Question: I find it difficult to understand that there is no self. How can I learn to experience the truth?

Answer: The truth of no self cannot be realized in the beginning. We have accumulated so much ignorance and wrong view. Through reading, considering and discussing there can gradually be more intellectual understanding of realities. Thus, conditions are being built up for direct awareness of realities and then understanding can grow. It develops in stages very gradually and eventually realities can be seen as they are.

Question: How can one be aware of realities?

Answer: There is seeing now. It can be realized that it is a reality which experiences visible object, just for a moment. It is not self which sees, seeing sees. You don’t have to do anything special in order to see. When there are conditions for seeing you can’t help but see. Is seeing permanent? You cannot go on seeing. When there is hearing there is another reality; there can’t be seeing at the same time. There can be the study of one reality at a time as it appears. When there are the right conditions there can be direct understanding of a mental phenomenon as only a reality and of a physical phenomenon as only a reality. These can be realized as different types of realities. We should not wish for awareness; we should always remember that the goal is right understanding of realities. Whenever there is awareness of one reality which appears there can be direct understanding of it and thus understanding can grow.