greenjuice wrote: ↑Tue Oct 06, 2020 8:57 am
It doesn't. Only the dasa akusala kamma / ten unwholesome actions can lead to rebirth in lower realms. The ten are:
Wrong bodily conduct:
1 Killing and violence: "being a killer of beings, bloody-handed, given to blows and violence, not having compassion".
2 Stealing: "taking what is not given, taking as a thief another's possession and property in the town or in the forest".
3 Sexual misconduct: having intercourse with minors, prisoners, those who are unwilling, monastics, or those who are in a closed marriage or a closed pre-marital relationship with someone else.
Wrong verbal conduct:
4 False witness: Speaking falsehoods, especially testimony "when summoned to a court or to a meeting and questioned as a witness, then, not knowing, one says 'I know,' or knowing, one says 'I do not know'."; consciously speaking lies.
5 Divisive speaking: Speaking maliciously about someone, backbiting, slander, spreading what one has heard for the purpose of causing conflict, creating divisions, enjoying conflict and division.
6 Unkind speaking: Speech which is rude, harsh, bitter, abusive, angry, not calm; speech that is not kind, not soft, not affectionate, not polite, not agreeable, not wanted, not pleasant (to those it is spoken to).
7 Worthless speaking: talk which is inappropriate (with regards to when or where it is spoken), which is not factual, which is untruthful, unethical, or detrimental in some way.
Wrong mental conduct:
8 Greed, including especially envy, coveting of or begrudging another's property, or their status or popularity.
9: Malevolence: having a mind of ill-will, a mind affected by hate, especially wanting harm or death to others; being irritated when criticized; in general being angry, ill-disposed, resentful, ill-tempered.
10: Wrong view, ie moral nihilism: thinking "There is no point in doing good deeds, there are no rewards and punishments in the afterlife, there is no afterlife, there is no morality".
Immoral deeds are divided in three categories: 1 the worst acts, grave offenses: killing a human, sexual misconduct sex, grand theft, or religious lies, 2 very bad acts, serious faults: maiming /injuring a human, theft of something of middle value, lesser sexual misconduct (such as kisses and caresses), falsely accusing or slandering people, insulting or mocking someone, and starting conflicts (divisive speech), and 3 just bad acts, wrongdoings: dishonest gain, minor theft, killing animals (or having them killed), hitting humans, lying, unkind speech, worthless speech, being greedy, being stingy, and moral nihilism. Of course there are nuances with regards to context (eg killing a large animal is worse than killing a small animal), but this is enough of explanation for here.
The point is is that pornography doesn't violate any of these (except if it's pornography where the sex is unwilling or with minors, etc). Pornography in itself is not immoral.
But - having an addiction to it, like any addition and strong attachment - is problematic in practical sense, it can make a person waste time or energy or money they don't want to waste, and it certainly makes the person unhappy.
For any such issue, one should practice meditation in the right way, and train oneself in having things in one's mind (whether in the focus or in the periphery of consciousness) and be detached from them. What does this mean?
When doing focused attention meditation, we focus eg on breath, and whatever comes to our mind, we don't try to push it away, but we also don't focus on it, we leave it in the periphery of consciousness and focus on the breath. When doing open monitoring meditation, we just focus on whatever appears in our mind (perceptions, sensations, memory, image, verbal thoughts, emotions, etc) we don't push them away but we also don't get pulled away by them, we just sit and watch things appear and go away, watch them flow through.
When we get trained in these two practices of meditation, we can then apply these approaches to addictive thoughts and desires and impulses when they appear.
When applying this we train ourself to NOT feel aversion to such thoughts, we don't try to push them away, we just either watch them, or just leave them in the periphery of consciousness as we focus on something else (it can be breath meditation, or it can be just regular daily focus, eg on doing some work or chores, or whatever). If we hang on to aversion towards those thoughts, if we try to push them away, that will be counterproductive, it will only make them stay. It's like saying to yourself "I shouldn't imagine pink elephants, I shouldn't imagine pink elephants, I shouldn't imagine pink elephants, ..." - that is a sure way to continue imagining pink elephants. So, we train ourself to detach from the thoughts, to let them come, let them stay, and let them go, without trying to push them away and without being lead by them. When we get used to this, to being detached, then such thoughts stop being a problem. And through time - when they appear again and again, and we are detached, and we choose to not indulge in them nor to act on them, they then start to reduce in frequency and intensity, and we thereby start doing away with the addiction / strong habit.