Abusing Pleasure & Pain
January 01, 2009
Meditation is largely training in how to handle pleasure and pain. We need this training because we tend to abuse these things. When pain comes along we try to push it away. When pleasure comes we like to wallow in it. And pushing away and wallowing are not really all that productive of any genuine happiness, any genuine wellbeing. When you push the pain away, you don’t get to know it. You don’t get to understand it. As a result, you never really get away from it. No matter how hard you push, it keeps coming back, coming back. It’s like having a delinquent child. You don’t like him in the house and so you push him out of the house. And of course that brings on more trouble to you, because of what your child has done when he’s out of the house.