Thursday 18 January 2007
Are we superficial? What does it mean to free the mind?
Can we rediscover the meaning of words we use? What does it mean to free the mind? It implies we are not free. We are conditioned. The conditioning is our self-made prison. Do we actually question anything? Questioning is disturbing? Is there a pattern? Does questioning provoke a crisis?
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what does it mean to free the mind?
mostly when i see that sentence i start to think about the empty mind, as if the mind only will be free when it is empty. reality is my mind is not empty.. so immediately i am in a conflict thinking 'it should be empty but it is full..'
now, when you force me here to look at the words with attention i discover something. 'free' has another meaning, free in the sense of 'not being bound, bordered, restricted'
to free the mind, crossing borders, moving unlimited, exploring the mind in an unrestricted manner.
while doing that i can see all the conditionings, i see my patterns and structures and i see where they come from..
is it disturbing ? yes, because we have to leave the known, we have to cross the borders of the known, we will see lots of things in mind which will surprise us or even frighten us.
fear is the most complex thing. fear can create a crisis. we have to understand fear and the many ways it manifests, otherwise fear will paralyse us and we will be bound in our prison again.
To free the mind, to empty the mind. But the mind is not empty. I want to empty the mind but it is not. There is helplessness. We look for a way to empty the mind. The brain is projecting. But a projecting brain does not empty the mind. To stay what is .. what is in this mind? .. listening into this mind, like listening to the sound of a wind not knowing what is going to come, listening into what is not known .. frees. -
Is anybody forcing? Or is it let’s come together and bring our attention to one thing? – So free means no borders. Free the mind, let the mind not be restricted. Why is our mind restricted? Is our mind restricted to the known? The known is of the past. So the mind is restricted to the past. Not being the past we can watch the past. The now is not the past. Leaving the past is disturbing. We need to let go the known. We are afraid of seeing something we are not prepared. It could create a crisis. We are afraid of crisis and we are back in a bound state. – I was surprised to see some lines K talking about crisis:
K: ‘ I want to create a crisis. Then there is crisis.. Either you avoid the crisis or you act .. that is the only thing which matters. .. that is listening with the hart .. It may mean that an action which you have not pre-meditated may take place.’ (K in ‘Exploration into insight’ p 189-190)
Thinking of crisis it is about ending. Ending of the past, death of the known. Action implies death.
A open mind, a mind not afraid of what is not known. A mind which understands the importance of what is not known. Superficial meaning then a mind which is afraid to face what is not known.
yes, being superficial is 'to stay on the surface'. the surface of our being, the safety of the known, a limited place, not capable to relate with the world in a deeper way.. and therefore a superficial life is full of conflicts and struggle, and fear.
i didnot mind being forced.. like K said a crisis can bring out real action.. because we are forced to step out of the known, we have to face the situation and our superficial limited knowledge is not sufficient to deal with it. we have to look further, we have to let the mind run freely, intelligently...
does this means we have to let run the mind freely on its own? no interference, not giving any direction, no motivations.
Staying with the known creates conflict. There is no seeing what the known does. So what is this unknown we miss to be aware of? Looking at the known we can see that we remember certain things very well and other things we forget. We do not know how we forget. It happens at night. Is this the reason why we hold onto the known? Or we do not understand the role of the known? Then there are important moments of once life, some we remember, some we do not remember. Looking watching what happens to the mind it is rather difficult at times following what all is happening. This watching stops the image making, the projections and is the change, is the action. Ok this is one thing. But then we discover that we are drawn into something. But we do not face it because of thousand reasons. It creates conflict, frustration and contributes to the noise. Unless we face this it will continue.
hi w, k,
it is a good opportunity here to go deeper.
for now, i may not be able to contribute very often.
it is good, i feel, to have a trusting atmosphere, or a friendly one, for these sorts of in-depth discussions.
krishnamurti commented on this in various places. near the end of his life, he spoke of visiting (after death) a house where there was/is gentleness and love.
somehow the spirit, in its depths, is naturally drawn to such a place.
it seems similar to a cat who has been treated well and gently...there is trust, there is friendship...there is a place...
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thanks too for posting the excerpts.
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freeing the mind...
listening to k at times does this -- sometimes it seems as if he is 'breaking spells'
emptying, at times, has left one with a renewed sense of life....
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not much time right now -- just wanted to communicate a bit here
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listening to K without accumulation -- interesting approach, one is finding -- free even of K
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wondering lately: what are the depths of the statement 'Being a light unto oneself'?
has it really been explored very well or deeply?
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"Light seeking light doth light of light beguile", and the words following these (in Love's Labour's Lost), have some penetrating observations behind them, one feels
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there is an inclination (the human mind seems conditioned to this sort of thing) to simply accept these statements, more or less superficially.
one feels that there is much greater depth in them to be explored.
both the Buddha and K made these statements.
