HDR Sunset

A few months back I traveled to San Diego for my first professional SEO Conference. It turned out to be an adventure that I’ll never forget.

I was sent there to “figure out how to make us money” – according to my boss, at least. Personally, I had hoped to get a glimpse at the future of the profession and the trends for 2010. I also secretly desired a couple minutes of face time with the industries so-called “thought leaders”, whom I could speak to about some of my personal theories.

I figured the commute would be hellish, though most of Orange and San Diego counties on a weekday morning, but there was hardly anyone else on the road! I arrived far ahead of schedule, but ended up turning the wrong way at the last direction on my sheet. Instead of entering the resort that would play host to OMS 10, I made a left into the parking lot overlooking Mission Bay. Google Maps had sent me there, but looking back on it now I’m not so sure that Fate itself didn’t play some small role too.

I parked my car as close to the waters edge as I could get, then began to change into my “conference clothes”. Shiny shoes, a dress shirt, and slacks- much more “professional” than my daily work attire of t-shirt and jeans. Though my car’s battery had been having problems in recent weeks, I figured the 80 mile drive would be enough to keep a full charge so I didn’t even bother turning off the radio while I enjoyed the scenery.

But when I got back into the car and went to engage the ignition, I was met with a mechanical whizzing sound, an electric whine, and the tap-tap-tapping of a dead battery. My world collapsed. The dashboard gauges fluttered, and with them went my heart.

“Shit,” I thought as beads of perspiration began to gather on my brow, “of all the times!”

I’d been driving on this dying 7 year-old battery for months, refusing to get a new one until it truly gave out. I’d traversed well over 80,000 miles on that battery alone, hardly making it out of some rough patches, but always on my own time. What a way it was to start my first official conference.

I flagged down a City Parks worker in a gigantic Ford truck and asked him for a jump. He said he wasn’t allowed to use the city car it, but pointed toward a bright red pickup about two hundred yards down the lot from me and said that they could probably help. I followed his glance and noticed two derelicts, obviously vagabonds of some sort, milling around, apparently just killing time. I immediately decided to call AAA, but it was already too late.

He had already started off toward them and was soon deep in conversation. I watched the drifters toss some dirty bags into the truck before hopping into the cab and firing up its engine. I swallowed hard as they approached- I’ve had some intense run-ins with their type in the past.

“You need some help?” the driver asked out his window as I waved to them, forcing a smile.

“I’d really appreciate it, if you’ve got the time.” It was obvious that they did, but I’m always awkward about asking for help.

As I popped the hood I couldn’t help but feel ashamed. There I was in my spit-shined shoes, my french-cuffed collared shirt, and pin-stripe slacks having to waste these guys time who obviously could have spent it better on other things- like showers, laundry, or looking for jobs. I felt like “The Man” himself, asking for assistance from people who had absolutely nothing to give.

But they were nice, and seemed excited to be able to lend a hand, so I grabbed my jumper cables from the trunk and watched them go to work. They said that they knew how to do it just right, but as the first connector was placed on my battery it exploded into a shower of red plastic rain.

Enter paranoia: “Did he do that on purpose?! No, no wait- it must have been an accident.”

The one who’d been watching let me know that they had their own set of cables, much more reliable that the “Chinese pieces of shit” that I had given them. He nodded to the other guy, who disappeared into the truck. As the new set appeared and the two of them got to work fixing up the connections, a third man I hadn’t seen before stumbled out of the truck.

He looked filthy and disoriented, the commotion must have woken him up. He sidled slowly over toward me and just sort of stood there for a second with a vacant look on his face and that familiar thousand-yard stare I’d come to know from my days of volunteering at the VA Hospital’s Schizophrenia Research Lab. He was far dirtier than the other two, with greasy hair that hadn’t been washed in months, filthy teeth, and smudges of grease, or perhaps snot on his ragged denim shirt.

But he reached out his hand for a shake, and introduced himself with gusto: “Nice to meet ya, I’m Totally Tal!” His voice was gruff, yet melodious, and I couldn’t help but like him. I took his outstretched hand, smiled, and let him know how much I appreciated their help. Mid-handshake I noticed the piss stains on his jeans. They’d clearly been soiled with regularity, and it was obvious to me that no Tal was in no way interested of disguising that fact.

Tal started mumbling some incomprehensible things as he searched for a cigarette, checking each of the pockets of his shirt, and all of those in his jeans. Finally locating his pack, he pulled forth a final cigarette as if it were the Holy Grail itself, clearly ecstatic that he’d located that last smoke. As he lit up, the other two announced that everything was ready, that I should give it a shot.

But it took a few tries to get it right.

After the first failed attempts they started arguing about how long I’d have to wait before trying the key again. The first two extolled patience, while Tal pushed for an immediate result. The Ring-Leader called him off with a loud and seemingly uncharacteristic “Shut the fuck up Tal!”

Two minutes later my motor kicked into gear just as Tal began to explain that they were “The Three Musketeers”. He made it clear that he considered it his duty to help out travelers in need, before beginning his lament: “Man- We are sooo broke! We are so broke man. We don’t have annnnnnny money.”

I was relieved, since I’d wanted to offer them cash for their assistance, and saw this as a great opening.

“Could I help you guys out? Would $20 bucks help any?”

All three sets of eyes lit up instantly. “Twenty dollars?! Hell yeah that’d help us out!” Tal seemed ecstatic, but it was also evident that I’d hurt the Ring-Leader’s pride.

“We don’t charge for help Tal…” he said dryly, while packing up the cables. I insisted, telling them they’d literally saved my day, and helped me out far more than I thought $20 would do for them.

He seemed to vacillate, then said that I should take their cables in case my battery died again before I could get it replaced. I tried to turn him down, but gave up when it became obvious that I was fighting a losing battle since pride was at stake.

During the good-bye handshake with the Ring-Leader I again thanked him for their help, to which he responded: “No problem, I mean we couldn’t help it. You’re just so damn cute.”

Whaaaaaaat?

I flashed a smile, finished the hand-shake, and let them know that I had to get going if I was going to make registration on time. I hopped into the car, shut the door, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Awwwwwkward.

—

After registering with the pretty hostesses and receiving my badge, I went straight to the restroom to wash my hands, where I was floored by the ostentatiousness of my surroundings. I had just been speaking to three men who had nothing more than they could fit in a single pickup, and I now found myself surrounded by people in suits with slicked back hair, fancy laptops, and a consuming sense of self-importance (Marketers are nearly all this way).

I was in awe, but also a little bit disgusted, by the chandeliers, mosaic floors, incredible floral arrangements, and a marina full of sailboats and yachts. The juxtaposition was so extreme that I could hardly focus on the task at hand- the task that I hate above all other tasks- networking! But I was there to do a job, and I did it to the best of my ability.

As the conference progressed and I met an assortment of “Professional Marketers”, “SEO Consultants”, and “Conversion Optimization Specialists”, it became apparent to me that The Three Musketeers were both more real, and certainly far more interesting than the hundreds of highly motivated, talented, and entirely ordinary people attending the Conference. I’d have rather spent the day with the dudes in their truck (had they not hit on me so blatantly), learning about their lifestyle, their skill-sets, and their life outlooks, than trying to figure out how to break Google’s algorithm.

But just before the final presentation my attendance was entirely vindicated when I came in touch with a second set of three companions who were just as fascinating as that earlier group: the CEOs of three of the largest Search Engine Optimization companies in the world. They were the rock-stars of the conference, commanding everyone’s attention. These three are A-list celebrities of the Search Marketing world, and I’ll be leaving out their names since I doubt they’d want to be written about here.

They stood near the registration table, set apart from the rest of the pack, spending the first half of our final twenty minute break talking amongst themselves while the rest of the conference attendees milled around, watching them out of the corner of their eyes. I too felt some apprehensive about approaching them, but I also realized that this was my best chance to prove that Conference attendance fees are worth it, so I put aside my insecurities and walked up to their closed circle, waiting for an in.

Ten minutes later I walked away with answers to my most important questions, with the answers to everything that I had wanted to find out. My idea about the future of the industry had been entirely off-base, shattered with a single sentence, and shot down by the industry’s best and brightest. But they had done so with a smile, and with class, and I was happy to have finally an answer that I could trust.

This was my Mission Accomplished moment.

