No inherent sensual pleasure

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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Alex123
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Re: No inherent sensual pleasure

Post by Alex123 »

Zom wrote:
But pleasure is still Dukkha.
Yes. But "dukkha", as you might know, is not "a painful mental/bodily unpleasant feeling" exclusively ,)

Right, there are three types of dukkha and even pleasant feeling is included in dukkha (2nd and maybe even third kind).
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Re: No inherent sensual pleasure

Post by Spiny Norman »

Coyote wrote:Would suggest there is more to the Dukkha of pleasant experiences than just being transient and anatta. They are objectively painful, a burden.
Yes, I see what you're saying - though the second Noble Truth seems to say that it's grasping pleasant experience that causes dukkha, rather than the pleasant experience itself.
Buddha save me from new-agers!
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Alex123
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Re: No inherent sensual pleasure

Post by Alex123 »

porpoise wrote:Aren't there traditionally 3 types of vedana - pleasant, unpleasant and neutral?
Right.
But is it possible to say that sukha-vedanā contains much less pain, thus it feels pleasant in comparison to much greater pain like dukkha-vedanā ?

in AN9.34 it says that even base of nothingness feels like affliction compared to base of neither perception nor non perception.
And Nibbāna is more pleasurable than base of neither perception nor non perception.

So I think it is matter of contrast. Less pain feels like pleasure compared to greater pain.
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Alex123
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Re: No inherent sensual pleasure

Post by Alex123 »

Also what I am thinking:

Why do we do what we do? What pushes us? Pain, suffering, etc! For example if one is hungry (painful bodily feeling) one is moved to search for food and to eat it.

If one is thirsty, one is forced to search for water and to drink it.
If one feels cold, one is forced to put on more clothes, raise the rooms temperature, or to drink hot tea, etc.

When one sits motionless long enough, the physical pain will force one to change posture.
Walking long distances or prolonged standing will force one to sit or lie down to relieve the pain of exertion.

Problem will force one to look for a solution.
Burning question can force one's mind to think about an answer.

If (hypothetical situation for the sake of argument) everything was absolutely perfect and complete, then why would one have to change anything?
Samma
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Re: No inherent sensual pleasure

Post by Samma »

Thanissaro wrote at length about the process of feeding and nutriment in his book dependent co-arising. Reading that might clear a lot of things up. It seems too much to reduce everything to dukkha. Sensual pleasures are just that, but there is a much greater happiness disjoined from it all.
At any given moment, the mind is presented with a wide range of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas. From this range, it chooses which things to focus attention on and which to ignore in its search for food. These choices shape the world of its experience. This is why, if you and I walk through a store at the same time, for example, we will experience different stores to the extent that we’re looking for different things. The mind’s search for nourishment is constant and never-ending, because its food— especially its mental food—is always threatening to run out. Whatever satisfaction it derives from its food is always short-lived. No sooner has the mind found a place to feed than it’s already looking for where to feed next. Should it stay here? Should it go somewhere else? These incessant questions of “What next?” “Where next?” drive its search for well-being. But because these questions are the questions of hunger,they themselves keep eating away at the mind. Driven by hunger to keep answering these questions, the mind often acts compulsively—sometimes willfully—out of ignorance, misunderstanding what causes unnecessary stress and what doesn’t. This causes it to create even more suffering and stress. The purpose of meditation is to end this ignorance, and to root out the questions of hunger that keep driving it. (Thanisaro, Each and Every Breath)
“Where there is no passion for the nutriment of physical food, where there is
no delight, no craving, then consciousness does not land there or increase.
Where consciousness does not land or increase, there is no alighting of name-&-
form. Where there is no alighting of name-&-form, there is no growth of
fabrications. Where there is no growth of fabrications, there is no production of
renewed becoming in the future. Where there is no production of renewed
becoming in the future, there is no future birth, aging, & death. That, I tell you,
has no sorrow, affliction, or despair." SN 12:64

“Sensing a feeling of pleasure, [the arahant] senses it disjoined from it. Sensing a feeling of pain, he senses it disjoined from it. Sensing a feeling of neither pleasure nor pain, he senses it disjoined from it. This is called a well-instructed disciple of the noble ones disjoined from birth, aging, & death; from sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, & despairs. He is disjoined, I tell you, from suffering & stress” — SN 36:6
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Alex123
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Re: No inherent sensual pleasure

Post by Alex123 »

Samma wrote: It seems too much to reduce everything to dukkha.

But doesn't dukkha in its three kinds includes everything (except for Nibbāna)?
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convivium
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Re: No inherent sensual pleasure

Post by convivium »

can't we step into simple pleasures so as to experience them in a detached way? :yingyang:
Just keep breathing in and out like this. Don't be interested in anything else. It doesn't matter even if someone is standing on their head with their ass in the air. Don't pay it any attention. Just stay with the in-breath and the out-breath. Concentrate your awareness on the breath. Just keep doing it. http://www.ajahnchah.org/book/Just_Do_It_1_2.php
Samma
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Re: No inherent sensual pleasure

Post by Samma »

I suppose the key is " even pleasant feeling is included in dukkha (2nd and maybe even third kind)."

dukkha-dukkha is ordinary suffering, unpleasantness.
viparinama-dukkha is the fact of change me thinks. What is inconstant can not stay plesent forever. What changes will not bring lasting happiness.
samkhara-dukkha -This is certainly complex, but I think this is related to clinging to the skandhas. For example, thirst as desire for sensual pleasures rather than pleasant feeling itself. So, I'm not comfortable saying that even pleasant feeling is dukkha. *shrug*

topic:
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4210
Last edited by Samma on Sun Mar 24, 2013 8:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Zom
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Re: No inherent sensual pleasure

Post by Zom »

If this is so, then why does the sutta I quoted seem to suggest pleasure is a misperception?
Buddha and arahant do experience pleasant feelings. Do you think, they still have "misperceptions"? ,)
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LonesomeYogurt
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Re: No inherent sensual pleasure

Post by LonesomeYogurt »

I think it should be clarified that there is a great difference between pleasure and delight. Arahants experiences pleasure but they do not delight in it. What Alex is saying is very true when it comes to delight but not necessarily with pleasure.
Gain and loss, status and disgrace,
censure and praise, pleasure and pain:
these conditions among human beings are inconstant,
impermanent, subject to change.

Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.

His welcoming and rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
- Lokavipatti Sutta

Stuff I write about things.
danieLion
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Re: No inherent sensual pleasure

Post by danieLion »

Alex123 wrote:Hello all,

Lets say you want to eat the cake, when you eat it - you experience pleasure. But when you stop eating it, the pleasure stops and eventually you back where you started from. If one tries to eat one cake after another cake, then very soon what was sources of pleasure will feel painful. If cake was trully the cause of pleasure, why does it turn into unpleasant feeling when indulged excessively?

One can feel thirsty (dukkha-vedanā) and then when one drinks the water, one feels good feeling. But if one keeps drinking glass after glass after glass, it will feel uncomfortable and can even lead to death.

Sitting and resting can feel great after a long and tiring walk (which is painful). But try to sit for many hours. It will feel uncomfortable. Here also we have a case where something when indulged excessively long becomes uncomfortable.

Maybe there are no inherent pleasures in the world, just more or less dukkha. The relief of greater dukkha feels pleasant, but only for short amount of time and only in comparison with greater dukkha.

What is your opinion?
My opinion is that vedana boils down to sanna or at least can't be disconnected from sanna in terms of experience. My opinion is that that's why the Buddha sometimes refered to vedana and perception as one thing: citta-sankhara. And I also agree with Dr. Snyder's opinion that cultivating uppekha is a good place to start if one wants to better manage (augment inner composure and behavioral control over) vedana and sanna, but that also requires yoniso manisakara and cetana--in my opinion. ;)

PS: When other people are involved, metta, karuna, anukampa and mudita should probably precede uppekha--in my opinion.
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Prasadachitta
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Re: No inherent sensual pleasure

Post by Prasadachitta »

LonesomeYogurt wrote:I think it should be clarified that there is a great difference between pleasure and delight. Arahants experiences pleasure but they do not delight in it. What Alex is saying is very true when it comes to delight but not necessarily with pleasure.
Hi LY,

This got me thinking about the word "delight". I don't know what the Pali word is but....

Delight has a few meanings one of which is simply to recognize the pleasure in some experience. I expect that the Buddha does this.

Another meaning is to be amused by an experience. In this case it makes sense to me that the Buddha has no interest in the amusement of pleasure. Pleasure does not occupy the Buddha. It does not keep him busy. The Buddha is "in a sense" fully amused by Nibbana. he is "amused" in the sense that it provides interesting occupation. The Buddha knows and teaches Nibbana and is entertained by nothing else.

Its a nice thought.

Prasadachitta
"Beautifully taught is the Lord's Dhamma, immediately apparent, timeless, of the nature of a personal invitation, progressive, to be attained by the wise, each for himself." Anguttara Nikaya V.332
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Alex123
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Re: No inherent sensual pleasure

Post by Alex123 »

Zom wrote:
If this is so, then why does the sutta I quoted seem to suggest pleasure is a misperception?
Buddha and arahant do experience pleasant feelings. Do you think, they still have "misperceptions"? ,)

Buddha and Arahants still have 5 khandhas. They still experience pain. They just don't have negative emotions and reactions such as lobha, dosa or moha.
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Alex123
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Re: No inherent sensual pleasure

Post by Alex123 »

Prasadachitta wrote:Delight has a few meanings one of which is simply to recognize the pleasure in some experience...Another meaning is to be amused by an experience.
What if person likes to hurt oneself? Does that mean that hurting bodily feeling is really a pleasant feeling? Maybe khandhas are ultimately dukkha, but our reaction can consider them to be sukha?

"It is impossible, that one come to right view should take any determination as pleasant. It is possible that an ordinary person should take any determination as pleasant." - MN115

*determination is saṅkhāra, which I believe means everything put-together/formed as opposed to Nibbāna, which is not put-together.
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Prasadachitta
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Re: No inherent sensual pleasure

Post by Prasadachitta »

Alex123 wrote:What if person likes to hurt oneself? Does that mean that hurting bodily feeling is really a pleasant feeling? Maybe khandhas are ultimately dukkha, but our reaction can consider them to be sukha?

"It is impossible, that one come to right view should take any determination as pleasant. It is possible that an ordinary person should take any determination as pleasant." - MN115

*determination is saṅkhāra, which I believe means everything put-together/formed as opposed to Nibbāna, which is not put-together.

Hey Alex,

Im not sure what you are getting at with the "hurt oneself" comment. Im sure the meaning of pleasure can change depending on what the context is. As far as I know the Buddha exhibited preferences some of which were due to comfort versus discomfort. As you say
They (Buddha and Arahants) just don't have negative emotions and reactions such as lobha, dosa or moha.
Metta

Prasadachitta
"Beautifully taught is the Lord's Dhamma, immediately apparent, timeless, of the nature of a personal invitation, progressive, to be attained by the wise, each for himself." Anguttara Nikaya V.332
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