Desire and Pleasure

by Bhante Sathi

In Buddhist practice most people are interested in resolving pain. Most of us don’t want to get to the bottom of desire, to untangle the mystery that surrounds the strong urge for pleasure. Yet it is the most important phenomenon to understand.

There are two meanings to the word desire. Often it is to say that we want something. The other is the quest for pleasure. Pleasure is a sensual experience that one enjoys. Pleasure comes from picture, sound, taste, smell, and touch. It is an experience one has with mental images.

According to Buddha, the nature of pleasure is Tanha Daso atittito: ordinary beings become a slave to pleasure. Have you ever totally satisfied yourself with pleasure? No, total satisfaction is always in the future. The past never provides complete satisfaction, so we are always being driven to the future. With careful observation we can see that we are losing ourselves in this quest for pleasure.

Going to the extreme end of pleasure causes blindness. All human beings and animals have the same senses and are subject to the same desires for pleasure. Unlike animals, human beings have the ability to develop awareness of these phenomena and change our behavior. We like to think we are helpless, but when we start to practice awareness it is really not that difficult.

Before we realize who we are we may think we are just this body, but with awareness come to know that the actual self is more than the body. By cultivating awareness we can overcome the limits of the senses. Mindfulness brings clarity to the desires and pleasures that pass through us.

In past Christian priests practiced self-punishment to purify desires. At that time they thought desire pollutes the spiritual mind. Hindus are encouraged to avoid a luxurious life and Hindu ascetics are trained to live with minimal necessities. Followers are not respecting the religion if they go for pleasure.

Buddhist cultures are the same. Even Buddha followed that strongly before he became Buddha, but the most important thing he realized is that no one can overcome desire by going against desire. He even encourage monks not to follow that extreme. According to Buddha, addiction to indulgence of sense pleasures and addiction to self-mortification are two sides of the same coin.

Recently, I went to lunch at a family’s home with a few other monks. I had my bowl with me and the other monks used plates. Since I had my monk’s bowl the people respected me more than the monks who didn’t. They started to serve me food even before the monks that were older than me until I requested that they serve the elder monks first. They wanted to serve me first simply because of my appearance. It wasn’t fair for them to think I was more spiritual or moral than the other monks because of my appearance. So we should be aware about how we think and realize how narrow these judgements are.

Look at how much we give power to unnecessary items. If someone finds a piece of wood that is supposed to be a part of Jesus’ cross how much power would we give to that? A special mystery is there that we cannot explain. We should not mix up morality and training discipline.

For example, Buddhist monks do not eat heavy foods after lunch. Buddha advised this for a few reasons, but he also asked sick monks not to follow this discipline. The monks who follow this find it helps their practice and that it is not difficult with the proper training. However, according to Buddha following this precept does not make someone moral or immoral.

Buddha said, “Bhikkhus, these two extremes ought not to be cultivated by one gone forth from the house-life. What are the two? There is devotion to indulgence of pleasure in the objects of sensual desire, which is inferior, low, vulgar, ignoble, and leads to no good; and there is devotion to self-torment, which is painful, ignoble and leads to no good.” -Dhamma-chakka-pawattana Sutra, (Wheel of Dhamma)