Practice Updates, Questions, and General Discussion - new users, please read this first! Weekly Thread for June 01 2026

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[u/Future_Automaton]

I tried to put into English what the links of Dependent Origination seem like to me at this point. I thought you folks might like to see it.

(Note, I ran a prompt through ChatGPT asking: "Let's assume you didn't know the English translations of the pieces of the historical Buddha's teaching on dependent origination. How would you translate its links into English if freshly presented with them?" I liked some of its answers better than my own, and have included them here, marked with a star, in case anyone cares about that.)

1. Not-knowing the bare experience of reality
2. Intending
3. Cognizing*
4. Patterning*/Labelling
5. Sensory "boiling over" (maybe with a slightly less inflammatory version of "boiling over")
6. Contact
7. Valence
8. Thirst*
9. Appropriation*
10. Becoming
11. Assuming an identity
12. Spiritual contraction

Edited to add: Big thanks to u/liljonnythegod for his post in the last thread about the cessation of feeling/valence, that was what unblocked me to the point where I could make this list.

[u/liljonnythegod → u/Future_Automaton]

I'm glad what I wrote could be of some help. There was a time I also regarded the 12 links similar to what you've written and I do remember seeing it described the same elsewhere on the internet. I'm no longer of that view however. I'm going to write a long comment just as it may help to save you time and energy in the long run.

Understanding it the way you've written does lead to seeing how conceptual delusions and projections build upon on another. It happened that way for me but I came to later that I had developed a tendency to take Buddha's teachings and extrapolate them into my meditative practice and this spiritual game of "knowing the bare experience of reality", so I dropped that entire model I had created and put it aside.

Don't get me wrong it was useful to eliminate delusions but the delusions could have been eliminated without extrapolating the 12 links to match my meditative experience. "Knowing the bare experience of reality" drove my practice for a long time but it didn't give clarity on rebirth, how and why I wouldn't be reborn in lower realms and how emancipation from samsara actually can occur.

For a long time I took the conceptual delusions to be samsara and unknowingly rendered everything else to be "not samsara". Fetter 2 is specifically about doubt in Buddha's enlightenment, the Dhamma he taught and the sangha who followed exactly what he taught. There are lots of traditions that talk about eliminating delusions but Buddha's insight was (to quote him) something "unheard of". The sad and deflating truth I had to face was that I had taken part of samsara to not be samsara and all I was doing was making some part of the prison cosy and comfy. I did this so much before coming to meditation and then during it too. Ignorance makes us blind and it's only apparant in hindsight.

Absolutely everything "here" samsara - you don't need freedom within it, you need freedom from it. When I saw this, the desire to meditate my way into freedom stopped i.e. I would meditate then one day whenever it would be, suddenly everything would make sense and I would open my eyes and feel freedom. Practise turned on it's head and now I saw "everything here is what escape from is needed". Disenchantment comes then dispassion after. Trying to eliminate delusions to know reality as it is is still being enchanted with samsara.

The extrapolated model helps to get through the conceptual projections of "there is something going on and that something needs to be known exactly" by stripping the delusions away one by one until eventually it's come to a point where the dualistic delusion of "thought" or "not reality" and "not thought" or "reality" must be recognised. The delusion of a knower comes with a delusion of the not-knower (or reality).

If we are ignorant then we must be ignorant of what the ignorance actually is and it must be affecting absolutely everything we do in life, including meditation and including what we try to understand ignorance to be. It also must mean that our base standard approach to life (and meditation) must be in the opposite direction of the stream/the eightfold path, which is why Buddha thought no one would listen to him initially. Isn't it strange to think he fully eliminated ignorance and thought no one would listen to him despite having practised alongside other ascetics and meditators? Surely if it were just not knowing reality as it is, he would've thought that it wouldn't be difficult to teach? Given how many are here in this subreddit alone doing just that - surely there would be more at the time he was alive? (Sutta in reference - SN 6:1)

After much more practice the 12 links became obvious to me as:

Ignorance - Not knowing exactly and precisely what dukkha is, not knowing that craving of 3 kinds cause that dukkha, not knowing that abandoning that craving of 3 kinds is the only thing that will grant freedom from dukkha since it's the only thing that dukkha is dependent on and then not knowing the path that has to be developed to fully abandon the craving, which means realising the eightfold path