—

But more importantly- I was struck by the similarities between those two sets of Three, between the Morning and Afternoon Musketeers

The earlier group were the downtrodden, the impoverished, the ‘failures’ or ‘dregs’ of society – those who had followed Leary’s advice, and paid the consequences for doing so.

The second group were the success stories, the entrepreneurs, the ‘captain’s of industry’ or ‘champions of capitalism’, who had followed dreams of a different nature, and been rewarded with the financial fruits of their intellectual labors.

Yet each set were essentially the same: good people willing to help those in need and happy to be of service to their fellow-men. I learned a much more valuable lesson that day than I had expected to receive.

Arrakis - The Desert Planet Every Bit As Empty as Ourselves

Paul Atreides came so close! But like so many others before him, Frank Herbert’s protagonist from the awesome Dune series (the Muad’Dib himself) looked into the abyss, then entirely missed the point.

I’m referring, of course, to one of the most prolific lines from his incredible inter galactic epic; that famous Bene Gesserit litany against fear:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Which at first glance sounds strikingly similar (at least to me) to FDR’s own quintessential quote:

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Each are inspirational to be sure, in their affirmation of the human spirit and our ability to transcend the constraints of our own mental limitations, and of our ability to rise above them. These men of conviction seem to invoke that famous and perhaps most interesting of all literary conflicts – that of man vs. himself.

In their message, both Herbert and FDR attack fear as little more than a passing fancy, a product entirely of the mind, one that is somehow less “real” than the world around us, or especially less real than ourselves. But if you’re asking me (which you are since you’re reading this), each of them entirely miss the point after pointing out the essentially illusory or transient nature of fear. Put simply, their conclusions are not logically reached by the premises argued on their behalf!

Where they go wrong is in the idea that while fear is in and of itself entirely unimportant, our other more valorous emotions, like “valour”, “bravery”, or perhaps even “productivity”, are entirely worthy of adoration.

Am I wrong in calling it a contradiction that calling fear illusory and impermanent somehow leads to the affirmation that these other mental states, or even the beings that produce them in such a temporary and capricious fashion are somehow more permanent?

Shouldn’t watching fear pass through ourselves, witnessing it’s effects, and understanding its ethereal nature guide us to the understanding that all other mental states (even those like “bravery”, “altruism”, and “valor”) are essentially no more real? If “fear” is false, and hardly worth acknowledging, then why is are these other emotions so worthy of worship? How are they not essentially identical, except through our subjective appraisal?

If fear comes and goes, simply as the product of our previous experiences, our biological and chemical make-up, and the configuration of our present surroundings, then shouldn’t bravery be dismissed as an equally fleeting fancy? Isn’t it brought about by the very same process?

Why deny one while affirming the other?

And – I’m asking both myself and you now – What is a person beyond his or her thoughts, feelings, beliefs and mental events? What am I, and what are you, without consciousness, without that mental spark of self-awareness, or of awareness at all (since most of humanity seems to lack real self-awareness).

What are we without our values, our principles, and our cherished moral codes?

If they’re as illusory as fear, then are we any less real than we previously assumed?

Please answer this question for yourself before continuing on.

If all of our beliefs, our morals and values are every bit as transient as fear (and of course they must be!), then why do we so cherish that subset of so called core values that we’ve determined are essentially commands from on high? Why have we transformed these transient ideas, these passing fancies, into the words of the Divine, into the rules governing the entire universe?

How can people place the Ten Commandments – again, no more than a set of ideas – ahead of other ideas, like Chemistry, Physics, or perhaps Evolution? At least there’s evidence that Gravity and Dinosaurs once existed. What do we have of the supposed event on Mount Sinai (other than the pile of rock itself?).

Shouldn’t we realize that these things – these “eternal principles” – are equally as impermanent as fear? And aren’t they every bit as irrelevant, at least in the universal sense?

Or – is there something to all this religious mumbo-jumbo, to this spiritual gobbledygook, and this pseudo-philosophical (but mostly ideological) attachment to our seemingly impermanent selves?

Are we something more than this crude flesh; this physical accumulation of atoms governed by the same laws of physics, chemistry, and biology that operates on everything else in the universe? Are we really so different from the other species that coexist with us on this planet? And from those that were here before?

Does the divine spark live within us? Does something like a soul exist? If it does – is it worth defending, protecting, and valuing over everything else in the world? Is there something permanent to our very being (as humans) which is more valuable than that which exists “out there” in the world at large?

Or are we just kidding ourselves?

Have we created this strange fiction to encourage our own selfish ideas, selfish agendas, and selfish behavior?

Are these systems being used to keep the downtrodden from rebelling, the underprivileged from revolting, and those born with a silver-spoon in their mouths firmly established as no less than Lords on Earth – rulers established by Divine Right (read: the status quo?).

It seems quite foolish, at least to me, to argue only that fear itself holds no value, while arguing the very opposite for the exact same thing – that state of mind and those emotions like “reverence”, “conformity”, or especially “faith”, which prop up these rigid systems of hierarchy, of authority – of indifference to the very nature of reality itself.

While these men – Herbert and FDR – visionaries in their own right, each came so close to creating something beautiful, something extraordinary, or even revolutionary, it seems to me that they dropped the ball at the point of departure from tradition and at the point where we needed them most.

They made their way to the edge of the abyss, stared down into the void, and trembled at the edge of that cliff, allowing the terror to pass through their minds, then reaffirmed the very thing that their experience should have led them to reject: that we are permanent beings with a stable self.

In reality, we are selfless, impermanent, and illusory in every sense of the word.

The only thing permanent about us is our constant state of flux, which makes us superficial, causing us to feel fear.

And it’s quite obvious to me that we’ll take any step – no matter how ridiculous, no matter how immoral, and especially no matter how self-defeating. to grasp at some sense of permanence!

We’ll give up our very freedoms, those same freedoms that we’d refuse to relinquish in the political sense, but are equally as willing to surrender in the realm of the spiritual, to convince ourselves that we can find some heavenly grace, that we are loved by God, and that we’ll exist beyond our deaths.

We’ll affirm the exact opposite of what reality and our daily experience clearly points out to us- that we will one day wither away and die, leaving behind only the trail of our acts, of our everyday behavior, and our influence on both the planet and those around us.

And it’s in this way, and only in this way, that we can find some sense of a permanent nature.

It’s in this way, and only in this way, that some us think we can find some sense of meaning in our impermanent nature.

But like I just said, in our fleeting and temporary existence, in our insecure, terrifying, and all too dreadfully short lives on this earth and in this realm, what’s important isn’t to deny reality, to reject that we are illusory beings, but to celebrate it, to rejoice in it, and to use it to develop a deeper and more realistic understanding of ourselves, and the universe at large.

—

As a final thought, with his thinly-veiled reference to “the little-death” (le petit mort, anyone?) just what exactly was Frank Herbert trying to say about sex, if anything?

Please let me know if you’ve got any ideas about this. It’s been a while since I’ve participated in literary criticism, and as you are probably well aware, my once well-honed skills are now more than a bit rusty!

Truth is a Pathless Land

=== JKrishnamurti.org Daily Quote ===

The religious mind is something entirely different from the mind that believes in religion. You cannot be religious and yet be a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist. A religious mind does not seek at all, it cannot experiment with truth. Truth is not something dictated by your pleasure or pain, or by your conditioning as a Hindu or whatever religion you belong to. The religious mind is a state of mind in which there is no fear and therefore no belief whatsoever but only what is – what actually is.

- Freedom from the Known The Second Penguin Krishnamurti Reader

=== Thoughts ===

What is the difference between “a religious person” and “a person who belongs to an organized religion”?

Most people would probably answer with “absolutely nothing”.

After all – we’ve invented a new word for those types of people, right? Don’t we call them “spiritual”?

Well I reject that label!

I reject it because it has no meaning. Just like organized religion has absolutely no meaning.

And while I don’t mean to offend anybody’s “religious” sensibilities (or do I?) – I would argue that followers of any organized religion are essentially not religious at all!

Perhaps it’s because the word “religious” has been so watered down in ordinary parlance as to have lost all it’s meaning, just like the word “love” (a topic for another day).

Let’s turn to Dictionary.com and take a look at their definition of religious to find out if my assumption is correct.
What used to mean “strict faithfulness” or “devotion” (see the archaic usage) has since devolved into:

• “A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhumanagency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.”

