...the abandonment of clinging/sustenance is effected through knowledge.
These four [modes of] sustenance have what as their cause, what as their
origin, from what are they born, from what do they arise? These four
[modes of] sustenance have craving as their cause, craving as their origin,
are born from craving, and arise from craving...
...'And, monks, as soon as ignorance is abandoned in a monk, and clear knowing arises,
he—from the fading of ignorance and the arising of clear knowing—clings neither to sensuality
as sustenance, nor to views as sustenance, nor to habits & practices as sustenance,
nor to doctrines of the self as sustenance. Not clinging [unsustained], he is not agitated.
Unagitated, he is totally unbound right within...MN 11
...there is a method—a discipline—underlying the knowledge that leads to Unbinding.
That method is described from a number of perspectives in the Canon,
each description stressing different aspects of the steps involved.
The standard formula, though, is the noble eightfold path...
...The eight factors of the path fall under three headings...discernment,... virtue, and
concentration. These three headings are called the threefold training...These three factors are component parts of a single whole. In fact, their balanced interrelatedness is what makes them "right."
‘It is natural that in a virtuous person, one of consummate virtue, freedom
from remorse will arise....It is natural that in a person free from remorse gladness will arise...
that in a glad person rapture will arise...that for an enraptured person the body will be calmed...
that a person of calmed body will feel pleasure...that the mind of a person feeling pleasure will
become concentrated...that a person whose mind is concentrated will see things as they have come to be...
that a person seeing things as they have come to be will grow disenchanted...that a disenchanted person will
grow dispassionate...that a dispassionate person will realize the
knowledge & vision of release' AN 11:2
...the practice of right mindfulness does not repress undesirable mental qualities—i.e., it does not deny their presence. Rather, it notices them as they occur so that the phenomenon of their occurrence can be understood. Once they are understood for what they are as phenomena, they lose their power and can be abandoned.
However, the practice of right mindfulness focuses, not on the haphazard occurrence of mental qualities, but on the elimination of undesirable qualities—the hindrances—that obstruct jhana, and on the development of desirable qualities—the factors for Awakening—that jhana fosters.
As these factors are strengthened through the continued practice of jhana, they make possible a clearer awareness of sensory processes as they occur. The factors of rapture,serenity, & equanimity, existing independently of the input of the five senses, make the mind less involved in sensory pleasures, less inclined to search for emotional satisfaction from them; the factors of mindfulness, investigation of phenomena, persistence, & concentration enable clear insight into the events that make up sensory perception. To see events in the body & mind simply as that—events, conditioned, arising & passing away—creates a further sense of distance, disenchantment, & de-identification.
Referring to AN 3:88, he says:With the union of tranquility & insight at the culmination of the path, Awakening occurs.
As the text makes clear, Stream-winners and Once-returners are those who have fully developed virtue, Non-returners are those who have fully developed virtue & concentration, and Arahants are those who have fully developed all three parts of the path: virtue, concentration, & discernment.
...Although Non-returners shed attachment to identity views back when they attained Stream entry,they still have a lingering sense of the conceit "I am."...And while they have gained enough insight into the five senses to let go of any attachment to them, they still suffer from a certain amount of ignorance concerning the subtler level of becoming inherent in that conceit. This leads to refined forms of passion & delight that keep them restless & bound to the sixth sense: the mind.
...the crucial difference between Arahants and Non-returners is whether or not the mind feels passion & delight for this act of discernment. ...Any act of discernment, even on this level, comes under the five aggregates for sustenance, as composed of perception, fabrications, & consciousness. If not fully seen for what it is, it can thus act as a phenomenon offering sustenance (or as a clingable phenomenon). Any passion & delight for it—and these themselves are perceptions & fabrications—function as refined sustenance/clinging in the modes of views (of inferior/superior), mental absorption, & a sense of ‘I am’ involved in the act of discerning. Thus the mind still contains the conditions for becoming on a refined level, and this
stands in the way of its total freedom.
Now when a monk discerns—as they actually are—the origin & passing away of the six spheres of (sensory) contact, their allure, their drawbacks, & the emancipation from them, then he discerns what is superior to all these things.’DN 1
...precisely because there is an unborn—unbecome—unmade—uncompounded, emancipation from the born—become—made—compounded is thus discerned.’Ud 8:3
Although the senses & their objects are there just as before, the fundamental affective link that ties the mind to sensations has been cut. And its cutting means unconditional freedom for the mind.
There is the case of an instructed noble disciple...who does not assume form to be the self, or the self as possessing form, or form as in the self, or the self as in form. His form changes & is unstable, but consciousness does not for that reason alter in accordance with the change in form. His mind is not consumed with any concomitant agitation born from such a change. Because his awareness is not consumed, he does not feel fearful, threatened, or solicitous. It is thus, friends, that non-agitation is caused by lack of clinging/sustenance. [Similarly with feeling, perception, fabrications & consciousness.]’MN 138
His final words of the chapter and the book are:“He has been stilled where the currents of construing do not flow. And when the currents of construing do not flow, he is said to be a sage at
peace”...Construing is a disease, construing is a cancer, construing is an arrow. By going beyond all construing, he is called a sage at peace...MN 140
However, he leaves the final word to Sister Patacara:This radical freedom—unattached to sensation, untouched by the power of passion, aversion, & delusion—is the Unbinding experienced in the present life.
Perhaps someone has been reading these excerpts! While they do not offer the richness of Ven. Thanissaro's words and sutta selections, they should give a pretty good idea of the contents of the book. May it be of some benefit....taking a lamp, I entered the hut,
checked the bedding,
sat down on the bed.
And taking a pin, I pulled out the wick:
Like the flame’s unbinding
was the liberation
of awareness.
Thig 5:10
In any case, it has been a useful review/exercise for me to pull out some of the quotes that I marked on first reading (so it has already been of some benefit).