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one has also been pondering lately what it really means 'to live the teachings'
especially, what it means *fully living* the teachings.
K made some very powerful statements aboout living the teachings.
he also said, near the end, that nobody is doing it.
and if someone did, then something might happen.
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may be gone for a while,
in warmth and friendship,
gpara
A trusting atmosphere is what? A place where we do not defend? – Listening to K, once I found out he does not harm, meaning he is not here to convert or to make you believe or to convince of anything, it was possible to let go and to go into it which was demanding and resulted that one followed all what he said but did not see the larger context. It was like being in a river where the swimming takes all the attention. I still remember how I watched the river in Saanen next to the tent in a very penetrating way after listening to K. - To be a light to one self? Meaning to give attention to one self? Find out why I am upset today? Why is there now this excitement? What triggered it off? in the sense of observing it and not in the sense of wanting to concluding anything. There is too often this tendency to conclude and to nail it down. Is it because we do not want to deal with it anymore? Being attentive is too much demanding? - Living the teachings? I only recently discovered there is a text K wrote, it appears which summarizes the teachings. I thought there is not such a thing that we can put into a simple text. When reading it, I found it is such a clear and straightforward text. I still do not know what is meant with living the teachings. Is it the fact that we enquire on our own and start to question and bring things together refusing to fall in any traps?
Now having read the statement of K about his teaching let me go over it:
Truth is a pathless land meaning there is no specified path to truth. Man finds truth through relationship, understanding the content of his own mind and observation. Man builds images, a fence of security in the form of ideas, beliefs. This dominates man’s thinking and relationships in daily life and cause the division between man. The perception of life is established by what is in the mind. The content of consciousness is his existence. Man can be free from the content of his consciousness. This is not individual. Freedom is observation without direction, choice less awareness of our daily existence. Thought is based on experience, knowledge which is of the past. Thought is based therefore time. Action is based on knowledge therefore of time. Man aware of the movement of his own thought can see the division and discover that this division is an illusion. Insight brings about mutation in the mind. Negation is the positive. Only when there is negation of psychological thought there is love, compassion and intelligence.
The text is hardly one page long. It is surprisingly short. All the confusion we live in can be described by couple of sentences. Going through it, it appears more a list of basic facts which we are not aware of. While most will agree to what the content of the teaching is, it appears not many are actually look at them sincerely.
this fragment is indeed saying it all, but am i really listening? is my mind free to be filled with the full meaning of what is being said here? i guess not, it comes in superficially, intellectually, i see the logic of the words which is already something because i know lots will not even understand it a bit.... i do understand it, but does it come in deeply enough to have an effect on my actions in daily life. i doubt about that, and then ask myself 'what is the doubt about'... and it is my resistance to the truth, i resist to surrender myself completely to the unknown... i don't allow myself to be totally free.
The text about the teachings is short. The fact that we are not clear about them points to the fact that they are challenging. It is, as if we are not getting it because we are completely tuned to somthing else. It shatters many of the assumptions we live with, every day. When we read it, does it stay on the surface as you say? Does it has an effect on my actions? Can I free myself from all those assumptions which have no real meaning? This is challenging. I have to watch and let go those assumptions which gave security. It goes back to, can we watch what is happening to our mind. Can we simply observe this, in its own right? Do we see the importance of relationship in our lifes? And then there is no way around, only when we do the steps on our own there is any meaning in this. Yes, I think there is a resistance to truth. We know it but we are afraid of loosing some of the assumptions. Can we live without assuming anything?
Recognition seems related to superficiality.
In one of the excerpts here, under Reading K ... there is 'when there is no movement of recognition'.
Naming is part of it (the movement of recognition, or knowing).
But one can also recognize a face without knowing the name of a person (although there may still be some 'names' involved (e.g. the word 'face', or 'person' -- some other verbal recognition)).
Still, there may be image-recognition, or non-verbal memory too.
One has been looking at this lately, and experimenting with it.
Taking-for-granted often goes with recognition.
And 'taking-for-granted' is related to superficiality -- there is superficiality of contact (or relationship) when this is present.
Naming and recognition also seem to be related to expectation, which is also an aspect of superficiality.
[none of the above is meant to be conclusive -- just sharing, or putting on the table, some aspects -- and sharing an ongoing looking into this]
It shatters many of the assumptions we live with, every day.
I agree [not that agreement matters, in a sense...] -- or I see this too, to some extent [maybe 'seeing it too' matters? or not?]....
Looking at it, one sees this: yes, it has shattering potential.
Is that potential actually realized?
