Spiritual practice, thought and freedom

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It seems to me that when we start discussing religion the discussion usually falls to the question of spiritual practices, so I should like to stop spoiling other threads and start a new one dedicated exactly to this issue.

So what is spiritual practice? This is actions aimed at attainment of a certain result. When I take up meditation classes or go to monastery to practise vespers, I do this for the sake of becoming someone I am not. I am not virtuous, yet I wanna be; I don't have revelations of Deity but want to; I... you know all that stuff. Thus every practice is the result of desire, desire to be someone, desire to gain something. Some people leave their homes for the sake of becoming someone, some want to get rid of their desires. But how about getting rid of desire for cessation of all other desires? This is not a joke, or casuistry, or just a clever phrase. When we start doing something crediting it so much importance, we actually remain desirous.

Desire is the product of thought. When I get something pleasant, there appears a desire to relive it again and again. That happens with ALL things. I have eaten a sweet, it was pleasant, now the mind produces the thought: do it again. I have heard a good music, it made me feel really exalted, now there arise the thought: Listen it again, download it, so that it always be with thee. I have seen a woman whose beauty really made me forget about everything, about myself, now the thought says: marry her. And we all do that. So what is the result? The result is that we become fed up with those cakes, songs, women etc. Thus it happens everytime. What is the reason of it? The reason is that we look on the present moment through the eyes of the yesterday, the reason is that we follow our thought which always belongs to the past. In the past I was ready to get pleasure through a certain thing and when that thing came into being, that was spontaneous and not the outcome of thought, it just happened on its own. Now I am arranging everything so as to repeat that experience. But it doesn't work... Why? because everything changed, because now I am not ready to receive that. No one can enter in a river twice. Thus all which is made by thought deos not correspond with the now, but with yesterday.

Practice is impossible without thought, practice is impossible without all those things we learnt and take for truth about ourselves. Yet all that can never correspond with the Present Moment, with the Now, with me of the present day, not of the yesterday.

So what happens when we understand this? There comes the freedom, the only possible freedom which is not the result of one thought dominating over the others. When we give up all desire we remain one-on-one with the present moment, without desire, which is always the outcome of the past. This state cannot be attained through any practice, through adherence to moral precepts or whatever, this is not the outcome of the will or thought. It comes spontaneously and automatically when the inability of ALL desires, however noble, is understood.

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@Eudaimon,

I used to practice guitar for hours a day. Now (unless I'm learning something new) the phrases or licks I learned require no thought (or if it does, I don't notice it). I can now improvise on the fly, which can bring me joy and sometimes I amaze myself when a moment "comes together." I don't think spiritual practices are much different. Let it become second nature and you won't notice the "thoughts."

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@Eudaimon,

I understand the critique of 'practise' from Krishnamurti. As I have said in other threads, I read Krishnaji for years, and I understood some very important things from him. He was a skeptic for the right reasons and a valuable antidote to a lot of pious cant. Even now he has formed a part of my outlook on life.

I know the theory, but where is the work done? The work of spiritual change does not happen on a verbal level. All the time when K is asking 'can you observe without the observer? So that the past is not present as the observer? So that the knower and the known are one?' he is referring to samadhi. He never used that word of course. He never used any terminology or advocated any practise. But there is a state called sahaj samadhi, natural samadhi, into which K used to enter frequently. When he was a young child, he used to sit watching ants and nature for hours on end. He had this quality of mind where he would remain for hours without a thought entering his head.

I am not like that and I am sure very few are. Towards the end of his life, Krishnamurti declared that for all his 40 years of speaking, nobody had really changed, nobody had really heard. Something like that is recorded in his biography. I don't know, necessarily, how it should be interpreted, but I am very wary about taking Krishnamurti at face value in regard to this idea of non-practise. My view is unless you undertake a sadhana and train the mind and body to be still, all that will happen is that you will think about these ideas and nothing will really change.

I will share with you my personal experience of practise. I got 'Krishnamurti Reader' and many of his other books in the period 1976-82. I got a lot from them. But at that time I also discovered Buddhist meditation. Also I went to a great course which was being run at the time by a pair of teachers, husband and wife, which was like a combination of meditation teaching and group awareness training. it was generally secular in outlook. I suppose I went through their sessions for about two years and had a number of breakthroughs. Not many people on those groups were really interested in the spiritual side of meditation but that was my interest.

