Self-Inquiry Meeting
On-site Dialogue with James Tousignant
May 7, 2025

The meeting began with the Book of Life reading from May 7, 2025 titled, “One Must Have Great Feeling.” We quickly moved into an exploration of the Krishnamurti’s use of the word “feeling” as his statement:

because it is only the feelings that make the mind highly sensitive

This would have been interesting in and of itself, however the reading on the opposite page, described:

there is no feeling without thought

And feelings, thoughts, etc dissipate the energy needed to observe… to inquire. A seeming contradiction on the level of the ordinary meaning of the word is where we began. As we moved through our inquiry it became clear that an experience of ‘great feeling’, (brief moments where aliveness and clarity arise) and ‘observation without thought’ (where in the moment of observing our minds are stilled) provided the ground to embrace the apparent contradiction and move into a more expansive understanding of ‘feeling’.

James

Self-Inquiry Meeting
On-site Dialogue with Henry Fischer
April 30, 2025

On Wednesday six participants gathered for a KECC sponsored dialogue at the Esquimalt Gorge Park Pavilion in Victoria.

After a period of silence, it was suggested that dialogue may not be about our experience or our expertise but might require one to look at oneself as one has never looked before— not as an idea but as a fact (actuality).

It was suggested that absolutely everything we know or experience might not be love whatsoever. It may be only a memory already conditioned and judged by its utility to this self which is often describes as “me”. Is there a “me”? Why would one ask such a question like this? Does it have something to do with suffering and conflict? Surely in suffering and conflict me is always there. But the suffering is desired to end, and one doesn’t consider instead that perhaps the me could end. Is the “me” the root of this suffering? Does one need this “me” even though of course it continues to produce images and tell a story of what it thinks? Could this bring one to the precipice of being a true revolutionary…

The following Krishnamurti quote is a shortened excerpt from the August 6 entry in Book of Life by J. Krishnamurti:

The true revolutionary
Truth is not for those who are respectable, nor for those who desire self-extension, self- fulfillment. Truth is not for those who are seeking security, permanency; for the permanency they seek is merely the opposite of impermanency. Truth comes to him who is free of time, who is not using time as a means of self-extension. Time means memory of yesterday, memory of your family, of your race, of your particular

As the dialogue began to conclude the group asked questions about fear and attachment. There was a suggestion to bring this forward in May when the dialogues continues with a new facilitator.

Henry Fischer

 

Self-Inquiry Meeting
On-site Dialogue with Henry Fischer
April 23, 2025

On Wednesday seven participants gathered for a KECC sponsored dialogue at the Esquimalt Gorge Park Pavilion in Victoria.

After a period of silence, the group was asked to bring forth any “burning” questions, life experiences or readings from Krishnamurti which the group could examine together. It was asked to further define “what is burning” but the definition was left with the group to determine this meaning. It began with a question about innocence and images (“the idea of ourselves or each other”) to see if innocence and images are mutually exclusive.

Quite appropriately, the group described that they do, in fact, have images of themselves and one another, and that these images sometimes seem to come from a kind of fear or defensiveness, but other times seem to offer value and insight into the nature of another.

Although these images seem to offer insight into the nature of another person, the actuality seems quite the opposite, as these images come from the one who is seeing and not from what is seen? Therefore if these images don’t have an accuracy about what is out there what does that say about the image-maker? Does the image-maker use these images to avoid something? If so what is being avoided? It was suggested that there might be something which doesn’t have a label at all but is somewhat exciting and unsettling, a kind of unknown and unresolved energetic state which is avoided. In lieu of closing comments and because a reading wasn’t offered to begin the inquiry, instead, a reading was brought in to address the kind of unresolved nature beneath images which may not have an object or “known” experience or even permanent state to it.

The following is an excerpt from The Book of Life, J. Krishnamurti (July 5):

We seek happiness through things, through relationship, through thoughts, ideas. So things, relationship, and ideas become all-important and not happiness… Things are impermanent, they wear out and are lost; relationship is constant friction and death awaits; ideas and beliefs have no stability, no permanency. We seek happiness in them and yet do not realize their impermanency… To find out the true meaning of happiness, we must explore the river of self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is not an end in itself. Is there a source to a stream? Every drop of water from the beginning to the end makes the river. To imagine that we will find happiness at the source is to be mistaken. It is to be found where you are on the river of self- knowledge.

Henry Fischer

Self-Inquiry Meeting
On-site Dialogue with Henry Fischer
April 16, 2025

On Wednesday nine participants gathered for a KECC sponsored dialogue at the Esquimalt Gorge Park Pavilion in Victoria.

After a period of silence, it was suggested that dialogue might be a journey in the unknown as a field of shared listening instead of a conversation between separate identities governed by what we already know. The group listened to this comment. From this the group explored interest and passion questioning whether interests were particular and whether passion might be something different. Perhaps some kind of energy that doesn’t have an object.

