Admonishing Sexual Craving

November 04, 2021

Admonishing Sexual Craving

One should know: Against sensual beauty, burning by lust, then words of advice or the admonishments on the moral teaching of karma and its results—whether severe or gentle—is hardly capable of severing the mind from craving. If right at that moment one can contemplate on the loathsomeness, then the whole blaze of desire will be frozen out immediately. For this reason the Tathāgata taught those who have much lust to practice contemplation of the impurities. Contemplate sustainedly and often enough, one can even extinguish the defilements, attain to enlightenment. Such is the case, so how could it be used just for the purpose of preventing immoral sexual act, or for the moderation of desire, or for prolonging one's life?

A beautiful and attractive woman, makes other people give rise to sensual passion and commit sexual act, is nothing but a thin skin covering outside, glamorous and captivating just for bewitchment. If one takes that thin skin off, then not only the things that are covered under that coat of skin is impossible to love, but even that skin coat itself is also absolutely unloveable!

And furthermore, if one dissects this body, then what can be seen is just blood and gore oozing out all over. With a labyrinth of flesh, tendons and bones criss-crossing into a chaotic mess. Entrails, excrements and piss, sliming and spilling all over the ground, stinky and evil-smelling, unbearable to see without a feeling of utter disgust. Compare with the diseases like leprosy, scabies, boil, or the most filthy and ugliest garbage in the world, it is even more frightening, more repugnant, for a hundred, a thousand times.

The sutras said: "The root cause for samsara is sexual craving." But this sexual craving, even when one uses hundreds of schemes and tactics to try and subdue it, yet it's still unable to be eliminated. Though contemplation of the impurities is the cure for it, but for the run-of-the-mill worldly people everywhere, with enormous past karma to obstruct and deeply ingrained wretchedness, can only see it as clean and pure, unable to see it as loathsome and repugnant; to contemplate subtle dharmas is something rarely anyone can achieve. So in the end what can possibly be done?

Therefore one has to make such an exclamation thus: "Alas! Sentient beings everywhere are constantly under the sway of the desire for five sensual pleasures to harass and torment them, and yet they keep seeking for it without end. These five sensual pleasures, once accquired they will evermore intensify; like a fire added more woods will burn even fiercer. The five sensual pleasures have no joy, like a dog chewing dry bones. The five sensual pleasures give rise to animosity, like a flock of crows fighting for pieces of rotten meat. The five sensual pleasures burn people, like holding torch against the wind. The five sensual pleasures harm people, like treading on a poisonous snake. The five sensual pleasures are unreal, like dreaming of gaining treasures. The five sensual pleasures are transient and uncertain, like hitting rocks to make fire. The wise person considers them as enemies; but worldly people are deluded to crave for these five sensual pleasures until their dead and yet not willing to give them up, in the next life they have to endure incalculable amounts of suffering and torment.

Even the common animals also have these five sensual pleasures, and as a result, all living beings are constantly under the sway of the desire for five sensual pleasures, all are slaves and servants to the desire for five sensual pleasures, throwing themselves to the wickedness of lust, submerged and engulfed in the three miserable realms. And as for us, though we are now cultivating the Dharma but yet are being hampered and blinded by them, they are vicious enemies that have to be shunned away immediately.

Furthermore, how should one contemplate the faults of sexual craving? Know that sexual craving is transient, an enemy of merit, unreal like an illusion, like a mirage. Just thinking of sexual craving the deluded mind has already started to rebel, how much more so when the mind has been unmovably tied up by lust. The pleasures of the heavenly realm are yet to be always safe, let alone for the pleasures of the human's realm. People's mind is so infatuated with sexual craving without ever feeling satisfied, it is like a fire that meets with woods, an ocean that receives water from rivers, or like King Mandhata, though he received a rain that carried seven kinds of precious jewels, and he ruled over all four continents of the world, even God's King Indra shared him half of the throne, but yet he didn't feel that it was enough. Or like the Golden-Wheel Turning King Nahuṣa, who was so oppressed by sexual craving that he was damned into taking birth as a giant serpent.

