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Dialogue began December 24, 2007 (to May 4, 2008):
| There is only ever one insight
There is only ever one insight. It is quite ludicrous to talk of a series of insights or a partial insight. Insight means to see the whole picture of the self; it can’t mean anything else. To see merely one corner of that picture really has no meaning at all because the other corners may be totally different colours, shapes, sizes and textures. So it means also that all previous insight is redundant and completely meaningless.
There is only one insight, which is right now and which is whole. Living as we do in the temporal world of thought, we give credence to some sort of progression of insight, of steadily increasing clarity and of a more frequent occurrence. But insight is outside of that temporal world. There is just one insight into the whole field of oneself and that first insight is the last. There isn’t a second, a third, a fortieth, a hundredth insight; there is only one.
When you put aside the memory of every single insight you might ever have had, you are left with the fact that you have never had insight at all. Now can one see that fact? Seeing that fact is the insight, and from the seeing there is a complete action.
- Paul Dimmock
~ It is clear that insight is in the now, beyond time, beyond all knowledge and memory. It is not accumulative. This means by implication that insight can only take place when the mind is quiet, free of all verbalization. It is not that insight produces a quiet or silent mind - it is the other way round, and this is one of the great difficulties. That is, our minds are very seldom quiet, which raises the question whether we can actually have a total insight.
Is there not a state of complete attention for insight to occur?
What is the central barrier to such an insight? Memory is the blockage, is it not? Thought is constantly interfering with all its reactions, yet thought cannot be either denied or suppressed, though as past knowledge (conclusions) it can be set aside. But do we abandon all past knowledge when we listen to the talks, or to anyone for that matter?
- DM
Paul: Yes, when there is love we abandon everything. Only that matters.
~ Dialogue is an exploration, is it not? In this sense it is questioned whether terms such as 'complete action' and 'love' have value in clarifying the enquiry. Are these words more about what should be, rather than the actual fact of the state we are in? Surely it is of more value to start with the facts, rather than concepts and imponderables?
Paul: Then we have to look at what love is not and what it means to live a life of incomplete action and of fragmented behaviour - that’s one way to go about it. But I prefer to jump into the deep end first. Because it seems to me we have paddled in the shallow waters for ages and ages, and still nothing much happens. We have years and years of talks, seminars and dialogues which have held up that mirror to ourselves of how greedy we are, how lazy and muddled, and all the other facts about ourselves, but still we don’t dare to go further out beyond those shallows.
Love is only an imponderable if we say we know what it is. Then it becomes something terribly mysterious, intangible and, eventually, something corrupt. In not knowing what love is we have to find out what it is, and the act of finding out is then an act of love; so it is no longer just a word or a concept. And I think one can only find out anything when one jumps in at the deep end; that is, when all past knowledge is abandoned. Most people don’t do that when they listen to K. They listen for a reason, for a reward, for a way out of their own particular pain. So they are all the while listening only to their own reflected thoughts.
You see, when I used the word ‘love’ you reacted to that word because of its many connotations and because of the importance placed upon it culturally, traditionally, religiously and emotionally. So you hear the word ‘love’ through that screen of memories - personal and private memories as well as deeply embedded racial memories. But does love itself have any memory?
~ There was not a reaction to that word love, for I hold no image of it. There was a response to an abstraction, as there was also to the term 'complete action', as these words are not actual realities in our lives. Thought is a past master at reducing everything to its abstract.
Why has 'nothing much happened' for such a long time? What is the central barrier that prevents us from change? Fear? Is this more important than jumping in the deep end; having an awareness of the barriers actually operating in the mind?
We can only find out what love is by finding out what love is not. It is not incidental that negation is the approach (and approach is not method, as some persist in thinking.). Find out through negative thinking, rather than a positive approach, which is the action of the self. Eliminate what love is not, and love is.
The real issue here, as pointed out, is that we don't really listen. Is this missing quality in listening the key we have failed to grasp?
Paul: But is love the abstraction here? I feel it is desperately important to be clear about this point. If love is and remains an abstraction I feel we are wasting our time. And if it is an abstraction now it will remain an abstraction tomorrow. Do you follow what I’m saying? If we haven’t got that quality of affection now then it won’t arrive later through our concerted endeavours, however subtle. A quality of affection not only for each other but also for the very thing we are examining together, which is our life. That quality of affection may be the missing factor that makes listening so difficult.
For me, fear is far more abstract than love, a thousand times more abstract. Remember that we started out by saying that we have never had insight into all this, which includes insight into the roots of fear; we have never had insight into ourselves at all. Now is there fear when we hear that? Or does the fact of it obliterate every trace of fear? Because either we resist what we hear and cling to something from yesterday as a form of reassurance, or there is nothing we can do in the face of this overwhelming fact. But is it a fact or is it merely a statement? We have never had psychological insight at all. How are we listening to this?
~ We should start with considering what the word abstract means, in the dictionary sense - 'a concept or idea not associated with any specific instance; something considered theoretically'. This is the context here in which this word is used.
It is not that love itself (whatever that actual state is) is an abstraction, it is that for one who is without this love the idea of it is abstract. You cannot talk about love (that is, in the generally accepted meaning of the word - universal compassion) if you don't feel and live it in your heart - it is only an idea, a theoretical state to be achieved.
There is a distinction drawn here between that state of universal love and ordinary care and affection. You undeniably need care and affection to understand something; you cannot understand your child if you don't care for it, if you condemn it. One can have a daily care and affection for something, such as a vocation or a close friend, but that certainly doesn't mean that person has a universal love for all things.
This quality of care and affection is undeniably essential for listening. Everyone is capable of this affection; this is not reserved for a privileged few. But if you listen in order to condemn, or judge, or to justify a conclusion you have already drawn, then that is not real listening.
Fear is not an abstract thing, surely, in the context outlined above. Everyone knows the feeling of fear; it is an actuality, daily, in our lives. And do we not do everything to run away from it, to never come into direct contact with it - is that the real problem?
