In 1979, J. Krishnamurti (K) engaged in a discussion with Buddhist scholars venerable Prof Walpola Rahula (R) from the series "Can humanity change?" During this exchange K made an inquiry about Vipassanā , the foundation of mindfulness, and how it is cultivated, if it is to be cultivated at all.
Here is the transcript of the conversation:
K: Sir, would you kindly explain, what is Buddhist meditation.
R: Buddhist meditation, the purest form of Buddhist meditation which has taken many forms, many varieties, the purest form of Buddhist meditation is this insight into 'what is'.
K: You are using my words.
R: No, not your words. You are using those words! Long before you, two thousand five hundred years ago these words were used. I am using them.
K: All right, then we are both two thousand years old.
R: Vipassana is insight vision, to see into the nature of things, that is the real vision.
K: Have they a system?
R: A system is, of course, developed.
K: That's what I want to get at.
R: Yes, when you take the original teaching of the Buddha...
K: ...there is no system.
R: It is called Satipatthana, the best discourse by the Buddha on this insight meditation. There is no system.
K: I am listening, sir.
R: And the key point in that is the awareness. Awareness is sati or smṛti in Sanskrit. And to be mindful, aware, of all that happens, you are not expected to run away from life and live in a cave or in a forest, like a statue, all that. It is not that. And in this Satipatthāna, it is - if you translate it as the establishment of mindfulness, but rather it is the presence of awareness, the meaning of that word.
K: Is this awareness?
R: Yes, awareness of every movement, every act, everything.
K: Is this awareness to be cultivated?
R: There is no question of cultivation. There is no question.
K: That is what I am trying to get at.
R: Yes.
K: Because the modern gurus, modern systems of meditation, modern Zen, you know all the rest of it, they are trying to cultivate it.
R: Yes, I'll tell you, sir. I have written an essay, it will be published in Belgium, on The Cycle of Buddhist Meditation. There I said that this teaching of the Buddha is for many centuries misunderstood and wrongly applied as a technique. And they have developed into such a technique that the mind can be instead of liberating it can be...imprisoning.
K: Of course. All meditation...
R: If it is made into a system...
K: Please, sir, I am asking: awareness, is it something to be cultivated in the sense manipulated, watched over, worked at?
R: No, no.
K: So how does it come into being?
R: There is no coming into being, you do it.
K: Wait sir, just listen. I want to find out, I am not critical, I just want to find out what Buddhist meditation is. Because now there is Buddhist, there is Tibetan, there are various types of Buddhist meditation, various types of Tibetan meditation, various types of Hindu meditation, Sufi meditation - for God's sake, you follow, they are like mushrooms all over the place. I am just asking if awareness is something that takes place through concentration?
R: No, not in that sense. For anything we do in this world a certain amount of concentration is necessary. That is understood. In that sense a certain kind of concentration is necessary but don't mix it up with Dhyana and Samadhi.
K: I don't like any of those words personally.
R: But they are concentration in the principle.
K: I know, I know. Most of the meditations that have been propagated all over the world involves concentration.
R: Zen and various other things, Samadhi, Dhyana, Hindu, Buddhist, concentration is the center.
K: That is nonsense. I don't accept concentration.
R: In the Buddha's teaching, meditation is not that concentration.
K: It is not concentration. Let's put it away. Then what is this awareness, how does it come into being?
R: You see, you live in the action in the present moment.
K: Wait, sir. Yes sir. The moment you say the present moment, you don't live in the present moment.
R: That is what it says, that you don't live in the present moment. And Satipatthāna is to live in the present moment.
K: No, you are missing it. How is one to live in the present? What is the mind that lives in the present?
R: The mind that lives in the present is the mind which is free from...
K: Yes, sir, go on sir, I am waiting, I want to find out.
R: ...free from the idea of self. When you have the idea of self either you live in the past or in the future.
K: The now is, as far as I, one sees, not I, one sees generally, the past modifying itself in the present and going on.
R: That is the usual.
K: Wait. That is the present.
R: No.
K: Then what is the present? Free of the past?
R: Yes.
K: That's it. Free of the past, which means free of time. So that is the only state of mind which is now. Now I am just asking, sir, what is awareness? How does it flower, how does it happen? You follow?
R: There is no technique for it.
K: I understand.
R: You were asking how it happens.
K: Quite right. I used the 'how' just to ask a question, not for a method. I'll put it round the other way. In what manner does this awareness come into being? I am not aware - suppose I am not aware. I am just enclosed in my own petty little worries and anxieties, problems, I love you and you don't love me, and all that is going on in my mind. I live in that. And you come along and tell me, "Be aware of all that". And I say, "What do you mean by being aware?"
R: When you ask me that, be aware of that pettiness.
K: Yes. So that means be aware...
R: Of the pettiness.
K: Yes, yes. Be aware of all your pettiness. What do you mean by that?
R: Be aware of that.
K: Yes, sir, I don't how to be, I don't know what it means.
R: It is not necessary to know what it means.
K: What do you mean it is not necessary?
R: Be aware of it.
K: Yes, sir. You tell me, be aware of it... I am blind. I think that is an elephant, how am I to? You follow? I am blind and I want to see light. And you say, "Be aware of that blindness". I say, "Yes, what does it mean?" It's not concentration. So I say, look, awareness is something in which choice doesn't exist. Wait, sir. Awareness means to be aware of this hall, the curtains, the lights, the people sitting here, the shape of the walls, the windows, to be aware of it. Just a minute. Either I am aware of one part, part by part, or as I enter the room I am aware of the whole thing: the roof, the lamps, the curtains, the shape of the windows, the floor, the mottled roof, everything. Is that what you mean, sir?
