This is a discussion that I have listened to multiple times and continue to get more out of it. I’ve posted it on this blog before, because it is a truly marvelous and very Dhamma-like conversation.
http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-video/knowledge-and-the-transformation-of-man-part-1-of-18.php
The discussion is about as close to ‘what is’ as you can get, aside from meditating. It’s the nearest words can get to speaking about the Dhamma, without being overly poetic. It is also why, most people who haven’t done a 10 day Vipassana course, would not understand this conversation. It’s eighteen hours long, by the way. That’s because it’s very thorough. They go slow and ‘go into’ each question and the whole movement of life. This is the stuff of life. It’s the stuff that many people miss, because they’re in their heads. Or better said, paraphrasing some words from this dialogue, ‘they’re mulling over the images that they’ve made about life, and not seeing the thing itself.’
This brings me to what I’ve been ‘dealing’ with in my day to day life most recently. I’m at this seminar thing on weekdays and it’s very much like a high school type of deal. It’s something I’m require to be at. We sit around the room and mainly listen to a man speak about terms and define words that can be endlessly defined and analysed. The ‘teacher’ is a man who is stuck in knowledge and thinks he is wise. He is someone who does not understand meditation or what it means to see what is, without interpreting it. This brings up a problem that Krishnamurti and Dr. Allan Anderson go into in their talk. “How can a human being (oneself or another) bring about a person who is undisturbed enough to listen?”
This is listening in the total sense, meaning, meditation. Listen with your whole body and your whole mind. This is something that terms don’t touch and words, in the superficial way they are often used, cease to give meaning. It may sound like I’m complaining, but this is more a matter of sensitivity and having to be in a situation, on a day to day basis, with a person who does not care enough to listen, in that sense, and what to do about it.
The way the question is put, “…undisturbed enough to listen,” is because of the fire that you are thrown in when you meditate. It’s a fire of attention, and breath. There is no escaping in words or conclusion. As each of us meditate, we go into this fire more and more. We are on an edge, so to speak, and there is no stopping it now. When you sit a 10 day course, Vipassana is now with you, whether you sit daily or not. There it is, creeping up through your sensations, all the time. That is why it is disturbing, or can be.
Then, in every day life, you find yourself with others who don’t feel this fire. They don’t know how to meet it. Sometimes you can’t get away from them, like my current situation. What I’ve found then, is to be selfish with my practice, when I’m there with someone who will not listen. With some people, there’s no convincing them and no use trying. When that’s the case, it’s time to meditate. Go in and sit there with the fire. It’s the salvation for oneself to do this, and the only way that awareness and attention can permeate towards them. At some point, they may feel it. In the meantime, be quiet and keep practicing.
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