The Dangers of Sensuality

There’s a passage we often chant when we chant the analysis of the path, the beginning of the description of the four jhānas: “Vivicceva kāmehi.” Sometimes that’s translated as “secluded from sensual pleasures,” but fortunately that’s not what it really means. If it were, we’d have to put everybody in chains and prisons in order to meditate. It’s, “secluded from sensuality.” Sensuality is the mind’s fascination with thinking about sensual pleasures. That’s a real obstacle to concentration.

They did a study one time of people listening to talks in businesses. They found that if it was an hour-long talk, people would listen maybe for the first five or ten minutes and then engage in sexual fantasies for the rest of the time. For most people, that’s the mind’s food. Yet if you want to put an end to suffering, you can’t keep feeding on that kind of food. It’s bad for you. So you’ve got to see the dangers of sensuality. You’ve got to see the drawbacks of sensuality. Examine your sensual fantasies and look at them as part of a cause-and-effect process.

The Buddha recommends that if you’re going to look at the drawbacks of something, you also have to look for the allure: Why is it that you go for it? So look at your fantasies. Look at them carefully. Look at them from the point of view of what’s called “metacognition,” where part of the mind steps back from another part of the mind and observes it. You look for the origination of the fantasy. What sparks it? The problem is that all too often we’re aware of the fantasy only well after it’s been sparked, because there are subterranean parts of the mind that plan these things. But when you first become aware of it, what feelings in the body, feelings in the mind, spark these things? Then you see that these things end. Then they have to be revived again and again. So when you revive them, then the question is, why? What’s the appeal?

In some cases, the appeal is in the object. This is one of the reasons why we have that chant on the 32 parts of the body. You can ask yourself, “This body that I desire, if it didn’t have those 32 parts, would I desire it?” No. The body would be dead in most cases. But are any of those parts that you find particularly attractive? They start with the first five, which are the ones that you can see from the outside: hair of the head, hair of the body, nails, teeth, skin. These are the things that we get attracted to often. Yet if you took them off and put them in a pile on the floor, none of them would be attractive. And yet, without them, the body would be even more scary. So you think about the object. You realize that in order to be attracted to a human body, you have to put on blinders. You’re lying to yourself.

Sometimes it’s not the object of the fantasy that attracts you, it’s your role in the fantasy. In other words, it’s not sensual craving so much, it’s more craving for becoming, the role that you can take in the narrative of the fantasy. How realistic is that? And in that role, here again, what’s the allure? A sense of you as powerful? A sense of you as attractive? To what extent can you see that these are all lies?

Then you think of the long-term impact of these fantasies. A lot of us think that they’re pretty innocent. You can think about them and you don’t act on them, so they should be no problem. But as the Buddha said, the things you think about often create ruts in the mind, or as he says, they cause the mind to lean in a certain direction. And that leaning is like a tree that leans. Someday, when it falls, it’s going to fall in the direction where it leans.

So think of yourself as you get older and you haven’t abandoned sensuality, and sensual desire becomes more and more incongruous with what you look like at that time, what you can do at that time, especially as you approach death. Often this is the strongest of the cravings that happens at death. You’re in pain, and all you can think of is that you want some sensual pleasures, and you grab at fantasies as they come. That takes you to a new life, and there’s no guarantee that it’s going to be at least at the human level. It might be lower, because the realms of sensuality go way down.

So think about this. But also use your imagination, because the particulars of your sensual fantasies are going to be yours, and you need to have a particular medicine for them.

Think about all the ingenuity that goes into sensual fantasies. There was a French author one time who proposed doing a multi-volume series on the history of sexuality. He thought it would be pretty cool to spend a couple of years writing about that. But after the first volume, he said, he realized that sex is one of the most boring things possible. There’s not much to it, yet we can fantasize, we can elaborate, we can embroider it in so many ways. But it all comes down to the same thing. Well, take that power of ingenuity, take that power of imagination, and use it against your sensual fantasies. Whatever works.

