As noted a few days ago, I'm taking another look at U.G. Krishnamurti through his book, "Mind Is a Myth."
I read a few pages every morning, along with a Zen book by Shunryu Suzuki I'm re-reading, "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" -- the title of which shows that Krishnamurti and Zen aren't totally in sync.
But there's definitely some commonalities.
They both can be outrageous.
They both aren't afraid to defy conventional ways of thinking.
They both focus on the physical world.
They both have no interest in supernatural fantasies.
They both advise to live in the present moment.
Zen, at least in its Soto form/lineage, teaches that there is no difference between enlightenment and the act of sitting in meditation. Or doing anything else with full attention.
Suzuki says, "Enlightenment is not some good feeling or some special state of mind. The state of mind that exists when you sit in the right posture is, itself, enlightenment."
So there's a certain absence of goals in Zen. Suzuki says, "When you do something, just to do it should be your purpose."
You know, the whole chop wood and carry water thing. Just chop wood. Just carry water. Don't add unnecessary gaining ideas to simple actions.
In a Mistakes in Practice section, Suzuki says:
There are several poor ways of practice which you should understand. Usually, when you practice zazen [meditation], you become very idealistic, and you set up an ideal or goal which you strive to attain and fulfill. But as I have often said, this is absurd.
When you are idealistic, you have some gaining idea within yourself; by the time you attain your ideal or goal, your gaining idea will create another ideal.
So as long as your practice is based on a gaining idea, and you practice zazen in an idealistic way, you will have no time actually to attain your ideal. Moreover, you will be sacrificing the meat of your practice.
Because your attainment is always ahead, you will always be sacrificing yourself for some ideal in the future. You end up with nothing. This is absurd; it is not adequate practice at all.
In passages I read this morning, Krishnamurti speaks using different language, but I see some close connections between his view and that of Suzuki.
Understanding your goal is the main thing. To achieve that goal implies struggle, battle, effort, will, that is all. There is no guarantee that you will reach your goal.
You assume the goal is there. You have invented the goal to give yourself hope. But hope means tomorrow. Hope is necessary for tomorrow, not for today.
You know. You want more knowledge so you can develop better techniques for reaching your goal. You know that there is no guarantee that more experience, more knowledge, more systems and more methods will help you reach your goal.
Yet you persist; it is all you know how to do. Seeing today demands action. Seeing tomorrow involves only hope.
...You want to see meaning in your life. As long as you persist in searching for a purpose or meaning to life, so long whatever you are doing will seem purposeless and meaningless.
The hope you have of finding meaning is what is causing the present state of meaninglessness. There may not be any meaning other than this.
...Life, the so-called material life, has a meaning of its own. But you have been told that it is devoid of meaning and have superimposed a fictitious layer of "spiritual" meaning over it.
Why should life have any meaning? Why should there be any purpose to living? Living itself is all that is there. Your search for spiritual meaning has made a problem out of living.
You have been fed all this rubbish about the ideal, perfect, peaceful, purposeful way of life, and you devote your energies to thinking about that rather than living fully.
In any case you are living, no matter what you are thinking about. Life has to go on.
Late this afternoon I went for a walk with Mooka, our dog, around the community lake a short distance from our property.
Mooka enjoyed sniffing for creatures in the vegetation on the water side of the earthen dam. I enjoyed the view. Life seemed fine, just the way it was.
Returning to the trail that leads to our house, fallen leaves heralded the coming of winter. Life seemed fine, just the way it was.
The bright red of a tree next to our water feature caught my eye. Life seemed fine, just the way it was.
The ancient white oak in our yard lost two large limbs in an ice storm last February. It survives, continuing to gladden my heart as I snapped one last photo before going inside to feed our dog. Life seemed fine, just the way it was.
>> ...You want to see meaning in your life. As long as you persist in searching for a purpose or meaning to life, so long whatever you are doing will seem purposeless and meaningless.
The hope you have of finding meaning is what is causing the present state of meaninglessness. There may not be any meaning other than this.<<
This is an intriguing passage.
We attribute meaning and value to what seems to be there.
We have too.
Generaly it seems that things have meaning, forgetting we did the projection.
Whether things have an meaning of their own as he states, I doubt.
Probably this is just an linguistic problem for which he had no solution saying it in another way.
But there is all chance that I do not grasp it as it should.
Posted by: um | October 24, 2021 at 01:09 AM
In the past I have read both J. Krishnamurti and U.G. Krishnamurti. Both have similar philosophies. J.K. tends to reiterate his topics, leaving the listener to ‘see’ for him/her self while U.G. just goes straight in regardless of conventions and niceness. Being somewhat lazy, I tend to prefer U. G.’s style – even though he often trashes some of my presumptions!
