Craving for Experience

About two weeks ago, I posted a passage from Krishnamurti’s book, Freedom from the Known. It goes as follows:

A mind that is seeking, craving, for wider and deeper experience is a very shallow and dull mind because it lives always with its memories.

A Facebook friend responded to this post of mine. She was a little annoyed. She said, “I’m not sure about the meaning of these Krishnamurti words. What does he mean by ‘seeking for wider experience.’ When I read it I thought about people sitting in sanghas trying to deepen their meditation in uncomfortable positions and analyzing the experience analytically and verbally. Maybe I missed his point.”

This is a great occasion to explain what Krishnamurti means by meditation. Many American Buddhists spend a lot of time every week doing sitting meditation (zazen) — many Americans learn meditation from Japanese Zen masters. For them, sitting meditation is a necessary discipline. Many Chinese Buddhists do the same. There was a relatively young Chinese Buddhist teacher, Yuensong Li (李元松), who was the leader of the Modern Zen Movement in Taiwan. He had many followers. Mr. Li spent many hours meditating every day. Many Buddhists feel that such meditation is the pathway to enlightenment. Is Krishnamurti contradicting them?