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Our minds will always more easily ski down the tracks that our past habituated actions have carved. Add hormones to this mix and a re-linking to memories of sunny skies and fresh powder conditions will predominate.
If we are lucky and committed enough in our practice, alternative possibilities to such karmic predispositions, within each moment, can present options that we wouldn't of otherwise considered.

Most though will repeatedly choose an old known cause of suffering over an unknown possibility of that suffering's cessation.

@person said:
For me its been really annoying and misery making. I've never had those relationship game playing skills, and after a few failed relationships found spirituality a more natural and fulfilling path and thus never had the incentive to develop them.

For what it's worth, part of the reason my wife found me endearing when we first met was that I had ZERO game, so she knew that whatever she was feeling for me, she was not being manipulated into it. So much of relationships, I think, is about timing and where we are in our lives and where the other person is.

For me the problem with randomly fantasizing about this woman or that woman is the craving it creates. Even if it is mild, it starts to feel pervasive, and while in the moment it seems like a harmless little dopamine hit, I wonder if it is not harmful over time.

I believe this thought is attributed to the Buddha? "Do not overlook negative actions merely because they are small; however small a spark may be, it can burn down a haystack as big as a mountain."

@Jeroen said:

@person said:
I guess I've been removed from the "meat market" and hadn't really dealt with my own related desires. I'm finding just this little exposure rather bothersome. This comparing mind, self judgement about how in shape or stylish I am so as to be attractive.

It’s funny, I’m not really that attractive, I carry too much weight, but I notice myself catching glances and smiles from women when I’m helping my mother around the hospital and around the trains. It’s nice to get the positive attention.

Its weird, when I was younger and pursuing such things I rarely got attention. Then sometime maybe starting 10 years ago or so I would catch the occasional look from at times fairly attractive women. I don't have the game or the interest in relationships enough to pursue.

As I sit here considering my response, I wonder how much of this is my own buried craving and how much is it a vibe I'm picking up from the gym itself? At any rate its a decidedly suffering state of mind. I've found that in immersing myself with mindfulness I can gain some understanding and space, or perhaps resistance to its pull.

I'm realizing there is some buried pain around this topic for me. When I was younger I had a few girlfriends but they never lasted, my takeaway was that I wasn't appealing or confident enough, or something. I stepped away and pursued a spiritual life. I'd always been the type of person happy doing things by myself, so that's what I did, and I am pretty happy.

All this stuff about being good enough, or playing the game or whatever it is to attract a partner is stressful and suffering inducing. For me positive attention only reinforces the stress and inadequacy. I recognize that a lot of this is sour grapes and venting of my own pain, I'm just trying to best express what is coming up for me. I think maybe I'll just leave it up to the women to approach me and ask me out if they have any interest, I'm not interested in the game.

@Jeroen

I saw the term Prechecca "Pratyeka" Buddha used mainly as a teaching term to warn long-time Buddhist practitioners to guard against straying too long into levels of spiritual materialism and quietism-based attachments. A term used by teachers to experienced students, questioning if they have just created a bit of a karmic cocoon for themselves while resting on their spiritual laurels. A warning, if you will, that a practice that is still self-based will remain suffering-bound until that practice's intent is actually for the benefit of all beings.
A Pratyeka Buddha is often a reference to a limited understanding that lacks the skillful means needed to transmit the appropriate Dharma to others.

@Jeroen said:
The language you use indicates you are sorting thoughts into good and bad. Creeping on younger women = bad. Judging overweight people = bad. You are already involving the minds judgment as you verbalise how you feel.

I'd like to think I'm discerning rather than judging, but maybe not. Like in the sense of where I'd like to end up and how I'd like to treat and think about others. "Mind as vast as the sky, behavior as fine as sand" requires some sort of distinction between this and that.

How would you phrase or think about it?

coincidentally I'm reading a one page article about a researchers efforts to study preventing aging negative outcomes.

By studying c elegans, or roundworms, they noticed that specimens that had an oxidative stress were resistant to some aging . And then further tests confirmed this by exposing an entire population of worms to oxidative stress. Worms are studied for one thing because you get answers in months instead of years with humans. And c elegans have biological similarity to humans apparently.

Humans can get moderate oxidative stress via exercise. It can damage us at the wrong dose, but help us at the correct level and is called hormesis. And this lab is studying the molecular and cellular level of changes from hormesis (in humans). Professor Ursula Jakob.

So longer time to live is good and more time to practice.

Reflecting on this a bit more. I question whether inner work alone is enough. One could be driven by kindness but be ignorant of local or current customs. What is considered kind varies by time and location. In the not so distant past the average man probably thought it was a kindness to inform their women coworkers that they should put on a nice smile.

@David said:
My Dad passed away less than a month later leaving me with my first koan.

What a story. Classic Dad joke leads to deeper meaning.

Questioning whether inner work alone is enough, is good.

The only thing separating a practice into inner & outer states of work is our own habituated responses to phenomena. Is this not a dream to be awakened from?

The degree that one's practice is being limited to inner work alone, is the degree that a hardening of the ego, a solidification of one's identity, a separation between self & others, and a state of Prechecca Buddhahood, is being beckoned to.

In a Buddhist practice, it's what marks the difference between what's appropriate and inappropriate in the development of concentration in the 8 fold path.