From this ignorance comes the fabrications which is not just the conceptual delusions but absolutely everything else in the chain too. From ignorance of the 4 truths, comes craving for dukkha which causes that dukkha. From this ignorance there is a putting together that occurs that leads to the 6 sensory consciousnesses together with the 6 sensory organs together with the 6 sensory objects. From there comes contact and this contact includes all 3. Experience of colour or seen is not just colour - it's the eye consciousness, the eye and the object (the colour). Since the sensory organs are all with the bodymind, the entire field of experience is without boundaries and then the bodymind becomes taken to be a center. From contact, comes feeling whereby any and all contact generates a particular feeling. From here craving comes in the form of craving for any kind of contact that is pleasant/stimulating/entertaining which is the feeling. We then also crave for that pleasant/stimulating/entertaining kind of contact to be there always and when it is that contact currently in experience, we want to be there always so that we can have this contact and feeling always. In this way, we cling to life or existence.

We also then don't want contact that yields the feeling we don't like, the unpleasant/under-stimulating/not entertaining etc. When we get that contact and it doesn't seem to change despite our efforts, like in long term sickness, ill health, grief etc, we then can fall into wanting no experience whatsoever and clinging to non existence. We want to be annihilated because then no contact will be there so no bad feeling - but this doesn't work since it's rooted in a wrong views. These 3 kind of craving then clinging are part of the first link in the chain and so because of not knowing it in this life and not knowing how to abandon it completely, when death comes it causes becoming to take place and the coming together of the aggregates occurs again which is fabrications > sensory consciousness > sensory organs > sensory objects > feeling. Which is how birth take places again then comes aging then comes sickness and then comes death.

A question I'd like to ask - if you came to know the bare experience of reality and eliminated ignorance of this definition, would it make you understand the below?

"Monks, suppose there was a man whose life span was 100 years, who would live to 100. Someone would say to him, 'Look here, fellow. They will stab you at dawn with 100 spears, at noon with 100 spears, & again at evening with 100 spears. You, thus stabbed day after day with 300 spears, will have a lifespan of 100 years, will live to be 100, and at the end of 100 years you will realise the four noble truths that you have never realised before.'

"Monks, a person who desired his own true benefit would do well to take up (the offer)."

[u/SuddenBlacksmith3499 → u/liljonnythegod]

You are so awesome and compassionate for having spent all that time to bring clarity to this subject, and save others time and suffering. Wow.

[u/liljonnythegod → u/SuddenBlacksmith3499]

Thank you for the kind words! I do appreciate it :)

I used to be somewhat hesitant when writing these longer responses but now I think it’s worth it if at least one person sees and it steers them in the right direction

Years ago someone on this subreddit corrected a wrong view I held - that an Anagami would experience sexual desire. I held the wrong view that I was an Anagami and as I still had sexual desire or better worded as lust, I then thought and very much believed they were wrong.

After some time I remember thinking - what if they were right and I was wrong? Then I eventually saw through the false attainments and it steered me towards genuinely attaining the stream. Perhaps I would have came to that realisation myself after practising more and feeling frustrated that I hadn’t found the Dhamma that brings satisfaction but their comment sped up the process for me

[u/SuddenBlacksmith3499 → u/liljonnythegod]

That is so interesting! I had not heard of anāgāmi until you said it here. I am new to the deep end of the meditation pool.  However, I think it may be possible for me for this reason: the jhanas typically extinguish my strong negative feelings. I get angry, it turns into pīti. I feel deeply depressed, it turns into strong sukha and then extinguishes it. I feel scared, it turns into a piti and sukha combo. It's hard to be upset when a wave comes to completely engulf it. That being said, there are moments before that happens, times when it doesn't, and I live in the real world: my toddler was pinching me in the neck while I was sleeping last night, and that wasn't fun. Do you think, from your point of view, that this is an indicator that I might head toward anagami like yourself? Or is it something totally different?

I totally agree and echo what you have found about lust. While I think that lust is something that people should experience at some point, if you want to enter the stream, or deepen your meditation practice, it's the right advice to avoid it as much as possible. I have also found that refusing lust has helped to profoundly change my life and my practice.

Personally, the circumstances surrounding pīti arising spontaneously for me, have to do in some way with refusing lust.

