Sensual Pleasure

In this lecture, we explore that as we attach to worldly dhammas we become confused, isolated and disconnected. Observe how even small attachments bring up the natural sense of wanting to hold on just a bit longer – like parting from a friend, giving things a second glance, the desire to linger out a kind of confusion and fear of letting go. Maybe if we let go we will be left with… nothing at all. This life is the opportunity to contemplate the sensory experience of having a body and mind and to free oneself from misconception and wrong view. Practice and see how we create all the layers on top of the way it is. As we practice we see the wisdom of the Path and the cool and calm it provides, seeing things clearly as they really are and learn to let go. We remember, we recollect: “This is the way it is” & things are connected and there is an ease with the flow of life and the conditions that arise and pass away. Human beings can actually do it. Note: The recording ends a bit abruptly.

Transcript

Namo Tassa Bhagavato Adhahato Sama Sambutassa Namo Tassa Bhagavato Adhahato Sama Sambutassa Namo Tassa Bhagavato Adhahato Sama Sambutassa Bhutan Tammang Sankarnama Swami With the worldly dhammas we attach to them,

Then our life becomes just a series of kind of sometimes confused and disconnected events.

Living a life just based on sensual pleasure and habitual reactions to the sensory world of course leaves us with this sense of somehow things are isolated,

Disconnected,

Unrelated.

And of course as you get older you begin to,

You begin to get quite depressing because it seems like there's no meaning or purpose to any of it.

What at one time seemed quite attractive and alluring to us becomes boring as we experience those things over and over and over we get weary.

Every sensual experience if repeated in uptimes becomes wearisome,

Becomes bored,

Despairing in regards to it.

There's a much hope,

Expectation in our lives,

Always finding some kind of happiness,

Finding somebody who will make us happy,

Who will fulfill it.

Or finding a profession or something in the world during this lifetime that will be truly fulfilling.

And even if we do find,

If we get everything we want,

We still experience this sense of something incomplete,

A feeling of alienation,

Of doubt and worry,

Fear haunts us throughout our lifetime.

Life becomes just a series of worries because the future is unknown and we tend to relate to that always through worrying about being deprived of something.

Not passing the examination,

Not being able to pay the bills,

Not getting what we want,

Except losing our loved ones,

Losing our health,

Old age,

Arthritis.

Decaying teeth,

Falling hair,

Wrinkles,

Crow's feet around the eyes,

Losing one's figure.

Worries about just the foolish things on that level or worries about big things.

Not being able to make enough to support one's family.

So worry is a great problem with most people.

And there is a lot to worry about on the worldly plane,

Isn't there?

It's nothing but worries really.

As long as one attaches and identifies with the worldly conditions,

The sensory world,

Then our life is merely a worry.

It's all it can ever be.

Because there's always the possibility of some terrible thing happening to us.

Of being left alone,

Of being unwanted,

Of being humiliated,

Rejected,

Of not having any money,

Not having material security.

Worry,

Worry all the time.

And one becomes so habituated to worrying that even when there's nothing to worry about,

One worries.

It becomes a habit of mind,

Even when everything is alright.

Nothing's wrong,

Nothing to really worry about at the present time.

Because one doesn't know how to do anything else,

One worries about,

Well it can't last,

It won't last,

I know it will go,

Probably tomorrow something terrible will happen.

And then off we go again into the stream of worry,

Fear,

Anxiety,

Or common human problems.

If you're really attached to some other person,

There's always the fear,

What if they die?

What if they leave?

What if I'm separated from them?

Even when you've found someone you really love,

Love to be with,

Along with that goes the worry of the separation.

Attachment,

The attraction,

And all this brings its opposite into our lives.

Whatever you're attached to,

Whatever you're attracted to,

You feel fear about losing,

And not having it,

Or it changes,

Or it disappoints.

Now this is just the way the sensual world is.

It's contemplating,

Like we've been doing,

Contemplating the sensual world during this past month.

Just noting how it operates,

How it works as we experience it.

Whatever we're attached to,

And how good its quality might be,

And desirable it might be,

It brings along with it its opposite.

So expectation and hope bring despair into our lives.

Birth brings death.

