One of the nicest ways to let go of getting excited about worldly things is to bring in the impermanence reflection. It's all going to pass, it's all just going to pass. Let's go back to a pizza and a McDonald's milkshake example. Sit down with the two of them, your favorite meal, you haven't had it for five years, all of a sudden you get it, wow! Where's it going to be in thirty minutes? Where's it going to be? It just won't be there any more, it will be gone, it'll be finished. How many people, thirty minutes after dinner, are still going, "Mmm, mmm", you know, sitting there licking their lips and dreaming about what they had for dinner? Very few people ever do that. This is fact. That wonderful, worldly pleasant time of that gorgeous meal, most people couldn't care less thirty minutes later. Bring that reflection in more and more. It's just going to pass, it's just going to pass.
Now almost all of the other techniques that we are teaching you are important as well. Reflect on the Dukkha of being attached to a pleasant worldly thing. If I was attached to McDonald's milkshakes, I'd drive myself nuts here because I can't get one. Thailand doesn't sell them because as I mentioned before, the Thais can't absorb milk as well as Westerners. So they don't even sell them here. I would go nuts if I was always excited about wanting that pleasant taste! So we've got to remember that it is Dukkha City, if we are always desiring, desiring, wanting, wanting something pleasant, always wanting a worldly thing, it's just going to be more and more Dukkha.
Now again I'll mention that it doesn't stop something pleasant being pleasant. When we teach you food reflection here, we tell you that if it tastes pleasant, just to know it tastes pleasant. If it tastes unpleasant, to know it tastes unpleasant. That's still going to be there because of your past conditioning. So it doesn't stop you basically having a pleasant Vedana, a pleasant feeling when you taste food that's delicious due to your conditioning. But it stops the craving, stops the getting excited, I want more, I want more.
So we have impermanence reflection, we have Dukkha reflection, we have lots of others too. Death reflection: Do you want to die like that? You know, here it is, dinner's coming, it's going to be pizza and a milkshake again, I haven't had it for five years, you get all excited, you're craving and you're thoughts are just all about that pizza and you're waiting for it to be delivered by Pizza Hut, and you can't wait, and you're getting excited. Yeah, do you want to die that way? Those thoughts in particular, if you die craving food, according to the teachings, you get reborn as what they call a "hungry ghost". Do you want to know what a hungry ghost is? I'm going to tell you anyhow! A hungry ghost is a being that's basically in hell realm, it's not a happy realm at all. They have a huge body and a small head, and a mouth that's as small as a pinhole. A mouth as small as a pinhole, yet they have this huge body they have to feed and they can't do it. You can't eat with a mouth that's as small as a pinhole. They are hungry, they are hungry, they are hungry all the time, that's why they're called a hungry ghost. You don't want to die with thoughts of wanting pizza and a milkshake!