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About Seeing, Part 4

December 23, 2004 By Uncategorized No Comments

From a conversation with Krishnamurti, on the art of listening:

Sir, what is seeing, and what is listening, and what is learning? I think the three are related to each other: learning, hearing and seeing. What is seeing, perceiving? Do we actually see, or do we see through a screen darkly? A screen of prejudice, a screen of our idiosyncracies, experiences, our wishes, pleasures, fears, and obviously our images about that which we see and about ourselves? So we have this screen after screen between us and the object of perception. So do we ever see the thing at all? Or is it the seeing is coloured by our knowledge, mechanical, experience, and so on and so on, or our images which we have about that thing, or the beliefs in which the mind is conditioned, and therefore prevents the seeing, or the memories which the mind has cultivated prevents the seeing? So seeing may not take place at all. And is it possible for the mind not to have these images, conclusions, beliefs, memories, prejudices, fears, and without having those screens just to look? I think this becomes very important because when there is a seeing of the thing which I am talking about, when there is a seeing you can’t help but acting.

David Bohm, after many conversations with Krishnamurti, developed the concept of Dialogue in which seeing and suspending were intimately related. Krishnamurti here points to suspending biases and conditioning that allow us to both see to the root of things and listen deeply to one another.

I’m curious about how people might do this is daily life. It’s one thing to enter a deeply relfective state in a retreat and practice seeing and listening, but in daily life, when these practices are critical, how do we quickly enter that state where real seeing is possible? What do you do to set aside your biases, prejudices, assumptions and conclusions? How do you suspend in the moment?