Why?

     The reason for being interested in this practice is that we are not perfectly satisfied with our lives. Sometimes we are very dissatisfied. For example, many of us have thought of suicide at times. That is a sure indicator that a person is finding life very frustrating at the moment.

     We have needs, like all living organisms. That could be a definition of being alive. Life means having needs. We human beings have extraordinary capacities for getting our needs met. If we were plants we would just have to take what we get, but we have these wonderful bodies that can move and behave in all kinds of ways to "pursue happiness." We have feelings and emotions to guide us in our pursuit, and most remarkable of all, we have our human consciousness. We are aware of reality, we know what's going on. But "aye, there's the rub." We think that we know what's going on, but unless one's awareness is impartial and simultaneous, one is not actually aware of reality. We are partially aware. Partial awareness is not good enough.

     There are some needs of ours that seem to be similar to those of other animals, say cats or dogs. Often those animals seem to be better at getting their needs met than we are. Our consciousness, dominated by our thinking, is only resulting in us living more stupidly than "dumb" animals. Something is not right, and the something is our consciousness.

     We are able to do anything, any behavior within the capacity of our body to get our needs met. Let's assume that we are doing our best, and will continue to do our best as long as we live. When we are dissatisfied, our best doesn't seem to be good enough for us. We feel that somehow we could and must do better. We are able to think about how we could do better, and to act on our conclusions. Let's assume that we do think seriously about how we should live and do act on our conclusions, and that we will continue to do so. 

     Our thinking has a partial focus, inevitably. That is the nature of our thinking, which is intimately associated with language. Language consists of narratives, all of which focus our attention partially. We need impartial awareness of reality to guide us in our choices of how we should think and behave. Ultimately all our choices come down to how we should direct our attention. The practice of awareness of reality is the direction of our attention to impartial and simultaneous awareness of reality. The ability to direct our attention in this way is a dexterity that must be learned by practice, based on the wish to learn it. The reason that we wish this is that we know we need better guidance in our lives than our thinking can provide. Our thinking is a good servant, but a bad master.

     We humans have needs that other animals do not have, exactly because we do have our human consciousness. For example, we know that we will die, and that every other creature that we see will too.  My Grandpa died, slowly, of cancer when I was 12. It was like a bowling ball crashing through our family. What is the meaning of all our struggle? Other animals have no need to grapple with such questions, but we do. And no verbal formulation will really satisfy as an answer, I don't care whether it comes from the Bible or the works of Mr. Darwin.

     We need to be aware of reality. Then, at that moment, we have no need to ask "why."