Q. What is this ‘revolutionary approach’ to pure awareness you talk about? Many Buddhist traditions, and indeed contemporary organisations, teach the do- nothing, non-judgmental and accepting awareness you talked about. Non- Buddhist teachers such as Krishnamurti have also explored this ‘pure awareness’ approach to awakening in great detail.

A. I do not pretend that the practice of entering pure awareness is something unique to Buddhism. What I mean by revolutionary is that for the first time in our life we turn away from self-interest, this self-interest which is unavoidable as part of our normal human condition.We learn to surrender, and to do so not by an act of will, but rather through authentic spiritual practice. The Buddha said that taking on practice is like being carried along by the current of a stream and making the decision to turn around and swim against that current. To ‘rebel’ against all the conditioning that makes me what I am and replace that with the true human being. Krishnamurti himself said that giving up the self is not just another revolution – but the only revolution. We often like to talk of revolution such as replacing capitalism with communism, but sooner or later either system will go into inevitable change. The real revolution of inner change, if done properly, lasts forever.