4 ideas
Summoned to a council to judge an erring brother, Abba Moses arrives carrying a leaking jug (or basket) of sand on his back and explains, 'My sins run out behind me and I do not see them, and I am come today to judge the errors of another.' The council, shamed, forgives the brother. The story locates the impulse to judge in blindness to one's own faults, and uses an embodied image rather than argument to dissolve it.
When asked for a word, an elder replies, 'Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.' The claim is that sustained, undistracted presence in one place exposes the restlessness, boredom and passions that constant movement hides, so staying put rather than seeking new input is the actual method of formation. Leaving to escape discomfort just carries the same self to a new location.
Antony sees the snares of the enemy spread over the whole world and asks who can get through them; a voice answers, 'Humility.' Temptations are treated as working through the self's inflated importance and need to be right, so lowering one's self-estimate takes away the handle they grab.
A disciple brings his thoughts and struggles to an experienced elder, reveals them fully, and follows the answer, instead of trusting his own judgment about his inner life. Disclosing a thought to someone else strips it of its power, and obedience breaks self-will, which the sayings treat as the root of self-deception. The elders warn that a monk who trusts his own discernment too early is easily misled.