Choiceless awareness

[Malcolm]

As Krishnamurti understood it (afaik) choiceless awareness is awareness of objects, as they happen to arise in consciousness: you hear a sound, stay with it (without thinking about it) for as long as the mind wants to stay with it, then you feel a breeze, then smell a pancake, and so on. That doesn't sound like shamatha without an object to me, but as it no doubt obvious as the dickens, I'm no expert.

In Buddhadharma, this is called "following objects" and "being distracted."

In stable śamatha combined with mindfulness, one registers sense objects as they arise, but one never follows them. In Dzogchen, one makes contact with all sense objects, but one does not follow them or drift along with them. That is how "one-pointedness" is defined in the latter system.

[Rick]

Thanks, Malcolm. Assuming I understand what Krishnamurti meant, his notion was that by being choicelessly aware of objects and events in the present moment, choiceless 'right' action ensues. This rightness is grounded in 'intelligence' which is another of terms Krishnamurti used in an idiosyncratic way, get 10 Krishnamurtians in a room and ask them what intelligence is, you'll have 10 different answers, subtle to gross.

It's almost as if Krishnamurti used the analytical language of nondual traditions, philosophers, and psychoanalysts ... but used it to point to things like a poet might point to things: vividly but vaguely. Just my take!

[Malcolm]

Thanks, Malcolm. Assuming I understand what Krishnamurti meant, his notion was that by being choicelessly aware of objects and events in the present moment, choiceless 'right' action ensues.

There is no guarantee of this. Right action comes from śila, discipline.

[Malcolm]

It's almost as if Krishnamurti used the analytical language of nondual traditions, philosophers, and psychoanalysts ... but used it to point to things like a poet might point to things: vividly but vaguely. Just my take!

It's important differentiate epistemic nondualism with ontological nondualism. The former is recognition that dependent origination makes it impossible for one to adhere to views of permanence and annihilation, in other words, the middle way free from all extremes. The latter is the idea that there is only one thing without a second and that all diversity is a false perception of one thing. The latter view is not compatible with buddhadharma at all, including dzogchen. Dzogchen teachings directly negate the latter form of nondualism in many places, not to mention the other buddhist systems.

[Rick]

Thanks, Malcolm. Assuming I understand what Krishnamurti meant, his notion was that by being choicelessly aware of objects and events in the present moment, choiceless 'right' action ensues.

There is no guarantee of this. Right action comes from śila, discipline.

Jiddu said o'er and o'er again: Any form of discipline, no matter how subtle, limits freedom. And his goal was "to set man free," totally and unconditionally. It's the same as the Catch 22 in choiceless awareness: any intention, effort, path, discipline, practice destroys the choicelessness and the freedom that goes along with it.

Just so it's clear, I am not arguing for (or against*) Krishnamurti's views, just stating (my understanding of) them.

[Malcolm]

Jiddu said o'er and o'er again: Any form of discipline, no matter how subtle, limits freedom.

Then he was an idiot. Without śila, there is no samadhi, without samadhi, there is no prajñā.

[Rick]

From Commentaries on Living by Krishnamurti:

You use discipline, control, as a means to gain tranquillity, do you not? Discipline implies conformity to a pattern; you control in order to be this or that. Is not discipline, in its very nature, violence? It may give you pleasure to discipline yourself, but is not that very pleasure a form of resistance which only breeds further conflict? Is not the practice of discipline the cultivation of defence? And what is defended is always attacked. Does not discipline imply the suppression of what is in order to achieve a desired end? Suppression, substitution and sublimation only increase effort and bring about further conflict. You may succeed in suppressing a disease, but it will continue to appear in different forms until it is eradicated. Discipline is the suppression, the overcoming of what is. Discipline is a form of violence; so through a ’wrong’ means we hope to gain the ‘right’ end. Through resistance, how can there be the free, the true? Freedom is at the beginning, not at the end; the goal is the first step the means is the end. The first step must be free, and not the last. Discipline implies compulsion, subtle or brutal, outward or self-imposed; and where there is compulsion, there is fear. Fear, compulsion, is used as a means to an end, the end being love.

