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From: johnw@ready.eng.ready.com (John Wheeler)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Wisdom and Authority
Message-ID: <1991May6.224548.17454@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 6 May 91 22:45:48 GMT
References: <1991May6.192055.13637@nas.nasa.gov>
Sender: news@nas.nasa.gov
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In article <1991May6.192055.13637@nas.nasa.gov> japlady@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Rebecca Radnor) writes:
>
>Why do we accept authority?  

Interesting article, but it raises a few questions. These are questions
I always wanted to ask Krishnamurti, but since he's dead let me ask
you.

>I do not wish to question the wisdom of any
>teacher, but I wonder what their insight has to do with our ignorance? 

What do you concieve to be ignorance?

>Actual listening in which our stream of thoughts has
>come to an end needs no authority.  A dog barking, a car passing, the
>sounds of fingers upon a keyboard, all speak the dharma. 

People often assert that when "thought" subsides, pure experiencing takes
place and that this has something to do with the highest truth or dharma. 
I never understood this. Are not the barking dog, etc. also thoughts? You 
might say that if you listen to the dog without any other intervening thoughts
this is somehow a mystical state. Perhaps you are only listening to a
dog without thinking about anything else. Tell me, what has this to do
with the Dharma? 

>Our conditioning locks us into a
>pattern of thought--our prison-- and instead of examining this whole
>process of conditioning we ask someone else for answers. 

Krishnamurti was fond of the term "conditioning." Again, I have trouble
understanding this. Apparently "conditioning" is the cause of ignorance.
But what is conditioning and who exactly is conditioned? Since neither
the Buddha, nor any enlightened sage that I know of taught anything
remotely resembling this idea of "conditioning," I wish you might explain
it a bit. 

johnw