Generally, I found that through meditation practise, things would happen in the background layers of consciousness over which I had no control. Nothing would seem to happen but in the days and weeks that followed, something would become clear. It is of course hard to describe and happens on a level other than that of conscious thought.

I have continued on and off ever since. I try to maintain a daily sitting practise, but am not highly disciplined. (I should be sitting now instead of writing this.) I struggled through the 10-day Goenka retreat in early 2008 and took formal refuge at the Nan Tien Temple (Mahayana) in July 2005. So I see myself as a committed Buddhist now.

The understanding I think it most useful is that of Soto Zen and Master Dogen - 'practise is enlightenment'. It is explained in the two key books in my development of the Buddhist path, which were Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki, and To Meet the Real Dragon by Gudo Nishijima.

There are two levels of truth, conventional and ultimate. I think often K speaks from the ultimate level of truth - no path, no practise, no realiser. It is quite true on that level, similar to Diamond Sutra. But we are conventional people living in a conventional reality. Unless we undertake a commitment to conventional practise, the years will pass and we will get no closer to understanding. I know through experience now that work is done through sitting practise that cannot be achieved by intellectual analysis. It is not done on the ego level. Ego just has to sit down and shut up long enough for the work to be done. Hard but true. It has been difficult - the hardest part is to overcome one's own ingrained bad habits and attitudes. But on the upside, when the realisations come, as they do, it is a great sense of liberation. That is how it has been for me anyway.

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@jeeprs,

My spiritual practice is quite different:

1) I accept everything including desire and no desire as part of the universe of things that are part of me and part of everything. I do not deny nor try to get rid of that which exists and will probably exist forever.

2) I don't do (practice) any one thing but I do (practice) many things: tennis, golf, dancing, singing, music, philosophy, art, observing, reading, walking, creative Web development, Tai Chi, yoga, etc. I don't do anyone thing but mix it up. From the many things I do, I learn to observe differences in similarities (e.g. the swing of the tennis racquet vs. the swing in a golf stroke), and I learn to observe similarities in differences (the feeling in playing music and the feeling when dancing).

From this, I piece together clues that tell me more about the universe I live in and what my life is all about.

For me, it is very simple, non-stressful, easy-going spiritual practice of life.

Rich
Rich

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@richrf,

Thanks to all for interesting replies. I shall try to respond to them all.

chad3006;89628 wrote:

I used to practice guitar for hours a day. Now (unless I'm learning something new) the phrases or licks I learned require no thought (or if it does, I don't notice it). I can now improvise on the fly, which can bring me joy and sometimes I amaze myself when a moment "comes together." I don't think spiritual practices are much different. Let it become second nature and you won't notice the "thoughts."

It seems to me that here is some difference, is it not? Because when I learn to play guitar I learn not one thing but the wise to do many, right?
So after practising, I shall become free from thoughts?

jeeprs;89680 wrote:

I understand the critique of 'practise' from Krishnamurti. As I have said in other threads, I read Krishnaji for years, and I understood some very important things from him. He was a skeptic for the right reasons and a valuable antidote to a lot of pious cant. Even now he has formed a part of my outlook on life... When he was a young child, he used to sit watching ants and nature for hours on end. He had this quality of mind where he would remain for hours without a thought entering his head...

