It seems that some people may still have problems in publishing a comment. Cubibobi (Lang) says his comment was published. Following is his comment.
Hi all,
This forum hit the spot for me because of what I’ve been working on recently.
I’d like to first echo Lal’s comments about following the path in a systematic way, starting with removing the 10 wrong views. Recently, my effort has been focused in this area since I am striving for the Sotapanna stage, and miccha ditthi is the kilesa removed at this stage.
For me, the effort to remove the 10 miccha ditthis has given the most “bang for the bucks” at this stage, especially miccha ditthi number 4 about not believing in kamma / kamma vipaka. This helps make my mind lighter and calm down anxiety. The more you work on this, the more readily you catch yourself having wrong views, and then discarding them, and your mind becomes lighter. At times, you hear wrong views uttered by others (including some calling themselves Buddhists), and your mind automatically rejects those; as an example, many long-time “Buddhists” are still ambivalent about rebirths.
As an aside, I’ve been listening about this topic from Ajahn Sona, where he covers a number of the 10 wrong views:
The Noble Eightfold Path (1): Right View
Ajahn Sona said that having the right views is like having illumination, and at times I felt like that, not as in seeing light, but as in a better understanding of Dhamma.
I also listened to the discourse by Chaminda Tennakoon mentioned above, and was quite struck by it. His desana is related to the deeper wrong views of nicca, sukha, atta, and he used the word “fulfilling” repeatedly, which is quite fitting. From this, it follows that anicca would be “unfulfilling”; this may be the best single English word for anicca. Anyhow, this word resonated with me, and after listening to the desana, I felt that I absorbed a little more of”anicca”.
Finally, if you are at the same stage I am, you may want to spend more time listening to desanas (some are from Lal right here on puredhamma.net), in addition to reading posts. One of the conditions for the Sotapanna stage is “words of another”, and for me, the spoken words do feel different. Once you determine that someone is teaching correct Dhamma, listening to him/her brings joy and calms down anxiety.
Best to all,
Lang