Health brings disease.

Attachment to love brings hate.

So that this is just to be noted,

That you can't have one without the other.

You can't have birth without death.

You can't have an inhalation without an exhalation.

You can't have the arising without its cessation.

So hope and despair are a team.

They work together.

Just like inhalation would like to be hope,

Inspiration,

And then despair,

The exhalation,

Disappointment.

I've just noticed this,

And just little things,

As you reflect and contemplate your own mind,

That which exists for you,

You become increasingly aware of just how little tiny attachments,

Seemingly neutral and harmless things,

Bring their opposite.

Just wanting to hold on to a beautiful scene just a little while longer brings along a feeling of a negative feeling,

Of having to separate from it,

Not wanting to separate.

You're really enjoying somebody's company,

And then they have to go.

There's a feeling of not wanting them to go,

Not wanting to experience that separation.

I used to find myself kind of hanging on.

People I like were starting to look at signs that they wanted to leave.

I'd start asking any old question at all,

Just to keep the delay,

The separation from happening.

On a telephone,

Some people trying to get off the line with some people are really difficult.

They hang on.

You say,

Well,

I've got to be going now,

And then something else comes up.

We like to say,

See you again,

Rather than goodbye forever.

Maybe we'll never meet again.

Now this is natural.

It's the attraction and repulsion in nature coming together,

Separating.

These are the natural laws of conditioned phenomena.

To know this is the contemplation of Dhamma,

To see this in our human state where we can reflect on it.

Just giving things a second glance,

The karmic result is that lingering,

The desire to linger,

Creates karma,

Which we have to experience,

We have to come to terms with eventually.

The more you linger and put off and procrastinate and hang on to things,

Then your life will be a series of rather depressing states and doubts and uncertainties,

Rather nebulous web of uncertainties and insecurities,

What people's lives can be.

Just a cloud of things half done,

Of never fully resolved situations or relationships or conditions.

Things just kind of half done,

Never quite relinquished,

Never quite let go of,

Never quite given up,

Just hanging on,

Not terribly tightly,

Not just in desperation,

But more or less out of confusion,

Uncertainty,

Fear of letting go,

Of letting go of everything.

Fear that maybe if you let go of everything there'll be nothing.

So fear haunts our lives,

That we'll be left with nothing at all,

Nothing left,

That sense of not having anything,

Not being anybody,

Not having any security at all.

The unknown,

And yet the death of our bodies imply that,

We don't know what will happen.

We'd like to have guarantees,

Wouldn't we,

That when we die we go to heaven,

Or we go to some nice place,

Hopefully,

And there's the fear that because we've done some rather unskillful things in our lives we might go to the other one.

We might spend a good time being purged,

Paying off our debt,

Or the evil things we've thought,

Or done,

Or said.

Then there's the hope that maybe it just ends,

Just oblivion,

Like asleep,

You just conk out,

And then that's it.

It'd be nice too,

Just to not have to exist anymore,

Not have to suffer any more pain,

Not have to go through purgatory or hell,

Or that,

Some people prefer that to the one where you live in a state of eternal happiness.

But death is the mystery that we will only comprehend when the body dies.

So we reflect on life as we're living it.

This is our opportunity to contemplate existence while things exist,

While we're in this state of separation,

Of sensory experience of birth from this vehicle of the body during its lifespan,

From birth to death.

How I see it now is the occasion to contemplate,

To reflect,

To learn,

And to free oneself from any misconceptions,

Any wrong views about it.

Now we've explored the mind quite thoroughly during this retreat,

So that you're very much aware,

In the morning and evening reflections that I've been giving,

I've been pointing over and over and over to the way it is.

This is the way it is for all of us,

Not just,

I assume,

I mean the things I've been pointing to haven't been personal.

I've not been talking about the subjective conditions that I'm experiencing,

But about what is common to us all,

Like the silence of the mind,

The roaring sound of silence,

The breath of the body,

The posture of the body,

The feeling of the body,

The time is now,

The place is here.

This is common to all of us,

This is the way it is,

A reflection,

So that we have this to acknowledge and recognize the way it happens to be,

And then we can begin to observe that which we create onto it.

