When I see a TV Program about peasants, with starvation incomes, no affordable medical, no social security, poor housing, water and sewage, I ask myself , why do we let this happen. I don't mean we as an outsider, but ourselves. Why can't there be a good standard of living for humans? The peasant can go to a market, sell their produce and get what small of amount money they can, but why can't they organise these other things? What is it that there are markets, business, but not community services and amenities. Is it we don't understand something? Before we make judgments, speculate, hypothesise, is it basically something we humans don't understand?

Is war a goal? Is the killing and destruction intentional? We say, of course not, there is a higher goal. What is the higher goal for poverty, disorder, corruption? We say there is a reason, a purpose, for everything, meaning there is no direct connection. We can't look at war as a goal. It's too terrible to think that there is really a goal in war. Is work a goal? What is the reason, the purpose of work? I don't mean the higher goal of work, but the actual work. With this question we are inclined to think about money, food, clothing, home, family, all the necessities of life. We also think about love, relationships, duty, morality. But look just at the action of work, what is it and what is the cause of it? If we talk about making a living, about family, business, economics, politics, these imply what we do in society. But do we work for society? Do we primarily live to comply with the law, to serve the authority, to gain merit, honour, wealth? These are not the causes of the action, they are the goals. Can we look at what we do as a direct action with a cause, without thinking about goals?

Someone says to me you have to work, you have to do something in society, it is your duty, obligation, responsibility. Someone in authority says unless you work you are not a legitimate member, not worthy of the society. Is that true? is work the basis of the society? Work is an action, labour, physical, mental effort. Being part of a community, an organisation, is nothing without me, the ordinary person, simply as I am. I am what produces effort. What effort is required to be human? Why do we act, make effort? We act towards a goal, which is an idea, to complete that idea, to fulfill. From the idea to its fulfillment, there is work. Is there work without an idea? When I work there is an idea, goal, I am labouring for that idea, goal, and its progress, its fulfillment, is dependent on the measurement, the observation of the idea and its details. Someone supervises, directs, regulates, and so on. The public say you must do it this way, you must be correct, and we must be satisfied. Then there is no longer just the human act, there is power and authority.



A project requires plans, skills, technical data, organisation, which I need to build something. But I don't want to forsake my humanness. Can I use these technical matters, and the economics, politics, power and authority, and be thinking about them, without affecting my humanity? How can I work technically without thinking in terms of goals? If I am thinking technically then I am preoccupied in theories and abstracts and everything is seen in terms of business and industry. My humanity is set aside. If the expert considers the damage to the human this is doing, to do an environmental study, I am still thinking technically, abstractly. If I spend time trying to find answers, to fix things, then I am working on my ideas, and I can't function appropriately. If I want to be free from this problem, to absolve myself of responsibility, I turn to other activities, other organisations, religion.

Can I have an actual, direct, immediate action, do work, and live in the society, which I want to be humane, without a hypothetical, abstract, idealised goal? Surely humanity is there first, before not after, not a goal. Is my occupation to serve industry, society, which is obligation, good for the human, when humanity has been made a goal, something to attain in the future, and sacrificed now? So we are looking deeper than a building project, a business deal, a social contract, the goals of industry. What is it to be human, without a higher goal, without any goal at all, and still be eligible for basic respect, without obligation? How are we to understand that? I mean we ourselves, who are so preoccupied?

Anything but awareness.

You want to learn meditation and you look in the newspaper, on notice boards, on the web, for classes and schools. There are many different approaches to meditation. Many of the schools compete and advise what is their advantage. Everyone puts their features in a good light often explaining the comparative shortcomings of another. You want to make an informed choice. There are programs offered which are seriously difficult and others that are seriously fun. The challenges appeal to you. The convenience appeals to you. The sociability appeals to you. In the commercial world these are well known aspects of why we do things. You are buying something, a service, a commodity. You are given choices, to empower you, to make satisfying decisions, and to give adventure.
Here are a few of the descriptions I came across.

• visualisation
• relaxation
• mind expansion
• self purification by introspection
• universal remedy for universal ills
• achieve your dreams and goals
• control your emotions
• find your purpose in life
• living with love
• art of living
• exercise and develop the mind
• health and fitness
• stress management and relief
• cure illness
• deeper experience
• self realisation

I needed to buy a dust filter for the face, not the disposable kind. I went to the store and asked about it. Of course there was a section in the store where you could select products, but I had no precise idea what I needed. I asked for help and bought a face mask and filters. When I got home I found I still needed another part, a filter cartridge, and so returned to the store. Back home again I found the filters I had first bought didn't fit the cartridge, and so I had to return again to get the correct size filters. For each of these visits I could see that the shop assistant was lackluster, depressed, and I wondered what I could do. You know the self can be seen in this. In a competitive, hostile, horrible world, the self suffers and seeks to insulate, protect, itself. Then any contact with the self is treated cautiously, even suspiciously. The self does not want help because the contact, association, with someone is the source of the threat, fear. One can be befriended, share the insecurity, take comfort in a sympathetic other, but the underlying condition remains, and apart from such a closely held special relationship with someone, everyone else is still a threat. We build a false security in controlling our situation, and any thing that disturbs it is seen as an aggression, from which we again turn to the self to be insulated.

What most people are comfortable with are the inter-personal communications, the same as we normally do with letters, email, telling stories, reading books, etc. These can be serious, philosophical etc., as much as they can be about family, work, social life. But I question that awareness is like that. Do you see that what we consider normal discussion is the same as an inner dialogue? We think about this compared to that, one thing in respect to another. This is the normal perception of knowledge, of consciousness. It is this we are working through, working with, to express ourselves and to find answers. That is thought. Awareness, which is not mine, or yours, is there when we see the habit of our own perception, our mind, which poses for itself questions, dilemmas, to discuss, mimicing the world. Can we see that, just as it is, without condemning it, with no reaction. Rather than there being an inner condition and an outer reality, there is just the one cycle of interaction.

Can you look at the wonderful earth and sky, and not be enthralled in beauty, in awe of nature? A bird is darting to an fro. A butterfly bounces by. There are just these things. Trees, animals, lifes smells, sounds, and movement. The mind is not looking and watching. There are only the birds, flying, squabbling with each other, scratching around on the ground. There is no watcher, I, ego, self. Thought is absent. There are no theories, ideas, beliefs being expressed. There are no words, but it is not nothing, not empty. It is immeasurable and it is sacred, untouched, unmediated. It is there. It's not mine, yours, and it has no past or future. It asks no allegiance, no adoration. no devotion. It has no nation, religion, science, technology. It is nameless.