Pleasure and Pain
The mind divides pleasure from pain. From one's own life, one can observe the changes in one's pleasure and pain. What used to be painful can now be pleasurable, and vice versa. Pleasure and pain are both sensations. Sensations are named, sorted, categorized, and one such scheme of categorization is pleasure and pain. When one is caught in this division, struggle is inevitable. Conflict is the way of pleasure and pain. Conflict is not only in the personal domain, but also in the social. One can also observe in the world, that the pursuit of pleasure is the cause of pain, not only in oneself, but also in others. This is the wheel of desire. This is the death and rebirth of sensations. In reality, there is no death, nor is there rebirth.
What dies and what is born is the name, the recognition. The name is the recognition. Names are usually associated with language, a symbol. Recognition is much more subtle, as it has to do with memory, and not necessarily with symbols and signs. In reality, symbols or language are the movements of memory. It is the recognition that happens over and over. Pleasure and pain, therefore, are the recognition of them. Without such recognition, they have no importance, significance, nor are they suppressed, ignored. They are as they are. Without the name, experience has no boundary or limitation. Then sensation attains the pristine quality, a sense of freshness and youth. What is recognized is never youthful. Without recognition, youth is the nature of reality.
Cover photo by Aman Upadhyay on Unsplash
