June 7, 2024
Principle 6. Pleasure. Second 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: How to Have Your Cake and Eat It Too.
This Time: To Eat or Not to Eat.
This Week:
Last week we considered the principle in general terms, we also looked at a traditional story related to the idea of pleasure. We considered its implications, whether it might be useful, and in what ways.
This week we will consider how it might have applied in our past. To help gain some new perspectives we will also play the game of Ask About It!
- Consider this principle in light of the past
-Play the game of Ask About It!
And let’s remember to stop now and then and give ourselves a moment of letting go and turning inward. No techniques. No fuss, no muss. Just, a moment.
At our next meeting we will discuss our observations, thoughts, and questions about it.
The Game of the Week.
What could be difficult about a game where you have almost nothing to do beyond listening? Why is it often so hard?
Don’t avoid giving yourself a real answer to that question.
The idea is simple: turn to someone and ask them what this principle might mean.
This will likely, include the difficult task of taking a little risk and overcoming your self-censorship.
Why so inhibited? What’s at stake?
Try it out. Simply say to a friend, your neighbour, family member, or some stranger on the street: “I’ve been discussing this saying with some friends, and everyone had a different take on it. What’s yours?”
Obviously, you don’t need to use those words. The point is to solicit their opinion, and then the hard part. You need to listen — even when they say, “I think that’s stupid”.
Remember, there’s four parts to the game. Each is important:
Ask. Shut up. Listen. Say Thanks.
Perhaps most importantly, if you find yourself with “no one to ask” it might be worthwhile considering how to help reweave the social fabric, beginning in your immediate environment.
In that context you might try an experiment. Seek out non-virtual situations where you are in contact with others. Organize “a meet your neighbours” or street party.
Volunteer for a cause you support. Re-build or deepen your relationships. Give someone a hand. Open yourself up. Take a Chance. Do something you like but do it with others.
Enjoy.
General Considerations and Personal Reflections
Here’s somethings I was thinking about:
One simple way to get started is to recall 2 or 3 examples of when you did (or didn’t) apply the principle and the consequences that followed. Personally, I don’t have any difficulty in coming up with any number of examples where my pursuit of (what I imagined would bring me pleasure) left me stuck with disappointment, disillusionment, or unwanted consequences. Sound familiar?
And what about the second part of the principle that reminds us to enjoy without inhibition when the opportunity presents itself?
The more I work with the principles the more I’m struck by just what a rich resource they are. One thing that has become increasingly clear to me is the benefit of looking at the principles as riddles, or clues to a puzzle, rather than morals or rules. This approach leads to a dynamic meditation which, I believe, can help us construct a style of life that embodies a very particular mental direction.
This month’s principle provides us with a wonderful opportunity to consider once again how the principles need to be understood as a whole.
We are currently considering the pursuit of pleasure and its consequences, next month will widen it beyond pleasure to the pursuit of any end. For now, we consider how we can approach the pleasures we desire in a liberating and satisfying way — restricting ourselves in the most minimal fashion possible (i.e., “If you do not harm your health enjoy without inhibition”). Later we’ll take a broader approach to what actions are “allowed” (e.g., “If you do not harm anyone you may freely do whatever you like”), and we’ll discover a way to advance on our goals without pursuing them and without enchainment (“If everything you do is realized as an end in itself you liberate yourself”). For this week we will keep a narrower focus, even though (as always) that means we will be left with further questions to explore.
On a previous occasion I was asked why I thought that “pursuing pleasure would enchain me to suffering”. It struck me at the time as a very good question, and it still does. After all, isn’t one of the most basic facts about all living beings, that we move away from pain and toward pleasure. That seems to be a matter of definition. And why shouldn’t we obtain pleasure and avoid pain. It seems like a great idea. In mulling over the principle, I couldn’t help but note that that the principle isn’t saying that pleasure is bad or to be avoided. Nor is the principle focused on the value of the pleasure I’m pursuing. It doesn’t say you “are allowed” these pleasures but not those, except to say, “If you do not harm your health enjoy without inhibition…” Later in the next principles it will add further clarification about this point. But for now, this principle puts the focus more on the approach we take in regard pleasure, that is on the pursuit, rather than on the object of our desire. So here it seems it’s not a matter of what turns you on but on how you relate to that pleasure.
Some philosophers call it the paradox of hedonism which Wikipedia explains this way: “…constant pleasure-seeking may not yield the most actual pleasure or happiness in the long run—or even in the short run, when consciously pursuing pleasure interferes with experiencing it.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_hedonism).
Here’s Victor Frankl’s take on this idea from his book Man’s Search for Meaning:
“Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.
And here’s my take: In practice, we seem to confuse pleasure and happiness (and desire and fulfillment, and pain and suffering, etc).
According to merriam-webster.com pur·sued pur·su·ing
Full Definition of PURSUE transitive verb
1: to follow in order to overtake, capture, kill, or defeat
2: to find or employ measures to obtain or accomplish: seek <pursue a goal>
I think we can agree that to pursue something is not to encounter it, or enjoy it, but to have it as something to be obtained or accomplished. It is in front of me, as something to be reached, something that calls me or drives me or demands my attention. Almost by definition I’m locked into, dependent on or, enchained to it. If I don’t get it I’ll be unhappy, or at best disappointed. My expectation is that if I reach the object of my desire, I’ll be happy or at least satisfied. But is that what happens? Certainly not in my experience. Consider this an invitation to compare it to your own.
When I think about the desires, I’ve pursued it’s pretty clear to me that either my attempt to attain what I sought is frustrated, or I attain it and find myself dissatisfied, disappointed, and stuck with the consequences. Think of that tempting cake from last week’s story (or the ice cream, or whatever it is that entices you). The problem isn’t eating it, or not; it seems to me that the point is that my internal state is enchained to a cake! It feels very differently when I “enjoy without inhibition when the opportunity presents itself.”
Remember
Over time the attempt to use the principles as an ongoing meditation in daily life will give all my activities a particular tone, mood, and mental direction. The importance of this cannot be overstated.
Worth Repeating:
We will be in agreement when you say, “I choose this just cause because I reject suffering! I want this because it brings me tranquillity, and I reject that because it disturbs me or makes me violent.”
Silo_ The Internal Landscape II:III
Coming up:
Next week we’ll continue with the Principle 6, also known as the principle of pleasure. We will be focusing on how this principle might have impacted our present situations.
Note:
These notes have been posted on Facebook and sent to our email list, and, on my website www.dzuckerbrot.com
Next…
