One student asked: some people, once they realize they can no longer live the way they have been and need a better life, throw themselves fully into the wholesome system — but soon find that the neutral nature that used to dominate them follows right behind and keeps trying to pull them back. What should be done to be able to keep going within the wholesome system?

The Real Root Cause: Not Yet Seeing the Danger of the Neutral Nature

The teacher explained that most people who lose this battle are dwelling in the neutral nature. They want to change and dwell in the wholesome system instead — but to actually dwell in wholesomeness, we first need to see the suffering, harm, and danger of the other natures. If we haven't yet seen the danger of the neutral or the unwholesome, we'll simply keep dwelling with that nature. Take someone who plays video games: if they don't see how it wastes time, harms health, and costs them their work, they won't change. Never mind the unwholesome — even seeing the danger of the merely neutral hasn't happened yet. Without seeing it, there's no growth; life simply stays as it is.

The Sphere of Liberation Frees Us Only Once We've Seen the Danger

To grow, we must first see the danger of the neutral nature — only then does the sphere of liberation go to work freeing us. Once liberated, and seeing the value and benefit of wholesomeness, the sphere of the vision of liberation carries us toward a better life. There is no other way it can happen: liberation can free us from the unwholesome and the neutral only when we ourselves have the wisdom to see the danger, to see what is beneficial and what is not, to see the value of wholesome states and the lack of benefit in the neutral. Only then can we be freed — there is no other path to it.

Seeing the Danger Requires Noting It in the Very Moment It's Happening

To see the danger while we're in the middle of a neutral activity — playing a game, watching a show, listening to music, scrolling through the news endlessly — wasting time and benefit, such as staying up late and harming our health, when that time should have been put to good use — we must actually note it in that very moment; there's no way to realize it afterward. Because the moment we mindfully note it, wholesomeness comes and overlays the mind, pointing out what is harmful and what isn't beneficial. Wholesomeness is the one that points this out — it isn't something we can simply think our way into on our own. A knower must overlay us exactly at the moment we're noting it; that knower comes down and makes it clear, and mindfulness turns into full clear comprehension, seeing plainly the value and the harm, the benefit and the lack of benefit — and only then can liberation happen.