“I’m frustrated,” I announced.

Three men looked at me.

This was already becoming uncomfortable.

The Buddha sat quietly.

Patanjali looked as though he had been expecting this problem for approximately two thousand years.

Krishnamurti looked at me with the expression of someone who was about to question the question.

“I’m dissatisfied because I’m not doing anything,” I continued. “When I’m not working toward something, creating something, learning something or committing myself to something, my mind becomes restless.”

The Buddha spoke first.

“You are dissatisfied.”

“Yes.”

“And you want not to be dissatisfied?”

“Obviously.”

“So there is dissatisfaction, and there is a desire for dissatisfaction to end.”

I frowned.

“That sounds like two problems.”

He smiled.

“Perhaps.”

Krishnamurti interrupted.

“Who is dissatisfied?”

“Me.”

“Who is the ‘me’?”

Oh no.

We had been talking for thirty seconds and we were already here.

“I don’t know. Me. The person sitting here feeling frustrated.”

“But when frustration is present,” Krishnamurti asked, “is there actually a separate you looking at frustration? Or are you the frustration?”

I stopped.

That was different.

I usually thought of frustration as something happening to me.

There was me.

There was frustration.

And poor me was desperately trying to get rid of it.

But when I looked directly at the experience, I couldn’t find that division so easily.

There was tightness.

Restlessness.

Thought.

Energy wanting movement.

A thought saying:

Do something.

Another saying:

You’re wasting your time.

Another:

Surely there must be something interesting to do.

Where exactly was the separate “me”?

For that moment, perhaps I wasn’t a person observing frustration.

I was frustration.

Patanjali finally spoke.

“Yet you know that frustration is occurring.”

I turned toward him.

“Yes.”

“Then frustration is known.”

“Yes.”

“A thought is also known?”

“Yes.”

“And when the thought disappears?”

I waited.

“Something notices that too.”

Patanjali nodded.

“So perhaps you should investigate the difference between the movements of the mind and that which knows those movements.”

Krishnamurti looked unconvinced.

“Be careful. The moment you create a ‘knower,’ thought may have created another division.”

Patanjali looked at him.

Krishnamurti looked at Patanjali.

The Buddha continued sitting peacefully.

I realized my imaginary philosophy meeting was getting out of hand.

---

The Thought and the Thinker

So I tried something.

A thought appeared:

I should find something useful to do.

I noticed it.

Then another thought appeared:

See? You’re thinking again.

I noticed that too.

Then came the really interesting question.

What noticed the thought?

Patanjali might call attention to the Seer—purusha—and distinguish it from the movements of citta, the mind.

Krishnamurti would challenge me to investigate whether the observer was genuinely separate from what was being observed.

And the Buddha would make me uncomfortable in an entirely different direction.

“Why,” I imagined him asking, “must the noticing belong to someone?”

Well.

That’s inconvenient.

There was clearly noticing.

But did I need to call it:

my awareness?

the Self?

the Seer?

no-self?

pure consciousness?

I didn’t know.

And surprisingly, “I don’t know” felt sufficient.

---

Then I Closed My Eyes

Meditation made the problem even more interesting.

I closed my eyes and watched my breathing.

Immediately there seemed to be:

Me → watching → breath.

There was a watcher and something being watched.

Then I opened my eyes.

Suddenly there was the room.

Light.

Sound.

My body.

Objects.

Seeing seemed simply to happen.

A sound occurred.

There was hearing.

A sensation occurred.

There was feeling.

Then thought arrived:

I hear that.

I see that.

I feel this.

And I started wondering whether the psychological observer becomes especially obvious when thought enters the experience.

Not necessarily.

I don’t know enough to make that conclusion.

But it was interesting to watch.

There could be:

seeing

before

“I am seeing.”

There could be:

hearing

before

“I heard something.”

And perhaps there could even be:

frustration

before the enormous story:

“I am frustrated because my life is unsatisfying and I need to find something meaningful to do immediately.”

The mind can accomplish quite a lot in three seconds.

---

Buddha Returns to My Dissatisfaction

The Buddha brought me back to the original problem.

Why was doing nothing uncomfortable?

Perhaps there was simply an unpleasant experience.

Then came desire:

I want something different.

Then resistance:

I don’t want this experience.

Then thought:

I need to fix this.

Then more dissatisfaction.

I could begin to see why Buddhism pays so much attention to craving.

My mind wasn’t merely experiencing boredom or restlessness.

It was constantly negotiating with reality.

Give me something interesting.

Give me something meaningful.

Give me something that lasts.

Give me a project.

Give me enthusiasm.

And when reality didn’t immediately comply:

Complaint department open.

---

Patanjali Returns to the Mind

Patanjali might point toward another part of the experience.

These thoughts were movements.

One came.

Another went.

I need something to do.

Gone.

Maybe I should write.

Gone.

Perhaps I need a new hobby.

Gone.

Everything is boring.

Gone.

If these movements continually change, why do I become completely identified with each one while it is happening?

Patanjali’s question takes me toward the relationship between the movements of mind and the Seer.

But I wasn’t ready to declare:

“Aha! I have discovered purusha!”

That would just give my mind something new to put on its résumé.

---

Krishnamurti Ruins Everything Again

Then Krishnamurti returned to the original frustration.

I wanted to get rid of it.

But who was trying to get rid of whom?

If the observer saying,

I shouldn’t be frustrated

is itself composed of thought, memory, judgment and previous experience, then perhaps the observer isn’t separate from the frustration at all.

The conflict:

I must get rid of frustration

might itself be another movement of the same consciousness.

The observer is the observed.

I didn’t need to believe the statement.

For a moment, I could actually see what he meant.

---

And Then Something Unexpected Happened

After spending time looking at all this, my dissatisfaction decreased a little.

It wasn’t gone.

I hadn’t conquered boredom.

I hadn’t discovered enlightenment.

Nobody handed me a certificate announcing:

LEVEL ONE YOGI COMPLETED.

Something had simply shifted.

The dissatisfaction had been replaced—or perhaps accompanied—by something resembling curiosity.

And immediately I wanted to name it.

Curiosity.

Then explain it.

Then preserve it.

Then perhaps write a philosophy about why curiosity eliminates dissatisfaction.

There was the mind again.

So I stopped.

Maybe I don’t need to define what replaced the dissatisfaction.

Maybe tomorrow dissatisfaction will return.

Maybe curiosity will disappear.

Maybe I’ll desperately want another hobby again.

That’s okay.

Because something much more interesting came out of this little experiment.

The Buddha asked me to look at my craving.

Patanjali asked me to look at the movements of mind and what knows them.

Krishnamurti asked me whether the observer trying to change the experience was really separate from the experience.

And I discovered that I don’t yet know who is right.

I don’t know whether the noticing is a Seer.

I don’t know whether there is ultimately no self.

I don’t even know whether asking “Who is noticing?” is the right question.

But I know something much smaller.

A thought appears.

It is noticed.

A feeling appears.

It is experienced.

Frustration appears.

It changes.

And sometimes, when I stop trying so desperately to find an answer to dissatisfaction, dissatisfaction itself becomes something interesting to look at.

Maybe that’s enough for today.