Generating Desire
November 28, 2008
Part of the definition of right concentration is that you seclude your mind from sensual thoughts, from sensual obsessions, and it’s not easy. The mind likes to spend a lot of time planning sensual pleasures. A man once came to see Ven. Ananda and said, “I hear that the monks, even the young ones, train their minds to put aside sensual passion, sensual thoughts, sensual plans. I don’t believe that. How can that be?” So Ananda took him to see the Buddha, and the Buddha said, “Well, even when I was a young monk it wasn’t easy. My heart didn’t leap at the idea of giving up sensual passions. But I realized that for the mind to gain stillness, to gain a sense of solidity, it would have to put sensual passion, sensual ideas aside, at least for the time being.”