Habits, Happenings - and Teaching

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About conditioning

An interesting (because it was revelatory) experience came up yesterday which was about job security. I was travelling back from Dongtou (a campus which is part of a school where I’m working at on a remote island where l teach twice a week) and l was broached by a Chinese teacher on the bus who was worried about one of the courses l teach because 1. she is responsible for the classes student welfare and 2. the students didn’t do well in the said course mid-term exam. As soon as she brought up the issue, a deeply internal neurological response was triggered in me - not her - a kind of sinking feeling, a disturbance which signalled falsely or otherwise: ‘am l going to lose my job here?’ l hadn’t been in contact with this neurosis for several months but which l have only experienced from time to time if the occasion arises which you bet your bottom dollar, it will. But the feeling l felt was: 'this condition still needs fixing.’ Meaning it’s hard but not impossible for a rooted neurological condition to be dissolved or freed from, and which stems from attachment - environmentally or otherwise. When l mean fixing l mean it needs more looking into, more contact, more attention, examination if you are watchful, attentive or meditative. This is the only way to address problems if you want to go into them deeply, not superficially, which is the way to do it but there is no how or standardized method involved.

She (the teacher), on the other hand, wanted to look at the students’ behaviour why they weren’t making an effort to do better in their study patterns which was a way of avoiding her problems - not facing them. Avoiding what is will only make them surface somewhere else in another situation or location.

In a renowned interview with Huston Smith in 1968, Krishnamurti (not UG) said 'if l want to learn about something l want to be in contact with it. I want to understand it. I want to examine it.’ This is the way to resolve problems but so few, equally because of conditioning, aren’t interested - consciously or unconsciously- so don’t really want to make the effort.

So what is conditioning?

Our attachments, our fears, our responses that emerge from within us from time to time due to environmental influences, vulnerabilities, and so on; and our avoidance of pain, disturbances, miseries; an ongoing quest or need to find comfort in beliefs or crutches rather than discomfort and insecurity without any issue involved. Because the human is a total construct or organic entity, conditioning, because if its multilayered and multifarious patterns or ways, can’t be viewed in isolation except in totality, as a complete entity: body and mind; the inner and the outer.

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On meditation

It’s a most subtle process You can’t sublimate, suppress or control it, stick a label on it so that it comes with a set of instructions. If you do that, it isn’t meditation but is something that invites dullness, desensitizes, stagnates and is nothing more than the usual misery and sorrow which is, according to experience, the inevitable lot of most of us. To suggest, claim or assert that l have the answers, that desolation doesn’t exist, is a most deceptive and subtle trick.

Meditation is not static. It’s like the clear water of a fast-flowing river or stream. It never tries to become that which it isn’t, sputters like a pan of porridge or boils over like a cauldron of soup so that it finally gets dull; if it sees something wrong, destructive, extraordinary ugly, it will lambast or negate that thing. You can use discipline if you see that something that is wrong but you must first have meditation to see it, otherwise it will fall into dust or into the ashes of frustration which is a resurfacing of the ego.

If there is an ounce of becoming or non-becoming, meditation will go away and hide itself.

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The Futility of Anger

I’ve had occasion, recently, to get angry. When you view the imperfection and the in termination of everything around you it isn’t difficult to be in a state of violence, and especially when non-anger (subtly or otherwise) is the norm.

Superficially, anger arises from the way one has been culturally and genetically conditioned. This is quite different from Chinese society (where l am) where the tendency is to be passively or non-aggressive; to conform or be told what to do and how to behave.

At a deeper level, if you flare up because of inattention by those around you, disregard, a failure to be recognized, or your identity or self-identification (in other words your ego) that you’ve built up gets threatened because of some frustration, you see that it is useless and was only purposeful in providing an outlet. And if l may add, when you’ve been shabbily treated by those that are, so-called ‘above you’ by Chinese or elsewhere.

For if you suppress or try to sublimate anger or its energetic field or output you will only move it to another situation, location or direction when it is bound to surface again and again unless you are fortunate enough to possess genes in which anger as an emotion isn’t very strong. Unfortunately - l don’t.