[Malcolm]

From Commentaries on Living by Krishnamurti:

You use discipline, control, as a means to gain tranquillity, do you not? Discipline implies conformity to a pattern; you control in order to be this or that. Is not discipline, in its very nature, violence? It may give you pleasure to discipline yourself, but is not that very pleasure a form of resistance which only breeds further conflict? Is not the practice of discipline the cultivation of defence? And what is defended is always attacked. Does not discipline imply the suppression of what is in order to achieve a desired end? Suppression, substitution and sublimation only increase effort and bring about further conflict. You may succeed in suppressing a disease, but it will continue to appear in different forms until it is eradicated. Discipline is the suppression, the overcoming of what is. Discipline is a form of violence; so through a ’wrong’ means we hope to gain the ‘right’ end. Through resistance, how can there be the free, the true? Freedom is at the beginning, not at the end; the goal is the first step the means is the end. The first step must be free, and not the last. Discipline implies compulsion, subtle or brutal, outward or self-imposed; and where there is compulsion, there is fear. Fear, compulsion, is used as a means to an end, the end being love.

As I saiid, he is an idiot. Śīla in Sanskrit means "to cool down." He was not a very-well educated man in matters of the Dharma.

[PadmaVonSamba]

From Commentaries on Living by Krishnamurti:

You use discipline, control, as a means to gain tranquillity, do you not? Discipline implies conformity to a pattern; you control in order to be this or that. Is not discipline, in its very nature, violence? It may give you pleasure to discipline yourself, but is not that very pleasure a form of resistance which only breeds further conflict? Is not the practice of discipline the cultivation of defence? And what is defended is always attacked. Does not discipline imply the suppression of what is in order to achieve a desired end? Suppression, substitution and sublimation only increase effort and bring about further conflict. You may succeed in suppressing a disease, but it will continue to appear in different forms until it is eradicated. Discipline is the suppression, the overcoming of what is. Discipline is a form of violence; so through a ’wrong’ means we hope to gain the ‘right’ end. Through resistance, how can there be the free, the true? Freedom is at the beginning, not at the end; the goal is the first step the means is the end. The first step must be free, and not the last. Discipline implies compulsion, subtle or brutal, outward or self-imposed; and where there is compulsion, there is fear. Fear, compulsion, is used as a means to an end, the end being love.

Meh.
He’s merely expressing dialectics. Perhaps even Hegelian dialectics.
Even that can be transcended, gone further than.
Violence is that which violates.
Discipline is that which directs.
You could say that ink is disciplined through a pen so that it flows in a single line rather than all over the place randomly.
But it’s the same ink either way. The ink isn’t violated.

[Rick]

He was not a very-well educated man in matters of the Dharma.

No doubt he would have agreed with you*. Only he would have seen it as positive, "freedom from the known."

* Except maybe for the "idiot" thing?

[muni]

I don’t think the notion of awareness without making choices falls entirely outside the Buddhist scope of things.

The question here was is there in some way such in Buddhism. For me it depends on own mind how to see these words like choiceless awareness. I would say I have no idea what it means at all!

No discipline could be seen as not keeping a forced practice what is very exhausting. However discipline in practice like I see it, is very necessary to not fall deeper (again) into habits, dream.

From meditative it could mean without grasping and so without preferences, comparisons, judgement. In that way it certainly doesn't mean being blank. Just like cognizance-emptiness, what could by(non)meditation, does not need support of fabrications/concepts while the knowing aspect is there.

I never saw the words in English Buddhism but I guess no need to reject neither accept.

Right action comes from śila, discipline.

Important points.

[Ayu]

The discussion on Tilopa moved here: https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.p ... 00#p595600
Some off topic & disparaging posts were removed from view.

[Passing By]

There is no such thing as nondual awareness.

If awareness is taken to mean a subject (awarer) and an object (awared), nondual awareness makes no sense.

If awareness is taken to mean no subject, no object, just awareness, nondual awareness would be the right term for it.

We all know subject/object awareness exists (conventionally), we experience it 10,000 times a day. As for whether subject/object-free 'pure' awareness exists, well, that's (way!) above my pay grade, though I'm sure Buddha said something definitive about it.

The term “awareness” itself implies a subject and an object. One cannot be aware of a nondual awareness, by definition, since it cannot be reflexively aware.

I've been taught that "rigpa" (or as commonly translated "awareness") besides referring to knowledge of the Base, refers primarily to sambhogakaya, the clarity, conscious aspect of the Base. Because of that, clarity (or more specifically, the capability to perceive and experience) is actually not perceivable but its manifestations (ie everything) obviously are.

