Awareness in Buddhist Meditation

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insight, in order to become enlightened. This kind of search, then,
is only for an ideal, that is an idea, a concept, a thought, which
is only the reaction of a desire for acquisition, a reaction to hearsay,
a reaction to the experiences of others. This reaction is, then,
only a further desire, however noble and lofty, a wish to achieve,
to acquire, to possess, to become that which is up to now only a
thought-projection of the ‘I’ How can I become aware?
A straightforward answer to this question would be: by being
aware of the implications of this question. That would not be a
search for a hidden treasure, but a simple observation of facts. The
facts are all within the question ‘How can I become aware?’
There is the first point of the question: How? It is an enquiry
about method, a scheme of classification. It presupposes an objective
goal. It also presupposes a subject who is striving towards that
goal, and who now enquires for a method. In other words, an observation
has been made and a thought has been formulated which
means identification and registration, the work of memory. It is the
breaking up of an experience into an objective goal apart from a
subjective observer.
Now, the goal in the abstract (for there is no experiencing as
yet) is not the object (which is still being sought, and therefore not
known), but the satisfaction and the preservation of the searcher, the
‘I’. The fact is that there is no ‘awareness’ in itself, and therefore
‘awareness’ cannot be the object of a search. Hence, a division
between subject and object is impossible, a method through which
the subject can obtain the object is equally impossible. There is no
object apart from the subject; and a question: ‘How can I become
aware?’ is then unanswerable.
If this is seen and understood, the question ‘How?’ cannot arise
anymore. There cannot be a method, if there is no search, if there
is no object for a search. The desire to obtain, if there is no object
for a search. The desire to obtain, to attain, to become to get rid