When the spell, or a spell of anger is over or is past, one, because of conditioning, you feel a sense of righteous indignation towards yourself that the emotion ever happened- not just got out of hand, so you begin to feel a sense of regret or self-recrimination, that the emotion happened. But these recriminations are absurd, especially in a culture which, because if its superficial nature and disregard, politeness is barely cursorily regarded or recognized. There are no, or not many standards, in Chinese society despite an impression which Chinese want to portray through the propaganda machine that they exist.

So, is there hope or a solution towards finding an end to a state that arises from aspects of the self, isolating (localising) factors, a crushed ego, a fear of being nothing and so on which only result in futility and suffering?

Yes And it comes from understanding, watchfulness, the ways of the self, the process of want, thwarting of that want, or desire.

Once meditation which isn’t of the self or of the mind, a perfect (harmonizing) relationship to what is begins to unfold and take hold. But it is only a beginning. Anger is deeply rooted in our psyche.

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As they’re all celebrating a non-event about someone’s fell running, so-called achievement, over on YouTube, l thought l’d post a few comments of my own.

First off, there’s nothing about achieving anything if you do it in a natural environment. Natural environments because of their very nature and existence are not about achievement. One woman on the video was interviewed. She had absolutely nothing to say except the usual know-all hack. Failure is equal to success. They are two sides of the same coin. Fell running, precisely because it’s about inattention was a flawed concept. You go into a natural environment to immerse yourself, not yo rush through or over it.

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What is What is?

Because of the way our brains have been programmed, conditioned, to deal with problems in a superficial way according to that level, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to accept things the way they are and to make our peace with them without understanding that these problems will break out again and again in another situation - which is the same dimension. For that, essentially, is what is is; the way things are, its antecedent perameters, boundaries, limitations, frustrations, pains, pleasures, sufferings and all the rest of how humanity and society, inwardly and outwardly, has built itself up or, to put it another way, what comprises the human. However, due to conditioning from a very young age and a relevant separation or dislocation, a lack of integration, between the outer and the inner, it is very difficult or a constant struggle to break out of conditioning and accept the way things are and their problems by association on a daily basis. The mind with its cunning vagararies together with the self usually don’t like the way things are, easily become dissatisfied, and try and play every trick in the book to avoid or escape from them when all they are doing is creating more problems and further pleasures and pain avoidance thus, in turn, creating more traps, plunging themselves or the individual into further darkness or illusion. People who are caught in the trap of becoming through constant struggle, by constant effort (and there are many ways to become) because of having no understanding or attentiveness - and there are myriads - are under a cloud, under the delusion, even a superstition, that it is they who are in control when, in actual fact, it is their minds. But you cannot escape from what is, for in so doing, you merely create the same what is in another dimension, sphere or category. It is only through constant watchfulness, awareness, meditation and insight on a daily basis that the mind can free itself both in and from what is.

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The ‘Observer and the Observed’

What is meant by the phrase ‘Observer and Observed,’ and in the opposite, to the contrary, when the 'Observed isn’t the Observed?’ Without finding out for oneself, a great deal of confusion, complexity and misery will ensue about this subject which is really pointless and needless. One person didn’t agree that the observer could be the observed at all, not because that is the case but because she was antagonistic towards the speaker who arguably invented, wrote as well as spoke this term. So that’s why the answer needs to be clear, direct and simple. The phrase can be interpreted in many different ways but I’m going to do it like this. All things in and of the Universe are connected, related and interrelated, otherwise we wouldn’t and couldn’t survive on this planet. We are dependent on plant life, animal life, the whole ecological system or set-up for our survival, no less the other species also for their survival. Now, when this system or network is upset or becomes unbalanced, the whole thing becomes chaotic or havoc-ridden. We are killing the very basis on which life needs to be sustained. The rest of the animal kingdom is in perfect harmony, arranged and organized, so therefore, it is basically correctly connected. Not, unfortunately, as is the case with man or mankind. Thought which tends to dominate man and mankind is a material process, so which tends to explain why this is the case. When you see, not just verbally through some text or from some spoken word or other, that you are connected outwardly and inwardly to the rest of the sphere, something called wholeness begins to set in, even when you see that the observer isn’t the observed as is usually the case, where there is some mental, some perceptive disconnection, some dislocation between two organic entities, or when two human beings are perceived outwardly towards each other, and from others, as nothing more than commodities to be used or exploited due to some inward poverty or starvation - a need for the craving of experience - you begin to see a lack of wholeness from what is whole. So, the the expression, the 'observer and observed’ if realized, is a unity of purpose which begins to happen or begins to set in.

