June 22, 2023
Principle 6. Pleasure. Fourth Week.
If you pursue pleasure, you enchain yourself to suffering. But as long as you do not harm your health, enjoy without inhibition when the opportunity presents itself.
Last time: Neither the Carrot nor the Stick.
This time: A Look Ahead
This Week:
Over the last three weeks we considered this principle in general: what it means, how it fits in with the others, etc. We also looked at how we did or didn’t use this principle in past situations and how it applies to the present. This week we’ll try to understand how we might apply the principle in the future.
General Considerations and Personal Reflections:
Here are some personal reflections. I offer them in the spirit of dialogue and exchange, and look forward to hearing your thoughts about, and experiences with, this principle.
In our last meeting Victor made some interesting observations about the future with a number of observations about aging and our internal states. I personally found the resulting conversation around this very helpful. It raised many questions for me, and not just about aging.
How much of our lives (our thoughts, beliefs, feelings) are intentional, and how much a reflection of circumstance (age, economic status, faction, and so on)?
It is evident, in ourselves or around us, how our bodies change as we age. The changes are not only external! No one doubts that generally, the inner life, the concerns, the hopes, and ideas of a child change over the years. They change greatly with the onset of puberty, later with maturity, and still later as we reach old age (or if you prefer the terms as we become seniors, or elders). Surely, as the presence of finality becomes less avoidable one reevaluates things. Just as with the fading of vitality the objects we search for, and the intensity of that search must change.
Is it possible each generation tends to have insights that those younger have not yet had, and those older have forgotten — or betrayed?
Surely, there is a particular clarity of vision that comes from seeing things for the first time. Perhaps, we can even call that the wisdom of youth. On the other hand the current global system tends to view the young as naive, and lacking a sense of reality. Similarly, it portrays elders as senile, disgruntled, and irrelevant. That is, it denies the wisdom of age. Something that comes, in part at least, by having gone through a lot of situations — hopefully with their eyes open.
Are old people happier, wiser, more at peace, kinder, more detached than the young? The empirical evidence gathered by psychologists, and sociologists, etc seems pretty weak. Or is it possible that for those there is an accumulation of discord in those who have lived at war with themselves, and uninterested in the well-being of those around them.
In the same way there might be an accumulation of internal peace in those (I believe they are many) whose actions through life were directed to finding internal unity, and sharing it with others. And that would hold true even though in most cases they wouldn’t have used any of these words to describe their hopes, or actions. Nonetheless, what seems decisive is precisely those goals and actions, though they may not be clear, or dramatic in scope. If that's so then once again we are in front of possibilities and branching paths.
Another Story
Perhaps after meditating on these general aspects of the principle, you can provide us with a new version of the principle, or some aspect of it, and give it a name that captures its essence. How about a very short story, saying, images, or jokes etc that illustrate some aspect of the principle.
Here’s one:
This is an old story, related to the principle of pleasure (The version I first heard was told as a Zen story).
This story tells of two monks, a novice and his teacher who had set out on a pilgrimage. During their travels came to a river where a young woman stood on the bank, distraught because she was unable to cross. The monks, as was the custom for the Buddhists, were not only sworn to celibacy but also not to touch or even look directly at a woman.
Without missing a beat, the teacher picked up the woman and carried her across the river. The novice monk was speechless in his embarrassment and shock. They continued their journey but didn’t speak for quite a long time. Finally, the novice monk spoke and asked how his elder could have broken his vows by touching that woman. The senior monk replied: “I put her down back at the river. Why are you still carrying her”?
The Principle of the Trap.
The problem is less in the objects or situations we crave, and more in what we believe about them and how we relate to them.
If we get the pleasure we pursue it leaves us satisfied for only a moment, and enchained to a new quest for what we believe will make us happy. And if we don’t get what we are pursuing, we are left doubly enchained first with our initial cravings, and then with our new dissatisfaction.
Remember
…Consider, for example, the word, “future.” One person is set on edge, another remains indifferent, and a third would sacrifice their “today” to reach it.
Silo_ Internal Landscape Chapter III
Worth Repeating:
Every phenomenon that makes suffering recede in others is registered as a valid action, as an act of unity in the one who carries it out.
Silo_ Internal Landscape Chapter X
Coming Up:
This document is meant as a support for our practice of focusing on one of the 12 Principles of Valid Action each month. Next week we will turn to principle 7, the principle of Immediate Action.
More to Come.
