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I wasn’t too sure exactly where to put this since I haven’t experienced any magga phala or definitively removed miccha ditthi beyond a reasonable doubt…
But so far, I have seen a few fruits in contemplating Dhamma as Lal has presented it. I can give a few psychological attachments I’ve struggled with my entire life and then explain how Dhamma helped me through (so far).
The very first post I came across on this website was on dealing with pornography addiction. I didn’t get too much from it initially, even though I was somewhat familiar with mainstream Buddhist interpretations of Dhamma concepts, but that was a seed for me that let me keep exploring various concepts like Paticca Samuppada or Abidhamma.
I was initally annoyed that, even though I have a girlfriend, I couldn’t quit this habit that I’ve had for fifteen years (with maybe an occasional two month remission that went into relapse). I felt very frustrated with certain advice, like the Alchoholics Anonymous method that clicked in with my Pentacostal Christian upbringing (it’s a sin brother, you will always be an addict and you’ll go back into addiction if you use again), which really grinded against my perfectionist attitude towards some things. I was also encouraged to practice breath meditation, as some claimed it helped them break their own addiction, but this just frustrated me more as it felt like I was being told “I wasn’t mindful enough, so I have to be more mindful next time to beat this addiction”. It gave me this impression that I would have to invest fifty thousand hours into breath meditation or get ordained (as one monk mentioned in a desana he gave where he gave up the craving of smoking after becoming a monk) to get even a semblance of progress with my cravings.
With this entire new set of concepts for my brain to munch on, I have managed for the first time in over three years to not engage in this deep-rooted habit for over three weeks. I think if get to the three month mark (something I’ve never done before since I was thirteen), that would increase saddha for me.
If anybody is curious what ideas helped for me, I can give a brief summary:
- Most pleasures are a reprieve from a vexation we have enacted upon ourselves due to attachment. I’ve been exposed to this idea before through Allen Carr’s “Easy Way to Quit Smoking” but extrapolated to other addictions. However, this in itself felt like an empty idea since I could not shake off the idea that something that is sweet is inherently sweet and inherently pleasurable.
- Which neatly segues to the next resonating point: our subtle minds have never interacted with external objects, ever. We have only worked with mind-encoded versions of said objects. This is partly why external objects are considered devoid of pleasure or essence. With porn, one could imagine that one is not just reacting to a mental image, but also a mental image of an image!
- Now to enter rebirth territory: whatever habits or addictions we have are most likely gati that have been carried over from a previous life, or maybe even a previous bhava. I have often felt quite tempted to blame my parents for whatever bad habits they have given me, intentionally or unintentionally. But with this framework, it is simply less personal. In the context of rebirth (something I am very open to but not a blind believer of), after my previous death, my gandhabba simply sought a mother and a father that had a similar gati. This is nothing to fault them by. Actually, if we are to take the gandhabba concept further, I would be actually quite grateful that my mother and father conceived me, since they gave me a chance to change my gati for the better in this human birth, to not mention that my bhava could have ended in limbo if I didn’t find the compatible parents soon enough.
- The most important I would say: although not a papa kamma, engaging in porn addiction is an akusala kamma, especially if done while having a partner. But even without that, willfully engaging in a system where other humans are being exploited, especially when the tastes for such a system can escalate, is still akusala kamma. My main phrase that helped me get through my urges was that using was literally entraining my mind to grasp an apaya birth at the end of this bhava, especially since it would by no means be guaranteed that I would be privy to Dhamma knowledge in the next life. <br />
- As a way to reinforce the perils of seeking an animal rebirth, I came across a picture of a rabbit with tentacle like growths around its mouth. I learned that this was caused by infection with a virus that caused tumors to extend around the mouth area, inhibiting the rabbit’s ability to eat and eventually leading to death from starvation. This is what would inevitably come for me if I continued cultivating the gati of a rabbit, aka desiring to copulate like one. Just imagine all the diseases in the world that exist and that only a tiny fraction of them will be cured since they happen to infect humans, even less so if one has the “privilege” of being considered a cute animal by said humans.
