The very attention given to finding out if the mind can be completely quiet is quietness.
Interpretation
The act of searching for a quiet mind is itself a form of quietness.
Jiddu Krishnamurti's quote suggests that the effort to determine whether one's mind can achieve complete stillness is a manifestation of that stillness itself. It implies that the process of introspection and contemplation leads to a state of calmness, as attention itself can create a form of tranquility, highlighting the relationship between thought and silence in the pursuit of inner peace.
In practice
During a meditation retreat, one could reference this quote to emphasize the journey towards inner peace.
The following of authority is the denial of intelligence. [It] may help us temporarily to cover up our difficulties and problems; but to avoid a problem is only to intensify it, and in the process, self-knowledge and freedom are abandoned.
In seeking comfort, we generally find a quiet corner in life where there is a minimum of conflict, and then we are afraid to step out of that seclusion.
If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires.
If you have this extraordinary thing going in your life, then it is everything; then you become the teacher, the disciple, the neighbour, the beauty of the cloud - you are all that, and that is love.
Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life - perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it.
All of us have been trained by education and environment to seek personal gain and security and to fight for ourselves. Though we cover it over with pleasant phrases, we have been educated for various professions within a system which is based on exploitation and acquisitive fear.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
If princes and kings could follow it (Tao), all things would by themselves abide, Heaven and Earth would unite and sweet dew would fall. People would by themselves find harmony, without being commanded.
Downstairs in the lounge, by the third pillar from the left, there sits an old lady with a sweet, placid, spinsterish face and a mind that has plumbed the depths of human iniquity and taken it all as in the day's work....where crime is concerned, she's the goods.
Even as I think of myself as a 'rememberer,' I also know my memory is probably doing all this work to reconstruct a narrative where I come off better.
In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices.
Events, circumstances, etc., have their origin in ourselves. They spring from seeds which we have sown.
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