The innocence of sensory pleasure
I wake up hot on a summer’s night, turn my pillow over and rest my head against the cool side. Bliss! ‘I’ll miss this when I’m gone’, I think. Though perhaps heaven is the eternally cool pillow?
What if it’s the small things that turn out to be the highlights of our lives? Not the big, anticipated, longed for things.
What would they be for you? The smell of bed sheets straight off the washing line, especially if they got caught in a shower of rain. Paddling in the sea after a long hot walk or, conversely, lowering yourself into a hot bath on a wintry day. Listening to the birds sing. Watching the sky change when a storm is coming. Taking a little salt into the greenhouse and eating a warm tomato off the vine.
Some Buddhist texts say we should be ‘guarding the gates of the senses’. But I would argue that most sense pleasure is innocent - perhaps we can even think of it as a safe refuge, a refuge from thinking. Now thoughts, on the other hand, that’s where all the trouble begins!
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