That's all right, friend, but why should we discuss the personality of K? Incidentally, I didn't even mention him here and I don't know why shouldst thou. As for his life -- thou obviously makest him a supreme being -- we can see that it was rather usual life if subtract those "night meditations" from it. We can remember the break with Rajgopals and the claims that he had sexual relationships with the wife of his best friend (Rajgopal) making her do abortions. Therefore, I don't think we really need worshipping someone.
The other thing is the sense of the things I raised here. None of them was actually rejected by thee. Isn't practice the product of thought, the product of desire, the product of the past? Obviously it is. It is necessary to understand that, to experience that, not just say: "It is the product of desire" and forget about it. When thou seest that every path is closed, when thou art cornered, when there is no difference between spiritual path and householding path, what happens then? My answer is absolutely useless for those who don't experience that, yet I should tell thee. Then comes Nirvana and Nirvana is nothing but it. Thou knowst the word means "cessation of wind". When a storm on sea comes to an end, people in India called that "nirvana" that is the end of storm. Then desire was identified with that wind and nirvana started meaning the end of blowing inside one's soul, the end of all desires, the cessation. Now what is practice: this is not cessation of the wind, this is an attempt to make all winds to blow in one direction, an attempt of one thought, of one desire to dominate over others. "I want this desire to stop, I want to be concentrated, free...", is it not another form of desire we labeled to be noble for some reasons?
Allow me to show thee where thou hast gone a wrong way. Why dost thou desire to be free from thoughts, to be like Krishna or whoever? The freedom comes when one does not desire anything because, again, when thou desirest something, this is DESIRE. Thus there is absolutely no way to overcome thought by means of will because will is also thought. When everything is forgotten when we give up an attempt to become free, we become free. I think that all those teachers like the Buddha taught the same: the end of ALL desires, noble, ignoble, to be free, to be slave. But when people heard thereof and did not really understand, they made with those words the same thing as they do everytime: they started using will to get there, because that is the thing they do in their everyday life. Surely I cannot prove that but it seems to be so.
Dost thou really think that meditating at all will make one free? That in the end of the path there is fruit. But where is the end. I should like to propose thee one koan, maybe I've read it somewhere or maybe created myself: "If thou practisest, thou wilt become a practitioner, not buddha"

richrf;89694 wrote:

My spiritual practice is quite different:

1) I accept everything including desire and no desire as part of the universe of things that are part of me and part of everything. I do not deny nor try to get rid of that which exists and will probably exist forever.

2) I don't do (practice) any one thing but I do (practice) many things: tennis, golf, dancing, singing, music, philosophy, art, observing, reading, walking, creative Web development, Tai Chi, yoga, etc. I don't do anyone thing but mix it up. From the many things I do, I learn to observe differences in similarities (e.g. the swing of the tennis racquet vs. the swing in a golf stroke), and I learn to observe similarities in differences (the feeling in playing music and the feeling when dancing).

From this, I piece together clues that tell me more about the universe I live in and what my life is all about.

For me, it is very simple, non-stressful, easy-going spiritual practice of life.

Rich

Thanks, rich but we are speaking of the thigns which exactly demand self-restraint.

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@Eudaimon,

Eudaimon;89799 wrote:

Thanks, rich but we are speaking of the thigns which exactly demand self-restraint.

Yes, I understand. I don't have that need or desire. It is all OK for me.

Rich

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@Eudaimon,

We should not be that much concerned even with the extinction of thought which in tune is the product of thought itself . The only thing to be understood is that there is absolutely nothing to do. Non-action like Daoists called that. It doesn't mean that thought must stop operating in the mind it's just that we are fully aware of its nature, of its inability to solve our problems. Freedom, real freedom, is absolute independence from the mind. When we see that there is no exit through thought when we are checkmated, there comes freedom from thought, not its extinction. The extinction of thought is necessary only for those who don't understand the nothingness of all mental states and desire to get that causes frustration because thought appears again and again. But when we see that even that desire is nothing that it is caused by conditioning the struggle comes to an end and comes peace. Life ceases to be the pursuit of result: of religious, sensual, mental pleasures. This is what is called "to drop body and mind". This understanding destroys that constant hostility "religious" people feel towards science because when there is nothing more to defend, when there is no idea which is believed to be "not of this world" there comes real peace, real reconcilliation with everyone.

