Awareness in Buddhist Meditation

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is in loving, the thought of love is not love at all, but produces the
opposite memories of love and hate, both images, no doubt, but antagonistic
and thereby the seat of conflict. Thought of the beloved
is an attempt at retention and revival, if possible, of what is stored
in memory as a pleasurable experience. Such thought is, therefore,
of possessiveness, which strengthens the ‘I’-concept, increases isolation
and exclusion, opposition, and conflict. In the possessing of
the symbol of love, there is exploitation of the object for personal
satisfaction; and that is truly hatred.
If this sensation of hate is observed, as the memory of love was
seen, both sensations of love and hate will vanish with the dissolution
of memory, of the possessor, of the ‘I’. Then, without conditioning,
without clinging to either, there will be an open perceiving of the
entire play without conflict, without opposition, without selection,
without choice, without object, without ‘self’. And in that there is
love, which is universal and unconditioned.
Love, if it cannot be experienced at any odd moment of the
day under any condition or circumstance, is a mere ideal which one
hopes to realise in some distant future in another world or life. If
love is only perfect in the sight of God in heaven, we may just as
well forget about it, for the ideal life in heaven is as much a concept
as any dream can be, notwithstanding the revelations, prophecies,
miracles and dogmas proclaimed in the holy books of many religions.
As long as the idea of love remains an ideal, a concept, a thought,
an image, a picture, that cannot be love and cannot be actual in the
present and real in experience. And can one strive for something
which is not real? Can love be brought into existence by striving to
become full of love? Can one strive for something unknown?
But, without striving to become something in some unknown
future is it so difficult to be what one is now? The difficulty is not
in being thus, but in understanding it. For, throughout the ages
the present moment has been influenced and conditioned by identification
with the past, in customs and traditions, in faith and in