Standing as awareness helps to free the mind and heart from the tyranny of personality. The heart settles into peace, and the mind follows. The more one lives as pure presence, pure experiencing, the less one is ruled by stories. Stories are still present and can still be useful, but they have less weight and substance, less power to compel.

But this by itself isn't enough. The entrenched patterns known as ego still operate and still have consequences. Standing as awareness doesn't exempt one from living as a human being, and trying to escape or deny this only causes more conflict. A sense of goodness, virtue and courage is needed for everyday life so that patterns of pain and suffering can be gradually overcome and superseded.

This can be easier than many people think. Something deep in the heart is already attracted to this. When one knows that the heart's deepest desire is better served by goodness than self-interest, one can wholeheartedly be that. This is so different from suppressing the ego's wayward tendencies in rigid conformity to a code, which only makes the personality brittle and dry, if outwardly conformant.

Standing as awareness, along with a sure sense of what's good and valuable, leads to a gradual settling of the heart into a spacious freedom and peace, which allows the mind to be calm and penetratingly clear. Then no force is needed, only willingness. This is the beginning.