"It is said that the most tragic aspect of the hell realm is that none of the gates are barred."
Conversation
"By default, the mind becomes stuck to mental representations that have more to do with our desires than how things really are. This leads to aversive experiences of emptiness, hopelessness, worthlessness, helplessness when we bump into evidence about how confused we are."
1
10
"We come up with plans for avoiding these experiences, but these plans don’t really work, leading us to repeatedly encounter flashes of the undesired experiences. Our response is to try to push on the plans even harder, which doesn’t work."
1
6
"But once we get wise to this process we can incline in the opposite direction, pushing less hard on experience. The relief from doing this wakes us up to the idea that we’ve been fueling the above vicious cycle and live in a house built from these sorts of knots of confusion."
1
7
"Instead of trying to hold the house together with constant maintenance while simultaneously trying to find the exact right decorations, we start tearing down the house."
1
6
"We discover that the very idea that we needed an unchanging, beautiful house that definitely belongs to us was just another of the confused knots. House building, maintenance, and dwelling becomes just another human activity that can be engaged with or not as is convenient."
1
9
"As these activities were previously taking up huge amounts of our attention and resources, we find ourselves much more relaxed and able to enjoy things."
1
8
"So when we engage with Anicca, we might think that in the long run of course things can’t stay stable. No, not in the long run! Right now in your direct experience images of words and mental sensations of meaning are flickering by. This is the Anicca to investigate!"
1
1
10
"...we might think that there’s a certain sense in which of course things aren’t satisfying. No, not in a certain sense! Right now in your direct experience there are sensations related to aversive feeling tones that are being papered over. This is the Dukkha to investigate!"
1
7
"...of course our sense of what we control isn’t always aligned with what we can actually control. No, not better calibrated models! Right now in your direct experience there is a sense of some sensations controlling other sensations. This is the Anatta to investigate!"
1
7
i don't have a clear sense of what's going on in this last paragraph so i'll just screenshot the whole thing without highlighting or quoting any of it
Replying to
This one's about moving into the stages of insight after the A&P, if that helps! If you notice a sensation, the noticing is already a separate sensation, the original is already gone. Once you register that, the process of mental observation changes.
2
1
Replying to
It sounds like a description of jhana, the states of absorption that one progressively enters through the Buddha's techniques, to strengthen and train the mind for the task at hand.
1