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Pleasure: recapturing the experience of yesterday

skyblack June 08, 2021 at 20:18 1425 views 5 comments
I had posted couple of comments about happiness on this thread. Maybe one can look briefly at the distinction OP had made between pleasure and joy.

When one looks at a cloud, a leaf, a mountain with a sprawling green valley, a nice art piece, drives a finely tuned sports car and so on one gets a pleasure. But evidently that isn’t enough for us. We want to carry it over to the next day, the next week, the next year and so on. The search for continuity has now begun, with all the hysteric effort that goes into it. Then, if having failed in securing the better quality pleasures, the neurotic and corrupt mind starts to pursue pleasure in perverse ways such as hurting self and others, drugs and alcohol etc. This in brief is the movement of pleasure as observed in our human environment. If one looks deeper they will find this movement of pleasure and seeking its continuity is rooted in biology. For most it’s either directly or indirectly a form of biological sensation.

But joy on the other hand is not mere sensation. It requires extraordinary refinement of the heart and the mind, but not the refinement of a burdened accumulating mind that is trying to gather more and more to itself. It’s not the pursuit of dead memory of a pleasure from yesterday. It cannot be sought in the dead imprint of a sunset, as an example. Joy isn’t derived from memory but is immediately available to the innocent mind. It’s there in the flight of a bird, in a beautiful child, so on and so forth. It seems Joy needs a sensitive mind. A mind that is able to see and respond to beauty, to ugliness, to everything that comes into its vision without the burdens of the past.

Comments (5)

ArguingWAristotleTiff June 09, 2021 at 13:58 #548275
Reply to skyblack
What is the joyful experience that comes to your mind first when I asked just now?
Interestingly when I ask myself that question I am taken back to a time when my family consisted of my brother, my Mom and I. It was really hard on the house emotionally and it began to rain just as I was leaving to go to the next door neighbor which crushed me because I thought for sure Mom would say no.
When she saw my sadness at the rain she put her shoes on to walk me over and I said but you are going to get wet. She said no I won't, I am going to dance between the raindrops.
Lovely memory :flower:
Thank you for joining The Philosophy Forum and enjoy your stay~
skyblack June 09, 2021 at 15:49 #548306
@ArguingWAristotleTiff

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff
What is the joyful experience that comes to your mind first when I asked just now?
Interestingly when I ask myself that question I am taken back to a time when my family consisted of my brother, my Mom and I. It was really hard on the house emotionally and it began to rain just as I was leaving to go to the next door neighbor which crushed me because I thought for sure Mom would say no.
When she saw my sadness at the rain she put her shoes on to walk me over and I said but you are going to get wet. She said no I won't, I am going to dance between the raindrops.
Lovely memory :flower:
Thank you for joining The Philosophy Forum and enjoy your stay~


Thank you.
skyblack June 10, 2021 at 00:56 #548427
Behold the sincere seeker looking for the treasure of nothing-ness in the desolate ruins. If he 'has to' seek then he seeks without the aid of reasoning, for intellect is incapable to see the beginnings and the endings of things; so, logically one gives up looking. There is the perception of the incapacity to perceive perception, therefore one knows that one doesn't know. Then the flowering of humility.

Note: An unrelated musing...
praxis June 11, 2021 at 01:29 #548846
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Nils Loc June 12, 2021 at 00:35 #549203
If a Bodhi meets you in the wilds of Alaska become taller by picking up a log. Talk the Bodhi away with a loud confident voice. You could say: "shoo Bodhi, shoo". The typical advice is never to run from a Bodhi quickly, causing a stir. Casually disappear yourself from a Bodhi's presence, with a slow and cautious grace.