So many words, yet so little meaning. Truly “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing“.

Why don’t we do the Dictionary a favor right now and agree to change the definition to “Dogmatic acceptance of fantastical beliefs”, or even better yet- “Ideological slavery”? We’re likely only a few years from that revision anyway; in fact I’d argue it’s well past due!

I guess you could say that the ultimate cosmic joke- and the penultimate expression of irony- is that people attempt to “find God”, “know Truth”, or “reach Enlightenment” through blind devotion to the very barriers which block them from achieving their spiritual goals in the first place. Isn’t it a pity?

And what could possibly be more destructive to real Freedom than attachment to ideological thought, ritualistic behavior, and rigid beliefs?

…

It’s the obsessions with such systems, with such paths, and with what others have said before that’s holding you back from reaching your own enlightenment and experiencing your own awakening.

Lighting incense, chanting mantras, and prostrations to the Holy land will not get you Truth.

For Truth lies in the very negation of these things.

Let them go and reincarnate now!

Can we escape that all-too-human tendency to revisit our previous experiences- our memories, actions, and behavior- and instead live completely and entirely in the present moment?

In my personal experience, this has proven to be one the most difficult (if not the most difficult) things for to accomplish in my daily life. Yet, through a great deal of meditation and patience, through the cultivation of mindfulness, and by working to erase both personal history and self-importance, I’ve become capable of doing just that for minutes at a time, and occasionally in multiple hour stretches, but at some point during each day I always find myself dragged down by the past and dunked back into the sorrow, confusion, and psychological suffering which I’ve been attempting to leave behind altogether.

I revisit my past actions, past decisions, ideas, thoughts, and beliefs, from what feel like a lifetime ago- from a life which I’ve come so nearly to leaving entirely behind- but just haven’t quite been able to abandon. I find myself day after day revisiting that past life and playing that foolish and pointless game of wondering “What if…?”

To give you an example- this weekend I went backpacking (like usual) in one of the most interesting and incredible landscapes I’ve been fortunate to find here in Southern California- the land of brown hillsides and barren desert. I had stumbled my way across it on a website during searches for local backpacking places, but from the reviews of the area, I honestly wasn’t expecting too much from my trip.

Little did I know that San Mateo Wilderness would turn out to be quite more impressive that I had originally imagined! Picture an absolutely massive landscape of rolling green hillsides, cavernous valleys, and gorges covered in lush, over-head coastal scrub. Breathtaking views of the ocean, early morning banks of dense rolling fog, beautiful deep-blue skies, a perfectly clear night sky just littered with stars, and hardly any human interference whatsoever.

It’s pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted to find- and at just an hour from my front door down a sunny stretch of the 5 freeway, and the inviting curves of the Ortega Highway, it’s as convenient a place as I could ever hope to find! A veritable Paradise on Earth, wide-open, inviting, ripe for exploration and adventure.

Yet for the past year and a half, even after all of my backpacking trips, day-hikes, and research looking for places such as this one, I’d completely failed to uncover this diamond in the rough. This wide open wilderness had been sitting right under my nose for all this time, yet completely absent from my awareness, even as I’d put so much energy into searching for something just like it!

Why?

Because most of my trips find me returning to places where I’ve already been. While I love adventure and exploration, I do fully recognize that above all- like most human beings- I am a creature of habit. I know what I like and I know what I don’t. What I like I return to- what I don’t I avoid. I eat the same thing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner just about every day. I’m comfortable in my routines, and above all else, I’m used to the complacency and false sense of security that this illusory “order” tends to bring. I feel safe, I feel secure, and I don’t often find myself face to face with the unexpected.

But the problem with that kind of attitude, and that kind of lifestyle, is that while it may be quite comfortable and convenient, it’s also inherently limiting, and driven by deep-seated fears of the unknown.

You see- human beings have evolved to watch their environment, remember causal relationships, and predict future events to help them overcome obstacles, plan for disaster, and above all else, preserve their own person by avoiding danger.

But what would life be like- and how could it possibly be worth living- if we had foreknowledge of everything that was to happen?

If there were no surprises, no experiments, and no lack of foregone-conclusions, then what would drive us to get out of bed in the morning? What could we possibly find of interest, what could we value, and could bring that sense of excitement, adventure, and joy that makes our lives worth living?

When I look at myself and observe without the presence of the observer, when I’m able to get around the “I”, that despicable and selfish “me”, one thing becomes imminently clear:

My life is a long series of mostly predictable events (punctuated by a few major surprises) and strung together by a consciousness that seeks logical explanations for everything, as well as some semblance of continuity. The “self” analyzes all that has ever happened to me, retaining those events, my interpretations, and responses to them in the form of memories, recalling them whenever it seems plausible that they could offer some sort of assistance into predicting what might come next. All of this is done to help me avoid danger, achieve the maximum result out of each situation I find myself faced with, and preserve my organism so that I can continue on for as long as possible.

But how often has this planning truly helped me to live a happier, more complete, or more fulfilling life?

Personally- and perhaps this is just me- I’ve found all the planning, all the preparing, and all the goal setting to do nothing but let me down by trapping my awareness to previous experience, previous conclusions, and especially previous misconceptions. And each time I face new events with the observances of the past, I find myself responding to them in less than adequate ways. For each moment of my life, in reality, is completely different from those that have come before.

And after all, what really is the future- is it not the unknown?

What- I’m asking you- can really be done to prepare oneself against it?

And should we seek to prepares ourselves for meeting it at all, or is it no more than a waste of energy?

If the universe is in a constant state of change, with energy swirling all around me, people coming and going, technology developing at an increasingly rapid pace, and world-changing events occurring with what seems to be a greater frequency than at  any other time in recorded history, then how could I possibly expect to properly plan for what’s coming next?

Even if I did have perfect, complete, and accurate information of everything that had ever happened before-  which I most obviously do not- how could that possibly account for the infinite numbers of potential future scenarios, and especially for the element of random chance?

By the time I’d analyzed all that data and prepared myself for responding to future events, wouldn’t other things have been happening in the meantime, causing me to have to once again reevaluate my “best” course of action?

It’s as if we live glued to the past- glued to our previous experience, to our successes, our failures, and everything in the middle- ignoring present experience, and always preparing for a future that is not only impossible to predict, but has no guarantee of ever arriving at all (think cataclysmic world event, getting hit by a bus, or any of the other many potential “world” and “life” ending potential events).

While this may seem depressing- and it certainly did when I first looked at it- I now see this simple fact as the key to achieving real happiness, true freedom, and to leading a life that’s actually worth living.

Forget your past, forget your preparations, and for the love of all that’s Holy, forget yourself, even if for just one moment!

Instead, find delight in living out each and every moment it’s beautiful entirety. Completely. Wholly. With total attention and complete awareness of everything happening both around you, and inside you.

Relax. Slow down. Take a deep breath, and be still.

Stop planning for the future. Stop worrying about the past.

Let go of your illusory “control”, your beliefs, your expectations, and even your conclusions about the world, about yourself, and about everything else.

For without the capacity to let go of all of this, you can never hope to meet life as it truly exists: A movement. A subtle dance. An unchoreographed, unpredictable, and incredible series of events, perhaps anchored in limited moments of time, but also in eternity. In the flowing, evolving, and ever-changing movement that is impermanence, which makes up this thing we call “living”, which is essentially conditioned existence.

Meet the unknown for what it really is: The unexpected, the unplanned, the unexplained and untamed. That untouched, unblemished, and incredibly beautiful movement that is uncertainty.

For just one second, put your planning aside and smile right into the void, knowing full well that you don’t know, and never can know, a single thing with any certainty.

Smile like you’ve never smiled before, and live your life in Total Freedom.

This is what the Tibetan Buddhists are attempting to point out with their discussions of “non-conceptual thought” (which I once thought was babble and utter insanity). Similarly, it’s what don Juan refers to with the concept of the “Nagual”. It is also what the Taoists call “That which cannot be named”.

But the title, the name, is not what’s important here. What is of importance, and of supreme importance to us as human beings, is that as long as we remain chained to concepts, to ideas, and to images, we will never meet the world as it actually exists. We cannot understand Reality, Truth, or God, until we are willing to give up our attachment to our “ideas” (including the idea of a separate “self”). As long as we remain chained to such concepts, we see a version of reality, translated through those beliefs and ideas, according to our conditioning and experience.

