Question

If we hold to The Middle Way, is it not important to really enjoy the pleasures of life, such as delicious food, as long as we don't think enjoyment is the meaning of life?

Answer

We have to be careful not to delude ourselves here, because this may be Mara talking. In the sense that, "Oh, I can enjoy the pleasures of life without being attached to it." This is actually building the feeling that we are stronger than Mara. Mara, if you don't know, is the personification of ignorance. If we don't understand that we don't have enough awareness to understand pleasures as pleasures, and suffering as suffering, it can then be very easy to allow ourselves to get swept away in the pleasures of life and forget about Dukkha and forget about our direction.

This does not mean that the pleasures in life become suffering. We see pleasures as pleasures. But it is helpful to have an awareness that these pleasures can't give lasting fulfillment. So having an awareness that they are impermanent helps to balance the tendency just to indulge for indulgence's sake. So I think that perhaps this is what is meant by the last bit, "as long as we don't think that enjoyment is the meaning of life." Yes, it is very helpful to have this understanding to balance the tendency to just lose ourselves in the pleasures of life. Because when things are pleasant it is very easy to delude ourselves and flow along. Then when Dukkha hits, we realize that actually we have become attached and dependent on these things for our happiness.

So as long as you are developing yourself, understanding the impermanence of things at the same time, there may be a part of the mind that does allow us to appreciate the pleasures of life. However, there is hopefully a part of the mind that realizes its limitations, that this is just a temporary relief from Dukkha and does not get overwhelmed by it, so that we don't increase our craving for sense pleasures. Because the danger of this is that we then become dependent on these things being present for our happiness. Then if we don't get pleasant food, there is an easy tendency to have aversion and discontentment to arise. So I would say to always balance it with the reflection of the impermanence of these things, that we can't really depend on these things for lasting happiness.

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