Regarding the quotes on meaning, it was Alan Watts who said in the little book “Taoism – Way Beyond Seeking” that reality (nature, trees, rivers and such) 'is' meaning and therefore has none.
UG questions “Why should life have any meaning? “Living is all that there is”.
Do we look for meaning in order to assuage our feelings of fear that this is all there is along with a general feeling of loneliness and separation from, not only each other but from nature – which is often seen to be something external from us. Does this lead to the search for meaning which often takes the form of thoughts and concepts that do not reflect reality? Brian’s three photos saying ‘Life seemed fine, just the way it was’, echoes the Zen statement that ‘This is it’.
'Everything is interconnected, all is one with the universe'. This idea is the ancient wisdom that is now proven by modern science. Naturally, we have learned to see things as separate. But in fact, all things are closely interlinked. If only we could realize this.
Posted by: Ron E. | October 24, 2021 at 03:33 AM
According to Christianity, every existence in nature is something which was created for or given to us by God. That is the perfect idea of giving. But if you think that God created [humankind], and that you are somehow separate from God, you are liable to think you have the ability to create something separate, something not given by Him, for instance, we create airplanes and highways. And when we repeat, "I create, I create, I create", soon we forget who is actually the "I" which creates the various things; we soon forget about God. This is the danger of human culture. Actually, to create with the "big I" is to give; we cannot create and own what we create for ourselves since everything was created by God. This point should not be forgotten. But because we do forget who is doing the creating and the reason for the creation, we become attached to the material or exchange value. This has no value in comparison to the absolute value of something as God's creation. Even though something has no material or relative value to any "small I," it has absolute value in itself. Not to be attached to something is to be aware of its absolute value. Everything you do should be based on such an awareness, and not on material or self-centered ideas of value. Then whatever you do is true giving, is "dana prajna paramita."
-- God-Giving
by Shunryu Suzuki, from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
Posted by: Tendzin | October 24, 2021 at 07:41 AM
A man goes out of his house to his Neighbor and asks him how to live.
The neighbor says I do not know, i did ask it to the other neighbor but he too, did not know and had ask from HIS neighbor and so on and on
No plant seems to have that problem and no animal and even the inanimated things seems to know what to do.
Strange that humans do not know and have to ask others.
So snake oil sellers became richer and richer, Cathedrals were built, silicon valley etc etc. ... there is no end to it.
Posted by: um | October 24, 2021 at 08:01 AM
Brian re UGK
Got me thinking back to his book “The Mystique of Enlightenment” which I had a good read of several years back - Jesus - pretty full on stuff. If folk want to be put off the so-called search for truth just have a read of this. I found the first part of the book intense when he describes what happened to him before he realised his ‘natural state’. The rest of it has some great commentary on how he views things and it is quite unique imo. How Zen it is? ….
Here are a few stand-out quotes:
“There is no ‘I’ looking; mountains, flowers, trees, cows all look at me”, p.36
“You are a living creature, yet you lead your entire life within the realm of this isolated, parallel movement of thought”, p.43
“Every time a thought is born ‘you’ are born …. But the ‘you’ doesn’t let the thought go and what gives continuity to this ‘you’ is the thinking”, p.44
“ ….Actually there is no continuity of thought, because thoughts are disconnected, disjointed things, but something is linking them up …” p.78
“Because you think there is something more interesting than what you are doing, there is restlessness … when this is ‘knocked off’, what you are doing becomes very very interesting” p.88
“So called self-realisation is the discovery for yourself and by yourself that there is no self to discover”, p.90
“If there is a present, that present can never be experienced by you because you experience only your knowledge about the present, and that knowledge is the past” p.93
“To be free from knowledge is not an easy thing. You are that knowledge [millions of years of experiences]. Courage is to brush aside everything that man has experienced and felt before you… the end of illusion is the end of you” p.97
Cripes that’s enough, something’s starting to squirm!
Posted by: Tim Rimmer | October 24, 2021 at 06:56 PM
Lovely pics!
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | October 25, 2021 at 07:42 AM
Unconscious mind seemed fine the way it was there.
Posted by: Vinny | October 25, 2021 at 04:05 PM
How can one not see beauty in beauty. That seems easy.
Could one find peace and beauty in a less lovely place? Even in abject poverty? In the aftermath of destruction and conflict? In that one moment in the midst of darkness, a brief spark of hope begins to light the eyes of someone who has nothing? When one single piece of bread gives a mother hope for her child? Or even the mother whose child was taken? Can one say, "this too is fine"?
