Can thinking solve our problems?
To understand any of [our] problems we have to have a very quiet mind, a very still mind, so that the mind can look at the problem without interposing ideas or theories, without any distraction. That is one of our difficulties - because thought has become a distraction. When I want to understand, look at something, I don’t have to think about it - I look at it. The moment I begin to think, to have ideas, opinions about it, I am already in a state of distraction, looking away from the thing which I must understand. So thought, when you have a problem, becomes a distraction - thought being an idea, opinion, judgement, comparison - which prevents us from looking and thereby understanding and resolving the problem. Unfortunately for most of us thought has become so important. You say, ‘How can I exist, be, without thinking? How can I have a blank mind?’ To have a blank mind is to be in a state of stupor, idiocy or what you will, and your instinctive reaction is to reject it. But surely a mind that is very quiet, a mind that is not distracted by its own thought, a mind that is open, can look at the problem very directly and very simply. And it is this capacity to look without any distraction at our problems that is the only solution. For that there must be a quiet, tranquil mind.
- J. Krishnamurti in ‘The First and Last Freedom’