This is most important for you to observe the world you create,

Onto the way it is.

The world as it is,

Is just this way.

It's not any creation from our mind,

It's just the way it is.

We call it suchness,

As isness,

Just this way.

But then if we're heedless,

Unenlightened,

Unawakened human beings,

We create something onto the way it is,

Such as it is we create a self,

Personalities,

Problems,

All kinds of complexities can be spewed forth from our fertile minds to produce all kinds of strange monsters and foolish things,

Even intelligent,

Clever bits and pieces that manage to get thrown out into the moments,

The here and now.

But as you're developing the path more and more,

You stop,

You no longer seek to just distract yourself endlessly creating things with your mind,

Out of fear and desire and the force of habit,

You begin to open the mind,

Note the way it is.

And that's a cool,

Calm position of knowing.

It's not excited or stupid or frightened kind of thing,

It's the coolness,

The balance,

The stillness.

True intelligence,

Cool intelligence,

Not just clever manipulation of thought,

But true clear mindedness.

A Buddha mind is a cool mind,

Seeing things clearly as they are,

Knowing things as they really are.

Then developing the path,

We no longer linger by creating problems or conditions onto the way it is,

We let it go,

We learn to stop that.

The more mindful you are,

The more you begin to stop creating problems into the here and now.

It's just this way,

We remind ourselves,

We reflect,

We recollect,

We remember.

This is the way it is,

The sound of silence.

So we begin to,

That kind of silver strand that goes through everything,

Brings continuity into our life.

Suddenly things are connected,

You begin to feel an ease with the flow of life rather than constantly going up and down with the conditions.

It's like you've only found a strand or the straight way,

The way that goes through everything,

Where everything arises and ceases,

Where everything is related.

And so that one feels a sense of ease,

A sense of well-being rather than of fear,

Anxiety and worry.

Because you're abiding in the natural state of the mind,

In the stillness and the clarity of it,

The ease of it rather than in all the excited extreme conditions that you can create out of it.

Now this can actually be witnessed too and developed in the life of a human being.

It's not something that is beyond anyone's ability.

You're all here to do this,

In fact.

The whole purpose of our life,

The taking these precepts,

The bhikkhus with their padimokha recitation,

The ten precept nuns,

The eight precept anagarikas,

The sense of commitment to this form in order to help us recollect ourselves.

To have the conditions,

To choose these conditions to support our life in order to reflect more continuously,

More profoundly.

Because the kind of neutrality of the monastic life,

We're not emphasizing personal qualities,

Personal differences.

There's no class or race or nationality.

The differences between men and women are diminished.

We're not emphasizing masculinity,

Femininity.

All this is on the conventional level,

What we see and hear and experience on the sensual plane now,

In a monastery like this,

Is to simplify,

Make simple this complex sensual experience.

Get it down to common agreement on how to relate to each other in a decent way,

Respecting each other without causing the least amount of problems and difficulties.

So that we can develop this,

We can be continuously more aware of this strand that goes through everything and abiding there more and more,

Rather than being pulled out into the sensual objects,

Into the society's problems and the worldly cares and worries that go on and on and on and on forever.

Life for a human being is a worry.

It's a veil of tears.

You think of how much crying there is in the human lifespan,

How much crying we have to do,

How many tears are shed,

How hurt we are by life,

How much pain and disappointment,

Despair we can experience in our lifetime.

Because of this human condition of being a sensitive,

Separate individual being like this.

How sensitive it really is.

A lot of life has to be developed in a way that we become desensitized.

We have defenses and we protect ourselves all the time,

Trying to make sure that we're not going to get hurt by anyone again or that we're safe,

Physically safe and that everything's going to be alright,

Hopefully.

There'll be no kind of terrorist activities,

Hopefully,

At Amravati and we'll be safe and enough food and shelter and all this.

We don't want to be hurt emotionally,

Insulted or taken advantage of or exploited.

All these are possible for us in this human existence.

To be taken advantage of,

To be mistreated,

Humiliated,

Rejected,

Beaten,

Ostracized,

Misunderstood,

Tortured.

Possibilities we recognize,

Though fear can haunt us.