R: That also is a kind of awareness.
K: That is awareness. Now what is the difference - I am not categorizing, please I am not being impudent, or inquisitive, or insulting - what is the difference between that sense of awareness and attention?
R: It is wrong to put 'sense' of awareness. Awareness.
K: All right. That awareness and attention... You see we have abolished concentration except when I have to drill a hole in the wall, I hope I am drilling it straight, I concentrate.
R: We have not excluded it. There is concentration but that is not the main thing.
K: No, that is not awareness.
R: But concentration may be useful or helpful.
K: To drill a hole straight.
R: Yes. In awareness also, it may be helpful but it is not concentration on a simple point.
K: There must be a certain sense of concentration if I have to learn mathematics.
R: For anything, sir.
K: Therefore I am just putting that aside for the moment. What is attention? To attend.
R: How do you explain, for instance, awareness, mindfulness, attention, how do you discriminate these three: awareness, mindfulness and attention?
K: I would say awareness in which there is no choice, just to be aware. The moment when choice enters into awareness, there is no awareness.
R: Right.
K: And choice is measurement, division and so on. So awareness is without choice, just to be aware. To say, "I don't like, I like this room", all that has ended.
R: Right.
K: Attention, to attend, in that attention there is no division.
R: Also that means no choice.
K: Leave it for the moment. Attention implies no division, me attending. And so it has no division, therefore no measurement and therefore no border.
R: In attention.
K: In 'complete' attention.
R: In that sense it is equal to awareness.
K: No, no, no...
R: Why not?
K: In awareness there may be a center from which you are being aware.
SS: Even if there is no choice?
R: No, that is not awareness.
K: Wait, I must go back.
N: You are making a distinction between awareness and attention.
K: I want to.
SS: Are you saying attention is a deeper process.
K: Much more, a totally different quality. One can be aware of what kind of dress you have. One may say, "I like it", or "I don't like it", so choice doesn't exist, you are aware of it, that's all. But attention, in that there is no attender, one who attends, and so no division.
R: In awareness also you can say the same thing, there is no one who is aware.
K: Of course, that's right. But it has not the same quality as attention.
R: I don't want to go into these words, but the Buddha's teaching, Satipatthāna, is that in this practice of meditation there is no discrimination, there is no value judgement, there is no like or dislike, but you only see. That's all. And what happens will happen when you see.
K: In that state of attention what takes place?
R: That is another explanation.
K: No, if you totally attend, with your ears, with your eyes, with your body, with your nerves, with all your mind, with your heart in the sense of affection, love, compassion, total attention, what takes place?
R: Of course what takes place is an absolute revolution internal and complete revolution.
K: No, what is the state of such a mind that is completely attentive?
F: It is free of the stream.
K: No, that's finished.
R: The stream is dried now, don't talk about it! It is desert now!
K: I am asking what is the quality of the mind that is so supremely attentive? You see it has no quality, no center, and having no center no border. And this is an actuality, you can't just imagine this. That means has one ever given such complete attention.
SS: Is there any object in that attention?
K: Of course not.
R: Object in the sense of?
K: Subject and object. Obviously not. Because there is no division. You try it, do it, sir.
SS: I mean not merely physical object but any phenomenal object such as sorrow, or all those.
K: Give complete attention, if you can. Say for instance, I tell you meditation is the meditator.
R: That is right. There is no meditator.
K: Wait, wait, wait. I say, meditation is the meditator. Give your complete attention to that, and see what happens. That's a statement you hear. You don't make an abstraction of it into an idea, but you just hear that statement. It has the quality of truth, it has the quality of great beauty, it has a sense of absoluteness about it. Now give your whole attention to it and see what happens.
R: I think Buddhist meditation is that.
K: I don't know, sir.
R: Yes.
K: I'll accept your word for it, but I don't know.
R: And I think it is not misleading to accept my opinion.
K: No, no. I don't know.
R: Satipatthāna is that. Real Satipatthāna is that. Now if you ask people who practice it, there are many meditation centers, I openly say they are misleading. I have openly written it.
K: Yes, sir, that is nonsense.
R: When you ask how it happens, I said that presupposes a method, a technique.
K: No, I am asking, can one give such attention?
R: You are asking whether it is possible?
K: Yes, is it possible and will you give such attention - not you, sir, I am asking the question. Which means do we ever attend.
F: Sir, when you say can one attend...
K: Will you attend.
F: That's it.
K: Not exercising will.
F: Quite.
K: Will you... you know, do it. If that attention is not there, truth cannot exist.
R: I don't think that is appropriate. Truth exists but cannot be seen.
K: Ah, I don't know. You say truth exists but I don't know...
R: But that doesn't mean that truth does not exist.
K: I don't know, I said.
R: That is correct.
K: Jesus said, Father in heaven. I don't know the father. It may exist but I don't know, so I don't accept.
R: No, not accepting. I don't think it is correct to say that without that attention, truth does not exist.
K: I said without that attention, truth cannot come into being.
R: There is no coming into being.
K: No, of course not. Let me put it differently... all right. Without that attention the word truth has no meaning.
R: That will be better. That's better.
K: We have talked for an hour and three quarters, sir. I don't know when your bus or train goes. We had better stop.
R: I think on behalf of everybody, I thank all these people, not you.
- Brockwood Park,
June 28 1979
