Awareness in Buddhist Meditation

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our craving for continuity, this has naturally created a conflict. And
in that movement of opposition we feel to be alive.
But when thought tries to get hold of the thinker whom it has
created, it finds it impossible to penetrate this mystery of life and
death. This is the moment of truth, when thought cannot function,
when thought is silent, when memory is closed, when there is no ‘I’
as observer. For, in that moment there is death to all the past, and
there is possibility of a new and living experiencing of what is. It is
thus that life comes out of death.
To realise the nature of this ‘self’ it is necessary to quieten the
thought which makes the ‘self’. What is the position when this concept
is no more active? Without ambition, without desire, without
craving for the future, without clinging to the past, without protection,
without memory, there is no opposition, no conflict, no fear,
no death. But there is the living in the present moment, which is
always new, which is full of life and love and understanding, freedom
from fear and freedom from death, life without lust.
Can we die today, now? We only think of death as something,
which is still far away in the future. We accept the unavoidability of
death, because we have seen death coming to all, young and old, at
the end of a life-span when the works have run down, or in the midst
of the full force of living, through sudden illness or accident, or in
violence. But our preparation for that certainly exists, perhaps, in
the making of a will, in providing compensation through insurance,
in making provisions in cash or in property, which are preparations
for security, not for death.
How can we ever understand death, unless we invite death, instead
of pushing it away in fear and ignorance? We rather think of
immortality, of supernatural bliss, of eternal existence, even though
all that is still and always will be mere thought. To find out what
death is, it must be brought close, so that we can live with it, as a
mother with her child. Others may think of her child as deformed,
but the mother knows it as her child; and thus she cares for it, looks