Paul: What is fear? Let’s be clear what we mean by this word. It may well be an actuality in daily life, but what is an actuality can also be an abstraction. If we have lived from childhood in the world of abstractions it is quite natural to have this feeling that abstractions are part of reality. For example, for most people their sense of ‘self’ is an actuality, an unquestioned reality. So what is fear? And how shall we find out what it is?
~ It is more accurate to say that an actuality can be made by thought into an abstraction, is it not?
Whoever said that the self is not a reality? It's a construction of thought to be sure, but it exists as an actuality in our lives. You cannot dismiss it as merely an illusion; it is the central part of the thinking process and has to be seen for what it is. To ignore it as an illusion is to miss the whole point of self-knowledge. One has to understand the thought process that has produced the self (and why), and if one dismisses the self one is simply escaping from looking at oneself. It is this understanding of the entire structure of thought and its creation that will end it.
That's the given behind all this dialogue is it not? - self-knowledge (read self-understanding). This is as old as the Buddha himself.
Equally, fear is a construction of thought as time - yes? It is very clear that if there were no psychological time produced by thought there would be no fear. In the instant of an actual life-and-death emergency there is no fear - fear only arises later through the thought process and then is perpetuated through memory (and associated with a feeling). Nonetheless, in the sense of the self above, fear is an actuality and has to be faced in the now and understood.
If we make fear into an abstraction, a mere idea, we are avoiding it are we not?
Paul: But without the abstraction, what is fear? Does it exist at all as something that is separate from the idea of it? Take as an example the fear of death, which is one of our greatest human fears, is that not based entirely on abstraction and ideation? One can’t fear the fact of death because one has never met the fact, but one can meet the idea about the fact and tremble at that idea. This is what we do. This is how we live our lives. As you say, the actuality can be made by thought into the abstraction: but isn’t that very process the crucible of fear? Thought meeting a crisis or a challenge in the only way it knows, which is through memory based on its own previous and limited experience. This means the crisis or the challenge of the new is perpetually interpreted through an old pattern.
So rather than escaping from looking at oneself, I am asking what this actually means. I am questioning the whole notion of self-knowledge and self-understanding. Is there even a self to look at? That’s my point. Or what we call the self is merely a bundle of memories. So the self is only a memory. And who will examine this bundle except another fragment of the same bundle? So I stick to this: that we have never had insight at all. It means that nothing of psychological value has ever been collected from yesterday and stored away for our use today or tomorrow. So the Buddha is out. That may sound severe, but it gets worse: K is also out. Therefore what is left?
~ Abstractions and ideas must be understood for what they are, the falseness of what they are, must they not? Likewise, fear in and of itself has to be fully understood - that is, as stated previously, the very roots of fear (the thought process) - in order for it to end. This understanding necessarily includes how thought makes an abstraction of fear, creates ideas about it.
Fear does not exist as a separate entity from the idea of it - no. Yet fear exists - it cannot be denied. The self, equally, has not a separate, independent existence from thought.
Of course there is the thought-constructed self to be looked at. If you watch your whole thinking process throughout the day, you see that it is always about the "me". My pleasure, my gratification, my fulfilment, my thoughts, my possessions, my future, my past. Our whole lives revolve around the self. And of course the self is made up of memories, but all this process needs to be looked at, not airily dismissed or denied out of actuality - which is a clever escape from it.
Yes, this man and the Buddha are out. The talks do not contain the truth. This is clear. They are facts which are a mirror to ourselves only, a pointing to all the ways of thought, time, and the self.
You know what is left? Awareness. It all comes down to this. Silent, choiceless, awareness, which is awareness without an observer. Not a fragment looking at all the other fragments. Just awareness. Have we ever been actually just aware?
Paul: Let’s be very clear. We are not saying that fear is merely an idea, an illusion. If it were, it could easily be replaced by a better idea or illusion. That’s what a lot of religions have already tried to do; they have invented their gods, heavens, salvation, reincarnation, nirvana - everything. Instead we are saying that fear is built into the very fabric of ideation, into the core of our thinking. Because we think in concepts and through abstractions that move us away from the fact, it means that we are caught always in the same kind of current: a current of fear, of thought and of time. The ending of fear is therefore no different from the ending of thought or the ending of time. They are not three different strands of the same current that can be individually fished out; they are the current. So thought cannot comprehend fear and time. And without thought there is no such thing as self-knowledge or self-understanding. The self might say, ‘I will use thought to understand myself and to cure all my problems,’ but if the self is also something put together by thought, whatever it uses is going to be eternally limited and conflicted. Our question then is, is it possible to see all this? Have we ever been actually just aware?
This is my whole point: that we have never been aware except through the mediation of an observer. Now who is going to see this fact? The observer can’t see it; the self can’t see it; and thought can’t see it - for these are all the same entity working in time, working to solve a problem, working from a sense of purpose. So what is the factor that brings about complete and immediate awareness? Isn’t it the ending of the self? Isn’t it love?
Why are we so wary of love? Without it, life has no meaning and no sanctity. That’s obvious, isn’t it? Love is not part of memory. Love is not part of thought. Love is not part of consciousness. So love and the self cannot co-exist. One cannot say, ‘I love,’ without negating the very word one is using. So when we hear that love is the factor that brings about complete awareness let’s find out exactly who is saying it. First, I am not saying it, because I have nothing to say outside of memory. Therefore, who or what is saying it? Or love is there when there is no recourse to memory of any kind. Memory is the death of love, and love cannot flower until memory is wiped away completely; but only love can wipe away memory. See the picture of it. The self cannot erase its own hurts, pains, depressions, fears, guilt, anxieties, loneliness, et cetera. The self cannot end itself. The self cannot do anything except perpetuate its own little world. And I think that love comes only when the self sees its own utter lack of love; love obliterates the self.
~ Yes, everything is interrelated - fear, time, the self and thought. One must have an insight or direct perception into the whole structure built up by thought, the totality of it. And thought is clearly not that which perceives, nor is the self. So there remains the question: what is the factor that brings about an insight? Insight arises out of silence, does it not?
Why is there this continual focus on love, when we don't know what it is? Can one really state that only "love" can wipe away memory? That love is the factor that brings about total awareness? Has this state of love been reduced to a conclusion? Why not start with the what is, the actual state of thought/self, as stated earlier - see the intrinsic limitation of it?
