intention on something like a schoolboy does when he wants to look out of the
window and see the movement of the tree or the bird or the passerby. But the
teacher says, “Look at your book; don’t look out of the window.” That is
concentration: focus your intention and build a wall round yourself so that you
are not disturbed. Concentration becomes exclusion, resistance. Do you see this?
And in that concentration there is a battle. You want to concentrate and your
mind goes off; your thought chases something or other, so there is conflict.
Whereas if you were attentive, not at the moment you want to be attentive but
completely attentive during the day for a few minutes at a time giving your mind,
your body, your heart, your eyes, your ears, your brain, totally, then you would
see there is no border to attention, there is not a resistance. In that state of
attention there is no contradiction.
You cannot be attentive by learning to be attentive through a method, a
system, a practice, but only by being attentive, then forgetting it, and beginning
again. Pick it up each time so that this attention is fresh each time. Then you will
know when you are not attentive. When in that state of inattention there is
conflict, then observe that conflict, be aware of that conflict, give your total
attention to that conflict so that the mind becomes extraordinarily alive, non-
mechanical. That’s part of meditation.
Then, you have been told that you must have a quiet, silent mind, haven’t
you? Even the speaker has told you that. Forget what the speaker has said, but
see for yourself why your mind must be quiet, must be silent. See it for yourself,
not from what anybody says, including the speaker. You know, to see anything
clearly your mind mustn’t chatter. If I want to listen to what you are saying, the
mind must be quiet, mustn’t it? If I want to understand you, what you are talking
about, why you say something, I must listen to you. Right? And when I listen to
you, if I am thinking about something else, I can’t listen. You see the point? That
is, to listen, to observe, the mind must be peaceful, must be quiet. That’s all.
Now, you ask how the mind is to be quiet when it is chattering all the time
about something or other. Try to stop chattering, then that becomes a conflict,
doesn’t it? The mind has got into the habit of chattering, talking to itself, or
talking with somebody else, endlessly, using words, words, words. And if you try
to stop it by the action of will, then that’s a contradiction, isn’t it? You are
chattering and you say, “I must stop it,” so you have a battle again. Therefore
find out why your mind chatters. Inquire into it; understand it. Does it matter
very much if it chatters? Why does it chatter? Because it must be occupied with
something. People say you must be committed to something, to some activity,
you must be totally involved; and the mind is totally involved in chattering. And
why does it chatter? Because it has to be occupied. Why does it demand to be
occupied? Observe it yourself, ask the question, find out. What would happen if
it didn’t chatter, if it wasn’t occupied? Have you asked that? If your mind is not
occupied, what would happen? It would face emptiness, wouldn’t it? Suddenly
stop the habit and you feel lost. This emptiness is fear of your own loneliness;
and you try to escape from this loneliness, from this fear, from this emptiness by
chattering, or by being occupied. If you go deeply into the very depth of the
loneliness, not try to suppress it, escape from it, but just observe it, then you will
michael s
(Michael S)
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