Of Pleasure & Appreciation - milestone!

Finally I'm regaining a lost wisdom and maybe the time has come not to be so hard on the body. There is no body/mind dualism yet I have argued very much against the value of the body and very much for the value of spirituality. There is no material/spiritual dualism either but how do we bring these two together? A clue lies in this...

I had the good fortune to consider the very good cooking of a the grandmother of the boy I am currently tutoring. I am always very appreciative of food, it is always a blessing. It occurred to me that appreciating the food is the very best way to say thank you. Thus the physical pleasure and spiritual gratitude are one! Examine this very closely! When we experience something as a gift, something that is given to us and for which we are fortunate, then the pleasure we experience is fully wholesome and at the same time a gift in return.

In contrast I described the pleasure that a pig might have experienced with the same meal. Or in reflection a dog. The dog devours the food and comes back attentively looking for more. As spiritual beings we confuse this enjoyment and the patiently waiting to be fed as a form of gratitude. The dog seems to recognise that we are the giver of the food; food it deserves only when it is given, and the hasty devouring of the food we take as an expression of enjoyment. This characterists make the dog, and a similar pig, very endearing companions. I question however that we aren't anthropomorphising a bit. There is no 'thank you' from a dog. It either has food or it doesn't. It either likes the food or it doesn't. This does not mean that a hungry dog does not deserve our generosity but the nature of the relationship I doubt it very spiritual.

Sadly humans are all too animal: myself included. How often do we engorge a fast food meal hastily without a seconds appreciation: either stopping to appreciate the gift we are now in possession of, or even stopping to just physically enjoy the food! We are the pig, no more and no less. (This is the pig character in the Chinese Buddhist tale of Monkey King.)

Now I have been aware of this spiritual "requirement" of gratitude and appreciation for many years. It is odd however that I was far more thankful before gaining this wisdom. "Trying" to appreciate things is impossible. Why? Because the cause of non-gratitude is amongst other things greed. After last nights discussion and a few years struggling with this I return to a state resembling gratitude at last, because I am curing my greed.

What was the greed? It seems to be a feature of humans that we have limits. I am very quixotic and am careless about my limits. I will be generous until I have almost nothing left. Then in the resulting state of poverty there is a reaction and an uncontrollable demand for things. This demand turns us into animals and our awareness of the world turns inside out. It is no longer about the world but about us - what I can get.

A moments thought tells us that we can't get anything without a world about us that can supply us with those things. We might try vainly to argue that we deserve something because we put in the years of work required to earn it. But even if we built a house we needed the raw materials. Even if we made all the bricks ourself we need the fuel to fire the furnace. Even if we made the furnace from raw materials and collected all the fuel ourselves we still have nature (or the universe) to thank for supplying us with these things. Stuck adrift in space all the work in the universe won't get us very far! In every breath there "should" be gratitude.

Yet when we are impoverished, when there is that inner demand then no argument makes any difference. We want, I want - this is all that matters. Any attempt to calm ourselves but self-control or abstinence simply makes the demand stronger. We suffer. This is the karma for greed, the suffering that is built into it.

Note here also the arch-sin of all: ego. It is not just demand that matters like a dog's wish for a biscuit. It is demand for things for "myself". That is what gives this demand special power and magic. At root when the demand is not met then it is not the need that is left, but the hurt "I" experience because I have not been realised or appreciated or allowed to exist. When the world shuns "my" need then I am pushed backwards into that cold, dark corner from where I peer out at the world around and wish that it was me out there.

Note also that the every nature of "want" is built upon a belief that we are on one side and the things we want are on the other and the only way to resolve this is to get the things we want onto our side. The sages will point out that the easiest way to get things onto our side is to knock down the wall so that our side and the other side are the same. Maybe unknown to Pink Floyd they wrote an opera that tackles the sickness at the root of all evils: The Wall. Mistakes people make however are either to struggle to get things onto our side, or worst of all travel to the other side. In both scenario is a life of struggle. Bad enough for inanimate things: consider the endless problems when two people are trying to get each other onto their side! Had that experience at work. I for one don't go to other peoples sides. They either join mine or that is the end of it: recipe for difficulty!!