The question of who or what perceives is a wrong question (it is the self in the perpetual process of analyzing, of intellectualizing). Does not the organism itself perceive - the natural intelligence of the body? Does it in fact matter what perceives, so long as there is perception? The talks clearly state that in fact it is the mind that perceives - the mind operates on the limited brain of memory. The mind is separate from (that is, it wholly encompasses) the brain - yes?
Paul: We don’t know love is. So we are going to find out what it is and if it even exists at all. Nothing else matters, because we have reached a point where we see that anything made important by the self is always going to be limited and full of conflict. So we can’t find out about love through abstractions and conclusions, but only when we meet an actual fact that cannot be argued with will we know what it is. First, here is the fact of what we actually are: we are greedy, insecure, lonely, ambitious, and caught in the stream of self-centred action whatever we try to do. Now do we agree to just this one thing about ourselves that we are self-centred creatures? Do we agree to this? Not just verbally and intellectually, but at every level do we see it and meet the incontrovertible fact of it?
~ This is the whole point: we don't fully face the fact of ourself. Many have seen the essential self-centredness of their being, yet no-one changes or has changed. That is the fact. We see it intellectually but that isn't enough. There is some factor here we are not coming to grips with. There is the constant interference of thought in the seeing of anything. It is an automatic cognitive response, it is upon us before we know it, and it sets up a chain of familiar reactions. There is never a quiet brain that enables the pure observation by the mind.
This is why meditative practices are so common; this is what lies behind all the Buddhist and Zen methods, as well as drugs and all the rest of it. The goal is a quiet brain. But nothing works.
The key, as discussed above, may be listening. Listening is in the now - it is not of the self, it is not of time. Is this simple act of listening something we have overlooked?
Or is there some other deep barrier to facing the fact we are not even considering?
Paul: I am the noisy brain and my goal is silence. The noise is the noise of all my greed, anger, desire and confusion; and my goal is to reach a point of clarity, purity and fulfilment. But rather than replace one imperfect fact for a perfect goal, what happens when there is no goal at all? What happens to the fact? Doesn’t the fact alter without me having to do a thing about it? In other words, the transformation is nothing to do with me. I think this is what gets missed. It is not that I alter the fact or the fact alters me. The fact itself is transformed. I wonder if you see the beauty of this.
~ It is clear that you cannot try to alter the fact. All 'trying' is the action of will, which is the self. There is nothing you can do about the fact but be aware of it.
Again, the issue is that by looking at the fact, say of fear, fear is not permanently transformed. If that were what was required, people everywhere would be permanently ending all fear in themselves, which is patently not the case. So there is a lack of intensity in the way we are looking at the fact that fails to bring about transformation, is there not? Is it not all about intensity of attention, as well as intention?
Then there is understanding, which is not the self understanding itself - for it can't. Understanding is immediate, timeless. The brain is caught in time and only timeless attention and timeless understanding can transform it - yes?
Paul: But when one looks at fear, fear disappears. The very act of attending to fear changes the nature of the thing being looked at. This means that fear is inattention - that’s all it is. Obviously, there’s a lot more behind this than just a rather bold statement. But once we see - perhaps with just the slightest, briefest glimpse - that our problem is really only inattention and not fear, doesn’t that alter the quality of our attentiveness?
~ No, fear is a fact and is not just a matter of inattention. Nor is it a matter of merely attending to fear, it is the quality of the attention that is crucial. You must be serious about it, not play with it as a casual, theoretical, intellectual exercise. You must be passionate to find out. It is like learning about your favorite hobby - if you are really interested then you will approach the thing with an intensity, an open curiosity. You need an open intention to understand (not an intention to gain any reward - there is a difference), and without this intention all the attending in the world won't alter the fact of fear, or anything else.
The fact is that we are not really interested. What we are really interested in is in being distracted ... entertained.
Paul: That’s because most people are slaves to experience, whether physical, sexual, emotional or intellectual. To one caught in the trap of their own experiences, fear is a fact. Is it possible to live without any experiences at all? A passionately interested human being will find out if it is; and nothing can stop passion.
~ One cannot live without experience, life is a series of experiences. It is the recording of the experiences that is the problem. To live without recording experiences is to live without memory; to die every day to the events of that day. We hold memory to be all important as its accumulation is the very structure of the self. Without memory - no self.
The reason we want to be entertained is because we want to escape even temporarily from the self, do we not? The self is routine, it is dull and tedious. Hence the importance of sex, movies, drink and drugs to so many people - all to escape from the boredom resulting from the self.
Paul: Yes, it seems that we want both to escape from and to cling to the self. The essence of that contradiction is - what? Is it simply that we have never bothered really to explore the nature of ourselves? We may have been encouraged, persuaded, nudged to do it, but what does it mean really to enquire into the heart of what one is? Am I anything else other than all my experiences? Physically, I am a certain height, age, colour and shape. But psychologically what am I apart from the accumulation of every past experience? That’s what I mean by seeing if it is possible to live without experiences. It seems to make sense that only when that accumulation of the past is completely gone can one really start to live. Until then everything is merely a repetition, modified a little this way and that way, but essentially the same as yesterday.
~ You are precisely nothing if you end all your past experiences, this is the whole point. You are a unique individual in the physical sense, you have both a brain and a mind with (it is said) an extraordinary intrinsic capacity, but what are you psychologically? You are nothing, and who wants to be nothing? In this global greedy/self-obsessed society, to be nothing is to completely step outside the fear/reward system, and such a life implies insecurity at every turn.
If you look at it squarely, this is what we really want, is it not? To be secure, financially, emotionally, psychologically, in every possible way. To be certain about tomorrow, to be certain about our thoughts, opinions and attitudes. We cling to the self because we think the self is secure and we are continually buttressing it through experiences to shore up this security. But life isn't secure, and there is the essential contradiction.
So, we don't really want to explore our own nature because we sense that such an exploration will end our 'secure' psyche. Who among us wants to freely invite insecurity?
