The Pleasure That Will Leave Anyway

From Part 7: On Pleasure and Pain

धर्माधर्मौ सुखं दुःखं मानसानि न ते विभो। न कर्तासि न भोक्तासि मुक्त एवासि सर्वदा॥

dharmādharmau sukham duḥkham mānasāni na te vibho na kartāsi na bhoktāsi mukta evāsi sarvadā

"Right and wrong, pleasure and pain, belong to the mind — not to you. You are not the doer. You are not the one who suffers. You have always been free."

— Ashtavakra Gita 1.6

The scenario

A perfect meal. The light is right. The company is right. The food is exactly what you wanted it to be.

Even as you take the first bite, you feel the small panic underneath: this is going to end. You eat slightly faster, trying to outrun the ending. You take a photograph because you cannot quite trust yourself to be present without proof. By the time the plate is empty, you are not sure you tasted any of it. You were too busy mourning the meal during the meal.

What the verse actually says

Look at the phrase Ashtavakra pairs together: "sukham duḥkham" — pleasure and pain. Not just pain. Both. Mānasāni na te — both belong to the mind, not to you.

The verse refuses to take sides. Most spiritual frameworks villainize pain and try to keep pleasure. Ashtavakra is more rigorous: both are mind-states. Both arise. Both pass. Neither is what you are. Neither requires defending or chasing.

This sounds bleak until you sit with it. The verse is not saying don't enjoy. It is saying: enjoyment is something the mind is doing in this moment, the same way pain will be something the mind is doing in some later moment. You — the awareness — are not the enjoyment, and you are not the pain. You are what watches both arise and pass.

How it lands in your life

Most of pleasure's pain is the mind's awareness that the pleasure will end. You taste the meal, and simultaneously taste the ending of the meal. The ending hijacks the meal. You grab the camera. You promise yourself you'll repeat it. You eat too fast. By the time you're done, you have been eating with the future-loss rather than the present-meal.

The verse's framing reorders this. The pleasure was always going to be a wave. So is the displeasure that comes after. Both are mind-states, arising and passing, in an awareness that is not measured by either of them. The strange relief: you don't have to protect the pleasure. You don't have to extend it, repeat it, document it. You can just have it. The next thing will arrive when it arrives.

This is not anti-pleasure. It is more pleasure, because the chasing has stopped. You can actually taste the meal when you have stopped reaching for tomorrow's meal.

A small practice

At your next pleasant moment — small or large — try one thing: don't try to make it last. Don't reach for the camera. Don't promise yourself you'll repeat it.

Just have it.

When the urge to extend or capture arises, notice it. Let the urge pass with the same impermanence that everything else has. The moment is here. Then it is gone. You are still here.

You will find, oddly, that you remember it more vividly than the moments you tried to hold.

Carry this: The pleasure was always going to leave. So is what comes after it. You are what watches both.