We want pleasure and we do not want pain and thus begins our struggle as these two are opposite sides of the same coin.
In order to achieve our desired outcome--which is not to experience lasting and persistent pain, psychologically, we must have the same outlook in the pursuit of pleasure and this is where we get hooked. Why? Because the desire, the search, the effort to have constant pleasure or to 'favor' pleasure more than pain is what causes our psychological pain to last in the first place. We are here to experience life. We are going to encounter pain and pleasure. It is our perspective or our relationship to these that dictate whether or not we are locked in by them. When we give more credence or value to one over the other it incites the energy to stick to us more, hence the saying, "what you resist persists". Can we view any of it from a place of 'non-caring' while it is going on? Buddhism has a saying, "Not too lose, not too tight" when speaking about awareness of the phenomena that we experience day in and day out as spiritual beings in a physical dual-polar reality.
The 'trick' is to realize that the Thinker Is The Thought, but this must be seen by the consciousness that is experiencing whatever it is involved within. Book knowledge will not work here. You can spout words from another with perfect recall and this will do nothing for your actual experience, but will sound impressive and beautiful. The real beauty here is that this is not enough. and no one can 'Own' Insight or Wisdom. One must experience this first hand in order to have Insight and that Insight is priceless and cannot be held. This cannot be stressed enough: Insight CANNOT BE HELD in Stasis. It is real and living and moving all the time. It is Life; It Is In Constant Motion. You can have real, true Insight in one moment and then not be able to find it in the next. This is part of Its Beauty. It cannot be bought and it cannot be owned, patented, claimed or any other word of the kind.
When we experience pain we try to 'get away' from it or 'resolve' it as fast as we can, right? It is this antagonism that causes it to persist. If we were to examine pain in the moment with our consciousness, with our intention, with our awareness, without moving away from it---watching it and letting 'it' tell 'us' what it is all about without judgment and without pushing on it to go away or pulling on it to 'stay' (as in the case of guilt, to punish ourselves) we would find a state of equilibrium where we are just looking at 'what is'. What results from this is a state of awareness that doesn't 'care'. It is a state of learning without accumulation. Can we just learn by watching, but not try and change 'what' we are watching--which is also not to try and change whatever happens as a reaction to what we are seeing. This awareness is a constant state of attention without choice and without effort. If we are expending effort then we are resisting something. If we are resisting, then we are not realizing that the Thinker Is The Thought.
Awareness is a state of learning without choice. It is not an accumulation of what we see.
We all want pleasure and want to avoid pain. It isn't to try and stop this, but rather to be aware of it as it is happening, which is to watch thought in action. You have the ability to watch the movement of thought; it is awareness and it is your birthright. It is a constant movement. It is a fact. Can you just watch this without trying to change what you are watching? We all think and then we realize what we were thinking about after the fact, whether that is a split second or minutes later. What we are talking about here is to watch thought as it is arising, as it is moving, as it is forming. This is a different action altogether. It is to be aware without choice. It is to be aware of all of our reactions, our fears, our beliefs, our preferences, our predilections--all of it is made of thought.
This brings us to question of "what is the 'I'?" Is the 'I' not made of a compendium of thoughts? Is the 'I' not put together by thought? To watch the 'I' is to watch the movement of thought. What happens when you watch without pulling or pushing? You see the truth of what is. The true brilliance of all of this is that this is something that you can do yourself. You do not have to take anyone's word for it. You can try it in any moment and what you find; what you see will be yours. No book is required. All the holy books are all pointing to this and once you glimpse this....you can put them all down, for you will have looked into the face of the Divine and realize that all is part of the mind of God.
Awareness is a Fire and we all have the Embers of The Fire that is the Mind of God: The I AM. Once you see that there is nothing in this world that can take that away from you. You Are. We Are. I AM.