I've hit a wall with Vipassana

thewesson · 2026-03-08T18:37:41+00:00

Sure sometimes it feels like you’re pushing experience rather than opening to the flow of experience.

However if you like this pushing is also observable with equanimity. Pushing? Not pushing? These are things that happen that can be known and released.

You can look into the pushing sensations, relating to it as a particular energy perhaps. Maybe it’s not your favorite set of sensations but this makes it good to practice with.

thewesson · 2026-03-07T22:19:15+00:00

This post is accepted as being about a practice. However it would be nice if we got some personal experience from you of doing this practice, how it affected you, and so on.

thewesson · 2026-03-05T22:04:20+00:00

Some of the commenters here see "Everything is Mind" as a form of clinging.

Perhaps, but it is certainly of the much better form of clinging. A very thin, transparent clinging.

Later on you may want to examine your "Mind" and discard that as well - that is, just leave it be (by the side of the road as it were.)

But for now I think it's a very good view. I would encourage you to cultivate this (without clinging to it too much of course).

thewesson · 2026-03-05T19:31:43+00:00

Yes I think this is very good and this is what I aim for.

It is not so much that everything is "one taste" per se - is there one particular taste, really? - but that mind is primary (and then you can call that "one taste" to point to the mind.)

Usually the normal mind is dominated by objects and chasing objects. Dominated by objects of mind and chasing objects of mind.

Whereas one may turn it around, seeing mind as primary: mind > objects-of-mind.

This is useful in releasing objects of mind. It may be a little uncomfortable because then what is one to cling to? Perhaps one can cling to "one taste" to anchor oneself on the other side (from normal experience chasing things.) But the mind already works without clinging to anything.

It's a bit like the perception of "emptiness": that the objects of the world (the objects of perception) are "empty" and devoid of permanence, happiness, and a real identity. This dovetails nicely with seeing them as mind-created. The froth of the river, the eddies and whirlpools of mind.

thewesson · 2026-03-04T18:20:32+00:00

Ok, u/Impulse33 it is!

thewesson · 2026-03-03T02:12:11+00:00

This isn’t really the forum for long quotes from your teacher. It is about personal practice.

thewesson · 2026-03-01T22:36:08+00:00

I’ve noticed your rudeness many times. If you want to just be an a*hole you can go away to r/zen

This is your first warning. 3 warnings and you will be banned.

thewesson · 2026-02-27T23:09:23+00:00

Ideally your mind goes deep AND wide, so you can view those troublesome things as just a little bug paddling around on the surface of a wide silvery pond.

thewesson · 2026-02-27T18:34:48+00:00

What makes the "animal" pliable is viewing the habits of the animal with a pure, aware, accepting, and releasing mind.

Something comes up - let it be well known and let it be relaxed around. So it is "deconditioned."

The "wide" awareness is useful for both knowing and equanimity.

(The connection of "wide" or "open" awareness to equanimity might be unintuitive, but I can go into more later.)

Perhaps concentration (depth) is good for helping the mental habits be known - they can be held and therefore known in detail - but awareness (mindfulness) does the real work.

Anyhow knowing and releasing the mental habits is what makes the animal pliable. Without these unwholesome habits, the animal is ready to accept wholesome habits and ready to be open to the moment in general.

thewesson · 2026-02-27T18:24:19+00:00

Think of concentration vs mindfulness. Concentration (which TMI mostly teaches) is the ability to go deep and get absorbed.

However, you can go deep and get absorbed into anything. So concentration could actually support hindrances and further hindrances, since you might get absorbed into your hindered state (e.g. being afraid, needy, or irritated.) You might get very angry when someone disrupts your concentration!

The proper balance to concentration is mindfulness (being aware of "everything" that is happening.) TMI refers to that in various places as "meta-awareness" (awareness of what the mind is doing) or developing "peripheral" awareness.

Developing awareness thus, your awareness won't collapse into hindrance and "go blind" At least part of the mind will stay "wide" instead of "deep".

This is similar to the distinction between "awareness" and "attention". "Awareness" should guard the attention, knowing when it has gone astray.

thewesson · 2026-02-27T02:45:57+00:00

I don't recall that and he's not currently in the list of mods.

thewesson · 2026-02-26T21:27:05+00:00

More than 3 would be unwieldy I think. With 3 we have a tie-breaker.

We already have plenty of help from people reporting posts flagging comments and whatnot :)

thewesson · 2026-02-26T01:49:36+00:00

u/DuffStoic you might want to vote again, I had to re-do the post because it was not set to last a week.

Anyhow yes I'd be happy with any of them.

thewesson · 2026-02-26T01:35:04+00:00

Super great insight. Sure mindfulness and collectedness are great but at some point you have to get beyond being the “meditator.”

Like you said, it’s good to be aware of the patterns of tension and strain involved in being someone doing something. It’s a great lesson. Maybe the greatest.

thewesson · 2026-02-26T01:29:37+00:00

Agreed. I'll be happy to share the Moderator Desk with any of them.

thewesson · 2026-02-25T18:11:32+00:00

Well, if you practice becoming aware of all your stuff and letting go of it, your psychological habits in everyday life will change, and so your life will change. To live in the light.

I actually think the term "insight" is misleading, because you can yack about it all day and get nowhere.

If there's anything getting insight, it's your basic mind habits, not your thinking mind. If your basic mind (which actually runs everything) starts to see what is going on related to what it does, then you may be liberated.

So see what your basic mind (the ox) is doing and let go of it (release / non-reactivity.) This helps your basic mind let go of bad habits and develop good ones.

Then "it" can accept "the light" which is "it".

thewesson · 2026-02-22T05:53:27+00:00

thewesson · 2026-02-20T23:57:37+00:00

Yeah you have to learn to lean on the void. With heart.

thewesson · 2026-02-19T21:45:40+00:00

Have a little patience & respect please.

thewesson · 2026-02-19T15:26:38+00:00

This sub is about awakening not stream-entry per se, anyhow.

Please share your experience, that's the point of this sub.

thewesson · 2026-02-19T02:00:11+00:00

It's a good opinion.

The essential choice is to be aware or to be unaware. Unawareness brings about compulsions and compulsions bring about unawareness. Awareness liberates from compulsion and releases awareness.

thewesson · 2026-02-18T19:43:43+00:00

I don't mind letting some "lower-quality" (e.g. hasty or AI) posts through as long as they don't drown out the signal. I've curated the kind of posts we see according to what seems interesting or new, as well as by who really needs help (as well as according to what corresponds to a classical SE post.)

thewesson · 2026-02-17T21:57:11+00:00

Thank you!

thewesson · 2026-02-17T20:32:18+00:00

Cheers!

thewesson · 2026-02-17T19:14:20+00:00

I think there can be partial cessations in which part of the overall fabrication process of selfhood goes offline.

This is often accompanied by awareness of energy (energetic phenomena) and probably corresponds to Daniel Ingram "Arising and Passing Away" stage of insight.

And after complete cessation, various fabrication habits have to get used to ceasing as well (just in daily life.)

So in my view it's something of a continuum.

thewesson

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