I still enjoy doing my lab work as a Ph.D student (especially since I am fortunate to work with bacteria and not with sentient animals like mice or insects), as well as studying the language of my girlfriend and learning piano, but not with this incessantly neurotic notion that learning this new etude or getting to this level of fluency or reaching this level of scientific output will make me any happier or fulfilled, or that I will even get to keep any of it when my time is up in this life. I find it very relieving that we all have been Liszts, Teslas or Paganinis an infinite amount of times, so there’s no pressure in learning anything that doesn’t get me closer to the first magga phala. I continue enjoying reading content on this website, and I always look forward to when Lal publishes another post that will get me closer to getting rid of the first three samoyana that prevent me from being a Sotapanna.
I feel immensely privileged in being exposed to the original Buddha Dhamma. My only regret is that I didn’t come across this sooner. Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!
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Thank you very much for sharing your experience, DhammaSponge!
- Your descriptive comment reveals that you have indeed grasped the fundamentals. Buddha Dhamma can be very deep, but once one starts on the path, Dhamma itself will guide one to deeper aspects. It is important to keep at it, just to make certain that the Sotapanna phala moment is realized. Once that is done, an immense amount of future suffering would be removed.
- I am planning a post exclusively on attaining the Sotapanna stage (based on the material discussed so far in the new “Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta – New Series” section) in a couple of weeks. It is necessary to complete the background material first. Of course, some people can attain the Sotapanna stage without going that deep, but even for them it would be a good refresher.
- By the way, the post that DhammaSponge referred to is “Craving for Pornography – How to Reduce the Tendency.”
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I greatly look forward to these new posts, Lal! I am constantly looking for any sense pleasure that would be worth doing at the expense of other people, the same way Diogenes looked through the agora with his lantern looking for a wise man. Experiencing Sotapanna phala would just be relieving since it would make such inquiry obsolete.
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You can enhance the process by listening to Dhamma discourses like this one, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDA-i34d7c4
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Contemplating to have a deeper grasp on the tilakkhanna has helped me a lot. I feel like my perception is also changing and now I’m starting to develop an aversion or even disgust for it. Contemplating the parts of sexuality and sexual activity in the context of tilakkhanna really sobers up my perception of sense pleasures and shows me the true nature of what it is the corrupted mind seeks so much of.
The fundamental intention and desire is weakening. Reading ven. Lal’s analogies helped me a lot. Like a dog chewing on an empty bone. Like a fish biting a worm and suffering from the bait. Like a fly that tries to land on a light bulb and gets zapped. Pleasure and pain being apart of the same coin.
there are many more analogies but this is from the top of my head1 user thanked author for this post.
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Oh yeah, Tilakkhana contemplation has definitely helped with my outlook on life. I was very bummed out when I essentially had the rug pulled under my feet from my last place of work, but I found it very hard to be angry towards the people involved. I experience patigha every now and then, but it kept coming back to me, “What do I have to gain being angry towards this person? When has adding more lobha or more dosa to my experience made me more happy? The people who wronged me were just as helpless as I was before I was exposed to Dhamma. Actually, who wronged me? Who was I that was wronged? They did lots of work to get this part of the universe shaped to their liking, is it really worth it on my part?”
It’s curious seeing how the undercurrent of ignorance under lobha and dosa is always some variant of trying to get something to work to my liking. I still have these schizophrenic greed fantasies of getting to play a Paganini caprice after five or ten more years of dedicated practice, knowing well this runs under the assumption that the six sense bases are of nicca nature.
I also find it interesting how many monks whose dhamma talks I listen to also used to be STEM heavy before they took up the robe. There’s one who did postdoc work after his biochemistry Ph.D (pretty much my field) and then realized that he could do a lifetime research fellowship of studying the mind without needing a grant or equipment. :3
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When I first came across Puredhamma and Venerable Waharaka Thero’s teachings. The series of videos linked helped me on the path and with my understanding of the tilakkhana. I must’ve watched each video at least 4 times over the years. May the teachings help others as well.
Episode 01 (Anichcha) | The real meaning of Anichcha | Know the Thilakuna
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1. To really understand the ‘anicca nature,’ one must understand the concept of ‘saññā.’
