I want you to
understand clean clear that we distinguish two things: negative, or sinful, and
positive. Attachment, or desire, can be negative and sinful, but it can also be
positive. The positive aspect is that which produces pleasure: samsaric
pleasure, human pleasure—the ability to enjoy the world, to see it as
beautiful, to have whatever you find attractive.
So you cannot say that
all desire is negative and produces only pain. Wrong. You should not think like
that. Desire can produce pleasure—but only temporary pleasure. That’s the
distinction. It’s temporary pleasure. And we don’t say that temporal pleasure
is always bad, that you should reject it. If you reject temporal pleasure, then
what’s left? You haven’t attained eternal happiness yet, so all that’s left is
misery.
But you should not
make the mistake of trying to actualize temporary pleasure [as an end in
itself]. You can enjoy it while you have it but you should not squeeze yourself
striving for it. The problem is the mind that believes temporary pleasure to be
the best there is. That’s a total delusion, an over-estimated conception. Like
looking at a cloud in the sky and thinking, “What a beautiful cloud; I wish it
would last forever.” You’re dreaming. ~ Lama Thubten Yeshe, “Teachings of
Lama Thubten Yeshe,” Facebook, March 23, 2019
Chad Foreman, Australian meditation teacher - "I agree, the wisdom of meditation sees
clearly the limitations of temporary pleasure, and therefore, one can enjoy
them without getting attached or addicted. However, it's difficult without
training. It's easy to get addicted and obsessed with temporary pleasures."
Christopher Aune - Yes. Of course, this also implies there
is a permanent expansion of a joy beyond addictions and obsessions.
Yet we tend to do meditation in reaction to the addictions
and obsessions, in reaction to suffering and sorrow. This is a sad state of
affairs.
So, what is the way beyond? Some want us to believe that -
at some point before we are born - we planned the challenges of our lives so
that we could learn a great lesson that we need to integrate into our being.
That is a story, an explanation, that helps us feel comfortable with our
thinking and our mental construct of the world. Another story is that we are to
try to escape our body and suffering, and transcend: Another mind-satisfying
explanation.
It may be that we are much more powerful than that. Maybe we
exist as a spiritual energy being that forms a body, and our job is to smooth
out the already existing combination of the spirit and the physical body. When
spiritual energy moves smoothly through the body, it is then whole and
functioning as designed. It isn't a reaction to challenges or an attempt to
escape. It is a beautiful, fully alive being, not caught up in addictions and
obsessions, challenges or escapes.
I am that I am. The alpha and the omega. The beginning and
the end. Pure spirit is truth and love in one being. I am one. A joyful bubble
in a churning wave of bubbles.
Diarmuid Sweeney -
Not-knowing is true
knowledge.
Presuming to know
is a disease.
First realize that
you are sick;
then you can move
toward health.
The Master is her
own physician.
She has healed
herself of all knowing.
Thus she is truly
whole. – 71, 'Tao Te Ching' by Lao Tzu,
Translation by Stephen Mitchell.
Christopher Aune - Yes. Excellent translation! I love these
old philosophers' insights. They are supported and further explained by modern
science.
When we stop ego-knowing, we become purely aware. Our
awareness is not distracted or disrupted by thoughts or feelings. We see
reality as it is: an unceasing movement of energy or liquid light.
Energy movement generates waves: a line of force across the universal
field. Lines intersect to become patterns: order. In the fact of this patterned
order, there is information.
In our perfectly still "not-knowing," we become
aware of "true knowledge." Even the ancients knew this.
Notice where it leads: a human being who is "truly
whole." Too cool. – Christopher, March 25, 2019