Pleasure & Pain
July 31, 2012
We’re practicing the middle way—between indulgence in sensuality on one side and self-torture on the other—but it’s best to think of the middle way as not lying on a continuum halfway between those two points. In other words, we’re not here doing a little bit of pain, a little bit of pleasure, pursuing middling pleasure and middling pain. We’re trying to find a state where there is no pain or pleasure. As we practice the path to that state, we’re actually trying to raise ourselves above the continuum, because the continuum on one side, takes sensual pleasure as an end in itself, and the other side sees pain as being something inherently good. Instead, the Buddha wants you to use pleasure and pain for something that’s even better.