- ‘Saññā‘ is an ‘innate sense’ that is built into our bodies. The simplest idea is in the loose translation of saññā as ‘perception’ (in the sense of two people having different ‘perceptions of a third person (X), i.e., one says X is a good person and the other says X is a ‘bad person’). A bit deeper example is birds flying long distances over thousand of miles based on their built-in saññā that they need to fly to a different location to survive the upcoming weather change; they just ‘feel’ they need to start flying in a certain direction for a certain time!
- Here is an even more complex version of saññā: Seeing colors is a ‘saññā,’ and that is a mirage, according to the Buddha. The color of an object is not real. Objects do not have inherent colors, and the light does not have colors either. The following video explains both points based on modern science.
- At 2.30 minutes, he says that the process by which the brain interprets the signals from the sensors at the back of the retina as ‘red’ is not understood by science. That is because ‘color perception’ does not occur in the brain.
- So, where does the ‘perception of blue, red, etc.’ come from?
2. Think deeply about this issue. Scientists do not know where the perception of the color (‘red’ or ‘blue’) comes from.
- The colors are all made up by the mind in a very complex process.
- In the same way, tastes, smells, pleasing music, and the pleasure of touch are all mind-made. They are all ‘saññā‘ made up by the mind (not in real time, but through a very complex process in which our bodies and the external world arise via Paṭicca Samuppāda). P.S. See “Paṭicca Samuppāda Creates the External World, Too!“
3. I posted a version of this in another comment with more details. It is my comment on November 11, 2025, at 8:33 am (my last comment on that thread as of today): Post on ‘Colors Are Mind-Made (Due to Kāma Saññā)’
- I do not understand why people are having such a hard time understanding this.
- Just think about a single issue. Where do colors come from? Objects do not have inherent colors, and neither does light, which is electromagnetic radiation or just energy. As the above video explains, modern science has confirmed that. P.S. But being materialists who don’t believe in rebirth, they don’t care if the ‘pleasure sensation’ is created in the brain (as they believe); for them, the goal is to enjoy life while it lasts. However, it matters immensely if rebirth is real; one will be trapped in the ‘kāma loka‘ (including the apāyās) as long as one craves those so-called ‘pleasures.’
- In the same way, tastes, smells, etc., are not real either. But we attach to things in the world solely on the basis of those characteristics.
- That is why the Buddha said that attaching to those things is of ‘anicca nature’ (because they cannot provide long-lasting happiness; those ‘pleasures’ are brief and unsatisfying). Furthermore, our actions seeking such ‘pleasures’ only lead to rebirths in the apāyās. See “Fooled by Distorted Saññā (Sañjānāti) – Origin of Attachment (Taṇhā).”
- We will never be satisfied, even when we get to enjoy all those colorful, tasty things. There are many millionaires/billionaires in the world who can afford any of those things. Are they satisfied with life? Some even commit suicide! In any case, they also get old, suffer the old age issues, and die.
4. Based on the above, I tried to explain how one can get to the Sotapanna stage.
- The following are a few of the relevant posts: Sotapanna Anugāmi and Anicca/Viparināmi Nature of a Defiled Mind, Colors Are Mind-Made (Due to Kāma Saññā), What Does “Paccayā” Mean in Paṭicca Samuppāda?
- I hope at least a few people will start comprehending what I have been trying to explain over the past two to three years.
- Of course, it takes a determined effort to understand these deep concepts.
- Our human existence is the best opportunity we have. Those in the apāyās (including animals) cannot comprehend these issues. Those in the Deva and Brahma realms do not experience or see suffering, and so are not motivated to contemplate the ‘anicca nature.’ Even the rich and healthy among us cannot be motivated! They are too busy enjoying life (not realizing that it is a magic show in a grand scale)!
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I made several revisions to the above post since it was first posted. Please feel free to comment/ask questions.
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We can also make the link between the explanations of Sir Lal and the 31 realms. The more we go up in the 31 realms the less we want to perceive. A citta exists only to perceive. Our mind takes bodies in the 31 realms to perceive.
However, for the vast majority of realms,, he needs the senses (2 to 5). Think about this, are the thoughts enough ? They are also a way to perceive. However, because of ignorance and attachment, we crave perception more and more, so the mind builds the cakkhu perception(eyes) to perceive forms and colours created in his thoughts. It is still not enough, so the mind builds sota perception (ears) to perceive songs created in the thought. Still not enough so he created ghana(noses) to perceive smells, jivha(tongue) to perceive taste, and finally Kaya(body) to perceive touch. See, the mind becomes more coarse when he craves perception.
