Beauty and good, pleasant: attachment and the three poisons
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
It strikes me that we humans are naturally quite attached to what is beautiful and what we experience as good or pleasant. We like beautiful regular faces, we like sugar, we like warm and soft clothing. These things appeal to us through our senses, through what we find aesthetically pleasing. We build up this attachment during our lives, as we encounter more things that we consider ‘good’.
As a counterpoint we also build up an image of unpleasant, bad. Cold, sharp, harsh, insulting or overbearing, controlling. These are things we usually associate with this shadow, things to be avoided. We interpret certain things in this way, a voice may sound harsh, words may seem insulting.
This means that we naturally construct in our minds the Three Poisons: desire (for what is pleasant), avoidance (of what is unpleasant and bad), and at its root ignorance (of the dharma). In a way desire and avoidance rule our lives, they drive us as we move towards and away from things. The dharma therefore is a path to freedom, and once you start seeing how this works you find yourself automatically letting go of many impulses.
Recognising what is pleasant and unpleasant is unavoidable, our eye appreciates good design or a fine painting, or our tastebuds the taste of chocolate. Yet to some extent this is conditioned by experience, often coffee or wine does not taste good at first encounter when we are children, but we may grow to like them. This stays with us.
So, when we let go of pleasant and unpleasant, we remain aware of the natural distinctions. We may choose to return to a more natural taste, foresaking coffee for tea. But the essence of this aspect of the dharma is that we learn to consciously partake of that which is wholesome and beneficial, rather than merely following what is pleasant and avoiding what is unpleasant.
That we learn to eat potatoes and sauerkraut instead of only chocolate biscuits.
Comments
Now my path leads me to identify more accurately what is wholesome and beneficial, and what is actually chocolate biscuits and delicious black coffee. Maybe sometimes what is skillful is also what is pleasant?
If only this didn't add to my confusion.. unless the objective is to see the identity's senses from an outside perspective of one on the path. Similar to how we view life forms under our care and responsibility with whom we are empathic and compassionate for. We can appreciate our identity for its nuances as it is its own being among other identities, but it is plagued with likes and dislikes. These likes and dislikes can overlap on the right path which can create pleasing or not so pleasing realizations within the identity when walking skillfully. But as an observer of the identity, we are removed from the attachment of such feelings good or bad. The walk is the walk to the observer, even if the one walking has an easy or difficult time of it. Is it so?
You seem to be on the right track, but although we are capable of observing what we like and dislike in our personality, the result of such observation is still a thought. It is the mind creating thoughts about the mind, and as such it is still conditioned. We are taught at a young age what to value — honesty, humility, compassion — and such value judgments are reflected in the mind’s thoughts about personality traits.
Therefore, what is pleasing and what is not pleasing in terms of personality often doesn’t fall within the natural domain. Whereas one’s sense of taste will produce a pleasant sensation on tasting honey or a strawberry, just as a natural response, establishing what the naturally pleasant view on a personality might be is not simple.
I envision mindlessness or consciouslessness. I am the animal eating the strawberry, I have natural response. This is everything.
Where is the awareness when the body is being natural? When all the thoughts are natural thoughts?
I think body awareness can be natural, but thoughts are almost always conditioned. Perhaps the basic feelings such as wonder, irritation and pain are natural, because they are the earliest things that occur to us when we are young children, before we learn language.
I am confused.
Do I pay continuous attention to the senses but let them be? Ever the observer in acceptance?
Do I acknowledge the senses but let them out of attention to bring attention to something else? Something else is more important for my focus?
Do I see how the senses are unskillful and try to become them more fully? Skillful use of the senses?
Well not having experienced your predicament I am loathe to offer up some pithy advice and say it is the right path. But when suffering confusion it is usually a good idea to let the mind settle. It is said that the mind is like a glass of muddy water, where if you sit with it in stillness the mud will sink to the bottom, leaving clear water in the rest of the glass.
It is not the senses which are unskillful, it is the mind. A sense impression can bring multiple thoughts to the fore, some of which are beneficial and others which are not.
Hmm and I suppose we only have the luxury of communication through the mind..skillful or not. What skills does a baby have if not for the skill of being birthed before other skills are put to enact? Do we have to learn to speak before we can ask for help?
One could say that a buddha statue is already an expression of the dharma, and encourages one to just sit with one’s impulses.
I prefer potatoes and sauerkraut to chocolate.
There, I said it.
If you can turn a harmless aversion into a useful attraction, then you can do it with greater aversions.
Make an aversion your friend.
I'm speaking, of course, of the cold shower.
So many "I couldn't possibly do this" protests.
And I probably would have said the same thing.
But now... you all know I'm an avid cold-shower fiend.
And always full of positive encouragement.
It has led to so much more than acceptance and enthusiasm.
I am more positive.
I am more calm.
I am more disciplined.
And during those cold moments, I am nearer to a clear blue sky...
Keep up the good work. Knowing we are confused, battered and bewildered is the first part of getting to the fishy part known as us … which is unfished.
Yes. If possible. Continuous attention or awareness is the ideal …
Don't mess with the attention. It is the awareness of being attentive that is important.