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Entertainment - The Fulcrum

The seeking of entertainment, of pleasure, is nothing new, nothing original. This plaything of the mind has been going on for centuries. Most notably it was developed in the Classical Era. The Hellenists, the Greeks, were the first to devise the Olympiad where the Athenian citizens would descend in droves on some circus or ampitheatre to watch javelins being tossed or to see the discus thrown. Then it was the turn of the Romans who built the Colosseum to watch gladiatorial skill to satiate their bloodlust, until they got bored and wanted the bloodlust, fightings to the kill, to continue all the more. The most degenerate of the emperors, Tiberius, Caligula and Nero, lived and ruled to organize such playthings. It was one of the reasons why they lasted in the way that they did. Indeed, Nero made great capital out of the whole entertainment affair by, once having burned Rome, needed a scapegoat on which to pin the blame. There was no better opportunity than sending Christian believers into the arena to be eaten by bears, leopards and lions; thus a fitting spectacle for believers to turn into martyrs, for the mind to feast itself on. Now, entertainment it is merely cubbyholed in cinemas, in music, theatre and opera halls, in clubs, to socialize in bars, online where you can indulge your amusement at a switch or at the touch of a button. So, this begs the question, why has it, and still does, play such an important role in our lives? The answer is quite simple. The mind is starved, it is empty, it is dull, it gets bored easily. It gets lonely, so it needs to be nourished, to be satiated, and there is no better way than to escape, to accomplish this than to have easy access to a whole array of artistic, media, theatrical and intellectual content. Just (I use the word ‘just’ in this context because there is nothing available except your own bodily and psychological faculties) observe, without justification or condemnation, just watch the peculiar complex workings of your mind without choice or effort, how it jumps around or jumps into one sensation to the next or to another; how it tires easily from one thing and then wants another, how the channels of a TV, for example, are easily switched over by using a remote. Then you have your answer because the mind can only function within or inside its own prison.

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Why is There a Need to Validate Belief?

There are many beliefs being bandied around: political, religious, sociological, psychological, scientific, cultural, sexual, the entertainment. You name it. The entire present set-up or framework is dependant on them, yet they’ve been around for donkey’s years. All civilizations have been and done likewise, or they wouldn’t have existed, but the paradox - the irony - is that they’ve all fallen apart and crumbled and died despite the dependancy. Why is this? Isn’t it because they are built on nothing, resemble rancid paper that rots and decomposes until it crumbles in the fingers of one’s hand. Aren’t beliefs just theories, ideas, concepts, sensations dreamt in the mind that exist to feed one’s ego, to cover up one’s inadequacies, insensiblities that have no meaning at all but are mere escapes? Aren’t they founded on time and continuity which have a tendency to flounder and disintegrate? Without the antecedent brainwashing propaganda, imagery used to sustain the fiction behind these beliefs, they and the people doing this - individual or collective - would easily evaporate from the touch of a button. Take the Brexit belief, as an example. The fact that there are two sides to it - one whether the UK should remain in the European Union and the other more popular idea that the UK should leave, is evidence that the whole thing is fake, is a set-up. If there were no opposing views, less not more validation would be needed. Good and bad, pros and cons are two sides of the same coin and merely express limitation. There was a newspaper story - one of countless many based merely on words - which told the account of a teenager in the UK, because of his European name or identity, how he beat up and disfigured the face if his maths teacher. Of course, this story was used by one commentator to defend the idea that because this one violent act, an isolated incident, was committed by a so-called ‘European,’ all European immigrants are a liability, so therefore the UK would be better off out of the EU. But besides the nationalist card, how really relevant is the argument at all? Aren’t the UK and the continental mainand just pieces of land that are part of the Earth and have no relevance to one’s daily living? Isn’t it a fact that those behind this have labelled, divided, conceptualised, turned the whole thing into an idea and have, without thinking about it, destroyed an otherwise simplicity? If Sarah Huckerbee Smith didn’t stand in front if a press audience in the White House and spew out the propanganda the government she works for represents, its belief system, partly built on an intransigent puppet like herself, would inevitably fall apart like disintegrating wax or melting chocolate, and she likewise would either be fired or find herself drowning in some big ocean without hope of being rescued. All belief is based on dogma, image-making, sensationalism which is of the past, of memory, of experience, so is therefore dead, but it is based on this to sustain itself. E.M. Cioran who reduced man to the pulp where he is said that one idea flings to another idea and so they spread like a disease, a cancer. But they still go on sustaining an otherwise big vacuum, an enormous void that, when all is said and done, is all there really is.