The fear of having to endure what we feel we could not endure.

Because of this sensitivity,

Always in a sensitive state,

In meditation now as a monk and as a nun,

We're actually taking off all the defenses.

We're making ourselves truly sensitive.

This life,

If you develop it in the right way,

Is making you,

Even increasing your sensitivity,

You become much more sensitive.

I'm much more sensitive now than I used to be.

I used to be quite insensitive when I look back,

20 years ago.

The things I used to try to avoid and ignore and all kinds of defense mechanisms and things that I could just kind of clamp onto a situation to protect me from being hurt or frightened.

And then being a monk,

Suddenly you find yourself kind of opening up,

Taking,

Becoming quite voluntarily,

Taking that step towards total vulnerability.

No defenses,

No protection,

Shaving head,

Robes,

Can't fight back,

Have to depend on charity,

On alms,

Have to depend on the kindness of others,

Can't be independent and self-sufficient.

Protect yourself.

I could just be independent,

Self-sufficient person.

Then I wouldn't have to depend on anybody.

I wouldn't have to feel that I needed anybody.

I could maybe find a nice little place up in the mountains or in Wales or some place where nice little quiet scene with a cabbage patch.

A little maybe hut,

Nice little hut.

Or I could live with,

Have a nice maybe one of these Swedish wood burning stoves,

You know,

Keeping nice warm.

Sit in there and not have to cope with anybody at all that might hurt me or upset me or frighten me or demand anything of me.

And I wouldn't have to depend on any of you or have to deal with anything with the society but become a kind of hermit.

That has certain attraction actually.

That's not an unattractive picture.

Not that I'm determined to live in a community because I couldn't bear not to.

Or that I'm an alms mendicant because I'm too lazy to grow cabbages.

In fact I would like to grow cabbages.

I like gardening.

I like growing carrots and cabbages.

And I like cabbage.

But the self-sufficient independent human being,

That's a kind of safety isn't it?

One feels maybe that might be very protective.

Where your life,

You're not taking any risks.

You've covered all your moves and you feel safe.

Where the monastic life is like not covering anything,

Just depending solely on faith.

On the good heartedness of other people by living a holy life,

A life in which one is living in such a way that people want to draw near to it.

Or a monastery like this,

And monks and nuns,

People want to come near to it.

Why?

Why do they want to come here?

Why do they want to take on precepts and live in a cold place like this?

In the color of nice little homes,

Cozy.

Now one thing I found very stifling is coziness.

Having everything tied up,

Secured and guaranteed.

I've always found a bit like you can hardly breathe.

That living on the edge always is where one is alert.

One feels alert and attentive to things.

Where you're taking the risks.

You're not trying to live this life just to have the easiest and safest lifestyle.

Just to avoid any risks.

But one is willing to risk one's life.

To take the risks in life in order to understand and know things as they are.

So monastic life is based on risk.

It's a risk,

Not a security.

It's based on just depending on what is generous and kind in the society rather than demanding it.

We're not demanding generosity or expecting it.

But we develop this faith that kindness and generosity,

There is that in this society which will take the opportunity,

Will see it as an opportunity to be generous and kind,

Helpful.

And it does work,

Doesn't it?

People do come for us.

Where do they come from?

We don't go around soliciting or recruiting,

Advertising.

It's just somehow word gets around.

People come and what they see,

They want to,

They have a sense for it.

They begin to recognize its value,

A longing for the holy life,

For spiritual development,

For a pure life.

For a life that they can respect themselves.

They can respect themselves again for living in such a way.

That in itself is a reward,

Isn't it?

To be able to respect yourself,

To have a sense of respect for what you're doing,

For how you're living your life,

Means a lot.

Because if we don't have that,

Then we suffer a lot from guilt and depression.

If we aren't putting some effort into our lives towards something transcending,

Just physical security and pleasure.

What is more useless and meaningless and depressing than just seeking pleasure?

I found that really depressing.

I tried it for several years,

Just seeking pleasure,

Pleasure seeking.

And I had a good time actually.

It wasn't that it was a rotten time.

Pleasure is pleasure.

But it was meaningless.