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@Eudaimon,

Eudaimon;90104 wrote:

We should not be that much concerned even with the extinction of thought which in tune is the product of thought itself . The only thing to be understood is that there is absolutely nothing to do. Non-action like Daoists called that. It doesn't mean that thought must stop operating in the mind it's just that we are fully aware of its nature, of its inability to solve our problems. Freedom, real freedom, is absolute independence from the mind. When we see that there is no exit through thought when we are checkmated, there comes freedom from thought, not its extinction. The extinction of thought is necessary only for those who don't understand the nothingness of all mental states and desire to get that causes frustration because thought appears again and again. But when we see that even that desire is nothing that it is caused by conditioning the struggle comes to an end and comes peace. Life ceases to be the pursuit of result: of religious, sensual, mental pleasures. This is what is called "to drop body and mind". This understanding destroys that constant hostility "religious" people feel towards science because when there is nothing more to defend, when there is no idea which is believed to be "not of this world" there comes real peace, real reconcilliation with everyone.

Very Eastern, very detached, cease striving, cease struggling, acceptance. Very unlike the Western notion of doing gods will in the world, struggling and suffering for social justice and righteousness.
Just an observation not a value judgement.

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@Eudaimon,

But it never actually works out like that. There is no such thing as 'the extinction of thought' in the way that you would think about it. it is more like a matter of being very quiet in the face of something beaufitul, or awe-inspiring. If it is a conscious effort not to think, to avoid something, get something, attain a state, or whatever it is, it will not work. The bodhisattva, besides, is not in the lest concerned with his/her enlightenment, but practises the supreme wisdom for the sake of all sentient beings, knowing that samsara and nirvana are ultimately not two different things.

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@Eudaimon,

The "oriental quietism' archetype is similar to saying that Christians are like those Philipinos who re-enact the station of the cross and get themselves mock-crucified at easter. God bless them.

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@jeeprs,

I'm not too interested in self discipline. I recognize that everything I do is a twig on a branch that leads back to the trunk: the primary impetus of me.

I find that I can operate contrary to the flow of that impetus, and everything gets difficult. The smallest thing is like a mountain I can't deal with. When I'm in line with the my impetus, even if I'm climbing Mt. Everest, I go and go, finding the way, changing what needs to be changed, forgiving what needs to be forgiven, and keep going. I can feel it inside.

The spiritual practice I'm familiar with has to do with discovery of the nature of emotional "tangles" which can bind up energy. It can be as simple as stopping and allowing the symbolism of a situation to come to mind. Or there are rituals. The only one I frequently used is called the Kabbalistic Cross. It's a way of observing the opposites in a situation and tying the situation back to the connection between the fountain of potential and the actuality... the twig of now.

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@Eudaimon,

beautifully said. Would I be right in saying that the discovery only comes by way of observation?

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs;97375 wrote:

beautifully said. Would I be right in saying that the discovery only comes by way of observation?

For me, it does. I've noticed that the older I get, the less time I spend beating my head against a wall or climbing the wrong tree. I've learned to feel it inside. So I can feel.. ah, that's the feeling of frustration when I'm struggling away, but there's only a trickle of impetus... I'm working against nature, not with it. The other way feels more like riding a surf board.

So observing what I'm feeling and being able to interpret it. And even now, I can feel that I have more to learn, because my life isn't all surfing. But my approach to that is patience and holding the intention of learning what I need to learn. I believe that's the main purpose of the Kabbalistic Cross: to ask for the experience that one needs... so it's an adoption of openness, so that when the learning experience comes, I don't ignore it, but observe it. Life is the greatest of all gurus. Does that go along with your way?

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs;97375 wrote:

beautifully said. Would I be right in saying that the discovery only comes by way of observation?

Observation experience and feeling Jeeps for me anyway.
Thanks.

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@Arjuna,

Arjuna;97379 wrote:

For me, it does. I've noticed that the older I get, the less time I spend beating my head against a wall or climbing the wrong tree. I've learned to feel it inside. So I can feel.. ah, that's the feeling of frustration when I'm struggling away, but there's only a trickle of impetus... I'm working against nature, not with it. The other way feels more like riding a surf board.

So observing what I'm feeling and being able to interpret it. And even now, I can feel that I have more to learn, because my life isn't all surfing. But my approach to that is patience and holding the intention of learning what I need to learn. I believe that's the main purpose of the Kabbalistic Cross: to ask for the experience that one needs... so it's an adoption of openness, so that when the learning experience comes, I don't ignore it, but observe it. Life is the greatest of all gurus. Does that go along with your way?