Is that correct? That clarity in Dzogchen and Mahamudra is more accurately a capability or feature than an actual object of perception?

I don't understand why awareness is an inadequate translation for it though

In Dzogchen, one makes contact with all sense objects, but one does not follow them or drift along with them. That is how "one-pointedness" is defined in the latter system

Does this refer to shamatha or Dzogchen practice proper? If the latter how does that jive with the instruction not to reject or ignore anything either? or the chogshags and the entire "leave stuff as they are without reference points" instructions.

[Matt J]

I think there is a difference between being anti-intellectual and "going beyond" concepts. It is easy enough to mire oneself in a state of ignorance and claim one has gone beyond. We wouldn't say an animal, some one in a state of deep sleep, or some one with brain damage that impacts their memory or conceptualization is by any means enlightened, although they would be "free from the known."

He was not a very-well educated man in matters of the Dharma.

No doubt he would have agreed with you*. Only he would have seen it as positive, "freedom from the known."

* Except maybe for the "idiot" thing?

[Rick]

I think there is a difference between being anti-intellectual and "going beyond" concepts.

Sounds right to me. If you reject the conceptual (by being anti-intellectual) you are still acting within the field of conceptuality. If instead you go beyond the conceptual, neither accept it nor reject it, you are outside the field.

[krodha]

I don't understand why awareness is an inadequate translation for it though

Granted there are different modalities of rigpa, but in terms of why “awareness” in an inadequate gloss, squirrels have awareness, a dog has awareness, for example, but they do not have rig pa. Rig pa is “knowledge” in every use of the term, and in the definitive sense, knowledge of the snying po, or essence.

[Matt J]

Not necessarily.

In Dzogchen, we call this enlightened nature rigpa, or pure awareness. Unlike some approaches in which buddhanature is taught in a more theoretical way, and you need to study and meditate for a long time to figure out what it is, Dzogchen is experiential. You get introduced to pure awareness directly, right on the spot.

https://www.lionsroar.com/you-are-the-great-perfection/

I don't understand why awareness is an inadequate translation for it though

Granted there are different modalities of rigpa, but in terms of why “awareness” in an inadequate gloss, squirrels have awareness, a dog has awareness, for example, but they do not have rig pa. Rig pa is “knowledge” in every use of the term, and in the definitive sense, knowledge of the snying po, or essence.

[krodha]

Not necessarily.

Invariably.

Vimalamitra:

• Furthermore, based on the power of repelling the armies of samsara, vidyā (rig pa) is 1) the knowledge (vidyā) of names designated by words, 2) helpful, worldly knowledge such as healing, arts and crafts, and so on, 3) the five sciences (rig pa gnas lnga) of the treatises and so on, 4) knowing (vidyā) as a factor of consciousness, 5) sharp and dull worldly knowledge and so on, and 6) the knowledge of the essence (snying po) that permeates all that is free from ignorance, unobscured by the obscurations of ignorance and so on.

[Matt J]

There is more to Dzogchen than what is contained in any book, or books. Propagating such a narrow definition in the face of how many lineage teachers often use the term will only lead to confusion.

Also, not to belabor the point, but this does not say "only these definitions are acceptable, and none other."

Not necessarily.

Invariably.

Vimalamitra:

• Furthermore, based on the power of repelling the armies of samsara, vidyā (rig pa) is 1) the knowledge (vidyā) of names designated by words, 2) helpful, worldly knowledge such as healing, arts and crafts, and so on, 3) the five sciences (rig pa gnas lnga) of the treatises and so on, 4) knowing (vidyā) as a factor of consciousness, 5) sharp and dull worldly knowledge and so on, and 6) the knowledge of the essence (snying po) that permeates all that is free from ignorance, unobscured by the obscurations of ignorance and so on.

[krodha]

There is more to Dzogchen than what is contained in any book, or books. Propagating such a narrow definition in the face of how many lineage teachers often use the term will only lead to confusion.

Also, not to belabor the point, but this does not say "only these definitions are acceptable, and none other."

This begs the question then, what other definition is apt?

What definition do you feel is missing from Vimalamitra’s five examples? It seems his assessment of the different contextual uses runs the gamut, but if you disagree I’m interested to hear why.