The three essential ingrients to gain wisdom ...

The three essential ingrients to gain wisdom are, the right effort, a clear comprehention and the right mindfulness. It is just like a plant needs sunlight, water and soil for it to grow to it's full potential.

How can clinging survive ?

Why do we cling to what we see? This is because of craving. If thre is no more craving how can clinging survive ? It is like a tree that always needs water to survive.

There is pressure in what we see...

Sure...there is pressure in what we see. This is why we cling to it. This same clinging will lead to our own suffering... at the end. Same goes to our other senses.

Build the house from the bottom up...

"Monks, if anyone were to say, 'Without having broken through to the noble truth of stress as it actually is present, without having broken through to the noble truth of the origination of stress... the cessation of stress... the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress*, as it actually is present, I will bring about the right ending of stress,' that would be an impossibility.

Just as if someone were to say, 'Without having built the lower story of a gabled building, I will put up the upper story,' that would be an impossibility; in the same way, if anyone were to say, 'Without having broken through to the noble truth of stress as it actually is present, without having broken through to the noble truth of the origination of stress... the cessation of stress... the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress, as it actually is present, I will bring about the right ending of stress,' that would be an impossibility.

*The Four Noble Truths (see labels)


-Kuta Sutta: Gabled
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.044.than.html

Grow "flowers" not "weeds" in the mind

Consider your mind as your garden. It is very easy to grow weeds but it is hard to grow nice flowers. You need constant effort and mindfulness to keep the garden free from weeds. Weeds are like our defilements in the mind. Flowers are like the good moral values and virtues of the mind.

Just as a man with good eyes.....

"Now how, Ananda, in the discipline of a noble one is there the unexcelled development of the faculties?

There is the case where, when seeing a form with the eye, there arises in a monk what is agreeable, what is disagreeable, what is agreeable & disagreeable. He discerns that 'This agreeable thing has arisen in me, this disagreeable thing... this agreeable & disagreeable thing has arisen in me. And that is compounded, gross, dependently co-arisen. But this is peaceful, this is exquisite, i.e., equanimity.' With that, the arisen agreeable thing... disagreeable thing... agreeable & disagreeable thing ceases, and equanimity takes its stance.

Just as a man with good eyes, having closed them, might open them; or having opened them, might close them, that is how quickly, how rapidly, how easily, no matter what it refers to, the arisen agreeable thing... disagreeable thing... agreeable & disagreeable thing ceases, and equanimity takes its stance. In the discipline of a noble one, this is called the unexcelled development of the faculties with regard to forms cognizable by the eye.

Indriya-bhavana Sutta: The Development of the Faculties