The following Krishnamurti quote was read from the Book of Life (April 27):

A passionate mind is inquiring

Obviously there must be passion, and the question is how to revive that passion. Do not let us misunderstand each other. I mean passion in every sense, not merely sexual passion which is a very small thing. And most of us are satisfied with that because every other passion has been destroyed—in the office, in the factory, through following a certain job, routine, learning techniques—so there is no passion left; there is no creative sense of urgency and release. Therefore sex becomes important to us, and there we get lost in petty passion which becomes an enormous problem to the narrow, virtuous mind, or else it soon becomes a habit and dies. I am using the word passion as a total thing. A passionate man who feels strongly is not satisfied merely with some little job—whether it be the job of a prime minister, or of a cook, or what you will. A mind that is passionate is inquiring, searching, looking, asking, demanding, not merely trying to find for its discontent some object in which it can fulfill itself and go to sleep. A passionate mind is groping, seeking, breaking through, not accepting any tradition; it is not a decided mind, not a mind that has arrived, but it is a young mind that is ever arriving.

The group explored passion as energy and looked for what might limit this passion. Was the self ( what “I know” about “myself”) a kind of lack of energy and enthusiasm for life.

The following excerpt from the Book of Life was read to continue exploration of this topic (April 28):

Now, how is such a mind to come into being? It must happen. Obviously, a petty mind cannot work at it. A petty mind trying to become passionate will merely reduce everything to its own pettiness. It must happen, and it can only happen when the mind sees its own pettiness and yet does not try to do anything about it.

The group explored what kind of action Krishnamurti was getting at here. What does it mean to do nothing about a reaction? What is faced by not going along with the current of what the brain says is the right image to produce to manage a situation.

Could passion be something beyond our comprehension?

At the end of the dialogue it was suggested that perhaps this was all in the field of self-consciousness or limitation and was it possible for the group to explore love or presence or something which was not this limited offering from thought? Could this be another trap of thought? It was suggested that the group might consider this next time.

Henry Fischer

Self-Inquiry Meeting
On-site Dialogue with Henry Fischer
April 9, 2025

The KECC Krishnamurti dialogue was held at Goward House in Victoria on Wednesday at 4:30-6pm. The dialogue contained four participants. A brief discussion was held about how dialogue related to Krishnamurti’s teachings may be different from other forms of group dialogue. There was an invitation to consider dialogue not about exchanging opinions or seeking conclusions, but rather an exploration directly into truth without the interference of authority. The group seemed to acknowledge this and agree to experimentation with this suggestion.

One of the participants introduced the following excerpt from The Book of Life (J. Krishnamurti) July 26:

Follow the movement of suffering

What is suffering?…What does it mean? What is it that is suffering? Not why there is suffering, not what is the cause of suffering, but what is actually happening? I do not know if you see the difference. Then I am simply aware of suffering, not as apart from me, not as an observer watching suffering—it is part of me, that is, the whole of me is suffering. Then I am able to follow its movement, see where it leads. Surely if I do that, it opens up, does it not? Then I see that I have laid emphasis on the “me”—not on the person whom I love. He only acted to cover me from my misery, from my loneliness, from my misfortune. As I am not something, I hoped he would be that. That has gone; I am left, I am lost, I am lonely. Without him, I am nothing. So I cry. It is not that he is gone but that I am left. I am alone. …There are innumerable people to help me to escape—thousands of so-called religious people, with their beliefs and dogmas, hopes and fantasies—“It is karma, it is God’s will”—you know, all giving me a way out. But if I can stay with it and not put it away from me, not try to circumscribe or deny it, then what happens? What is the state of my mind when it is thus following the movement of suffering?

The group explored the meaning of a direct observation of suffering. There was a suggestion that a personal event we are going through could be a doorway into considering this question actually (rather than simply intellectually). Personal stories were shared and the group immediately looked into the more immediate reality of suffering at this point and the relationship between suffering, images, thinking and the sense of “me”. It was suggested that one could remain with the feeling and this was further questioned to consider if there is a difference between “me” looking at a feeling and a kind of looking that also questions the looking itself.

An excerpt from The Book of Life (J. Krishnamurti) July 27 was brought into the dialogue:

Spontaneous Comprehension

We never say, “Let me see what that thing is that suffers.” You cannot see by enforcement, by discipline. You must look with interest, with spontaneous comprehension. Then you will see that the thing we call suffering, pain, the thing that we avoid, and the discipline, have all gone. As long as I have no relationship to the thing as outside me, the problem is not; the moment I establish a relationship with it outside me, the problem is. As long as I treat suffering as something outside—I suffer because I lost my brother, because I have no money, because of this or that—I establish a relationship to it and that relationship is fictitious. But if I am that thing, if I see the fact, then the whole thing is transformed, it all has a different meaning. Then there is full attention, integrated attention and that which is completely regarded is understood and dissolved, and so there is no fear and therefore the word sorrow is non-existent.

The group initially marvelled at how well the two excerpts fit together. Dialogue ensued once again into the nature of suffering questioning that when suffering is not treated as something separate from the “me” what happens then?

It wasn’t clear to the group if this was my suffering or suffering itself or if the suffering was still being projected “outside” me in some way. One participant suggested that suffering and human sorrow may be different. The group considered this but seemed to remain looking at this felt sense of suffering— what I don’t like and want to get away from. There was some questions about “who” or “what” observing this.

The dialogue ended with a quiet acknowledgment of the depth of the inquiry, and the realization that the essence of the dialogue was not in answers, but in the act of looking together and perhaps questioning the looking itself. The group discussed the opportunity to go on personal or group study retreats at the KECC located in Swanwick.

Henry Fischer