We meet the world not as the world at large, but as the world according to our ideas, constructed by previous experience. And our world, which exists in a state of perpetual motion, change, and impermanence, can never be fully experienced, or even marginally understood as long as we continue to translate it according to the past.

Thus, we feel conflict, confusion, and suffering.

—

To take a step back, let’s start over by defining the word “concentration” using the help of Dictionary.com, which  explains that concentration means “exclusive attention to one object; close mental application”. Simple and concise, unlike my own attempts.

And now that we know what concentration means, let’s define  “attention” using one of Krishnamurti’s favorite techniques: finding what is true by negating that which is false.

With that in mind, what is not attention?

• Attention is not concentration. That should already be quite obvious.
• Attention is not limited to a single focal point, or even to a set of focal points. In fact, attention has nothing whatsoever to do with “focusing”.
• Attention is not a behavior or technique that you can practice, develop, or be taught to perform. If anything, attention involves the complete negation of any such processes, systems of learning, and accumulations of knowledge.
• Attention is not limited to a single sensory input like “seeing”, “hearing”, “feeling”, “touching”, “tasting”, or “smelling”. It is closer to the combination of all of those operating in unison, and some people (but not me) might even argue that it involves something like a “sixth sense”.

So what does that leave us with?

To me, it sounds like “making an act of complete attention” sits on the same spectrum as terms like “consciousness”, “awareness”, and “perception”, as perhaps the purest form of them all. I would suggest that you think of it as perceiving wholly, without divisions, and with all available energy; or as experiencing reality in the most accurate, objective, and intelligent possible way. You could even consider it to be a close synonym with the ever-popular concept of “enlightenment”, or what I’d rather call “being in the enlightened state”. And with that, let’s talk a little bit about the act itself.

Before we proceed, I want to make this absolutely crystal clear- what we are presently discussing (making an act of complete attention, or simply “attention”) is an action or a behavior. It is most certainly not just an idea. I am speaking from experience here. Furthermore, making the “complete act of attention” is an act that all human beings are capable of performing, whether or not they are aware of that possibility. Again, if I am capable of performing it, then I would imagine that so is everyone else.

I am not a unique and special snowflake. I’m just another person, like you, living in the crazy digital age and trying to find my place in the grand scheme of things. I have no special abilities, super powers, or any remarkable qualities, other than perhaps my intense curiosity and passion for exploration.

And I realize that for clarity’s sake I should probably write it out as “making the complete act of attention”, “the act of attending”, or “the state of total attention” but I may sometimes use just  “attention” instead, for the sake of the writing. I apologize in advance if that makes things more confusing for you, but trust me, if any subject is worth looking into, this is most certainly the one.

Now what I mean by “making an act of total attention” is the behavior of entering into a new mode of awareness- and by “new”, I really mean “new”, rather than merely “novel”. This new mode of awareness is entirely different from, and has absolutely no relation whatsoever to the way that we’re used to perceiving things. The biggest difference being that an individual perceiving with total attention feels no division within himself, no division between himself and his surroundings, and no division out there in the universe at large.

In contrast, our regular way of perceiving (which involves concentration, and is promoted and encouraged by society) is entirely relative and divisive, founded on the complete acceptance of the separation of “me” and “not me”, and “that” and “not that”. And the importance of making the complete act of attention, or of attending, as often as possible, is that continuing to live according to our normal divided perception is not only ridiculous and the living of a lie, but also selfish, destructive, and literally evil- because consciousness limited by concentration generates confusion, chaos, misery, and suffering.

To get a little preachy- I feel that it’s my responsibility as a human being (which is to say a member of society, the world, and the universe at large) to stop behaving in this way! And if you are also interested in leaving this world a better place than you found it upon arrival, then you should have the same purpose in mind, and like me you should be doing everything in your power to achieve that end. The fact that you have even read this far suggests that you are at least somewhat aware of the problem, and somewhat interested in helping promote the solution. And for that, not only do you have my eternal thanks, but my utmost respect.

And I’m not trying to brag here, because I honestly couldn’t care less what you think of me (I think that should be relatively obvious by this point if you’ve read some of my other entries), nor do I want to get into my personal life here (for reasons that are at least equally obvious to those who’ve read previous posts), but in the spirit of full disclosure, I feel obliged to admit that I have made the act of complete attention and experienced the resultant distinctly different state of awareness on many different occasions over the past few years (and with increasing frequency as of late as I’ve focused more and more on meditation as daily living).

And as such, I can assure you as I attempted to above that this is in no way a theoretical construction of Krishnamurti’s, or of my own. It has nothing whatsoever to do with him, or with me, but with us- including both humanity and the rest of the universe as one. Please do not think that we are presently acting like academicians discussing some fancy theory. This is not a discussion on theoretical states of mind, potential altered forms of consciousness, or the psychology of spirituality. This is a discussion of a behavior, the suggestion to perform that behavior, and to observe its effects. Please do not mistake this as an attempt to build out an academic explanation of mysticism, religion, or philosophy.

I wouldn’t blame you for finding it hard to believe, because I was in your shoes myself at one point, but the result of making a complete act of attention removes all divisions from consciousness and produces the feeling that we are filled up with an unlimited amount of some perceptive-like–supernatural-force that allowing us to experience reality as it actually exists- which both feels and appears far different from usual. I personally believe that it’s this very experience which mystics, philosophers, prophets (and “crazies”) have attempted to describe using terms like “enlightenment”, “awakening”, “pure understanding”, and a myriad of other related phrases.

I can say with completely honesty that when I am making a complete act of attention it feels as if I am somehow not just more aware, but actually aware of myself, my surroundings, and the relationship that binds us. And my usual illusions, like the division between “self” and “other”, or between “that” and “not that”, fade neatly away without any conscious effort on “my” part. I’ve used “my” in quotes here, because once the self is removed completely, that becomes no more than mere concept.

In fact, all conceptual thought, like psychological burdens, hopes, dreams, fears, and etc. are erased, inner conflict ceases, and I feel as if filled with an overflowing sense of joy or ecstasy unlike anything else that I’ve ever personally experienced. And to get even more personal than I already have, I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve experienced quite a few “altered states of consciousness”, yet none of them have produced anything quite like this. Simply put, it feels as if I’ve opened my eyes for the first time, entered a completely different world than I’m used to, and begun to finally live life.

In my experience, making the complete act of attention seems to equate with achieving enlightenment or reaching the state of Nirvana. And I apologize for dropping so many Buddhist references and allusions in my posts here on Chayacitra, but I’m far more familiar with Buddhism than I am with Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, or any other organized religion, because it’s the only one I’ve studied with any seriousness. I do apologize if that makes things uncomfortable for you, but it’s really the only system that I feel comfortable discussing at all. (I also happen to think the Taoists/Buddhists do the best job of explaining the unknown, but again, my exposure to other organized religions is quite limited, so you can take that opinion with a grain of salt.)

But to get back to my point (and to take this discussion to a much deeper level of insanity) when I operate in the form of altered awareness that comes from making a complete act of attention, I don’t feel like I’m capable of speaking with God (like a prophet would describe) but that I literally am a part of God. And please don’t be confused by my use of that word “God”, because I certainly don’t mean God as in the bearded old white man who sits on his golden throne in the sky (silly Westerners).

Rather, I mean that I feel connected to some kind of universal source of knowledge, energy, or awareness, in which the boundaries between “me” and “not me” dissolve, after which “reality” itself unfolds and my connection to the universe at large becomes much more than just a concept. I attempted to describe God once in college, and gave an explanation that I still think holds at least somewhat true, or at least is as close as I can get to putting into words “that which cannot be named“: God is everything in the universe at any given time, including the relationship between each of those things to each other”. Or as one of my good friends so eloquently condensed it: God is “Delta-T”.

In that state of enhanced awareness, when I feel as if I’m part of God, I feel just as connected to the rest of the universe at large as I do to myself and my immediate surroundings. It’s quite literally as if I’ve entered a state of omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence- the traditional characteristics ascribed to God- which is why I feel legitimate in claiming that it feels like I have become God. And because I’m not a theist, I don’t find that blasphemous in the slightest, but I do apologize if you find it offensive (my Grandmother certainly would). In that state, the traditional boundaries and divisions like time and space lose all meaning; leaving only energy in a limitless, boundless, and entirely unstructured and unpatterned form. And to me, that is real Beauty (with a capital “B”).