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How Does Thought Function?

It might be somewhat unusual to know that I’m not alone in this, or expressing these posts, etc. While most don’t want to know, don’t care or don’t care a monkeys how such a thing as thought works, even though they are using it all the time to express what and how they are seeking, how they navigate through life from day to day. For example,‘I don’t care how thought works. All I want is the most pleasure, the greatest satisfaction, the biggest dick in my ass, which, for example, is popularly noticed, posted and expressed on this site. But I want to be led, I want someone to do all the thinking for me. However, it is usually the case that escapism has a tendency to catch up with you - or it does so in the end.
Anyway, it’s interesting to note (excuse the pun) that I’m not alone because I had an interesting chat with San the other night on a chat forum and it went like this:
• Me
It’s really quite simple
• sandhiji
hello dave
• what is quite simple?
• Me
If you were without thought, you would be able to write, reason, navigate, etc
• sandhiji
how would I do that without thought?
• Me
well, yes
• 11:26 PM
• Me
I mean, you wouldn’t be able to
• 11:27 PM
• sandhiji
ah
• yes, I agree
• to speak, or to write, to use language at all, requires thought
• Me
just read back and noticed, so you wouldn’t be able to correct your own mistakes without it
• sandhiji
I don’t think K meant what some here are trying to use him to mean
• but I am no expert on K
• Me
I think so too
• sandhiji
K was talking about thought as identity, it seems to me
• using thought to identify myself will lead to problems
• Me
Do you think K was aware that some might misconstrue what he meant?
• sandhiji
yes, but what could he do except to keep talking about it?
• they were misconstruing while he was still alive
• it is only worse now that he is gone
• some here are saying that awareness is the absence of thought
• one has even said that there is nothing good about thought
• this is preposterous to me
• and it is thought that is suggesting this!
• K talked about 'right thinking’
• I see this as understanding thoughts place
• using it as you said, for navigation
• not trusting to thought to produce an accurate image of self
• not identifying as thought is right thinking, it seems to me
• Me
thought as a means of identification does lead to problems, I can see this
• 11:35 PM
• sandhiji
yes
• and this is what K talked about
• I can look into my own self to understand this
• and K implored us to look
• yet still so many just interpret his words to fit their beliefs
• it is amazing to me that anyone would think that there is no use for thought
• thought is how einstein discovered relativity
• yes, it happens here
• 15 pages, 20 pages, of thought saying thought is bad
• lol
• it happens at KFA events as well
• Me
yes, it’s quite funny, in some way
• sandhiji
it is; if we didn’t laugh we would cry eh?
• these folks who are saying this are not stupid
• they are intelligent beings, obviously
• so much more amazing that they actually believe this
• but that shows the power of belief eh?
• Me
it is astonishing
• sandhiji
it really is…
• Me
I can see this working in other areas also, nothing to do with K or KFA
• sandhiji
yes
• here it is just clothed in K jargon
• Me
yes
• sandhiji
this is a real problem everywhere
• beliefs distorting reality
• people unwilling to look for themselves
• depending on others to tell them what is true
• Me
just being led by their coat tails
• sandhiji
yes, exactly
• Me
not even questioning anything
• sandhiji
this is religion eh?
• so when they do it with K, they are just making a religion out of K
• Christianity has little to do with the actual Jesus
• just so, K religion has little to do with the actual K
• Me
I’ve been getting a KFA newsletter by email
• sandhiji
yes, me too
• Me
It feels brainwashing
• sprucing up K
• 11:45 PM
• sandhiji
there is no K in these beliefs eh?
• except as a label to legitimize them
• “K said”
• Me
right, yes
• sandhiji
but did he?
• I am suspicious of anyone who uses this approach to discussion
• “K said…”
