It is like an island on the surface of an abysmal, far-reaching sea. A great challenge for the disciple very early on the path is to learn to observe his inner world as a manifestation which far transcends his personality - that his behaviour and reactions are the steerings of paths travelled long before him by his ancestors, or perhaps, many lifetimes past. Either way, he must learn to take nothing personally, simply accepting his mode of being as an outcome of the human condition. This attitude is instrumental in an actual, existential seeing into the First Noble Truth - that "life is suffering". Although if life itself were suffering, living liberation would also be out of the question. Better to say, in the spirit of Socrates, it is the unexamined life which is suffering. This puts the First Noble Truth into its proper perspective. As long as one continues to interpret the realities of the inner world as personal, one can never come to know the true forces that are at the helm. Rather than seeing things as they are, everything is made to conform to the narrowness of the self-image, and that is precisely the master-thorn that needs to be uprooted ~Shri Amir Mourad