Sensual Pleasures Are Painful
Ajahn Suchart AbhijatoWhen we join this meditation retreat, we are committing ourselves to practicing nekkhamma or distancing ourselves from sensual pleasures that derive from seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting or touching. However, this kind of happiness cannot make us fully satisfied or at peace with ourselves. It is happiness filled with worries and anxieties, because when we come into contact with what we like, whether it is a person, or thing, we tend to cling on to it. We want to own it forever but are anxious that it may soon leave us one day. Sadness or dukkha then replaces this initial happiness. Hence, it is happiness tainted with pain. When we have what we like, we want to keep it to ourselves and become anxious that it may be gone one day. Then one day it really happens because nothing in this world lasts forever. They are constantly changing and we cannot control them or make them stay with us forever. We then become miserable.