Awareness in Buddhist Meditation

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is thus made an object for striving, as an aspiration for Nibbāna.
Only a deluded mind can think: ‘May I attain’. It is the search
for the ideal of a ‘self’ free from limitations, in a mental creation
of a sphere of infinite bliss. Whatever name is given to that bliss,
it is still a form of thought in the formless, and hence a delusion,
producing conflict.
Conceit (māna), the pride of ‘self’ (asmi-māna), has survived till
now, even though the delusion of individuality (sakkāya-diṭṭhi) was
overcome when entering the path of holiness (sotāpatti). It is found
in a superiority-complex (atimāna) with the pride of attainment
reached thus far; and its opposite, the inferiority-complex (omāna).
Only through full penetration of the basis of all pride, which is
the delusion of ‘self’, can there be an ending to all opposition and
conflict, of all agitation and delusion.
Conceit is an idealisation of the subject, which sees its primitive
instincts and fundamental needs not as defects but in need of sublimation
in higher perfection. This is an escape, a way out, by which
the claims of nature can be conceded without having to be repressed
on account of their imperfection. It is seeing the ‘self’ in an ideal
light, and measuring everything by the standard of that ideal.
The sublimation and idealisation of ‘self’, without projecting it
in some form of existence, establishes the concept of a soul in a
super-relationship to others, and holds on so tenaciously, that only
the perfectly holy ones are completely free from this fetter. Agitation
(uddhacca) is a sign of fickleness, lack of mental balance
between elation and depression. It is therefore more emotional than
intellectual, an eagerness to succeed, and attempt to lead one’s life
according to one’s planning. This brings to the foreground an intentional
purposefulness which is the main-spring of ‘self’ activity.
In the following-up of a concept of a goal, there is a search for satisfaction
of greed, rather than the response to a need; and that is
a ‘self’-assertion which becomes a driving force to which many people
submit in fear of being left behind. And so, agitation stands in