Letter to David - Random Pleasure/Random Pain

Dear David,

A few days ago a new insight arrived during my zoo walk. I realized, based on another recent insight about my self being nothing but the accumulation of past moments and the storage of these moments for future reference, that if I experience a great amount of pleasure, more than is normal, the longer this pleasure experience lasts, the more it will be stored inside my past, and when the pleasure is finally reduced, or, worse, taken away completely without any way of recovery (such as death of a loved one), the severity and duration of pain which will arise due to the loss of this pleasure will be dependent upon the intensity and longevity of the pleasure. I then began to think of what the great pleasures are in life, according to my own experiences, and they are, in order - 1) sex/love with a female 2) physical movement (running/walking, etc)  3) food  4) reading philosophy/history/religion/psychology/literature 5) the creation and contemplation of beauty and art  6) the spiritual path/meditation.

Being nothing but a collection of past moments, I called upon as many as I could and saw that the more I loved a female, the more pain I was going to feel when the female was no longer a part of my life. The intensity of pleasure and pain was of such strength that while in the presence of the female I could lose job, be robbed of my savings, get randomly beaten during a walk, and still have enough pleasure in my heart that these things would do little to erode my confidence in myself and life. However, when the female becomes permanently absent the hole in the heart becomes so prominent that no other object of pleasure can assuage the feelings of deep loss and grief.

Calling upon another recent insight, that of the complete randomness of my thoughts, emotions, and choices, that even though I do have some degree of freedom with the body (e.g., I will decide tomorrow to arise at 5:00am, instead of noon), there are other parts of myself which I have little control over, such as what gives me pleasure and pain. While I can choose to ignore women, there will always be something in my emotions which signals that there is no greater pleasure than being in the presence of a loved female. All I can do is observe this quality of the body and deduce that the reason I love females has not so much to do with pleasure, but rather, it has to do with the universe knowing how to achieve its aim, which is to have a constant dance of objects and animals, and the only way to keep the dance from dying is to continually produce new animals through reproduction. My body serves the needs of the universe by reproducing, and the way to get me to reproduce is to make me feel immense pleasure when in close proximity to a female. The problem is not so much the lack of freedom in this process, but the subsequent pain and emptiness which arises after the aim is achieved, reproduction is successful, and the subsequent fleeing of the female (either physically or spiritually).

Through these insights I now have a better understanding of why the Buddha thought the middle way was best. To obliterate the senses with absolute denial of pleasure may cause some wonky spiritual progress, but it is more likely that a balanced approach to pleasure and pain will give the best results. Too much pleasure causes too much pain, too little pleasure causes too much pain, but just the right amount of pleasure can cause the least amount of pain.

When I returned from my evening walk tonight the above ideas were swirling around inside of me, random as usual, and then one of those special  moments of synchronicity occurred, which makes me think that pure randomness can sometimes nourish connections which are deep and beautiful.