It is, to be sure, a transcendental experience out of which an entirely new paradigm emerges. And that paradigm, which I would like to refer to as actual reality (or “what is” as Krishnamurti calls it) is a paradigm in which a new and radically different “order” (to borrow another of Krishnamurti’s favorite phrases) emerges. Within this new order- lacking concepts and divisions- hierarchy, authority, and even duality is entirely negated. And to me, that is real Freedom (with a capital “F”).

Now, before we proceed any further let me be absolutely clear that I do fully acknowledge the possibility that I might have simply gone completely insane. I do realize that my own odd state (and those of all the prophets, enlightened ones, and other “crazies” before me) could simply be the result of psychotic episodes, but in my defense (and theirs), I still manage to excel at work, maintain healthy relationships with other human beings, and generally carry on as well as the next guy.

I’m also not exhibiting anything that I think anyone would argue is “interference with social or occupational functioning” (to quote the DSM-IV), but I also only have a BA in Psychology. I’m not a “Professional Psychologist” and I have never been officially evaluated. And I never will be, because I would argue that it is those people currently living what is considered to be a “normal” lifestyle that are the crazy ones who need help. Why do you think most people are so heavily medicated, reliant on entertainment, interested in other people’s lives rather than their own, and so unhappy in general?

I should admit, however, that unlike the historical Jesus, Buddha, Krishnamurti himself, and other individuals like them, I am thus far incapable of remaining in this state for an extended period of time. In fact, I have not yet managed to remain in the state of heightened awareness for any longer than a few hours (at least not without chemical assistance). The typical (unassisted) experience often lasts for only a few fleeting minutes. I believe this is due to the fact that I have yet to fully overcome my own mental-cognitive trap, and I expect this cycling in and out to continue as long as I remain attached to personal history and self-importance (to borrow some Don Juan terminology).

And so, in staunch opposition to many of the statements made by people like Krishnamurti, Buddha, and others who have attempted to explain the enlightened state, it doesn’t seem to me like it’s a one time deal, or a fire-and-forget type of permanent awakening, in which that first movement into it is enough to last forever. But as I write this, I do feel quite confident that it’s likely just my tendency to cling to the “me”, to my concepts, my beliefs, my so-called “rationality”, and all the rest, which is restraining me from making that jump in a permanent way. Perhaps I’ll never be able to overcome that, and am destined to only receive what I call “glimpses” of that underlying order.

I would imagine that enlightenment, heightened awareness, or the state of total attention must conform to the same rules as everything else in the universe, specifically that each exist in an impermanent way. Thus, even though we are capable of entering that state of awareness, if we fail to follow the flow, ride along with the wavelength, or live according to the Tao, we cannot hope to remain in the enlightened state, and slip out of it back into regular awareness. I think that is precisely the motivation for Krishnamurti’s constant reminders that attending requires following along with the “career” or the “movement” of reality, of the world, and of oneself (which are all the same, as “I am the world, and the world is me“). To paraphrase his words- a static thing is dead, and therefore has no meaning.

It’s seems to make perfect sense to me, especially as I’m writing this and thinking through it, that making the complete act of attention lies in the negation of the division between “self” and “other”, since that division promotes the idea of a permanent, or stable self. Because when we make that initial division, we enter a mental state, or conceptual structure in which the stable, constant, or permanent entity (the “Me”) emerges from out of the chaos and background noise of the universe (the “Not Me”). And as long as there is that belief in stability, or essential independent existence of any sort, there can be no movement into heightened awareness, which requires the complete negation of such conceptual constructions!

I would even like to argue that this division between “me” and “not me” is not only the first, but also the only mistake that we are truly capable of making. In fact, you could even call it “Original Sin” if you were so inclined. Incredibly, I’ve never felt like I understood that term until just now, but in light of this, it seems to make perfect sense. And importantly, that first division between “I” and “not I” begets divisions of its own, because the division becomes infinitely divisible. Those divisions then gain additional weight, causing increasing divisiveness  as the thing snowballs out of control the more that we attach ourselves to the “self”, until we reach the point faced by modern society- which is the reason for having this discussion in the first place. We now, each every one of us, live in a world riddled with illusory divisions encouraging conflict, aggression, misery, and suffering.

But isn’t it amazing how we started talking about Krishnamurti, delved into Buddhism, and just emerged through the most important doctrine of Christianity itself (Original Sin)? Doesn’t it amaze you that so many supposedly radically different religious systems (each of which is supposedly the “only true religion”) are in reality so similar, and even appear to be discussing the same exact thing, but using different words and metaphors?

Does it blow your mind too that by openly discussing and comparing them- without avoiding the pitfalls of political correctness- that we can find so much common ground?

Doesn’t it make you wonder if perhaps some of these ancient cultures didn’t have a pretty good idea about what they were talking about? About themselves, their place in the world, and maybe even the universe at large?

Doesn’t it make you worry that perhaps humanity has strayed down the wrong path, gone back into what will eventually be deemed the “Second Dark Ages”, and lost all touch with some aspect of ourselves that would allow us to better understand reality like some of those ancient peoples?

And don’t you wonder if we can’t reclaim that lost aspect by opening an honest dialogue with each other (like I’m attempting to do here), and by celebrating our similarities rather than defining ourselves by them, then attempting to destroy each other through commercial, political, and literal war?

If you’re anything like me then these are the types of thoughts you find yourself pondering, this is why you’re interested in the topic at all. These are the reasons for which you “seek”, they are why you get out of bed in the morning, and why you’ve read this far into this post.

Do you think it could be our tendency to spend so much of our waking lives inside which has so dramatically reduced our ability to understand reality, to live as happy, healthy, and whole human beings, or to achieve these states of heightened awareness?

I think it’s that essential division we’re all taught from the moment we leave the hospital at birth, between the inside and outside world- the “inner” and the “outer” division which becomes the separation between “self” and “other”, “light and dark”, “good and bad”, and all the rest of the didactic pairs- that blinds us from the reality that division itself is illusory, or at best, no more than a temporary condition (as is everything else in this impermanent state of conditioned existence).

And isn’t it true that literally everything which occurs on one side of the universe, or at one point in time, affects everything on the other side and everything that will even happen from that point on? Isn’t that exactly what interconnectedness and the laws of quantum mechanics explain?

And isn’t it amazing how such a simple idea like the fact that every action has an equal and opposite reaction (think Yin and Yang) can explain so much about our universe? Doesn’t any of this make you think for just a second that perhaps we’re all making far too much of all this, and getting lost in the details?

But to get back to the current discussion, rather posing hypothetical metaphysical questions, I do not believe that making a complete act of attention or achieving the enlightened state necessarily implies that we are at once freed forever from the trappings of regular awareness, because that simply has not been the case for me. And again, I hate to sound like such a pompous self-obsessed asshole here, because that is absolutely not my intention, but what else can I go by? Perhaps I’ve simply never achieved the full-blown state of total attention that Krishnamurti describes, or the Enlightened state as the Buddhists define it, but it certainly feels like I have.

And if I’m completely honest with both of us- myself and you, my dear Reader- I can think of no better way to explain some of my experiences other than to write them off as psychotic episodes (as I myself suggested above) but either way, I would still argue that the movement out of enhanced awareness (or insanity) occurs at the point when concentration, focus, or evaluation comes back into play- shedding even more light on Krishnamurti’s oft-repeated statement that society has a tendency to perceive “Sanity taken for Insanity”.

Either way- entering the state of heightened awareness can only be achieved once all illusions (including non-relative existence, the stability or independence of the self, and all conceptual thought) have been completely, totally, and fundamentally negated.

To relate another personal anecdote (I sure am becoming fond of these, huh?), the first time I remember becoming fully and distinctly aware of having shifted into this wildly different mental state, and having the capacity to fully engage in conscious analysis of it after recognizing it as such, the first thing I did was to ask my friend: “What do you think it was like in the time before “I”"? It seemed a sensible question at the time, and continues to seem one now- to me at least.

But her reaction, which I will never forget, was at once illustrative of what I would argue is the massive and potentially unbridgeable divide between those of us who have experienced such a mental state and those of us who are literally incapable of even conceiving that it could possibly exist.