Paul: There is a sense of insecurity almost from the very first moment that one starts to explore the nature of oneself. One way to go from there is to reach out for what one already knows, for what one has already gained along the road of life. But we are asking for something quite different if a real exploration is ever to take place. We are asking for a dialogue - either with others or with oneself - wherein there is no prior knowledge at all. Now, I am wondering if such a thing can be invited or brought about deliberately. In other words, can one choose to be free of the past? That seems to me like another trick of the mind. Therefore what is one to do?
~ There is only one thing you can do and that is to be aware of the whole structure of the self and how it is built entirely on past knowledge, which perverts living freely in the present. When you are fully aware during the day of the ways of the self then an actual direct perception or insight into it may occur, which could transform it.
Of course one cannot choose to be free of knowledge, for the one who chooses is itself the accumulation of that knowledge. No action can be taken by the will, as the will is the self. There is an extraordinary passivity to the nature of awareness, which could be one of the central difficulties, as we are so predisposed to acting - or reacting - on what we see and hear. Awareness is just being aware, is it not? That awareness alone has its own action, beyond thought.
Paul: But we have never known such awareness. We have never been aware in that sense. Until now our awareness of the world has always had its roots in fear, in wariness and caution. Until now our awareness has always been as an agent of the will and of the self, of the centre which thinks it is free to choose how to act. Is it possible to be so aware of our utter lack of freedom in this quarter that it brings about an action unlike any other we have ever known?
Any action of the will is bound to be a fragmentary action, but surely there is a complete action which comes when the will is totally absent. And have we reached that point where the will is so silent and inactive that it allows an altogether different quality of consciousness to enter? After talking about it for a month, as we have been doing here, have we reached that point? Or are we still reaching beyond?
~ Is not the clue to this awareness an alertness of mind? If you watch yourself in relationship, you will discover that your responses and reactions move quickly, fleetingly, from one to another. Awareness is the watching of these reactions as they arise, from moment to moment. To do this requires a free, unencumbered mind that can move as fast as the reactions themselves. Freedom, strikingly, comes at the start and not at the end.
Does not this alert mind come into being only with a real interest in self-awareness, as stated earlier? A passion to find out the whole process of the self, without motive? If we have not got this essential serious quality of awareness after all these years - not just since the beginning of this dialogue - then why not?
Paul: All right, freedom comes at the start. But what about love? Can there be freedom without love? Did you know that the word ‘free’ has its roots in an Old English word meaning ‘friend’? So even linguistically freedom has its roots in love. To be free really means to be a friend to the whole world, to care for the whole world. Do we have that feeling? When we talk about a passion to find out the whole process of the self without motive, we need to remember that without its motives there is no self. And are we - you and I - completely without motive? In that sense, are we free human beings and therefore friends?
~ Let's start afresh. The entire structure of thought is the content of consciousness. There is no content beyond the movement of thought; thought is the entity, as it were, that is conscious. The brain, the seat of thought, is the instrument of consciousness. This consciousness, which is the mind as we know it, is therefore intrinsically self-centred and always very limited. We cannot think, even technically, without motives and self-interest perpetually coming into play, correct?
Now, freedom and awareness (listening), and compassion, or love, are not of consciousness, are they not? They are outside of it, they have to be, for consciousness cannot operate on itself, cannot transform itself - that is very clear. And all these things are intricately interconnected, so yes, freedom and love are in their essential nature one and the same. Yet, as stated previously, it is putting the cart before the horse to talk about the nature of freedom and love before we have those qualities in our minds first. Otherwise, they are merely speculative, abstract, intellectualizations. We have to begin with the facts of what we are first, observe them intently, do we not?
Paul: That’s what we are doing: to uncover what our motives are. Let's find out. What are our motives? If we have them, what are they and why do they persist? How shall we find out what they are?
~ We shall find out by observing the process of the mind, from moment to moment throughout the day. The motives persist because the self persists. There is no self without motive. All of our thinking is self-centered; we are continually looking for gain or reward of some kind, for fulfilment of one desire or another. This is the quintessential self - structured on desire, and so perpetually in conflict.
The primary motive is to avoid pain and gain pleasure, is it not? You can observe this if you watch the movement of thought. Pleasure is gratification: have you ever done something or achieved something of which you are (so-called) 'proud'? That is gratification. It is enormously seductive, yet strangely transient; the mind wants that feeling repeated endlessly, at greater and greater levels. Nothing ever fully satisfies the self, have you noticed that?
Paul Dimmock: But what are our motives now? What are your motives and my motives for engaging in this dialogue now? Let’s start as close to the ground as that. Because there are usually two sets of motives, are there not? There are the motives we admit from the start; and there are the motives we discover as we go along. There are the transparent motives and the hidden motives. The transparent motive might be to investigate the nature of the self. The hidden motive might be something quite different, something that the self won’t even want to reveal or can’t even express. Only in some sort of crisis will those hidden motives emerge. Can we bring about such a crisis? It means that a really serious dialogue to investigate the nature of the self is a form of character assassination.
~ Indeed, what are our motives in this dialogue? Self-revelation, seeking to clarify one's thinking, self-exploration? Can any motive be of value or be altruistic, or is all motive completely the wrong approach? Is there a gain of some sort to be had in the conduct of all dialogue, transparent or otherwise? These questions are, of course, not just confined to this dialogue - they apply equally to all dialogue.
There's always a subtext to life situations, if you watch them carefully. A surface motive and, lurking behind it, a hidden one, as stated. But the hidden one is always self-aggrandizement, is it not? Point-scoring, ego-boosting, displaying one's superiority, intellectual abilities, etc. The point is to be aware of all the motives as they arise, including all the subtle ones. Awareness is learning about the ways of the self.
Can there be a dialogue without any motive interfering at all? What would be the nature of such a dialogue?
Paul: But I am so tired of learning about the ways of the self. I am bored with the self - really, quite bored. It’s such a tiny little pond. And my only motive therefore is to be free of that pond. That's my own interest, concern and motive.
