To understand one habit is to open the door to understanding the whole machinery of habit

So, I must first understand the futility of resistance or effort in breaking a habit. If that is clear, what happens? I become aware of the habit - fully aware of it. If I smoke, I observe myself doing it. I am aware of putting my hand in my pocket, bringing out the cigarettes, drawing one from the package, tapping it on my thumbnail or other hard surface, putting it in my mouth, lighting it, extinguishing the match, and puffing. I am aware of every movement, of every gesture, without condemning or justifying the habit, without saying it is right or wrong, without thinking, 'How dreadful, I must be free of it,' and so on.

I am aware without choice, step by step, as I smoke. You try it next time, that is, if you want to break the habit. And in understanding and breaking one habit, however superficial, you can go into the whole enormous problem of habit: habit of thought, habit of feeling, the habit of imitation - and the habit of hungering to be something, for this too is a ha bit. When you fight a habit, you give life to that habit, and then the fighting becomes another habit, in which most of us are caught.

We only know resistance, which has become a habit. All our thinking is habitual, but to understand one habit is to open the door to understanding the whole machinery of habit. You find out where habit is necessary, as in speech, and where habit is completely corruptive.

Krishnamurti Collected Works, Vol. XIII - 204