Understanding Pleasure

Some thoughts I jotted down on my subway ride this morning .... A little more on this rambling ... I want to observe a little closer what pleasure is and how it arises in the mind, and how this pleasure of the mind is identified with love. It’s also of importance for me to understand what pleasure is, both physically and emotionally, in order for me to use it as an object of meditation. When I look intimately at my life and those of the lives who are close to me, it is unquestionable that pleasure is the primary pursuit of our lives. Despite the denial and sacrifice, underlying is this sense of pleasure and self-gratification. Self-expression and self-fulfillment, as I mentioned in an earlier post, are just other forms of pleasure. We do, see, entertain certain things because the result is pleasurable and we avoid doing, seeing and entertaining certain things because the results are unpleasurable. This is not to say that pleasure is 'wrong', but to take notice of this pleasure pursuit and how, when that pleasure is obstructed or tested, fear emerges within us and out of that fear, aggression allows us to understand (learn) what pleasure is. Do you see how when you have your 'heart set' on something, and the fruits of your hard work do not bear, you feel upset? When your sweetheart does things that you like, you feel happy. But when that same sweetheart does things that annoy you, you no longer feel happy in that moment. Pleasure and pain are obvious dualities along our path. I see pleasure in looking at a beautiful sunset, a monarch butterfly gracefully crossing my path or in watching the white clouds pass by. I feel pleasure in the hugs of my children. Pleasure in eating that delicious choconola cookie from the Kensington Bakery. Pleasure in the scent of the flowers. Pleasure has so many forms. When this pleasure is preserved by thought, there is the counteraction of aggression and anger, born out of fear. When pleasure is held onto in the mind, we also hold onto that counteraction; we cannot have one without the other. Fairly obvious if it is observed. Thought gives substance to that pleasure of yesterday, it gives it life today and tomorrow. Now I unequivocally observe that pleasure is just another manifestation of the mind. The very life of pleasure is rooted in our personal biases, values, relationships, social conditioning. And when that is controlled or prevented, there is anger and aggression, which upon deeper investigation, is just another face of pleasure. So looking at the role pleasure has in my ‘loving’ relationships, I observe that anger and aggression are simply the other side of the coin. Through this observation, I see that pleasure really has no place at all. All these ‘feelings’, what would they be without the labelling of the mind? What would pleasure be if it had no name? If it was fresh and new and never felt before? If the mind couldn’t identify pleasure or pain with a past memory, I imagine, what would it be? It would simply be ... a part of who I am.