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Namo tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammâ Sambuddhassa!
Sensual Pleasure & Pain
By Rasika Wijayaratne
We experience pleasure and pain because of our six sense
bases of eyes, ears, nose, nerves (both internal and external to the body), tongue,
and mind (the mind is not one we usually think of). The things that that make contact
with our sense bases and give rise to feelings are called sense objects, examples
of which are television images (contacts with eye), music (with the ear), perfume
(with the nose), someone's touch (with the skin), food (with the tongue) and memories
(with the mind). When a sense object (e.g. a smell) makes contact with sense base
(e.g. the nose) it can cause pleasant (pleasurable), unpleasant (painful) or neutral
feelings to arise.
When a beautiful thing (sense
object) makes contact with our eyes (the sense base) it causes pleasant (pleasurable)
feelings to arise. When we are no longer in sight of this beautiful thing but the
memory (sense object) of it comes to our mind (the sense base) it again causes pleasant
(pleasurable) feelings to arise. This is
sensual pleasure and most of us will get attached to these
pleasant (pleasurable) feelings. Alternatively when an unattractive thing (sense
object) makes contact with our eyes (the sense base) it causes unpleasant (painful)
feelings to arise. When we are no longer in sight of this unattractive thing but
the memory (sense object) of it comes to our mind (the sense base) it again causes
unpleasant (painful) feelings to arise. This is
sensual pain and most of us will feel a certain repulsion
(a mild form of anger) for these unpleasant (painful) feelings. This attachment
to pleasure and repulsion to pain are based on the greed root (lôbha) and
the anger root (dôsa) respectively.
However someone who is very advanced
along the path would remain unaffected by the pleasant (pleasurable) and unpleasant
(painful) feelings that arise and would be in a state of equanimity (upekkhâ).
We are constantly and continuously
bombarded with sight, sound, smell, tactile, taste and mind objects which are pleasant,
unpleasant or neutral and generally
results in attachment (greed), repulsion (anger) or neither attachment nor repulsion.
When we see (eye) great special effects in a movie we are awed (attachment)
and when we see a snake we want to throw rocks at it (repulsion); when we
hear (ear) the latest and greatest pop song we want to download it (attachment)
and when we hear the latest heavy metal song we want to close our ears (repulsion);
when we smell (nose) mum's cooking our mouth's water (attachment) and when
we smell a burning tyre we want to run away (repulsion); when we are in top
physical form (nerves) we feel on top of the world and we love it (attachment),
but when we have a flu our whole body aches inside and out and we hate that
(repulsion); when we are eating (tongue) pizza we enjoy it (attachment) and
when it is yet another rice and curry night we are not so happy (repulsion) and
we love to have a happy state of mind (attachment) rather than being stressed
and depressed (repulsion).1 We may feel neither attachment nor repulsion
for neutral sense objects (e.g. the ground, sky, trees, people we don't know, etc.).
Becoming attached to pleasant
(pleasurable) sense objects and being repulsed by unpleasant (painful) sense objects
are both extremes. Only at the attainment of Nibbâna can we fully stop from going
to these two extremes and find perfect balance. But until then we can practice on
a smaller scale and gradually build up to this balance over some period of time.
The three foundation practices for doing this are
daily dâna (giving, which reduces attachment),
sîla (morality) and bhâvana (meditation). The
mettâ (loving-kindness) meditation reduces repulsion (anger),
the asubha (contemplation on the foulness of the body) meditation reduces
our attachment towards the beauty of the physical body and the upekkhâ (equanimity)
meditation develops inner balance further.
Related Youth Articles
1.
Daily Dâna by Rasika Wijayaratne (on generosity)
[ http://vihara.org.au/go?to=dailydana
]
2.
Five Precepts by Rasika Wijayaratne (on morality)
[ http://vihara.org.au/go?to=pansil
]
3.
Metta Meditation by Rasika Wijayaratne (basic instructions on the meditation
on loving-kindness) [
http://vihara.org.au/go?to=mettamed
]
Other Resources
1. See the Accesstoinsight.org section on salayatana
(the six sense media) [
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/index-subject.html#salayatana ]
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