The Buddha described his teaching as "going against the stream." The
unflinching light of mindful awareness reveals the extent to which we
are tossed along in the stream of past conditioning and habit. The
moment we decide to stop and look at what is going on (like a swimmer
suddenly changing course to swim upstream instead of downstream), we
find ourselves battered by powerful currents we had never even
suspected--precisely because until that moment we were largely living
at their command.