Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book

by Daniel M. Ingram

As stated in Part One, insight practices are designed to penetrate the three illusions of permanence, satisfactoriness, and separate self, that is, to realize the truths of impermanence, dissatisfactoriness, and non-self to attain the various irreversible perceptual transformations that are in this tradition referred to as “awakening”. Insight practices (various types of vipassana, Dzogchen, zazen, etc.) lead to the progressive stages of insight, though various emphases may color how these present in relative terms. Insight practices tend to be difficult, disconcerting, and at times destabilizing, as they are designed to deconstruct our deluded and dearly held views of the world and ourselves, though they can sometimes be outrageously blissful for frustratingly short periods.