Yes...but. Observe yourself as you are but I have also found that the real freedom comes in seeing beyond the self. There is this awareness that is beyond and not a product of conscious thought. Becoming aware of that is key.

1 Reply

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;97475 wrote:

Yes...but. Observe yourself as you are but I have also found that the real freedom comes in seeing beyond the self. There is this awareness that is beyond and not a product of conscious thought. Becoming aware of that is key.

I'm only guessing that you're referring to what some people call "still point" or dynamic stillness. If you are, I came to identify that experience when I was a massage therapist. After several hours of moving in a flowing way, I would walk out of my office and dwell in it for some time. I eventually noticed that I could summon it at any time.

If you're talking about going further than that, all I can say is I know, but part of me is in Kindergarten, and that part of me takes more of my focus and energy. What's your experience?

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@Eudaimon,

well the post above, number 3 in this thread, gives some background on my understanding and practise of meditation. It has changed my attitude to life greatly over the years. It is an ongoing commitment. What you said above about coming to understand the nature of emotional tangles is quite true. There is a saying that coming to meditative awareness is like 'cuttting the Gordian knot'. This is because at a very deep, subconscious level of awareness there is this instinctive hanging on and clinging. This clinging is itself the centre around which the ego is formed. So unclenching that clinging is the key to the deep sense of peace that comes from meditation. In some ways it is like 'surrender' in the Christian tradition but I could never get on board the Christian approach to it.

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@prothero,

prothero;97336 wrote:

Very Eastern, very detached, cease striving, cease struggling, acceptance. Very unlike the Western notion of doing gods will in the world, struggling and suffering for social justice and righteousness.
Just an observation not a value judgement.

And very fatalistic, since it supposes that what people do is ineffective. But is that true? It isn't as if we must accept this view of acceptance without wondering whether it is true. Is it? Is it immune from criticism?

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@Eudaimon,

There may well be a tendency in the 'traditional Eastern' outlook to fatalism and indifference. But if you look into the Pali canon (the recorded dialogs of the Buddha) a completely different picture emerges. The Buddha Sakyamuni gave a great deal of very practical advice on all manners of issues including the conduct of life for householders, advice to rulers and leaders, and many other teachings specifically tailored to various types of persons in addition to the monastic order he founded. There was nothing fatalistic or indifferent about these teachings either, after more than two thousand years they are still an archetype of the 'civil discourse' and have had a profoundly civilizing influence throughout Asia and arguably the world at large.

In the Mahayana tradition (of 'Northern' Buddhism) there are also many sources of teaching suitable for an active and engaged lay practitioner of Buddhism. There is a marvellous text called the Vimalakirti Sutrain which the central figure is an urbane and wealthy silk trader whose grasp of the 'mysterious dharma' is sufficiently profound to embarass all of the Buddha's closest disciples.

Thich Nat Hahn, who is probably the Buddhist leader best known in the West after the Dalai Lama, has for decades championed a model of 'engaged Buddhism' which seeks to express itself in life and society, and the Venerable Hsing Yun also promotes an understanding of Buddhist Humanism which seeks to adapt Buddhist principles to modern urban life.

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@jeeprs,

Eudaimon;89584 wrote:

So what is spiritual practice? This is actions aimed at attainment of a certain result.

......... Thus every practice is the result of desire, desire to be someone, desire to gain something.
......... But how about getting rid of desire for cessation of all other desires?
......... When we start doing something crediting it so much importance, we actually remain desirous.
Desire is the product of thought.

.......... I have seen a woman whose beauty really made me forget about everything, about myself, now the thought says: marry her. And we all do that. So what is the result? The result is that we become fed up with those cakes, songs, women etc. Thus it happens everytime.

What is the reason of it?

.........Practice is impossible without thought, practice is impossible without all those things we learnt and take for truth about ourselves. Yet all that can never correspond with the Present Moment, with the Now, with me of the present day, not of the yesterday.

.......... When we give up all desire we remain one-on-one with the present moment, without desire, which is always the outcome of the past. This state cannot be attained through any practice, through adherence to moral precepts or whatever, this is not the outcome of the will or thought. It comes spontaneously and authomatically when the inability of ALL desires, however noble, is understood.

