Archive for category: Event Summaries

Exposing Ourselves to Ourselves 

With Jackie McInley 

April 21 – 23, 2023 

Zoom Online 

While Jackie was visiting us at the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada, located in Metchosin, BC, she was most willing to facilitate a number of meetings both in-person and online. This particular offering consisted of three two hour sessions online and was attended by fourteen people, including staff as well as participants from various locations in North America. To begin the workshop, Jackie gave an opening talk on the nature of dialogue or group inquiry. She shared that her intention was for the participants to be directly aware, as the event unfolded, of what is happening in the present moment in their thoughts and feelings. She also invited the participants to question ourselves in a way that could reveal ourselves to ourselves or bring insight and understanding about how our consciousness is operating as we interact and relate with other members of the group. She then questioned what is “understanding” and how it is different from interpretation of what others are saying. This led to some sharing of fears about exposing ourselves and some discussion of the place self-images play in such experiences of fear. The sharing moved on to wondering what produces cohesion in a group and how we know that we are understanding each other. It was an interesting first engagement of the group with the process of dialogue. 

 For the second meeting there was an attendance of 16 people. The dialogue focused on a number of issues that were of primary interest to participants: 

• Looking outside ourselves for help. Awareness of this tendency is a central aspect of Krishnamurti’s teachings and is deeply woven into the nature of many spiritual groups. It may be believed that the world is not enough to resolve our problems, so we look for assistance in many ways, from God, guru, other people, and so on. 
• Can thinking solve the problems created by thinking? 
• Dialogue is only intelligent when we are able to open to what is being said rather than arguing about who is more correct. This is dialogue rather than discussion. 

• Are we entirely different from each other? Can the separateness be broken down? Do we need help in this enterprise? Are we maintaining a sense of separateness? 
• Do we have to get rid of thinking or is it just necessary to expose the “me”?  
• Thinking and the “me” cannot be avoided. Can we see the problem in the question? Is the seeing enough? 

• What is “seeing”? 
• The importance of interest. Am I interested in seeing the thoughts that create separation? Am I able to face what is happening right from the beginning? 
• Our way of listening and our attachments to our own ideas. Is our sense of connection with each other actually a limited connection? 
• Our need for outward validation 
• The tendency to force others to see 

• Looking into who or what I am is a fundamental activity 
• What is left when my self-images fall away? 
• The fear of being alone 
• What is the urge to enter into the conversation, to assert one’s viewpoint? Can one stay with the feeling? Does this create an opening? 

 Many other questions were raised on the third day related to awareness and observation. A few of the participants asked if we are not missing something essential in the inquiry when we give thought the power to block the exploration? Are we not ignoring the presence of something beyond thought which is part of our capacity to see clearly? Could we call that “thing” (or no-thing) awareness without giving its power away to the label “awareness”? Can that awareness see the truth or falseness of our concepts? 

Participants expressed appreciation for the quality of inquiry generated by the group and supported by Jackie’s facilitation without her being a “leader”. It was a very interesting weekend.

DB 

Self-Inquiry

With Jackie McInley

Sunday, April 16, 2023

KECC 538 Swanwick Rd., Metchosin, BC

This was our second meeting with Jackie at the Metchosin location and sponsored by the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada. She is visiting us from the UK and is in residence at the Swanwick Centre for the month of April. Nine people in total were present for the gathering in the Gatehouse. Cold and wet weather prevented us from meeting outside on the lawn.

As she usually does, Jackie gave a thorough introduction to the practice of “dialogue” as a means of exploring our ideas and understandings of ourselves and our lives. She explained the place of J. Krishnamurti’s teachings in our observation of ourselves and in our persistent questioning of beliefs and concepts that arise in the group interactions that unfold as we communicate about what is important to us and how we can gain wisdom concerning such highly relevant issues.

As the conversation became more focused on questions from the individual participants deeper questions and challenges arose from the group. One participant was very interested in how trust could develop in a group of people who hardly knew each other. Another wondered if it might be more fruitful to approach the question negatively as Krishnamurti often suggested. Could we ask what the impediments to trust might be, or how we create a lack of trust? In looking at how we create mistrust, perhaps a sense of trust might spontaneously arise.

