Hi Akvan,
“1) Just want to clarify the difference between thanha and upadana. Is it that thanha is more automatic and upadana is more conscious / deliberate?”
Yes. That is exactly right.
Regarding 2:
In the case of a sense input, the PS cycle does not start with avijja, but tanha, as shown in the figure.
However, multiple PS cycles can run starting at the mano sankhara to vaci sankhara stage. This is also shown in the figure.
-The key to Anapana/Satipatthana is to break that and to stop more vaci sankhara.
-So, basically the idea is to stop more of those PS cycles starting with “avijja paccaya sankhara” from running again and again in between the “tanha” and “upadana” steps shown in the figure.
This post was written to clarify issues raised by upekkha100 in the discussion forum: “Difference between Tanha and Upadana“.
In the “1. General Information and Updates” I wrongly stated that this post is related to the more recent 3-4 posts (I just revised that). They are somewhat related too, but one should really read the discussion topic: “Difference between Tanha and Upadana“.