Hi Eud,
Please let me try.......
The Eastern thought or the the Oriental philosophies has certain core ideas which they assert to be of some fruitful value for life fulfillment. The vedic literatures are quite famous for pleading its readers to follow paths that attains, gains, results (words you used) as a goal for individual liberation or self-realisation or whateevr you may call it.

In India, it is believed by many that there is no one way to acheive those goals. there are many ways. One way is of course what we often hear as spiritual practise.

As you rightly propound, that desire is the product of thought, and that practise is impossible without thought, there seems to be a superficiality to the claims being made by spiritual practioners, to a complete outsider.
So, even if i practise meditation, is it not the result of a desire?

To understand this dichotomy, we should know about 1) the concept of Maya or Illusion 2) the concept of Ego.

Once we understand this concepts, it would then be clear that why in Ecclesiastes the king who having conquered everthing else, ultimately desired to capture the wind, but in vain. Hope this brief observation will help thee.

Having said this, it is now important to understand that desire - a product of thought, has to be tamed or chained. You will now agree, if logically followed, that it is thought that appears to be the root cause. Hence, yogis, (it was not Buddha's idea or discovery, poor him) concluded that the only logical and possible way to control desire is by way of controlling the thoughts. If thought is held back, lets suppose like the river water behind a dam, then all that floods the downstream valley is also controlled.

To control desire means to control al that unwanted or harmful desire, that has a debilitating effect either on the individual or on the society, partly or wholly.

In a sense, by controlling or 'killing' the desire [the thought-actions of Ego]within you, you are liberating yourself.

Spiritual/meditational practise, according to Hindu teachings, is only one way to curb the harmful desirous thoughts.

The good desire to live, and the desire to participate in this discussion is a healthy desire. Although it is still a reflection of Maya.

Eudaimon;89799 wrote:

It seems to me that here is some difference, is it not? Because when I learn to play guitar I learn not one thing but the wise to do many, right?
So after practising, I shall become free from thoughts?

After practising, you can better control your thoughts of desire or any other thought.

Eudaimon;89799 wrote:

Isn't practice the product of thought, the product of desire, the product of the past? Obviously it is. It is necessary to understand that, to experience that, not just say: "It is the product of desire" and forget about it.

The product of desire - in other words is Mayajaal...... The Web/Entanglement of material objects.

Eudaimon;89799 wrote:

Thou knowst the word means "cessation of wind". When a storm on sea comes to an end, people in India called that "nirvana" that is the end of storm. Then desire was identified with that wind and nirvana started meaning the end of blowing inside one's soul, the end of all desires, the cessation.

It is an apt example. Thanks

Eudaimon;89799 wrote:

Now what is practice: this is not cessation of the wind, this is an attempt to make all winds to blow in one direction, an attempt of one thought, of one desire to dominate over others. "I want this desire to stop, I want to be concentrated, free...", is it not another form of desire we labeled to be noble for some reasons?
Allow me to show thee where thou hast gone a wrong way. Why dost thou desire to be free from thoughts, to be like Krishna or whoever? The freedom comes when one does not desire anything because, again, when thou desirest something, this is DESIRE. Thus there is absolutely no way to overcome thought by means of will because will is also thought.

Will is the engine on which the wheels of desire run. Free or freeness or freedom is anthropogenic and is relative. The product of Maya.

Eudaimon;89799 wrote:

When everything is forgotten when we give up an attempt to become free, we become free. I think that all those teachers like the Buddha taught the same: the end of ALL desires, noble, ignoble, to be free, to be slave. But when people heard thereof and did not really understand, they made with those words the same thing as they do everytime: they started using will to get there, because that is the thing they do in their everyday life. Surely I cannot prove that but it seems to be so.
Dost thou really think that meditating at all will make one free? That in the end of the path there is fruit. But where is the end. I should like to propose thee one koan, maybe I've read it somewhere or maybe created myself: "If thou practisest, thou wilt become a practitioner, not buddha"

When the teacher says 'you have to practise maths' ; it does not mean that eventually you will become the maths teacher. But one thing is sure, without the practise, you can never become the maths teacher.

regards

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Spiritual practice, thought and freedom

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