Her response made me immediately aware (using that “sixth sense” I referred to way up above) that we were no longer perceiving ourselves, our surroundings, or the relationship that binds them (let alone thinking about it all) with the same form of awareness, or with the same toolset. In a word, I wasn’t just thinking completely outside the box, there was no box (replace box with spoon for another pseudo-philosophical pop-culture reference). Yet she was still inside it, looking at me, who she had previously thought was sitting right in there with her. The rift was simply that deep.

In fact, after I’d uttered that question, it obviously hit with such force that she looked at me in what I can imagine would be pretty close to the same way that I you’re looking at your computer monitor right now- as if you had just witnessed a person go completely insane.

And to be completely honest, I didn’t blame her for it at the time, I don’t blame her for it now, and I won’t blame you either, especially after my personal disorientation and difficulty with accepting all of this after having experienced the movement in and out of it so many times in recent months. It is, in a word, fundamentally different from anything that I have ever experienced before, sometimes scary, and always unnerving (at least when moving back into the “normal” mode of perception).

In fact, it’s so different and so unlike the normal mode of perception that I sometimes even find it impossible to remember anything that occurred during the time I was “there”, or “here”, or whatever you want to call it (neither of those really fit the bill). It often feels as if I’d been simply turned off for that period of time during which my awareness was altered, and all that’s left is a black, gaping hole- otherwise known as the Void, or Sunyata (another great Sanskrit word).

And like I used to be so fond of saying about a certain favorite Psychedellic: “There was the time before mushrooms, and then there’s now.” But what I didn’t realize at the time was that my statement had very little to do with the actual mushrooms themselves, and everything to do with the vast difference between the constrained, limited, and conflicted awareness of my everyday life (that of the regular “I”), and the expansive, unlimited, and infinite awareness which I experienced while under their influence, and recently in my self-cultivated meditation-induced states of heightened awareness.

It’s the difference, the incredible difference, which is important, not the experience, or the tool used to arrive at that state, which matters. It’s in the difference, that immeasurable gulf between the two states of perception, out of which real understanding arises. Because in that difference, everything- the self, the universe, and the relationship that binds the two- is at once illuminated.

But to try and wrap this up, because I doubt any of you have even made it this far, I would argue that as long as there is an “observer separate from the observed” (Krishnamurti’s phrase), an “I” separate from the “Not I”, or any other form of separation at all between “self” and “other”, that there is no possibility for making a complete act of attention or for achieving the enlightened state.

And as long as there is such a division, there must also necessarily be conflict. And where there is conflict, there will also be suffering.

And “I” will no longer promote that, for “I” have seen that there is indeed A Wholly Different Way of Living.

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.

=== Thoughts ===

I find it remarkable that the comprehension of each and every daily quote seems to be so important for achieving a complete understanding of what academicians would call Krishnamurti’s “teachings”, “philosophy”, or “intellectual system”- all terms which I feel quite confident that the man himself would most certainly reject.

But a deep understanding of his use of the term “attention” (or more precisely of “making a complete act of attention”) is necessary for understanding anything else that Krishnamurti discusses, because it’s the hinge upon which everything he talks about swivels. You could even argue that making the complete act of attention is the cumulative action of the performance of real meditation.

And so, in light of its relative importance for his Philosophy, and the discussions on this Blog, I’d like to attempt to clarify the above passage with a couple of personal experiences of my own. I’ve been watching Led Zeppelin concerts on DVD all night, so let’s start by using the act of watching them as an analogy.

Let me start off by saying that each and every one of us, from the moment we are born, is trained or conditioned to develop what society calls the “skill” of concentration. Every influence on our awareness is in one way or another refining our ability to concentrate, to our own detriment. From your kindergarten teacher to Yoda (“Concentraaaaaaate!”), just about everyone you’ve ever interacted with in any way has encouraged you to to hone your concentrative powers, whether they meant to or not.

But to get back to my example, as I focused my own powers of concentration on the Led Zeppelin concerts, and especially Jimmy Page’s virtuoso guitar performances, I found myself focusing on individual facets or elements of the total picture of what I was seeing and hearing- like the way Jimmy’s fingers flowed so effortlessly over his guitar’s fretboard, the look of concentration on his face as he focused on making the right movements, or even the sight of his incredible dragon outfit that he wore during the Earl’s Court concert.

And as I concentrated on those things, I found that the rest of the band’s performance, my own reaction to it, and even the things happening in the room around me in the present time were completely shut off from my awareness. But why did these other aspects of the performance, like his band mates movements, Robert Plant’s own insane outfit, or the cat walking across my bed get blocked out? And why was I incapable of perceiving all of those things, along with Jimmy’s finger movements, at the same time?

It’s quite simple, and incredibly pertinent to the topic of attention. Simply put, the way that concentration works is by establishing a filter to screen all of our perceptions, evaluate them, and removing those that we have deemed to be “unimportant”. This filter blocks off those things which we’ve judged to hold little or no value, allowing us to narrow in on and focus additional mental energy on the particular aspects of our perception that we believe do have something to offer.

Concentration serves a distinct purpose, and makes perfect evolutionary sense by helping us to more effectively complete individual tasks, but it also poses a serious problem for our ability to understand life as a whole, causing us to “lose the forest for the trees”. And it’s become an increasingly nefarious problem with the increasing fragmentation, dissociation, and isolation being brought about by modern living in the digital age.

But to return to my example, because I was watching the Zeppelin DVD to help with my own guitar technique, my own concentrative filter had quite reasonably deemed Jimmy Page’s movements and mannerisms to be the most important aspect of the performance, leading me to focus exclusively on him- while completely irnoring the rest of what was happening on stage, inside of myself, and even in the room around me. And as my example shows, the process of concentration must be a necessarily limiting action.

The act of concentration is a behavior that prevents us from achieving complete awareness of ourselves, our environment, and that fundamentally important relationship that binds the two together. Concentration focuses our awareness on one or the other, causing us to forget that each is molded and shaped by the other in an endless dance of symbiotic evolution. And thus, when concentration is at work, there is no possibility for achieving any sort of real understanding, or for the emergence of what Krishnamurti calls the “flowering of intelligence”.

In the rest of this post I will seek to shed further light on the subtleties of this problem, which I would like to argue is the most important issue that modern human beings face.

—

Continued here: “Difference Between Concentration And Attention – Part II“

Instead of listing the things that I’m thankful for, I’d like to talk about the difference between what I have, what I want, and what I need. And let me start by saying that most of the “What I’m thankful for” lists are typically dominated by what people have and want, rather than what they need. (This post is going to get a little preachy- I apologize in advance for that).

What I have:

Put simply, way too much stuff. From all the camera gear to the car, the books, guitars, backpacking and camping gear, and all the assorted collectibles, knick-knacks, trinkets, and souvenirs I’ve accumulated over the years, I’ve got far more than I could ever use, and really entirely more than I deserve.

I’ve got so much stuff I hardly even have room for it all, and compared to most of humanity (that vast majority of us who live on less than $2 a day), I’ve ever got too much space to fill- not that Americans, Westerners, or so-called citizens of “industrialized” nations would agree with that statement.

And do I need all this stuff? Absolutely not. Why do I own so many t-shirts, so many pairs of pants, so many camera lenses, and three guitars (of which I only regularly play one)? Why do I own so many books, when I can obviously only read a single piece of literature at a time? Why have I collected so many things over the years, when all that they do is sit around gathering dust and taking up shelf space (and making me think that I need even larger digs just to hold it all!)?

Like most of us, (and this time by “us” I mean those of us living in consumerist societies- not the $2 a day types), I’ve fallen victim to that all-too-common burning desire to acquire possessions- so heavily promoted by marketing and advertising agencies, pop culture, and society at large. Even though I detest the idea of it, I’ve certainly done my own “keeping up with the Jones’s”. And my debit card statements can certainly attest to that.

Yet most surprising of all (to me at least) is that each purchase I make seems to be “the last and final piece of the puzzle”- that last piece of backpacking gear, last camera lens, last pair of pants, or last book which I so desperately “need”. That last item, which after acquiring, I’ll never have to purchase anything again. Each and every time I buy something, I tell myself- “This is it! Now my collection is complete!”

And yet, it never is.

