Limitations of Sensual Pleasures
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before Jan 12, 2017
MiBeloved 3 years ago
This is from the Knowing and Seeing by Master Sayadaw:
Check the bold print but read it to get the context.
Questions & Answers 4 (page 140-141)
Question 4.1: Is a bodhisatta, including Arimetteyya bodhisatta, a worldling (puthujjana)? If Arimetteyya bodhisatta is a worldling like us, then at the time for him to come down to become Metteyya Buddha, what is the difference between the conditions for him to become a Buddha and for us?
Answer 4.1: the difference is that his pàramãs have matured, like for our Sakyamuni Buddha as the bodhisatta Prince Siddhattha. Such bodhisattas will for many live have been fulfilling their pàramãs, such as the pàramãs of generosity (dàna-pàramã), virtue (sãla-pàramã), lovingkindness (mettà-pàramã), and wisdom (pa¤¤à-pàramã). Although they enjoy sensual pleasures, their matured pàramãs push them on to renounce the world. In the last life of every bodhisatta, he marries and has a son; this is a law of nature. I forget the names of Metteyya bodhisatta’s wife and son. According to the Theravàda Tipiñaka, no arahant including the Buddha is reborn after his Parinibbàna. Parinibbàna is the end of his round of rebirths. They will not be reborn anywhere.
Take our Sakyamuni bodhisatta: in his last life, before his enlightenment, he was a worldling. How? When he was sixteen years old, he became prince Siddhattha and married princess Yasodharà. They had a son. He enjoyed sensual pleasures for more than thirteen years. He did not have five hundred 140 female deities on his left, and five hundred female deities on his right, but was surrounded by twenty thousand princesses. This is kàmasukhallikanuyogo: enjoyment of sensual pleasures, or indulgence in sensual pleasures.
After he had renounced those sensual pleasures, he practised self-mortifications in the Uruvela forest. After six years of this futile practice, he abandoned it, practised the middle way, and before long, attained enlightenment. After his enlightenment, in his first sermon, the Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta (Turning the Wheel of Dhamma), he proclaimed:
‘…kàmesu kàmasukhallikanuyogo hãno, gammo, puthujjaniko, anariyo, anatthasaÿhito.’: ‘this enjoyment of sensual pleasures is inferior (hãno), the practice of villagers (gammo), the practice of worldlings (puthujjaniko); it is not the practice of the enlightened ones (anariyo); this practice cannot produce any benefit such as Path, Fruition, and Nibbàna (anatthasaÿhito).’
So, in his first sermon the Buddha proclaimed that anyone who enjoys sensual pleasures is a worldling. When he was still a bodhisatta, he too had enjoyed sensual pleasures, that is, with Yasodharà in the palace. At that time, he too was a worldling, because enjoyment of sensual pleasures is the practice of a worldling.
This is not only for our bodhisatta, but for every bodhisatta. There may be many bodhisattas here among the present audience. You should consider this carefully: are these bodhisattas here worldlings or noble ones (ariya)? I think you may know the answer.
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MiBeloved's Comment:
There is more of this and it gives insight into the real Buddhist process as compared to what we are told about Buddhism by others. This is directly from the Pali canons and by a teacher who has no motivation to see something cheap as the Buddhist process.
It begs the question as to why the sensual pleasures which are highlighted by sexual pleasure, cannot be serviceable for liberation. Also notice that the term anariyo was used also by Krishna when he condemned Arjuna as not acting as an elevated human being (arya).
