Aversion & Desire
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
Aversion & Desire and ones attachment to both, equates to the second Noble Truth....
"When the heart grasps what is painful, it is like being bitten by a snake. And when, through desire, it grasps what is pleasant, it is just grasping the tail of the snake. It only takes a little while longer for the head of the snake to come around and bite you."
Ajahn Chah, "A Still Forest Pool"
How often do our likes & dislikes of other sentient beings (humans and other creatures) and or objects or situations come into play in our daily lives...One moment we like something or what another's said or done and the next moment we don't....
And how often are we in denial of these aversions & desires...More often than not it shows when one interacts with the target of ones aversion or desire and no matter how non attached one 'try' to be towards ones feelings,( towards others) it shows through...
It continually affects (both positively & negatively) ones quality of life, yet we remain in denial of this...."Conditioning"
Because of our grasping and repelling mind, it would seem that we habitually take things to the extremes....Ones sense doors are bombarded with all sorts of information perceived as either 'wholesome, unwholesome or neutral ' regardless it all comes in and is processed.... even the state/s (of mind) sponsored terrorists ...
I guess that's dukkha for ya ....
When it comes to aversion & desire.... Can one have one(grasping the tail of the snake) without the other (end) tagging along ? I think not but I could be wrong....
Comments
It's something that I'm coming to terms with, I think. Enjoy the good times, but realize that they don't last forever. Take life as it comes. In moments of distress, there's light at the end of the tunnel. Nothing lasts. Just go with the flow.
When I think about it, if life weren't like this, it would be pretty boring.
Xanadu
Kubla Khan
@Walker
The aim I gather is for one to learn to just roll with the punches that is to be mindful but not mind full (knocked 'unconscious' ) by them (the wholesome unwholesome and neutral things that happen) ....
Aversion and desire is the name of life's game
Without these afflictions life would seem quite tame
Ones likes and dislikes go on throughout ones day
And the more one buys into them the less chance they’ll go away
So how do we overcome these afflictions that often lead to states of woe
How does one give up attachments who or what is it that fears to just let go ?
It is as if the monkey mind is always trying to grasp at the elusive nut
this self-generating conditioning keeps us in this rut
The deeper that awareness probes within, the closer truth seems to be
A state of flux is all there is that makes up "you" and “me”!
So is there some logic to the madness of just letting go?
Clinging to nothing might be the way the five aggregates are meant to flow!
How we perceive everything shaped our world,
If we perceive something as bad, we experience it as bad. Almost like we are wearing coloured glasses.
For someone the sound of a lawn mower or chalk on a board is extremely bad and it annoys them, somebody else might find joy in them.
Why the difference? It comes down to the way we perceive things.
Hmm but how to accept the bad and the good as equal?
Preferences are weird. Take food for example. I like peanut butter but recoil at mustard. I've never enjoyed mustard and I find it difficult to accept the taste of mustard as equal to the taste of peanut butter. I did not make a choice to prefer peanut butter.
I've never been exposed to anti-mustard doctrine and nobody praised peanut butter so why is it that I enjoy peanut butter but my brother doesn't and wouldn't eat a hotdog without mustard when we were kids?
I tried to pretend I enjoyed sushi once while on a date and trust me, I really wanted to like the stuff... It just didn't work.
I have to say, whenever I meet the twins Aversion and Desire, I'm always reminded of Kipling's poem:
"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same..."
Which clasps the hand of Shakespeare's quotation,
"...there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
...and strolls jovially, skipping a little, down Life's Path...
I see aversion as frustrated desire, so they are 2 sides of the same coin.
When the heart grasps what is painful, it is like being bitten by a snake. And when, through desire, it grasps what is pleasant, it is just grasping the tail of the snake. It only takes a little while longer for the head of the snake to come around and bite you."
Ajahn Chah, "A Still Forest Pool"
Dukkha is dukkha. But sukha is actually dukkha in disguise. So don't even cling to sukha if you know what is good for you.
"...there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
Isn't this seeing things as they are and not as you want them to be?
Listen up, old bad-karma Patrul,
You dweller-in-distraction.
For ages now you’ve been
Beguiled, entranced, and fooled by appearances.
Are you aware of that? Are you?
Right this very instant, when you’re
Under the spell of mistaken perception
You’ve got to watch out.
Don’t let yourself get carried away by this fake and empty life.
http://sealevel.ca/patrul/