For the continuation of the dialogue up to May 4, 2008, see Archives 3 & Archives 4
(Note: Some dialogue is missing)
~~~~~~~~
| There is only ever one insight
There is only ever one insight. It is quite ludicrous to talk of a series of insights or a partial insight. Insight means to see the whole picture of the self; it can’t mean anything else. To see merely one corner of that picture really has no meaning at all because the other corners may be totally different colours, shapes, sizes and textures. So it means also that all previous insight is redundant and completely meaningless.
There is only one insight, which is right now and which is whole. Living as we do in the temporal world of thought, we give credence to some sort of progression of insight, of steadily increasing clarity and of a more frequent occurrence. But insight is outside of that temporal world. There is just one insight into the whole field of oneself and that first insight is the last. There isn’t a second, a third, a fortieth, a hundredth insight; there is only one.
When you put aside the memory of every single insight you might ever have had, you are left with the fact that you have never had insight at all. Now can one see that fact? Seeing that fact is the insight, and from the seeing there is a complete action.
- Paul Dimmock
~ It is clear that insight is in the now, beyond time, beyond all knowledge and memory. It is not accumulative. This means by implication that insight can only take place when the mind is quiet, free of all verbalization. It is not that insight produces a quiet or silent mind - it is the other way round, and this is one of the great difficulties. That is, our minds are very seldom quiet, which raises the question whether we can actually have a total insight.
Is there not a state of complete attention for insight to occur?
What is the central barrier to such an insight? Memory is the blockage, is it not? Thought is constantly interfering with all its reactions, yet thought cannot be either denied or suppressed, though as past knowledge (conclusions) it can be set aside. But do we abandon all past knowledge when we listen to the talks, or to anyone for that matter?
- DM
Paul: Yes, when there is love we abandon everything. Only that matters.
~ Dialogue is an exploration, is it not? In this sense it is questioned whether terms such as 'complete action' and 'love' have value in clarifying the enquiry. Are these words more about what should be, rather than the actual fact of the state we are in? Surely it is of more value to start with the facts, rather than concepts and imponderables?
Paul: Then we have to look at what love is not and what it means to live a life of incomplete action and of fragmented behaviour - that’s one way to go about it. But I prefer to jump into the deep end first. Because it seems to me we have paddled in the shallow waters for ages and ages, and still nothing much happens. We have years and years of talks, seminars and dialogues which have held up that mirror to ourselves of how greedy we are, how lazy and muddled, and all the other facts about ourselves, but still we don’t dare to go further out beyond those shallows.
Love is only an imponderable if we say we know what it is. Then it becomes something terribly mysterious, intangible and, eventually, something corrupt. In not knowing what love is we have to find out what it is, and the act of finding out is then an act of love; so it is no longer just a word or a concept. And I think one can only find out anything when one jumps in at the deep end; that is, when all past knowledge is abandoned. Most people don’t do that when they listen to K. They listen for a reason, for a reward, for a way out of their own particular pain. So they are all the while listening only to their own reflected thoughts.
You see, when I used the word ‘love’ you reacted to that word because of its many connotations and because of the importance placed upon it culturally, traditionally, religiously and emotionally. So you hear the word ‘love’ through that screen of memories - personal and private memories as well as deeply embedded racial memories. But does love itself have any memory?
~ There was not a reaction to that word love, for I hold no image of it. There was a response to an abstraction, as there was also to the term 'complete action', as these words are not actual realities in our lives. Thought is a past master at reducing everything to its abstract.
Why has 'nothing much happened' for such a long time? What is the central barrier that prevents us from change? Fear? Is this more important than jumping in the deep end; having an awareness of the barriers actually operating in the mind?
We can only find out what love is by finding out what love is not. It is not incidental that negation is the approach (and approach is not method, as some persist in thinking.). Find out through negative thinking, rather than a positive approach, which is the action of the self. Eliminate what love is not, and love is.
The real issue here, as pointed out, is that we don't really listen. Is this missing quality in listening the key we have failed to grasp?
Paul: But is love the abstraction here? I feel it is desperately important to be clear about this point. If love is and remains an abstraction I feel we are wasting our time. And if it is an abstraction now it will remain an abstraction tomorrow. Do you follow what I’m saying? If we haven’t got that quality of affection now then it won’t arrive later through our concerted endeavours, however subtle. A quality of affection not only for each other but also for the very thing we are examining together, which is our life. That quality of affection may be the missing factor that makes listening so difficult.
For me, fear is far more abstract than love, a thousand times more abstract. Remember that we started out by saying that we have never had insight into all this, which includes insight into the roots of fear; we have never had insight into ourselves at all. Now is there fear when we hear that? Or does the fact of it obliterate every trace of fear? Because either we resist what we hear and cling to something from yesterday as a form of reassurance, or there is nothing we can do in the face of this overwhelming fact. But is it a fact or is it merely a statement? We have never had psychological insight at all. How are we listening to this?
~ We should start with considering what the word abstract means, in the dictionary sense - 'a concept or idea not associated with any specific instance; something considered theoretically'. This is the context here in which this word is used.
It is not that love itself (whatever that actual state is) is an abstraction, it is that for one who is without this love the idea of it is abstract. You cannot talk about love (that is, in the generally accepted meaning of the word - universal compassion) if you don't feel and live it in your heart - it is only an idea, a theoretical state to be achieved.
There is a distinction drawn here between that state of universal love and ordinary care and affection. You undeniably need care and affection to understand something; you cannot understand your child if you don't care for it, if you condemn it. One can have a daily care and affection for something, such as a vocation or a close friend, but that certainly doesn't mean that person has a universal love for all things.
This quality of care and affection is undeniably essential for listening. Everyone is capable of this affection; this is not reserved for a privileged few. But if you listen in order to condemn, or judge, or to justify a conclusion you have already drawn, then that is not real listening.
Fear is not an abstract thing, surely, in the context outlined above. Everyone knows the feeling of fear; it is an actuality, daily, in our lives. And do we not do everything to run away from it, to never come into direct contact with it - is that the real problem?
Paul: What is fear? Let’s be clear what we mean by this word. It may well be an actuality in daily life, but what is an actuality can also be an abstraction. If we have lived from childhood in the world of abstractions it is quite natural to have this feeling that abstractions are part of reality. For example, for most people their sense of ‘self’ is an actuality, an unquestioned reality. So what is fear? And how shall we find out what it is?
