Questioner: Could you describe how you are aware that you are inattentive?

KRISHNAMURTI: I am learning about myself, not according to some psychologist or specialist. I am watching and I see something in myself but I do not condemn it, I do not judge it, I do not push it aside - I just watch it. I see that I am proud. Let us take that as an example. I do not say, 'I must put it aside, how ugly to be proud' but I just watch it. As I am watching, I am learning. Watching means learning what pride involves, how it has come into being. I cannot watch it for more than five or six minutes - if one can, that is a great deal. The next moment I become inattentive. Having been attentive and knowing what inattention is, I struggle to make inattention attentive. Do not do that, but watch inattention, become aware that you are inattentive - that is all. Stop there. Do not say, 'I must spend all my time being attentive', but just watch when you are inattentive. To go any further into this would be really quite complex. There is a quality of mind that is awake and watching all the time, watching though there is nothing to learn. That means the mind is extraordinarily quiet, extraordinarily silent. What has a silent, clear mind to learn?

J Krishnamurti, The Impossible Question, Penguin Arkana

© Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, U.K.