The Hierarchy of Pleasures in Early Buddhism

[@DougsDharma]

🧡 If you find benefit in my videos, consider supporting the channel by joining us on Patreon and get fun extras like exclusive videos, ad-free audio-only versions, and extensive show notes: www.patreon.com/dougsseculardharma 🙂 📙 You can find my book here: books2read.com/buddhisthandbook

[@gorgzilla1712]

This is another video that has changed my perspective! Previously I didn’t really understand Buddha’s warnings about pleasure (his views sounded like a buzz kill to me, and it made me feel guilty about experiencing pleasures). But now I realize that: 1. The more extreme passages on the dangers of pleasures were taught to monastics. Their goal is complete liberation, while my goal is making my life more peaceful and skillful within my lay context 2. In that context, I believe that sense pleasures are still dangerous since they can lead to extremes of thought and action that lead to suffering in myself and others. One need only look at many rich and powerful people throughout history who had the power to pursue all sorts of pleasures and so they pursued pleasures that were increasingly extreme and unethical. In addition, all sense pleasures, while nice, are impermanent and often decrease the more we pursue them. It’s ultimately a little foolish to model a life around the pursuit of pleasure. That doesn’t mean I should be guilty about obtaining and to some degree pursuing certain pleasures. As a lay person, I should take the Middle Way in all I do Thanks a lot for this vid, it got me thinking and blew my mind a little bit (it’s happened more than once with this channel!)

[@DougsDharma]

Great, glad to hear it Gorgzilla! 🙏

[@xiaomaozen]

This video is so splendid that I have no words to express my appreciation - except of the words that I have no words, of course. 😁🙏

[@DougsDharma]

Thank you so much, xiao mao! 😀

[@Giantcrabz]

The ultimate pleasure is when a new Doug's Dharma or Esoterica video drops :D

[@DougsDharma]

😆😆

[@mitrabuddhi]

Hello Doug! I learn a lot from your videos. Thank you for sharing wisdom.

[@DougsDharma]

You are very welcome!

[@davegorman2837]

Great video thank you Doug- plenty to think about and I’d never thought of the jhanas like that before.

[@DougsDharma]

My pleasure!

[@midooley543]

So much clarity. Thank you for the effort you put into this.

[@DougsDharma]

My pleasure!

[@patrickdrazen2031]

My "take" on this hierarchy--the progression from happiness to equanimity---was actually restated in western terms by Kipling in lines from his poem "If"; specifically, "If you can meet with triumph and disaster/and treat those two imposters both the same..."

[@DougsDharma]

Yes, it's a similar point for sure.

[@saralamuni]

All the joy the world contains has come through wishing happiness for others. All the misery the world contains has come through wanting pleasure for oneself.

[@knightsremains]

Aren't there times when doing what is best for others pleasurable to ourselves or that doing what is best for ourselves also benefit others? Growing our own garden can lessen the impact we have the industrial food network. Can't both scenarios be true?

[@saralamuni]

@@knightsremains yes I don’t see why not

[@calvinsadewa3326]

Road to hell is paved with good intentions

[@middlewayers]

Doug you have really improved your presentation over the time..I think you should remake some of the key topics like Fetter of Views and Fetter of theories.

[@DougsDharma]

Thanks, yes I'll definitely consider it, I did a video not too long ago on the parable of the raft where I discussed some of that: kzbin.info/www/bejne/apmnnnl8jbmSqck

[@nathanjiggens3859]

Youre Awesome man!!

[@DougsDharma]

Thanks so much! 😄

[@buddhasanskar4535]

Love you from India 💗💖

[@DougsDharma]

🙏😊

[@mikewright3633]

Thank you 🙏

[@DougsDharma]

My pleasure, Mike!

[@knightsremains]

Doug thank you for your channel. I have watched so many of your videos for a while. Your channel has been instrumental to my understanding and development of a more grounded inward assessment. I sometimes hold back on claiming to be a Buddhist because of the implications of a label. In any way I thank you for your teachings and explanations. Now for the question, Could the grasping to achieve ideal Buddhist perfection be causing me unintentional suffering? There are some pleasures of my environment that appear to sustain my well-being. I enjoy caring for and displaying my bonsai, as well as some miniature cars that I acquired over years, or some books that inspire me. What happens when we are inspired by, creatively or in a soothing way, the physical objects around us?