What I want:

Fortunately, the things I want tend to be immaterial, and unrelated to worldly possessions or societal status. I’m not sure why, but some mix of genes and environment has led me to focus more on existential conditions (like “freedom”) than the types of things that most people seem to desire.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a big time possession guy, (a quick browsing of my backpacking and camera gear lists proves that), but my material desires stop far short of where I think most people’s continue to run. I don’t want the gigantic house, the fancy car, the immaculate wardrobe, high-powered job, or social status that everyone else seems to crave.

Unfortunately, one of the things that I do want (especially in moments of weakness or insecurity) is a beautiful, intelligent, kind, and loving woman to share my life with. And I don’t mean to be stereotypical, pessimistic, or sexist (even though I know that’s what I’m doing here), but most of the females I’ve met tend to want exactly those things that I’ve outlined above (in addition to the one other thing that I really want to avoid: kids).

Perhaps it’s because I’m only 26 and just don’t have enough life experience under my belt, perhaps I’ve just run with entirely the wrong crowd (the college educated tend to be far more desirous of these types of things), or perhaps it’s just that I’ve always lived in Southern California and have absolutely no idea what actual human beings are really like, but the vast majority of people that I’ve met (and females in particular) seem to crave mostly material possessions and those things typically associated with society’s standards of what it means to be “successful” (a respected career, home ownership, a nuclear family, etc.).

Now, while most people are unlikely to admit that their hopes and dreams lie in a acquiring the newest Mercedez Benz, or the gigantic house overlooking the ocean, isn’t that how most of them actually behave? Isn’t that why most people sit in offices every day, slaving away the best years of their lives, and the vast majority of their waking hours? Again, it could just be a Southern California thing, but it seems to me like this is pretty much universal human behavior, based on what I’ve seen throughout the United States, Mexico, Thailand, and China.

And when people talk about “being happy”, I will be first to admit that they tend to say they want to remain healthy into old age, raise a fully functional, emotionally stable, tightly-knit family, and live out a modest life of leisure- eating good food, owning nice things, and basically pursuing their interests, passions, and hobbies- but is that how those very same people act?

Which brings me to the real point of this post.

The other night I came across a Tweet by Sabrina (happinessfresno), which I’d like to share with all of you:

“But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a person and the life they lead?~Albert Camus”

I immediately thought of the incredibly simple, yet beautifully elegant concept that Psychologists refer to as “Cognitive Dissonance“, which I can honestly say is single-handedly responsible for having the largest impact on my life out of everything that I’ve ever been exposed to.

What I need:

What I need is to find that “simple harmony” in my life which Albert Camus refers to in the above quote. What I need is to be able to put aside the complicated and intricate self-image which I’ve been constructing for these last 26 years- the desires, the attachments, and the clinging to self importance and personal history.

What I need is to live a life of total and complete freedom, unattached to any person, place, posession, or concept.

And what I hope is that somehow the rest of humanity wakes up one morning with the full realization that this is both entirely possible, and in fact, absolutely necessary if we’re to make any progress as a species and a civilization.

And that’s why I continue to write posts to this Blog, and share my inner thoughts with all of you- no matter how scary that might be.

How can one be free of the images that one has? First of all, I must find out how these images come into being, what is the mechanism that creates them.

You can see that at the moment of actual relationship, that is, when you are talking, when there are arguments, when there are insults and brutality, if you are not completely attentive at that moment, then the mechanism of building an image starts.

That is, when the mind is not completely attentive at the moment of action, then the mechanism of building images is set in motion. When you say something to me which I do not like—or which I like—if at that moment I am not completely attentive, then the mechanism starts.

If I am attentive, aware, then there is no building of images.

The Awakening of Intelligence, p 337

=== Thoughts ===

To put it very simply:

We begin building images when we interpret our surroundings, in terms of our previous experience.

To dig a little deeper:

Image building occurs at the point of our encounter with something that we do not pay complete and total attention to. We build an image about something when we perceive it with divided attention. Be it another person, idea, or even natural scenery, if we do anything more than to take it in with our eyes, ears, noses, mouths, hands, etc., then we begin to build an image.

If we are incapable of perceiving it without evaluating it, without comparing it, and without measuring it, then we begin to build an image. And when we build an image about it, we are evaluating our perception of it, rather than perceiving or experiencing the thing itself. Typically, our evaluation takes place in terms of like or dislike, attraction or repulsion, intrigue or disgust, or comparison to some similar thing which we’ve already encountered (and created an image about).

For most of us, everything we meet is treated in this way. For most of us, we evaluate everything we meet because we do not meet anything with complete attention. When we encounter something, we are busy thinking about something else, and an occupied (or divided) mind is obviously quite incapable of perceiving wholly, totally, or with complete attention.

Our distracted mind becomes incapable of simply watching the situation in front of our eyes, listening to the sounds being delivered to our ears, or tasting the food we’re eating, because we’re busy thinking about completely different things. And even worse, most of us are so used to behaving in this way- to classifying, categorizing, and evaluating everything that we come into contact with- that we have become literally incapable of experiencing anything new!

Everything we meet is therefore evaluated, translated, and judged in terms of what we’ve already experienced. Everything we meet is compared to the most similar thing that we’ve previously encountered. Therefore, everything we meet is conceptualized in terms of it’s relationship to that incredibly complicated mental structure- that complex image- which we have already formed about our world, about ourselves, and about reality.

Thus, whatever we encounter is judged in terms of that hierarchy, according to our preconceived mental structures, and placed in it’s proper spot. It is classified, conceptualized, and categorized within that intricate structure that we carry around with us at all times, and use to meet each new experience. And most of us feel that we must perform this behavior (whether consciously or subconsciously) if we are to understand the things we meet. But in reality, our reduction of things to images negates the possibility for understanding anything at all!

And, lacking that understanding of the things that we meet, we miss out on the real beauty of the flower, the tree, or the light on the water. Instead we evaluate it’s beauty in terms of our ideas (our images) about “beauty”, about what it means to “beautiful”. And as they say- “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”- but that is only the case while the beholder remains attached to his image of beauty.

Let’s use an example to illustrate this idea; one that Krishnamurti himself has discussed before.

When we walk past the rose, we’re likely to say to ourselves something like: There is the “rose”. I have been expecting it, and now it has come. It is absolutely beautiful, more beautiful than any other “rose” I’ve ever seen. [Or, alternatively, It is not as beautiful as the rose I saw yesterday, It is hideous, or even It is pretty, but not that pretty.]

It does not matter whether this particular rose is the best or the worst “rose” that we have ever encountered. The point is that as long as we remain attached to measuring it in terms of it’s relative beauty compared to other “roses” (to our image about what it means to be a rose), we are incapable of perceiving this instance of the rose as it actually exists. We perceive it as the “rose”, rather than the rose because we are chained to our image of the “rose” as it should exist.

Instead of perceiving this rose as completely new (which it is), since it is quite obviously entirely different from all the “roses” which we’ve previously encountered, we classify it, we measure it, we judge it, we interpret it, and we evaluate it. We create an image about it- the image of the “rose”.

And thus, we never experience the rose. We only meet our image of the “rose”.

Attention is this hearing and this seeing, and this attention has no limitation, no resistance, so it is limitless. To attend implies this vast energy: it is not pinned down to a point. In this attention there is no repetitive movement; it is not mechanical. There is no question of how to maintain this attention, and when one has learnt the art of seeing and hearing, this attention can focus itself on a page, a word.

In this there is no resistance which is the activity of concentration. Inattention cannot be refined into attention. To be aware of inattention is the ending of it: not that it becomes attentive. The ending has no continuity. The past modifying itself is the future—a continuity of what has been—and we find security in continuity, not in ending.

So attention has no quality of continuity. Anything that continues is mechanical. The becoming is mechanical and implies time. Attention has no quality of time. All this is a tremendously complicated issue. One must gently, deeply go into it.

Letters to the Schools vol II, p 31

=== Thoughts ===

Well, he’s certainly right about one thing- this is a tremendously complicated issue, and like usual, it’s fundamentally important that we all have a deep and total understanding of what’s being discussed here. Even I had to read this quote a couple times before I really knew what Krishnamurti was talking about, and I study his works religiously. So let’s do something a little different this time, and take things to a personal level. I’ll try to illustrate the ideas expressed above with an example from my daily life.