No more, no more skilful. Know more sense.
I will watch my impulses as the statue watches its visitors.
"Hello, welcome, thank you, goodbye."
My self does not think it wants a cold shower but then I think of nothing and watch my breath. In I go!
This is a very reinforcing observation I can apply immediately.
Thank you Sangha
Very poetic, @FleaMarket … perhaps you’d like to tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to Buddhism?
Sure, it seems like I may be hanging around for a little while. You've all been quite welcoming and some days I have to force myself to close the forum because the topics and all of your responses are so enthralling.
The sensation of something more than this one body and this one life has been with me since I can remember. I was not popular as a kid so I had many many hours of solitude in my room with nothing but army men and action figures. I didn't realize it but I learned how to breathe then. I would make a whooshing noise constantly to break the silence as my action figures fought. This kept me out of my head and the emotional pain, and in the present moment. Even as a young child I learned the concept of pushing through physical pain and that our bodies had more in the tank than just what our alert systems were indicating.
It must have been around age 10 that I discovered I was Buddhist. My family tried to get me to go to Church on Christmas again and boy did I let them have it...For the next 20'ish years I explored the mind in unorthodox and likely unskillful ways, however it gained me experience with the topics in the area of the mind and some fringes of spirituality.
About 10 years ago I discovered a forum similar to this but focused only on Zen and I was captivated by the way these individuals thought and spoke. I regretfully never participated and lurked so when my favorite of them left, my monkey mind went on to other things. Though I have been searching for them ever since.
I experienced a life-changing event recently which provided me a lot of time and compelled me to seek a better solution to filling the "God shaped hole" in my being. I started consuming audio books on religion, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and I planned on continuing with more but I have not been able to escape the Buddhist teachings. I'm drawn to them from my past experiences and they work for me quickly when I honestly apply them.
So now I am exploring the areas around Buddhism. I read 4NT/8FP and almost all of the three baskets, almost every link I find on this site (Sometimes more than once if I like it), I've joined virtual sanghas, started taking online classes, practicing mindfulness every free second I remember to do so. I simply cannot get enough. I took a freakin' cold shower today because @federica won't stop raving about them and I like what they've said in other posts so ugh..of course I'm gunna go try it if it brings me closer to this sensation I'm having...and I was able to appreciate how much my individual identity was NOT about it...at first.
From the way I have learned how to see life as a result of Buddhist teachings I have cried more tears of joy, appreciation, and beauty in the last month than possibly all the tears of my adult life. This is my jam, I love this stuff and I'm so excited to have been allowed whatever combination of consciousness and interest and capability to participate in it.
So I guess in short sorrow, loneliness, social rebellion, familiar comfort, lack of discernible purpose/meaning/direction, and a bit of cause and effect brought me here and I am very joyed to meet you all.
Sounds like you are having a good time. Enjoy the openness of the beginners mind, I hope it stays with you a long while. There is a saying, in the beginners mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.
I remember on encountering the 4NT for the first time I was a little “sheesh is that all?” But they are a very deep teaching which has a lot to say about the relationship between mind, happiness and unsatisfactoriness. It takes time for it to really sink in, I would suggest reading a few different teachers interpretations.
Great to see such enthusiasm. Buddhism can really feel like coming home, there are a lot of teachings which feel natural and luminous.
Everyone’s path is a little different, but unsatisfactoriness features with all of us. It’s a bit of a pet theory of mine that for a lot of people once they hit 50 years old and the first hints of illness and old age start to appear, people go looking in spirituality.
It sounds funny to say but it feels like falling in love with the universe. Some days are certainly easier than others. Today is not such an easy day. Remember to breathe..
Could I pester you for some of your personal favorites? (This of course is open for all to suggest)
I vaguely recall a message of "Awareness comes about from the realization that something is not right." I had forgotten that until you jogged my memory.
I can understand your theory. Age is currently one of my biggest inhibitors from practicing with more devotion. I try not to dwell on it so early in my practice but I have reservations toward elimination of sensual indulgence in what I feel are my prime years.
My hopes are as I grow spiritually, the sensual desires naturally begin to be less appealing. I already find after particularly beneficial practices, many TV shows I would normally be interested in seem far less interesting, sort of how the spirit feels happier consuming light and healthy meals compared to greasy and heavy. I am growing awareness of a different set of preferences.
On the four noble truths, there were a couple of real turning points.
The first formulation I read was on Wikipedia, it was really “the basics”. First, there is suffering, second, there is a cause of suffering, third, there is a cessation of suffering, fourth, there is a path to the cessation of suffering. It’s a core teaching of Buddhism in a nutshell.
Later on I came across Thich Nhat Hanh talking about the 4NT on YouTube. He doesn’t really talk about suffering at all, he talks about happiness. He makes it very clear that where there is no suffering, there is happiness, and so he talks about it from that point of view.
Then in the sutras on Access to Insight, I found the sutra which describes the Buddha’s first teaching of the 4NT, and I also found a good one which was called The Great Mass of Stress.
A key thing to look at is how people translate the Pali term dukkha. It means suffering, but can also be translated as unsatisfactoriness or stress, and each of these translations brings something new to the Four Noble Truths.