• K said to look for ourselves, not at him, but at ourselves
• Mary Z reported that he talked about the need to go deeper, that those that would come after him would do this
• he did not see himself as the final word
• his words are not a bible
• well, they shouldn’t be
• but they are being used in that way
• I do find that thought doesn’t have to be going on all the time
• that most people think way too much
• and the idea that thought is not helpful in surviving is incredibly off to me
• of course it is helpful
• vital even
• it is our navigation system
• we would not live long without it
• Me
I think also the problem is people can’t get passed the need for a crutch, to be dependant on something, someone or other.
• sandhiji
yes, good point
• we are not willing to be self-reliant
• Me
which prevents them from looking for themselves
• sandhiji
we need that authority to make us feel safe
• Me
yes, right
• sandhiji
yes, very much so prevents honest looking
• we sit on our laurels because we have K for truth
• I don’t have to look to find out, I will just let K tell me
• but it isn’t K
• it is some person’s interpretation of him
• this is a dangerous mind set
• this is how Hitler led Germany down the road to destruction eh?
• and we heard the soldiers say “I was just following orders”
• Me
yes, stark examples
• sandhiji
and that doesn’t justify the killing in any way
• 11:54 PM
• sandhiji
mind boggling….
• lol
• Me
it is
• sandhiji
this is the human contradiction
• to believe that they are not believing
• that they are stating the facts
• and that they are doing this without thinking
• only us dipsticks are thinking…
• lol
• Me
lol
• sandhiji
thought is how art is created
• thought is how einstein came to see the universe the way he did
• look at all that he discovered by thinking
• thought is very useful if it is understood
• thought created the internet too
• we could not come here and spew without it
• no use for thought? seriously??
• so when K used the term 'right thinking’ he meant 'no thinking’?
• Me
it’s interesting how thought isn’t even considered, yet it is active all the time
• sandhiji
yes, another good point
• thought is how we comprehend what we read or hear
• and 'right thinking’ is when we understand how thought works
• it seems to me
• it is part of the process of perception and as such will always be limited to images
• Me
it functions withih its boundaries
• sandhiji
yes
• Me
within
• sandhiji
and it is distorted otherwise
• outside of its domain it is distorting reality
• this is belief eh?
• Me
yes, and it is faacinating to see this happen
• sandhiji
it is
• like the snake who grabs his own tail as food
• lol
• 0:05 AM
• sandhiji
thought also creates problems
• not just art
• there is no doubt that thought is behind conflict
• prejudice
• hatred
• it is easily distorted and then it runs rampant
• Me
it can create havoc
• sandhiji
yes
• the world today demonstrates this
• so there is a type of thought or thinking that is dangerous and should come to an end
• Me
it does, very much so, critically
• sandhiji
Dr Bohm suggested that this type of thinking arises when we don’t consider how we think
• when we focus only on what we think
• then we believe that what we think is the actuality
• and in fact, it never is
• 0:11 AM
• sandhiji
if truth has no application to daily living it is useless
• and I find truth to be useful
• not useless
• in a sense, truth IS daily living
• 0:16 AM
• Me
I would say it is essential, if you can see the essence, the simplicity
• sandhiji
yes
• 0:18 AM
• sandhiji
is anyone going to seriously suggest that language doesn’t involve thought?
• and language is essential to daily living
• it is also how we come to know what K said…

So, in the final analysis, if thought and how thought works is understood correctly, it follows that it will be used correctly. Anything else comes from distortion, image-making, believing, being certain, certitude, that you can over reach or over step the boundaries that are sensibly in place. Otherwise you are heading for a lot of muddle, problem making, rather than problem solving.
If you are looking, are seeing how thought functions or works, you are being simple. It’s as simple as that.