~ It is more accurate to say that an actuality can be made by thought into an abstraction, is it not?
Whoever said that the self is not a reality? It's a construction of thought to be sure, but it exists as an actuality in our lives. You cannot dismiss it as merely an illusion; it is the central part of the thinking process and has to be seen for what it is. To ignore it as an illusion is to miss the whole point of self-knowledge. One has to understand the thought process that has produced the self (and why), and if one dismisses the self one is simply escaping from looking at oneself. It is this understanding of the entire structure of thought and its creation that will end it.
That's the given behind all this dialogue is it not? - self-knowledge (read self-understanding). This is as old as the Buddha himself.
Equally, fear is a construction of thought as time - yes? It is very clear that if there were no psychological time produced by thought there would be no fear. In the instant of an actual life-and-death emergency there is no fear - fear only arises later through the thought process and then is perpetuated through memory (and associated with a feeling). Nonetheless, in the sense of the self above, fear is an actuality and has to be faced in the now and understood.
If we make fear into an abstraction, a mere idea, we are avoiding it are we not?
Paul: But without the abstraction, what is fear? Does it exist at all as something that is separate from the idea of it? Take as an example the fear of death, which is one of our greatest human fears, is that not based entirely on abstraction and ideation? One can’t fear the fact of death because one has never met the fact, but one can meet the idea about the fact and tremble at that idea. This is what we do. This is how we live our lives. As you say, the actuality can be made by thought into the abstraction: but isn’t that very process the crucible of fear? Thought meeting a crisis or a challenge in the only way it knows, which is through memory based on its own previous and limited experience. This means the crisis or the challenge of the new is perpetually interpreted through an old pattern.
So rather than escaping from looking at oneself, I am asking what this actually means. I am questioning the whole notion of self-knowledge and self-understanding. Is there even a self to look at? That’s my point. Or what we call the self is merely a bundle of memories. So the self is only a memory. And who will examine this bundle except another fragment of the same bundle? So I stick to this: that we have never had insight at all. It means that nothing of psychological value has ever been collected from yesterday and stored away for our use today or tomorrow. So the Buddha is out. That may sound severe, but it gets worse: K is also out. Therefore what is left?
~ Abstractions and ideas must be understood for what they are, the falseness of what they are, must they not? Likewise, fear in and of itself has to be fully understood - that is, as stated previously, the very roots of fear (the thought process) - in order for it to end. This understanding necessarily includes how thought makes an abstraction of fear, creates ideas about it.
Fear does not exist as a separate entity from the idea of it - no. Yet fear exists - it cannot be denied. The self, equally, has not a separate, independent existence from thought.
Of course there is the thought-constructed self to be looked at. If you watch your whole thinking process throughout the day, you see that it is always about the "me". My pleasure, my gratification, my fulfilment, my thoughts, my possessions, my future, my past. Our whole lives revolve around the self. And of course the self is made up of memories, but all this process needs to be looked at, not airily dismissed or denied out of actuality - which is a clever escape from it.
Yes, this man and the Buddha are out. The talks do not contain the truth. This is clear. They are facts which are a mirror to ourselves only, a pointing to all the ways of thought, time, and the self.
You know what is left? Awareness. It all comes down to this. Silent, choiceless, awareness, which is awareness without an observer. Not a fragment looking at all the other fragments. Just awareness. Have we ever been actually just aware?
Paul: Let’s be very clear. We are not saying that fear is merely an idea, an illusion. If it were, it could easily be replaced by a better idea or illusion. That’s what a lot of religions have already tried to do; they have invented their gods, heavens, salvation, reincarnation, nirvana - everything. Instead we are saying that fear is built into the very fabric of ideation, into the core of our thinking. Because we think in concepts and through abstractions that move us away from the fact, it means that we are caught always in the same kind of current: a current of fear, of thought and of time. The ending of fear is therefore no different from the ending of thought or the ending of time. They are not three different strands of the same current that can be individually fished out; they are the current. So thought cannot comprehend fear and time. And without thought there is no such thing as self-knowledge or self-understanding. The self might say, ‘I will use thought to understand myself and to cure all my problems,’ but if the self is also something put together by thought, whatever it uses is going to be eternally limited and conflicted. Our question then is, is it possible to see all this? Have we ever been actually just aware?
This is my whole point: that we have never been aware except through the mediation of an observer. Now who is going to see this fact? The observer can’t see it; the self can’t see it; and thought can’t see it - for these are all the same entity working in time, working to solve a problem, working from a sense of purpose. So what is the factor that brings about complete and immediate awareness? Isn’t it the ending of the self? Isn’t it love?
Why are we so wary of love? Without it, life has no meaning and no sanctity. That’s obvious, isn’t it? Love is not part of memory. Love is not part of thought. Love is not part of consciousness. So love and the self cannot co-exist. One cannot say, ‘I love,’ without negating the very word one is using. So when we hear that love is the factor that brings about complete awareness let’s find out exactly who is saying it. First, I am not saying it, because I have nothing to say outside of memory. Therefore, who or what is saying it? Or love is there when there is no recourse to memory of any kind. Memory is the death of love, and love cannot flower until memory is wiped away completely; but only love can wipe away memory. See the picture of it. The self cannot erase its own hurts, pains, depressions, fears, guilt, anxieties, loneliness, et cetera. The self cannot end itself. The self cannot do anything except perpetuate its own little world. And I think that love comes only when the self sees its own utter lack of love; love obliterates the self.
~ Yes, everything is interrelated - fear, time, the self and thought. One must have an insight or direct perception into the whole structure built up by thought, the totality of it. And thought is clearly not that which perceives, nor is the self. So there remains the question: what is the factor that brings about an insight? Insight arises out of silence, does it not?
Why is there this continual focus on love, when we don't know what it is? Can one really state that only "love" can wipe away memory? That love is the factor that brings about total awareness? Has this state of love been reduced to a conclusion? Why not start with the what is, the actual state of thought/self, as stated earlier - see the intrinsic limitation of it?
