r/streamentry • u/jabinslc • 2d ago
Practice commons mistakes examples?
I was inspired to ask this question based on a post from yesterday about sexuality. there seemed to be a debate about whether desire falls off completely vs seeing through the empty nature of desire.
what are other common thinking errors people make on the path? like reifying awareness, the addiction to enlightenment, alienation from regular life perceived as good, the inability to reduce suffering anywhere but on the cushion, the pitfall of viewing things as non-existent vs lacking self nature, etc.
in my own practice, whenever I perceive something as having true ultimate nature, I calmly look at it as empty of self. whether its anger or bliss. good or bad. gently return to the emptiness of even nirvana itself.
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u/adivader Arahant 2d ago
The most common error people make is not a thinking error, its an approach error. People approach awakening practice and its consequent result of awakening from the perspective that is most familiar to them, which is to try and understand it through language and concept.
Language and concept are needed to communicate practice instructions, but it is only practice that leads to an experiential understanding and an experiential freedom from dukkha.
And it is very difficult to actually practice, while it is very easy to engage in language and concept.
Basically the ability to sit down and stabilize attention for two hours (for example) on the temperature element at the top most corner of the left nostril - is the very ability that experientially leads to clarity regarding all the language and concepts that we use. But people don't want to do that. Because it scares the fuck out of them!