When one had enough of it,

It was like one didn't want to spend one's life doing that,

Seeking pleasure all the time.

It's alright to try it out.

But to have to do it,

To feel you're compelled to do that forever would be a hell around.

Constantly seeking,

Distracting pleasures of the senses is the ultimate boredom.

Sometimes people ask me,

They're very attached to classical music.

We find genteel English people,

Europeans,

Quite shocked.

You can't listen to Mozart.

It's terrible.

Mozart is a spiritual experience.

Surely the Buddha wouldn't mind listening to Mozart because it's uplifting the spirit.

It's true art.

It's brilliant.

It's marvellous.

They go on talking about the virtues of listening to Mozart,

Which one doesn't disagree with.

I like to listen to Mozart myself.

But one gets tired of even Mozart,

The steady diet of Mozart.

It's pretty wearisome.

Having to pay attention to that,

And then the sound of silence,

When you become aware of that,

You become much more in realise the blissful state of the mind that isn't depending upon the strains of Mozart.

You have all these electronic inventions now where you can get the best kind of sounds with earphones,

Portable little cassettes.

You can hear Mozart wherever you go.

You see people walking around London with these earphones on listening to,

I don't suppose it's Mozart.

I'm afraid to think of what it might be sometimes.

But where the true bliss of the mind,

The stillness of the mind is transcending even the finest sensual experiences,

Then one turns to that.

It seems to a sensualist as a kind of annihilation of the senses,

Because to them the idea of sensual fulfilment is so important.

But the Buddha mind is one that knows that sensual objects are never fulfilling,

That they arise and they cease.

They start and they stop,

They begin and end.

They wear out tape recorders and hi-fives and stereos and all these,

There's always something going off in them,

Some scratch,

Some irritating little thing,

The broken record where you hear the same violin note over and over.

It's upsetting isn't it?

I'm trying to get the technology down where you get the flawless recording,

Without any squeaks or burps in it.

Now the strand that goes through all that,

The stillness,

The silence of the mind itself,

Everything connects to that.

Everything arises and ceases there,

As you begin to abide there more and more,

Observing,

Alert,

Attentive to the way it is.

And that is what we call developing the path,

The eightfold path.

Right understanding,

Right thought,

There's right understanding,

There's right thinking.

You're going to think in the right way rather than just conceptually proliferate out of habit,

Desire and fear.

Thought itself is quite useful,

Valuable function of mind.

Sometimes you might think we're against thinking.

But what we're pointing to is the enslavement to thought that has kind of obsessed the minds of Europeans lately,

People all over the world,

Just obsessive thinkers.

They can't stop,

The mind just goes endlessly on,

Banging away day and night.

It is,

It's very wearisome isn't it,

To just have endless thoughts,

Just connect one right after another for the whole day and night.

You just have to knock yourself out in sleep.

That's why people take all these drugs.

I don't know what happens like with cocaine,

But I imagine it helps relieve that,

That kind of obsessive thinking.

I can't think of any other reason why you want to take it.

But it does kind of maybe stop the obsessiveness and the fear,

Worry kind of things of the mind.

But meditation is much more,

It takes effort.

You have to develop it.

It has to come from you.

It has to come from a real determination in your life,

Which is something we need.

Because otherwise we will just become drug addicts if we depend on the drugs for this.

Just a kind of temporary suppression,

Temporary kind of change of consciousness.

But it leaves us without any wisdom to understand or to know the mind and the way out of suffering.

Where this,

This meditation is a thorough examination and witnessing to the mind itself so that you see so clearly,

You know so precisely the way out of suffering.

There's not the slightest doubt in the mind.

And this ability to reflect using insight,

Knowledge into the way things are allows that to happen.

You can actually do that.

You can actually be so clear and know so precisely the way out of suffering that there's no more doubt about it.

So then you develop that path.

Now in the month of February the formal retreat ends,

The kind of January hibernation retreat as such.

But the practice remains the same.

It will be exactly the same one.

Reflective,

Reflecting on the way it is,

Not lingering on things,

Turning to the still mind,

Letting go of the world.

Living your life here.

Getting up in the morning,

Leaping out of bed with alacrity like you've all been so eagerly doing,

Well disciplined,

Trained.

