Aversion, Attachment, and Wisdom
Wisdom makes the difference between which doorway to take. Without wisdom, pain leads to aversion and pleasure to attachment, and to avoidable dissatisfaction.
Wisdom recognizes that everything is impermanent and that our sense of self is at the root of our suffering. Wisdom results in equanimity and acceptance. With wisdom, we stop trying to hold onto what we can't keep and push away what we can't keep away. Then we are free to fully enjoy pleasure.
Pleasure is Temporary
"Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind.
To be happy, rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all” Gautama Buddha
Impermanence is easy to grasp. Just look around. Everything is changing. Thoughts and feelings come and go. Glaciers melt. Mountains wear away. Cities crumble. Flowers bloom and die.
Pleasure, like everything else, is temporary. The wonderful pleasure of the explosion of the first flavor orgasm of a spoonful of ice cream (or whatever turns you on), is short-lived.
You can savor the experience, resting in its afterglow, the ripple effect of the moment of bliss, letting the feeling of deep satisfaction fill your body and mind. AAHH!. There is no clinging. you rest in the moment, not trying to hold onto anything. Not remembering the pleasure. Fully enjoy each moment.
Avoid Dissatisfaction
Avoid the doorway to dissatisfaction. Through that doorway, you immediately and greedily go for the next spoonful, until the pleasure ebbs and the pain of feeling bloated, guilty, or both replaces the pleasure. You can reminisce about the bliss of that moment and miss the present moment. Each thought about the experience reduces the experience of the afterglow.
You may become addicted to the great pleasure and try to repeat it over and over again. But when you do, it is never quite the same, focused on the future you miss the present moment. Remembering and comparing diminish the full pleasure of the next moment of bliss. Love the moment you're in when you can’t be in the moment you love, to paraphrase Stephen Stills’, Love the One You’re With.
Not clinging to the past or trying to relive it, experiencing deep satisfaction, you are in touch with essence, centered. Here there is boundless joy beyond pleasure and pain.
Stop
For just a moment stop, right now, feel the sensations of your body. Let everything be as it is. Take a moment of rest. Let each out-breath relax you. Stop. Return to reading.
Who are You?
Everything is impermanent and our sense of self is at the root of our suffering.
The sense of self is more complicated than impermanence. It means changing the way you think about who you are. You become wise when you are mindfully aware of all the shades of you - all the personas - including the one that is watching the one that is watching all the rest.
We point to the Center of our chest, the heart center when we refer to ourselves. But wisdom says there is no center. The further into the heart you go the more you open to the wide expanse you are part of. Further and further in until, awake and aware, you disappear into the deep satisfaction of the ocean of awareness, or of love, or whatever you want to call it.
When it comes to pleasure, are you the one who is experiencing it, relishing it, trying to recreate it, the one that overindulges, or the one that judges or regrets? Of course, they are all faces of you. You are none of them and all of them. Mindful, awake, and aware of them all and not driven by any of them there is the sense of doing without doing. Being in Flow. Being centered. Being.
Learning
Whatever the cause or type of experience, what you do with it matters. For deep, longer-lasting pleasure take the doorway to being centered. Dissatisfaction is through the doorway of attachment.
Whichever doorway you take, there is an opportunity for learning from experience.
If you are fully awakened, centered all the time, living happily, healthfully, and effectively, harming no one, then learning comes naturally.
When you become aware of times when you are caught up in thoughts or behaviors that get in the way of living optimally, then, reflect on your experience and your response to it. Seek to understand how your habits and biases, attachments, and aversions get in the way of deep long-lasting pleasure and optimal living. Change your mind.
Cultivate mindfulness and use each experience as a learning opportunity. Learn to be awake and aware more frequently and for longer periods. Enjoy the pleasure of the moments when your mindfulness brings you back to awareness. Go beyond pleasure and pain.
