I wonder, aren't we seeing life as a success, as a greatness, to be attained by some notable person, artist, author. I have been struggling all my life, not with the 'what is' as you all seem to imagine it is, but really as a poor student, lousy worker, no talent, no body. I say this because while I am always obsessed, confronted with the values and images of success, career, responsibility, authority, privilege, I have always equally understood, or learnt, those demands to be merely conditional within the society. My failure is that I, individually, have not been able to place my self either outside of or beyond those values, but simply endure. Is it that I see really 'what is' that I am free, or that there is freedom in seeing 'what is'?-not I am free, just freedom. I can't see how we can deal with this difference between the mind and the real anymore than anyone else.

Ah, yes but do I know the truth or do I only have knowledge? No need for me to go into all that is there? You see I am inquiring about these matters, and I am saying where are we to begin? Do we continue to have talks learning about what I, you, this or that person, know or don't know, or do we begin without knowledge, that is with a genuine inquiry where the known has ended. Do you really want to continue, do you really want all of us, to spend our whole lives in getting to know the self, or whatever it is called. What can I learn more from someone else except what I don't know about myself, and that kind of learning will go on all our lives. We have as part of our history, culture, mental development, a tendency to make other people a necessary condition for life, learning, sharing, growing. This is a dependency. There is dependence. There is social imperative, work, obedience, obligation. I am interested in the spiritual, natural, religious life, and I want to live in the world, have food, shelter, equally, fairly, as another human being. So I begin my inquiry, not with all that I know, which are the values, beliefs, theories, and the conditions of the society and culture, but by acknowledging there is that, and asking, shall we go from there. Lets begin on a ground that is equal.

Is there an answer to your question? We would have to go down that long path of examining what we call the mind and thinking and so on. Then when we are standing side by side, looking at all we have talked about and explored, facing that thing together, the endlessly noisy monstrosity we call mind. Then if you are looking at it, clearly, scientifically, there is the seeing of it, and it is real. What happens?



Something I have noticed, there seems to be a confusion about psychological speak and standard speak. That is I can be passing on information that I have, making discussion. We would call that opinion. Then in the course of that conversation I refer to activity in the mind. I don't want to confuse the matter. I am not trying to put a clever argument. It's just that it is up to us to see that in discussions about the mind and it's internal activity I have to use words. However the words are not about what I think, but what the process of thinking shows to me. There is no need to take what I say as what I think and make a case about that which I do. Nor do I need protection. You wouldn't be wrong, it's just that I want to see the thought process for what it is, in relationship, and to learn from that. The divisions, inner, outer, are entirely artificial but we are accustomed to thinking in terms of he said, you said. It is just thinking.

Listening in meditation, listening to the inner voice, there is awareness of thought. What is that awareness? Isn't it the mind? Do we need to discuss self? We can call it self knowledge, but why discuss self? When we discuss self aren't we holding on to my self, your self. It is just a word. Listening, there are words. The words are enthralling. We think we are the thinker and that the words are telling us something. We are attached to the flow of words and the the movement is bound up in experience, knowledge, time. What will recognize this? It is not the self because that is part of the movement. I use the word mind. Does that work for you? We don't want to be self recognising another self. We want to actually see, without attachment to the flow of thought. The flow of thought is a bit tricky because the watcher is there too. In fact the center of experience where we are experiencing the beginning and ending of thought, which creates our sense of reality, is there. How can we see this? Well we can't be sure we aren't just lost in thought. But we can watch our lost in thought comings and goings. Listening to what your inner thought actually has to say, rather than progressing with it, will also be interesting.

Do we in fact know what we know? What opportunity is there to take note of what ideas and thoughts I have about religion, morals, politics,philosophy and so on? I can't think of any time when I do this. I don't mean to be involved in a discussion or be studying these. I mean to thoughtfully be aware of my own beliefs. I hold any belief strongly and would not consider it necessary to reflect upon it. Knowing is what you do. You can't stop and say there is my knowledge. Actually to be reflecting on one self, is to be in doubt, and that is a movement away from knowing. So what has knowledge or ignorance got to do with it? It is like judgement. The observer condemns and then forgives. Why? Because they are a part of it.

Certainly see any foolish instruction and don't have anything to do with it. So there is an end to your stupidity. Here I am talking with others, looking at what is on the mind, and working together to see the thoughts. There is no claim of achievement or success. In fact I am looking at the muddle without any sense of there being anything different. I don't think of myself as being external to this inquiry. What I am doing is seeing what I think, in these terms, this relationship. I am working through it, as part of it. Can the thinker look at the thinking and dispose of all of it? Who is this disposer. Is it not Mr Right? I don't want to be so stupid. I am saying look at what is wrong.

I don't have any special knowledge on these matters. I am stuck because what I think is theory. So just looking at observation I say there is mind. Consciousness I would say is the thinking, sensual, content of mind. There is nothing exceptional about that. Looking inwardly, what changes, what transpires between mind and consciousness, is insight. With insight there is both direct perception and conditioned perception. Consciousness relates to conditioned perception. Why doesn't consciousness relate to the direct? Well perhaps it does and perhaps because it is so subtle, tender, fragile, we are missing it. But that wouldn't be consciousness as we know it. It would be new, frightening , unsettling, disturbing. For that matter it is unnameable, unquantifiable. What if we say the non-real consciousness is mind, the real is simply consciousness. That is mind is a world apart from consciousness which is limited to the real. Aware of mind is awareness. Insight is the transmission of intelligence? What do you think?

Some wise people were chatting together over the internet. One asked, "Do you have any questions for me tonight?" One replied, "is it a wise person who has their own questions?" and another said "Are you addressing the other, separate self?" and yet another said "Are there really any answers?" and so it went for a long while. Then the first person spoke again, "Seriously, do you have any questions, or am I the only wise person here?".