Or partly realized?
Slightly realized?
Do we keep it at a distance?
Are there defense mechanisms to keep it at a distance?
Pookie pointed something out: 'incomprehension' can be a defense, or a trick of the mind, to maintain the status quo.
(Maybe 'maintaining the status quo' is something to look at?)
(The tricky moves of the animal as it is being hunted -- self-preservation -- does it have psy equivalents?)
(Why can't we look?)
(Or maybe it is simpler than we think...)
(Haven't we all met people who pretend not to understand?
Some illegal hunters were caught redhanded, and pretended not to understand English when questioned.
Does the mind do something similar?)
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K keeps pointing to the revolutionary potential of direct observation (this pointing is there in the core teachings as well).
Maybe conceptualization and theorizing are themselves ways of escaping the revolutionary nature of simple directness?
as you say gpara, recognition is a superficial process, i agree, it is as if the mind tries to catch a new phenomenon into an image/concept/idea made out of the past. so it can say 'yes i know that', so it has given it a place and does no longer have to give attantion to it. we try to avoid the direct perception of this actual moment, why is that...
why don't we want to face the unknown now, the unknown 'me' now,... holding on to the self-image and the image we made of the world, it gives a feeling of security yes, but it is a false security, it is an escape.
i don't want to be anonymus, everything in me wants to manifest itself, wants to leave a trace, and wants to be recognized.
i think this is a very natural drive, and to wish it away seems to be an useless attitude, feels in a way as a violent action.
so i better take a good close look and see if it is possible to make my steps with care...
I see a tree. There is recognition that it is a tree. The thing is we often stop at this point. There is no perception beyond this. We do not open up to the moment, the air, the weather, the sun, the shades, the overall distribution of the branches, all which makes this tree so unique. There is no watching beyond identification. Looking at the sky, can draw us into, but no, we do not let go. There is only identification, well that is the sky and that is all. So the mind is bored and starts to associate memory unconnected with the rest. – Students with good marks are often into simple identification and execution with no questions. Students with less good marks need plenty of questions to be answered before they have trust to use a concept. – We say we want to be free but looking into it we see that we actually are not sure about this. Can we see this contradiction for what it is? Watching this contradiction, can we find that we are afraid of loosing, but actually it is all about winning? Winning in the sense to be free of the mind escaping? – There are relations and there is this urge to express. Does this not go hand in hand? To express is connected with to relate with others. – There is the problem of the ego and then we see we never are doing much on our own. This is a contradiction. It is like we are not getting it. There is no watching of this.
to free the mind... of superficiality?
it seems that seeing the nature of superficiality is part of it.
naming the tree, recognizing the tree, and then (1) closing off (already knowing what it is, 'a tree', it is finished, nothing more to see...), or (2) opening to the much that is still unseen (to the many mysteries behind or beyond or aside from the name).
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this brings up something else: K spoke of the 'sound' of a tree -- not the leaves in the wind, but the sound of the roots and the trunk.
one has wondered about this -- in some places he goes into it a bit further, and mentions the sensitivity and listening. is he literally hearing sounds in the trunk and the roots?
is he talking about some unusual level of sensitivity in which there is literal hearing of these sounds, as one hears the sound of the breeze in the leaves?
in other places he mentions the sound of a good book.
maybe he is talking about something different -- what some people call 'a vibration' -- more like a feeling, rather than a literal auditory sensation?
there is so much we are closed off to, or have not been educated to be in touch with.
i have sat inside large redwood and sequoia trees (many of them have hollows inside). there was no 'sound' as usually understood, but there was a feeling, or a presence sometimes.
more like the 'presence' of a large boulder, or of the moon.
maybe it has a lot to do with the way we are educated and raised, and what we are taught to be in touch with, what to notice, to pay attention to....
(or, on the other hand, there is all that is left out or ignored?)
(perhaps it never even crosses our minds; perhaps there is much that we still, even now, have never even imagined, never paid attention to?)
To be superficial is to ignore, to overlook not to go into things. Freeing the mind is, to let go all those things we always hold on to. This implies we need to go into and understand so that we can see that holding on does not make sense. In freeing the mind we are not superficial. Now this also means to be alert, to be attentive, it is an activity. Is this what K means with listening? Sounds are very important. They provide plenty of information about the place we are, associations we have. – I recently replaced a floor made out of a material which imitates wood by wooden floor. I was surprised to feel completely different afterwards in the same room. How is it that we can feel this wood and it appears to have a deeper influence? May be it is the result that humans lived with wood during their whole evolution. I am not clear what is meant with listening apart of being in this state of openness and attention where all the senses and the mind, the brain is tuned to. It empties the mind, it removes all what is not of importance.
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