🐈

Believing we can True Name ourselves and that "I" am suffering is a way of amassing suffering into a container. The container feels a victim. This is b/c we 'obviously' have ownership over ourselves and 'should' be in control of ourselves.

Another form of this mistake is believing that you've penetrated to the real essence of something, creating for yourself a prior that is non-updateable by sense data.

Nibbana or nirvana is often interpreted as a state of perpetual bliss but is better translated as "Cooling Down." The opposite of a tense, effortful, clenching up. It is the opposite of Tanha.

The happiness that results from nibbana is due to relinquishing the need to control and arrange reality to match up to our mental projections.

It's like the comfortable silence with a good friend, a good meal eaten to perfect satiation, post-orgasm, etc...

Upadana is literally translated as "fuel" or "seeds". It is a mental event that follows the clenching of Tanha. It can be thought of as the opposite of Equanimity. Instead of keeping your eyes on the road you just HAVE to see the traffic accident.

It's also like fiddling or micro-managing things that are better left alone. We just "have" to make some adjustments so that things are "perfect."

Sankhara is like a "construct". If Upadana is a seed, then Sankharas are the warped houses built out of the twisted lumber that grows. It is a collection of mental events built into a story about how the world works.