Krishnamurti - Can Humanity Change?: J. Krishnamurti in Dialogue with Buddhists

Can Humanity Change?: J. Krishnamurti in Dialogue with Buddhists

Copyright 2003 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, Ltd,

and Krishnamurti Foundation of America

Can

Humanity

Change?

J. Krishnamurti

in Dialogue with

Buddhists

EDITED BY DAVID SKITT

Contents

PART ONE

PART TWO

Introduction

Is what is happening in the world pointing to the need for a fundamental change in human consciousness, and is such a change possible? This is an issue at the heart of both Krishnamurtis and the Buddhas teaching, and in 1978 and 1979 the eminent Buddhist scholar Walpola Rahula came to Brockwood Park in England to put questions that had occurred to him from his reading of Krishnamurtis books. The future Chancellor of the Sri Lankan University of Buddhist and Pali Studies, Walpola Rahula was an acknowledged authority on both the Theravada and the Mahayana schools of Buddhism. He had lectured at universities around the world, and was the author of the article on the Buddha in the Encyclopedia Britannica. He had also written a widely known introduction to Buddhism, translated into many languages, called What the Buddha Taught. He was accompanied by Irmgard Schloegl, a well-known teacher of Zen Buddhism and for some years the librarian of the Buddhist Society of London.

Nearly all the conversations, in which the physicist David Bohm and the scientist and author Phiroz Mehta also participated, start with Dr. Rahula raising an issue of crucial importance for any radical change in the way we usually see ourselves, others, life, and death. The nature of personal identity, whether there is a relative truth and an ultimate truth, and the distinction between insight and intellectual understanding are all topics on which he argues that the Buddha and Krishnamurti have said substantially the same things. He also explains to Krishnamurti that in his view the original teaching of the Buddha has over the centuries been in many ways misunderstood and misinterpreted, particularly with regard to the nature of meditation and the form of meditation known as satipatthana, or mindfulness.

On each occasion, however, instead of discussing whether Dr. Rahulas argument is right or wrong, Krishnamurti moves the debate into quite a different direction. Why, he asks, compare? What is the value of such comparison? Why bring the Buddha into the discussion between the two of them? Courteously, and with a lightness of tone, Krishnamurti challenges Walpola Rahula to say whether he is taking part in the conversation as a Buddhist or as a human being, whether he considers that humanity is in any sense progressing psychologically, what he understands by the word love.

Dr. Rahula continues, however, in most of these conversations to draw parallels between what the Buddha has said and what Krishnamurti is saying, so that a reader interested in that inquiry will find much of interest. But at another level there is something quite different going on. Time and time again after describing, say, the role of thought in creating the self, Krishnamurti will ask Dr. Rahula and the other participants: Do you see that? The word see is rightly emphasized, because the seeing in question is clearly meant to be seeing with such depth and clarity that consciousness and simultaneously action are radically transformed. It is also notable that Krishnamurti unfolds his argument by a series of questions, some of which he wants his listeners to allow to sink in rather than to answera distinction they do not always find it easy to make.

This moves the debate into an area which all of us are familiar with, to some extent at leastunderstanding verbally, rather than understanding so deeply that we change our behavior. There must be few of us who have not looked at something we have done and said, I can see why I did that, and I shouldnt have done it, yet do exactly the same thing a short time later. I shouldnt have taken that criticism personally. I shouldnt have lost patience. I shouldnt have said that, it really doesnt help. In all these cases one may be able to express with great clarity the reasons why one did what one did and should not do it, and then find oneself doing precisely that again. In other words, our understanding was purely verbal or intellectual, lacking what one might call a radical insight, and definitely not of the kind that we refer to when we say, Then I really understood.

So what brings about a fundamental change in a human being? And one that brings about an endless, unfolding awareness? This is a question that runs like a silken thread throughout these conversations. Repeatedly Walpola Rahula says all the right words, and Krishnamurti does not deny that his Buddhist questioner may well see the truth to which these words refer. But Krishnamurti urges him to go further and to explain how such seeing comes about, and to discuss the nature and quality of the mind that has such clarity. This is really the kernel of the encounter.

Most of this book consists of these five conversations. Since, however, they are concerned with barriers to deep shifts of perception, the book also contains a final section of questions in which people who find they have not changed after listening to Krishnamurti ask him to account for this. The various and sometimes vigorous answers he gives may be of as much interest to Buddhists as to students of Krishnamurti, and to readers in neither of these two groups.

What is one to make of this encounter? This seems like a question whose very nature demands that the answer, if there is one, be left solely to the reader.

David Skitt

Part One

Are You Not Saying What the Buddha Said?

First Conversation with the Buddhist Scholars Walpola Rahula and Irmgard Schloegl, and with Professor David Bohm and Others

W ALPOLA R AHULA : I have been following your teachingif I may use that wordfrom my younger days. I have read most of your books with great, with deep interest, and I have wanted to have this discussion with you for a long time.

To someone who knows the Buddhas teaching fairly well, your teaching is quite familiar, not something new to him. What the Buddha taught twenty-five hundred years ago you teach today in a new idiom, a new style, a new garb. When I read your books I often write in the margin, comparing what you say with the Buddha; sometimes I even quote the chapter and verse of the textnot only Buddhas original teaching, but also the ideas of the later Buddhist philosophers, those too you put in practically the same way. I was surprised how well and beautifully you expressed them.

So to begin with, I want to mention briefly a few points that are common to Buddhas teaching and to yours. For instance, Buddha did not accept the notion of a creator God who rules this world and rewards and punishes people for their actions. Nor do you, I believe. Buddha did not accept the old Vedic, Brahmanic idea of an eternal, permanent everlasting, unchanging soul or atmanBuddha denied this. Nor do you, I think, accept that notion.

Buddha begins his teaching from the premise that human life is a predicament, suffering, conflict, sorrow. And your books always emphasize that. Also, Buddha says that what causes this conflict, this suffering, is the selfishness created by the wrong idea of self, my self, my atman. I think you say that too.

Buddha says that when one is free from desire, from attachment, from the self, one is free from suffering and conflict. And you said somewhere, I remember, that freedom means freedom from all attachment. That is exactly what Buddha taughtfrom all attachment. There is no discrimination between attachment that is good and attachment that is badof course there is in ordinary practical life, but ultimately there is no such division.