How To Lay The Ground Work For Insight To Grow

What makes all this trouble in our lives?

Our own counterproductive emotions. Once they are generated, they harm us both superficially and deeply. These emotions accomplish nothing but trouble from start to finish. If we tried to counteract each one individually, we would find ourselves in an endless struggle. So what is the root cause?

All counterproductive emotions are based on ignorance of the true nature of things, its important to gain insight into how we and other things actually exist, and it is crucial to think about these things over and over again.

In order to generate a state that allows us to penetrate clear through to reality, we must first correct our mistaken ideas about existence.

Ignorance in this context is not just a lack of knowledge – it is an active misapprehension of the nature of things. It mistakenly assumes that people and things exist in and of themselves, by way of their own nature. This concept can be hard to grasp, but it’s important to identify this faulty perception, for it is the source of destructive emotions such as anger and hatred.

We need to recognize, at least in a rough way, what we are wrongly superimposing before we can understand how we really exist, and who we really are. We perceive everything around us through the eyes of our own personal experiences and misconceptions, it doesn’t mean that our perceptions are in anyway accurate, and we need to recognize this. 

What we see around us seems to exist independently, without depending on other factors and this is not the case. By giving people and things this exaggerated status, we are drawn into all sorts of overblown and ultimately hurtful emotions which causes sadness, anger and hate.

You, and other beings and objects do not exist the way they appear to; they are not concrete. And to develop a correct assessment of who you are, you need to appreciate the difference between how you appear to your own mind, and how you actually exist.

The first step to insight, peace and happiness is to recognize and understand these simple truths.