Furthermore, consider also the hermits who eat only fruit, wear only clothes made of grass, stay secluded in the deep mountains, practice austerity to seek for the Dharma, and yet they haven't gotten free from the sabotage of this sexual craving enemy. The pleasures of sexual craving are only a little but the harm and hatred caused by them are enormous. The people who are sunk and abandon themselves to sexual craving are habitually approached by bad friends and shunned by good friends. Sexual craving is a poisonous drink that makes foolish people intoxicated to their death. Sexual craving is a deceitful enemy that pushes foolish people about, makes them to endure countless hardships and difficulties without a little bit of freedom. Only when they have abandoned sexual craving can their body and mind be able to experience the everlasting peace and ease. Sexual craving cannot be gratified, like a dog chewing meatless bones. Seeking pleasures from sexual craving takes great toil and pains, extremely hard to get and yet so easy to lose. It is so transient and fleeting, like watching a dream that will instantly vanish when wakes up. Sexual craving is a calamity, seeking for it is suffering, gaining it is suffering, if one gains a lot one will suffer a lot. It is compared to adding more woods to a fire, the more woods there is, the more intense the fire. Sexual craving is like a stinking piece of meat that vultures and crows compete. In short, those who are slaves to sexual craving are like a moth to the flame, like a fish caught up in the hook, like a deer that follows the hunter's mimicking voice, or like a thirsty person who drinks salt water. All sentient beings have this woe of sexual craving, to the point that there is no form of suffering that they won't go into.

Furthermore, the fundamental law of the five sensual pleasures is that they are the dwelling place for all evil, this cannot be reverse, the more one has them, the more one gets deceived by them thereafter. Therefore one has to suffer all kinds of hatred and jealousy, torments and harmful things. There is no evil that one won't do under its power. Like a bag full of knives, hold onto it tightly with both hands and both hands get injured.

Furthermore, suppose one has all five of these sensual pleasures but cannot find any satisfaction, and if one doesn't feel satisfied then there is no happiness. Like curing thirst by drinking soy sauce, if thirstiness cannot be extinguished then there is no peace. Or like a leper scratching the scabs off the openings of his wounds, when the disease has not been cured he cannot find any respite.

Furthermore, when craving has caught hold of the mind, the

person then will no longer be able to discern between what is

good and evil anymore, he will no longer fear the grave retribution of evil sin for this life and the next.

Furthermore, like the gods of the Sensual Heaven, who lose themselves to sensuality like being hypnotised, like being totally consumed, without any abilities to discern, and only aware when they die. When their lifespan is over, they have to follow the causes and consequences of their own karma to receive its results.

Therefore in the end, what pleasurable is sexual craving? All sentient beings, in hell or in three miserable realms are where they truly reside, whereas in heaven or in the human's realm they are like a temporary guest. How pity it is for sentient beings who do not realize what true suffering is, immersed in what's perverted and still think of them as pleasurable things; from this life and onto the next they have to endure countless torments and afflictions, and yet they don't find them disgusted. When they're temporarily away from suffering, for all that they still seek for the pleasures that cause those suffering. Thus it is enough to say that one has to eradicate sexual craving.

The mind if it has become disenchanted with sexual craving will then stop and become calm. If the mind doesn't stop, one then has to make the effort to admonish one's mind, thinking thus: "Suffering, aging, illness, and death are coming near, one's life is like a flash of lightning, the human birth is hard to obtain, good teachers are difficult to meet with, the Buddha's Dharma is coming close to an end, like a lamp that's about to be extinguished, so much calamity waiting to destroy meditation practice. From within myself there are the defilements, from without there are the Mara's followers. In every country hungry and thirst will become widespread, aging and illness will happen everywhere, the power of Death will be so strong, it will destroy the practice and cultivation of samadhi meditation. My own body is frightful, against the defilement army I have yet to make it suffer a slightest damage, under the practice of meditation I have yet to have any attainments. Though I'm wearing the Dharma robe but inside I'm just hollow and empty, no different than worldly people, the doors to the evil and miserable realms are all wide open to me. Penetrate into the wholesome dharmas I have yet even to enter right samadhi, with regard to the sinful karma I have yet sure to never commit. Now for what reason that I am so attached to this bag of excrement, so as to become lazy and slothful, without any abilities to make a diligent effort to subdue my mind? This miserable corpse is where the noble ones reprimand, from the nine holes of this body all sorts of disgusting impurities are leaked out, so why would I be so attached and infatuated with this putrid corpse? When it dies, it will suffer the same fate as with the brute beasts, both will fall into utter darkness, I mustn't follow this!"

