Its the desire that "once Im awake no bad thing will happen to me, like ever" meaning that clinging to possessions will create desire, and aversion towards something that might be taking these away from me, hence not having a good awakened day anymore! So the best thing would be not to feel a thing, like be numb as a tranquilized horse!  

Part of what I'm trying to say in my reply is that my post was about ending suffering, you claim I left something out (deconstructing the observer) but you didn't say how it relates to ending suffering. Unless you make the connection between deconstructing the observer and ending suffering, you are complaining I didn't include something that is off topic.

Also I have discussed deconstructing the observer in more detail in other posts on this forum. Basically it is a natural consequence of practices that cultivate vipassana. So I would say it is implicit anywhere you see vipassana. I simplified my explanation for this post because it is on a narrow topic and as I said it is impractical to include a book in every post, but very often I say to practice by "observing the activity of the mind (thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, senses of self and no self) notice that thoughts etc arise from unconscious processes. Notice when you try to concentrate you get distracted, you don't control your thoughts, people have unwanted emotions they don't control their emotions, they have impulses that are often unhelpful. Sometimes we have contradictory desires like wanting to lose weight while craving yummy food.  Notice how the stream of consciousness is a sequence of cause and effect triggered by memory, association, and reason, without any entity in control, notice your identity (parent child, student, teacher) changes in different situations, how your understanding of your personal characters changes with your emotions (proud, ashamed, brave, afraid), how the feeling of being changes with sensations. When you observe the mind, notice how dukkha arises and how it fades, how the ego is involved in dukkha you are observing the 3 characteristics and dependent origination. blah blah blah etc etc etc." You don't even have to try, when you meditate on the breath, every time you get distracted you see you don't control your mind. Ordinary people already know a lot of what I just wrote here without ever having to meditate, they just don't connect the dots.

In my opinion, to end suffering, you have to see how it arises in the mind, when you do that you see how it is caused by identity view (ego), and how giving up identity view ends suffering, that process of ending suffering, results in deconstructing the observer as a side effect. If you are motivated by ending suffering it makes sense to study suffering. But that is just my opinion. Someone else would say you have to deconstruct the observer, that ends identity view which ends suffering. If you are intereseted in anatta it makes sense ot study anatta. I don't think it's a problem except when it's presented in a way that makes it seem like deconstructing the observer is a goal in itself that is cool and will make you a cool person if you can attain it, because that is just feeding the ego and will hinder progress rather than help it.

Also, another thing I left out is that a prerequisite is that you have to come to recognize that suffering is not caused by situations, it is caused by your reaction to the situation. That doesn't mean you should ignore problems, it means you can respond with compassion and reason rather than selfish emotions.


I agree it is more complicated than what I wrote. I can't put a book or an encyclopedia in every post so no matter what I write someone can correctly complain that I left something out. When you understand how identity view causes suffering, that naturally leads to the deconstruction of the observer. The hard part, in my opinion, is getting clear on how identity view is woven into most of our thinking and the harm that does, when most people aren't aware of it. That is what my post is about.

I write very simply because because I think the way this stuff is taught, for the most part, gets people attached and focused on stages and attainments and techniques, and / or it puts them in a situation where they are practicing on faith. I want beginners to be focused on what is happening in their mind in a way they can understand what to do, what to look for, and how it helps them suffer less. That helps them to get the nuances of the technique right and make progress and experience benefits from the first meditation session in a way that is positively reinforcing that motivates them to practice in daily life because they experience and understand the benefits of the practice. 

Also, can you relate what you have said to ending suffering? Because in my opinion the core teaching of the Buddha, the four noble truths, are about the cause of suffering and the end of suffering. People get focused on all this mystical sounding stuff, not understanding it and it distracts them from observing their mind. Now I know different people are attracted to the practice for different reasons, some people are mostly interested in losing their self. I am not against that, just personally it is not what is motivating me. What is motivating me is to try to explain how to suffer less.

I guess I'm asking (respectfully, for the benefit of other readers) why someone would want to attain what you have described. I think it's important to explain that, otherwise people get attached to attainments for the sake of attainments, because they read about it and it sounded cool, but without understanding why they are worth attaining, people end up trying to gratify their ego rather than deconstructing it..





I am not saying the wandering mind causes suffering. I am saying identity view operates when the mind is wandering and identity view causes suffering. When you see that, when identity view is operating and what it does and what happens when identity view is not operating, it leads to deconstructing the observer. I am trying to get people to do that without distracting them or baiting their ego.

I wrote: 

When you are aware of when your mind is wandering and when it is focused that is a kind of mindfulness, observing the stream of consciousness, you are not in a cycle of loosing and regaining mindfulness you are in a cycle of loosing and regaining not-identity-view. Maybe I should have said it that way.