[@DougsDharma]

Hi Eigh Gee, great question. I feel the same way about some of the things around me. If you aren't ready to let them go, that's part of the process. Just practice with that "not ready" mind! We are, after all, laypeople and not monastics. If and when you are ready, it will happen. Meanwhile use this all as something to investigate and understand. 🙏

[@knightsremains]

@@DougsDharma Wow, I really appreciate that!

[@EkantBhairab]

happy Baishaakh purnima, wish you all well on the occasion❤

[@DougsDharma]

🙏😊

[@mf1823]

Mmhm. This reminded me of my trance experience at a Gnawa spiritual healing ritual in Marocco. I felt heavenly pleasure flowing from above through me and called it sweet like sugar In my language (German) Zucker. Zucker is almost pronounced like sukha. At the end of the ritual they broke an immense rock of sugar in pieces and distributed them to the hundreds of participants.

[@DougsDharma]

Interesting, thanks!

[@archiekennedy4741]

Would pleasure be a problem if we were not attached to it?

[@DougsDharma]

Pleasure wouldn't be a problem if it didn't condition attachment, but it does, at least for most of us. An enlightened person, or so it's said, can notice pleasure without attachment. And to that extent, for the enlightened person there is no danger in pleasure.

[@user-Void-Star]

Are you the guy who can take pleasure without Being attached to it!? Then Vajrayana vehicle is for you.

[@imean1589]

hey, is it possible for you to talk about eating meat? btw love your videos

[@DougsDharma]

Thanks! I did a video awhile back on that general topic in early Buddhism: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qGbSn5aGeZydgdE

[@imean1589]

@@DougsDharma thx

[@chelseamoss3379]

Hi! I have chronic anxiety and my thoughts are very obsessive and I'm having a really bad time at the moment. I have a therapist and I'm also on medication, just waiting for it to work. I was wondering if you could help me.... I've started looking into mindfulness and I find that as I go about my day I try to focus a little more on my senses, what I can smell, taste, hear, just as I'm going along. Even if it's just feeling the fabric of my top, or a bannister. I try to let my thoughts float about in my head and not pay too much attention to them. Is it OK for me to practice this? I'm anxious continuously at the moment and my thoughts are on a loop. When I feel my feet on the ground, or even when I'm talking to my husband I'll feel something in my hand like a hair bobble just to focus gently on that whilst doing stuff. Is this okay or am I going about it all the wrong way and being TOO mindful?? I have an over-active imagination and could really use some advice. Thank you

[@DougsDharma]

I would say your practice sounds fine, it's normal to have such thoughts in meditation, just observe them and let them go. It would also probably be good for you to find an experienced meditation instructor near you that can help guide.

[@jaydenclowers2616]

Great video

[@DougsDharma]

Thanks so much, Jayden. 🙏

[@Erime]

Thanks Doug. What about Socrates and his eudaimonia? 🤔 Modern western science seems to often equate it with 'flow state' - which is framed as 'lacking self/egolessness', 'timeless,' and 'being in the present'. In the Apology, Socrates calls flowing in his elenchus "the greatest good" - what I assume it's the old 'time flies when having fun' - chatting with friends or explicitly engaged in deep philosophical discussion. But flow state is also well-known to only be considered pleasurable AFTER one has come out of it. Could the 'pleasure' of nirvana be more like this in nature, I wonder? Just liberated from ego, time, and past and future - flowing continually in a kind of positive, congruent way... It seems to tick the boxes.

[@DougsDharma]

Yes that’s one possible interpretation, I’ve suggested the same in some past videos, that nirvāna can be seen as eudaimonia. Though I think for the ancient Greeks eudaimonia was seen as more active and productive than nirvana is supposed to be within an early Buddhist understanding. That said, the enlightened person may be active and productive in a eudaimonic sense too.

[@Erime]

@@DougsDharma that's very interesting, thanks. I will try to go back and see which videos I've missed. Yes, from what I've read the eudaimonia seems to be more akin to a kind of 'engaged Buddhism' attitude. But Gautama was often framed as "the world's physician," right? 🤔. So he certainly had his 'work' cut out for him. Although I do recall he had no apparent intent to teach at first. He had made some promises to 'classmates' that he'd go back and tell them if he found the key to liberation, and things apparently snowballed from there.

