Awareness in Buddhist Meditation

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true relationship, as all contact is with the mind’s picture and the
satisfaction of ‘self’.
Love is not pleasure; but when we make it a pleasure as when we
make love, then pain is not very far away, the pain of separation, of
isolation, of opposition, of conflict. It is thought about love which
gives pleasure in remembering an experience. But that is not love.
That memory, however pleasurable, is not love. Thought which is
memory gives continuity; and that gives pleasure the moment after
the experience is past. And because we want continuity, we employ
memory to provide us that pleasure. But, what is a product of desire
is not love. For, desire is based on choice which is conflict, which
must lead to confusion and pain. In desire there is opposition and
separation, there is the ‘I’-concept wanting to achieve, to obtain, to
possess.
In possessiveness there is no love, no understanding, but callousness
and exploitation. We can make pleasure, but love must come
to us. And it cannot come, when mind is seeking satisfaction, when
memory is selecting and rejecting, when the heart is full of attachment
to ‘self’. But, when thought is still and does not produce the
images of tradition, of romance, of memory, of desire, then there
will be calm without the agitation of selection, there will open receptivity
without expectation, there will be an experiencing of love
without naming it, love without a lover.
To find out what is love, religion, or anything at all, one has
first to remove the obstacles which prevent one seeing clearly. One
cannot see what is happening outside as long as one looks through a
window with dirty or painted glass. To have a direct perception and
experience of love, one has to understand that as long as there is a
motive, an incentive, a desire for oneself, there is no love. If there
is a feeling of hurt when one’s love is not returned or appreciated,
then there is no love at all. Friendship, generosity, sympathy, which
expect a response of like nature is self-centred and cannot be love.
When there is hope and expectation, there is also fear in idealism;