So how did I get to this place? A major component was "my muse". In that extended experience I took the erroneous logic of greed and ego to its conclusion. I made her mine. I believed she was on my side. At the same time I was no so bad as to insist she joined me, I just waited until such time as she did. Even after her death I still wanted to believe she might be on my side - in some phantasmogorical way. A change has happened that preceeds what I write here. A few days ago I realised that I no longer wish her to reappear: if she did great, but i won't wait for that day. She is no longer on my side. I no longer believe she is. Writing this reminds me of that gr8 scene in "Meet the Fockers" - the bloke wakes us to find a simple note from De Niro on his chest: a drawn circle called "circle of trust" and a spot outside it called "him". "my muse" is finally outside the circle of trust. This is not an enlightened position - where all walls and circles are dissolved. My circle of trust still exists but I'm waking up.

So the situation left me desiring sexual and spiritual gratification from someone outside myself (obviously). This sets both them and myself up as real solid things. Then the self gets shitted on from a great height because the world just won't deliver. So the self becomes a non-self (negative self) because it exists only to be denied what it wants - it even exists now because it doesn't get what it wants. The body complains and the desire stops being a wish and becomes a demand. Then it is game over. No girl - no one - ever gave into a demand. Neither do I give into demands from myself and I ran away.

But once the demand is there enormous damage has been done. The self is inside out seeking desperately sustainance and looking only to the outside world for it. There can be no gratitude and no appreciation of what it taken, we have become the pig. This is greed, we are doomed to suffer.

After a long time, when suffering has been experienced and somewhere something that is perceived as fortune breaks through then we might calm down the grasping hand and look at the world more peacefully. In my case it has been the wonderful food I have received at the house of a tutee. Suddenly there is the realisation that we are grateful. Then there is pleasure and appreciation in one. Then we see a harmony between body and spirit, between self and world.

Does this solve the issue of sexuality and relationship? In one sense no because the economic struggle that is a western family is not something anyone should have to suffer. People from the generation before me and before that are endlessly bitter about the world they grew up in. Basically they have been economically exploited. The state has exploited them in wars. Now the economy exploits them again as it struggles with the tsunami of debt that has got to be paid (its not a credit crunch at all). Their's has been a very tough world somewhere the world should show them some gratitude. But it doesn't mean that we all have to carry on like this.

On the other hand this does solve the issue. In a loving relationship the experience of sexual joy is proper when we experience it as a way of saying thank you to our partner. What has had me confused is that I am aware of another type of sexual gratification: that of greed. In this case the pleasure is internal, exploitative and without regard for the "giving" that is essential in the experience. It is not that fopr example pornography by itself is bad: there is an industry of people who are giving visual stimulation. It is bad when the recipient of pleasure does not appreciate the people involved in that experience. Thus even in some bondage it could be argued it is not bad when it is mutual. The problem is that experiences such as porn and bondage where the boundaries between people are so extreme it opens the door to careless exploitation of people and pleasure that is divorced from gratitude.

The culture points its finger at pornography but there are equal examples of pleasure without gratitude throughout the society. From fast food, to service industry, to the concept of human resources and art collectors. In all these cases the lines between people are enlarged. The whole idea of quick eating is underwritten by the concept of carelessness and indifference. People expecting other people to do things for them for money is nothing more than prostitution. Human resources is an abomination I don't need to explain. Collecting art for its financial value is cynical and probably the main reason for the implosion of post-modern art - there is no pleasure and no gratitude in a canvas hidden in someone's warehouse as capital.

So this exp0sition hits the nail on the head of what is wrong with the economy and brings me happily back to earth where I left it all those years before meeting "my muse". The exposition of my own faults of greed and ego has run its course I now hope and I can return with the warning - all ye who enter on that path adandon all hope. A great man is a man who follows his greater part, a lesser man one who follows his lesser path. In return the greater path is one of pleasure and gratitude as one indivisible entity: body and mind, matter and spirit as one.

The problem with the economy is that people and the world are the horse that drives the cart of industry with its wheels of money. When the cart comes before the horse - as we are now experiencing - when politicians and business men make "financial" decision rather than "human" decisions they become pigs (as G. Orwell noted) and pleasure (for that is what all economy at root creates) becomes more important than gratitude. It is the value of things that starts to drive the world, and the appreciation for what we are given becomes an after thought. Then this comical horse walking backwards with its owners looking over their shoulders as the cart careers along the road is a sight for the wise to laugh long and loud about - but with due gratitude for the clowns who have so entertained them.