Go there. Find it there. Then you will have it.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | October 25, 2021 at 06:42 PM
Visit a place where the disabled struggle, never to see what you see, never to have the simple powers you take for granted every day. Never to live in their own place of choosing. Where is their hope? Go there. See the hope through their eyes. Find the parent whose child was taken. Find the brother whose brother was taken. The hope you lost.
You have no excuse to lose hope.
And to argue hope in things unknown is wrong?
I say you've lost it.
Regain it in less opulent settings. That's the only place it can be found.
All the wealth in the world is a criminal act in the absence of that hope.
But even still, what you do not have, do not discourage others to believe in.
The real poverty is found in fine gardens.
The real wealth is found only within.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | October 25, 2021 at 06:51 PM
Thanks for sharing the beautiful photos. Many of us don't have spectacular yards (nor the work or the associated taxes, not complaining) or a nearby wooded area so it is utterly delightful to enjoy this moment filled with this borrowed beauty. I always e joy your walks, your garden, and associated stories. Maybe you could have a monthly or weekly 'zen walk' section where we could just drink in all your funny garden and woods stories
(i l⚘ved the one about the repair guy to the power pole after a storm, and the one about about cleaning the debris from the roof /gutters, and about your view from your desk. We really need a good garden update :D. If I missed some, sorry.)
Posted by: El | October 29, 2021 at 03:29 PM
Thanks I was looking for this topic...
Regarding the privileged scenery well Uchiyama says beware of scenery and he was a real zen master, not someone of Blavatsky lineage.
U.G. actually dismissed the "old man" Jiddu, even though he had his profound moment sitting on a scenic park bench after having listened to Jiddu lecture.
Jiddu to his credit burned down his church, however if you read his letters he and his handlers were constantly worried about the money and financing his privileged lifestyle. He also cuckholded some poor dude by carrying on an open affair with his wife.
Watts also gave zen about 2 weeks then gave up. He was just a chatterbox also of the Blavatsky lineage the Theosophists.
As to what is exactly is good sitting vs bad sitting, and wouldn't it be the case that any "intention" or "aim" would come from the "head"? So no matter what you are stuck in Bonpu (bon poo/poo fire/shitstorm of delusion). Even if you "aim for zazen posture only".
I think the zazen practitioners withdraw from the world and take refuge because the world is a continuous unbroken series of trainwrecks. They necessarily have a self-image and goals in order to prevent them from being drawn into one trauma or another that comes along.
Scenery is like saying your last words ("I've seen things you people wouldn't believe..."), or a planted memory.
Where does that leave me... reading these stupid zazen books. I suppose I could try it, I'm surely better at that than I am at guitar...or writing. Why do I need to? Cuz chores are boring? I'm tired of sobriety? Ahh I need to let go of the idea that chores are boring, the idea is the enemy. There ya go! Then I'll be a happy drunk.
Posted by: poof | January 14, 2022 at 02:51 PM
Thanks I was looking for this topic...
Regarding the privileged scenery well Uchiyama says beware of scenery and he was a real zen master, not someone of Blavatsky lineage.
U.G. actually dismissed the "old man" Jiddu, even though he had his profound moment sitting on a scenic park bench after having listened to Jiddu lecture.
Jiddu to his credit burned down his church, however if you read his letters he and his handlers were constantly worried about the money and financing his privileged lifestyle. He also cuckholded some poor dude by carrying on an open affair with his wife.
Watts also gave zen about 2 weeks then gave up. He was just a chatterbox also of the Blavatsky lineage the Theosophists.
As to what is exactly is good sitting vs bad sitting, and wouldn't it be the case that any "intention" or "aim" would come from the "head"? So no matter what you are stuck in Bonpu (bon poo/poo fire/shitstorm of delusion). Even if you "aim for zazen posture only".
I think the zazen practitioners withdraw from the world and take refuge because the world is a continuous unbroken series of trainwrecks. They necessarily have a self-image and goals in order to prevent them from being drawn into one trauma or another that comes along.
Scenery is like saying your last words ("I've seen things you people wouldn't believe..."), or a planted memory.
Where does that leave me... reading these stupid zazen books. I suppose I could try it, I'm surely better at that than I am at guitar...or writing. Why do I need to? Cuz chores are boring? I'm tired of sobriety? Ahh I need to let go of the idea that chores are boring, the idea is the enemy. There ya go! Then I'll be a happy drunk.
Posted by: poof | January 14, 2022 at 02:51 PM