The more you do coarse actions like craving sensual pleasures, you will be trapped in Kāma loka. Inside the Kāma loka, some do coarser actions with bad intentions in order to perceive. They go to the 4 apayas where the perception are the more coarser and that makes the mind so inconfortable that suffering are created in each cittas. Those who do coarser actions with good intentions go to the humans world or the devas world. In the deva world the most coarse perceptions (potthabba sanna), smells (gandha), tastes (rasa) are reduced to their most subtle form and that gives them more pleasures than the human realm.
In the 16 Rupa brahma realms, beings suppress (for the Duration of that bhava) the need to perceive with smells (gandha), tastes (rasa), and touch (potthabba). Visual objects (rupa) and sounds (sadda) are so subtle that they receive pleasures without sensuality in them.
In the Arupa Brahma realms, beings suppress the need to perceive with any of the 5 senses. Despite being attached to perception with mind objects (dhammas) they restricted their thoughts to 4 perceptions ( akasanancayatana,vinnanancayatana,akincannayatana, nevasannanasannayatana). However, this is still perception. Only an arahant has eradicated the need to perceive any objects, even dhammas. This is why an arahant stops the generation of a citta that leads to a new rebirth. The distorted sanna exists because we want to perceive due to ignorance and attachment. Always see the nature of causes and effects.
Ignorance and attachment are the causes, and the effect is the distorted sanna. Because of Ignorance(Avijja), we believe the Samsara is pleasurable, therefore we attach (Ragā) ourselves to the 31 realms. We need to cease the causes to stop this process, and the understanding of the distorted sanna and the practice of satipatthana will help us.
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Good summary!
You wrote: “Because of Ignorance (Avijja), we believe the Samsara is pleasurable, therefore we attach (Ragā) ourselves to the 31 realms.”
- Yes. We can say that avijja is the ignorance of the role played by the (distorted) saññā, which is ‘kāma saññā‘ in our kāma loka.
- Without colors, tastes, smells, etc. (generated via ‘kāma saññā‘), we would not crave anything in the kāma loka. Thus, ‘kāma saññā‘ is the trigger for our attachments.
- I tried to explain that in the post What Does “Paccayā” Mean in Paṭicca Samuppāda?
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Sir Lal, I recommend that everyone unfamiliar with this concept watch the sermon as a whole to gain a deeper understanding. Bhante makes an excellent connection to our lives. This is why I didn’t provide a gap. The sermons are one hour and 36 minutes. People who are new to this need to takes the time to watch it to understand !
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Jittananto wrote: ” I recommend that everyone unfamiliar with this concept watch the sermon as a whole to gain a deeper understanding.”
1. I listened to the whole discourse last night.
- That discourse gives a superficial understanding of saññā (perception). By the way, the word ‘saññā‘ is not even mentioned.
- It does not provide “a deeper understanding.”
- So, I am not saying that discourse is useless, but it does not provide any additional information on what I am trying to convey.
2. You did not grasp that deeper meaning when you wrote the previous long comment either.
- That is why I wrote the following in response to it.
“You wrote: “Because of Ignorance (Avijja), we believe the Samsara is pleasurable, therefore we attach (Ragā) ourselves to the 31 realms.”
- Yes. We can say that avijja is the ignorance of the role played by the (distorted) saññā, which is ‘kāma saññā‘ in our kāma loka.
- Without colors, tastes, smells, etc. (generated via ‘kāma saññā‘), we would not crave anything in the kāma loka. Thus, ‘kāma saññā‘ is the trigger for our attachments.
- I tried to explain that in the post What Does “Paccayā” Mean in Paṭicca Samuppāda? “
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3. Anyway, I will write more on this critical issue when I start a new series on the pañcupādānakkhandha.
- I wonder how many people grasped the concept. Of course, not all participate in the forum.
- When people post discourses that are not really relevant to the point I am trying to make, it diverts the focus. Of course, I understand that everyone has good intentions.
- Buddha’s teachings are much deeper than many believe. Again, my goal is not a wider audience but to get at least a few to the Sotapanna stage.
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