robdl

And the ego/self-image elevates the inattention in meditation above the inattention of normal daily life. "Spiritual materialism" in action.

Getting back to the issue of getting lost in thought during Do-Nothing Meditation. Is there a difference between that and getting lost in thought during a work meeting or while waiting at the doctor’s? Does getting lost in thought during a session which has been labelled as “Do Nothing Meditation” give it higher significance than getting lost in thought in normal daily life? Or is it just another iteration/perpetuation of that?

Right...time (psychological time) in its essence being a movement from what-is, and the seeking for knowledge, the recalling of memory/experience, looking to authority, and the movement of "self" all being a manifestation/expression of movement from what-is.

Indeed. Language/thought/intellect chops up "spiritual/intellectual knowledge", "personal psychological authority", "experience/memory" and "I" into different, seemingly distinct terms, but they're all one and the same.

always good when we can meet each other on here and not just speak past one another totally disconnected.

Yeah, anti spiritual authority, and dismissed his own authority. He took it one step further and even was against the authority of one's own inward psychological authority (of past conditioning/memory/etc.). Radically anti-authoritarian. I appreciate the approach, as appealing to authority is typically a fear movement.

Yeah, I would agree. I think @Faceless has expressed that very concern with the "witness" term. The potential to have the personal/"thinker" connotation.

Osho has pointed out that Krishnamurti was using new, original phrasing to describe these already existing ways, which I get indeed. Perhaps Krishnamurti wanted to term it in new ways, devoid of the religious/traditional baggage -- which I understand.

Yeah. Observation through the lens of the conditioned (memory, experience, knowledge, i.e. the "me") corrupts/influences/distorts the observation.

I believe Krishnamurti and some others (Osho maybe?) have used something along the lines of "observation without the 'observer'" - which I kind of like. Has a negation quality that doesn't reinforce duality by implying a "thinker"/"witness" watching/witnessing his/her thoughts.

The sneaky/self-deceptive aspect of this watching/observation is the "your" thoughts. This can lead one to observe/watch thoughts through the subtle conditioned lens of memory/experience/knowledge (i.e. the accumulated thought that constitutes the "observer"/"watcher"/"thinker"), which corrupts/influences the observation. So to realize that even the observer is the observed (memory, experience, knowledge) is essential.

Right, being lost in thought/oblivious to thinking, i.e. the action-reaction movement of desire-fear-will-volition, etc., is still a "doing"/movement of "self". The fact awareness is oblivious to the doing doesn't make it any less of a doing. So a "do-nothing" meditation where one is completely lost in thought would actually epitomize "doing."

Passive awareness in the sense of awareness that is free of "choosing", or the "chooser" --- therefore awareness that is not through the conditioned lens of memory/experience/desire (which compulsively exerts choice, corrupts the observation, and perpetuates thought-self/the "chooser").

Indeed

we want to be passively aware, not try to control, reject, choose, or negatively/positively judge thoughts --- but we also need to be alert. If attention is swept away by inner chatter with no end, that suggests a lack of alert passivity. Alert in the sense of "quick to notice." Is noticing occurring moment to moment or is noticing occurring 10 minutes after the fact of a long thought sequence?

Aversion/escape: movement away from "what-is." Desire/seeking: movement away from "what-is." To seek is to escape and to escape is to seek.

Seeing-understanding thought(self), rather than projecting non-dual concepts about ultimate reality, and the mind self-deceptively finding security in these concepts, taking these concepts for truth --- which is a common trap.

Can we go into a concrete example? To seek/(say yes) to companionship may simultaneously along with it be an escape/(say no) from isolation, loneliness. The seeking and escaping are just one undifferentiated movement. That would seem to illustrate what you're saying.

I'm not sure if I'm following but let's use another example like desire and fear. In the duality of mind, there's fear vs. desire. They're discrete opposites (like "yes" and "no" are in mind). But in unconditional awareness, the movement of desire and fear is unitary --- they're one and the same movement (of thought-self). So you could say at that level of awareness, it can't be labelled as fear or desire, and yet somehow it is both simultaneously --- as if the original distinction between the two completely dissolved.

Thought-self is so sneaky, how do you know that thought-self/the questioner isn’t just trying to rationalize the use of thinking/questions (to self-perpetuate)?

Questions perpetuate the “questioner.” Just like seeking for enlightenment perpetuates the “seeker.” Thought-self(ego) is self-sustained by creating questions then going about trying to answer them. It’s a trick/self-deception of ego to survive. Seeking for enlightenment is one and the same mechanism, too.

It’s a quality of attention that is whole, not excluding anything - that sees the whole process of thinking, not just thought content. Getting lost in the content of thought means that attention has become focused, partial, exclusive — which suggests the struggle, volition of thought in action.

What is meditation? Can we start by saying what it is not? Meditation isn't passively observing the passing of thoughts in order to quiet the mind to attain enlightenment. This is how the term "meditation" is normally intended or implied. True meditation is observing not only the passing of thoughts, but also even observing the desire/seeking in thought for enlightenment. Total observation of all thought, including even the observation of volitional/desirous thoughts to quiet the mind. Total observation, which is true meditation, is therefore effortless, goal-less. To be aware of the movement of effort means the meditator is not unaware in exerting it (effort) to "attain" something through meditation. Total observation, in this sense, is observation without the conditioned/biased lens of the "observer"; meditation without the influence of the "meditator".

Thought/self needs to have a "point" or "meaning" for things, but at the deepest level, these factors are moot.

Symbolize it if you must due to language's limitations, but just be on the same page about what the symbols mean so we can understand the convo