Someone asked: why does deceiving ourselves, running from the truth, make us feel better for a while — yet when we come to our senses, we find ourselves sunk in suffering, sometimes so deep we can't even recall what we're suffering over, only that the suffering is unbearable?

This happens because we don't dare face the truth. The nature lying behind self-deception is the unwholesome. The unwholesome fears that if we face the truth, we will register it as it truly is — the sphere of knowing, the sphere of mindfulness, will arise, and once it does, it will draw in pure energy — merit — to clear away all the impurities the unwholesome has built up. The wholesome's automatic process will correct things immediately, if only we face the truth — that is, simply stay in the present. Because the state of truth can appear in only one place: the present moment. It appears fresh in every new present, never in the past or future.

When we abide in the present, the sphere of mindfulness arises and draws in pure energy — merit — to clear away all impurities until they dissolve completely on their own. The inner knower appears, guiding us to resolve problems as though it were our own thought; the empowered one superimposes itself to help us act on right and good causes. Running from the truth is precisely what the unwholesome pushes us toward, because it buries problems and obstacles beneath a cover, keeping the wholesome from ever getting the chance to fix them.

Running from the truth is thus like using a credit card to draw on future money just to pay off old interest, over and over — burying the problem again and again, waiting for the day it detonates. When we finally come to our senses, we find ourselves sunk in suffering, unable even to recall what it's about, because what's been buried has piled up so high.

When we refuse to face the truth and let the wholesome resolve it, impurity accumulates further and further. Impurity plays three roles. First, it drags us down through greed, aversion, delusion, and lust — the further down we go, the greater the share of the unwholesome grows, dominating us further, while the wholesome's strength is automatically diminished; suffering and darkness only grow deeper. Second, if it cannot drag us all the way down, it stirs up hindrances instead, making life difficult to bear. Third, if we wish to be free, impurity holds us back from liberation by relying on the very suffering it has caused — a state that must be endured and is difficult to endure, precisely because it exceeds what we can bear.

The more we fail to abide within the wholesome system and let it resolve things, the more we shrink from facing the truth arising in each present moment, the less able we are to remain with ourselves — retreating instead into an uncertain future full of expectation and fantasy, or into a past where we choose to remember only what's pleasing, deceiving ourselves day after day, simply because we are not with the present. To be free of past and future, we must come to the present, training ourselves to abide there, in the state of truth. The stream of merit will then flow through continuously; the Triple Gem will shine bright at the center of our being, and nibbana will superimpose itself to help resolve things for us.

To abide in the state of truth, we must maintain clear awareness — as the Buddha taught the monks: one should clearly discern body, feeling, mind, and dhamma, so as to remove covetousness and grief regarding the world. We must abide in the present through continuous, unlapsing awareness — knowing what we are aware of, knowing whatever we settle our attention on. Once the sphere of knowing, the sphere of mindfulness, arises, it draws pure energy — merit — flowing continuously into the brightness at its center. This energy then drives the wholesome system, refining and purifying the elements of dhamma within us, freeing us continuously from one dimension into another, resolving our problems along the way.