The question of who or what perceives is a wrong question (it is the self in the perpetual process of analyzing, of intellectualizing). Does not the organism itself perceive - the natural intelligence of the body? Does it in fact matter what perceives, so long as there is perception? The talks clearly state that in fact it is the mind that perceives - the mind operates on the limited brain of memory. The mind is separate from (that is, it wholly encompasses) the brain - yes?
Paul: We don’t know love is. So we are going to find out what it is and if it even exists at all. Nothing else matters, because we have reached a point where we see that anything made important by the self is always going to be limited and full of conflict. So we can’t find out about love through abstractions and conclusions, but only when we meet an actual fact that cannot be argued with will we know what it is. First, here is the fact of what we actually are: we are greedy, insecure, lonely, ambitious, and caught in the stream of self-centred action whatever we try to do. Now do we agree to just this one thing about ourselves that we are self-centred creatures? Do we agree to this? Not just verbally and intellectually, but at every level do we see it and meet the incontrovertible fact of it?
~ This is the whole point: we don't fully face the fact of ourself. Many have seen the essential self-centredness of their being, yet no-one changes or has changed. That is the fact. We see it intellectually but that isn't enough. There is some factor here we are not coming to grips with. There is the constant interference of thought in the seeing of anything. It is an automatic cognitive response, it is upon us before we know it, and it sets up a chain of familiar reactions. There is never a quiet brain that enables the pure observation by the mind.
This is why meditative practices are so common; this is what lies behind all the Buddhist and Zen methods, as well as drugs and all the rest of it. The goal is a quiet brain. But nothing works.
The key, as discussed above, may be listening. Listening is in the now - it is not of the self, it is not of time. Is this simple act of listening something we have overlooked?
Or is there some other deep barrier to facing the fact we are not even considering?
Paul: I am the noisy brain and my goal is silence. The noise is the noise of all my greed, anger, desire and confusion; and my goal is to reach a point of clarity, purity and fulfilment. But rather than replace one imperfect fact for a perfect goal, what happens when there is no goal at all? What happens to the fact? Doesn’t the fact alter without me having to do a thing about it? In other words, the transformation is nothing to do with me. I think this is what gets missed. It is not that I alter the fact or the fact alters me. The fact itself is transformed. I wonder if you see the beauty of this.
~ It is clear that you cannot try to alter the fact. All 'trying' is the action of will, which is the self. There is nothing you can do about the fact but be aware of it.
Again, the issue is that by looking at the fact, say of fear, fear is not permanently transformed. If that were what was required, people everywhere would be permanently ending all fear in themselves, which is patently not the case. So there is a lack of intensity in the way we are looking at the fact that fails to bring about transformation, is there not? Is it not all about intensity of attention, as well as intention?
Then there is understanding, which is not the self understanding itself - for it can't. Understanding is immediate, timeless. The brain is caught in time and only timeless attention and timeless understanding can transform it - yes?
Paul: But when one looks at fear, fear disappears. The very act of attending to fear changes the nature of the thing being looked at. This means that fear is inattention - that’s all it is. Obviously, there’s a lot more behind this than just a rather bold statement. But once we see - perhaps with just the slightest, briefest glimpse - that our problem is really only inattention and not fear, doesn’t that alter the quality of our attentiveness?
~ No, fear is a fact and is not just a matter of inattention. Nor is it a matter of merely attending to fear, it is the quality of the attention that is crucial. You must be serious about it, not play with it as a casual, theoretical, intellectual exercise. You must be passionate to find out. It is like learning about your favorite hobby - if you are really interested then you will approach the thing with an intensity, an open curiosity. You need an open intention to understand (not an intention to gain any reward - there is a difference), and without this intention all the attending in the world won't alter the fact of fear, or anything else.
The fact is that we are not really interested. What we are really interested in is in being distracted ... entertained.
Paul: That’s because most people are slaves to experience, whether physical, sexual, emotional or intellectual. To one caught in the trap of their own experiences, fear is a fact. Is it possible to live without any experiences at all? A passionately interested human being will find out if it is; and nothing can stop passion.
~ One cannot live without experience, life is a series of experiences. It is the recording of the experiences that is the problem. To live without recording experiences is to live without memory; to die every day to the events of that day. We hold memory to be all important as its accumulation is the very structure of the self. Without memory - no self.
The reason we want to be entertained is because we want to escape even temporarily from the self, do we not? The self is routine, it is dull and tedious. Hence the importance of sex, movies, drink and drugs to so many people - all to escape from the boredom resulting from the self.
Paul: Yes, it seems that we want both to escape from and to cling to the self. The essence of that contradiction is - what? Is it simply that we have never bothered really to explore the nature of ourselves? We may have been encouraged, persuaded, nudged to do it, but what does it mean really to enquire into the heart of what one is? Am I anything else other than all my experiences? Physically, I am a certain height, age, colour and shape. But psychologically what am I apart from the accumulation of every past experience? That’s what I mean by seeing if it is possible to live without experiences. It seems to make sense that only when that accumulation of the past is completely gone can one really start to live. Until then everything is merely a repetition, modified a little this way and that way, but essentially the same as yesterday.
~ You are precisely nothing if you end all your past experiences, this is the whole point. You are a unique individual in the physical sense, you have both a brain and a mind with (it is said) an extraordinary intrinsic capacity, but what are you psychologically? You are nothing, and who wants to be nothing? In this global greedy/self-obsessed society, to be nothing is to completely step outside the fear/reward system, and such a life implies insecurity at every turn.
If you look at it squarely, this is what we really want, is it not? To be secure, financially, emotionally, psychologically, in every possible way. To be certain about tomorrow, to be certain about our thoughts, opinions and attitudes. We cling to the self because we think the self is secure and we are continually buttressing it through experiences to shore up this security. But life isn't secure, and there is the essential contradiction.
So, we don't really want to explore our own nature because we sense that such an exploration will end our 'secure' psyche. Who among us wants to freely invite insecurity?
