Awareness in Buddhist Meditation

60
ridiculously simple, that one can hardly expect anybody believing
it. And that is a fact. People do not believe in truth; they can only
believe in their own images or imaginings, which are the images of
themselves. People in general only believe in themselves!
A refusal to recognize the truth of conflict merely leads to an
attempt at escaping, which can only create a further conflict. The
minimum requirement for the solution of a psychological problem
is the direct recognition thereof. And that can come only through
direct awareness. In awareness of the real nature of the conflict lies
also the solution thereof. But this is also the most difficult part of
the problem, because the self-created concept not only refuses to,
but even cannot recognise the core of the problem which is itself,
just as nobody can cure himself through self-analysis.
This is the blind alley-from which there is no escape. And until
the mind becomes aware of the impossibility of escape, it will
continue in its attempt, for in continuance lies its only salvation.
The ego cannot sacrifice itself. But in increased activity (of which
our modem restlessness is so typical) it will explore new avenues of
search as well as of escape. Politics, business, social service, religion,
are not essentially different from the more crude escapes of
carnal pleasures. For many it will be a struggle for survival through
many lives, till one day, one moment, the perspective will change
completely, when it will be seen that the very effort to escape constitutes
the problem, that the search for peace is the cause of war,
the search for ‘self’ is the cause of conflict. That is the second noble
truth, when it will be understood that the fight against conflict is a
mere dream, because the conflict itself is only mind-made.
There is no permanent ‘self’, substance, soul, ego, for whatever
constitutes that delusion is but a desire for continuation, for stability
and security in that universal stream of impermanence. But
once, when it is understood (not just intellectually, not only emotionally,
but in a complete experience) that this very impermanence
of evolution is the real life of a constantly new birth, in which ev-