July 20th ~ What is it to be compassionate? Please find out for yourself, feel it out, whether a mind that is hurt, that can be hurt, can ever forgive. Can a mind that is capable of being hurt ever forgive? And can such a mind, which is capable of being hurt, which is cultivating virtue, which is conscious of generosity, can such a mind be compassionate? Compassion, as love, is something which is not of the mind. The mind is not conscious of itself as being compassionate, as loving. But the moment you forgive consciously, the mind is strengthening its own center in its own hurt. So the mind which consciously forgives in order to not to be further hurt.
So it is very important to find out why the mind actually remembers, stores away. Because the mind is everlastingly seeking to aggrandize itself, to become big, to be something. When the mind is willing not to be anything, to be nothing, completely nothing, then in that state there is compassion. In that state there is neither forgiveness nor the state of hurt; but to understand that, one has to understand the conscious development of the “me. . . .”
So, as long as there is the conscious cultivation of any particular influence, any particular virtue, there can be no love, there can be no compassion, because love and compassion are not the result of conscious effort.
December 19th, 2019 ~ Krishnamurti talks about how we strive for things like sex and money due to the fact we are in pain, psychologically and spiritually. Not that sex and money are bad per se. We require both to survive. But it is the extra value that we pin on these things; how we are obsessed with them. Whether it is when we are getting too much of it or not enough.
Perhaps it is the same when it comes to being compassionate and being a nice person. It stems from the “me”. Tonight, at Middle Way Zen, Cornelia talked about many things including the problem with technology and how it can’t solve our problems, even though we ignore that fact. This is covered in Zen & Creative Management. But she also talked about becoming a Boddhissatva. Wanting to help people. But there is also the inward development that helps humanity from a “Big Mind” perspective. Krishnamurti talks about this. Because we are in such pain, we seek outside ourselves, even when we are helping others. Again, it is not bad to help others. But the real work is inward . . . .