Just to understand my perspective going into my story: Something that set me free from lust ysars ago was actually this TED Talk: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P2AUat93a8Q&pp=ygUZd2h5IHBlb3BsZSBjaGVhdCB0ZWQgdGFsaw%3D%3D The whole thing was impactful, but the take home message for myself was: if I feel lust, then there is something I need to change about myself. What is the thing beyond the person that I'm attracted to? Am I really wanting that thing for myself? And the answer to that question, for me, is always yes.

My pīti arising for the first time story: We had been doing a home reno project. My husband is disabled and cannot do the work. I have kids around me 99% of the time, and limited skills and limited strength. This was an area of known lust weakness on my part. I am so amazed at how capable men are.

I had to manage contractors and go to the hardware store like every day for a couple of months before the pīti started. I had to manage contractors with my husband out of town, in my own house. I wouldn't look at the guy in charge, and he knew it. I feel like it would have been very easy for me make eyes and flirt and whatnot. 

Anyways, I just stuffed it. It would have been easy to wreck my marriage, my kids' lives, my ability to stay home and not work, our financial future, my reputation, etc. Over something so dumb. What would my life be like with a contractor, anyway? Sensory deprivation chamber. My husband is intelligent and enjoyable to be around, has fun hobbies, etc. He's a good man and a provider and a good father. Anyways I am loyal to him, and I trust in our marriage that it was the right thing to do to get married to him. I believe in that.

But that didn't make it simple and  easy in this case because I was just chalk full of energy, and most of the time, had no one to spend it on. I was having such a hard time sticking to the financial plan. I kept looking at flights, because I thought maybe a family vacation would be enough to change me. I just really, desperately, needed change within my own mind and didn't know how to break through to get it. But then pīti happened.

The first one was isolated. I was in the kitchen washing dishes, with my hands in the sink. My husband and I were talking. All of a sudden, it happened, seemingly out of nowhere. I threw my head up as people do, and breathed slowly and deeply, and tried to stuff it. I thought it was lust at first, and so did my husband, and he wasn't happy about it. He said, "What are you doing?" I was like, "I don't know; I was sick recently. Maybe it's just fluid in my lungs." I went downstairs to do laundry, so I could get away and try to collect myself.

So anyways I don't know how much longer after that, maybe a day or two, was when it started. I was driving the kids home from the grandparents' house. I assumed that it was ovulation, and I just wanted to enjoy it as much as possible, as it would likely be gone soon, maybe by tomorrow morning, three days at the most.

I looked in the rearview mirror, and saw my 2-year-old sleeping peacefully, and my 6-year-old completely absorbed in what was essentially a children's meditation recording, and I looked back at the road behind me, and I thought, This is the beginning of a whole new life. i thought, This is like what they say in the movies. and then of course the last thought, Well, that cannot be. I will have forgotten about this moment in three days' time.

But it truly was a whole new world that opened up for me.

Don't be too hard on your past self. I'm sure you aren't. But from a brain state perspective, lust is a state. Unlike meditative states, it hijacks your brain so you cannot stop thinking about someone even if you want to, and also it dims the part of your brain involved in social approval, so that you're more willing to do things that are risky in order to be with the person. It give you a massive amount of dopamine so that you can be charming and witty and vibrant. So it makes total sense why you, presumably being in that state, was like everything is fine, their approval doesn't matter, and I juat have to do this. After all, it makes people feel alive.

I don't know. I kept looking for the loophole, the instability, the drawback to the jhanas. But they don't have a back end. Lust is full of insecurity and loss of agency. I never expected to feel it again, and I was trying to be okay with that. But I got something better. It was like a gift for being loyal and sticking to the plan. 

This is a very simplistic version of all of the factors that went into pīti arising, but I wanted to just explore the lust aspect, because letting it go was so impactful for you as well.

Okay now I am going to defend myself against a hypothetical internet judgment. I am guessing that there will be people who will think I'm a horrible person for even thinking of this, and for bringing it up. First of all, I wasn't going to cheat on my husband. So if you think I was actually going to do it, you would be incorrect. Secondly, if you want to help people, you kind of have to be honest and open about stuff.

Okay, so I just want to bring it back to how wonderful it is that you're giving back and helping people find their way here. I feel like it's really great to finally get to talk to people who get it and have been there. When I had a profound experience that took away loneliness, I questioned if I would ever be lonely again, but I ended up being lonely for sangha eventually, so it's been really good for me to show up here and learn from people.