Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book

Practical Insight Meditation, by Mahasi Sayadaw,

Conformity means that we suddenly flash onto a way of perceiving the whole of our experiential reality completely, directly, and perfectly clearly. This stage lasts only one moment and never recurs until we attain the next stage of enlightenment. The same is true of the following two stages. Stages twelve through fourteen (Conformity, Change of Lin

A take-home lesson from this period of my life: don't assume that anyone you are in a relationship with cares about how much insight you have, and instead assume that they care how you treat them, how well you listen to them, how well you take their point of view into account, and whether you are a decent friend. While I am on the subject, if you h

While the teacher may have learned to parrot the language of ultimate reality, this is absolutely no substitute for direct realization of it.

The total synchrony of the sense sphere that leads to a Fruition shows a fun physiological fact: Fruitions always occur at the end of the out-breath, and reality always reappears at the beginning of the in-breath, which is one of the cool reasons that finding the end of the out-breath can be powerful practice.

Kindness toward ourselves Kindness toward others, both humans and non-humans Ability to set and respect reasonable boundaries Written communication ability Spoken communication ability Ability to skillfully support ourselves Ability to skillfully support others Generosity Patience Gratitude Persistence Honesty Integrity Dedication to service Abilit

Each stage is marked by very specific increases in our perceptual abilities. The basic areas we can improve in are: clarity, precision, speed, consistency, inclusiveness, and acceptance. These improvements in our perceptual abilities are the hallmarks of each stage and the gold standard by which they are defined and known.

Once the stages of awakening are attained, that aspect of our suffering is forever eliminated and never arises again.

The hindrances are formally listed as: sensory desire ill will or malice sloth/torpor restlessness/worry doubt Each of these states of mind will inhibit meditative progress if we are not aware of them as sensate objects for investigation as they arise.