[@MrDesoto33]

Intelligence in the animal kingdom is measured by "recognition of the latter reward". Humans are the same but the "ananda" - bliss has been removed by removing the highest teaching from practices towards enlightenment/God realization. The King in all of Yoga asanas is the headstand and going back to ancient Egypt you can see the serpents coming out of the heads of the Pharoahs. Looking at the symbol of the AMA (American Medical Association) we see the two serpents wrapped around a pole in an upward spiral into wings. This is the primal energy pattern of the human form with the two serpents representing inga and pingala spiraling upwards along the sushuma (spine) until they "fly with the Buddhas Eagle symbolized by the wings. The ancients learned an ancient practice going back as far as recorded history that is "One who practices the headstand 3 hours a day will surely attain enlightenment " - experience OM. These two currents reach the crown chakra slowly opening it over years until in about 10-15 minutes one day the heartbeat will be felt inside of the crown chakra about the size of dime right in the center. It's a pleasant tingling sensation that gets wider and wider over the 10-15 minutes pulsating (vibrating with the heartbeat. This pleasant tingling pulsating (vibrating) sensation will turn into a steady frequency with the pleasant tingling sensation consuming the ordinary feeling (no feeling) in the crown chakra (no more vibrating- a transfer into the steady tingling sensation) whereupon there's a rush of pleasure as in "it feels so good you can't stand it" - and Zen OM. This chakra is where the soul lies dormant and only The King (headstand) can open (awaken) it. It's like a vapor merging with a cloud. Reminds of a book title "The cloud of unknowing". It's the best from a pleasure perspective that th person has ever felt or even imagined it was possible to feel that good (excruciating pleasure). Meditation is the most condusive practice to accompany this practice in that it breaks us out of ordinary mundane knee jerk sensory actions/reactions preparing us for this experience of non-ordinary reality....Absolute Reality in formlessness merged (Yoga- Union with OM - God). In the beginning was the Word and that Word is OM. My personal take on this ancient teaching is that it reverse engineers the basic primal energy pattern of the human form into the primordial state called OM, yet calling it anything is part of speech which is part of the human form amounting to anthropomorphisizing God. It can only be experienced in formlessness via our/the formless soul and is beyond comprehension/knowing hence "The cloud of unknowing ". We can peek at it although it's sight beyond the eyes and sound beyond the eyes and mind beyond the mind. Violent energy of one type or another...wars etc has put this ancient teaching on the highest classification of "Top Secret " but I read this in a book (couldn't afford the book that day but leafed through some pages at a bookstore so I don't know the title or author) so I am under no oath of secrecy to a guru or master. Those secrets are sometimes kept with a death oath. The thundering OM sound is why Christs top 3 disciples (Peter,James and John) are nicknamed the "sons of thunder ". Christ showed them OM via this ancient teaching using the cross as a headstand prop (probably with a cloth across the horizontal part) as did Moses with the ANKH. These things are not coincidental that the Jewish Yamika (beanie on their heads) is exactly how OM/YHWH/ALLAH/Tao/voice of many waters etc. is experienced via the soul awakening from it's dormant state in the crown chakra. As Moses raised the serpent so must the son of man be raised....AMA symbol...Kundalini Yoga. Great videos I will remember to drop you a few bucks later. Namaste. People have started fighting over possession of this ancient teaching. The pineal gland also is increased 2-5 times as well as no one practicing the headstand for 3 minutes a day only has ever been recorded to have a heart attack...I think stroke too.

[@kailam1679]

#Question: How would the concept of Happiness from the "Power of Now" by Eckart Tolle fit into the Buddhist hierarchy of pleasures? (It is about the happiness of just being in the moment) Is it comparable to one of the Jhanas?

[@DougsDharma]

I'm not sure, Kai. I don't think he's talking about jhāna, which after all is a deep state of meditative absorption.

[@zzzzhu9427]

I'm a beginner but Zen Buddhism seems to be all about living in this moment, with no pre-judgement but just to be, which is true happiness. In that sense it is very consistent with "power of now".

[@DavidRandallCurtis]

Great video as always. Hope you are doing okay post fire...

[@DougsDharma]

Thanks David, yes we're doing fine. Repairs are continuing!

[@buddharuci2701]

Doug, I think perhaps the English word pleasure doesn’t serve us when we use it to describe everything from eating delicious ice cream right up to the fourth formless jhana and even nibbana. We need a more precise vocabulary. IMHO.

