Awareness in Buddhist Meditation

131
ment, whereby an extra incentive is created for striving to reach a
pre-set goal. Such desire of making become what is not, obviously
confuses all understanding of what is. It is the mind of the past,
the memory through personal experiences, or concepts derived from
traditional doctrines which have created this hunger for achievement
in the various fields of life, religious, educational, political, social,
racial. This achievement is an ideal, for the attainment of which
the present is sacrificed. How many parents wish their children to
do better than they, even if they do not have the ability to excel.
How many sacrifices have been made by the present generation to
provide greater comfort and security for the next? Such future is
the continuation of the present in the eye of those who set up the
standard, who strive for an ideal, who project their own thought of
‘self’ to become a better ‘self’, a super ‘self’. It is the creation of
such ideals which has produced supermen as dictators, heroes for
imitation, gods for adulation. In the past too, such tendencies and
ideals have brought forth the present state of society, the present
chaos of confused thinking, the present turmoil of strife and envy,
which only prove that the ideal has not been reached. The search
for security in the future will always fail, because there is no understanding
of the present. The despair of failure, which is envy of the
ideal, cannot be overcome by greater ideals, more striving, higher
sacrifices, but by understanding the nature of envy as a desire for
self-continuance in a self-made ideal, in a future ‘self’.
Now, instead of wanting to change my envy into something which
is more comfortable, more sympathetic, let me see why there is this
attitude of mind, see it without judging or comparing. It is not the
envy which causes the mental conflict, but it is rather the conflict
which is made by the desire to change, which is envy, the will-tobecome
what I am not. Desire to change prevents understanding
of what is. It is only when the mind is at peace and free from the
burden of anxiety, involved in the desire to change, that there can
be a direct approach. But, in a direct approach there is no conflict,