The two mechanisms of enlightenment

Enlightenment can be approached through many perspectives, but at its heart, two complementary mechanisms are often identified within Buddhist teachings: insight (*vipassanā*) and letting go (*vossagga*).

1. Insight (Vipassanā): This mechanism involves the direct seeing into the nature of reality. Through careful observation of experience, the practitioner recognizes the three characteristics: impermanence (*anicca*), unsatisfactoriness (*dukkha*), and non-self (*anattā*). Insight cuts through ignorance by revealing that all phenomena arise and pass dependent on causes and conditions. What was once solid becomes fluid; what was once clung to as “I” dissolves into a stream of impersonal processes.

2. Letting Go (Vossagga): Insight alone is not enough if clinging remains. The second mechanism involves the profound act of release — surrendering attachment to views, outcomes, identities, and even the subtle sense of “progress” on the path. Letting go is not passive resignation but an active relinquishment of grasping at experience. It is the cessation of fabrication, where the mind stops interfering with the flow of reality and rests in open awareness.

Together, these two mechanisms dismantle the very structures that sustain samsaric becoming. Insight illuminates the nature of bondage; letting go releases the grip that sustains it. As craving ceases, the wheel of dependent origination is brought to a halt, revealing the peace of the unconditioned.

“When one fully knows and sees the arising and cessation of the world, all fetters are abandoned.”
— Itivuttaka 39