By learning to observe without becoming involved, the pattern of stimulus-response which underlies most human behaviour can be broken. Little by little the realisation dawns that one is free to choose how to react in all situations … The grip of long-standing habits is weakened and replaced with a new sense of freedom.

This … perception of impermanence … gives rise to the knowledge that even those things which seem most intimate to us – such as our emotions – are transient states which come and go. … From … detached observation it … becomes clear that even one's conscious mind is but a process like everything else. Most people regard their mental life as their true inner essence ( … ), but insight meditation discloses that the stream of consciousness is just one more facet of the complex interaction of the five factors of individuality, and not what one 'really is'.