The dialogue then turned to some personal sharings concerning the feeling of self-consciousness and the fear of being judged or criticised. It was acknowledged that most likely we all felt some of those uncomfortable feelings and Jackie pointed out that there was often a deep resistance to feeling the discomfort of fear and insecurity. Is it not necessary, if we are going more deeply into our authentic natures, to expose the more sensitive aspects of our personalities? Is it not necessary to clear the habitual responses that prevent us from responding to the world with love? When the focus seemed to turn towards the “self” and what the self could do, it was asked, “What is the self?” This led to the idea of ”Being” and its significance.

The session went on for over two hours and people seemed reluctant to bring it to an end. There seemed to be a deeply shared interest in the inquiry process and a positive anticipation of future dialogue meetings.

DB

Self-Inquiry Meetup

With Jackie McInley

Swanwick Centre Metchosin

April 9, 2023

After a long period of non activity at the physical location of the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada in Metchosin, BC, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Centre was re-opened to in-person gatherings. Our first on-site meeting was held on Sunday, April 9, 2023 at the Swanwick Road location at 3 pm. The meeting lasted for almost two hours and was attended by six participants in total, all of whom showed their proof of vaccine before the meeting started. The session was facilitated by Jackie McInley, who is visiting the Centre from the UK for the month of April. Up to this time, Jackie has been facilitating meetings via the Zoom online application.

Jackie asked that each participant share something about their motive for coming to the meeting, which gave each person an opportunity to share some details about themselves and their interest in J. Krishnamurti’s teachings. These introductions took some time to complete but were very interesting to hear. Jackie questioned people further in a skillful attempt to draw them out and to stimulate a deepening of inquiry into the issue of who or what we truly are. This led to a penetrating questioning and exploring of people’s perspectives and understandings of themselves and the process of self-observation that became the central subject of examination in the dialogue that spontaneously unfolded. There was a depth of subtle inquiring and sharing of insights which felt quite profound as participants took up the challenge of looking at themselves within the context of what was being brought forward by the members of the group. We had a prolonged and in-depth discussion about the nature of intelligence which was very revealing and rich with valuable insights, It seemed that everyone found the conversation to be very interesting, relevant, and promising of further meaningful inquiry in future meetings.

Self-Inquiry Meetup

Wednesday, April 5, 2023

With Jackie McInley

Gorge Park Pavilion

This was the first meeting sponsored by the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada to be held in the new Esquimalt Gorge Park Pavilion in Victoria. We gathered in the Boardroom, a spacious square room with large windows allowing in plenty of light and providing a lovely view of the outside world of trees, bushes, grass, and the Gorge waterway. It was a most conducive setting for a dialogue organised for the purpose of exploring the fundamental “spiritual” question “Who am I?” within the context of an interest in the teachings of the East Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, 1895 – 1986. The process of investigation was explained very clearly by Jackie, a visitor from the UK staying at the Krishnamurti Centre in Metchosin for the month of April and facilitating small group sessions for those interested in understanding what Krishnamurti said about self-knowledge and applying his wisdom offerings to their own journey of discovery.

In addition to Jackie and two KECC staff (Ralph and David), there were six participants eager to explore the kind of questions Krishnamurti had spent most of his lifetime investigating and inviting people to join him and each other in a potentially profound process of uncovering their true nature and capacity for living a life of wholeness and happiness. Renowned physicist David Bohm became very interested in Krishnamurti’s approach to life and involved himself with such looking and listening over many years of collaboration with K.

As the meeting moved forward, there was a certain amount of questioning as to the form the meetings, to be held weekly, would be taking. Jackie offered suggestions about the possibilities of looking at our experience of life with fresh eyes rather than as an already known story that we are repeating in mechanical ways which reveal nothing strikingly alive and new.

Jackie then focused on each of the participants with the question, “What was it that attracted you to a meeting such as this?’ It was very interesting to hear participants speaking of their life experiences and the challenges that had led them to the present moment along with their interest in looking within themselves for a deeper understanding of self and life. As the sharing progressed, Jackie dropped in various suggestions about what we would be doing in the meetings, including the “practices” of watching or observing ourselves and our reactions to what was being shared. Could we listen carefully and with great sensitivity to ourselves and to each other, and could we notice when we are not listening? “Listening leads the way” was one way of expressing the central principle in the group’s inquiry. There was some discussion of the question, “Is it healthy to reveal our disturbances and difficulties as they (are bound to) arise in the dialogue interactions?” It was agreed by all that such revelation of our “sorrow” could be very meaningful and it would be good if our hearts could be open to such an exposure. Such insight could, as Krishnamurti had said, bring a kind of healing or freedom which could be very significant.

Participants seemed reluctant to bring the meeting to a close and keen about those planned for the future.

DB