, the mind must free itself from what it has learnt about meditation, and the freeing of the mind from what it has learnt is the beginning of meditation.

The Collected Works vol IX, p 192.

Here is my reflection.

We think we are serious about meditation but really we are only serious about the benefits of meditation. We are not serious about inquiring into what it is and so we don't free our minds. Instead, meditation gets corrupted by desire, and end is attached to it. So really, inquiring into the whole process of our desire is meditation. If we can act without desire then we have understood what meditation is.

Best wishes

Robert

Putting your house in order

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

The understanding of relationship, fear, pleasure and sorrow is to bring order in our house. Without order you cannot possibly meditate. Now the speaker puts meditation at the end of the talks because there is no possibility of right meditation if you have not put your house, your psychological house, in order. If the psychological house is in disorder, if what you are is in disorder, what is the point of meditating? It is just an escape. It leads to all kinds of illusions.

The Network of Thought, p 96

Here is my reflection.

So meditation arises naturally out of self-awareness. This understanding of the self is it's own action of creating order. Will meditation itself ever lead to order? How can it if what you are is disorder. As K says, it can only be an escape from disorder. The mind feels disorder and imagines it's opposite. And so we become trapped in the network of thought. So meditation is without effort, without trying, without concentration, and without purpose.

Best wishes

Robert

What prevents insight?

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

It is astonishingly beautiful and interesting, how thought is absent when you have an insight. Thought cannot have an insight. It is only when the mind is not operating mechanically in the structure of thought that you have an insight. Having had an insight, thought draws a conclusion from that insight. And then thought acts and thought is mechanical. So I have to find out whether having an insight into myself, which means into the world, and not drawing a conclusion from it is possible. If I draw a conclusion, I act on an idea, on an image, on a symbol, which is the structure of thought, and so I am constantly preventing myself from having insight, from understanding things as they are.

On Mind and Thought, p 34

The first step is the last step

Good morning everyone,

Today's quote is quite relevant to one of the conversations we had at the study group last night:

... The first step is the last step. The first step is to perceive, perceive what you are thinking, perceive your ambition, perceive your anxiety, your loneliness, your despair, this extraordinary sense of sorrow, perceive it, without any condemnation, justification, without wishing it to be different. Just to perceive it, as it is. When you perceive it as it is, then there is a totally different kind of action taking place, and that action is the final action. Right? That is, when you perceive something as being false or as being true, that perception is the final action, which is the final step. Now listen to it. I perceive the falseness of following somebody else, somebody else’s instruction—Krishna, Buddha, Christ, it does not matter who it is. I see, there is the perception of the truth that following somebody is utterly false. Because your reason, your logic and everything points out how absurd it is to follow somebody. Now that perception is the final step, and when you have perceived, you leave it, forget it, because the next minute you have to perceive anew, which is again the final step.

Krishnamurti in India 1970-71, p 50

What is awareness?

Good morning everyone,

Awareness is not a commitment to something. awareness is an observation, both outer and inner, in which direction has stopped. You are aware, but the thing of which you are aware is not being encouraged or nourished. Awareness is not concentration on something. It is not an action of the will choosing what it will be aware of, and analysing it to bring about a certain result. When awareness is deliberately focused on a particular object, as a conflict, that is the action of will which is concentration. When you concentrate - that is, put all your energy and thought within your chosen frontiers, whether reading a book or watching your anger - then, in this exclusion, the thing you are concentrating upon is strengthened, nourished. So here we have to understand the nature of awareness: We have to understand what we are talking about when we use the word awareness.

The Urgency of Change.

Inattention and Attention

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

There are the states of inattention and of attention. When you are completely giving your mind, your heart, your nerves, everything you have, to attend, then the old habits, the mechanical responses, do not enter into it, thought does not come into it at all. But we cannot maintain that all the time, so we are mostly in a state of inattention, a state in which there is not an alert choiceless awareness. What takes place? There is inattention and rare attention and we are trying to bridge the one to the other. How can my inattention become attention or, can attention be complete, all the time?

Talks and Dialogues Saanen 1968

Here is my reflection.

