Love

To love is the greatest thing in life; it is very important to talk about love, to feel it, to nourish it, to treasure it, otherwise it will soon be dissipated, for the world is very brutal. If while you are young you don't feel love, if you don't look with love at people, at animals, at flowers, when you grow up you find that your life is empty; you will be very lonely, and the dark shadows of fear will follow you always. But the moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.

JK

Self - Awareness

Question: Does not this process of constant self-awareness lead to self-centeredness?

Krishnamurti: "It does, does it not? The more you are concerned about yourself, watching, improving, thinking about yourself, the more self-centered you are, are you not? That is an obvious fact. If I am concerned with changing myself, then I must observe, I must build a technique which will help me to break up that centre. There is self-centeredness as long as I am consciously or unconsciously concerned with a result, with success, as long as I am gaining and putting aside - which is what most of us are doing. The incentive is the goal I am pursuing; because I want to gain that end, I watch myself. I am unhappy, I am miserable, frustrated, and I feel there is a state in which I can be happy, fulfilled, complete; so I become aware in order to gain that state. I use awareness to get what I want; so I am self-centered. Through awareness, through self-analysis, through reading, studying, I hope to dissolve the "me",and then I shall be happy, enlightened, liberated, I shall be one of the elite - and that is what I want. So, the more I am concerned with gaining an end, the greater is the self-centeredness of thought. But thought is ever self enclosing anyhow, is it not?

So, what? To break down the self-centeredness, I must understand why the mind seeks an end, a goal, a particular result. Why does my mind go after a reward? Why? Can it function in any other way? Is not the movement of the mind from memory to memory, from result to result? I have acquired this, I don't like it, and I am going to get some thing else. I don't like this thought, but that thought will be better, nobler, more comforting, more satisfying. As long as I am thinking, I can think in no other terms; for the mind moves from knowledge to knowledge, from memory to memory. Is not thinking self-centered in its very nature? I know there are exceptions, but we are not discussing the exceptions. In our everyday life, are we not consciously or unconsciously pursuing an end, gaining and avoiding, seeking to continue, putting aside anything that is disturbing, that is insecure, uncertain? In seeking its own certainty, the mind creates self-centeredness; and is not that self-centeredness the "me", which then watches over and analyzes itself? So, as long as we seek a result, self-centeredness must exist, whether in an individual, in a group, in a nation or a race. But if we can understand why the mind seeks a result, a satisfying end, why it wants to be certain - if we understand that, then there is a possibility of breaking down the walls that enclose thought as the "me". But that requires an astonishing awareness of the total process, not only of the conscious, but also of the unconscious levels, an awareness from moment to moment in which there is no gathering, no accumulation, no saying, "Yes, I have understood this, and I am going to use it for tomorrow", a spontaneity which is not of the mind. Only then is there a possibility of going beyond the self-enclosing activities of thought."

Collected Works
Ojai, 23rd August 1952
7th public talk

Past and Future

Words of the Buddha

The past should not be followed after
and the future not desired;
what is past is dead and gone
and the future is yet to come.

Majjhima Nikaya III, 131

passivity...

...thoughtless..emotionless...undaunted...non-resistance....seems to help tide any situation..however difficult it might seem...

a flexible weed which bends with the flow during a strong wind has better chances of surviving the nature's vagary than a strong tree resisting and trying to hold still...

let anything happen...don't care...let the flow of the tide take you where you're destined to...let go..just let go..and relax

Buddha is Reality

Subhuti asked: "What does buddha mean?"

The Buddha answered: "Buddha is reality. One who thoroughly comprehends all the factors of existence is a buddha."

-Prajnaparamita

From "Buddha Speaks," edited by Anne Bancroft, 2000. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Boston, www.shambhala.com.

inner..outer

"There is only one real movement in life which is both the outer and
the inner.
With the understanding of the outer situation or condition, the inner
movement of truth, of choiceless awareness begins, which is not in
opposition to the outer or contradiction within the inner. For both
outer opposition and inner contradiction are false division of the
outer and the inner. As these conflicts are eliminated, the brain,
though highly sensitive and alert, becomes quiet. Then the inner
movement is valid and significant."

JK

Truth

"...The truth indeed has never been preached by the
Buddha, seeing that one has to realize it within
himself." --Lamkara Sutra

Real Buddha

A gold Buddha can't get through a furnace, a wood Buddha can't get through a fire, and a clay Buddha can't get through water. The real Buddha sits within: enlightenment, nirvana, suchness, and Buddha-nature are all clothes sticking to the body.

-Chao-chou From "The Pocket Zen Reader," edited by Thomas Cleary, 1999. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications

Transformation or Rebirth...

...is simply to recapture and redevelop the inherently sound or pure mind along with its manifest behaviors.("Something that was always there.")

Rom Landau: "How did you come to that state of unity with everything?"

J. Krishnamurti: "People have asked me about that before, and I always feel that they expect to hear the dramatic account of some sudden miracle through which I suddenly became one with the universe. Of course nothing of the sort happened. My inner awareness was always there; though it took me time to feel it more and more clearly; and equally it took time to find words that would at all describe it. It was not a sudden flash, but a slow yet constant clarification of something that was always there. It did not grow, as people often think. Nothing can grow in us that is of spiritual importance. It has to be there in all its fullness, and then the only thing that happens is that we become more and more aware of it. It is our intellectul
reaction and nothing else that needs time to become more articulate, more definite."

The State of Peace

A questioner asked the Buddha: "I would like to know about the state of peace, the state of solitude and of quiet detachment. How does a person become calm, independent, and not wanting to grasp at anything?"

"A person does this," replied the Buddha, "by eradicating the delusion of 'I am.' By being alert and attentive, he begins to let go of cravings as they arise. But whatever he begins to accomplish, he should beware of inner pride. He must avoid thinking of himself as better than another, or worse or equal, for that is all comparison and emphasizes the self.

"The person should look for peace within and not depend on it in any other place. For when a person is quiet within, the self cannot be found. There are no waves in the depths of the ocean, it is still and unbroken. It is the same with the peaceful person. He is still, without any longing to grasp. He has let go the foundations of self and no longer builds up pride and desire."

-Sutta Nipata
From "Buddha Speaks," edited by Anne Bancroft, 2000

Beauty

There is the beauty of love, beauty of compassion. And also there is the beauty of a clean street, of good architectural form of a building; there is beauty of a tree, a lovely leaf, the great big branches. To see all that is beauty; not merely to go to museums and talk everlastingly about beauty. The silence of a quiet mind is the
essence of that beauty. Because it is silent and because it is not the plaything of thought, then in that silence there comes that which is indestructible, which is sacred. In the coming of that which is sacred then life becomes sacred, your life becomes sacred, our relationship becomes sacred, everything becomes sacred because
you have touched that thing that is sacred.

JK