Thank you Paul.paul wrote: ↑Thu Dec 07, 2017 4:34 pm Happiness in the sense of demeanour can be detrimental to insight, it is linked to the 'equanimity of unknowing' of the ordinary run-of-the-mill person. The response to most situations (which invariably involve defilements), requires a serious attitude. The Buddha regularly spoke of heedfulness as the required demeanour ( SN 3:17, Dhammapada chap. 2, Buddha's final instructions DN 16). In this sense in every event there is the opportunity to take a step towards either ignorance or wisdom. These decisions are what cumulatively contribute to a successful practice. Knowing and experiencing this, one tries to act skilfully in every situation.
"There is the case where an uninstructed, run-of-the-mill person — who has no regard for noble ones, is not well-versed or disciplined in their Dhamma; who has no regard for men of integrity, is not well-versed or disciplined in their Dhamma — does not discern what ideas are fit for attention or what ideas are unfit for attention. This being so, he does not attend to ideas fit for attention and attends [instead] to ideas unfit for attention."---MN 2
"The mode of thinking based on openness rejects duality as a product of discrimination and deluded concepts. It tacitly presupposes that existence as such is ultimately benign; that beyond our deluded concepts, the rich and vivid diversity of forms has a single taste, a taste that is sweet. In contrast, the attitude of heedfulness is grounded upon the view that existence is textured through and through by dualities that are profound and inescapably real. The world bears testimony to this vision in the contrast between the charming, delightful surfaces of things and their underlying hollowness and inadequacy; our minds bear testimony in the ongoing contest between the wholesome mental factors and the unwholesome ones, between the upward urge for purification and the downward pull of the defilements. That this duality is not trivial is seen by the consequences: the one leads to Nibbana, the state of deliverance, the Deathless, while the other leads back into the round of repeated birth, samsara, which is also the realm of Mara, the Lord of Death."---"A Note on Openness", Bikkhu Bodhi.
Duality in nature:
"When a snake's tongue flicks out, the two tines of the fork spread as wide as they can. ... Like your two ears help you identify which direction a sound comes from, the two tines of a snake's tongue tell the snake whether its prey ran left or right."
Can you give bit more information?