Can the mind that is disordered be aware of its disorder? This is a question that K poses a lot. What is the effect of trying to impose order on a disordered mind, either through a teacher or a method that we find ourselves? Is this not a continuation of the disorder, a continuation of the lack of self-awareness? Surely, the attempt to build the bridge from inattention to attention is an example of disorder, rather than the ending of it? Isn't it just an escape?

It's important to consider the consequences for our whole existence as a planet if we cannot be aware of ourselves, if we depend for our transformation on another person, a guru, a technique that is other than self-observation. But it's really qute simple too. Can you, in all of your relationships, not just to people, see your disorder in the way that you relate to this person or thing. The person is the gift to you, the mirror that will reveal your disorder to you, but you have to look at yourself and not expect the person to show it to you.

Best wishes

Robert

More on attention and concentration

Good morning everyone,

Yesteday and today together. There internet went off-line a crucial time yesterday morning for about 20 minutes.

Tuesday: Attention is not concentraion.

Attention is not concentration. When you concentrate, as most people try to do—what takes place when you are concentrating? You are cutting yourself off, resisting, pushing away every thought except that one particular thought, that one particular action. So your concentration breeds resistance, and therefore concentration does not bring freedom. Please, this is very simple if you observe it yourself. But whereas if you are attentive, attentive to everything that is going on about you, attentive to the dirt, the filth of the street, attentive to the bus which is so dirty, attentive of your words, your gestures, the way you talk to your boss, the way you talk to your servant, to the superior, to the inferior, the respect, the callousness to those below you, the words, the ideas—if you are attentive to all that, not correcting, then out of that attention you can know a different kind of concentration. You are then aware of the setting, the noise of the people, people talking over there on the roof, your hushing them up, asking them not to talk, turning your head; you are aware of the various colours, the costumes, and yet concentration is going on. Such concentration is not exclusive, in that there is no effort. Whereas mere concentration demands effort.

The Collected Works vol XV, p 321

Wednesday: Concentration implies narrowing down our energy.

You know what concentration is—from childhood, we are trained to concentrate. Concentration is the narrowing down all our energy to a particular point, and holding to that point. A boy in school looks out of the window at the birds and the trees, at the movement of the leaves, or at the squirrel climbing the tree. And the teacher says: “You are not paying attention, concentrate on the book”, or “Listen to what I am saying.”This is to give far more importance to concentration than to attention. If I were the teacher I would help him to watch; I would help him to watch that squirrel completely; watch the movement of the tail, how its claws act, everything. Then if he learns to watch that attentively, he will pay attention to the book.

Questions and Answers, p 43

Difference between concentration and attention

Good morning everyone,

Here is today's quote:

There is a difference between concentration and attention. Concentration is to bring all your energy to focus on a particular point. In attention there is no point of focus. We are very familiar with one and not with the other. When you pay attention to your body, the body becomes quiet, which has its own discipline; it is relaxed but not slack and it has the energy of harmony. When there is attention, there is no contradiction and therefore no conflict. When you read this pay attention to the way you are sitting, the way you are listening, how you are receiving what the letter is saying to you, how you are reacting to what is being said and why you are finding it difficult to attend. You are not learning how to attend. If you are learning the how of attending, then it becomes a system, which is what the brain is accustomed to, and so you make attention something mechanical and repetitive, whereas attention is not mechanical or repetitive. It is the way of looking at your whole life without the centre of self-interest.

There was no clear reference for the quote today.

Here is my reflection.

This distinction came up at the study group last night. Concentration comes from a mind that is in contradiction with itself. It is the effort to end contradiction, which is the movement of thinking that creates the "me" and the "you." Effort involves a method and a teacher, even if that teacher is only the author of a book. Around all of this is subordination and domination. We submit ourselves and our mind to domination, we force our mind to concentrate on this or that idea or object. Concentration, force, and subordination go hand in hand. We don't end the contradiction this way because there is no moment of self-awareness, no moment when we ask why are we doing that this, acting as we are acting.

Instead, we just want the result. It is fed by desire, the desire to be free, which can never lead to freedom. Only by observing the movement of desire within ourselves, which is very subtle as it appropriates the high and the low of life, can we be free. This observation is awareness. It has no focus and so it is total attention; there is no seen and unseen. This can't be learned as K says. Instead you have to be a light to yourself. Can the mind that is in contradiction observe its own contradiction?

Best wishes

Robert