Ajaan Khamdii, a teacher of the forest tradition, one time said that one of his anti-sensual fantasies was about taking the human body, cutting it up into pieces like you’d cut up a cow, and then grilling the pieces to get a sense of dispassion for them. You don’t have any attraction to cows, but you certainly are attracted to the human body. Yet they’re basically the same thing.

Now, that fantasy, that particular medicine for sensuality, is not listed in the texts. And you can sense that, as he’s talking about it, he’s kind of embarrassed about it. Ajaan Maha Bua, when he talks about his period of trying to analyze the body into its various parts, keeps excusing himself for the madness of what he went through.

But use your ingenuity. Try to figure out where the allure is and what you can use to counter the allure, such as the idea that you’re attractive when you’re lustful. Actually, when you’re lustful, other people want to take advantage of you. They think you’re stupid. Have a fantasy in which it becomes obvious that they look down on you. In other words, point out the fact that, in engaging in your sensual fantasy, you’re lying to yourself, and it’s a very fragile body of lies.

This, of course, is why we’re so protective of our fantasy and we resist so much the idea of poisoning it. After all, it’s not all that hard to poison the fantasies. Just allow your imagination some free rein. If you want to use your imagination in the service of sensuality, what will be the results? Learn to use your imagination in the opposite direction.

This is where we get into the long-term dangers of sensuality. What kind of life will you have? What kind of fate beyond this death, this coming death, will you have? If that’s the direction in which the mind is leaning again and again and again, where are you sending yourself? And even in this lifetime, as you get old, if you’ve been living a life where you’ve just fantasized about sex, fantasized about food — those are the two big issues — what will you have to show for it? As the Buddha said, it’s like dreaming of beautiful things, but when you wake up they’re all gone. And you’ve developed bad habits in the meantime.

Now, what works will depend on the type of fantasies you have. Learn how to take these general principles and make them to your particular case. But have a very strong sense that the Buddha was right that sensuality is dangerous. It’s a snake’s head. Like Ajaan Chah’s image of the snake: The snake has two ends. One end has fangs; the other has no fangs. You grab hold of the end that doesn’t have fangs, thinking that it’s safe. Well, they’re connected. In the same way, these innocent-seeming pleasures you have engaging in sensuality have their bite. You’ve wasted a human life on fantasies that really are meaningless. They actually pull you down. Is that the kind of life you want to have?

So think in general terms first about the overall dangers of engaging in sensuality, and then use that reflection to motivate yourself to be more ingenious in pulling yourself out of particular sensual fantasies. You’ll find that there’ll be one little thing where the allure lies, and the mind is very protective of it. So it’ll take a while to find it. But once you’ve found it, you’ll see that it’s quite small. Much smaller than the dangers. That’s when you let go.

You don’t have to think about inconstancy, stress, not-self, or any of those other nouns. Just think about danger and escape from danger—and that the escape is actually worth it. It’s not that your mind will be like Pablum afterwards with no taste at all. You’ll learn to develop a strong sense of the pleasure of concentration. It’s one of those pleasures that, because it’s steady, you tend to overlook. It’s like the people who are really reliable, who sometimes get taken for granted.

I remember reading a psychologist one time who recommended to her clients that they not be reliable, so that when they are helpful to their friends, they’re appreciated. That’s horrible advice. Over the long term, it’s the reliable people that really do get the strongest appreciation and who also develop the strongest virtue. In the same way, once you get into concentration, you find that it’s a fairly steady pleasure there. Learn to enjoy that. Learn to appreciate that. It’s a floor below which you don’t want to fall.

Now, someday you’ll find that, even in the concentration, there are ups and downs. But first learn how to appreciate the steadiness you can get in the mind. And as the Buddha said, when something is inconstant, it’s stressful. When it’s more constant, it’s less stressful, more enjoyable.

So learn how to appreciate the pleasures, the refreshment that can come from getting the mind steady. That’ll give you one more reason to say, “I don’t want to go for sensuality. It’s a waste of time. It tears down the steadiness, the reliability of the mind.” Whatever way of thinking you can manage — one, once you’re motivated to see that sensuality is dangerous; and then two, dealing with specific sensual thoughts: The more ingenuity you can bring to both of these processes, the better off you’ll be.