On Sensuality

revised on 2021-01-27

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Dhamma Talks by Mogok Sayadaw; 21st December 1960

The five khandhas is like a riddle-tree (in Pāli—Kiṁsuka tree). A dog came under a riddle-tree and saw the red flowers on the ground. It took the fallen red flowers as pieces of red meat and ate them. It didn’t satisfy his desire. The five sensual pleasures are also in the same way. Excrement, urine, snot, spittle, mucus, etc. Come out from the body, but we think the things inside are good.

[Human’s stupidity regarding their bodies is no limit. They carry around these dirty things and smelly toilets with them all the time, even in sleep. Men not only have affection to their toilets but also for the toilets of the opposite sex. They lure each other by beautifying themselves with clothes ornaments, perfume, cosmetics, etc. with the toilets inside them.]

After eating the fallen kiṁsuka flowers on the ground with it knew that these were not meat. It took the red flowers on the tree might be meat, and with expectation waiting under the tree for the flowers to fall off. Beings are dying without fulfilling their desire on sensual pleasures (kāmaguṇas). Was the dog oppressed by the kiṁsuka tree or the foolishness and wrong thinking of the dog under the tree?

You all are living like dog and dying like dog if behaving this way. You don’t have the mind of a human. You have to cry if the kiṁsuka tree disappears (kiṁsuka tree referred to the khandhas) because you’re worrying for the dog-mind and it will become the human-mind. (i.e., you don’t want to be a human. Sayadawgyi was right. We can see the present-day dog culture around the world.) Today’s talk demonstrates the great fault of sensual pleasures.

You separate the khandha into groups (i.e., all human’s khandhas). You get 32 groups of them which group of your wife and son you love it or like it. The dog-mind is reducing to a little, before you’re always expecting for it. None of the groups is pleasant and attractive that none of them is valuable. The body has 32 groups or parts and mind phenomena have four groups.

Mind and body are impermanent and only at here you understand it as don’t have the affectionate and lovable nature with insight (vipassanā). Separate it into 32 parts and taṇhā dies; discern it as mind and body diṭṭhi dies. Contemplating it as all conditions are impermanent and dukkha, all phenomena are not-self and will have no affliction with it. Only that you want to run away from it like the dog under the tree. (In the story, at last, the dog also had disaffection with the red kiṁsuka flowers and left the tree.) Contemplate one’s khandha as impermanence and also your wife’s and son’s khandhas as impermanent. Not doing this work is a great mistake. You’ll be free from the life of a dog if the contemplation is clear with the discernment of internal and external phenomena. Also, you’ll not die like a dog. You have the wise view on them as all of them are unreliable and throw them away. This is the attainment of the path knowledge. Impermanence becomes dukkha and right view becomes magga sacca.

Free from taṇhā is liberation from dying like a dog. This is Nibbāna. (In the time of the Buddha, dog ascetics were not unknown to humans today; for the dog culture of humans today is very close to theirs—for the reason that humans have a strong attachment to their pets.)

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revised on 2021-01-27

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• Content of Part 13 on "Dhamma Talks by Mogok Sayadaw"

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• Content of "Dhamma Talks by Mogok Sayadaw"

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• Content of Publications of Ven. Uttamo

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According to the translator— Ven. Uttamo's words, this is strictly for free distribution only, as a gift of Dhamma—Dhamma Dāna. You may re-format, reprint, translate, and redistribute this work in any medium.