Pleasures and Pains  

We are all lonesome travelers looking for kindness in the world.  Karmic pulls are menaces that make one’s life lose its tenderness.(Jenny Hoang)

Something very human in us, both men and women, goes after pleasures and fears pains.  We separate distinctly what we feel as pleasures and what we feel as pains, so it is natural that we want pleasures and reject pains. Yet, the truth is that not everyone is happy while wanting pleasures and rejecting pains.

Being unhappy, we try to change...by rejecting pleasures (or indulging ourselves in them). So we reject pleasures and dread pains, but we still feel the pains; so we idealize them. We see the pains in others and develop compassion. However, as humans, we still love to experience pleasures, knowing that they are ephemery and knowing that most of the time disappointments and sorrows would follow.  

Are pleasures and pains related? Are they together or separate? If they are together, to stop pursuing pleasures should stop pains. But then how do we explain the pain of not having pleasures? If they are separate, how come one can never have a pleasure that is NOT followed by the pain of loosing it afterward?   From where I am, what makes me happy is a flowing feeling of love and beauty, so I am attracted to pleasures and dread pains like all of us. Nothing can change that.

My question is: Is there beauty and love in pain as well as in pleasures? I think it is up to each of us to find it out till the inner self inside of us smiles and says: “Aha”!   Certain things in life surely give me lots of pleasures and… pains. My work is to see where the beauty and love lie in them. Especially to see that I am capable of love and beauty myself, not just appreciating it but giving it and inspiring it.

Then there is a painful part of it. Does that prove pleasures and pains can not be separated? If they are not separate, why separate them? May be from the pains I can learn to handle the pleasures associated with them? Again the question comes back: “Is True Nature separate from Human Conditions?  Do they separate from pleasures and pains? I don’t know the answer. I only hope I ask the right question.

Let the pain sharpen my awareness and hold the torch high on the path, the path to self liberation. Pleasures certainly come mellow, sweet and absolutely enjoyable. I welcome them, thank them and let them go when they go. On the other hand, I should remember that pains can come from…loving, and compassion ...from pains.

JennyHoang