“The best discipline is taming your mind stream.”

What are some of the remedies for taming the afflictions? Of course, wisdom in realising emptiness is the ultimate antidote to use, but since that one is more difficult, then we start with easier things.

If we start with attachment, the antidote they always give is remembering impermanence. We look at whatever it is we are attached to and think how this thing does not last very long, and how the pleasure we get from it does not last very long.

It is very interesting because we are attached to something and we say to ourselves, “Oh, the pleasure does not last very long, that is true. But I want it anyway.” Then we go for it. What is wrong with having some pleasure? The Buddha did not teach us that we should all suffer. He was an ascetic for six years and he realised that does not work. “Since he does not want us to suffer, so what is wrong with a little bit of pleasure?” That is what goes through our minds, right?

Before we can even apply the antidote of meditating on impermanence and before we can even get there, we should answer this question: “What is wrong with pleasure?” Well, the answer is, nothing is wrong with pleasure. Pleasure is not a problem. The problem is our craving, clinging, and attachment to that pleasure. Do not blame the pleasure but look at your own life and see what happens when you get attached to that pleasure. What goes on in your mind? What do you say? What do you do to get that pleasure? To get the object that you think gives you that pleasure?

What we really want is the pleasure. But we think that the pleasure is inherent in the object, so we transfer our attachment to the object, “I want that object because there is pleasure inside of it that I can get.” What we really want is the pleasure, but we put our attention on the object.

There are all sorts of things to look at here, we must go back and remember that there is nothing wrong with pleasure, but how does attachment cause problems?

Spend some time thinking about how your various attachments cause you problems. I am sure there is more than one thing you are attached to. We must get over this obstacle in our minds of, “Well, what’s wrong with pleasure?” It is not the pleasure. It is the attachment.

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