[@DougsDharma]

I get where you're going, but the Pāli word "sukha" that we find in the suttas is equally vague.

[@polarisgemini52]

Question unrelated to the video: Are you aware of any secular Buddhist who has taken monkhood? Is that something that you have personally considered? I sure have!

[@DougsDharma]

I mentioned the possibility of having a secular monasticism in a past video, it's an interesting idea but I'm not aware of anyone who's really done it. I'm not sure if it would be really possible within current Theravāda monastic structures at least. But worth considering, for sure!

[@szymborska]

The jhanas existed in yogic practices before the Buddha though, no? The innovation is that the highest Jhana is emptiness, not a variety of God worship, as it had been taught beforehand.

[@DougsDharma]

Well the formless attainments certainly existed before the Buddha, since they were taught to him. As to whether the jhānas did, that's a matter of controversy. Some scholars claim they did, and indeed that they were necessary to attain the formless attainments. Others disagree. So I can't really say for sure!

[@szymborska]

Interesting, there will always be some mystery to the history of these methods- thanks! 🙏♥️

[@romantsar8344]

dough, i know you’d believe in the doctrine of reincarnation and i don’t either. but to get a better understanding of buddhist teachings, clinging leads to rebirth so which first? the clinging or consciousness? i understand that the belief at the time was that there has always been people and that the world always was but there were other buddhas leading people to nirvana and there’s still people here so the point still stands.

[@DougsDharma]

Thanks for the question RomanTsar, I would simply say that right now as we stand, there is both clinging and consciousness, so that’s what we have to deal with. How do we lessen dukkha?

[@saralamuni]

My good friend, what you need is ānanda, not sukha.

[@MrGregjur]

You mean ananda which is a term from Vedanta Philosophy? It's beyond Buddhists' dukha and sukha? Can we say what's left in fourth jhana in ananda? Just thinking.

[@saralamuni]

@@MrGregjur yes, and coincidentally the Buddha’s attendant 😁

[@默-c1r]

🙏

[@DougsDharma]

🙏😊

[@isaacgreenough6002]

❤️

[@yhseow]

It is difficult for me to understand how sense pleasure such as enjoying a little music, good food and nice scenery could be so fearful. I guess the problem is when one identifies with that pleasure and assumes ownership of that experience. As those experiences are circumstantial and conditioned, identifying with them signifies that one is doomed to suffer right from the start.

[@DougsDharma]

That's right, it's that we get attached to them. The pleasures themselves aren't the problem.

[@kisstheflowers]

Yeah I think as we cultivate a more skillful mindset & try our best to be aware of our attachment we can indulge in the pleasures life has to offer without unnecessary craving

[@5piles]

its fearful cos it necessarily functions to cause desire for future pleasure. eventually conditions will arise in which ones seeking for pleasure due to habits of the past will lead one to longterm doom.

[@magicaree]

The lower pleasure grow into hell as you come closer to the death. The higher pleasures grow even more pleasurable as you come closer to death. This is why we should always prepare for death!!

[@DougsDharma]

🙏😊

[@limjian7638]

Stop using the word "pleasure", instead, teach the word Sukha as "feeling good". In English we have distinctions on different kinds of feel good i.e. pleasure, happiness, peace, excitement etc, I could be wrong but in Sanskrit/Pali, there is not So simple teach the different types of feeling good.

[@DougsDharma]

"Pleasure" is one standard translation for the word "sukha".

[@frankbraker]

He discusses pleasures, then lures the viewer into supporting him with the promise of "goodies"! :) Hmmm... just what sort of goodies could these be? Hour and hours of complete silence?

[@DougsDharma]

🤣

[@iallalli5223]

Hi Doug Dharmachakka sutta has all. But today's that sutta is polluted one. That sutta has the 4th jhana. And the 4th jhana has that sutta. When Doug understand the 4th jhana then Doug had eaten the formless jhana already. The word body in 4 jhanas is Dharmabody not ristricted to physical one. the Body contains whole time space sky earth human and god also. The 4 noble truth each is always Nirvana not different. So suffering is just Nirvana such is noble truth. There is the word of God from Moses, I am who I am. When Doug eat that rightly, then Doug shall say, I am whatever I am! Enjoy happy together.

[@sitlyfeniase3742]

sadhu

[@DougsDharma]

🙏😊

[@MassiveLib]

Tea