On Friday morning I got up and started getting ready for work, like I normally do, except that I did things a little differently. (As the Thai’s are so fond of saying “same, same, but different”.  I spent the first few minutes of my day in silent observation, and watched my mind emerge from it’s nightly slumber. As I observed the usual activity of thoughts starting to slowly roll out of the void, gaining momentum with each new idea, and each increasing level of attachment to those ideas, I did something different from usual, and simply refused to identify with them. Instead of getting carried away by what I was thinking, instead of attaching myself to those thoughts and becoming absorbed by them like usual, I simply watched them unfold, and disappear back into the void, observing myself from a somewhat detached state.

You see, over the past year, since I really began watching myself in earnest, since I’ve become fully aware of my daily behavior, I’ve become increasingly convinced that the best way to stop attachment is to cut it off at the source, at the very first moment of consciousness, right after waking up. I’ve found this to be by far the best way to keep my mind from spiraling rapidly out of control; because that’s what thought causes it to do! Thought divides me from the environment, sucking my attention inward as if it were trapped in a vortex, focusing it on my internal mental constructs, ideas, and beliefs.

As Krishnamurti explains above, and as I’ve experienced it in daily living, thought reduces attention to concentration. While attention implies total awareness of myself and my surroundings, including the relationship connecting the two, concentration is a focused or limited awareness of some particular individual aspect of one or the other, in which the relationship between the two is completely lost. Concentration implies a divided, limited, and entirely subjective state of consciousness. Concentration itself is a mental state in which reality cannot possibly be experienced for what it actually is, because it represents an abstraction, a simplification, or evaluation of that which is real.

When I wake up each morning, my mind immediately launches off from that initial starting point of the first thought, which is to say the first division between “self” and “other”, and rockets me toward an infinite web of other remembrances, fears, desires, and insecurities. The more attached I become to these thoughts, the more momentum they build up, and the further refined my concentration or focus becomes, to the detriment of my ability to pay attention to everything happening both around, and inside of me. And without that consciousness of attention, I have noticed in practice that I have absolutely no chance of understanding anything, or operating with intelligence (as Krishnamurti would put it).

As I woke up Friday morning though, I watched the rotors of my mind spin up and begin to roll out that familiar line of thoughts, but instead of getting lost in them like usual, instead of attaching my consciousness to them, and instead of becoming completely absorbed by them, I merely observed them. Like Krishnamurti says above, I was aware of the thoughts as inattention, and as such, they dissolved on their own, returning to the void from whence they came. Instead of focusing on my thoughts, I refused to focus on anything whatsoever. I simply observed my surroundings, and watched the process of my mind emerging from deep sleep. Instead of turning my attention inward, I refused to turn it in any direction whatsoever.

With a completely unfocused attention, I was able to participate in my morning ritual in a completely different way. Instead of focusing on my thoughts, I listened to the water coming out of the shower head, and felt it running down my body. I felt the soft cloth of the towel, and watched the response of my hair to the brush. And throughout the entire process of getting ready, I felt the beating of my heart, the breathing of my lungs, and the other movements of my body.

And amazingly, that usually highly repetitive daily process of getting ready for work took on an entirely new light! All of my movements and actions seemed new, fresh, and entirely full of life. And while thoughts occasionally cropped up, they inevitably slipped off back into the void as I refused to limit my attention by focusing on them.

As I walked to my car, I continued to observe my surroundings, looking at the fresh morning light, smelling the dew on the grass, and listening to the sounds of the birds chirping. When I caught sight of a Red-Tailed Hawk sitting up on top of one of the trees, I stopped and watched it for a few minutes, even though I felt like I should be hurrying off to work. And while I watched the Hawk, I became fully and deeply aware of the amazing color of the morning sky, the gentle breeze tickling my hair, and the cool, crisp morning air on my exposed skin. I felt completely alive, and fully present in the moment as it unfolded, undistracted, and undivided by concetration.

It was a beautiful morning to be sure, but even more so because I was actually experiencing it for what it is, instead of interpreting it according to my own ideas (like most of us usually do), or in a half-assed way, by dividing my attention by placing some of it’s focus on my internal dialogue. Without that distraction of the internal thought-stream, and without my attention limited by focused concentration, I was able to look, see, smell, taste, feel, and touch the world around me in a way that seemed entirely different; more complete, or real.

As I opened the door to the car I listened to the noise of the hinges, and felt the metal of the handle. I looked at the car, not as that all-too familiar possession that is “my car”, but as an incredibly complicated and intricate device; as a real work of art, and creative ingenuity. And as I started the engine, I listened to it’s sounds, felt it’s vibrations, and waited patiently for it to heat up. I watched the windshield defrost, following the many little streams of water, like so many rivers, running down the sides of the windows. I never felt like I was in a hurry. I never felt rushed. I just watched and listened to everything happening around me, watching the events unfold from a state of unfixed and unfocused attention. No one thing, including myself, was more important than any other. There was no evaluation, interpretation, or valuation of any of the actions happening around me, there was only observation.

And when I started my drive to work, I didn’t turn on the radio or even put on any music. And I didn’t feel bored at all, on the contrary! Instead, I listened with rapt attention to the acceleration of the car, and devoutly watched the scenery pass by. I sat patiently at a red light, waiting for my turn to join that slow crawling morning commute, and watched with fascination as a thick blanket of fog slowly rose over the freeway. And when I merged into the line of cars snaking their way up the 405, I didn’t race over to the fast lane like I usually do, but stayed to the right, without experiencing the typical feeling that I was losing in some kind of a race.

I felt no need to rush, no need to hurry, and none whatsoever to compete with everyone around me. Because I wasn’t comparing myself to them. Because I was living in a space where the “I” takes no more precedence than anything else! Measure never even came into the picture, even though that’s what I’d usually do. This morning, things seemed different. I was experiencing everything as entirely new. That typical feeling of disgust and revulsion toward the morning commute, that most monotonous and obnoxious of all of my daily routines, never even entered into my mind. At peace with my surroundings, I simply observed the world around me. Even though I was on my way to work, it felt as if I had nowhere to be, and absolutely nothing to do. Simply enjoyed my surroundings.

I felt no revulsion, no anger, no disappointment, and no frustration. I didn’t mind sitting at red lights, crawling up the freeway at low speed, or even arriving at my cubicle  for another nine hour stretch of monotonous work-life. I didn’t feel trapped, confined, or even disgusted by the rat race, as I normally do. Instead, I took my time. I enjoyed my morning. I explored the world around me, and my reactions to it, without becoming attached to them, without identifying with them. The process of getting to work didn’t feel at all like the usual race to the cubicle, but like an ambling saunter through the world of man. And all of this because I was experiencing the world from a place of attention, rather than concentration.

Imagine the possibilities for your own life!

And, to get a little preachy, while I’d be the first to call the world of men entirely corrupt, disgusting, and morally bankrupt, I’m also aware that this is the world each one of us has helped to create (myself included, of course). Each one of us sustains this world with our daily behavior, and our repetitive thoughts and actions. And while I’d also be first to say that this world should, and needs to change, I’d also be first to admit that this won’t happen until each and every one of us changes first. And by us, I mean you and me. We must change. And we must change now.

But we need not meditate (in the usual sense of that word), we need not prostrate (as we’ve been told), we need not perform recitation of mantra (as the Guru says), nor accumulation of karma (as some Buddhists proclaim).

We must simply refuse to continue dividing ourselves from our surroundings. We must refuse to make divisions. We must cut off that habitual attachment to and obsession with our thoughts.

As Krishanmurti often explains, “the first step is the last”. That first glimpse of reality is all that it takes. Once you get that glimpse the entire system of accumulation and identification is finished!

The rest of your life becomes the act of living, rather than a response to being alive. And let me tell you, this requires both a fundamental and radical adjustment. And it is a thing which must be experienced to be fully understood.

And none of your so-called “spiritual” activity has anything to do with it! At no point in this lifetime, no matter how hard you try, will you ascend to some alternate reality, living in a land that sparkles like diamonds, where everyone is happy, and everything is beautiful.

But, if you refuse to focus you attention, if you refuse to limit it with concentration, you can find a space for yourself in this world which will fill you will joy, excitement, energy, and love. You can find freedom in this world. And you can make it a better place in the process. And the simple beauty, and the point of all this, is that all you have to do is try.

]]> http://www.chayacitra.com/2009/11/to-be-aware-of-inattention/feed/ 0