That you can continue doing.

Whether you're a Chitrst or Arnim or Devan or here,

Wherever,

The practice is always the same.

So what I've been trying to encourage during this retreat is this reflecting ability to develop that through the Four Noble Truths.

Tukka,

Samudaya,

Nirodha Manga.

And then to develop the Manga,

The path,

As you have insight into cessation.

You see that point where you can let things cease.

Let things cease.

Allow things to cease.

And then live your life,

Say,

In the form,

The conventional form of monasticism.

So that your life isn't a constant kind of distraction with the world.

Because Buddhist monasticism is one where even though we have to do maybe distracting things,

The whole point is to observe the mind.

Even the work projects or anything that might be dealing with the worldly conditions is not to say an obstacle towards enlightenment,

But an opportunity.

Because the whole tenor of our life and spirit of it is this enlightenment.

Seeing things as they really are.

Now that's an escape from suffering.

But it's from wisdom.

There's no point in hanging on to suffering,

Is there?

We might as well escape it.

You're just trying to escape suffering.

That's what you're doing up there,

Ramravati.

Where we,

With people,

We live in London and we're willing to suffer completely,

Forever.

It's not like you,

If you're trying to escape suffering.

But then one realizes that if you're stuck in the sewer,

You might as well,

If there's a way out,

You might as well find it.

There's no point,

Is there,

In just spending the rest of your life in the sewer.

If there's no other way out,

Then just contemplate the sewer.

Then free yourself from any attachment or aversion you might have to it.

Which might be better.

But when you see that there's a better place to go,

Why not go there?

Some place that isn't so painful,

So stinking,

So foul,

So upsetting.

There are Buddhist monasteries that attempt to offer an alternative to the sewer.

Where the condition,

The supportive condition,

So that the monks,

Our intention to provide,

Out of compassion for the,

Or essentially trying to provide opportunities,

Give occasions.

For example,

This retreat,

The January retreat,

Was set up by myself,

Set it up as an opportunity,

Making the occasion available for this.

So that it wasn't set up by you,

Was it?

It was me really that designed and set up and led the whole thing.

So that means you can reflect on it.

Since you don't have any say in the matter,

You can just,

You know,

You just more or less use it for reflection.

To see what happens.

Though it was deliberately done in that way.

You didn't want a democratic meditation retreat.

Where we all say what we want to do during,

Have a vote.

And democracy isn't necessary for that.

What we need is to have some standard to use that we don't create.

That we can reflect on our reactions to it and what happens.

Because the purpose of the retreat was solely to give you an opportunity to develop your reflexive mind.

Nothing else.

For your enlightenment.

It wasn't designed to convert you to Buddhism or brainwash you or just to,

As a power trip for myself or anything like that.

But as something that monks can offer,

We can provide occasion.

This I realized when I used to contemplate Wat Pa Pong in Thailand.

I used to think,

Why does Ajahn Chah,

Why does he bother with all this?

Surely an enlightened man like that must really find it weird.

I have to,

There's so many always people coming and going and disillusioned monks.

Thank you.

Reviews

Wow!

How amazing that you are here on insight timer. I first read about the 4 noble truths in a book by you I had found in a charity shop 3 years ago and I’ve been on a journey of discovery since. Thankyou

This was a great insight on a day all emotions pass by. It allowed me to think about how I treat myself and I was amazed by the motivational logic in this talk. However, it feels like the recording is cut off several times with annoyed me a little.

It was as though you have been an active listener in my mental process over the last month. Thank you

Thoughtful (and amusing), as ever. The talk seemed to end abrup

Thank you Ajahn, your wonderful humour helps us see through the human condition, while your wisdom and compassion guide us to reconsider how we live life 🙏🏼📿🌼

May there be stillness of my mind to reflect on my frailty 🙏

Hit the spot. Been contemplating hermitting lately. Appreciate the ‘attachment to Love is an attachment to hate’ and the simultaneous twin pulls of creativity and reflection- get one nowhere. One at a time is better- I’ll seek a retreat just for reflection. Then allow time after for creativity.

Good opportunity to hear the integration of practice and philosophy