To some, this second mode of insight practice, where liberating ways of looking are intentionally cultivated and sustained, may initially sound unattractive. This is quite a common reaction, and there are various possible reasons for it. One may involve a belief that ‘being’ and ‘doing’ are really different. Often then, ‘just being’ is regarded as … Continued

Sooner or later we come to realize that perhaps the most fundamental, and most fundamentally important, fact about any experience is that it depends on the way of looking. That is to say, it is

This mode of approach, of actively cultivating a range of skilful ways of looking, is premised, then, on the understanding that we are always and inevitably engaged in some way of looking at or relating to experience anyway. But we are not usually aware of this fact. Nor are we usually aware of how we … Continued

We could say that the way of looking in any moment is constructed from the total mix of assumptions, conceptions, reactions, and inclinations, gross and subtle, conscious and unconscious, that are present at that time.

Insight meditation, indeed perhaps even the whole of the Dharma, could be conceived, very broadly, as the cultivation of ways of looking that lessen dukkha, that liberate.

Although it will be better understood as the various practices are unfolded, it is perhaps important to make something clear about such an approach right now. What is being suggested here involves much more than an intellectual assertion of the relativity of all perception, and a concomitant inability to uncover any more ultimate truth of … Continued

For as well as learning to drain the dukkha from situations and things, we are also learning to dismantle fabrication. In the process, we are moving towards opening to what is beyond conventional perception, what is unfabricated; and then there is the possibility of opening even beyond that to the fundamental truth of all things … Continued

They might, broadly speaking, be initially divided into two groups, according to how insight into emptiness is arrived at. Each group will be expanded and explored in much detail throughout the book, but briefly now they are: 1. A gradually deepening inquiry into fabrication – of the self and of all experience

We realize, first, that dukkha depends on the way of looking. And, as briefly alluded to above, with deepening exploration we find we can discover and cultivate ways of looking that fabricate not only progressively less dukkha, but also less and less self, and eventually, as we shall explain, even less and less experience. Not … Continued

Realizing the impossibility of inherent existence Here we are engaging in a thorough search for the self or for the essence of any thing. Such a search in practice considers and exhausts all the possible places or ways that it might exist, and so reveals that it simply cannot exist in the way that we … Continued

To a degree proportional to its strength, the push and pull of craving pushes and pulls the attention. It thus agitates the mind and makes it restless; or saps its energy and makes it dull. Relaxing craving through insight will therefore allow the mind to settle more naturally and easefully into stillness and a steadiness … Continued

insight is any way of looking that releases craving.

It is the balance of samādhi and insight work that is important and so potentially powerful. Too much samādhi relative to insight practice, and the mind may lose its desire then to contemplate or analyse or shift ways of looking. Too much insight practice relative to samādhi usually tends to enervate the mind and the … Continued

keen investigation, reflection, and a pondering of the relationship it has with letting go suggest that it may be more accurate to understand samādhi as a spectrum of states that involve progressively less fabrication than a more ‘ordinary’ state of consciousness involves.

It may not be obvious for quite a while but any state of samādhi is to some degree a state of letting go, of reduced craving. And the deeper the samādhi, the deeper and more comprehensive the letting go that it involves. As we shall come to see through the insight practices, less craving results … Continued

perspectives, and you feel that the power of your insight generally outweighs that of the hindrances. If you feel that this is not yet the case, however, repeated, careful observation of the processes involved can contribute to making it so. The following exercise may therefore be helpful. Practice: Investigating what is being fabricated through the … Continued