Paul: There is a sense of insecurity almost from the very first moment that one starts to explore the nature of oneself. One way to go from there is to reach out for what one already knows, for what one has already gained along the road of life. But we are asking for something quite different if a real exploration is ever to take place. We are asking for a dialogue - either with others or with oneself - wherein there is no prior knowledge at all. Now, I am wondering if such a thing can be invited or brought about deliberately. In other words, can one choose to be free of the past? That seems to me like another trick of the mind. Therefore what is one to do?
~ There is only one thing you can do and that is to be aware of the whole structure of the self and how it is built entirely on past knowledge, which perverts living freely in the present. When you are fully aware during the day of the ways of the self then an actual direct perception or insight into it may occur, which could transform it.
Of course one cannot choose to be free of knowledge, for the one who chooses is itself the accumulation of that knowledge. No action can be taken by the will, as the will is the self. There is an extraordinary passivity to the nature of awareness, which could be one of the central difficulties, as we are so predisposed to acting - or reacting - on what we see and hear. Awareness is just being aware, is it not? That awareness alone has its own action, beyond thought.
Paul: But we have never known such awareness. We have never been aware in that sense. Until now our awareness of the world has always had its roots in fear, in wariness and caution. Until now our awareness has always been as an agent of the will and of the self, of the centre which thinks it is free to choose how to act. Is it possible to be so aware of our utter lack of freedom in this quarter that it brings about an action unlike any other we have ever known?
Any action of the will is bound to be a fragmentary action, but surely there is a complete action which comes when the will is totally absent. And have we reached that point where the will is so silent and inactive that it allows an altogether different quality of consciousness to enter? After talking about it for a month, as we have been doing here, have we reached that point? Or are we still reaching beyond?
~ Is not the clue to this awareness an alertness of mind? If you watch yourself in relationship, you will discover that your responses and reactions move quickly, fleetingly, from one to another. Awareness is the watching of these reactions as they arise, from moment to moment. To do this requires a free, unencumbered mind that can move as fast as the reactions themselves. Freedom, strikingly, comes at the start and not at the end.
Does not this alert mind come into being only with a real interest in self-awareness, as stated earlier? A passion to find out the whole process of the self, without motive? If we have not got this essential serious quality of awareness after all these years - not just since the beginning of this dialogue - then why not?
Paul: All right, freedom comes at the start. But what about love? Can there be freedom without love? Did you know that the word ‘free’ has its roots in an Old English word meaning ‘friend’? So even linguistically freedom has its roots in love. To be free really means to be a friend to the whole world, to care for the whole world. Do we have that feeling? When we talk about a passion to find out the whole process of the self without motive, we need to remember that without its motives there is no self. And are we - you and I - completely without motive? In that sense, are we free human beings and therefore friends?
~ Let's start afresh. The entire structure of thought is the content of consciousness. There is no content beyond the movement of thought; thought is the entity, as it were, that is conscious. The brain, the seat of thought, is the instrument of consciousness. This consciousness, which is the mind as we know it, is therefore intrinsically self-centred and always very limited. We cannot think, even technically, without motives and self-interest perpetually coming into play, correct?
Now, freedom and awareness (listening), and compassion, or love, are not of consciousness, are they not? They are outside of it, they have to be, for consciousness cannot operate on itself, cannot transform itself - that is very clear. And all these things are intricately interconnected, so yes, freedom and love are in their essential nature one and the same. Yet, as stated previously, it is putting the cart before the horse to talk about the nature of freedom and love before we have those qualities in our minds first. Otherwise, they are merely speculative, abstract, intellectualizations. We have to begin with the facts of what we are first, observe them intently, do we not?
Paul: That’s what we are doing: to uncover what our motives are. Let's find out. What are our motives? If we have them, what are they and why do they persist? How shall we find out what they are?
~ We shall find out by observing the process of the mind, from moment to moment throughout the day. The motives persist because the self persists. There is no self without motive. All of our thinking is self-centered; we are continually looking for gain or reward of some kind, for fulfilment of one desire or another. This is the quintessential self - structured on desire, and so perpetually in conflict.
The primary motive is to avoid pain and gain pleasure, is it not? You can observe this if you watch the movement of thought. Pleasure is gratification: have you ever done something or achieved something of which you are (so-called) 'proud'? That is gratification. It is enormously seductive, yet strangely transient; the mind wants that feeling repeated endlessly, at greater and greater levels. Nothing ever fully satisfies the self, have you noticed that?
Paul Dimmock: But what are our motives now? What are your motives and my motives for engaging in this dialogue now? Let’s start as close to the ground as that. Because there are usually two sets of motives, are there not? There are the motives we admit from the start; and there are the motives we discover as we go along. There are the transparent motives and the hidden motives. The transparent motive might be to investigate the nature of the self. The hidden motive might be something quite different, something that the self won’t even want to reveal or can’t even express. Only in some sort of crisis will those hidden motives emerge. Can we bring about such a crisis? It means that a really serious dialogue to investigate the nature of the self is a form of character assassination.
~ Indeed, what are our motives in this dialogue? Self-revelation, seeking to clarify one's thinking, self-exploration? Can any motive be of value or be altruistic, or is all motive completely the wrong approach? Is there a gain of some sort to be had in the conduct of all dialogue, transparent or otherwise? These questions are, of course, not just confined to this dialogue - they apply equally to all dialogue.
There's always a subtext to life situations, if you watch them carefully. A surface motive and, lurking behind it, a hidden one, as stated. But the hidden one is always self-aggrandizement, is it not? Point-scoring, ego-boosting, displaying one's superiority, intellectual abilities, etc. The point is to be aware of all the motives as they arise, including all the subtle ones. Awareness is learning about the ways of the self.
Can there be a dialogue without any motive interfering at all? What would be the nature of such a dialogue?
Paul: But I am so tired of learning about the ways of the self. I am bored with the self - really, quite bored. It’s such a tiny little pond. And my only motive therefore is to be free of that pond. That's my own interest, concern and motive.
For the continuation of the dialogue up to May 4, 2008, see Archives 3 & Archives 4
(Note: Some dialogue is missing)
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“Listening itself is a complete act; the very act of listening brings its own freedom.”
(Book of Life Daily Meditations, Listening brings freedom, January 5, 2007}
(Book of Life Daily Meditations, Listening brings freedom, January 5, 2007}
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