Thus when the mind reflects and admonishes itself like that, it will be restrained and held back. At the same time one should also gladden the mind, thinking thus: "The Lord Buddha is the Omniscient One, he taught the direct Dharma that is easy to understand, easy to practice, he is my Teacher, therefore I ought not to be afraid. Furthermore, the Lord is the teacher of gods and humans, the sublime Dharma is marvelous and extraordinary that I have never heard of before, and now I have received the teaching and training, which is a fortunate and blessed opportunity, like taking dependance on a great king so one will have no fear. The Arahants have all done what had to be done, they are my friends and companions."

Thinking to oneself like that, one then makes the effort to control one's mind, making it like a servant who is loyal to its master. When the mind has been put under control, one will be able to attain the fruit of the noble path in its entirety, with sovereignty over the six powers. An indication of the one who has one-pointedness of mind is that their body is light and happy. Anger, grief, and distress, all the harassing hindrances to the mind have been completely vanquished, the mind will experience the joy of which it has never encountered before, far superior to the five sensual pleasures. And because the mind is pure and without any stains that the body will have radiance, like a mirror when it is clean that can emit light. Or like a pearl when is put into clear and pure water can emit sparkling radiance. The practitioner having attained this sign will be peaceful and happy in mind. Like a thirsty man who digs a well to search for water, when he sees the wet soil, immediately he knows that before long he will find water. Such is the case when the practitioner has first come into the circe of the practice, it is like digging dry earth, a person keeps digging ceaselessly, having seen the freshly moist ground, he will then know for himself that soon he will enter into samadhi. Wholeheartedly believes and is keen on this, he will untiringly mold and direct his mind to go deeply into samadhi. Having achieved this he will then admonish the five sensual pleasures, seeing that the person who searches for them is really pitiful.

Like a person who sees a dog eating feces because it couldn't find any clean food. And because the causes and conditions being as such that one should admonish sensual craving as sinful. One's mind will then feel compassion for fellow beings who are currently seeking for sensual pleasures: "Their minds have joy and yet they don't know how to look for them, and instead seek for the sinful and disgusting pleasures from outside."

"I myself, too, must master my own mind in order to attain this. There's only this way, there is no other." Thus giving thought to this matter one should then get back to the contemplation of the impurities.

And one also should gladden one's mind thus: "Now when I'm just a beginner on the path, the defilements are sure to blow in to harass and trouble me. But when I have attained the Dharma, then even the five sublime sensuality could not come and bother me, let alone the coarse and miserable ones.

And to summarize all of the above, now, even for a beautiful lady of unparalleled beauty, capable of holding sway to countries and nations. But, with regard to those things that are covered under the thin skin, would there be anyone who is not the same? Why do we just look for the vanity outside and not carefully consider to the content inside? To fall in love with just a little bit of allurement part outside, and not to give concern to the ugly and evil part?

So hopefully all sentient beings will therefore realize and abandon the outward vanity, and to consider carefully at the content within, to be disgusted with the "many ugly and evil", and to discard and ignore the falsehoods of the deceitful thin skin, so as together we will leave the ocean of craving, and arrive at the shore of enlightenment. And once again, if when sexual craving is burning fiercely, and cannot be put under control, one should thus think of the female's genital like the mouth of a poisonous snake, as putting one's own male's organ into a serpent's mouth, it will be a cause for one's mind to panic, for one's hair to stand on end, and for one's bones to be shaken to the core. Immense amounts of defilement's feverish will be cooled off immediately. As such, this is perhaps the most simple and straightforward method for curing lust!

Like the verse in Jhāna Sutra that said:

Birth and death are not cut off,
Is on the account of desire and fondness for its flavor.

As when nursing an enemy until entering the tomb,

One vainly endures all manner of bitter suffering.
The smell of the body is like that of a corpse,
Impurities stream forth from its nine apertures.

Just as worms in an outhouse delight in the feces,
The foolish man’s pleasure in the body is no different.
The one who is wise should contemplate the body,
And not lust after the tainted pleasures of the world.
To be without burdens and to have nothing desired,
This is what’s known as the true Nibbāna.

Finally, in the sutras it is said:

"Desire, I have known your origin,
You arise only from perception."

Now one should investigate to see where this perception itself originates? One investigates this, and keeps investigating and investigating, investigate without stopping, then it is compared to a mouse who digs through an extremely long tunnel, but he keeps on digging and digging, then without doubt he will one day surely see the light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how long and deep it might be.